Chakat Firepaw's page

Oh, I see the business model for these dice:

"Buy a new set of dice at individual die prices every time you create a new character."

The only people you really need to get rid of somehow are the WotR PCs, who are just an order of magnitude more powerful than all the rest.

While they are by far the most powerful, that power is itself a way of putting them "on a leash." I treat Mythic as being a low grade of divine power and thus something that can generate active divine responses to proactive activities.

They do get a pass on things which are in their 'mortal concerns'. So the WotR PCs can deal with the leftover problems of the Worldwound, but if they head off to stomp an issue flat in Taldor then some demon lord might just play an "I'm just responding in kind," card and send forces to counter them. This also gives Mythic characters a reason to head out from the material plane to places where they will have more freedom of action.

Tar-Baphon gets away with things partly because "restore my empire, seek godhood and continue my fight against Aroden and his legacy," are his mortal concerns. He also likely doesn't really care if he sets off a spiral of ever increasing interventions, (he might even want the resultant chaos).

Yqatuba wrote:

It seems better to me to roll 3d6 6 times and then pick which goes where. Otherwise you are forced to play certain classes whether you want to or not.

I think this is the point of the exercise. You have to see how you can use your system mastery to turn an existing (possibly terrible) stat block into something functional.

Yep, with rolled stats part of the game is dealing with what you got. As the style of play shifted from the old assumption that most characters only lasted an adventure or two¹, rolled stats also shifted towards generation systems that gave higher and more flexible results².

Back in the days of 1ed AD&D it also wasn't a case of "what would work with these stats?" but rather "what am I allowed to play with these stats?" For instance, the four 'basic' classes required:

Cleric: Str 6, Int 6, Wis 9, Con 6, Cha 6
Fighter: Str 9, Wis 6, Dex 6, Con 7, Cha 6
Magic-User: Int 9, Wis 6, Dex 6, Con 6, Cha 6
Thief: Str 6, Int 6, Dex 9, Con 6, Cha 6

(Yes, it was possible to have a roll where all classes and/or races were disallowed. This generally involved having two stats of 5 or less.)

1: Either due to death or being retired quickly. Back in that day there really was a good reason for the typical bar/innkeeper to be something like a 4th level fighter.

2: Even the 1ed DMG said that 3d6 in order wasn't generally a good idea for most games, (by then it was clear that the Lake Geneva games were going to be atypical in how many characters each player would create).

There is a long standing counter to foes who are going to base their strategy around spellcasting: Providing fights with disposable guardians that are threatening enough to draw out the use of spells.

Note that the word is threatening, not dangerous: Take some skeletons, cover them with illusions and you can get an encounter that looks really dangerous at first glace. Perhaps toss in something that really is dangerous, if someone assumes it's just another speedbump, to make sure people have to treat them all as threats.

For this particular case, however, a big chunk of the demon's defence against this kind of magic should be based on a simple fact: He knows that it exists. That means that he can include efforts to place defences that give any attacking group a choice between expending that magic or giving him enough prep time for reinforcements to gather¹.

(I'll assume that SBT protection is in place.)

1: Yes, it would be possible to overcome this by focusing more resources on the issue. That in and of itself means those defences were useful at draining other magic.

In short, this was too 'Old School' for a decidedly lethal judge back when 'Old School' was 'that new derivative of Chainmail'.

If you guys want to try it as a hard-mode lark, knock yourselves out. I can't recommend it long term.

Using 3d6 in order makes a lot of sense for how the Lake Geneva campaigns were played¹. When you go in assuming a high character death rate at low levels, character retirement being common² and everyone having multiple characters on the go. You got decent and relatively balanced stats because the characters that last are generally the better ones.

Once you switch to an assumption that people aren't going to be going through dozens of characters you need to do something to boost the stats rolled and even out the spread between players.

Even for a bit of a silly "Lake Geneva" inspired idea I've toyed around with, I wouldn't use 3d6 in order for PC stats. Perhaps 4d6 drop lowest, in order or even 23-25-27 arranged randomly before the +2.

1: To be honest, quite a bit of the "why would they do this?" from OD&D/1ed makes much more sense in that context.

2: Those classic modules? If you met someone in town with class levels it was probably somebody's retired character from those games.

Something to remember about pre-Thrune Cheliax is that it wasn't solidly good. Consider the "Six Trials of Larazod" from the Council of Thieves AP. This murderplay predates Thrune by a century and clearly shows that Asmodeans were solid enough a part of Cheliaxian society to be the heroes.

Yes, it was banned and caused uproar at the time but the clear implication I got from the adventure was that this was due to its unprecedented lethality: The PCs are the first cast to ever survive the play and, IIRC, it was dangerous just to attend.

Cool! Do they say how large an area is affected (local / city / continent / global) or is that a GM call?

Largely a GM call, informed by the scale of the wish that pushed things too far.

Does miracle contribute to reality-bending?

The article didn't specifically say, I would say it's likely less dangerous because Miracle effects are going to be less 'bending reality' and more 'divine power does stuff'. (e.g. A Wish protects you from fire by changing reality to make you fire immune, Miracle has your god cast what amounts to a 'super-Mythic' protection spell.)

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

One thing to remember is that, in the Pathfinder setting, casting a large number of wishes is hard on reality and causes side effects.

