RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32. Goblin Squad Member. RPG Superstar 7 Season Star Voter. Organized Play Member. 1,205 posts (1,273 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 3 Organized Play characters. 5 aliases.
Pathfinder took the top sales spot in the 2nd quarter of 2011 and held it until the third quarter of 2014
Didn't realize it was that early. I was pretty sure I recall the celebrating on the boards and it was around the time D&D Next was announced. I won't argue with your facts, though, doubtless well-sourced versus my memories of nearly 10 years ago.
I do recall their run of Essentials was over in 2010 and they didn't release any more major rules books. There were some adventures and some player options in 2011-12.
When D&D 5E came out in 2014, it was not an immediate smash. Pathfinder 1E was still quite dominant in the marketplace.
What happened?
As far as I recall, the only time Pathfinder was number 1 was the year 2013, and much of 2014, during which WotC didn't release a 4e D&D product at all, and focused their attention on successive iterations of the D&D Next public playtest.
D&D is the brand name for all RPGs. If you ask someone who's even heard of the hobby to name some tabletop RPGs, they'll name D&D and maybe something else. Paizo didn't do something wrong to drop to #2, they just got bumped down by the biggest name in the business returning to publishing again.
There should be a spell called Heat Water To Just the Right Temperature For Tea, But Not Tea Right Now, But Tea So It Will Be Just the Right Temperature After a Few Minutes of Steeping.
Tentacle beasts and what not are good and all, but the real horror comes from a changing reality that doesn't fit any rules that can be discerned.
Left is right, up is blue, down is the knowledge that your existence is meaningless.
Tell the sorcerer that one of his spell slots is permanently only usable to cast: Summon Gho-Dholtha
Give it stats as if it were a summoned monster of the appropriate level, have it take the shape of ordinary beasts, though something is always creepy (a bear with gug arms, strange crossbreeds, human faces, a tentacle attack that comes out of its mouth, etc). It always obeys orders, except on the last round of the spell, it always turns to the player and asks "Are you ready to return with me?" After a couple sessions, whether he casts the spell or not, inform him that now 2 slots are permanently taken up by the spell.
Once he casts the spell, he occasionally has a specific dream. He's on a rock, surrounded by empty space (like outer space, just stars in the distance). In front of him is an altar, which sits in front of a massive statue that looks like it was carved millennia ago, but has been eroded by time, it's shape now unidentifiable. In the dream, he takes out a giant red ruby from a pocket under his left arm, places it on the altar and smashes it. The ruby bursts and covers the altar in blood, and the massive statue starts to tremble. That is when he always wakes up.
If he ever dies, describe his chest as having a strange pulsing glow to it. If they open up his chest cavity, they find his heart has been replaced by a ruby. If a spellcaster studies the ruby (detect magic, identify, handling it for several minutes), they now go through everything he went through.
I probably won't reserve a spell slot like that but I might vary that idea to corrupt some spells he casts when I can find an appropriate time. Or she casts. Male player, female character. Pronoun trouble ensues. You've given me an idea. When (s)he charms a creature, I'll have it start speaking Aklo. I might even use the "Are you ready" idea there.
I also like the dream idea since dreams are playing a big part in this campaign. I won't take the idea verbatim, but there's definitely a good basis to play around with.
You're not wrong. Combat is the focus of most of the rules because that's the thing that needs the most rules. The skill system can serve to arbitrate non-combat encounters, but so can plain old-fashioned role-playing.
My group does a fair bit of combat but the majority of most sessions is character-driven interactions with NPCs and with each other. It could be that your GM is just not looking to provide any challenges that can't be solved with combat, or it could be that your group is so bloodthirsty that they turn everything into a combat, but there are many ways to approach many challenges.
If you play published adventures, especially from Paizo, you will consistently see challenges that are suited for characters of the levels listed on the cover of the module. That really is part of the structure of the game. Some companies publish modules that include the occasional encounters the party would be wise to avoid (Necromancer/Frog God Games, I'm looking at you). Which sounds like it makes sense, but it's a bad feeling when you accidentally run into one.
If you don't like the way your game is being run, offer to run it yourself and run the kind of game you'd like to play in.
OK, in that case, that feat doesn't benefit the draconic bloodline for any spell, correct?
