Carnivorous_Bean's page

My personal name for "Burger King" is "Booger Thing."

That sums up my opinion of them since the day when eating one of their hamburgers reduced my mother to 17 hours of frequent vomiting and less mentionable side effects ....

Thinking about planting some beans in the backyard.

*Chambers another shell with a flourish of his vines*

Watch it, blue boy .... here's one bean you're not going to plant in your backyard while these leaves can still hold a shotgun!

Hm, a fracas? You know, another message board, I was known as "The Boot-Knife of Lovingkindness" -- and there's a reason for that .... >;)

*Rolls up his sleeves and wades in*

so when is this happening?

Do you mean the update/revision, or living in a closet with Frank Zappa's music? ;)

If you mean the revision, I'd say next Wednesday. In fact, I'm so sure of it, I'd be willing to wager on it -- assuming that the bet was only for an in-game gold piece, that is. ;)

I presume that the edited part says "spam"? ;)

Holy spam, holy spam, holy spam, holy spam ...

In pace requiescat.

Bah.

Perchawnce, mine?

*blink*

Hey all. Looks like I got a job for a little while, counting noses at the census. Every little bit helps I guess.

Well, gotta fly unfortunately. Take care all and hopefully I'll catch up with you come the weekend ..

*blink*

Congrats on the job! :) I know some people in this town who got some employment out of the census, also. Hope it goes well for you!

Carnivorous_Bean wrote:

...a map of Chernobyl fallout so I know what areas of the country to stay away from... So, come Monday morning -- Clan Bean (all 2 of us so far ;)!) is off on an adventure! :)

Good luck and best adventures to you both. If you get detoured near Chernobyl, would you mail be back a sample of that fungus that is "eating" radioactivity?

Thank you .... and if I get near Chernobyl for some unknown reason, I'll harvest some of those fungi for ya -- with the cry of "Ia! C'thulhu!" which must accompany such harvesting, of course. ;)

My goal for my character isn't to express some sexual fantasy (I think many are confusing love with sex here) but rather to enjoy playing a character for whom the E is more than a big scary monster.

...

That and re-tell Pygmalion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_%28mythology%29)

If your going to run two characters (summoner and E) you might as well give them an interesting relationship.

I keep reading the start of your posts, and when you start talking, it sounds like you're asking if the Eidolon can be a beloved pet, a best friend and confidant of some kind, or even sort of a weird sibling .... love in a platonic sense ....

.... and then I read on further, and it goes right back to sex with Pygmalion.

So I'm not sure what you mean about some people confusing love with sex here, because in my view, it seems YOU are! =) I know that there can easily be a strong emotional attachment between two beings without there being a sexual element. I agree with that, and I think it might make the relationship interesting if the eidolon was like the favorite dog or cat of the summoner, or a close friend, rather than a mere puppet.

But then you keep saying stuff that flips right back to sex. I'm a bit confused here -- do you want your eidolon and summoner to be inseparable, loyal friends like someone with a dog they grew up with, or do you want them lusting sweatily after each other in the throes of some unnatural passion?

Morning all!

*Chambers shell*

It's a fine morning, isn't it?

Carnivorous_Bean wrote:

... a map of Chernobyl fallout ...

LOL

Peace, dude. Have a good journey.

But really, they do have the internet there... Me? I'm in back-ass China.

Thank you, kind sir!

And yes, the map of Chernobyl fallout makes even me laugh. ;) I do have one, though -- and it's pretty detailed.

Yep, they've got the Internet there -- I've been to some fairly backwater towns and haven't seen one without some Internet support at least, and Minsk is no backwater. I take it from what you say that the Internet is about as rare in China as it's common in the U.S.?

Carnivorous_Bean wrote:

Beanish Update

Actually, CB, I had noticed that you had stopped posting in the Fawlty threads. Sounds like quite an adventure you are poised upon. Of course, if you start posting again and then disappear, we may suspect the Russian mafia...

Ah -- leave it to a fellow vegetable to notice my absence from these threads! :)

And yes, it is quite an adventure, but there's about 7 months of intensive planning and preparation that's gone into it, so it should work out fairly smoothly. I hope. ;)

As for the Russian mafia .... yes, if I disappear after resuming posting, you might suspect them .... or it might just be an overdose of Natasha's delicious but deadly potato and cabbage soup ;)!

