Daethor's page

Alexander Augunas wrote:

When you get back, will you mention what the best part of that Texan Con that you went to this weekend was?

I just got back into the office from Comicpalooza today. It was a great weekend! The convention was much bigger than I expected and there were tons of awesome guests there. I had the most fun talking with people and meeting new people. I also enjoyed silently geeking out at all the celebrities there. At one point I was at a party and there were two Doctors standing right beside me, and Sunday night I ended up hanging out with Miltos Yerolemou who played Syrio Forel in the first season of Game of Thrones.

Oooh awesome! Did you ask him if he had knowledge of if

Gah, you people are never satisfied, are you? Vultures, the lot of you! Excellent blog post, Jason. I especially love song of the fallen. I can imagine some cool stories coming from that power :)

I am starting to think that if you run an ap and want it to be successful, you have to have an ultra optimized party or rebuild all the major encounters from scratch. That defeats the purpose of running an ap. This is a failure on the part of paizo. The adventures should be challenging instead of deadly. I know it's a fine line, and there are a lot of variables, but they are supposed to be the experts. I wonder if third party AP's are better? Anyone have experience with those?

I think they toe that fine line pretty well given the variety of opinions I've seen on the difficulty level of APs. It's definitely not an objective "failure." But if you're not happy, feel free to give 3PPs a chance. I've heard some are really good. If you post in that forum, I'm sure people would be happy to point you in the right direction.

What a cool contest idea :D Definitely going to enter.

Hey James, hope you're doing well :) Questions:

1) Have you seen and do you like the following Scorcese movies?:

Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street

1a) If you've seen and like more than one, which one is your favorite?

2) I really don't know if anybody's asked this despite it being such a classic question: you find a ring of three wishes, what do you wish for?

3) How did you like the season premiere of Game of Thrones season 4? (assuming you've watched it).

4) What is a Pathfinder rule that you see misinterpreted a lot that seems simple/obvious to you?

5) What, in your opinion, is the biggest source of complexity in the game?

6) If you could only play Pathfinder or Call of Cthulhu for the rest of your life, which would you play and why? (sorry if this is a particularly difficult question)

7) I want to build a really flavorful ancient city, are there some sources for inspiration you can recommend?

Achaekek looks incredible. One of the best pieces I've seen in a while.

Azathoth's favored weapon is warhammer...interesting. It's not a bad fit, I'd just like to hear the rationale behind it.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

Yeah, I realize the campaign setting is harder to push through than just an adventure path, but I DO have a lot of material worked up on it to some degree (deities, some world history, some geology, ecology, several major cities, and a smattering of towns, some politics, racial interactions, national histories, some unique locations...), and I've drawn up a world map, a map for one of the major cities, and for on of the major kingdoms.

There's a lot more that needs to be done, which I suppose is also a question I'm asking: how much really needs to be there as a starting point?

I don't think it's so much a matter of the world content you have worked up as much as it is a question of logistics and economics (as far as I can tell). The art, editing, layout, and more need to get handled by someone. To do a full scale campaign setting (150-200 pages minimum) successfully requires a lot more than just one person and some ideas; it takes a strong project lead with a good concept, a team of people with the time to devote to the project, and the money to cover all the costs involved.

If you want to do a minimalist campaign setting, Little Red Goblin Games mentioned something like a mini campaign setting in that thread I linked to. Also, I think Raging Swan Press has a more condensed campaign setting, but I'm not completely sure.

Basically, everything depends on the scope of the project you want to do. A campaign setting book, for me at least, evokes the idea of a large hardback book with new rules content and flavor for nearly every aspect of the game along with art and good layout. If that's not what you're shooting for, then the difficulty may be much less than I'm making it out to be :)

A very similar topic was discussed in this thread recently. Lots of great, realistic advice. I highly recommend looking through it.

Short answer: A campaign setting is one of the most difficult things to get published because of the scale involved. Be prepared to invest a massive amount of time, money, and energy to the project if you are dead set on it. It is possible but very difficult without first building up a reputation as a creator of quality content on a smaller scale.

