Carlos Caro's page

I had an early problem transitioning to PF2e as a long-time PF1e GM; I always assigned too few Hero Points. My solution is a rules variant that proved so popular with my players that as they started GMing, they almost all started to do the same. I present it to you all to take or leave as you see fit. It uses the Hero Point deck.

The Hero Point Draft
'Draft' is not the right word, but this is kind of what we called it, so here it goes. Each session begins with me dealing three Hero Point cards to each PC. These cards are examined by each player, but they keep none of them. Instead, they pass one to the player to their left, and one to the player to their right. The third and final card returns to the GM and is shuffled back into the Hero Point Deck.

The PC's are told since they start with two hero points, the GM may be a bit stingier than expected awarding them.

Benefits
The first benefit is that the Draft allows PC's to have a little extra edge and helps avoid the problem of the GM simply not awarding enough Hero Points in the game. The awarding of Hero Points mid-play feels awesome because it can be a bit less frequent while still leaving players with the same number of points.

It causes players to take more interest in the other PC's. For example, if the Rogue tends to play a high-risk, high-reward, aggressive style, then maybe their friend hands them a card which helps make that strategy work like Strike True. If the Wizard just got a new staff, their friend might hand them a card that allows an exhausted item to be activated again.

Players absolutely love it when a card they gave their buddy helps them out.

Downsides
The PC's having two Hero Points at start does increase their power a small amount, though I do not find that to be a terrible downside.

The bonuses from Hero Points tend to be rather well-tailored to the PC's. Again, this doesn't strike me as a bug, but a feature. Spending a Hero Point should feel good.

A Drafting Variant
I did try a variant where the PC's each received three cards, took one, then passed to to the left. Repeat the process, with each PC picking one of the two remaining cards and returning the last card to the GM. This is more like "Drafting" cards in a CCG.

I found the players enjoyed this less. First, you did not have the thrill of seeing your friend use a thing you gave them. Second, it did not encourage the cooperative spirit of the group, since each PC invariably chooses the best card for themselves at both decision points. They do not have to think, 'What helps my friend out?'

Closing Matter
Thank you for reading. Feel free to steal, use, improve, or disregard as you see fit.

I did not see this variant listed before, but it is possible I've been scooped. With my schedule, I rarely have time for browsing the boards.

HLO is the future and although not a finished product yet, is already very functional as a character builder.

*Snip*

It is also important to note that Lone Wolf have not charged any subscription fees yet, as they still view the product to be in Beta.

Subscription fees for services are unfortunately a way of life, but a necessary evil for companies to survive. I mean I pay over three times the HLO subscription fee to Netflix each month, and certainly spend more time on HLO.....

Emphasis added.

I would definitely argue against it being functional, and have. To wit: the character sheets can barely be tweaked, the character sheets can have overlapping print, you can't take anything offline, it's slow, it's buggy, it omits data, you can't share anything with others, it does not make customization easy, editing the inventory is a nightmare, you can't put your gold down so its bulk always applies, and it omits tables and other necessary data when making up your spells.

So they are charging to be a beta tester? Is that it? Then put pay to be our beta-tester, sorry, Early Access, on the store front, or you're being more disingenuous than Steam. Also, my direct emails from the company never mentioned such a thing. Could you kindly explain your source of insight on this? Take a look at their storefront. You'll find nothing that says, "We consider our product to be in beta and unfinished." If you are correct, then the necessary conclusion is they are being deceptive.

I avoid any game which demands both a subscription to a live service and an upfront charge. They get one or the other; as a consumer, I refuse to accept this is in any way necessary and will point to any game with no subscription as a counterexample. Indeed, your own Netflix example contradicts your argument. I don't pay Netflix both an initial and recurrent price (and that's before discussing that Netflix's content probably costs orders of magnitude more to produce/license than Pathfinder and requires similar orders of magnitude more bandwidth and storage to deliver). I have Spotify; they didn't charge me a special license for the Classical Pack, American Rock Pack, and the Podcast Pack. Nor do I pay Roll20 for both a subscription and then have to buy a special license to use the product. Nor does D&D Beyond have this kind of obligatory double-dipping shenanigans. I could continue ad nauseam.

So if it is a necessary evil, why do Netflix, D&D Beyond, Roll20, and Spotify not need to do it?

I would like to say I haven't had any problems with connection or load time with herolab online.

From their email to me: "As you noted after your purchase there were indeed several connectivity issues that related to the massive traffic spike on the service that crippled the functions several times in the first few days. I understand your frustration at the failure for it to work as advertised straight out of the gate and we do take responsibility for those issues as it impacted things quite severely, and much like yourself, many Users were reasonably upset."

They flat out stated, "Yeah, our launch was a buggy, slow mess." Your personal experience doesn't negate others'.

It's inevitable. You don't own major software like Office anymore. You rent it. My company rents licenses for our AutoDesk suite of products.

Your company struck a proprietary license deal. Many do; organizations cut those deals. You and I are consumers. Hence, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Your example of Office is just untrue; if my hospital licenses it, they cut a deal with Microsoft. not me (and they have}. If I purchase Office Home & Student Edition, Microsoft does not require recurrent payments for me. It would if I wanted the online functionality of Office 365, there is a $99 per year price. This still compares favorably to HeroLab Online's model.

For Office 365 to be sold like HeroLab Online, it would be $99 a year, then $35 for the "Word Core Set, $25 for the "Powerpoint Add-On," then $25 for "Excel Core" and $5 for the "Excel Autoformulae Pack", and then $20 "Access Home Extension" bundles in addition to the subscription fee. Also, you couldn't work on your work unless you had an internet connection, the formatting of all pages would be decided for you with no ability to change it, release day it would be non-functional, and you'd have no right to share your work with others in your organization or to save a local copy of your creation to edit later. If that concept for Office sounds exploitive, why are you so quick to defend Lone Wolf?

You said yourself that the model bothered you. It should. It's anti-consumer scheme for a product that is a pale shadow in functionality of its predecessor. Here's to hoping the HeroLab Classic community uploads files for PF2.

