Cypher Pax's page

Wow! This is incredible! If you are coming from a paper RPG background, the advantage may not be immediately obvious.

However, as an EVE Online player (which uses the same mechanics), it is something that I pay for two accounts to do. The reason is that there are so many skills that no one character can do it all (or do it all well). This allows you to try two play styles - and you may find that your main changes as your goals and interests do.

If you're at all interested in this game, I'd highly recommend taking advantage of this offer.

Second level should not matter in the first module - it should help. In the first part, my party overestimated what was after them (which is natural given the build up). It was a lot of fun as a result... The group ended up short on experience at the end of the first section to get to 2nd level, so it wouldn't have mattered.

1. My group had collected a lot of 3.5 stuff that we didn't want to abandon.

2. We loved Paizo's adventure paths and preferred their content to Wizards. These continue to impress - if anything they're getting even better over time.

3. When we saw the Beta, we decided we like it better than 3.5. (Particularly since I have a couple of guys who prefer straight melee classes and the PF Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, and Rogue are all big hits).

4. 4E didn't feel right... probably not a bad a game, but not what we'd be used too.

5. Oh, and the destruction of the Forgotten Realms. We had moved to Ptolus for awhile and were looking for a new world. Most of use grew up reading those books. It's not like we were necessarily going to play there again - but was it really necessary to trash it? It seems like they could have introduced a new world... Golarion isn't necessary for PF, but it's a fun place to visit.

Yes - We play Pathfinder every Wednesday, usually rotates at a bar. Typical attendance is DM & 5 regulars with some occasional players.

I suggest you try with the rules when they actually start settling and building, and if your players enjoy doing it that way, continue with the rules. If they don't seem to enjoy it, but still enjoy the kingdom building aspect, do it as your post above :)

I agree with Are. The kingdom building rules are actually a fun meta-game. I had the same concern with taking time during sessions so I shared most of the rules with the PCs and we handle the kingdom building via google group emails (which is how I've handled purchasing, side quests for years).

However, the group really got into the kingdom building which was a surprise to me -- and it's added a sense of ownership that I would have never expected without taking away from tabletop time.

So you may want to give it a try - and role play the events if it doesn't work. What you may miss otherwise is the sweep of time -- this is a multiple year path and it building the kingdom has really helped.

It also is a wonderful rp device -- as it's amazing the reaction I get from threatening one of the towns they've built and letting them ride in to same the day.

As a result of the kingdom building rules and the rp that emerge and motivate the players, I think this game will continue well after we've complete the path. You may want to give it a try..

I'm not a great DM anymore - I pretty much run most things as written and improvise as necessary. My players aren't exactly power gamers either -- I doubt any them have even been to this site and they may might two to three trips a year to a game store. But we've been playing these adventure paths since Dungeon pretty much as written and having a great time at it.

However, Kingmaker has encouraged me to branch out and for the first time since college I've been running much more of my own material than scripted material.

I really like the 'outlines' that the sandbox provided -- it's allowed to branch out and fill in the blanks without having to worry how it's going to come together. The lack of time to do this being the primary reason why I don't run my own stuff. Kingmaker has provided enough structure and set pieces that I'm enjoying expanding on it.

We've also had some much fun with the domain building rules (and expanded those rules to become something that will undoubtedly become part of every high level game we run).

Having gotten back into the groove of writing my own stuff - I'll continue to do so to supplement the adventure paths.

Thanks to all the people who planned and participated in creating this.

While I'm writing this - I'd like to extend my thanks to the people who posted in Kingmaker forum. I read a lot and don't always feel like I have much to add -- but all the conversations here have given me so many ideas.

It will be months before our Kingmaker game wraps up - but I wanted to post this people everyone moves on to the next AP.

Archery Rangers shine in Kingmaker. We have one in our group and it's the first archery build we'll seen in awhile. The whole group is impressed by the output- also all the 'favor' wilderness skills are seeing a lot of use. I think you'll be very happy with the choice.