I would think that changing a fireball to a lightningball would give +1 damage per die to the blue-draconic sorcerer, but it doesn't, by this reading. Because:
elemental spell wrote:
Benefit: Choose one energy type: acid, cold, electricity, or fire. You may replace a spell’s normal damage with that energy type or split the spell’s damage, so that half is of that energy type and half is of its normal type.
Draconic bloodline wrote:
Bloodline Arcana: Whenever you cast a spell with an energy descriptor that matches your draconic bloodline’s energy type, that spell deals +1 point of damage per die rolled.
Fireball has the fire descriptor even if you change it to a lightning ball. So the spell does normal damage. So Elemental Spell is useless for Draconic Sorcerers.
In which case, the feat is ONLY useful to target an elemental vulnerability of a monster, which might be useful once or twice in your adventuring career, unless you're in a campaign that specifically focuses on monsters with that vulnerability. This makes no sense.
I love how this section of the message boards highlights ambiguities that never occurred to me. I would always have interpreted that as applying to the power for the school you already selected, and will continue to apply that in my own home games, but the OP has shown me a different interpretation that is not explicitly wrong within the text given. It reminds me how clear I really have to be when writing my own game rules.
Just at a first glance, his Deflection bonus from Smite Good doesn't stack with the +2 deflection he has normally. So good news: he caps out at 49.
Personally, I wouldn't even bother attacking his AC. He's got other weaknesses, and sure, even his saves are pretty high, but not auto-success high. And a 1 always fails, unless you've done away with that rule as well. But to avoid attacking his AC, look at spells and effects that target an area, obstacles that simply lock him in place, and other kinds of things. There might be some hazards that might pose a threat to him.
Of course, you could just let him stomp all over everything. That's fun, too, if that's the game he wants to play. It's not the GM's job to beat the party down, it's just your job to give them stuff to react to. They still have to complete the story, and if they're having fun steamrolling fights as they go from plot point to plot point, you're still running a good game.
I don't really post as much these days. Forums just seem not so great anymore. So I just stick to Starfinder and maybe gamer life, as well as my google+ crowd.
I stopped posting a while back also...I was encountering harsher, ruder posts from people and it seemed like most threads lasted about 6-7 posts before someone was letting fly with some sort of viciousness.
Yeah that's why I stopped taking part regularly as well. Seems no matter what you say, someone is going to attack you for it. Civil disagreement is a last resort to some.
As an aside this is not an excuse for anything but I suffer from depression and used the boards as a way to escape for a time.
I'm glad you added this because I was going to point out that it sounded like a sign of depression to me. One I've experienced myself. There are a host of studies examining the link between online communities, social media, and depression. I think the best advice is to take breaks. Take care of yourself.
You forgot Robert April, voiced by James Doohan, NCC-1701's first captain, who preceded Pike, as shown in the TAS episode "The Counter-Clock Incident".
I thought about him, too. But I'm not sure ST:TAS is considered canon.
The only person who'd really disagree is safely dead.
?
The only person who ever said that TAS was not canon was Gene Roddenberry. But like many of his positions, he wasn't always consistent on it. Various authors have given homage to TAS. Robert April even appeared as a character in Star Trek: Into Darkness.
The T in James T. Kirk standing for Tiberius was from the animated series. As is a precursor to the holodeck, just called the Rec Room.
On a 1999 episode of TV series 3rd Rock From The Sun entitled "Dick's Big Giant Headache, part 1," series protagonist Dick Solomon (John Lithgow) meets the character Big Giant Head (William Shatner) at the airport. During the scene, Big Giant Head mentions "seeing something on the wing of the plane," to which Dick replies, "the same thing happened to me!" This is a reference to the fact that both Shatner and Lithgow played variations on the same character in the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet," and the "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet" segment of the 1983 film The Twilight Zone: The Movie, respectively.
Similar fanservice in-joke in the pilot eposide of the 1980s Buck Rogers TV show -- Gil Gerard, playing the main character who has been frozen for 500 years, meets an old-time pilot who makes some comment about comparative ages; they go back and forth a bit. The old-timer was played by Buster Crabbe, who portrayed Buck Rogers in the late '30s.
I didn't know that. I'll have to go back and watch BRit25C again. Buster Crabbe also played Flash Gordon, a character who primarily existed because Alex Raymond was such a fan of Buck Rogers.