The Doc CC wrote:

today at 1 PM CST, adding a spell to a spellbook requires 5 clicks and 1 minute, 2 seconds, almost all the time spent waiting on the server. So that will be 15 minutes for your level 1 wizard

I just tested this - 21 seconds for me. Sorry to hear you're having issues but just saying - they may be with your ISP or PC. Maybe it's not actually waiting for the server but rendering the page that takes unreasonably long for you.

Do level 1 wizards really get 15 spells though?

My speed test is 111 Mbs. I have tried it on multiple devices, including a lower-end 2-year old work laptop and a gaming rig that runs current games on ultra on a 4k screen. The test today is on the gaming rig. I used it on my institution's absurdly fast connection, my FLGS's wifi, and my home connection. It would be absolutely terrible for this program to run poorly on older computers; that would be yet another strike against it, because HeroLab Classic and D&D Beyond don't require anything fancy to run. And if it's my ISP, that's another strike on HeroLab Online since I live in a large community in one of the most populous states in the USA, and if we're going to be waiting on their servers, then you can bet a lot of other would-be clients will have an even worse experience.

And even then, 21 seconds per spell x 15 spells is 5 minutes waiting on the program, which compares extremely unfavorably to 1) HeroLab Classic and 2) my pencil.

Yes, 15-16 spells. 10 cantrips, 5 1st level spells. Since they must be added in manually, that is 15 spells, +1 if you specialize in a school.

Some of what you are saying does not seem to match with what I read on Wolf Lair's site. My understanding is that you pay a one-time cost for adding content, and a recurring cost for server access, but that the two are separate (so if you buy the Core book and the Bestiary, that doesn't mean the recurring cost goes up).

I did not say they charge you for the CRB and Bestiary again, but I definitely was unclear. Thank you for clarifying for the readers. My point is they charge you again, and the analogy is to a video game with a live service ($60 bucks for the game, then recurring charges). This is compared to HeroLab Classic, which was buy the content once, keep your client-side program, no recurring charges.

And D&D Beyond looks like a superior product for that system, but doesn't help me play Pathfinder.

As an aside, the HLO site is a bit confusing regarding refunds. If you buy "HLOnline: Pathfinder 2nd edition" they offer a 60 day unconditional refund option, but not if you buy PF2 as an added game (which I guess you would if you already had the Starfinder version, for example). If the customer service representative told you otherwise, you might want to talk to them again.

No mistake. As I said, I kickstarted RealmWorks and have HeroLab Classic with tons of licenses. Since it is part of my account, as a previously-loyal customer, I get no refund.

Gentlepersons, I submit for you a "first impressions" and "user experience" for HeroLab Online. I can't call it a review because the thing doesn't work yet. My goal in writing is to alert you before your money leaves your wallet, so you can make an informed choice. Perhaps someday this product shall worth purchasing, but I will tell you what has happened since I picked it up on August 1st, 2019.

I would have been quick to recommend HeroLab Classic for PF1e. As a matter of fact, when it was on Paizo.com, I did, giving it four stars but quickly noting the pricing was deceptive. (The review is in my profile, but the HeroLab Classic product page is memory-holed.) Thirty dollars bought you Core 1e, and you would spend a lot more for the PF1e full experience. I did it gladly, because HeroLab Classic was a slightly confusing, absolutely useful tool that could do just about anything you needed. And when you bought the product, you *purchased* it with your license, and didn't have a recurrent cost.

I state that in the preface because I want to say I went into HeroLab online with a generally positive opinion of Lone Wolf. I have Army Builder. I Kickstarted Realmworks. Within hours of checking out HeroLab Online, all positive feelings were lost.

First, the new model is a recurring subscription. You have no long-term in this. They are following the monetization model of a live service. Yes, this means you will pay and pay again for content that you already paid for. I hope that knowledge alone turns people off. It certainly was a negative when I was considering purchasing it, but it wasn't enough to make me turn back. With a diminished, but still favorable, view of Hero Lab, I tried HLO.

Let me be clear; you pay to temporarily license content. If you want just the Core Rulebook in Pathfinder, it will cost you $35 USD. The Bestiary is another $13. This gives you access to the content for 6 months. If you want the product after that, they want you to pay again.

The program is now browser-based and always requires a connection. This means it must always contact the Lone Wolf servers to do anything. Your ability to download your creations is limited to downloading PDFs of the characters you've created. This has several implications, such as you can no longer work when not connected, you can no longer save a creation and send it to someone else to review or edit, you can no longer customize how character sheets print and look, you can no longer take your character and use them in HeroLab without a connection, and you can no easily make custom content. All those functions are gone.

When it rolled out, the server-side connections were abysmally slow. They assured me in an email that they have the problem under control, but the roll-out was still plagued with having the product hang for minutes at a time because it couldn't get a reply from Lone Wolf's server. Well, it still does that. It's gotten better; it's now about 10-15 seconds of wait time per click. That's for every skill you are clicking to pick as trained. For every spell you're adding to the spellbook. For every little item you are picking up in your gear. For every time you edit the journal. For every time you want to delete a used consumable (Sarenrae help the Alchemists).

To put some empiric numbers on that, today at 1 PM CST, adding a spell to a spellbook requires 5 clicks and 1 minute, 2 seconds, almost all the time spent waiting on the server. So that will be 15 minutes for your level 1 wizard if you already know what you want. If you want to browse through spells and pick them, get ready to spend even more time waiting for the spell's text to populate the window.

Worse, if a character has a lot of options, such as if they have a large spell-book, the number of options available seem to cause some non-linear increase in the time you must wait for it to load. It also lacks common-sense features. For example, there is an option to hide "unavailable" features, which should hide feats or spells your character doesn't qualify for. That's nice. It also hides all uncommon things, inherently using the rarity aspect. There's no way to filter "you absolutely shouldn't have this" and "this is uncommon so there should be a reason to have this." Thus, the filter only helps if you are making choice limited to common, and can cause you to search fruitlessly for legitimate options the rules do support. It's a minor problem, but just another way HeroLab Online is just user-unfriendly.

