Dafydd ap Ioseph's page

I know this is rather late on this thread, but my comment is apropos 2nd edition generally.

I was immediately excited about the announcement of a second edition, assuming that it would be tweaking, such as happened between D&D 3.0 and 3.5. My wife observed that we would likely be finishing the Kingmaker AP just in time to take part in the playtest. As the blogs have shown, however, this is not tweaking: it is a redesign of the game.

To paraphrase Santayana: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

For all the assertions that 2nd will be compatible with 1st, asserting something does not make it so. Every blog post so far has driven home how distinct the new edition will be from the first. What is most perplexing to me, and other players/GMs I have spoken with, is that:

PATHFINDER EXISTS BECAUSE WotC DID THIS SAME THING when they made 4th edition incompatible with any of D&D's previous iterations.

GMs like me (and my gaming group) embraced Pathfinder because it tweaked and carried on what existed in 3e/3.5e. 10 years later, I can still use my old D&D 3.5 resources as well as the material produced for PF. 2e is clearly a far more substantial change; it feels like a new game built off some of the old foundation. I suppose this shouldn't be surprising: Paizo employs game designers; game designers design games; and sooner or later they get tired of working on the old design and feel the need for a new one to work on. (It also allows Paizo to sell material for a new game when the well of the old one starts runnning dry; but I'm trying not to be too cynical, and to follow Luther's stricture on the 8th/9th commandment by putting the best construction on things.)

The silver lining for me? It is 2-fold. First, with the amount of resources I have accumulated I have no need for new products. Second, with my son finishing up his freshman year of High School, I can redirect what I have been spending on Pathfinder towards saving for college. So, thanks?

Excellent explanation. I don't envy the people who write these cards, because of the difficulty of saying precisely what you want to happen - and exclude what you don't want to happen - in so few words. What I am truly impressed by is how good a job they do at making scenarios just a bit different from the standard "formula."

Again, thanks for the help.

1. When you encounter The Defiled One and lose the check (does NOT trigger if you evade him).

2. Summoned cards are not part of any location deck; this is universal across all summoned cards. You summon and encounter the copy of him before handling him escaping so he is not shuffled into any decks at that point in time. After the encounter with the summoned copy is over, the original card escapes as normal.
3. Defeating (or not defeating) the summoned copy does absolutely nothing. The original card works exactly like every other villain does, including winning, escaping, and all that jazz. The original card will never not be in a location deck, so I'm not sure where you're coming from with that question.

Just so that I'm clear, then:

1. The defiled one is encountered as normal during an exploration. (He can't be evaded according to the card.) If defeated and all locations are closed, we're done. If defeated but locations are open, he escapes (as usual).

2. If he is not defeated, before shuffling him & the blessings into open locations, a random character encounters him. Regardless of the result of this encounter, The Defiled One is undefeated and gets shuffled into a random open location along with cards from the Blessings Deck.

In other words, all of this takes place between the failure to defeat and the escaping to an open location part of the encounter. Maybe the card should have read: "If The Defiled One is undefeated, before he escapes, a random character enounters the Defiled One. After this encounter, the Defiled One remains undefeated and escapes as usual." It was the whole "Each turn the defiled One is undefeated" bit that threw me, because technically he is undefeated from the start of the scenario until he is.

As to my point #3, since there is only 1 card for The Defiled One, the only way to summon and encounter him each turn he is undefeated (as I was understanding it, that is, at the start of every player's turn after he was initially encountered but not defeated) is for the card to be available for encountering, i.e., not shuffled into a location deck.

Thanks for the help.

I'm extremely confused by the Villain in Midnight Isles' scenario "Landfall on Colyphyr." The Defiled One's card reads:

"The first time each turn The Defiled One is undefeated, a random character summons and encounters The Defiled One; after that encounter, the villain is undefeated."

1. Does this mean from the very first turn (when the first player/character advances the Blessings Deck for the first time), or only after The Defiled One has been encountered in a location deck but either not defeated or escaped?

2. Either way, where is it being summoned from, since it presumably is shuffled into a location deck, either at the start of play or after escaping (defeated or otherwise)?

3. How exactly does one untimately defeat the villian if he isn't in a location deck (so that he is available to be summoned and encountered) and is undefeated after being summoned and encountered whether he is defeated or not?

Any suggestions would be appreciated, as we are stuck until we can figure out how this is supposed to work.