Something else to note is the vast majority of people have big families with lots of kids and/or old people, so often our vision of "how many people" is kinda slanted towards "how many able bodied men," which is a pretty small percentage of actual overall people alive.

I think this is what I was missing -- if I start thinking of 6-10 people per dwelling instead of 2-4 then the numbers start to work as we're laying out houses.

The players are really into this and one of them is drawing maps. I'll share them at the end of the campaign if anyone is interested.

The problem we ran into was there was space in the town that it didn't make sense to have people living in. None of this space has any game use -- but makes the city feel more real than laying out a 1 mile by 1 mile grid in hilly terrain.

The compromise we're making is that 'commons' space can be laid out that doesn't count toward squares and doesn't provide benefits but will get walled (and adds to the cost of building the wall)

Examples of this space:
* A pasture within in the city wall
* A green by the park / town hall / temple square
* The hill immediately around the castle
* A main street bouvelard that's about 50 feet wide (from the main gate to the commons (yes not historically accurate - but part of the city planning)
* wasted space due to steep hills
* space by city walls were building is prohibited

By not forcing people into these spaces, the density issue sort of resolves itself.

Thanks!

First, I should say - I think the rules are great! James - I didn't mean to criticize the system. The rules asre fun to play with and don't detract from the emphasis of the game. I'm just trying to figure out how the settlement develops so I can describe it better.

I think saying a town attracts 250 residents per square sounds right. The group has chosen Erastil for their patron deity and we're just trying to figure out how this works out.

We're hand waving the population boom - but hinting their are people in southern Brevory who are looking for greener pastures either due to the unrest and as part of cult of Erastil.

Vagrant-Poet thanks for the link - I'm always interested in things like that.

I'm considering a house rule that says for a city without walls - 50 people per square live in the city and 200 outside of it in the same hex. For cities with walls, the population is 100 per square versus 150 outside of the city. I think this gets to a more 'realistic' settlement where people have more space.

Otherwise, it's hard to reconcile the fact that the average population density in fledgling town (9,000 per square mile) has a higher population density that many modern US cities with have significantly more advanced infrastructures:

Here are some examples:
- Los Angeles (7,877 per square) *
- Seattle (6,717 per square mile)
- Pittsburgh (6,019 per square mile)
- Washington, D.C (9,776.4/sq mile)
- Atlanta (4,019 per square mile)
- Dallas (3,687 per square mile)
- Denver (3,898 per square mile)
- Phoenix (2,937 per square mile)
* many areas directly around LA exceed this

Even if you ignore sanitation, water & food supply, etc -- people in rural communities typically don't choose to build on top of each other.

They may flee to the safety of the city walls in times of danger. However, unless the city's on a gem mine or an important strategic point - it's hard to see why people why the independent settlers would choose to live somewhere where they need to spend their time huddled behind walls. Either the hex is safe enough to support a settlement, or it's not.

In any case, here are some contemporary population density numbers for some modern Europen cities that seem more likely comparisons for River Kingdoms cities
-Venice (1,690 per square mile)
-Siena (1,186 per square mile)
-Cordoba (671 per square mile)
-Heidelburg (3,466 per square mile)
-Mykonos (229 per square mile)
-Prague (6,522 per square mile)
-Salzburg (5,826 per square mile)
-Liechtenstein (Vaduz) (764 per square mile)
-Bruges (~2,0000 per square mile)

I then treat the population of the whole hex as the 'city' population with much more of the population being distributed over a wider area.

I'm trying to figure out population of 'farm' hexs -- I imagine it's considerable (probably a high hundreds to a few thousand per hex). Any thoughts here?

Thanks for sharing this - it obviously took a lot of time. I've enjoyed playing with it.