Well, if I just vanished from the boards, I doubt that anyone would notice, other than a vague feeling that a minor jackass might have sloughed off somewhere along the way. ;)

But, at the start of next week, I'm leaving the U.S. of A. for at least the next 3 months, and probably quite a bit longer. I have no idea if I'm going to have much time for posting on this message board, so I may also disappear for a similar amount of time from here. Or I may be back in a week. Who knows.

Anyhoo, I'm heading over to live in Minsk, Belarus. My lady, Natasha, is a Russian, and she's got relatives in Belarus. I've been there twice already, I speak Russian moderately well, I like the country (it's probably a bit cold for a lot of people, but I like cold), and I know a few people over there from my previous visits, besides the relatives of the soon-to-be-Mrs.-Bean.

Since I can do my freelance travel writing online from anywhere in the world, I'm going somewhere that 1. I like, and 2. it's cheap enough for me to live decently. I'm sick of hand-to-mouth in the Second Great Depression here, and so, I'm migrating to cheaper pastures for a while, so that I can save up my earnings rather than see them evaporate into bills and groceries in a couple of seconds, and return with a bit more money in my purse so that I fix stuff that needs fixing, buy stuff that needs buying, and maybe have a bit left over in case of emergencies.

I've got my visa, all the paperwork I need to apply for a residence permit for longer-term stay, a good apartment lined up, a map of Chernobyl fallout so I know what areas of the country to stay away from, some moola, a good laptop to do my work on, and my airplane tickets purchased and ready to go.

So, come Monday morning -- Clan Bean (all 2 of us so far ;)!) is off on an adventure! :)

sigh, oh well tomorrow is another day. See you guys then

Well, Lisa also said upthread that they usually release stuff on Wednesdays. So don't get your hopes up -- the lack of an update today probably set it back a full week.

Dragonborn3 wrote:

I'd be a bit leery of some one going about and raising the dead as servants. Even if they some how got permission to do so...

Really, it's no different from making a golem, save that 'enslave a sentient being' is not a requisite step in making a zombie. All you're doing is animating an inert vessel. It's just a vessel made of meat and bone rather than dirt and rock. They're ultimately just two different inanimate objects.

I take it, then, that if your parent, child, or spouse died, you'd be fine with someone else cutting the head off their corpse and using it as a football?

I'm not trying to be snarky here. I'm just pointing out that most people are going to have a BIG objection to people using the corpses of their friends and relatives as puppets. And that the priest is therefore going to have an equally big objection to indiscriminate use of corpses to make undead.

I would say it depends on how the bodies are acquired, too. People are usually pretty upset if other people despoil the bodies of dead relatives, destroy them, or otherwise make a mockery of them. So I'd say that going to a graveyard and taking a bunch of corpses would be a fairly evil act, based on the fact that it's disrespectful of the dead and could cause extreme mental anguish to the living.

I mean, let's put it into the terms of our world. Let's say the local grocer dies of a heart attack and is buried. Now, what is the reaction of most of the people in the town going to be if you went to the graveyard a few days later, dug up the coffin, and chopped off the grocer's head to use as a football at the next town high school football match?

I'm betting it wouldn't go over too well.

That's about what creating the undead out of a few dead people from the local graveyard would be like in the game world. I think in that case, the priest would come down pretty hard -- specifically, destroying the undead, returning the remains to consecrated ground, and doing his best to drive the wizard out of the party.

However, if the undead are created from the corpses of reprehensible opponents -- for example, goblins killed in the act of burning a town and slaughtering its inhabitants -- then I think that unless they're following a really zealous, crusading god or one with very precise moral standards, the priest would probably let it slide -- although they'd probably express their disgust and might well try to 'accidentally' destroy the undead with channel positive energy, as Scipion del Ferro points out.

Carnivorous_Bean wrote:

A prank call from KaeYoss is nothing to dismiss lightly.

Oh, have you ever been on the receiving end?

No, but one look at your avatar is a good hint of what to expect. ;)

Ex ungue leonem, and all that ...