Additionally, the customizability is simply barely there. HeroLab Classic, even with just core, would let you edit just about anything until it fit what you were doing in your game. There is no such animal on HeroLab Online. Consider the Core Rulebook itself details alternate ability score generation, and Hero Lab doesn't support it. If you create custom content, it's now no longer available if you decide not to subscribe to HeroLab. Do you want to help introduce a player to the game and send them a character for them to tweak? Can't do that. Do you want to save the files locally to use this when you go on a trip? Better make sure your connection is always assured. Do you want to ignore a rule? Well, the function to customize the ruleset is gone; you're going to have to go add adjustments to everything. Want to roll scores in your game? No option except to do it the other way and make adjustments. Want to customize what text pops up on the character sheets you export, or change what kind of file the sheet comes out as? Those functions are gone.

I emailed Lone Wolf August 1st regarding my concerns. Their policy is to respond within 48 hours. I did not receive a reply until 10 August 2019 because, as they admit, they have too many angry emails (not their phrasing). In other words, it took ten days to get to my day 1 complaint because they had too many complaints. Not a good look.

I asked for their refund policy, and they have none. They offer no refunds or guarantees on this product. (Check your state; I am in a state where this is legal. If it is not in yours, might I recommend contacting the Better Business Bureau?)

In summary, this product has reduced functionality, wastes your time, and has a greedy revenue model. I would advise you to stay far, far away from HeroLab Online. It will literally take you less time to make your characters with pencil and paper, you'll have more freedom to make it your game, and you won't be charged recurring payments to do so.

And while I'm at it, the no-charge, all-volunteer group at PCGen are working on PF2E. For free.
Without a subscription. They do have a Donate button if you would like to support them instead of the HLO mess.

I'm in the camp that thinks the encounter as written is truly awful.

Let me use an example from a film. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana is trying to find the cup used by Jesus Christ during the Last Supper. He's surrounded by golden cups. Which cup belonged to Jesus? The simple carpenter's cup made of wood.

I completely rewrote the scene. She should exemplify the traits worthy of her station entirely, and those traits should include (but not be limited to) humanity, humility, and dignity that cannot be brought low just because some PC acts like a clown. As a goddess in her own realm, she is beyond their power to insult or make look foolish.

I plan to run it as the PC's are initially greeted by a trumpet archon as her messenger in the scene. Many penitents and supplicants are praying to the Inheritor in the cathedral. Perceptive PC's pick up the prayers aren't for Iomedae to solve their problems; they ask for the strength of character to solve it themselves. The trumpet archon will charge the PC's with the quest, and if they don't investigate the chapel some, that's it. No damage. No injuries. It then offers to give them time in the cathedral while it retrieves the Stole.

In a wing of the chapel is an old sword with a notched edge and a worn-down leather handle. It's placed in a place of honor. If they investigate it, a young human knight asks their opinion of it. It's a perfectly normal sword. Unremarkable. She informs them it was the first sword Iomedae ever carried. The knight herself is unremarkable and I plan to describe her as such; fit and in serviceable armor, short hair in an unruly bob cut, face bearing fine scars, a bit shorter than most, and with a slightly awkward smile. Demeanor courteous and gentle and kind. And only if a clever PC figures it out does the young knight reveal she is the Inheritor.

Iomedae explains to them their their worth or not for this task is irrelevant. They have the chance to act. They are defined by how they rise to this chance to act. Every moment is your chance to live up to Heaven's ideals - or not. And I plan to play up how human Iomedae is. Again, I'm borrowing from the real world, where multiple religions with a truly human prophet, savior, or teacher play up the humanity and suffering of that individual to bridge the gap between human and divine. Does Iomedae need a golden statue and exalted trappings? No; the deeds and teachings are the real glory.

We'll see how it goes. My players are perceptive and conditioned to investigate things; I can usually count on them to kick the tires on things that seem obvious and straightforward, so I expect they'll get to the bottom of the chapel.

Historicaly, fighting with 2 weapons was very rare.

I'm a HEMA and fencing guy, and while we shouldn't completely ignore history, we're not playing a game designed to simulate history or realism. Something about dragons, fireballs, surviving falls off buildings, not needing months to convalesce from a single wound only to die of sepsis, etc, etc. Pathfinder is a *terrible* engine for simulationist medieval and Renaissance combat gameplay and long may it remain so.

Bruno and Porridge have expressed at length thoughts similar to my own, but here are my two cents for whatever they are worth. And due respect to the above posts, as while I believe our thoughts are convergent, they did get to the message board first.

It's a simple concept: There are three sources of power going into a melee attack that are static, namely the Item's quality, the magic behind that item, and the character. To be cute, Manufacture, Magic, and Man, no slight meant to females and those who identify as non-binary - good alliteration is all. Let each contribute separately to the overall effect.

MAN: Damage Dice Should Come From The Character: Simply put, a 17th level fighter should be deadly with any weapon he can find. If they pick up a functional longsword in a moment of desperation, they're still a 17th level fighter and someone you don't want to tangle with! Tie the damage dice to the character's level. You can even tie it to class and level; favor the fighter and barbarian for highest damage dice with ranger, rogue, and paladin lagging just behind them, then on down the line.

I am reminded of the old Star Wars RPG's, where the heavy blaster Han used was available to the PC's. You could buy it as starting gear. The weapon wasn't overpowered, but that didn't take away from Han's feats because Han was that good. It made Han special, not the owner of a +5 DL-44 blaster. Han was a hero, not the vehicle by which an OP weapon defeated Stormtroopers.

This paradigm also lets the martials do what casters do; feel the power is mostly coming from themselves.

MANUFACTURE: Weapon Quality Gives a Bonus to Hit and Damage: A better weapon allows for a better to hit and damage roll. For example, allow a +1 to +3 to hit and damage increase for weapons from Expert through Legendary. You can even limit whether someone can benefit from an Expert or better weapon until they gain an appropriate level of skill with that weapon. The justification is simple; anyone who masters an instrument, weapon, or sport knows how good you have to be to really feel the benefit of a high-end piece of gear. I, for example, am an amateur fencer. I can feel a crappy epee when you give it to me compared to a well-made one, but I couldn't really get the nuance of a truly top-tier nationally ranked competitor's weapon.