1. Legacy of Fire - The atmosphere was great and the whole path felt fresh.
2. Curse of the Crimson Throne -- Playing this path is what put Paizo on my radar. Our group loved the city and felt connected and motivated throughout. Our DM covered any plot gaps and it seemed to hang together from our perspective. We had a priestess of Desna in the group and the use of Harrow cards added a lot to the game.
3. Rise of the Runelords -- Each chapter is excellent individually, they don't hang together as well as the two I rated higher. There were a good number of PC deaths even in a party of six, but this actually made it feel epic when we finally won out.
4. Council of the Thieves -- We enjoyed the first several, but we might be stopping this for Kingmaker. The group doesn't feel as connected to the city as in CoCT, in fact they have a fairly active dislike for Westcrown and life in Cheliax in general. A Westcrown Chroncile probably would have helped. The Sixfold Trial and the Pathfinder Lodge were hits -- the mayor's party not so much.
5. Second Darkness -- I played this one and then read the rest. I'd tend to agree on this being too railroady. The group rebelled and refused to be transformed - so we stopped there.

The wish economy is an interesting metagame idea. I personally like to have high level characters establish a domain or estate and have retainers take care of shopping,etc so it doesn't slow down play - so I'm sympathetic (I tend to hand wave standard gear, potions, and even wands at high levels.)

I also don't think I'd subvert a wish the player made that followed the guidelines. I don't see the problem with that. I do think the efreet enslavement scenario is unlikely. I seem to remember something in Necromancer's City of Brass where it says that most of slaves come from those who misuse wishes or efreet. Not that that's canon - but that seems more consistent with Efreet behavior.

As a DM, I don't have a problem with a player attempting to enslave a efreet - but given the literature on this type of scheme almost inevitably ending badly. So I won't feel bad on putting the player in a bad position if they tried to abuse this either.

If they can get out of it great... but there's consequences to everything. If this case, I just don't see binding a efreet and making it do your will being as easy as ordering something on Amazon and having it show up on your door the next day.

I'd be interested in seeing a Ptolus Pathfinder Lodge. I've also enjoyed reading Alleynbard's work.

I like your write-up - but Golarion wouldn't be the stranger world in my traveller game. I think you could insert it as is into the TU if you wanted.

There is little doubt in my mind that the Third Imperium would quarnatine Golarion and not pay it much attention.

1. It has more of a psionic population then they'd care to have intermingle. (They'd probaly qualify arcane magic as psionics.)

2. Golarion technology could be viewed as 'ancient' technology which will also get the world banned.

3. The Imperial Scout Service tends to protect lower tech worlds for the interstellar traffic and these worlds are not seen as valuable in many cases. (more on this later).

4.The Imperium tends not be interested or even notice most low tech worlds. Most merchant traffic would not be interested in trading with Golarion -- it's not that they're aren't quality goods, but pre-industrial societies in Traveler can't produce things in quantities that would justify the expense of interstellar trade. This may not be true - but few merchants would attempt to establish trade with such a primitive world as it's not generally profitable.

5. Worlds that are particularly dangerous to visitors are typically quarantined. Even a civil war or disease outbreak can trigger one -- Golarion may fit this as well.

6. Hyperspace is dangerous - looking out the window can drive one mad. If the Hyperspace bubble runs out of energy - the ship is destroyed. I imagine it like Leng-lite. Leng could exclude Golarion hyperspace caused a high probability of misjumps and technology mishaps. Depending on how severe or unpredictable this effect is -- this by itself could make Golarions system a 'no fly' area.

Golarion already has a build in hook for Traveler - Numeria. The IIS or Naval Integillence could have set up a downport there (that may or many not be attatively maned - depending on the severity of factor 6. (It may be there because Golarion causes misjumps that that ships close by.)

In this way, you could have Golarion in your Traveller universe - as the best way for it to exist is to be a backwater. If there was a wormhole or something interesting - it would spell problems for Golarion as you'd probably want to set up Golarion as a place that's largely ignored and except for certain explorers.

