Christopher Sniezak's page

I'm really proud to be the front-runner for such an amazing team, and looking forward to working more with Tim! =) I don't think I'll ever forget when he ran a game for Famine and I at Gencon years ago. Although my therapist recommends I keep trying.

Also, I'd love to hear what people think about my first contributions to the blog and product line!

Solid opening salvo to the four horsemen blog and I'd like to add onto the discussion a bit concerning descriptions. So you have a flesh golem and it gets off the table, the players crack a few jokes and then someone hits it. They do damage but you describe it as such,

"You hit the fleshy meat of the amalgamation of several human beings and it looks like you hurt it but it doesn't move, it doesn't flinch, and it starts to reach for you."

Then you just keep up the description of the flesh golem as an unrelenting beast. It plows through doors, it flips tables over with easy that would take five people to budge. If it's a solid mass of scary muscle then have it do things that make it that.

This goes to the excellent advice of tweaking monsters. Make it stronger. Give it a special ability which gives it some ridiculous bonus to breaking through things. Give it the mechanics to make it feel like an unstoppable force, and when it hits don't just have it do damage but move the thing it's attacking. Who wouldn't be scared of the monster which just hit you and sent you flying through a wall made of wood. Those jokes stop right there.

Like I said, solid stuff and I'm looking forward to seeing more

Well I'll be damned. Nick Logue is back. All us folks here in Buffalo have missed you quite a bit and I for one am glad to see you back. Man. Seems like you've had it rough. I can understand that. I've been there. I'm glad you got through it OK. I ain't even mad about the money. It's just not a big deal to me. I know I can't come to Piazo Con since I'm an East coaster but I hope I see you at GenCon, maybe even at Iron GM.

You see, I played in this game one time at a little con in Buffalo called UBCon with you and it showed me how I wanted to play games. In fact I was just hanging out with Daina and Kevin Burke today and they even remember me saying I want to run games like Nick Logue. Since then I've been involved in Iron GM and came in second one year, got beat by Steve Helt, got to write a little for WotC, (I know that's a bit sacrilegious round these parts, sorry) have a blog and podcast about gaming, and am one of the partners putting on a gaming convention in Buffalo at the Buffalo Niagara convention center this year. Nick. I never would of done any of this if I hadn't played in that game of yours. I wouldn't of looked around and realized how much more there was to gaming and how rewarding it could be beyond my home game. We have a community of over 300 gamer's spanning all of Western New York and including three colleges that I helped build and it really all started with just that one game. The friendships it created for me and ideas it put into my head inspired me. All this is worth way more than the few dollars I lost at Sinister Adventures. Also, the knowledge that you're actually still alive and kicking makes me feel better too. I hope to game with you sometime this year and maybe you'll let me run a game for you using nothing but a warehouse map, six pregens, and no prep, because that's how you taught me to roll.

You can get the maps for Temple of the Necromancer by using the URL below. They're just the sketch maps for the adventure but they'll let you run it much more effectively.

http://weredragonmag.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=88.0;attach= 65

hold that thought

it could be a solution for low magic games, where evil DM like hate the idea of magic shops and players conplaioning and crying they want their head band of intelligence or their bracers of dexterity...

maybe maybe...

just for therecord... when i ahve been left by the DM i have also wielded as many items as a damnable christmas trees... still i think its not a good thingto cheapen magic like that

I think this is an excellent idea and is used in 4e. I really hope this falls into the newest incarnation of the rules.

For those people who like there magic item Christmas tree characters I would say it's cool for a character to have one or two, maybe even three sort of iconic items to that character but when your wear 17 things it kinda takes away from your actual character. Just my opinion.

Honestly the new Pathfinder races are just effectively ECL +1 races to balance them against some of the other races that have come out in later 3.5 books.

As far as balancing them goes just think of using an adventure that is set for characters one level higher. If you do this then you don't have to redesign anything unless it's really screwed up to begin with.

Also if you don't like that specific part of the rules then use the core 3.5 rules. There always going to be there. So when you start to comment on power creep look at what's come before and try not to compare it to the core 3.5 because core 3.5 isn't really balanced to the stuff that's come out in the last couple years.

These newer rules actually make folks want to play these races again and classes. Heck, I never would of played a 3.5 rogue or fighter but PF versions are actually viable compared to what has come later in the instance of classes like the scout and knight.

kikai13 wrote:

Can I use the Critical Hit/ Critical Failure decks in a PFS game?

Nope.

In fact, house rules stuff about critical failures or successes should also not be used. I know one GM used a critical failure house rule during the Gen Con games and I didn't catch it in time to stop it. All of these scenarios should generally be played on the same, level playing field and house rules or additional rules to the core remove that evenness.