I haven't heard that before, and it sounds interesting. Could you expand on it?

As mentioned, it was brought up in the Legacy of Fire AP, (shock, the AP that involves a lot of wishes being cast). It's a GM's call as to when things start getting noticeable with effects including:

A distortion of perceptions, imposing a -4 on all Wis-based checks.
All spells are distorted in sensory effects, (e.g. a Wall of Stone might manifest as rock-hard rotting salmon meat).
A DC20 caster level check to cast spells, failure of which results in the caster taking 2Xspell level of non-lethal damage and the spell either having its caster level reduced by 1d20 or being Empowered, Enlarged and Extended, (50% chance of either).

If things get particularly bad, a GM can feel free to make things even worse, (e.g. full-up wild magic areas and magical contamination effects).

What about a Noble Djinn being freed (who also can grant 3 wishes per day?) Being CG I imagine if a good party freed one at least they would see themselves as forever in their debt, but probably couldn't just come give them wishes whenever they feel like it as that would be too powerful.

While there would be a great debt owed, it probably wouldn't be worth simply a long period of unrestrained service. More likely would be something along the lines of: "You are hereafter my friend and are welcome guests in my home. To repay you for your gift of freedom to me, I will grant you three great boons¹."

One thing to remember is that, in the Pathfinder setting, casting a large number of wishes is hard on reality and causes side effects.

1: i.e. The PCs probably get three wishes but could use those boons for something else that isn't granted by a wish. For instance, they might spend one of them to gain aid in a battle, (either the Djinn himself or a force of his servants to reinforce the PC's army).

Otter makes you swim at your full base speed, and you don't need to make concentration checks to cast spells while underwater. But you still have to make Swim checks every round, which means you might drown or go nowhere if you fail them.

The greater version of otter doesn't need to give that because you have to have the basic aspect to add the greater one to. The 'full version' of the otter greater aspect is:

- You gain a swim speed equal to your full speed.
- All the benefits of having a swim speed.
- The ability to hold your breath for 4XCon rounds.
- You don't need to make concentration checks for underwater spellcasting.

So no need for swim checks just to swim.

You're probably right, but dammit, they should just really put hard-line wording if they plan for a feature to be like... one thing only. Unless there's some other class or archetype that gets "Riposte" as a class feature, why not just say the prerequisite is a level x Duelist?

It's a rules writing standard they adopted ages ago for futureproofing. Yes, it's a bit silly seeing it used in one of the final PF1 products but it still allows for some third-party product or house rule giving a non-Duelist access to Riposte.

An old network like that always has a fallback for a few oddball connections:

Back when it was in use, there was an outpost there that took advantage of some resource¹ or kept an eye on some potential threat. Sure, it doesn't make sense now but but that's because things change over the centuries.

1: Noting that the 'resource' can simply be "it's a really good place to make a particular kind of astronomical observation," (which is one of the RL reasons for Antarctic outposts).

Please tell me that "chakat" doesn't mean what I think it means in your name.

Well, that depends on what you think it means. If you think it means that a Bernard Doove inspired Champions character I was toying around with decided to set up camp in my brain as a fursona then you are right.

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

My main point was that torture is that in a world with magic like that, torture for information is justifiable in the first place.

It’s not.

It is possible for the evil of inflicting torture is less than the evil of not getting some piece of information.

Nope. Mainly because this is a flimsy pretense that banks on “the torture is definitely going to work and lead to good outcome”.

Way to _completely ignore_ the very next sentence. Now, care to respond to my actual position or are you just going to play this delete and ignore game? (If so, say so so I can dismiss you as not conversing in good faith.)

Just to be clear, in case you missed it:

That premise doesn't in any way say that torture will work, just that there are cases where "not getting information X" is worse than "engaging in torture." That's all, nothing more.

If torture doesn't work, (such as in RL), then it is impossible to avoid the evil of not getting the information by torturing but that doesn't make not getting the information any less of an evil.

Once more, so that you have more to pretend to not read: That does not assume torture will work, it is just setting up a point of comparison between situations where it can and cannot work.

Quote:

In a world like that described by the PF rules, you can get into such situations meaning that torturing someone for information may be justifiable as the least evil option. (N.B. It's never a good option but sometimes there simply isn't a good option to choose.)

There’s always another option other than torture. It’s only justifiable in the “i want to do it, therefore it’s justified” way of thought.

If that other option is to allow some other evil and you are in a world where torture can work to extract information, (such as, say, one in which spells like Zone of Truth exist), you are faced with choosing the lesser of two evils. Now, you can believe that it is impossible for there to be an evil worse than torture but that is a rather extreme and hard to defend position.

Remember that what we are speaking of is justification as the lesser evil: The lesser evil is still evil.

(Are you perhaps confused about the context? This line of discussion is a bit tangential to the OP after all and is about the addition of truth detecting/extracting magic changing the ability to justify torture in general, not for characters of any particular alignment.)

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

My main point was that torture is that in a world with magic like that, torture for information is justifiable in the first place.

It’s not.

It is possible for the evil of inflicting torture is less than the evil of not getting some piece of information. In RL, (and any world where you cannot reliably detect that a statement is a true reflection of the victim's knowledge), you can never get a situation where torture allows you to avoid the latter evil.