Traveller is a different type of game. Characters can die in the character creation phase - and there're much less likely to surive Pathfinder style feats as many T20 classes just accrue skills.

EDU and SOC are not useful skills on Golarion (particularly if you ban technology)- as SOC is TU society and EDU pertains to skills like medicine, engineering and piloting.

If you're going to use T20 characters in Golarion - they probably should have their technology and run them in mid-level adventures. (Their gear with break or run out of energy over time if they don't resupply - that's another reason why TU folks don't like low-tech worlds.)

If you're going to take Pathfinder characters into the Traveler world - they're going to need their magic as they don't get enough skill points to learn how to function in that world. If they're to obvious about being different - they're going to get in trouble with Naval Intelligence and even high-level characters aren't going to do well against T20 military units. It is a very interesting concept..

I'd like to see where it goes.

I think it could work either way..

We've sort of been talking about this already - as my gaming group started with Birthright. Very few monarchs consolidated enough power to be absolute rulers.. so there's a number of positions that could be potentially as powerful or have significant control over thier own domain. Here's some ideas we had:

In addition to the King, the following looks attractive:
1. Marshall -- Head of a Royal Order of Knights and Calavary. Liason to landed nobles and gentry (as they would provide horses and troops. Holding: Manor and Hall of the Order

2. General - In charge of army, armories- holding: Manor / War College

3. Vizier: Wizard or Sorcerer in charge of arcane Holding: University or State-sponsored arcane guild

4. Treasurer / Guild Master: In charge of guilds /taxes / intelligence. Holding: Royal Guild / Bank

5. Arch Bishop / Champlain -- Head of state church Temple Holdings - perhaps a Cathedral / Temple holding.

6. Lord Ranger -- In charge of forests, forestry, ranger units - relations with elves / fey. This one doesn't sound that exciting - but maybe there could be an irregular unit to build - griffon guard, maybe?

7. Chamberlain / Castellon / Archvist / Ambassador- Similiar to the Hand of the King - the chief advisor.

My players will want to continue this game if they all have portfolios that have actual power and the opportunity to develop a holding /stronghold and not just 'head of ther royal guard.' type of responsibility.

Hi,

This weekend I had reason to believe my credit card number had been compromised - so I have canceled the card associated with my account. I should have a new number in about a week.

It looks like the October shipment is going to be shipped soon. How should we handle this? Can we postpone the shipment until my credit card number is updated? Should I remove the card from my account?

I apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks,

Michael

My apologies - I didn't notice the forum. I am obvioulsy not a Society DM

I'm hardly a master DM - but here is my approach.

I have the a similiar problem in that I have 2-3 people who are always there and 2-4 people who alternate in.

With a new player, I typically let them roll a character at the average level of the rest of the PCs. This meant that Saturday, I had a player with a new 9th level druid. It would have been pointless to start the End of Eternity with a 1st level character.

It can be harder to balance the people fall behind due to spotty attendance, particularly if they don't show up for a while - I will usually allow them to advance their characters to the average group level (rounding down).

I don't advance their equipment or gold - so those who attend have 'better' characters. Equipment is important - - so I'll often run more than 4 players without significantly rebalancing most encounters and this seems ot balance it out. Our group is perhaps less talented than most - as a player in Rise of the Runelords our group had a bunch of deaths playing with six.

The bigger problem I have is when I have less than 4... I've been updating Haleen's character sheet for Legacy of Fire and I will play her if I need a fourth. I'm had someone show up twice who admits they can't commit - and I've given him Haleen to play on those instances.

I'd be interested to hear other approaches.

Cypher Pax wrote:

The only surprise last night was when I let some mephit's show up to enter a Nature's Ally summons.

Wow. I think they are normally on the Summon Monster IV list.

Sean Mahoney

Yes - They came on a Summon Nature's Ally IV or V spontaneous casting - this is a replacement for a character in End of Eternity. I haven't gone crazy yet...