Carnivorous_Bean wrote:

I'm not demanding anything

I do. I DEMAND. Something. And I threaten acts of terrorism I'm not at liberty to specify at the current time. I might turn up the volume of my TV or start making prank calls.

Or not.

I'd still love to see it coming out today.

A prank call from KaeYoss is nothing to dismiss lightly. I would say that fair warning has been given here.

Maybe it'll be the blog tomorrow, but their not going to give us a time idea until Jason is nearly done. Unless it has been fairly heavily implied it will be this week?

Take a look at the post upthread. Lisa basically comes out and says it'll be today. :) Mind you, I'm not demanding anything, but I'm certainly feeling more eager than someone my age probably should for a set of revised playtest rules, and still be labeled as sane .... ;)

Looks like next Wednesday would be a better bet. :)

I see there's only one definition of "love" on these boards .... O.o

Anyone notice that Wednesday is tomorrow? ;)

*Panting with eagerness*

Kevin Mack wrote:

Ah well time to sell a kidney.

I hear you can get $90,000 for a testicle. And with roleplaying being almost as expensive a habit as hard drugs, you may just need it.

Dang, $90,000? That's pretty tempting, ya know .... ;) Especially since the operation is a lot less invasive .... hmmm ....

Seems reasonable to me, C_Bean. Some attacks just make a heck of a lot of noise. As long as DMs are consistent and upfront about the noise-level, I don't see a problem.

Yes, I agree -- never said it was unreasonable. Just that short of actual firearms, the alchemist is the only class that is inevitably extremely noisy when attacking. So that does limit him a bit more than he already is.

The Fool wrote:

I bet the Concussion bomb makes a bit more noise though. My DM said that the blast could be heard from miles away...

Perhaps. But I'm pretty sure sound burst makes an awful lot of noise too. The alchemist doesn't have a lockdown on noisy tactics.

e

True. For example, I always assumed that lightning spells made a thunderclap, and so on. Although a lot of spells -- like magic missile -- I always assumed were fairly quiet.

However, the alchemist is pretty much the only class whose main attack is inevitably going to be audible for miles under good conditions. I'm speaking from experience here -- I live in the countryside, and I've heard guns being fired by people where I know how far away they are. In quiet conditions (i.e. just about any conditions pre-internal-combustion-engine), I can easily hear rifle shots 2 to 3 miles away.

And noises like that are going to stand out in a world before engine backfires, rifles, and so on. So, since the alchemist's bombs are as loud as a gun, anything within, say, 2.5 miles is going to know that something unusual is in the area, and have a general idea of the direction, also.

I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. I'm just pointing out that the alchemist is probably the least subtle class in terms of noise. If he uses his bombs, he WILL be noticed.

My take: An alchemist's bomb is, at its baseline, as loud as a Molitov cocktail, and probably more like the loudness of a grenade or gunshot once they start getting more powerful. CERTAINLY loud enough to be comparable to a barbarian raging, a spell going off, or a monster shrieking out a death cry. And as they get higher level, their noise level rises to be about the same as other spellcasters.

In other words... an alchemist in the party should create no more or no less noise than a spellcaster who specializes in evocation spells.

Thanks for the clarification. In other words, there is NO possibility of surprising anyone within half a mile after a fight involving an alchemist. ;)

Using an alchemist as a villain in a recent Pathfinder session (during which the players managed to totally avoid him and set him up to be taken out by someone else -- and did it very plausibly, so I couldn't find a loophole in their reasoning or arranging to let me set up a fight between him and them instead ;)!), an odd question came up.

The question is - how loud is the alchemist's bomb when it goes off?

My contention was that it was more of a dull "whoomph" sound, more combustion than explosion, so I had a 'practice room' in the alchemist's house where he set off his bombs to experiment, train, etc.

The players, however, contended that it should be a loud, grenade-like bang going off, and thought he should have been detected earlier by the people living nearby.

Although I DM-fiated that it's a 'whoomph' sound (especially since they never fought him anyway, so who cares ;)?), it does raise an interesting question. Just how loud are the alchemist's abilities? Is the whole dungeon full of monsters going to be alerted by the sound of an alchemical bomb? With the wind right, are you going to potentially hear the bangs a couple of miles away outdoors, or are they only going to be audible from close by (and perhaps not easily identified even then)?