In a world like that described by the PF rules, you can get into such situations meaning that torturing someone for information may be justifiable as the least evil option. (N.B. It's never a good option but sometimes there simply isn't a good option to choose.)

Remember, I said torture was easier to justify in a context where it is being compared to being impossible to justify.

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

I'd say that it's easier to justify torture in a world where you have magic like Zone of Truth:

In a world without a way to force true statement or detect lies, torture is only effective at getting the victim to say what the torturer wants to hear. If you have come to the conclusion that you have captured a witch and that she knows other witches then you keep torturing until she names people, even though she has never even met a witch.

With magic, you can use the torture to force the person to give an answer, (Detect Thoughts can be beaten by mental discipline¹ while Zone of Truth only requires that you keep your mouth shut), and you use the magic to ensure the answers given are true.

Those spells are just the first I came up with off the top of my head. There are many different ways the magic can get the truth. When you start dealing with higher level spells the ways to avoid them become harder and in some cases impossible. For example I could use Geas to force a person to tell everything that they know.

My main point was that torture is that in a world with magic like that, torture for information is justifiable in the first place. Remember that we are contrasting that with a world where torture for information is all but useless, (you can get true information but you can never really trust it).

Yes, there are still more effective choices than torture but as you mention, they tend to be higher level and thus not as readily available.

Azaersi not only survived, but also founded a monster nation? How can it happen? I thought PCs destroyed the Ironfang Legion entirely.

I found the possibility of a diplomatic solution so obvious that I was expecting to want to give her a good shaking and tell her "you have your new homeland and it's an instant economic powerhouse!"

How much of a toll do you think a merchant would pay to be able to get from Abasalom to Minkai in a couple hours, (including time spent waiting in line, paying the toll, etc.)?

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

Oli Ironbar wrote:

...
Galt, definitely not Revolutionary France
Taldor, definitely not Napoleonic Europe
...
Which are still missing?

My quick take on those and a few others is as the "five Frances":

Galt: The terrors unending.
Taldor: Twilight of the First Kingdom, (although this looks like it is becoming the Restored Kingdom).
Andorran: The Revolution gloriously successful.
Chellax: First Empire with devils.
Isger: Vichy.

Isn't Cheliax more like fascist Italy?

Well, other than having been successful at grabbing up territory.

Taldor is more the Byzantine Empire, but the "five Frances" thing makes for a an effective way of getting those across as a group. Sometimes I even describe Korvosa and Sargava as variant Quebecs to go with them.

One thing I've done for "high end" magic items¹ is to make getting them a roleplaying thing. "OK, you've asked around and no one has an {item} they are willing to sell. However, the wizard Peart of Syrinx is often willing to make items on commission. Not that he's going to even give a bunch of no-name itinerant sellswords the time of day. Perhaps you can talk to that noble you saved, he might be able to give you a letter of introduction or something...."

Another thing you can do with the higher end items is to bookmark/download a treasure generator that will do 'city treasure' to get a list of what the bigger things a city might have to offer, (of course, finding this out will take time and effort).

Here's one from AoN.

1: High end is defined flexibly, higher level characters will tend to have better contacts and start with more doors open.

...
Galt, definitely not Revolutionary France
Taldor, definitely not Napoleonic Europe
...
Which are still missing?

My quick take on those and a few others is as the "five Frances":

Galt: The terrors unending.
Taldor: Twilight of the First Kingdom, (although this looks like it is becoming the Restored Kingdom).
Andorran: The Revolution gloriously successful.
Chellax: First Empire with devils.
Isger: Vichy.

In world where spells that can reliable get the truth without torture I would say that torturing someone is an evil act. In a world without magic you can make the argument that torture is sometimes necessary to get the truth when someone is not willing to cooperate. Many of the spells that could be used in place of torture are not high level spells. Zone of truth and detect thoughts are both second level spells. This means they only require a 3rd level caster.

I'd say that it's easier to justify torture in a world where you have magic like Zone of Truth:

In a world without a way to force true statement or detect lies, torture is only effective at getting the victim to say what the torturer wants to hear. If you have come to the conclusion that you have captured a witch and that she knows other witches then you keep torturing until she names people, even though she has never even met a witch.

With magic, you can use the torture to force the person to give an answer, (Detect Thoughts can be beaten by mental discipline¹ while Zone of Truth only requires that you keep your mouth shut), and you use the magic to ensure the answers given are true.

As for justifying torture as something a character does: Evil can do it without question, neutrals can also do it as an evil act. Good characters will almost always have it as an alignment violation, (the big exception being LG characters: Provided the torture has legal sanction and will be effective or is a legal punishment).

1: Pick an earworm, see if you can get it into your magical interrogator's head.

KahnyaGnorc wrote:

Mako Senako wrote:

blahpers wrote:

Reminds me of The Death Gate Cycle's answer to why everybody of moderate means doesn't just use resurrection or reincarnation magic all over the place.

I dont suppose you'd be willing to share what it says, you can send it as a private message if you don't want to spoil it for anyone else.

** spoiler omitted **

Considering how little the rich cared about the poor throughout most of history , even viewing them as 'less than people', I really don't see that little restriction stopping mass use of resurrection magic for the rich. Unless you couldn't choose the secondary target? Maybe?