Here's the background the player gave me based on the player's guide in case anyone is interested - it's a neat twist for a druid:

Dearest Katrina,

After a Pathfinder orientation of sorts, I was sent back to Katapesh where I ended up using my new contacts to find more trustworthy parties to guide. I occasionally checked in with the local Venture Captain – but had not been tasked with anything until I was asked to reinforce the team in Kelmarane.

The druid character was introduced and it seems to work well. We ended up not using the 'animal' companion and went with a weather druid - as the druid can summon gen through Summon Nature's Ally I sponateously (they don't fight so it's more for flavor).

The druid interest is in communing the elemental spirts and ancestors, rather than 'nature' and the fey - while this feels appropriately like an eastern mystic it's mechanically close to the beta druid.

The only surprise last night was when I let some mephit's show up to enter a Nature's Ally summons.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm glad I didn't grant the Use Magical Devices skill as it seems unnecessary.

The campaign setting is excellent if you're looking to get the big picture. I've played an AP and am in the process of running one - and I've found that the Adventure Paths are pretty much self-contained in that the articles have enough meat to support the region.

I bought the campaign setting just because I was interested in it and I've becoming a sucker for hardcovers - and it's a very nice book.

I'd highly recommend them even if you don't plan on running them - for example each path has in-depth articles on the deities of Golarion. The AP subscription is a great deal and I'd highly recommend it -- I feel like a kid waiting for each addition to arrive in my mailbox.

Frogboy - Are you the same Frogboy who is responsible for all of those great Stardock games by any chance?

I like the timeline. I do think that with the Praemal boundary the Isle of Terror could work better - maybe that could be Palastan. The spire could work - but the boundry would pre-date the Spire by quite a while.

I wanted to change things up a bit since many of the people I play with are also familiar with Ptolus, so I'll let you know what I did with the Cosmology in case it give you some ideas:

It stands to reason that Lastwall would have interests in Ptolus.

I was going to put Ptolus in Lastwall on the coast west of the river which would be the King's River and the Spire would be the new location of the Gallowspire where Ghul/the Whispering Tyrant died. Of course, Gallowspire could as easily be on the Isle of Terror and that would be poetic since it's where Aroden won the original battle.

In this scenario - Dalenguard was build by the forces of Lastwall/Taldor and Ptolus grew up around it. This actually seems to fit with most of your history.

The 'Prince' of the Aroden's Church then relocated to Ptolus when Cheliax abandoned Aroden - and it makes more sense since the priesthood can use their powers there.

Thanks Sean - I think you gave me my answer.

We're playing a combo of Pathfinder Beta with 3.5 books allowed - except for one prestige class -- everyone choose Beta classes.

I think you're right about Use Magical Device. I think I'm going to limit it to items with a direct relationship to genie's - as I don't want to grant Planar Ally / Binding as a spells. This made me thing that I could augment the Nature's Allies lists with genies, jann, mephits, etc that give the correct flavor. Even better is that these spells are available for spontaneous casting.

If this doesn't work for balance reasons - then no one should be surprised when an uncooperative genie refuses a request or refuses to be treated as a servant. It's the metagame cost for being able to summon something with greater power than normally could and if it's an issue a panther will show up the next time.

In fact, I'm probably going to be component costs on summoning anything supernatural - were they with a totem or item required with some RP and expense involved in gaining it. This would frustrate some people - but I think this player will actually enjoy this more.

I enjoyed reading this as I've been trying to figure out how I am going to insert Ptolus . You seem to have covered all the bases - I particularly love the part about the boundry as that seemed like the hardest mechanism to figure out.

Hi,

I have a player that is rolling a replacement for their Legacy of Fire character as we start the 4th module. The player has a character concept for gen/elemental focused druid. The concept is similar to what I would think of as a druid crossed with a 2nd edition Sha'ir. Instead of a traditional animal nature druid - this one is more of an elementalist natural druid that's more into gen then fey.