1st level Arcanist, damaged from 6hp (max) to 4. A bit of MAD with the Arcanist so I leave Con at 10. Healer is handing out spells. I decline, on the basis that a spell would be wasted for me. "I'm fine." We happen to level then, and we camp overnight. In the middle of the night, we get ambushed by goblins. After gaining 4 hp and healing 2 in my sleep, the goblins open the door and can happen to see me where I thought I'd be hidden in the back of the room. 2 hits, knock me down to 6hp. Healer wants to heal, but I figure I had 6hp yesterday morning, I'm not going to need more today. "I'm fine." We go on with our day, find some tunnels, one other PC and I crawl through one because the armored characters are afraid they'll get stuck in the narrow passage. Centipedes fall on me. We retreat as fast as we can crawl. He wants to know if we should switch places. I'd rather just run. I get bit, poisoned for Dex damage multiple times. We fall out and now I have 2 hp. The healer wants to heal me, I want to wait and see if I'll even be conscious after the poison is done with me. "I'm fine." After failing every possible save and letting the poison run its course, I have 2hp left and an effective Dex score of 2. Now it's just ludicrous. We're 2nd level without access to restoration. So now it's a running gag that even though I'm shambling around like a zombie and mumbling through my numb lips, and I can't feel my feet, I'm still declining healing. My wife is playing an altruistic healer and she's saying "We have to get Vixtis out of here!" Me, speaking as if I have Novocaine numbing my tongue: "I'm fine!"
And if the 80s had a mood or theme what would it or they be?
Yeah, it was pretty much:
"Greed is Good".
"Business School is Great".
"You should be a stock trader".
"The little guy deserves to get hosed".
It was all about selfishness, and free-market Capitalism, and anything you do to get rich is OK, no matter how many people get hurt along the way.
And cocaine... lots and lots of cocaine.
But it was also the decade of the "teen movie" (The Breakfast Club, the Lost Boys, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, etc.). And Glasnost. And most of the action movies set up the bad guy as a corporate "greed is good" guy who got his comeuppance at the end, so there was definitely a social outcry against such greed. It was just that, in politics and in business, greed won.
I was composing mine while you put this up. Looks like we both came away with the same impressions. :)
I hate it when people play classes and races stereotypically.
Yeah, that used to bug me, then I figured that maybe I've seen it hundreds of times, but they haven't gotten to play it hundreds of times, so, I just smile and nod. I haven't seen a clichéd character type that didn't have some individual expression come through in it.
"With all these disadvantages, I MUST have some unspent points somewhere!"
"Why is my will save against Kickstarters so low?"
"How come you never make me roll Knowledge(80s bands)? I'm practically MYTHIC here!"
"I'm certain this height to weight multiplier is wrong."
I would really love to play through a whole AP. I started Carrion Crown, GM quit after 1 module. I ran Legacy of Fire, but the players weren't that into the story so I quit at Ch5. I joined a FLGS Serpent Skull game 1/2 way into the 1st module, but had to quit between the 3rd and 4th because of schedule conflicts when I started taking classes. I ran a couple modules of Council of Thieves, but that was never intended to go its full course, I was just taking over GM'ing when the regular GM had to take a break (and they never forgave me for it).
Currently working 1st level PCs up to Slumbering Tsar. We'll see how that goes. This is the first time the GM is allowing me to play something I made up.
Except it wasn't a paladin, it was a sorcerer. And it wasn't Detect Evil, it was the player recognizing the creature type. And it wasn't Smite Evil, it was an attack spell.
Is there other language in that Stance ability that wasn't posted? Something like "as a move action," etc? It could be important.
Not clearly.
Primal Warrior Stance wrote:
[url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/primal-fury-maneuvers][/url]
By taking a wide stance that invites the death of any before him, the mighty disciple of Primal Fury wields the power of overwhelming force to it's greatest effects. The initiator ignores difficult terrain when charging while in this stance, and whenever he is subject to a size modifier for CMB checks or to his CMD, the disciple is treated as one size category larger if doing so would be advantageous to him. He is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature's special attacks based on size (such as grab or swallow whole) can affect him. Additionally, any melee weapon, unarmed strike, or natural weapon is treated as if it were two sizes larger. The benefits of this stance stack with abilities or effects that increase the initiator's size (such as enlarge person).
