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Yes, we're going to our first PaizoCon next week! Better yet, we'll be joining up with the team from Roll For Combat for an event moderated by Perram from Know Direction. It will consist of a Q&A panel, followed by the first-ever live play mashup of Starfinder/Pathfinder. We're excited to see how things unfold--it might get crazy when the games collide! Sunday, 4pm-6pm in Olympic 1. Look for our shirts at PaizoCon, and stop us to chat about Azlant, a past project, the AP you're playing, or just about anything!
Hey everyone! I'm posting this thread for two reasons. The first is to head off the questions of when this Player's Guide is going to be available. The answer to that is: Hopefully around the same time that subscribers begin getting access to the download of the first volume. Now for the fun, second reason... I'm putting the final touches on the guide right now, and I wanted to see what y'all would like to see in the Player's Guide. I've asked this before for other Player's Guides and while I've often covered most of what's asked for (within reason) y'all always suggest something that I didn't think about. So, whatcha wanna see? (Or feel like you need?) One thing I'm certainly paying attention to is the unconventional start of this AP having the PCs wake up in an asylum not knowing who they are or how they got there. I'll provide some good advice on how to deal with that and likely give some advice on how to get started if a group doesn't want to use that element in their campaign. (All while walking the fine line of not spoiling anything.)
PaizoCon is soon upon us, so once again all sorts of pirates, free traders, and unsavory folk have plotted their course to the Sodden Lands to participate in everyone's favorite monster brawling competition—Green Blood on a Black Rock! Event lottery should go live soon, and once everything is finalized, it'd be awesome if whoever got this event posted here to let me see who's showing up. It's going to be a great time!
It's that time of year again, the time where I try to publicly suss out who among the folks that currently write for me (and us) are going to come and hang out in Seattle for a weekend of gaming goodness. So, do you write for us? And if so, are you going to be here for the show? (If you don't want to out yourself on this thread, shoot me an email, please.)
Do it! Enter! I love the energy that this contest brings to the boards. Best of luck to everyone who has entered or that will enter before 2pm tomorrow. I'm not a judge for the magic item round, but I await seeing your monster!
Returning for its sixth year at PaizoCon is...
Yes. It's that time again. The first ships are already sailing into port and the small ramshackle town near the Black Rock is dusting out the inn, putting up tents, and making the place ready to accept the surge of free captains who come to drink, fight, gamble, and watch their prized beasties spill as much blood as possible on the rock. The captains are docking their ships and going ashore to carouse and get supplies, but soon they’ll be dragging their monsters out of their holds to get them ready to fight in the tournament. It's time for Green Blood on a Black Rock History of the event:
For those of you not familiar with the event, Mike Kortes started this event at the second PaizoCon in 2009 and I was lucky enough to be a player in the event. Since then it's been difficult for Mike to make it to thhe convention, so in 2010 Brandon Hodge and myself asked Mike if we could take it over. Here's the first report of the first event. I played Inky I haven't been the best at documenting it, but Sozin put together an awesome play by play from 4711.
I see the event is full, so what I want to know is... Who are my free captains? Step up and sound off!
Hey folks! I was going to send emails to a bunch of my freelancers to see who was coming to Seattle for PaizoCon, but I figured it'd be easier if I just made a thread. I also thought it'd be neat for folks to see who of their favorite Pathfinder authors will be at the show. So, sound off, freelancers! Who's with me!? 
Congratulations to everyone who made it! Glad to see that all eight I voted for still in! :D
Some of you entering and following along with RPG Superstar know me already, but some of you don’t. If that’s the case and you’re interested knowing more about me, clicky on the button right there. Onward to monster design tips!
”More About Daigle”:
I’m Adam Daigle and I’m a developer here at Paizo. I mainly work on the Adventure Path line and I’m in charge of everything that isn’t the adventure, and I work with James and Rob to help them plot out the APs as a whole and the stuff that goes into each Adventure Path volume. I’ve been working here for nearly two years and it’s been both a blast, but also a learning experience. Before coming to work here at Paizo, I was a freelancer and contributed to dozens of Pathfinder products for both Paizo and a number of awesome third party publishers. Being a huge Pathfinder and Paizo fan, I spent a lot of time on these messageboards and got to know a ton of great people that also spent their time posting with people they either only know online or only see at conventions. It was actually folks in this community that convinced me to start freelancing. I love watching the RPG Superstar competition each year. I submitted an item the first three years, failing to place in the Top 32 each time. A fair portion of my freelance RPG work has been in the design space of monsters. Designing the divs and the azi dragons for the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path was among my earliest of assignments for Paizo and I had been doing monster work for Open Design (now Kobold Press) prior to that, so I ended up getting more monster assignments from publishers. Sean hit me up for at least a couple dozen monsters for each of the hardcover Bestiaries, and Wes assigned me plenty more for the Adventure Path Bestiaries. I won Kobold Press’ first King of the Monsters contest and Wolfgang even had me work as the lead developer in putting together the Midgard Bestiary, which was my last big freelance project before coming to work at Paizo. Now, I assign and develop around 60 monsters a year for the Bestiary in the back of the Adventure Paths. I work with some great freelancers and I use monsters as a way to try out new authors. Monsters are a great way to see someone’s skill in both mechanics and writing. Monsters are something I’m super-interested in, and I’m glad that I’m able to judge this round of RPG Superstar. Most of the advice that follows is taken from a document I give to freelancers who design monsters for me for the Adventure Path Bestiaries. Some of this is personal preference. Some of it comes from our house styles. As with all advice, take it or leave it. At the end of the round, it’s the voters that make the call. I hope this helps not only those of you that make it into the Top 32, but I also hope it helps GMs working on their homebrew games and aspiring freelancers (heck, even working freelancers). If you’ve never designed a monster for Pathfinder before, start here: Monster Creation