We're just getting ready to play Wintersun in Demon's Heresy, and I was confused and/or worried about the location "Woundwyrm's Lair." Just how many times does one need to encounter the bloody beasty? If the card is taken at face value, one could have to encounter it 8+ times!
It says to summon and encounter it if you acquire a boon there (up to 6 times, depending on one's luck or lack thereof - talk about a disincentive for acquiring boons!), then do the same to close the location, THEN, once it's closed, when you reset your hand, encounter an item and meet the wyrm again. If one ends up needing to temporarily close the location at some point(s), tack on additional encounters. Fortunately, our party includes Adowyn, who can evade summoned banes (and let others do so), and just added Arueshelae who can also evade encounters - but still.

The thing is, I can't come up with any other interpretation of the card's instructions. Am I understanding the card correctly?

yeah go for it! I'd attach it to a mechanic, like when dragons reach CR 6 they gain change shape and also make it a DC 15 knowledge check that all dragons on your world can appear as all sorts of creatures.

Agreed, both with the general ability to change shape, and the suggested mechanic. I would also allow chromatics to change shape, making them even bigger BBEGs than they are, as well as allowing them to manipulate things while out of the line of fire. (It seems to be implied that at least 1 red dragon has/had that ability in Golarion - Choraal the Conqueror, uniter of Brevoy. I've been GMing Kingmaker.)

I'm rather confused about the whole "Tide of Battle" rule.
Can one enter it at will by playing any card or just a "Tide of" card? Does one leave Tide of Battle if one can't play a "continue the tide card" or if you can't play any card?
What does the rule mean that while you're in Tide of Battle mode "you can play only other cards from your hand?"

The cards seem great (and an improvement on the Dork20 cards my group has been using, which often give seldom-used bonuses) and I'll probably try them with my group this weekend. But I know they'll ask about the ToB rule and I want to be able to explain it.

Thanks.

It is possible that you get a major item slot even though all major items exceed the settlement gp limit, yes.

In that case, the slot either remains unfilled until the gp limit increases, or it gets filled with a medium item. GMs pick.

But that's the problem: the gp limit (16,000gp for a Metropolis) will never be high enough for a truly major item.

What about converting a building's bv bonus to a percentage (+500gp = +5%)? These percentages are then added together (maximum 100%); then multiply the base value (and Purchase Limit?) by this percentage. This not only makes the bv bonus of big ticket items meaningful again; it is also in keeping with the settlement rules provided in the Game Mastery Guide, where settlements have Qualities (Feats for Cities) which affect the 6 settlement modifiers as well as base value and spellcasting limit.

And also, revert to the Core Rules & Game Mastery Guide policy of magic items needing to exceed base value, not be capped by it; or hybridize and simply let the dice determine what is in the slot, above or below bv.

GrumpyGM wrote:

6)Finally, it is really hard to find a major magic item one can put into those slots whose value is less than the Base Value of any size settlement (even a Metropolis, which is capped at 16,000gp), as is required (and emphasised) by the rules on p. 213).

Um...

"Minor Items/Medium Items/Major Items: This line lists the number of magic items above a settlement’s base value that are available for purchase. In some city stat blocks, the actual items are listed in parentheses after the die range of items available—in this case, you can use these pre-rolled resources when the PCs first visit the city as the magic items available for sale on that visit. If the PCs return to that city at a later date, you can roll up new items as you see fit. See page 461 of the Core Rulebook for the number ranges determining how many items can be found in a community."

So that's actually a non-issue... roll up a Major magic item and even if it costs 200k+ gold put it on the city's list of items. The base value is only for when a character goes looking for a specific item, not for determining what fills the city's item slots.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/mastery/settlements.html

Yes, that is what it says on page 204 of the Game Mastery Guide. It also is what the Core Rules say. BUT...

Page 213 of Ultimate Combat:

"Filling Item Slots: ... This item's price cannot exceed the base value for the settlement (reroll if the item's price exceeds the settlement's base value....
Example:... If she had rolled anything more valuable than the 200 gp base value of her settlement, she would have to reroll until she got an acceptable result."

The old-school grognardy response would be to say that they built a Waterfront and Magic Shop because they wanted their city to be a port city and to have a magic shop in it, which is what they did. Heaven forbid they do not provide the optimal numerical benefit! They shouldn't cry over not being able to min-max a broken system, which is what they were trying to do.

The new-school nicey response would be to halve the cost of major magic item producing buildings, since they are no longer infinite piggy banks full of money.

In between the two, I'd say that some of those buildings were kept were they were price-wise for the sake of consistency with the original rules. There are also other substantial benefits, such as:

Discounts - a Waterfront provides a 50% discount on building on 4 buildings, adding up to a 78 BP discount on building them. It also provides a Productivity bonus (not as big a deal as the main 3 kingdom mods, but relevant).