Don't let this discourage you. I would love to publish a campaign setting as well (in the very distant future). Take it as a challenge to develop the necessary reputation and skill. Just don't take on an encounter without knowing it's Challenge Rating first ;)

Hey James, hope you're doing well! Questions:

1) What 3 events (if you can think of that many) in your life do you wish you could observe from a third-person perspective where you could slow-down, pause, filter or otherwise manipulate? (For example, one of mine would be when the guitar in my room seemed to start strumming itself; I'd want to be able to see if there were ambient vibrations that caused it or something of that nature)

2) Have you ever had Lovecraftian dreams/nightmares before? How do they make you feel? Happy? Exhilarated? Scared?

2a) If you have, can you share one of them?

3) Have you ever had a lucid dream?

3a) If so (and if you want to share), what did you do in it?

4) What's the thing you most miss about being a kid?

Something a little less serious:

5) Do you enjoy guessing or predicting who would win in hypothetical fights between fictional characters from different media?

Thank you so much for the advice everybody. Very helpful and very informative. I know I already said thank you in advance, but it needed to be said again :)

So I have an idea for a product that a 3PP might find interesting and I have a fair amount of the initial design work done already, but I wasn't sure what the process is for proposing such a thing.

Should I say what the product idea is in these forums and see if anyone is interested?

Should I privately message people and tell them what I have in mind to see what they think?

Should I not do something like this without building up credibility by doing assigned work beforehand?

Thanks in advance for any advice/guidance you can provide :)

Looking forward to checking this out, can't wait to see all the iconics :)

I can feel my wallet grow lighter on every occasion that OSW ermagherds. I have literally been mugged and felt more financially secure. damn you paizo, now take my money.

Haha, I'm glad I'm just moderately excited about Iron Gods (about the same as any AP) because being super passionate about it sounds almost unpleasant xD

Has FE been typed by Paizo?

I don't think so, meaning it applies to pretty much any attack I believe.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Neo2151 wrote:

I'm also not a fan of the "cookbook" example on a previous page. Simply put, anyone can use a cookbook.

Not if you can't read it. If I hand you a C+ handbook, can you program for me?

Can I suddenly be a programer professionally? No.

Can I do some programing? Sure. Because I'll just follow the instructions in the handbook. It doesn't even necessarily have to make sense to me, as long as I do it correctly. (You don't have to 'understand' 2+2 in order for it to equal 4.)

Then in this case, to cast spells requires one to be a professional programmer.

Out of curiosity I looked up the item creation rules in the CRB, and I'm a little confused. By those rules, if I'm doing this right, the Dragonbane Sword in the Black Fang's Lair scenario should cost 15 GP (for the basic Longsword) + 300 GP for Masterwork + 8,000 GP for two levels of enchantment (one for the +1, and one for the dragonbane bit). That's 8315 GP. Yet the Players' Guide lists it as 8310 GP. Is that a typo, or did I miss something? (I do know you can't make this sword in the BB version of the game - no creation feats - but I thought the price of stuff was the same as the full game.

Another thing: the required spell for the bane enchantment is "Monster Summoning I". I'm not sure I see the connection between summoning a monster (and you can't summon a dragon with that spell anyway) and doing extra damage to it. I learned to accept "it's magic, shut up" where D&D is concerned a long time ago, so I suppose it doesn't matter much, but i'm just curious why that spell?

Yes, I believe 8,315 GP is correct.

Interesting question on the "Summon Monster I" requirement...I would hazard to guess it has something to do with summoning the essence of the monster into the weapon to be used against it, but that's a bit of a stretch. Very strange.

Hey James, hope you're doing well :)

I'm thinking of picking up Call of Cthulhu, but the 1920's don't interest me too much.

1) Have you ever played a more modern Call of Cthulhu game?

1a) If you have, was it fun or were there some things you didn't like about it?

2) When's the last time you were able to play Call of Cthulhu?

3) How did you first discover the game?

4) Any favorite moments that spring to mind that you'd like to share?

Completely unrelated:

5) How's your diet going? Are you done or still sticking with it?

James Jacobs wrote:

by the time we got to that last adventure, we were realizing that mythic at that high level was a lot better than anticipated

Not enough. Not nearly enough. ^^

I can't remember, do you have problems with the mythic rules or not magnuskn? :P

Wow. Great interview! :D

You didn't ask him the most important question though:

What does the F. stand for?!

