Chobemaster's page

Couldn't the gm just roll a die to see what class made the available item for sale?

"Get your Wands of Lesser Restoration at Sir Bob's! Our wands of Lesser Restoration are Paladin-made, and we pass the savings on to you!!! Why pay for cleric-grade casting, when you can get the SAME refreshing, restorative effects for less????"

Men have fallen asleep on watch for as long as men have been standing watch.

An easy Fort save, negative modifiers for fatigued/exhausted, positive modifiers for walking around, coffee or equivalent, and a partner on watch with you. If you make it DC 5, +2 for walking around, +2 for a partner, then it's hard to fail it.

Anyone with appropriate conviction will pass.

I like using Fort instead of straight Con to model the point made above, that hardened campaigners will be very keen on the importance of keeping watch.

Let alone the gestation periods, and childhood of non-humans. I don't think in any rulebook or supplement I've ever read, that gestational time-periods have ever been addressed. If somebody knows of a book that discusses the gestation of the various races, I'd love to see it. EoG says that

Quote:

Births are rare among elvenkind, so much so that the successful birthing of a newborn is an event for the whole community. Celebrations often last for weeks as community members give their blessing and items to assist in the child’s care and development. Oracles and divinations are consulted daily throughout pregnancy, and the information gained goes into the child’s naming and upbringing for the first century or so.

This would make it seem as though the gestational period itself is much longer than normal. It also hints at the fact that an elven child is still being "brought up" for at least the first century. Yet the race stats in the rulebook says 110 is adulthood. Of course, with humans, depending on the nation, 18 years old is considered adulthood. I look back at myself at age 18 and at the 18 year olds in my classroom and think how young I was/they are. "They're just kids," I think to myself.

With half-elves being possible from mothers of either race, I think the only sensible view is that elven gestation is very similar to human, otherwise half-elves would create a significant problem for one, the other, or both moms.

I also wonder, if you're advocating a significantly longer gestational period, if you are married with children.... ;)

Overall age/starting age/no difference in accumulation of XP is an insoluble mess that it's best to ignore, IMO. Elves learn way slower than humans for undefined reasons, until they become 1st level, then they solve that problem and learn at the same rate, via an undefined mechanic.

Given how many "PC grows wings" powers are out there, including for armor-wearing classes (any EVERYONE is wearing SOMETHING), it seems really nerfy to make them disrobe to fly, and it doesn't specify that.

Since they are magically appearing wings and no real biological or logical factors are being applied/assessed anyway, I would rule the magic wings work even with mundane (or magical)attire and move on.

Other than overall race-size and full-plate, the game handwaves fit, anyway. An NFL offensive lineman and the punt returner (or a cheerleader or cable-carrying intern) are both size M and can by rule wear the same set of chainmail. Even nonmagical. That's patently absurd and we roll with it, so letting MAGIC wings "just work" magically shouldn't be a stumbling block.

If we're trying to armor a naturally winged creature, I would say they can only wear armor accommodating the wings.

Retake Bebbanburg, finally, and quit grousing about it. Heh.

Look at it as Green Lantern has DR x/Yellow. He's resistant to stuff EXCEPT his nemesis. Your celestial powers protect you against "3rd party" sources of damage, but evil still "gets to you" since you're "made of" good.

I do like the idea of 3d6 in order play. I tried rolling it and got this:

Str: 11
Dex: 10
Con: 8
Int: 14
Wis: 7
Cha: 10

I kinda like these scores, it looks like a rather average person(assuming 10=average). The person is smart, but less than wise and has a bit less constitution than average. It'll probably become a Wizard, but some other class may work as well.

It seems a bit odd, but I checked Pathfinder's purchase method, and these scores would come up to -1 points, which is eleven less than even "low fantasy".

Yeah, this is probably not going to be a long-excelling character, but could still be a fun and memorable one.