This player is a role player and not a power gamer by any stretch, but I thought I'd run this by everyone as I'm certainly no expert at balancing classes.

She has Qadira - Gateway to the East and I just ordered the pdf to review. She wants to use the Suli race which gets to most of the flavor - and who also have an affinity for nature. It looks like we'll use the Zhyen in lieu of a animal companion.

I think I'm going to swap Resist Nature's Lure for the addition of Use Magical Device as a class skill. This last worries me, but it fits what she'd like to be able to do - use an item or scroll to summon a genie and bargain for favors.

Does this sound ok? Any other suggestions?

I'm having the same problem. Could someone please add it /check it for me? It shows up as my next item - but while I see the shipment scheduled for the Bestiary/Screen - the Rule book isn't showing up.

Thanks!

This is really an interesting discussion. I do think it's hard to compare alignment where things are more complex or grey. In the game world, things are more clear cut in most cases.

The forces of evil are tangible - and even cartoonish by our standards if you look at fiends, undead, evil deities, elder entitie and drow. Evil corrupts - and the forces of evil in many cases are actively trying to destroy the world, or at least enslave it. If you do evil things repeatedly - you're likely to come to the notice of some greater evil and fall under it's influence.

The forces of good are trying to counteract this - even on a micro scale by valuing life and working for the betterment of all. These people actively go out of their way to help those in need... Good can lead to intolerance - but this could also be the subtle corruption of good as well. Good people have a strong moral compass -- there are models like Celestials and deities interfere or manifest themselves indirectly into the world on a daily basis on command, and it's not necessarily what passes as 'good' in our world - where likely every culture views themselves as good.

The forces of neutrality either reject this worldview, or haven't aligned themselves preferring to keep their heads down. No rational actor is going to favor 'evil' unless they are under it's influence - though many evil people probably started out as neutral and walked down the path toward the 'darkside.'

I think their are a lot of downtrodden people in the world who are neutral simply because they want to avoid notice, or don't feel like they can make a difference.

My point is that a fantasy world is going to be a lot more black and white than our world because the stakes are very clear... and while not every action is going to be completely consistent with the choosen alignment it should be pretty clear for those that are truly good or evil as to which side they are on.

I don't think that neutral makes sense for adventurers in most cases as they're going to be asked to take sides by nature of their lifestyle. Do they destroy the demon threatening the village? Or try to gain it's favor? Do they interfere with the slavers cult, or do they let the slavers buy them off?

The 'True Neutral' prespective seems goofy to me. Yes - extreme good could be too limiting - but realistically the very real threats of Golarion being dragged toward the Abyss; or runelords, spawn of the dark gods, or fiends dominating the nations of the world would seem to be a larger problems in the scheme of the post-Aroden world than some city being overly orderly and charitable.

I tend to play neutral (unaligned) as a default alignment - where altrustic people are good, and evil people aren't necessarily fiends, but will do anything necessary to advance their interests with little regard to the consequences.

I can see neutral doing what is convenvient - but not necessarily good or evil. A neutral person would not generally commit murder except for extreme circumstances as that's clearly evil and out of the bounds for polite society. The same person wouldn't necessarily go out of their way to help the poor unless their was something in it for them - and may even be a bit cruel to strangers. For issues like slavery, or swearing an oaths, they'd probably lean the way their culture views is correct most of the time - though they're not as tied to the 'law' or norms.

This person may not keep thier word to someone they don't know - since they're not lawful, but is probably not out to use someone either and will kept their word in most cases (if only to protect their reputation rather than because they value thier word) and will not betray people they consider friends except in extreme circumstances.

A neutral (unaligned) person is likely to help out if it's doesn't hurt them, they think they can get something out of it, or it's for the community good where they value the community.