My current guess is: Fear

Nothing-- I will never buy Pathfinder 2e and if there is a new edition I will never again buy pathfinder books.

If I wanted new editions every 5 years I'd have gone to 4th ed and I'd be going to Next now-- if there's PF 2.0 they should send a free copy of the core book to everyone whose invested in PF or else its just another shameless money grab, which I won't support.

No one said it would happen that soon at all.

Also, do you think the second and third edition of D&D were shameless money grabs where they should have sent a free copy of the core book to everyone who invested in D&D? Because from what I've heard (wasn't playing RPGs then), they seemed like legitimate attempts to update and improve the system. They couldn't have done that without knowing it would be profitable and free copies of the core book would have made that pretty hard I believe. I could be wrong on multiple counts, but your position seems unnecessarily absolutist.

Well, RAI I'm *sure* it wasn't meant to allow dragons to rapidly access the benefits they gain from aging and am pretty sure it was written with humanoids in mind.

RAW, it says you gain the penalties from aging (referring to STR, DEX, and CON) but don't gain the bonuses from that category. Now presumably the bonuses is referring to the bonuses humanoids gain to INT, WIS, and CHA, but you could interpret it as *any* bonuses including no bonuses to size, caster level, breath weapon, etc. Therefore, if it was cast on a dragon, one could make the case that it would apply the DEX penalty (if any) associated with their age category and nothing else.

Does that help?

Not sure if this is the right place to note it, but the Magic Arms and Armor section of Ultimate Equipment isn't loading for me. I'm using Chrome for my browser if that helps.

In Mythbusters, they dipped their hands in molten lead.

Obviously it wasn't full body immersion, but illustrates that the issue may not 100% black and white.

Link for those interested.

Some very nice efforts. Sorry to anybody this made uncomfortable! Blahpers, I'm looking at you :P

Any other takers? I'll try to think of another one...

Thanks guys! Inspiring commander and dreadnaught seem good for what I'm going for :)

@Kaisoku: I do indeed like the samurai, especially the sword saint archetype for it.

Ok, so I *really* like the Cavalier class...except for the mounted thing. So has anyone done any rewrites/archetypes for the cavalier class that replaces its mounted abilities with other stuff? Or are there any 3PP products that have done so? The only archetype I know of is Huntsmaster, and it's very cool, but I'd like to know of more options if they're out there.

Thanks in advance! :)

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Until about 20 minutes ago, my fav was "moist."

That makes me want to start a "what're your LEAST favorite words" thread :P

Moist was one of the most frequently "loathed" words in a competition held by Schott's Vocab Blog though it was definitely biased because the competition description listed "moist" as an example of a terrible word :P

By itself I strongly dislike it, but it's usually acceptable when it's used to describe meat.

I've often had the urge, after seeing Sean correct someone in the Rules forum, to say "You just got SKR-punched!" (Pronounced like "sucker-punched".) But probably no one would get it, and the explanation would ruin it. Oh well.

This is an instance where you should have given in to your urges...

I think do to the nature of the Cthulhu mythology there cannot be "cannon" comprehensible to mortal minds. Any and all such things are merely things we convince ourselves to believe about its existence.

I have no trouble comprehending cannons, thank you very much!

:P

The problem* with that houserule, is that the mages are already decimating the field with everything else they can do, and the lower level spells are already valuable assets for buffs or field effects or dealing with mooks.

If you apply this rule unilaterally to both PC's and NPCs, expect your PCs to fail a lot more saves.

*I'll note it's an interesting rule and might make things more fun for the casters, and as long as everybody has fun then it's not such a huge problem, but it's certainly not one I would recommend.

Yeah, increasing the DC that much for all spells without any other changes is a big move.

For myself, I'm thinking of doing something similar, but I'm also going to be going through a bunch of problem spells (in my opinion) and revising them.

do you mean level as in Caster level so i add 10 plus Caster level plus my Charisma

Nope. It's level as in spell level. If you had a Charisma bonus of +4 and were casting charm monster (a 4th level spell), the DC would be 10(base)+4(level of the spell)+4(Stat modifier)= DC 18

goldomark wrote:

And CR 30 for beauties like Cthulhu.

Apparently Cthulhu isn't a god.