One POSSIBLE take is that he's bookish and distracted. A little bit sickly...I think my character here has allergies, and complains about them. Maybe generally has a little bit of the "city mouse" sort of take...the deprivations of the adventuring life don't really suit him, and when he notices, he'll let you know. But he's nice enough if you get through that. Daniel Stern's character in City Slickers?

So why IS he adventuring? He's not likely to actually think he'd be great at it, so it was either forced upon him (his master was killed and his tower burned, he has no where else to go) OR, he's deluded in some way (a travelling bard type filled his heads w/ tales of glory, and his lack of self-awareness has him out chasing a dream.)

As a whole, you rolled up someone slightly below average (total score of 60, vs mean of 63) but w/ 3 scores outside the center of the range, something you can work with.

I share a dislike for regarding the rules as a puzzle to solve and the point of playing being accumulating the XP needed to execute the next step in the build plan.

But that was the path the game started down with 3e, IMO. Once you attempt to create a unified architecture with class features/feats/etc as a cafeteria, it is inevitable that the nature of the cafeteria selections will be biased toward increasing character power.

I think we agree it comes down to the word "direct" yes? We should presume that it's there only because it's needed.

Obviously sunlight starts as "direct", how then do we define indirect?

If direct means simply "direct vector between vampire and the sun" and reflected sunlight (for example, looking at something through a window during the day, or reflected via mirror), is indirect, then Darkness variants are not interrupting that vector and thus should not be effective. However, Protective Penumbra is not interrupting that vector either and should not be effective under this reasoning. Since it is, by rule, effective, this reasoning must be wrong.

So then "direct" seems to moreso mean "unfiltered." Which can be taken over-literally...even on the clearest day, SOME filtering of sunlight occurs in the atmosphere. So we should probably adjust it to "only baseline filtered." Protective Penumbra works. Any effects that do even more reduction of light appear to me to be also providing this filtering and should similarly be taken to render any light remaining on the vampire as indirect.

Presumably other obscuring effects should also work, then, like obscuring mist. And if that works, how about mundane heavy fog? I'd say yes to that.

from a "back in the day" perspective, here's why there's hobgoblins in the game..

1. kobolds, 1/2 HD
2. goblins 1-1 HD (d8-1)
3. orcs 1 HD
4. hobgoblins 1+1HD (d8+1)
5. gnoll 2 HD
6. bugbear 3 HD
7. Ogre 4+1 HD (why +1? dunno)
8. Troll 6 HD
9. nothing, I think 7 HD
10. Hill Giant 8 HD (could be wrong)
etc....

Here's why you buy at full and sell at half.

It's called economics. No, seriously, it is. Take something to a pawnshop. You'll get half-value for it. Open your own pawn shop, you'll pay half value for something and sell it at full value (value of what it's worth used, not new, but the point remains).

Every good in the world trading at 50% gross margin, regardless of apparent demand for it, supply of it, time involved in making it, selling costs, ease of entry into the market, etc. is FAR from being described by anything worth calling "economics."

At best, you could call it "gameonomics."

The problem with rage is not it's duration. It provides a nice offensive boost (along with the -2 AC), and you can only rage so long before becoming winded. From a flavor perspective I find that fun and compelling. The problem with rage is that it provides a Con bonus in addition to a Str bonus. I know this sounds weird, but it is a mechanical truth that the Con bonus provided by rage makes it almost a suicidal option. The Con boost grants you additional hitpoints according to your level (or hit die). Because the Con bonus disappears when you drop below 0 HP this means auto-death in many situations, and the higher level you are the bigger the drop in HP at the end of a rage. There is an ability that lets you keep raging while unconscious (which is very, very silly), but that only somewhat mitigates the problem.

As a houserule, I eliminate the Con bonus and instead, the barbarian gains 2x barbarian lvl in temp HP at the beginning of a rage. The current rage system makes Barbarians kamikazes, and that's just not right. It's one of those things that Pathfinder did not fix from 3.5. Oh well.