Now, I can already hear someone thinking, "With 20 points of Proficiency and more from Strength, does that piddly +2 or +3 matter?" The answer is of course YES! Increasing your chance to hit by a flat 10-15% chance is nice, but that also augments your chance to *critical* by the same amount. If have, say, a 70% chance to hit, your chance to crit is 20%. Adding an additional 10% chance to both probabilities is definitely not a trivial gain; that's almost as good as Keen in PF1E + Good Hope.

MAGIC: Magic Adds Special Properties (and ONLY Special Properties): Allow magic to only add in properties to a weapon. Let magic feel special and practical. DR can come down to weapon types, alignment, and special materials instead of magical weapons.

This fits in much more with mythic, religious, and literary genre tropes and will make magic feel special. Magic makes weapons Returning or Flaming and so forth.

Bottom Line: Let the character (Man) dictate the damage dice. Let the magic give the weapon awesome properties. Let the quality (Manufacture) give the weapon a small bonus that - at the margins - does matter.

Hello!

I am in the McAllen/Pharr/Edinburg area and am looking for a group for Saturday evening Pathfinder. I have a ready-to-go modified and updated Carrion Crown and would be happy to run it. Games would be weekly, subject to professional and family obligations, on Saturday afternoons and evenings. New players are welcome. I'm hope for a June 2018 start.

Please message me if interested; we'll see if we can make something happen. Thanks.

Realistically, the majority of D&D was just Arneson, Gygax, and company putting their homebrew up for sale.

Back in the days of no competitors, no editors, and nothing flooding the market. Much props for the concept, but trying to read anything those guys wrote today? Ouch, man. Ouch.

Back to the OP's point...

There are a tiny fraction of people playing baseball who are good enough for someone else to pay them to play. Then there is the vast majority who will forever say, "Oh, yeah, I played some ball in high school..." before getting back to work.

That's the situation for homebrews.

First, homebrews are very much subject to Sturgeon's Law. Everyone believes they are a great designer and writer, but relatively few people are that good. Fewer still are going to be better than the people who've already bypassed the gate-keepers of editors and publishers. And of the people who make it through that screen, fewer still have the copy editing, technical writing, dedication, and time it takes to bring something up to professional quality. Beyond that, then you have to ask yourself, what else could they be doing for work?

My homebrew stuff, even if I ever brought it up to publication quality, would detract from the career where I already make an excellent wage. I have zero incentive to pursue the world of publication.

Ok, so suppose you really are the one-in-a-million who has the drive, talent, game design knowledge, technical writing, determination, and luck it takes to make something that can be published. And you have enough playtesting, review, and control to make sure your idea isn't absurd. Now you need the luck and determination to market yourself everywhere and get picked up, or to self-publish via vanity press or similar.

The market is *flooded* with RPGs. Quality ones. And crappy ones.

I know of a few people who as a side-gig or as a hobby stream their games, pay-to-play games in Roll20 or similar, or even have a minor book or two that they've done as a vanity project, but that's about it. Major settings and systems are never the work of one writer now, and usually done by teams who have it as their primary employment working for a major company. They may have gotten noticed doing small stuff, but that's it.

Still, consider doing some little indie thing on the side. Some fun little whatever that you print off on the super-cheap and release. Only treat it as a labor of love, because if you think you're gonna make money off it, you're probably in for a rough disappointment.

It is not explicit, but multiple factors point to no.

First, the feat only has one prerequisite: Con 13. This means there is no magical capacity needed in order to take it.

Second, the feat does not call out having any magical aspect. Most feats which are (arguably) a Su or Sp state they interact with one of your abilities, such as feats that grant bloodline Hexes or some such.

Third, nothing in the wording suggests it's more than just being tough. Its drawback is a purely physical effect.

The "Divine Assistance" clause is fluff; there are plenty of ways to heal without divine assistance. Bards, Witchs, Skalds, some Occultists, some Kineticists, Investigators, and Alchemists are all non-divine healers. I probably missed a few classes capable of non-divine healing, too.

I wish Paizo would write feats like this:

Combat Vigor
Fluff here.

Prerequisite(s): Con 13+

Benefit(s): Gain the following extraordinary ability.

Combat Vigor (Ex): You gain a vigor pool with a maximum number of points equal to your Constitution bonus. As a standard action, you can spend up to 1 vigor point per 3 Hit Dice you have (minimum 1) to regain 1d6 hit points per vigor point spent (maximum 7d6). Each time you spend vigor points, you become fatigued for 1 minute. You cannot spend vigor points while fatigued or exhausted. Spending vigor points doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. The points in your vigor pool are replenished to their maximum after you rest for 8 hours.

It's pretty easy to explain.

They took the weight on a low gravity planet or moon.

The mass is still appropriate though. You just have to back calculate.

That they used weight instead of mass is a separate error.

Well. I haven't seen this thread yet, so please forgive me if I am beating the metaphorical dead horse, but it seems like Paizo managed to demonstrate the writers have no sense of scale.

I ran the numbers on a colossal ship and believe I did it right.

Colossal Ship: Length over 15,000 feet, Weight Over 8,000 tons

Smallest colossal ship:
Length: Feet: 15,000
Meters: 4572
Assume: Width = 400 meters, Shape is a cylinder
(Note: This thing would look narrow like a pencil)
Volume = (3.14) (R^2)(h) = 3.14 * 200 * 200 * 4572 = 5.74 * 10^8 cubic meters

How does 8,000 tons stack up?
Density of Air at 1 atmosphere: 1.225 kg / cubic meter at 15 degrees C
Weight of air: 7.03 * 10^8 kg
Convert to tons: ~775,000 tons

Density of Water at 4 degrees C: 1,000 kg / cubic meter
Weight of that much water: 5.74 * 10^11 kg
Convert to tons: 633 million

For more fun: the USS Enterprise (the real ship) was 1123 feet long, had a beam (max width) of 132 feet, and weighed 93,000 tons.

In other words, they are technically correct that it is over 8,000 tons.