He's at demigod power levels and the highest level of that.

I'm sorry for replying to a comment I knew was going to get removed :(

Unfortunately that is an Advanced Ninja Trick, something that a Rogue does not qualify for, however a Ninja on the other hand may choose to attain the Advanced Rogue Talents.

In other words, I wish...

Ah, you're right of course. That's too bad. A rogue should really have access to this ability (but probably with int mod instead).

Ninja Trick/Rogue Talent from Ultimate Combat:

Assassinate (Ex): A ninja with this master trick can kill foes that are unable to defend themselves. To attempt to assassinate a target, the ninja must first study her target for 1 round as a standard action. On the following round, if the ninja makes a sneak attack against the target and the target is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC, the sneak attack has the additional effect of possibly killing the target. This attempt automatically fails if the target recognizes the ninja as an enemy. If the sneak attack is successful and the target of this attack fails a Fortitude save, it dies. The DC of this save is equal to 10 + 1/2 the ninja's level + the ninja's Charisma modifier. If the save is successful, the target still takes the sneak attack damage as normal, but it is immune to that ninja's assassinate ability for 1 day.

Better than death attack I believe.

So, as a counterpoint to the absurd/unnecessary rules thread, I thought it'd be interesting for people to try and take rules that they think *are* absurd/unnecessary and try to give the best defense possible or at least try to understand what the rationale is behind them.

I'm anticipating some people saying "there is no possible justification for X." That's fine if you think that, but it's not really conducive to the discussion I'm trying to have. I want people to think outside their comfort zone and essentially play devil's advocate with themselves.

Alright, I'll start. Let's see...I really don't like how swingy sneak attack damage is. It makes rogues quite good damage dealers when they can pull it off, but subpar a lot of the times when they can't. I prefer Cheapy's alternative myself (thanks Cheapy!).

Possible defense: Flanking is a fairly common and easy tactic to pull off most of the time. Along with feinting, the flat-footed condition, and potions of rings of invisibility, the rogue should be able to use it fairly consistently. Additionally, it's very thematic of the opportunist vibe that rogues are supposed to fit and being able to inflict conditions with it by using rogue talents is cool.

Probably not the best defense possible (just the best I could think of at the moment), but that was just an example.

Any people on the internet willing to argue against themselves for a change? ;)

I'd take it one step further and allow some skills to be either-or stat. For example, use Cha or Str for Intimidate. Use Dex or Str for the jumping part of Athletics.

Not sure how I feel about 4e skills vs Pathfinder skills, but I do like this idea. Thanks! :)

If you're going for realism, then it should probably do less damage (maybe 1d4 or 1d6) and have a break chance. If you're not going for realism (which is completely fine), yeah just make it bludgeoning damage.

Alternatively, you could make it out of magic wood and not have to worry about realism. If that's the case, then using the same stats with bludgeoning damage seems fine.

For sorcerers it's:

Was one of my ancestors magical? If yes I can cast spells. If no, I can't.

The sorcerer is like the son of rich parent who spends his entire life living off his trust fund. Sure, he's 'rich' but he's not rich because he did something, he's rich because his parents are rich.

I'd prefer it if the flavor for Sorcerers wasn't so dependent on the actions of people who came before him.

Alright, ignoring my previous comment about this being off-topic (because I'm a hypocrite like that; plus, I *did* say it was interesting), there are a few issues here.

First of all, "For sorcerers it's: Was one of my ancestors magical? If yes I can cast spells. If no, I can't" is a moot question. If they're already sorcerers, they already had a magical ancestor, pretty much by definition.

Second of all, I think the sorcerer represents someone who has taken his gifts and embraced and honed them to a point where they are developed. That's why we have both the sorcerer and the Eldritch Heritage feat. The feat represents the power of the bloodline itself, while the class represents taking the bloodline and developing it. If it was all just inherent talent, then it wouldn't be a standalone class. That's my take on it at least, I'm open to changing that belief if there's a reason to.

Third, the relationship between inherent qualities and abilities pervades our life as well as the game. You're not going to be a physicist if you don't have a certain baseline intelligence (which is definitely largely out of your control), you're not going to be a successful clinical psychologist without a certain amount of intelligence *and* empathy. Likewise, you can only be successful as a wizard if you have an intelligence of 11 or above. You can't be a good fighter if you're born with a crippling disease and no way to overcome it.