My bad. I was a little punchy on Sunday and was using my natural one house rules for minor inconvienences and flavor. Sorry about that and if I screwed up anyones experience at my table I appologize.

I'm pretty sure it was just a mistake but I am surprised that Josh hasn't said anything about it to clear it up unless he did somewhere else. I think this particular instance has been brought up in other threads.

I want to thank all three of my judges, Heather, for her great job with Silken Caravan, Chris for running that last, sleep-deprived slot of Hydra's Fang on Sunday afternoon, and to Sean K. Reynolds (yes, *that* Sean K. Reynolds) for running us through Silent Tide, the first PFS mod I played.

-George

Thanks for the shout out George. I was on fumes with that last slot but I'll never forget you guys singing "Yo Ho Yo Ho a pirates life for me" before charging onto the Hydra's Fang and beating the ever living love outta Du Moire.

I just wanted to say I had an awesome time running all eight slots and helping with the ascension of the drow. It was by far the best experience of my gaming life and I can't wait to do it again next year. I had some awesome people playing fantastic characters. here were a few of my favorites:

An honorable Paladins of Iomedae thrashing pirates in not so honorable ways.

A merchant of Qadira who picked up every key he found and tried to sell something to everyone he met.

A wizard of Cheliax played as a definite noble look down his nose on everyone else and managed to keep getting the last hits in on their adversaries.

A Taldan fop played like a french nobleman with a fake mole that he would keep moving around on his face. His accent was great. In that same group I had two other characters who kept going back and forth trying to one up each other and taunt each others characters throughout the senario and in that same group I had a female monk who more too much make up and was an expert grappler so whenever she grabbed someone she would rub her horrific caked on makeuped face on them. It was awesome.

Well that's all for now folks. I'll be seeing you around I hope.

Chris Sniezak

P.S. I hope we get a bigger room next year because I lost my voice on saturday. I pretty much had to yell the entire weekend. It's my only complaint. Everything else was awesome.

I was there too and have to say the Piazo guys were awesome. Both their seminars were very informative and the booth seemed to be busy the entire time. I admit I stopped by and bought stuff three seperate times. The best part was I still got my 10% off for being a PF subscriber.

I'd have to say the coolest thing I saw at the con was walking into the Drury Inn, that's one of the hotels attached to the convention center, and seeing the whole Piazo crew sitting around and playing through one of the up coming pathfinder senarios for GenCon.

Nothing warms the heart more than seeing the people who make these great games for us getting to hang out and play them.

Later folks

I did see a panel/seminar that Nick Louge will be running on the Pathfinder Society at Origins. There is also a panel/seminar on the future of Pathfinder, sticking with 3.5 and the Pathfinder RPG.

I think the Pathfinder Society talk is on Saturday the 28th from 5pm-6pm and the Future of Pathfinder and Piazo talk is on the 27th from 7pm-8pm. You can just search Pathfinder or Piazo on the Origins game fair site for a listing of their events.

Hope that helps

OMG, so let me see if I got this right.

So first they get James Jacobs to work for Piazo and then give him the editor position of Pathfinder. I know this was a while ago but I'm trying to get my chicken in a row or eggs or whatever.

Next they go and get Nick Louge to run the pathfinder society which was amazing in and of its self.

Now they go and get Monte Cook to come and help them write the rules for the Pathfinder Role Playing game.

What are you guys gonna do for an encore. Resurrect Gary from his grave and put him on the staff.

It just keeps getting better and better. Keep up the good work Piazo. Keep up the good work.

Later

PS if you didn't notice I'm a big fan of all three of these people. In fact along with Eric Mona and Wulfgang Barr their my favorites in the industry. I guess I can throw Pett in there too.

I guess it would help if I spelled Wolfgang Baurs name correctly and anyone elses.

OMG, so let me see if I got this right.

So first they get James Jacobs to work for Piazo and then give him the editor position of Pathfinder. I know this was a while ago but I'm trying to get my chicken in a row or eggs or whatever.

Next they go and get Nick Louge to run the pathfinder society which was amazing in and of its self.

Now they go and get Monte Cook to come and help them write the rules for the Pathfinder Role Playing game.

What are you guys gonna do for an encore. Resurrect Gary from his grave and put him on the staff.

It just keeps getting better and better. Keep up the good work Piazo. Keep up the good work.

Later

PS if you didn't notice I'm a big fan of all three of these people. In fact along with Eric Mona and Wulfgang Barr their my favorites in the industry. I guess I can throw Pett in there too.

I'm in

- PFS #1 on friday at 1pm
- PFS #2 on saturday at 8am
- PFS #3 on saturday at 1pm
- PFS #4 on sunday at 8am
- PFAPP on saturday at 5pm
- PFSPAotD on friday at 7pm

I kinda like Pathfinder. It's definitely seven kinds of cool.