Not only couldn't they choose, IIRC it tended to hit the same kind of person, (i.e. raise an elf, kill an elf). Since the setup there had the truly powerful ruling class as a different, (and fairly limited in number), race, the same people who could benefit from resurrection magic would be the targets for the side effects.

In D&D 1st Edition, for some reason Orcs were officially labeled as being Lawful Evil, and weren't very smart. Not sure when this changed to the current Chaotic Evil.

It was a 3.x switch, likely due to influence from things like Warhammer.

I tend to use in order rolling to generate what you might term 'second tier' NPCs. For example, for a band of orcs I might have the stats for the typical orc and the boss but then roll up a half dozen atypical orcs. The atypical ones that get used either get 'colour' roles, (i.e. the encounters that are neither a boss nor just another encounter with X grunts/guards/warriors/whatevers), or used to spice up one of the larger encounters that would otherwise be against "6 warriors each with 24hp and 3d6 sp."

On occasion I do use PC-quality rolling, (e.g. 23-25-27), for main NPCs if I'm stuck for inspiration. Sometimes with the best stat also being randomly placed.

If I'm just looking for not having every {Foo} having exactly +3 to hit and an AC of 17, I'm more likely to simply switch from the flat array, (3X10, 3X11), used in the bestiaries to an 8-13 array.

I think multiple checks for picking locks makes sense if we're talking about pin an tumbler locks, since you have to set all the pins to the correct height in order to pick the lock.

Given that pin tumbler locks are a 19th century invention, (and the kind you are probably thinking of mid-19th century), you probably aren't going to be encountering them on Golarion.

The best you are likely to encounter are lever tumbler, (TBH even those are pushing it a bit), but even a basic warded lock can justify multiple checks, (as you maneuver the pick around the wards). Another reason for requiring multiple successes would be locks with hidden and/or false keyholes, (something that was done before the various types of tumbler lock were invented).

More complicated warded lock setups can even justify having setbacks in the rules: Consider a lock with two keyholes where unlocking #1 will re-lock #2. A critical failure there can represent doing #2 first then discovering that you have to do it again.

And now for something completely different: where is New Thassilon's southern frontier?

It's fuzzy, and I don't just mean in the sense that it isn't well defined in the AP. Remember that Golarion isn't at the point where you generally have borders that are simple lines you can draw on a map¹ but rather are more vague things that are only truly well defined when there is a (near) impassible barrier².

For a first pass of what is actually controlled, I'd say the southern extent would be defined by the Red Mountains in the west, the North edge of Lurkwood, the Aloren and Chavali river valleys to their meeting, dropping south from the east corner of the Gnashers to the Iron Peaks, the north shore of the Storval Deep then across from the north edge of the Wyvern mountains to the north edge of the Urglin Gap. Even this is likely highly disputed east of Lurkwood with the Shundar-Quah Shoanti so the solid control might be just along the Kodar foothills.

Claimed territory would be farther south, including the Velashu Uplands, Lurkwood, everthing north of the western Storval Rise and all but the south end of the Storval Deep.

The big question is how well Sorshen deals with the Shoanti. If she can get the Shundar-Quah on side, that quickly solidifies my first pass. If she can't, that pushes early control back to the foothills and an ongoing conflict that may be familiar to those from Australia, Canada and the US as settlements develop along trade routes.

One near-term possibility is a Kodar foothills extent with an exclave on the north end of the Storval Deep. Instead of taking territory from the Shundar-Quah, she just asserts travel and navigation rights on the Kazaron and Stalak rivers. Turtleback Ferry would like be vary happy with this, at least once a port is built at their end of the Deep.

1: Remember that it wasn't until about the end of the 20th century that we got rid of all the uncontested national borders that were things like "somewhere in the patch of desert south of these hills and north of those stony ridges over there."

2: Think mountain ranges and seas, not rivers, (which actually should tend to be in the middle of nations).

Qualidar wrote:

There's a half-orc NPC in the city, but unless I'm mistaken with the timeline, orcs are unknown in the tine of Thassilon. They're driven to the surface by the dwarves' Quest for Sky in the following Age of Darkness, right?

Orcs still exist, and thus half-orcs can exist, even before the Quest For Sky. Dwarves are the ones that, before this event, are more obscure. Orcs lived in the uppermost reaches, between dwarves and the surface, and as such would often drift up above ground to raid or explore or whatever.

Or they could be encountered by those exploring down.

I could certainly see a Thassilonian expedition having gone down and brought back up a number of 'specimens' of whatever races they encountered. Combine that with humans being about as randy as dolphins, (and/or some not exactly ethical breeding experiments), and you get a handful of half-orcs floating around.

A player could never play a deity. It is never said why deities don't directly act in the world, but they don't. Probably because if they did there wouldn't be any need for us.

I have a go-to reason for that kind of thing: Overt action brings, and justifies, a response from other gods. Combine the likelihood of the response outweighing the initial action with the dangers of a possible escalation spiral, (and even that it's something that just isn't done), and you get something most of the gods will avoid doing.

Even most the nastier gods probably follow the 'rules' out of self interest. Rovagug might not, but there's a reason he's locked up.

(This also gives a reason for Mythic characters to not run around fixing things: They count as low-tier divine actors, they're fine so long as they stick to their 'fully mortal' concerns but if they start sticking their noses elsewhere they generate excuses for intervention.)