The math for the ships one size category down is even funnier, because it literally seems to say the ships are mostly vacuum. It would be the only way those weights and lengths would work.

Vidmaster and ShroudedInLight think about it as I do. Paizo *hated* the amount of multi-classing and prestige-classing in 3.5, so they used some carrots to encourage characters to single class and took a giant nerf stick to PrC's. Additionally, by buffing base classes, you inherently cause prestige classes to become less valuable.

Paizo wants prestige classes to (mostly) just be flavorful options. Like many archetypes, they exist to give the GM a handy toolbox for making NPC's. Additionally, Golarion's Red Mantis needed its own PrC, and it was easier to make them stand out as "the better assassins" if the other assassin PrC wasn't as cool.

But an assassin antagonist is a great option, especially since some sneaky monsters have only a role-playing requirement before they can take it right off the bat.

Alignment: Any evil.

Skills: Disguise 2 ranks, Stealth 5 ranks*.

Special: The character must kill someone for no other reason than to become an assassin.

Move a couple of skill points around, or give the monster a slightly higher Int and...

Four nasty possible assassins

Pulg is actually three Ewoks standing on each other's shoulders while wearing a trench coat. Strangely, Pulg's dates seem surprisingly cool with this.

I thought of something else to add: you need stuff besides the Pathfinder books, especially if you GM.

First, you need to take a trip to your friendly local office supply store and pick up the folders, notebooks, and assorted other paraphernalia it takes to keep yourself organized. There's no right system here; you're going to need to figure it out for yourself.

Second, you're going to need to make a decision: do you want to use a real tabletop or a virtual one?

If you want to use a real tabletop, a dry-erase marker set and an erasable gaming mat is almost necessary. Don't worry about spending a ton on miniatures right away. Instead, get a stack of index cards or some card stock and cut out shapes the proper size for different things on the grid. Print it out with a scaled image of the monster or character in question, or just write down what the little square of paper represent.

Another option is paper minis. Paizo's Pathfinder Pawns don't look half bad, and some paper standie minis can be made very easily. There are many out there. Here's my guide for making custom paper minis very quickly.

Alternatively, consider a virtual table top service like Roll20 even if you plan to play face to face. If you already have a laptop or tablet you can hook up to a TV or projector that the players can use, you can easily use another computer to manipulate your end, let the players see their side of the game on the projector/TV, and still have a face to face sitdown game. Alternatively, you can play with friends over the web.

Happy gaming!

The question can't be answered succinctly, so I will try to avoid just parroting what everyone else said.

1) The Beginner's Box is a good way to get your feet wet if you're truly new to RPG's, and the Strategy Guide could be very helpful to avoid overwhelming your new players with core rules.

2) Start with the Core Rulebook and Bestiary. When those seem familiar, then add new material. There is a definite "less is more" when you are new. Have you ever played a video game where you were new and everything was fresh an exciting, and then all the vets overwhelmed you with options and advanced tactics before you've even had enough time to get used to the controls? That is the danger of picking everything up at once.

3) Pick up an easy module, even a free one, and try that first. Read it and figure out how every encounter works. This will help you see how to build encounters and give you a lot less homework to do before running a session, which can then let you think about all the non-rules driven part of GMing. You're the players' eyes and ears. Your storytelling is what makes them invest (or not) in events. You have a lot to learn about player engagement and social dynamics and all the "soft and squishy" sides of RPGs, so don't feel like you can't let someone else do the gruntwork of building the adventure's mechanical aspects. A good module will also show you how to mess with the mechanics yourself.

4) If possible, have a laptop or tablet handy. Bookmark the PRD and SRD. Even if you own the books/pdfs, you can usually search these sites quicker than your hard copy books if you're stuck. There are free and low-cost searchable apps for iOS and Android devices that could also serve. Don't hide behind your devices, but use them to find data you need ASAP.

5) Here's the thing with Bestiaries: each Bestiary has more and more specialized monsters than the last. This doesn't make them useless, but it does mean they often have a smaller campaign role or else they use some of the later rules, such as mythic. Bestiary I is the most "generically useful," with more of the classic monsters that go with high fantasy. They will be easier to run as a GM, to build into appropriate encounters, and they'll be easier for new players to "get" than some of the weirder creatures out there. Later, the other Bestiaries will be a great expansion.

Hope this is a bit of perspective that hasn't been brought up yet. Have fun!

Well, this thread has been derailed.

I hope I did not offend. As far as I know, boob plate is the term which is thrown around for a breastplate which conforms to the breasts, including in articles mocking it and objecting to it. If there is another term in common use, I have not heard it.

Nonetheless, if anyone was offended, I offer an unqualified apology.

@ Jim Rudnick: Mass Effect dealt with this. The character Kaiden Alenko is a human being taught by a member of a species called turians. Humanity had recently been at war with the turians and relationships were cold. He highlights that one day, the terrible behavior on the part of his teacher taught him the aliens were simply people, for all their differences from humanity. Quite a few characters discuss how their species is stereotyped and how it affects them, and no small amount of choices on the part of the player have to deal with those relationships. Over the course of the last two "main" games, a racist human organization was portrayed as anti-heroic, only to later reveal their complete bastard nature. I'm fairly sure this was done intentionally, to draw in a Misaimed Fandom and then pull the rug out from under them. So in the ME 'verse, most members of a species at least share traits with their species, but they are individuals first. Anyone who'd say Aria T'Loak (a murderous, haughty crime lord) and Samara (an emotionally distant quasi-paladin) are similar characters because they're both Asari (all-female Space Elves) is missing a lot.

LA Noire uses our emotional reaction to a lot of racially charged situations. In one case, the murderer is Jewish, the victim is an anti-Semite, and it's just a few years past WWII. In other scenes, violence against women is used. One case features a 15 year old runaway who wants to be a star being given drugs and the casting couch (no further details needed). 1940's culture is portrayed with all its inequalities. The game uses all those period-appropriate prejudices to carefully emotionally engage the player as well as establish the protagonist's character. It colors the world around him to make it much more believable. In other words, LA Noire uses race and gender issues to help drive its narrative, characterize the NPCs, and make the player invest in the story. Bravo - and gutsy, though they did blow it with a few characters. The chief in particular is way over the top with his Irish Catholic cop routine.