Murder, particularly without 'cause' is a hallmark of evil as even in 'evil' societies murder is rarely rampant - I'd suggest that anyone who regularly commits murder is evil, regardless of cause.

At pointed out previously, most neutral people will end up picking a side in a fantasy world where good and evil are much clearly defined than they are in our world.

It takes my group so long to play through a AP that we don't typically look for modules... I do like the idea of modules that occur in the same region as the APs - that don't necessarily have to tie into the AP.

I played Seven Swords of Sins as an insert to Rise of the Runelords for example. We also had some excursions around rebuilding Fort Rannick - and in our campaign we spent a good amount of time researching the location of the final city. Like a good TV show, not every episode needs to tie into the main storyline...

I could see our group using modules that were accessible from locations in the AP. I don't know if it's already available - but I'd love to see a listing of all the modules and scenarios that includes their level, location, and a short description to see what could be slotted in.

I like the idea of higher level modules - but then I think that gets into motivation. Most groups I've played with have 'settled' in the region after the AP and aren't necessarily going to go somwhere else unless they have a good reason in character to do so...

The Kingmaker type series would have been at the top of my list - since I loved the old Birthright setting where PCs could run a kingdom - and for the most part I am really excited about what has been outlined. As for my wishlist:

I'd love to see an expanded city of Absalom, perhaps in a handcover.

I'd love to see a iconic dungeon - perhaps something that hasn't been down much - like some partially submerged ruins of Azlant or the series of Osirion tomb crawls.

I'd also love to see a good system for building player strongholds (keeps, towers, guilds, temples, etc.) I have a number of those rulesets - but I haven't found one I really like.

#6 - I wish I hadn't bought it.

If finances are issue between the settings, the pdf of the PFRG is going to be $10.00 - that alone has helped convince my group to adopt Pathfinder. Most of us have a shelf full of 3.5 stuff - and it's a much cheaper than all the 4E core.

I think you have a pretty good collection. Perhaps you'd want to save your money for the bestiary and a hardcopy of the rulebook?

I think a megadungeon in Osirion would be awesome - I had thought of doing a set of tomb crawls perhaps with one or both of the Osirion modules in the middle - if I ever get through Legacy of Fire.

It sounds like you want to create through own adventure - but the Paizo APs are the only big selling point to my group. None of us have time to create our own games - and they're always top-notch. I guess you could convert them to 4E, but that's never seemed worth while to me... it looks like you already own the first part of three paths. I haven't played Second Darkness - but Runlords and the Crimson Throne are both very fun.

Paizo PDFs actually got me interested in buying print books again. I've been buying PDFs exclusively for 6 years since I primarily read them and it's easier to justify the investment. (With the exception of Ptolus which was just too cool not to buy.)

When I realized I could get the print version of the APs and the PDFs for roughly the same price, I subscribed. Shortly after I got my first issue - I rediscovered how much more fun it is to have a high quality book and I went out and got the Pathfinder setting, Shackled City from my local game store.

Paizo initially grabbed me as a customer when I needed to plug some holes in my Greyhawk collection - and then quite a bit after I saw the Pathfinder Beta book. After that it was all over as I was hooked -- in any case, anything that Paizo can do to attract new customers is probably good as I had very little in interest in 4e from the beginning and I wouldn't have been buying anything new.

I thought the Absalom book was a good introduction and would make a good port of call - particularly if the Pathfinder Society headquarters are detailed.

I do agree that the material in the book feels too thin to run a campaign there due to the high-level of detail provided. I would definitely continue to buy products that provide additional detail about Absalom - and hopefully we'll see some more information as time goes on.

The Absalom book was useful in that I now feel I 'get' the city - and that's roughly what I expected from 64 pages.

If you have a draconic sorcerer, there is an obvious tie to the Dragon Disciple prestige class. This obviously allows a draconic sorcerer the ability to become more 'dragon-like.'