Her backup plan? Can rogues have contingencies now perhaps? Kyra and a whole host of other clerics sound a bit too much even for such a mechanic...

While the whole thing might be a bit too much, I could see an ability that allows for some details 'to be determined later'. That she smuggled in the godbotherers and got them concealed in one of the tomb chambers was already set, but exactly which one was left open until she 'led' the vamps there.

It's similar to what I sometimes do with highly intelligent and/or tactically skilled NPCs: I allow them to cheat a bit because they are far smarter/more skilled than I am. Of course The Immortal Warlord™ ended up at his escape hatch while you are on the far side of a barrier field, it's not like he doesn't have a couple thousand years of fighting experience and the smarts to predict exactly how you would move during the fight.

For encounters while traveling, one thing to do is to make them varied. Sure, the PCs might encounter an aggressive animal or murderous bandits but they might also meet a traveling merchant¹ heading the other way.

The combat encounters that do occur are also not going to be like those found while "actively adventuring": The danger is going to be more from the PCs not being prepared. Bulky/heavy weapons and heavier armour are likely to be packed, not worn, and prepared spellcasters are going to have non-combat loadouts, (e.g. having Tiny Hut or Secure Shelter prepped for when you stop for the night).

For longer trips, you might want to make sure you have a selection of side treks that you can throw in². Things to do along the way will help develop the setting, generate a sense of scale and give the PCs a chance to be heroes/mercenary scum/blackguards/whatever.

1: Who may or may not be honest.

2: If you are designing them yourselves, make any built in hooks flexible. There's no need for the players to know that the lost children and stolen holy knick-knack the players ignored would have both led to the same band of bandits that the kidnapped daughter did.

­

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

Ah, I see your problem. You did things in the wrong order for using rolled stats.

While with arrays and point buy you want to decide on race/class then determine ability scores, that's not what you do when rolling. With rolled stats you do it the other way around, roll the ability scores first then you decide on race and class.¹

That showcases why it's a bad idea for new players. How would they know what character worked on such stats and which don't?

Such lack of knowledge is just as, if not more, problematic for things like point buy. If you can't tell if {stat array} is good for a class or not, you don't know what you need to construct an array for that class.

Monk was the most intriguing class for me, so I wanted to play that.

One of the things about rolled stats is that sometimes you don't get to play your first choice for a character. Be glad you weren't playing in the days when wanting to play a paladin meant crossing your fingers that the less than 1/1000 chance of getting the rolls needed panned out.

­I'm still not seeing the appeal of a system were powergaming is basically mandatory.

The core appeal is in its ability to push you out of ruts. Many people develop go-to character builds, rolled ability scores force you to deal with the numbers you got.

It's not just that, it's also that a roll that would even be great on some characters makes others (usually the ones already the weakest) almost unplayable. For instance, my very first character was a Monk (cMonk, unchained didn't exist back then) with a 4d6 drop lowest roll of 18/17/13/9/8/8. Pretty nice rolls on plenty of characters (and some of the other players envied my rolls), but on a Monk?

Ah, I see your problem. You did things in the wrong order for using rolled stats.

While with arrays and point buy you want to decide on race/class then determine ability scores, that's not what you do when rolling. With rolled stats you do it the other way around, roll the ability scores first then you decide on race and class.¹

There are other methods to stat generation that work, like a choice of arrays (haven't tried that yet, but I can see it being the best method). But rolling like described in the CRB (all four methods) is just way too likely to lead to inner-party imbalances and frustration.

There are systems that work better for intraparty balance, such as 23-25-27².

1: In the extreme case of 1ed D&D, you didn't even know what races or classes you could choose until after you rolled. (You rolled a 3 for Int: Do you want your fighter to be a half-orc, dwarf or human?)

2: A, B and C are rolled with 3d6 each, D=23-A, E=25-B, F=27-C, reroll any result that generates a number above 18. Add 2 to any one stat of 16 or less and arrange as desired.

As a general rule, no. The main exception are the spells granted in the "worshiper specific" sidebars, (e.g. while an Inquisitor of any deity can cast Harvest Knowledge, Clerics can only cast it if they worship Calistria), and any spell or item can have a restriction specific to it.

Now, such items and spells are certainly going to be more common with worshipers of the deity in question. Partly because they have easier access to them and partly because they are the kinds of things they would use, (what worshiper of Abadar isn't going to be interested in a spell that makes appraisals easier, faster and never unknowingly wrong?).

PS: I just realized, Chakat Firepaw, are you on NAR also? Small world, you are the second person I have "met" both on these forums and elsewhere.

Yes, that is almost certainly me, (while there is another chakat named Firepaw, shi isn't someone's fursona).

2) Consider limiting the players to the Core Rulebook (or maybe just one additional splatbook). This keeps the options down, makes it easier for both the players and you to learn the rules, and avoids analysis paralysis.

Yep, the classic advice about "not saying no" is about what the characters try to do, not character creation. There is nothing wrong with saying "that character option causes problems and/or is inappropriate for this campaign," and disallowing it. One thing you might do is to spend a little time making up a list of what you are going to allow, what you need players to ask you about, (either for informative purposes¹ or to get permission²), and what is a flat no³.

As a new GM, I would advise you to err a little bit on the side of disallowing things. It's easier to allow something later than to remove something that has become a problem and it's easier to fix something if it was only allowed provisionally in the first place.