Dragon Age used race something like LA Noire did. When we see the elves treated as a minority and oppressed, it's -supposed- to remind us of the ghettoization of minorities early in the 20th century and it's supposed to disturb us. If one plays as a non-human race, many of the comments the Grey Warden can make refer to this situation in game -and- capture some of what we might understand as the feelings of those peoples. For example, a City Elf protagonist can often be snide or abrupt to humans, presumably because they chafe at the treatment they have received before. The mage situation has some aspects of similar oppression, but it's not quite analogous. There are real reasons to fear the mages.

I'm not sure how much this really works in Golarion. Paizo has intentionally tried to make a world which is much more egalitarian in how it treats race, sexual orientation, and gender. It occasionally slips in some unintentional unfortunate implications, but I believe these are entirely accidental and incidental. Even the art shows far more representations of non-white characters than most RPGs.

Decius and Camlo have already said most of what I'd want, so I'll just add this. Whatever NPCs I run into, I should not be able to guess anything about them just by being told their race, sexual orientation, and gender. Those things should be independent of their identity as a figure in the River Kingdoms. That doesn't mean that a minority is always portrayed positively, only that they are made -people- first, members of a minority second. Again, think back to LA Noire's Jewish murderer. He's a minority character and a criminal, but a far cry from an offensive stereotype.

@ Avari: Pfft. Halflings aren't good enough for our accents.

Did anyone besides me read the title of the post in Peter Seller's voice?

Very old-school TT concept transferred to the new genre. Sounds promising, but natch have to reserve judgement until we see it in play. It does a different job than the injuries in Dragon Age, as in DA the character was always down before receiving an injury whereas here it seems those critical debuffs could sway a fight rather than be a reason to whip out one of your four hundred healing effects during the after action review. DA's injuries were basically a forced unstable equilibrium, where a player who was unprepared for a combat situation and didn't have supplies and resources would rack up more and more penalties, falling further and further behind. If you weren't going down, the penalties for injuries never mattered. If this works as I believe they want it to, the debuffs from suffering a critical could very well take someone out of the fight long before HP attrition has put them down.

@ V'rel: Indeed sir. Upping the random factor always aids an underdog while regression to the mean helps the top dog. I also view it as a good push towards teamwork. If you are at risk of suffering a long-term debuff which will leave you critically weakened, the reasonable course of action is to distribute that risk over several individuals who can undo the damage and cover a damaged team-mate.

If I compared it to anything, is like a less heavy-handed version of L4D's special infected, forcing players not to play lone wolf for fear of suffering an incapacitating attack while alone and unaided.

Blaeringr: savvy about trolls, not so savvy about how quickly sarcasm is utterly missed on the interwebs.

I'm going to have to agree with Danielc. Mbando, I like the link, but it's 4th Gen Warfare from the USMC's mission and point of view, but 4th Gen includes tons of non-state, non-traditional combatants. And man, nothing like this topic to bring all the troops, vets, and warbuffs out.

The key characteristics of 4th Gen Warfare that I can see are asymmetry, non-state actors, and expansion of the battlespace outside of simply inflicting casualties. (Granted, 3rd gen saw economic devastation used, esp. in strategic bombing, but it was always with an eye toward hampering military production. In 4th gen, trashing the NYSE would be a bigger coup than trashing a ball-bearing plant.) Lawfare, media, economics, IT, terrorism - that's 4th gen more than drones and smart bombs. Indeed, the drones and smart bombs are what killed third gen, by making it unwinnable if you were on the short side of the stick in technology and firepower. Success against a massive military nation-state requires you make the combat more primitive, personal, and media-unfriendly, not that you try to match them fighter-for-fighter, tank-for-tank. You don't beat Goliath with a sword but with a sling.

If two big groups (I'm picking something extremely unlikely for the sake of an example) - say, TGL and T7V - fought an open battle, then that would be first-to-third gen warfare. Now, let's suppose a new group started a dust-up with one of those large factions. Let's suppose they would be steamrolled in a straight fight with either T7V or TGL - let alone by their alliance. That group would be suicidal to try to engage in direct combat.

So maybe they engage in a little bit of economic destruction, chipping at the caravans moving through the area, raiding what they can and costing the groups more money to pay for security on their caravans (economic disruption). Maybe they play the victim when attacked, trying to garner sympathy and disrupt the reputations of the larger force (media). Maybe they try to exploit agreements between factions to cause hostilities or hamper the larger faction from squashing them, or try to manipulate the GW folks into thinking they're being unfairly picked on (lawfare). I'm sure we could all come up with five million possible ways to hamper an enemy in the world of an MMO while denying them a pitched battle.

So...my point is all the nasty behavior from EVE? That's 4th gen warfare. If anything, 4th Gen is easier to do in an MMO; all you need is an outlet for people to be creatively nasty. If anything, 4th gen warfare is something you need systems to prevent from getting out of control rather than something you need to include in as a design feature.

Its my favorite part of their plan, consequences. Once those evil players start showing up, you can bet they will band together for survival.

Agreed. What I believe will be the dynamic will be the eventual existence of predatory "bandit" groups which try to strike out and take what they can from targets - which often means raiding caravans and "good" groups. Good groups, engaged in PvE and creation, are not 100% committed to squashing the predatory groups, and see such predation as a problem to mitigate since they cannot completely destroy them. A predatory group which overreaches will draw other evil factions off to steal from them, or even draw fire from the good groups until they are put back down.

Distance equals risk of predation, which changes the market values for goods. Location changes the risk of predation, leading to struggles for area control for unexploited hexes. Monsters threaten "bandits" as much as they do anyone else, prompting them to dig in and fortify as do other players. Some craftspersons work for the bandits. Some groups who are outright evil oppose banditry because it's bad for their business.

This sounds exactly like the kind of dynamic a lawless developing region in a fantasy world should have.

Bartenders love drunken paladins; they tip even better and clean up after themselves.

Over-accessorise ALL the NPC designs!