It seems like it might be a fairly important question in a lot of adventuring situations. Any thoughts?

Carnivorous_Bean wrote:

They cannot print completely new fighter rules, invalidating the existing rulebook a few months after it was printed.

They cannot "patch" in a new subsystem, because then playing a fighter would require the purchase of two books, where the rest of the classes only require one.

So, the only solution open to them if they want to spruce up the fighter is to make new feats that address the fighter's weaknesses a bit. That's all they can do at this point. If there's a 2nd edition Pathfinder down the road, then a complete rewrite of the fighter would be possible. But the APG can't do it.

That's kind of silly. What about the idea to have optional replacements for the Training class features? Weapon Training isn't as good as feats for the most part, except that it applies to multiple weapons. Armor Training has some unique abilities but not ones that every Fighter needs.

Either way there are alternate class features that could replace the Training ones that would satisfy people.

Yes, that too. But there's no way they'll do a ground-up rewrite of the entire class like AMIB is calling for, which is what I was addressing with that.

Caineach wrote:

Except that if you replace anything the fighter currently has, you are sacrificing his martial prowess for those abilities, and if you just tack stuff on to an already respectable and ballanced class, it will over power them. I don't think fighters are underpowered. I just think we can't do everything we want to do with them yet.

This is the issue. It's not a perfectly respectable or balanced class. It's an incomplete class, and writing new feats means you're trading martial prowess for those abilities.

That may be true, but there's no way in heck the APG can fix this issue. It's impossible, and it can't be reasonably expected to.

They cannot print completely new fighter rules, invalidating the existing rulebook a few months after it was printed.

They cannot "patch" in a new subsystem, because then playing a fighter would require the purchase of two books, where the rest of the classes only require one.

So, the only solution open to them if they want to spruce up the fighter is to make new feats that address the fighter's weaknesses a bit. That's all they can do at this point. If there's a 2nd edition Pathfinder down the road, then a complete rewrite of the fighter would be possible. But the APG can't do it.

Why not be a jerk and lock such a feat to the value of Weapon Training, with an extra special at note that at Weapon Training 4 the bonus is uncapped. Kinda kills dipping right there.

I guess my thoughts are starting to go more towards what Fighter only feats could be done to provide out of combat options that stay true to a fighters non-magical (although possibly Extraodrindary) line. Not skills persay, as at this point I almost hope Paizo reprints the Academy Trained fighter in the APG to get people to shut up about the lack if skill points.

Tossing allies or foes seems like a big one to me.

This is probably the best solution, considering that they're not going to do a complete redo of the fighter in the APG. As in, they're not going to say, "The fighter in the core rulebook is completely removed from the game, and here's a totally redone version for you."

Why not make the extra skill points a feat for fighters that gives you 4 skill points/level? That way, if you want to have a skill monkey fighter, you can use the feat to do it. No additional rules/class variants needed.

Actually, why not make it stack up to 3 times? You can then have the option to sacrifice 3 feats to be as much of a skill monkey as a rogue. ;) You can also have it say "add 2 additional skills of your choice to your class skill list per selection of this feat," too. I think that would solve most of the skill problems, although it might need fine tuning.

Hm .... looks tempting. In fact, it's a kind of character I'd love to play, if I ever played .... assuming the rules fit smoothly into Pathfinder, of course. :)

Really :|

We're going to throw out the realism card in a game where you actually benefit from lighting yourself on fire rather then fighting in total darkness?

Really?

I really love this argument. It is frustrating and adds absolutely nothing to the discussion -- in fact, it's out and out pernicious --

-- because taken to its extreme, it means that as soon as we put a spell in the game, or a dragon, or any fantastical element, then we should throw out EVERY benchmark of our own real-life experience.

I mean, in a world where there are elves, why assume that anyone has to eat? In a world with magic swords, why assume that carefully-plated steel provides better armor than clown makeup and a party hat? In a world with gnomes, why argue that someone who falls takes damage -- maybe it just makes them sing the Star Spangled Banner for 10 minutes for every 50 feet fallen?