It starts out talking about a charge, so I initially thought this might only apply on charge damage. But then it talks about something that has nothing to do with a charge, then gives the third power as "Additionally" so that indicates to me that the damage increase has nothing to do with a charge.
Okay, after re-reading a few posts, I think I'm starting to understand. It seems some folks regard it as an inherently bad thing to engage a game (even a non-RPG) with a competitive mindset, no matter how much politeness or professional decorum you might conduct yourself with. So (outside of a couple of outliers/horror stories not unlike the ones for RPGs) when I'm seeing people saying that MtG brings out "the worst", they're meaning it brings out "competitiveness, which is bad".
A couple months back, a little 10-year-old girl was the only one to show up for the Magic Kids' League, so one of the Modern players loaned her a multi-hundred-dollar deck so she could play that event instead. Everyone smiled, treated her kindly, patiently explained unfamiliar cards, and encouraged her even while she was losing. It seems that while I would look at the actual behavior and call it good, some in this thread would look at the fact that they were still playing to win and say "Man, Magic players are the worst!"
Explains a lot.
As an impartial reader to the thread, I would suggest that an alternative explanation is that they've had vastly different and far more negative experiences than you with the game or format, and you shouldn't take it personally.
Don't event judges have the ability to disqualify people or bar them from competition for bad behavior? I'd say that biological warfare counts as bad behavior.
Like Cal, I've been doing this for over 30 years, most of it DM/GM'ing. A few years ago, I took a break from my homebrew to run an AP for the first time. I chose Legacy of Fire. I wanted to run it as close to RAW and as close to AP as written as possible.
A few sessions into it, a few people dropped out, a few joined, and we had a revolving cast with no continuity for a few sessions, which stabilized shortly after. We had 1 person left from the original party, or at least who joined in the first couple sessions. I gave the newcomers an abbreviated synopsis, but they never got fully invested in the setup, which included their NPC patron. So that relationship kind of died on the vine.
I also had to nudge them a few times in the adventure because of it, and it gave the storyline a kind of forced feel. LoF is not horribly linear within each individual module, but to get from one book to the next, there are a couple of gateway points that have to happen for the series to work. As I said, I wanted to run it as close to AP text as I could. Revising whole sections of the AP was exactly why I put down my home game. I didn't have that kind of time.
About a year into it I had some very serious personal issues come up with made me put down gaming almost completely for about six months. The game group was willing to stick it out for the break but their investment suffered even more.
We got back together and continued, and even with our every-other-week schedule, we had many weeks where we had to postpone the game. Eventually I realized I'd been running the game for something like 3 years and we were only halfway done. I made some shortcuts on the 4th module, then we got into the fifth. Three sessions into the fifth, we broke for the various winter holidays. Last month, I realized that I was dreading picking it back up again. I realized that for a while, I'd been running it just because I didn't want to disappoint the players. But they weren't really that into it anyway. They'd probably play whatever I chose to run for them, and they didn't care about my RAW experiment with the AP itself.
I told my wife I was dreading it and she told me something that never actually occurred to me. "So don't." I let that stew for a day or two and realized I was so burned out on that AP, and I would love to continue to see how it ends, but the players don't know what's REALLY going on by the 5th book, and when I drop exposition and background, they forget it by the week after they hear it. I could hand out notes on what they've learned, but if they're not retaining the information, it means that they don't really care that much.
So I told them they were welcome to come up with a new game to play, and here are some things I'd like to do, but I'm done with LOF and would like to take a break from running games at all. They all said that was fine.
As a footnote, the 3rd module is very scant on details. The players are to spend 2 weeks in the most interesting city on Golarion with almost no planned encounters. I pulled from a bunch of resources and made encounters to keep them busy for 2 (in-game) weeks. After I said I was ending it, they all said that was their favorite part, but I hadn't told them I had made that part up. So that was flattering.
We started Slumbering Tsar last week. We had a blast.
Last character I was stumped for a name. I rolled a d30 for the first letter, got 22, so wrote down V. Rolled a d6 and got 2 so I went with E. Rolled a d30 and got 24 and wrote X. Rolled a d30 and D6 and got a 20 and a 3, so I decided the d30 would be next for T, then used the d6 for I. I chose to end it with S, for Vextis.
