Corsair17's page

I'm still eagerly waiting for a guide to Swashbuckler Deeds similr to the Grit and Gunslingers book you made a while ago. So thorough.

I might have missed it, but does this address werecreatures and the disguise skill? Technically having a different subtype should ruire a disguise check for werefolk to pass as humans, yet to have a werewolf unseen among us is a well known trope.

Also, sucks to hear that a new discipline will not be a staple of this series, as I always felt that if there was one thing that disciplines were missing was a solid thematic background, issue that was tackled perfectly in both LotN and here. Would it be too much to ask for a tradition also, a pack themed one would be amazing.

The real selling point of PoW is not how big the numbers can get -thou they can get collosal- but how the maneuvers and subsystems allow for otherwise non functional concepts to be used easily and without hoop jumping. Singletons, throwers, sword and board, wierd weapons, finesse wariors, TWFers, etc all can now be competitive through stances and intuitive feats. Furthermore, it finally offers a good aggro class in the warder, so whats not to love.

This discussion makes me want to design a heroic skill unlock system in which having certain ranks in one or two (or even three) skills allows the character to use an Ex verson of a spell.

Freedom of Movement
Prerequisite: Scape Artist 11 ranks, Sleight of Hand 11 ranks
Benefit: You may permanently act as if under the effect of the Freedom of Movement spell. This effect is an extraordinary ability and as such is immune to dispell effects.

This, added to Path of War will truly allow for fantastic "mundanes".

Regarding the trait issue, as far as I can see the problem is that although a certain trait would fit perfectly into the Combat category, the designing team does not want to restrict the use of other Combat traits in tandem. So why not go the "adopted" route. Adopted is a trait that serves as a proxy to circunvent some existing trait limitations. Make a regional trait that focuses on being from a land eternally or constantly in strife/war, and have said trait give you acces to an extra combat one. That way you can not only have your cake and eat it to, but also enhance the game as a whole (more than once I have found myself wanting to take more than one combat trait in general).

Regarding the just posted trait, recovering it as a move action facilitates spamming he maneuver every round, when, for a trait, using a maneuver once per combat seems more than enough.

Orthos wrote:

The Daevic, I believe, will be your full-BAB combatant with a limited array of Veil tricks.

The Daevic is our full BAB veilweaver, and she's a little bit barbarian, a little bit paladin, and a lot of charm. She's got somewhat weaker veilweaving than the other classes but makes up for it by being a bit of a beast on the battlefield.

The Guru is our 3/4 BAB class and I like to think of him as... Have you ever read The Highwayman by R.A. Salvatore? He's like what the Stork becomes after getting his hands on the sacred gemstones and combining their use with his mother's Jhesta Tu training.

Now I MUST check out this system. Love the Highwayman and have wanted to play a character like the stork for the longest time.

Onizuka pulls crazy stunts all the time, doing things that he never manages to do again for some reason. He is a brawler through and through.

More flavorfull archetypes. Mechanically the SK is extremely solid, but sometimes it feels a little bland on the flavor deparment. Go deeper into concepts such as a SK who gets his weapon from a deity, a SK who gathers shadows to make devastating weapons, a SK whose strikes disrupt technology/magic, etc. With slight mechanical changes to reflect such styles of course. Also, some SK specific combat style chains.

Marcus Robert Hosler wrote:

Obviously the poor fort is there to preserve the fighter's niche :P

Good fort and ref would just make him another "fighter but better" class for combat, which the game does not need IMHO.

A good fort save is not the fighter's niche. Retaining their mobility, and not being married to a particular weapon group or fighting style are where the fighter excels, and they have nothing to worry about on either front from a swashbuckler.

If you want to argue based on theme, there are only three existing classes with poor fort saves who don't also have 1/2 BAB progression and d6 HD. Rogue, oracle, summoner. The class which, in theory, is specialized in avoiding combat and dealing with all the other problems a party will face, the class which is explicitly frail or crippled due to their curses, and the wizard variant which only has 3/4 BAB and d8 HD as an odd quirk of design symmetry thanks to their odd spell list.

Arguing that a good fort save "doesn't make sense" for a swashbuckler is arguing that people specifically trained as experts in a style of swordplay should be less capable of shrugging off injury than clergy, entertainers, scientists, ranged combat specialists, wizards who also know how to use a sword on the side, and magic users who use summoned monsters to fight their battles for them.

...

This right here is the best point I have seen raised regarding the SB and its lack of good fort save.

Psionics have rarely been an issue when playing APs. Mostly they allow for some more exotic concepts, something rather fitting for Iron Gods. So yes my group will most likely see one or more psionic characters in play.

The Honey Badgers

Enough said

More than one truly efficient thing at a time

I think a more accurate thing to ask - in order to avoid the whole "everything can be fun if you do it right" type of answer - would be if playing a fighter would make it more or less likely for you to have an amount of fun playing it compared to the amount of fun you would have by playing other class.

The answer is that most likely you would have less fun.

Kruger from Elysium. Movie sucked but that guy was the best thing since chocolate cake.

The very end dealt a lot with the characters starting to see the whole story for what it really was: Baba yaga making a point at he expense of her daughter. They took pity on Elvanna and threw her down into a well of many worlds to spare her fate at least for a while. Given this, they of course asked Baba yaga to leave Golarion forever.