No kidding, though I hope that image is a parody. His characters often have enough pouches and bling to embarrass a 40k Mehrine, when they don't go for the gratuitous cleavage and panty shots.

Any discussion of the art should at least let you see it, so links sprinkled throughout.

Still, when he reigns it, I like his stuff. Good stuff like this, this, and even this...it gives me the feeling that as long as he gets guidance and demands the same standards from his team as he does himself, it could be fantastic.

Well, ok, that middle one did invent muscles that don't exist, but at least it's not a Rob Loefield level of artistic license with anatomy. And in that last one, I want to get a scalpel, because Sajan has some kind of thing growing on his back, right side, near the base of the ribs. Human lats do not do that. Ok, neither does the skull, so it could be stylistic, but Feiya and Ameiko are both drawn to fairly normal human proportions.

I pray it doesn't wind up as fanservice-laden and over the top as WoW. This is how you draw a female adventurer who is attractive while keeping the Action Girl cred. This is an attempt to appeal to my inner 14 year old via lingerie model. The same go for his males; Sajan and Seltyiel certainly stretch, though might not break, what is anatomically possible.

So in conclusion, Wayne is actually damn talented and I think he can do a phenomenal job as long as he thinks more Seelah and Ezren in the character designs he pushes his artists to work on. They'll be blingy as all hell, but that's his style and it works when he does it well.

Even if names are completely unregulated, there may be much less of a problem than Coach is afraid of. I believe Valkenr is in a small minority; most of the folks here are here because they actually do care about the table game and it's IP. (That's not a dig on anyone, just a statement.)

If the first 4,500 consists mostly of folks who obviously do care about the IP (as Coach and Waruko and I do) and folks who want to keep some kind of touch with the tropes and character of the IP even if they are not RPers (ex: Valkenr), then likely the initial player base will have informal mores not to take the kinds of names Coach is crying foul over.

There seems to be a strongly implied hint that RP does, indeed, matter to GW. Let's see: this project could be called Kingmaker Online, every Kickstarter reward has been geared to a table top role player, and every prior project advertised on the kickstarter page has been an earlier TT RPG/CCG (VtM, MtG, OGL, PFRPG, etc). Every big honcho on the project is coming out of the TT gaming world, not the VG world. The message board for this project and big advertising push for this project both come from the main site of a major TTRPG. The company sells pretty much nothing but table-top gaming, especially RPGs. Something to keep in mind.

Dorje Sylas wrote:

Unfortunately such a system is still likely beyond the scope of most MMOs.

Exactly, proporly calculating that out, and assuming the level of arbitraryness, is a task right up there with projects such as, Watson the computer designed to play jeopardy, or teaching a computer to play Go at the level they play chess at etc... It may be hypothetically possible, but it is years away from practical for a team to develop it, and decades from being within reason for a game developer to be able to implement such a concept.

Certainly it would prove extremely difficult, but what if a system merely checked to see if the proposed encounters were draining resources from those who challenged those encounters at an expected rate? Such a system would be algorithmic, and all it has to do is flag an encounter/event for review by a human being. If no such system already exists in many an MMO, those folks aren't doing their jobs.

Also, I love the idea of creating dungeons you mentioned even if no reward is offered. I doubt that players even need a practical reason to create them. Let's face it, Minecraft is as popular as oxygen for a reason. If I make a creepy necromancer, I sure as heck would get a thrill out of building some thematically appropriate crypt full of ghoulish horrors for him/her to caper about in, and I don't need a reward for doing so. And if I can host my friends' crusade to "purge" his crypt, that's just fine with me.

Having the ability for goblinworks employees log in as some sort of big nasty monster sounds *amazing*. You *thought* you were going to clear that dungeon....until Mr Dancey trots up behind you with a Bugbear Barbarian and wipes you out. The unexpected can be fun, and I bet the employees would get a kick out of it as well.

Why limit it to employees? How about a lottery system for an occasional chance for the players to do so? Players would be under no obligation to do so, of course, and progress when they're playing the Bugbear Barbarian won't help their main characters, but it would have a certain appeal. By making it random chance and giving all players both a chance to take the role and a chance to turn it down if they don't feel like it, it seems like an easy way to both expand the player experience, inject some levity and changes of pace into the game, and have a hilarious legitimate griefing engine.

Edited for bad grammar

While many of the comments here have been quite insightful, I'd like to say that perhaps the flashiness of a spell should not always be proportional to its power.

Let's use the pen and paper game to bring up a point. Fireball is a dramatic spell - it's a big damn ball of fire! It dwarfs a firework and should be visible for miles at night.

The far more devastating Horrid Wilting is much less obvious. At a distance greater than a hundred meters, it might not be possible to see exactly what killed those on the receiving end of the spell. If the victims are wearing a significant amount of clothing, it may be near-impossible to see the resulting trauma until the body is inspected at close distance.

By having the "flare" of spells vary considerably, they can have even more game-world interactions. For example, highly visible spells could be more likely to bring friends/mobs over to investigate, stealth-using casters may have some spells which are easier to get away with before the enemy is tipped off.

Wouldn't it be something if a player had to worry that the fireball he blasted some orcs with might just attract the attention of nearby ogres, while Sleep would have not?

As far as the original question: I am with Coldman that BG2 set a good level for "flare." Less would be more in trying to capture the rough and tumble of the River Kingdoms.

Meh, here's ten of mine. Dissect, ignore, bend, spin, or mutilate as you see fit. (See #7)

1) Figure out the emotional kick of each player. Then, give each player a chance to fulfill that kick. A good place for a good discussion of this is in Robin's Laws, which you can surely read about on the interwebs. Seriously, stop reading this and go to Google...

2) Back already? Ok. Vary your encounters constantly. Why did they find 9 ogres easy? (Also, at what level? "Brawny" monsters don't scale well upwards.) Use everything to make combat more interesting than the attrition of HP. Have one fight in a raging blizzard where visibility is near naught, diminishing ranged combat to useless and forcing folks to find their enemies. Then stage one in a crowded city, where civilians are in the way and the authorities are likely to blame any slain innocents on the PCs. Then have a rickety rope bridge separate two sides of a chasm. Etc.