Zima Clearmalt is a clear, lemon-lime-flavored, lightly carbonated, alcoholic beverage made and distributed by the Coors Brewing Company. Zima (meaning "winter" in some Slavic languages) was introduced in 1993, after being test-marketed two years previously in Syracuse, New York. Production in the United States ceased in October 2008, but it is still quite popular in Japan.
I have an idea for a Pathfinder-compatible product. How much of it should I write before I submit it to 3PPs to see if they want to work with me? How do I submit it to a variety of established 3PPs without worrying that they're going to use my idea before I can write enough of it to get paid for it? Without reading every single 3PP gaming product ever written, how do I make sure someone else hasn't already done it?
I hated the random generation characters. The combos that came up were just... so... insane. It was REALLY tough to come up with any kind of cohesion with the combos you got.
Yeah, one time I had this guy who had the wackiest power array. It was regeneration, a super Intuition score, metal claws, and scent. So crazy I just rerolled.
Before, [Vader] seemed like something of a guard dog for Tarkin, but then we learn in ESB he's second only to the Emperor, and the nevery thing we learn about Anakin in the prequels...
I've always wondered exactly what Vader's job title was. Tarkin was his boss in IV ("I should have known I'd find you holding Vader's leash"), but you're right, in V, he's the boss of everyone. I guess he's kind of an efficiency consultant. "Did you succeed at your job? No? Congratulations to the person under you on his promotion." *choke*
Kryzbyn wrote:
Vader's response should have been. "Or what, exactly?" Or a force choke. I understand he respected Tarkin, but damn. Big balls, that guy.
Now why would you go and use the Force to choke someone who's actually within arm's reach? That's just lazy.
But that's just a style of movie. Luke was taking on multiple well trained, genetically superior, well armed and armored stormtroopers in the same time - and winning - in "The New Hope" and nobody scoffed at that.
IMO, there's so many things in SW that we just handwave without thinking about it, that someone's uncommonly wide skill set shouldn't even make us bat an eye. We have to accept that most people in the galaxy can understand about a dozen languages, and that there are over six million that you can put in one droid. We have to accept that they can build a droid that can calculate interstellar distances but can't speak. We accept that Wookiees have names they can't pronounce. We accept that travel times take exactly as long as they need for the story. We accept that on at least one level, we're watching a two-hour toy commercial. We not only accept, but sometimes bend over backwards creating background information so that some lines they say in the story make sense. But most of us are pretty OK with these things.
I finally got to see it with my wife after a horrible movie experience attempting to see it on Christmas Day. We enjoyed it, but saw that it had major plot and background flaws. What most people forget is that the original trilogy had major plot holes as well. The flaws in VII are on par with the narrative integrity I expect from Star Wars. The impression I'm getting is that everyone who grew up watching Star Wars IV=VI (whether you like the prequels or not) is grown up now, and quite likely is not holding the original movies up to the same level of scrutiny they have for this one.
Historically speaking, for me, I gave up on Star Wars when I saw the prequels. But when I saw the opening scene of SWTOR, I realized that Star Wars had a lot of potential when Lucas isn't writing it. So when Disney bought the property and announced that they were making new movies, I was hopeful. Then when I heard they gave it to JJ Abrams, my fears were renewed and my expectations were lowered. I've always thought JJ was a terrible storyteller. But JJ has a major advantage over his peers. Even when his story doesn't make any sense, whatever he puts on the big screen is going to look awesome. Even if he doesn't get story, he gets action, and I would rather see this go to JJ than, say, Michael Bay.
My biggest problem with the movie is that it follows too closely beat for beat the iconic elements of the original film. What mitigates this problem is that the original film was good. By extension this film is also good. Very fun to watch. I can confidently hold this up to the original three films and feel like it belongs there. Would I have liked it better if it told a different story? Maybe. But in my opinion, this is probably the best thing JJ has done. I mean, you could nitpick it to death, but I could probably watch it three or four more times before it started to gather dust on my DVD shelf. Overall, I'm satisfied, but not overwhelmed. And I don't mean not overwhelmed in a hipster kind of too cool for school kind of way, it was good. I'm not underwhelmed either. I'm comfortably situated the high end of whelmed.