The very ending was also quite sad, as not only one of the characters offered herself in service to baba yaga (in the hopes of either rehumanize or killing her). The fire oracle went back to Iobaria (his homeland) and brought back with him the first dragon egg that would hatch there (courtesy of Ydrax) in a very long time. The cross dressing tiefling dervish dancer said goodbye as well and hitched a ride back to triaxis where Sezeer of Ning (a genderless male in my version) had been waiting for him/her. They all knew seeing each other again would be unlikely, but the whole binding idea of the adventure was to not belong, to be an outsider as the ultimate tool for freedom (baba yaga being the ultimate outsider), so they left. In the end, only an exiled half elf cavalier (who had her reincarnated father as a wolf mount) and the resurrected Windy (temporaly displaced fetchling from a cyberpunk style future earth) were left to watch over Anastasia (queen of irrisen). This was perfect as those two characters had been looking for a place to call home for their whole adult lives.

The very last scene of the game was all of them getting what the wanted (the oracle´s egg hatching, bard finding and fighting Sezeer in Triaxus, cavalier finding an additional bird companion who was a reincarnated Nikola Tezla (in Rasputin must die I used him instead of the less known scientist, also it was hell to find a picture of a bird that looked like it had a mustache), and the witch who left with Baba Yaga playing doctor´s companion with the witch queen. All with the background of Baba Yaga monologuing on how she kind of liked this weirdos and that if she ever saw them again they would know what suffering really means.

PD: I apologize for the wall of text but everyone loved how the game ended.

PD2: Also, I know a lot about he adventure was altered, but when the players get sucked into their characters, it is just natural to have the adventure adapt to them instead of the other way around.

Post Ascension Daniel Jackson as an Aasimar (the variant that looks fully human) Lore Oracle who was sent back to te material realm to prevent a great disaster (the details for which he cannot remember as per the SG ascension rules)

Frerezar wrote:

I want to advocate for a cooldown mechanic instead in which yo have to wait an increasingly longer period of time to perform a maneuver of a given level. So the deadlier the maneuver, the longer one must wait to use another one. Not only it would reflect better the mental and physical strain of performing such amazing feats of skill, but make resource administration more important (do i use my deadliest maneuver first or open with a weaker one to set up the big guns?)

Just my 2 cp

This would kill interest in the class/system for me. It would become yet another case of martials not being allowed to have nice things spellcasters already get. Fancy trick with a sword? Have to wait. Fancy trick with a spell? Can fire off the exact same spell again next round. Heck no.

My 2cp in turn.

This is NOT a caster vs martials thing. It is just a matter of, first, immersion, and second, being on par with currentmartial classes.

If the goal of the proyect is reconstruct how martial classes work, then go for it (I personally would love it). However, the goal is to make a subsystem of classes that mesh properly with the current ones.

Right now the versatility of options given to the Warlord at least far outstrips any other martial class (on top of using a subsystem breaks believability for many.

Also worth mentioning that uses per day and concentration are two intrinsic limitations within the casting system that is in no way present for maneuvers. So please if you want to make a point go beyond saying "stop oppressing martials you caster lover"

My party just got through this part of the adventure last Friday. I won't go into much detail, but I can safely say that even thou the encounter would have been deadly had they run into it blindly/recklesly.

Ever since the frost giant ambush in book 3, they always scout right after exiting the hut (using the huntmaster's bird companion). So far, every time they had exited the hut, figuring out what was around them has given them a clear advantage (in the 4th book helping them figure out that Bescalye - i think the dragonrider's name was- was around). Additionally, the coffin man not only told them their shadows had passed through there as if rushing somewhere, but was made helpful through the use of cooperative diplomacy and friendly actions (good source of intel apparently). Finally, any player worth their salt that is told there is a small town burned to the ground right outside will be on their toes (and they were), specially when the GM tells them the man way down is a clear snowy descent in between two forests lines (screams ambush really).

Considering all this, the cocky bastards buffed themselves up and figured they would just fly to the town to avoid any traps (and go straight towards the strange colossal wheeled "golem" they had scouted before). By the time they were spotted they had gone trough the right forest area and engaged the enemies on the tank (no landmines, no surprise round for soldiers) with some good old fashion fireball.

By the end of the fight, two characters were down and the troops were routed. The main difficulty was the player's inability to easily counter the strange mechanics of the troop subtype. Funny thing is that they insisted on finding refuge inside the tank right after the firefight (in case reinforcements arrived), and talked to Rasputin from the top of the metal behemoth (which made it all the more dramatic).

My conclusion is that if ALL characters in a party are mindless fighting brutes, who just like to trample through encounters confident in their killing capabilities, this first encounter with modern war will be deadly. However, an experienced party who is capable of using other tactics like diplomacy, scouting, stealth and coordination; and has been of course paying attention through the adventure, should have NO problem getting through this first fight. Honestly, they are given a million hints that something bad is waiting for them.

GM has no control, period. All changes to a PC are part of an agreement between GM and player, and as such should include a discussion if either are unconfortable.

Combat styles that focus on less than optimal weapon choices would be nice (single handed swords, single hand axes, sword and board, etc. Styles that work on high crit range weapons or fighting two handed would be just a waste.

Since the topic of spell points was brought up, I find it funny that this just came out a few minutes ago

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/105022/Houserule-Handbooks%3A-Spell-Points

An AP focused on playing unusual races

Personally I think the best psionic system wa the one from XPH. It was extremly well balanced within itself, and the transparency rule made it balanced with magic (a bit sub par in fact).

So the idea that ALL psionic systems have been broken is just not true (thou most of them were)

And for the record what the transparency rule stablished is that effects like dispell magic and dispell psionics were the same (and it applied to most things as such)

Just wanna point out that the rules for 3.5 psionics were really elegant as a system. In fact I preffered it in many ways to magic. In that case the dislike for psionics came more as a consecuence to the unreazonable cheese that the 3.0 rules were.