Magic Items - Those magic item slots are not worthless just because they are not an infinite money machine. If your PCs are trying to buy magic of their own, each slot gives them more choices of what is available. Also, if you use Ultimate Rulership, those item slots can be accessed by you with Commission Edicts to custom-order magic items to be built or improved. No medium/major slots means no medium/major items for you.

1)The sarcasm is unnecessary, and inappropriate to my players, despite my caricature of their response. The first two buildings they constructed were a Brewery and a Tavern - partly because they were planning for an Academy and figured those would attract students, and partly because one of their characters is a follower of Cayden Cailean (which makes for an interesting interplay with the Ruler, who is a follower of Iomedae).

2)Perhaps I was wrong, but the impression I had was that the reason the Magic Shop and Waterfront were the two highest cost buildings was that they produced the major magic items which fueled the system as presented. Perhaps I should have adopted some of the changes to the economic system others suggested on these messageboards, but I didn't. I can't fault my players for driving through a gaping hole in the rules as presented them, nor for objecting when the loophole is closed (I should note that I greatly caracitured their reactions). My point is simply that if the economic model is completely overturned (as it should have been) by removing the selling of magic items and capping the base value based on the size of settlement, adjustments should be made to buildings which were designed for and had their costs based on the old model.

3)If the original rules needed changing (as they did) why insist on consistency with those rules? "Consistency is the last resort of the unimaginative." - G.K. Chesterton

4)Actually, my players are enjoying being able to use item creation feats and have been making their own items.

5) I had not even heard of Ultimate Rulership until Ultimate Campaigns came out (which is surprising to me as I'm usually all over that sort of thing), but I had thought of doing something similar with the Caster's Tower (possibly increasing its cost while lowering the Magic Shop's), using the suggestion (p.193) for magic item creation as a form of taxation/community service built into the caster's lease.

6)Finally, it is really hard to find a major magic item one can put into those slots whose value is less than the Base Value of any size settlement (even a Metropolis, which is capped at 16,000gp), as is required (and emphasised) by the rules on p. 213).

GrumpyGM wrote:

I love the fact that you have moved away from an economy based on selling other people's stuff (my players, not so much). One major question though: Why do Waterfronts still cost 90BP and Magic Shops cost 68BP? After all, not only can't you profit from selling their major items, but the upper limit of a settlement's Base Value is set by settlement size, so their boost to bv is insignificant: any settlement with basic buildings will hit that limit in short order.

For the benfits of piers and waterfronts check out page 232 bottom right hand side.

That only helps if one is planning to establish long-distance trade routes. (Due to the way the rules are set up, Trade Routes are virtually impossible to establish with the Kingdom-next-door, but much easier if you want to trade with Tian-Xia.) They certainly aren't worth the cost if one wants near term benefits.

Just ran a practice Mass Combat with my group (we're moving into Blood for Blood and I plan on using Mass Combat for the Battle of Tatzlford). How does one deal with an unbalanced combat in terms of # of armies (not CRs)? In this case, it was 2 armies vs. 3 (In KM5, it seems likely that at least one battle, if not most, will be unbalanced one way or another.)

Does one of the armies on side A get to attack 2 of side B's?

If (when) 2 of side B's attack 1 of side A's, does that change matters?

Does comparative army size come into play?

Any help would be appreciated.

I love the fact that you have moved away from an economy based on selling other people's stuff (my players, not so much). One major question though: Why do Waterfronts still cost 90BP and Magic Shops cost 68BP? After all, not only can't you profit from selling their major items, but the upper limit of a settlement's Base Value is set by settlement size, so their boost to bv is insignificant: any settlement with basic buildings will hit that limit in short order.

So, now for a Waterfront you pay 90BP for +4 Economy, +2 Productivity, and halving the Loyalty penalty to Taxation edicts? Really? Build a Bank, a Mill and a Shop for 42BP and you get +6 Economy, +1 Stability, +2 Productivity (and the penalty to Loyalty is too small to worry about unless you have an Overwhelming tax level; in which case build some Parks).

And for a Magic Shop, you pay 68BP for +1 Economy? At least a Luxury Store you only have to pay 28BP for. Better yet, pay 6BP for a Library, Mill, Smithy or Tannery, and you get the same +1 Economy.

Shouldn't these have had their costs adjusted to account for the new Economic model being followed?

There's also a problem with Magical Academies (58BP for +2 Economy), Academies (52BP for +2 Economy and +2 Loyalty), and Bardic Colleges (40BP for +1 Economy, +3 Loyalty, and +1 Stability). The most expensive gives far and away the least benefit.

I'm switching to the new eceonomic model, but will need to give the players some compensation for the 2 waterfronts (different settlements) and the Magic Shop they carefully saved for and built to get the magic items. If not, the ruler and general (my wife and son) might be a bit hard to live with for a while.:{