3) Always make what the PC's do and don't do matter, but never let them see it as the hand of the GM. Ex: if some evil git of a PC is kill-happy and tortures NPCs, what happens when his latest torture victim is a wealthy merchant's son, and suddenly gear is hard to get? Or when law enforcement uses Speak With Dead? Did the PC's selflessly save a village and turn down a reward? Maybe their reputation for charity draws the attention of someone of importance. This ties PC's to the world they're in and makes NPCs actually seem like real people with real motivations.

4) Develop your own voice. Whatever you're good at, you should stress. Give yourself a couple minutes to try out NPC ideas and find a tone for those NPCs. If running combat is hard, try puzzling out some new scenarios.

5) Have fun. If you're having fun, usually, your players are too. This only isn't true if you have those jerk-face players who enjoy frustrating the GM, or you're the GM whose secret power fantasy is pushing your friends around because it's "your game." It's their game, too.

6) When players build their characters, they're telling you what they want to do. Pay attention and modify plans accordingly.

7) If everyone had fun, it was a success, and disregard any advice to the contrary.

8) If things are unbalanced, fix them off-line with a quiet conversation. Do not be afraid to say, "No." And if they say, "Well, when X is GM, we get this," say, "Well, when I'm GM, we're doing this instead."

9) I'm of the school that says, "a quick and dirty ruling is way better than rules-lawyering which delays the game." That doesn't excuse you from homework. If you plan to use something which breaks away from "normal" action, be sure to learn those rules well before you spring a weird situation on the PC's. Ex: that fight in a blizzard? Know the acrobatics check DC's, the visibility range, etc, beforehand! And if you do make a quick-and-dirty ruling, look up the "right" answer later. If you switch to the "right" answer, explain why. Most players hate when someone forces a ten minute time out to look up something.

10) A "dialogue boss" puts combat monkeys in their place fast.

Hello folks. I did a search and did not see a how-to guide for this. This isn't a technique for people who build fancy paper models. This is an illustrated guide to making dirt-cheap paper minis for players and GMs who have limited time, limited budgets, and limited hand-eye coordination. This is for folks who want something presentable for a table top RPG that they can quickly produce en masse.

Materials Needed:
Color printer
Card stock – the heaviest stuff your printer can run
Art – Get the artist's permission, or use something open source
Photo editing program
Glue stick
Hobby knife

Skills Needed:
Very light image manipulation

Time:
Ten minutes if you take your time

Now, Paizo's paper minis are extremely cheap and easy to assemble, so really consider using them if you're on an adventure path. Other companies do make paper minis, though they tend to be either the ugly as sin tri-folds or else a pain to assemble. These minis are designed so you can use any art you have the rights to use, so they are extremely easy to assemble, and so they aren't bad looking on the table.

I will be working with this image.

Ms. ScraggleBeak

She doesn't have a purpose yet: maybe she's a druid seer who has given herself over entirely to some animal shape, or an an animal spirit or a strange tribe.

I am using 225 gm/m^2 card stock, which is pretty thick.

Step 1: Find an image.

We've already got one. Artist: Laura Siadak, used with permission, all rights reserved, etc. Her gallery is at Fallen Lights. Yes, that was a shameless plug. Warning, not all her art is safe for work or appropriate for minors.

Image Again

Step 2: Open the image in your photo-editor.

I'm using an old version of Photoshop CS. Every feature I'm using is extremely basic and should be on all versions of PS. If you happen to have another program, you'll need to adjust your technique.

Step 3: Resize the image.

Set your background color to Black and White, then resize the image. Since this creature will be Large Size, I will set the Width to two inches. You should use the size of the creature you are creating - for example, a 1 inch width for a medium PC. You may have to crop an image in order to make it fit. I will also save the image at 300 pixels per inch, since I want to preserve as much detail as I can for when I print this.

Resizing the Image

Step 4: Adjust the canvas size

Now you need to adjust the canvas size. I double the canvas size, allowing the black background to show through. Because I want to create a two-sided image, I will select the box on the bottom, so the image goes on the bottom and I have a second, equally-spaced blank image up to. Double the size by increasing the height to 200%. Leave the width alone.

Canvas Adjustment

Step 5: Select the background with the magic wand tool and then select inverse. Then, copy the image, paste the image, then slide the image over the background.

The PS shortcuts once you're done with the Magic Wand are CTRL-C, CTRL-V, and CTRL-T for “Transform.” You can also select Edit: Transform.

Selecting the Inverse

Step 6: Flip it, then blow it up again.

Select Edit: Transform: Flip Vertical. (You should be on the duplicated part.) This will flip the image again. Now I will adjust the canvas size one last time. Since the creature is large, I want the base to be two-by-two. That means I want to add two images to the canvas height, while leaving the modified image in the center. Use the same tool to edit the canvas size, but this time just add two inches (1 inch for medium/small creatures, 3 inches for 3x3 space, etc).

It should look like this before you expand the canvas...
Then:
end up like this

Step 7: Decorate the black space (Optional)

You can decorate that base if you want, but I believe flat black can go anywhere without looking strange.

Step 8: Print on cardstock and cut out. You can certainly arrange multiple images on one page. A really easy way to do that is to import the images into MS Word or a similar program, then arrange them. I won't be doing that during this tutorial.

A yellow-tan card stock really fits thematically with the colors I use, so that's what you'll see. Forgive the poor image quality; my phone's camera leaves a lot to be desired.

Ready to cut

Step 9: Score your image on the midline and the medial part of both bases with a hobby knife. Fold the middle inwards and the bases out.

Almost done – gluing is the last step

Step 10: Glue the middle two pieces together. Glue scrap cardstock to the base to hold it together.

The last bit of cardstock secures the base

That's it. There are great ways to create much more fanciful paper minis, but this seems to be one of the easiest ways to get the job done. It also means you can use any art you have the rights to and are not limited to designs you buy or find. Hope this helps.

Paper mini on a Paizo battlemat

As you can see, this particular mini fits perfectly on scale for a large-size creature. By adjusting the width and the amount you expand the canvas in Step 6, you can scale for any creature.