It's also worth dropping hints during character creation. Telling your players that their characters "need to be willing to travel," gives them a warning that they shouldn't use builds focused on being really effective when in their home city.

1: For instance, you probably want to tell players that buying firearms and related gear will be inconvenient for their Gunslinger and you want to know about what oddball languages they have taken, (sure, most don't matter but you also probably don't want to specifically call out Tien as mattering to a campaign in Galt).

2: Some things can either work fine or wreck the campaign depending on how they are played. For instance, I require evil PCs to get permission because I need to hear how the player is going to be handling the character, ("your LE character is the sworn protector of another PC and is a 'demonic bodyguard' type? Sure, go ahead").

3: It's still good to avoid flat nos, mostly it should be things that are simply contrary a functional party. (e.g. I ban priests of Rovagug and Father Skinsaw.)

YMMV, but for my money the old kobolds were cuter. *shrug*

.

TBH, I've never really been a fan of that set of proportions. It works for comedic and it works for being creepy but outside of that I have almost never come across it working.

You are assuming single-path monodimensional time. It's common to use at least bidemensional time in fiction involving time travel.

Think of there being a 'history' dimension and a 'perception' dimension. Normally, people's lives trace a straight diagonal¹, but time travel changes that. When you travel into the past, your line of existence jumps along the history axis but stays at the same point in the perception axis.

So, if a time traveler causes a change to history at p=n₁ and another reverses it at p=n₂, the 'graph of history' will have three bands: Two bands with the 'original' history when looking below p=n₁ or above p=n₂ and one band between those two lines with the changed history.

With this sort of setup, all you have to assume is that time travel, (or at least the relevant forms of it), grants the ability to remember lines of history from earlier points in your perception.

1: If you were to account for relativity, there would be curvature but it would always remain positive in both dimensions.

Primogeniture, litterally meaning the firstborn is invested. Meaning that the firstborn child of the ruler inherits all titles.

Historically, when the term primogeniture has been used it has been presumed to be agnatic or at least male-preference primogeniture rather than absolute primogeniture. Remember that in RL, almost no nation used absolute primogeniture until the late 20th century.

I'm just going to point out that this isn't a good idea. While you could use averages or whatever other statistical derivation you wish to use to say how many creatures save, it won't tell you which creatures save. And at the end of the day, which creatures save is much more important than how many. Especially if you keep applying area of effect spells to the same group of creatures.

The reason for using things like binomial tables is for when you have a large group of functionally identical creatures. If there are 100 archers up on that ridge line firing at you, you don't really care if Albert hit you and Bob missed or if Bob hit and Albert missed.

Now, these days it's easier to use dice software to do a mass roll rather than simulating it with a binomial table, but they end up working the same.

There are a number of ways of distributing multiple effects. The most basic being to divide up the group as effects are applied. So, for your example, you do a mass roll with all of them for the entangle, followed by two rolls for the slow and four rolls for the fireball. That's still much less rolling than rolling all 90 saves.

RUMBLETiGER wrote:

I don't understand. Form of the Dragon I states "you become a Medium chromatic or metallic dragon" in its opening line, and it lists Bronze as one of the Dragon options. Medium sized bronze dragon is what the spell does.

So maybe it's just the vindictive GM in me that loves for players to do non-standard things with wishes but:

Quote:

I Wish to become a Bronze Dragon as per the Polymorph Any Object spell.

When I hear that wish, I default to adult bronze dragon, even though Polymorph Any Object can't actually fulfill that. But the wish attempts to fulfill it to the best of it's abilities. If you had specified a Young Bronze Dragon I would agree on the size part.

I tend to be generous when Wish-type spells are used to simulate highly flexible spells, given that part of the power of a wish is how flexible it is. Part of what makes Polymorph any Object 8th level is that you can use it to turn just about anything into just about anything.

I would be inclined to allow this as true change in form into a young Bronze Dragon, modulo how well I trusted the player to handle it.

But I also would have told you that it wouldn't work exactly as you envision, and not just waste your wish.

Yep, when granted as a reward/boon I would never pervert or wreck a wish.

(Mind you, that demon who granted you a wish in payment for something just might.)

I've been letting a bit of thought roll around about this and I think the original "virtues as purified versions" works better. The fact that three of them end up as compounds is even a benefit: It helps portray Thassalon as being a different culture. In Thassalonian, those are singular short words and that says something about their values.

If it comes up in play, all you need to do to cover the 'clumsy wording' is to point out that an exact translation isn't possible even with the aid of magic. The only way to put those concepts into Taldade is to include qualifiers and even then it isn't going to be quite right.

If the cable TV companies offered a completely new offer and stopped offering their previous line and heavily advertised the fact that the old was coming to an end, while the new was taking over with a very specific date, and all of this was announced more than a year before the change, with advance warning by email, I do not see on what basis people could complain about having to spend money on something they do not want.

You mean except for that being specifically _illegal_ here?

When this was an issue with the cable companies, the argument Shaw, Rogers, etc. were making was that they were giving warning and people had plenty of time to cancel.

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

There is a difference between "if you want to be a dick, this fits," and "this is written in a way that some players will read it as being told to be a dick." The worry on some of out parts is that goblins are going to be the latter, the same way that kender were.