There are are prestige classes out that they deal with becoming more like a celestial, fiend, undead, elemental, or even destined or fated. Perhaps, you could select a number of these to allow in your game.

Then a player could play a straight-up sorcerer - or if they want to bloodline to be more promiment, they could take as many levels of the prestige class as they wish.

This gets around the 'rulebook space' issue. There may even be a few choices for some bloodlines - making the character feel even more unique.

There are some people on the boards that are fonts of 3e knowledge that may even be able to suggest prestige classes off the top of their heads.

I don't think the Internet or computer games are necessarily bad. All of the guys I recruited for my Legacy of Fire campaign are from my WoW guild and they are either new to paper RPG or haven't played since the original edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. We're all burned out on WoW.

I would be totally up for a 4E version of Neverwinter Nights with a great modding engine. Some of the Neverwinter Night third-party modules were great games.

I don't seem computer games as a replacement to tabletop RPG -- I think the problem is that WoW is SUCH a time sink that serious players have no time for anything else. At some point, people will lose interest... and they'll a much a larger group of people interested in fantasy and rpgs. <fingers crossed>

I agree completely. You won't be sorry if you try it - either Gal Civ or Gal Civ II has been on my computer since 2003 - and I still come back to Gal Civ II.

I'm often let my players design technology for their lairs and strongholds as it's not portable and only rarely comes into play. In a world where each wizard has to translate arcane writing in thier own handwriting, my feeling is that there isn't much of a concept of 'mass production.'

When someone else looks it - they tend to view the same way someone would look at someone else's magic experiment - cool, but I'd do it another way. In my mind, this is why these societies tend to stay at the same level of technology for thousands of years. The best and brighter are often wizards whose learning is not transferable through the society.

Also, I have a metagame reason as well. Technology seems 'easy' to us because we understand it. If we had the ability to perform magic, casting an invisibility spell might seem as straightforward as building a web site, or getting an oil change. It's sort of our lack of the actual magic that makes it seem well magic...

So in my mind allowing a player to build an electric engine even to power a vehicle is fine, provided they could accomplish something similiar with magic and they don't try to mass produce it.

Thanks for accomodating me, Cos! My subscriptions now shows #18 as my first issue.

Thanks, guys! I clicked #19 about month ago thinking that I'd start with the fresh path - and it doesn't appear that I can change it now and I don't want to cancel. There doesn't seem to be anything on 'My Subscriptions' where I can change my mind.

I'm excited about running Legacy of Fire - so maybe I'll just buy the Second Darkness PDFs. Eventually, I'd like to collect everything. :-)

Hello,

I signed up for an AP subscription before I realized how awesome each issue is even if you don't play through it.

I have been following the boards and I know that #19 is due to ship soon and I don't want to screw that up.

Is there any chance of switching my subscription to start with #18? And how would that work?

Otherwise, I'll just continue waiting. :-)

Thanks,

Michael

Not that I'm hooked on Pathfinder, I'll probably buy most of the PDFs. I don't see a real advantage to a PDF subscription unless there was a discounted rate for doing so. One of the advantages to PDFs is the ability to buy whenever I want (even if it's out of print), and if there's something I'm not crazy about I can skip it.

Given a choice of only having one, I much prefer PDFs due to:
1. Instant Gratification in being able to read immediately
2. Full text search
3. PDFs are generally available at a lower price point
4. My wife thinks I'm doing work rather than reading gaming stuff when I'm behind my laptop. ;-)
5. No chance of it getting destroyed or damaged by the children.

The AP subscription was too good a deal to pass up, however. And it is nicer to have a copy of whatever I'm trying to run, and that I'm looking forward to adding them to my gaming shelf. (Looking at multi page maps in PDFs does stink.)

There will be things I will want a hardcover of, like the Rulebook - and I think it's great that Paizo often offers a PDF as a supplement to a print offer.

BTW: Thanks very much for the Legacy of Fire players guide.