"This is a fantasy world so any reference at all to reality is wrong" is an absolutely ridiculous argument because you can use it to create such mental chaos that you can 'defeat' any position with it, and discourse becomes both impossible and pointless. It represents a complete abdication of all logic, including logic within the terms of the game world, and as such, I loathe it with every cell of my being.

Xabulba wrote:

Lemon.

Lennin.

V.I. Lenin?

Bowdlerized, even.

I like the detail of the 19 intelligence requirement for the capstone power. A very adroit way to prevent Int being used as a dump stat. ;)

I think I'd like to play a transmutation iron mage .... looks interesting.

Mr. Fishy scares me.

Mr. Fishy attempts to assassinate me by making me laugh when there is stuff in my mouth I could choke on. ;)

I should probably whip out draft 7. Expect that in the hiatus between Superstar Round 2 submissions, and judging.

Eagerly awaiting Draft 7, and congratulations! :)

Come on man! What's with the Bohemian earspoon hate!

Haha - good one! :)

flyin dog wrote:

A greataxe is actually the last time I've rolled a twelve-sided. I've had one character who used one.

Naturally, he found a magical greatsword and switched to that.

...

So you want to nerf the Greatsword because you don't want to use a greataxe but want to use d12s? How about... no?

What I got from that is that he wanted to use the greataxe, but the DM gave him a magical greatsword rather than a magical greataxe as loot.

I mean, sure, he likes the greataxe, but if you're starting to meet a lot of DR foes, and you need magic weapons to contribute, are you going to choose to carry a mundane greataxe (even if you prefer it) or a magical greatsword, if those are your only choices?

Of course, in this case, if someone likes a certain weapon, I think it's part of the DM's job to make sure they can keep using that type as they level up. I mean, if I saw someone using a longsword and shield, and really developing the whole 'swordsman' thing, I wouldn't have the ONLY magic weapons that showed up be maces and Bohemian earspoons .... =P

I'd like a reason to use each of my dice. It's part of what makes D&D (or if you want to call it Pathfinder) fun to me. Multiple dice, each with different uses. I hate single dice systems. In many cases the creators of single dice systems describe that as a "feature" whereas I think of it as "boring".

Agreed. Part of what attracted me to the game many years ago, sadly perhaps, was that I was fascinated by the fact that it used all these strange polyhedral dice. And I still like using them. ;)

Heck, I once made up a bunch of cheap but effective miniature wargame rules that used d12s for the main mechanic, just so they'd see some use.

And I, too, despise one-die systems.

Speaking as a usual DM, the other problem with that is that it quickly becomes appalling to try to put together NPC antagonists. I mean, with the current system, there's plenty of work, too, but at least you've got a sturdy frame to hang all the details on to spare you at least a bit of the heavy lifting.

When you get into a situation where you have to custom-build every NPC, who's going to live through just one combat, though, it gets absolutely hellish. Just ask people who have been GMs for Star Wars campaigns ....

(Okay, if anyone wants to outsilly me here, you'll have to come up with Chuck Norris stats)

Chuck Norris has no stats. You cannot quantify infinity.

@ A Man in Black

Although I'd like to have the fighter perked up a bit myself, and I love the idea of the "bloodlines," I'd have to say, I'm a bit dubious about the "sneaky fighter" stuff you keep talking about, too.

There's a simple reason for this.

You can already build a sneaky fighter to an extent (as demonstrated above) by using feats and dexterity. This fighter will equal an average sort of rogue, although the rogue can be built to exceed the fighter at the same level.

What you appear to be calling for, though, is for the fighter to be able to EQUAL the rogue in stealth while retaining all of his fighter features -- that is, without having to give up any feats. Otherwise, in your view, he's nothing but a "sidekick" to the rogue.

However, if you make the fighter equal in stealth to the rogue, then what you end up with is that the ROGUE is suddenly useless. A weaker, less-armored character with fewer feats and less damage, whose stealthy role can be done just as well by the fighter -- who can also outfight the rogue in almost every way.

So, if you make the fighter equal to the rogue in stealth, you've suddenly made the rogue obsolete.