Goblins are not written that way, though. Not in the PF2 playtest, and presumably not in the final version.

You've obviously never dealt with a character who has a prankster complex.

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

Which will matter for the minority of players who ever actually see that character description.

The same could be said for the "minority" of people who look into other Golarion Goblin lore. And since he's an Iconic he's probably gonna be seen by more than a few.

No, he'll just be seen by the few that read the blog. Most players aren't going to see anything that isn't in the actual rule and setting books.

Quote:

and "this is written in a way that some players will read it as being told to be a dick." The worry on some of out parts is that goblins are going to be the latter, the same way that kender were.

It most likely won't and even if it did that's a player issue that you as a GM have the full ability to resolve.

That it was possible for a GM to deal with the results did not change the fact that the way kender were described caused problems.

It's also a common sense thing. I can spend all my starting gold buying pizza ingredients and make pizza rather than adventure with everyone else trying to play, but that doesn't mean I should.

You clearly didn't understand the distinction I was making there. For the analogy to work, it would have to involve something that implies (character type) has a constant desire for fresh pizza.

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

One: They did, they subscribed to something that said it was for PF1 products and that's what they were paying to get.

That's one way of looking at it, I view as getting Paizo products in that line.

And PF2 is a _NEW LINE_.

Quote:

Two: The cable companies around here made the _exact same argument_ when they were trying to keep negative-option billing from being banned. Note that those arguments failed.

"Around here" is rather nebulous so just going off guessing, it's not the same thing. You're subscribed to rulebooks, you're getting rulebooks.

If you need to know: Ontario

And you are _still_ making the same arguments the cable TV companies did when they were doing all the negative-option stuff. People were subscribed to cable TV and they were getting cable TV, just new channels that they never said they wanted and that they had to cancel if they didn't want to pay for them.

Quote:

It would be just as easy to send emails that, instead of requiring those who don't want PF2 stuff to take properly timed action, offer a quick way of subscribing to the PF2 stuff that matches the existing PF1 subscriptions.

Writing the email probably wouldn't but canceling every single Pathfinder subscription adn then forcing their customers to sign back up would be a total nightmare for both parties.

A nightmare?

You let the existing ones come to an end and you give a single link to say "subscribe to the PF2 equivalents."

Quote:

Requiring people say no to not get something they don't want comes across as wanting to grab some money from people who don't want it. IOW, you will have people who see it as 'picking their pocket'.

That's on them, those people have had to do the same thing a supplemental or a new AP they're not interested in has come out.

You are confusing one-offs with switching to an entirely new product line.

The same thing here, you're not getting a line of toner ink from Paizo, you're getting rulebooks and Adventures. The same as when they switched from 3.5 to Pathfinder.

PF1 was fully compatible with 3.5 in a way that PF2 isn't with PF1.

Quote:

Requiring people to say yes to get the new line of products proactively says to people "we want to do this the right way" and only creates a very mild inconvenience.

To you maybe, to me and plenty of others it's an enormous and unneeded headache.

I'm sorry that you find something that could be done with a single link in an email to be an enormous headache.

Quote:

It's not "who gets inconvenienced" it's "inconvenience v. appearing to be dishonest money-grubbers."

No it's just an inconvenience thing.

It's oh so nice of you to tell me what I think, do you also do card tricks?

Quote:

The difference being that this is a permanent switch to a new product line as opposed to an oddball singular unwanted item. For an analogy, think a computer gaming magazine issue focused on flight simulators v. that magazine switching from covering PC games to covering Playstation games.

Not remotely close to what's happening. We're getting a new edition, that's it.

Congratulations, you just discovered that no analogy is perfect. Now, are you claiming that this isn't a permanent change in the game they are going to be sending out products for?

Also, I'm finding the changes in PF2 to be enough that I have been evaluating it as a new game, not a revision, so that makes my analogy exactly on point.

Requiring people to cancel their existing PF1 subs if they don't want to continue with PF2 is inconvenient for those people.

You totally missed my point: It's not about it being inconvienent, it's about it coming across as dishonest. Plus there will be people who are going to be "WTF is this thing? This isn't the kind of thing I wanted to buy, they're ripping me off!"

Requiring people to start new PF2 subs (while automatically cancelling their existing PF1 subs) is inconvenient for those people. IOW, whichever way you do it, someone will be inconvenienced.

It's not "who gets inconvenienced" it's "inconvenience v. appearing to be dishonest money-grubbers."

Since if there were to be no transition to PF2 the situation would be the same as it has been since subs were first started (if you don't want to continue to get sub materials, you have to cancel the sub(s))

The difference being that this is a permanent switch to a new product line as opposed to an oddball singular unwanted item. For an analogy, think a computer gaming magazine issue focused on flight simulators v. that magazine switching from covering PC games to covering Playstation games.

and since it seems likely there will be more people wanting to continue than to quit, it seems most reasonable to me to require people to cancel if they don't want to continue. Of course, I do want to continue, which I suppose means I'm biased. But then I'm pretty sure everybody else taking sides on this is also biased one way or t'other.

An important thing here:

Requiring action to cancel is not just going to burn goodwill with those people, but also people they talk to about it. That burn is also not just going to be over an inconvenience but over a business practice that edges into territory that gets people mad enough to take it to the government.

I suppose, then, that it's good thing the iconic goblin is presented as a guy who... ISN'T a toxic party-wrecker, then.