It's really the myth of the self-made man at work here. No one is 100% in control of their own destiny. We are all influenced by factors that occurred both before we were born as well as during our formative years before we could really even make decisions based on much more than reflex.

I see no difference between the sorcerer and other classes in this regard.

A max of 1,300 to 3,000 XP worth.

Because after that I'd be handling encounters at second level ;)

Daethor wrote:

This sorcerer/wizard sub-debate is interesting and all but not really what I'm looking for when I read this thread. Move it to a new thread, maybe?

I find this absurd and unnecessary.

And...now we're back on topic.

Not sure if you're talking about my comment or the debate, but either way...well played.

This sorcerer/wizard sub-debate is interesting and all but not really what I'm looking for when I read this thread. Move it to a new thread, maybe?

Here's the blog post containing table detailing their alignment, areas of concern, domains, and favored weapons.

Enjoy! :)

A few of ways to handle this that I can think of:

1) Pharasma instead has your gravestone ready with your birth date inscribed but not your death date.

2) You instead have a prophecy inscribed on the tombstone that gives a vague hint as to how the character would die that can fit a variety of situations. If the character dies in a way that clearly doesn't fit the prophecy, hey prophecy isn't guaranteed to work in Golarion anymore.

3) Have the death date be the day that they'd die of natural causes if nothing happens before then.

Hope that helps!

Ooh. Glad this got necroed.

It has to be "quintessence."

Pathfinder, in reality, is only as complicated as you make it. If you understand the basics, you can just "improvise" most of the rules. If you want to be a rules nazi, then it takes a lot more system mastery. But typically, if you play easy going, then it's not too difficult. Allow yourself to improve on your understanding of the rules as time passes, but remember that the rules are based on common sense.

I completely agree. Once you have a basic familiarity with the rules, you can usually just play as makes sense during the session and if you're confused about something and can't find it quick, just make a note to look it up later for next time. And if you like the way you handled it better, make it a houserule. Rinse and repeat and you'll develop good system mastery without agonizing over the rules beforehand.

@Lolsheeps: Hope you check it out! It can be great fun. You might want to check out the beginner's box first then move on to the Core Rulebook and Bestiary. Oh, and the upcoming Strategy Guide might be something to check out too.

Too bad you didn't grant me three house rules :(

The very first encounter with an aboleth that was ever written used a powerful illusion that caused the party to walk right out into a rapidly flowing stream. While they struggled to get out of the water—or keep from drowning if they had heavy armor—the aboleth would dominate one or two to get allies and slime tentacle others. Played correctly, it was vicious.

Where were they first introduced, Feros? I'd love to get my tent-er...hands on a copy...

Oh man, don't let the aboleth hear you...

But seriously, I don't find the aboleth weak at all. In fact, for its CR, it's a pretty strong monster I think. Not the highest attack bonus, but it gets 4 attacks which can hit for ok damage and if just one of them hits you have to save against that nasty slime effect (and the DC is pretty high). Furthermore, its dominate person spell has a really high DC for its CR and that spell is wicked. Beyond that, it has average AC and health plus a good amount of cool spell-like abilities.

And remember that the aboleth in the bestiary is the base aboleth. They're like the level 1 commoners in human society; there are plenty of stronger aboleth out there.

If I sound like an aboleth fanboy, I guess I kind of am :P But hopefully they'll take pity on me when they rise up from the depths...

Edit: Also, as for monsters that feel weak...none really leap to mind. The way I would compare them is based on other monsters of the same CR. I'm sure if I really looked I could find some, but I think monster design is one of paizo's biggest strengths.

Answering your questions in order:

It changes the portion of the messageboard you see. Usually, you see recent threads in each of the subforums. With focus mode, you see the recent threads you have viewed or posted in, allowing you to "focus" in on threads that you've showed interest in.

Yes.

It will make you one of those three, but I won't say which one.

*resists urge to make childish remark and fails by posting this*

People like to keep track of the threads they are interested in. Also people will get angry about anything on the internet.

You can be a cool kid by using focus mode and not becoming a giant squid of anger if it goes away for a time.