Smashing another class' utility to pieces in order to buff up another seems like a bass ackwards way of doing things, if you'll pardon my saying so. I intend no personal offense here. It's just that if you make the fighter able to equal the rogue's level of stealth without giving up anything in exchange, then the rogue's level of useless will be so high that it'll make the 3.5 fighter look like a paragon.

Because I'll take a super-sneaky guy with a greatsword, twice as many feats, and plate armor over a super-sneaky guy with a rusty shiv, a leather jerkin, and 10 skill ranks in Gerbil Bluffing any day. (I exaggerate humorously for effect, but that's pretty much what the proportion would be -- plate-armored ninja with greatsword class vs. leather-shirted ninja with kitchen knife class.)

I don't mind sneaky fighters. In fact, I kind of like the idea. But they've got to stay behind the rogue on the "sneak curve" -- even if that makes them the 'rogue's sidekick' -- because the rogue has to have SOMETHING that they're good at.

Xum wrote:

YuenglingDragon wrote:

When you're fighting you don't spam the exact same move over and over, you change your routine, your target, your angle.

I agree with that, but being UNABLE to do it more than once is just plain odd.

And making sence is important, the Vacian System is MAGIC, so by definition they break the rules already, whereas the fighter does not.

So you're saying fighters can't get nice things, or should be special. Got it.

Thankfully, all these systems agree with you, so players who want mechanical benefits when not fighting cannot have them, because the fighter must fight well and nothing else.

No, what he's saying is that there is no reason to make the fighter's abilities per day. Why on Earth can the fighter literally only use a certain maneuver three times a day? It makes no sense. And where does he say that the 'fighter can fight well and nothing else'? And what the heck does that have to do with a discussion about at-will versus per-day abilities?

Is it just me, or is this thread getting wacky? Phantom posts, inability to edit the posts I've already put into it .... it's saying Yuenglingdragon posted something, and I can't see the post at all. Something for Gary Teter to sink his teeth into, perhaps ....

[QUOTE="A Man In Black"

You're not an idiot, you're laboring under idiotic limitations. Your feat was a completely fine idea as-is, there's no need to make it work in a "mundane" way. My chief criticism of it is that it's yet another situational feat that only works if you know to take the feat before the situation comes up, but that's more a mechanical limitation than a conceptual one.

Ah, I see -- that makes a big difference. Sorry if I came across as a bit touchy. I had just gotten off the telephone after a 2-hour argument with someone extremely unpleasant, and I was still pretty, ah, excited.

That's an interesting point, making fantastic versions of fighters. This would probably fit in well with the "bloodlines" idea, too, since you could have some more mundane ones, and some more fantastic ones, to appeal to different people. I don't think it should be all one way or the other, necessarily, since there are probably people who would enjoy both playstyles.

I assumed that it didn't work for hexes, so when I used an NPC witch against my party, she totally avoided using hexes. In fact, I basically had to use her as a standard spellcaster, because using most of the witch stuff was too dicey to actually risk in combat.

I do have to wonder about a class this squishy needing to get up close and actually touch enemies to affect them -- especially since most of the effects don't seem to be worth having your head chopped off by some melee brute for.

Interesting ideas .... hard to implement, perhaps, but interesting. :)

Something like (just brainstorming here) --

CANNY VETERAN

Abilities something along the lines of (these are very roughly sketched out, with the occasional humorous one) --

Gains Appraisal as a bonus class skill.

Survivor - gets a +2 bonus on Survival checks to find food or water for every 4 levels; also can roll an Appraisal or Perception check to determine if food or water is fit for consumption (or if it is spoiled, poisoned, etc.) against some DC.

Pragmatic killer - can make a Perception or Appraisal check vs. opponent's CMD to gain a one-time bonus to hit and damage against a 'weak point,' equal to 1/2 fighter level.

Avoiding latrine duty -- able to blend into crowds of people to avoid notice. Whenever trying to blend into a group of 10 or more people, can make a Stealth check with a bonus equal to 1/2 level + wisdom modifier, thus allowing the canny veteran to use groups of people as 'camouflage' when being pursued, etc.. Comes from years of learning how to remain unnoticed by superiors when they are looking for some to stick with a loathsome duty.

Etc., etc.