Which will matter for the minority of players who ever actually see that character description.

"but the rulebook says" requires the rulebook to actually say things, after all.

Which is why I premised my position on "as presented in the playtest rules". If the PF2 CRB presents goblins the way they were in the playtest, they are going to be solidly in GM permission territory at my table.

If they are presented differently, then things are likely going to be different.

Gnomes are already pretty easy to play as kender/the most annoying and disruptive PC possible. If Goblins are not available peeople inclined to do this will just play a Gnome.

There is a difference between "if you want to be a dick, this fits," and "this is written in a way that some players will read it as being told to be a dick." The worry on some of out parts is that goblins are going to be the latter, the same way that kender were.

Really, having something not be core because 'some players will use this as an excuse to be a dick' is a profoundly dumb idea.

It's also a strawman.

I think it's sad that some GMs have such low expectations of their players as to assume from the get-go that they will use goblins as an excuse to play kenders.

It's a combination of knowing what kinds of players are out there and that there are also a lot that will look at how the race is described and end up party slime without any intentional malice. There were a lot of very annoying kender players who were all "why are you all mad at me? I'm just playing him the way the book says to."

I also think it's strange that those same GMs don't realize that players will do that anyway.

Trust me, there are plenty of players out there who are going to be all "but the rulebook says..." as an excuse¹. That includes players who otherwise wouldn't be a problem.

Are there people who are no problem when they take options that are serious party slime bait? Certainly, I even know a couple that I would trust to play kenders as originally written. That does not mean it is a good idea to give all the ones who will be a problem a RAW license to do it.

1: And even more who will implicitly support them with that (EXP.DEL.) vastly overbroad misunderstanding of the "don't say no" advice.

Amanda Plageman wrote:

PC Goblins are a deal-breaker for a lot of players and GMs alike. Shoving them down our throats is one of the things making people hesitant about 2e.

So having Goblins as core (they've always been playable) is "shoving them-"... why do I feel like I've had this conversation before?

Placing an option in core means you get players who are going to react even worse to being told "goblins are GM permission only". When something is in a core rulebook you get a lot of people who assume that means it is an option which can simply be taken.

TBH, as described in the playtest rules, goblins are solidly party slime bait. I also don't see much in the way of reasonable routes to fix this, all of which are likely to be badly received by the very people who are going "goblins in core? GREAT!" Perhaps Paizo has something really cool under their hats, but as it stands they would hold the distinction of being the first core option in a game that I declared¹ GM permission² at my table.

1: As opposed to the rules themselves calling it out. Such as anything marked STOP in Hero.

2: I use five levels: Permitted, GM consultation, (you have to talk to me about it), GM permission, (you have to ask and justify the choice), Special permission, (you have to ask and should expect a no), Banned, (don't even bother asking).

Chakat Firepaw wrote:

As a note on this point: Just continuing subscriptions on into PF2 is going to come across as something like negative-option billing for people who have decided PF2 isn't for them. So you probably want to be a bit proactive in asking people and perhaps assuming "yes" isn't the best choice.

Uh, that's really on the subscriber to check on in on their subscription to see what they're paying to get.

One: They did, they subscribed to something that said it was for PF1 products and that's what they were paying to get.

Two: The cable companies around here made the _exact same argument_ when they were trying to keep negative-option billing from being banned. Note that those arguments failed.

I don't doubt they won't send emails though beforehand.

It would be just as easy to send emails that, instead of requiring those who don't want PF2 stuff to take properly timed action, offer a quick way of subscribing to the PF2 stuff that matches the existing PF1 subscriptions.

Looking at it from a customer goodwill perspective:

Requiring people say no to not get something they don't want comes across as wanting to grab some money from people who don't want it. IOW, you will have people who see it as 'picking their pocket'.

Requiring people to say yes to get the new line of products proactively says to people "we want to do this the right way" and only creates a very mild inconvenience.

the Haunted Jester wrote:

I noticed that Book 6 of Tyrants Grasp and Book 1 of Age of Ashes are both slated for July on their product pages. Will both of these APs come out in July? Will there be a time to cancel an AP subscription after Tyrants Grasp but before Age of Ashes?

They are both slated to come out in July (technically August 1, but practically they will be part of the July sub shipments).

That's a good question re: cancelling between the two volumes. We'll get back to you on that once we've had a few more conversations in-house.

As a note on this point: Just continuing subscriptions on into PF2 is going to come across as something like negative-option billing for people who have decided PF2 isn't for them. So you probably want to be a bit proactive in asking people and perhaps assuming "yes" isn't the best choice.

I would expect that your subscription will carry over as the AP subscription from 3.5 to pathfinder carried over seamlessly.

Well, except that the shift isn't going to be as seamless as it was between Legacy of Fire and Council of Thieves.

Personally, I think it would be a good idea to at least send out a wave of notifications asking people to confirm that they want subscriptions to continue. Simply continuing without asking would needlessly burn goodwill with people who don't want to follow them into PF2. (It might also cross the line into negative-option billing, which could mean legal problems as they sell in places that ban it.)

Better, IMHO, would be to create new subscriptions with the notifications being more: "These PF2 subscriptions are the equivalent of the PF1 subscriptions you have. Here's a quick way to subscribe to all of them...."