Seems like you can avoid this by not dropping to 0 HP.

I've always used Orcs as relatively indemic brigands, wherever you go, there might be Orcs, but they aren't a meaningful geo-political force.

This is also in keeping with very old D&D Orc lore and the story of Gruumsh being tricked by the other gods in a rigged drawing of lots for habitats for their people, leaving Orcs with nearly nothing, then Gruumsh stabs the earth to make the pleasant forests/plains/mountains into dark woods, wastelands, forbidding peaks, etc, and he says "Orcs will live there, and there, and there!"

I used hobgoblins as something more akin to historic Mongols/Huns/Tatars. Very warlike, very capable, but not suited to building functional nation-states for very long. (No disrespect to current-day actual Mongolia or people therefrom.)

They are less common where the PC's live simply because their lands are elsewhere.

@Chobe, the PF world violates fundamental laws of physics every day, but you think it should follow your understanding of economics as we "understand" them? Let's not even get into the whole issue of whether our understanding of economic "laws" is even accurate in the first place. I sure don't see much evidence in the current economy that economists know anything about markets...

My worlds have a slightly different approach to the magic economy than the PF rulebooks anyway. The PF rulebooks are focused on the economy of adventuring. In a "real world" of PF style magic the magical items for sale in a typical magic shop would be far more utilitarian and frivolous than what adventurers buy.

What would a typical farmer with a family buy with his disposable income? A cure light wounds potion or a magical toy for his kids, or a magical bauble for his wife. That farmer would likely save up for months to buy his wife that +1 charisma hair ribbon. Or if he needs it, that +1 to germinating seed spreader. Those things exist in my worlds. And they provide income to people who make them.

Eh, the laws of economics are a description of behavior. If the game isn't rooted in comprehensible behavior and causation, it's nearly unplayable. Gygax himself expounds his view in 1st DMG on this, I can't top his contribution.

I notice that you've expanded the inventory of the magic shop to another degree of infinite. Tiamat is REALLY getting stoked! Now the creator has even more stuff he's supposed to invest time and capital in on the front end to support the "Wal-Mart" magic shop model. This is even more an argument for commission-based magic trade, NOT retail trade.

If there are plows+1 or harnesses of oxen-health (the impact on yields/payback period of such an investment are arbitrary and obviously you've stipulated significant yield increases in your game from such an item), how does the crafter know when someone is going to want one? And unless you've got a rapid household formation rate and new colonization, the market for these is going to be slow, seems to me...since magic weapons(plows)won't dull or chip, they will become heirlooms, many people will already have their grandfather's plow. Other than a "nameday" sort of gift, perhaps, it won't be a fast mover.

If you run your magic shop as "75% chance of a specific item" that shop is going to have been robbed long before your characters get there.

Without doing the math specifically, consider that the # of weapon type/sizes/special material/ bonuses is equal to about 1,000 unique weapons worth ~$8k. If you think that's too high, throw in armor as well. It's clearly more than 1000 if you do that.

If there's a 75% chance of each of these items being there, that means the magic item guy in your small town has an inventory of magic weapons of 750 items. each worth $8k. That is 6 million GP in inventory. Just in weapons. Apart from where is he even STORING this stuff, how in the world did he come up with the cash to acquire these? Whether he's buying at half, crafting, or a combination thereof he still has to come up with 3,000,000 gp.

6 million in gp value. That is a score worth taking down for 15th level characters. What level is the owner? How is he possibly secure against attacks from a party of 15th level characters? Why would he choose to have invested his cash this way, living if not on death-row than certainly in frequent fights for his life in some mediocre town? and this is in EVERY town.

And this ignores rings/wants/scrolls/potions/(armor)/wondrous items, etc.

Once you consider that since any new item can be created, to have a 75% chance of having it in stock, he has to have an infinite inventory. That's hard to house and worth going after. Tiamat would send a raid of huge ancient wyrms. Afterall, they each get a share of infinite, that's pretty good.