Designing monsters can be difficult. A fair amount of monster design is an art and not a science. The author needs to be both an engaging writer and they must have a strong grasp of the rules. Monster design is a great way to see how people come up with brilliant ideas and make them conform to the rules. A monster entry is a good way to evaluate an author. Monsters also take up a small, defined amount of space, so the writer must make careful decisions to present only the most relevant and crucial information about their monster and sacrifice all the other ideas. In fact, we set the rules to include a word count very similar to what we ask of the freelancers who contribute to our hardcover Bestiaries. Each of the single page monsters in a Bestiary are between 500 and 600 words (give or take depending on art), so when we assign a bestiary entry it needs to fit in that space or else things have to get cut. What follows are just a few pointers, arranged in no particular order. • As you are designing your monster, make sure you check your creature against Table 1–1 in the Bestiary. This table sets lays out where a creature’s various statistics should be for their Challenge Rating. Not everything needs to hit those numbers 100%, but most of them should. If one or two is higher than the values for that specific CR, consider lowering one or two somewhere else to balance that out. For example, if you have an AC much higher than your CR 4 creature should have, consider having its hit points be a bit low for a CR 4 creature. You can be slightly off the mark for one or two things, but it’s always best to make up for it somewhere else. That said, with low CR monsters a little off the mark can be a bigger deal than with mid- or high-CR monsters. • Look for commonalities between existing “families” of monsters. If you see what looks like a trend and don’t understand it, dig deeper to figure it out. In addition, if you are designing a monster that is part of an existing “family” of monsters, make sure your monster has the necessary elements. For example, if you are making a new dark folk it should have a death throes ability. If you are designing a div make sure it has a weird aversion or compulsion. • When designing a monster, think of monsters that do similar things or have similar abilities and use them and their abilities to guide the design of your monster. • If a special ability is just like another creature’s ability with only a slight change, make sure to copy that ability’s language exactly (aside from the exception). There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Furthermore, you’ll notice that the rules elements in monster design are very formulaic. Sometimes the best guide is looking at other monsters and seeing how their abilities are written and formatted. Rules need to be consistent and use the same language, so compare your special abilities to similar existing special abilities and follow that language. • Related to the above point: Don’t reinvent Universal Monster Rules. If you have an idea for a new special ability that’s very similar to one in the UMR, consider if that slight difference is important. If not, then just use the UMR and it will save you a chunk of word count by cutting out a special ability. Including all the rules for a special ability add up quickly with word count (“The save DC is Charisma-based.” is a short example.) • Make sure you put any special abilities that are in the Special Abilities section into its proper line in the statblock (for example: Defensive Abilities, Special Attacks or SQ). If you are using a UMR it tells you where in the statblock it goes. You can also compare similar abilities to existing statblocks to determine the proper line. • Remember that a monster is typically only in a fight for a short number of rounds. (There are obvious exceptions). If you design a creature with 6 special abilities and a bunch of spell-like abilities, chances are it’s only going to get to use 3 or 4 of them. Also, consider the GM that is going to be tasked with running your monster creation. If your design has too many options or overly complex combinations of abilities, it could slow down the game for those playing it. Just something to consider. • Make sure the monster’s Intelligence matches its described culture and behavior. I sometimes get a turnover of monster that has an Intelligence of 3, but it is described as having complex hunting methods, elaborate societal hierarchies, or a keen understanding of something that the rules presented don’t back up. On the flip side, I’ve seen creatures turned in that have Int 22 but act simple. Avoid this. • There are a few feats that are pretty worthless for monster design: Improved Natural Armor, Improved Natural Attack, and to a lesser extent Toughness. (There are probably others, but these are the key ones.) When you are designing a monster you can break a few rules. (Though I laud it, Table 1–1 and some elements of the Monster Creation chapter of the Bestiary are guidelines.) If a Medium creature normally has a claw attack that deals 1d4 points of damage, but your creature has gigantic hands or razor sharp claws, you, as the designer, can just decide to make those claw attacks deal 1d6 points of damage without having to choose a feat for it. (It took me a few monster creation tries before I learned that.) You also can set natural armor for whatever you want (as long as it makes sense), so Improved Natural armor is a complete waste. Toughness is a waste because 9 times out of 10 you can just adjust the creature’s Constitution (or Charisma) score to get the hit points to where they need to be according to Table 1–1. • Spend some time just thinking about your monster and researching real world animals, cultures, or science that involve some of the elements of your monster. Make sure that the monster as a whole makes sense. It’s easy to get caught up in mechanics, meeting word count, and using proper grammar, and miss contradictions that can pop in. If it has tentacles, consider why it has tentacles. If it has three eyes on the crown of its head, why are they there and why are there three? If it doesn’t have a mouth, how or what does it eat? • Names: One of the more difficult parts of monster design. Different people think different things sound cool to their ears, and it’s not uncommon for people to completely disagree with each other about that. When naming there are a few ways to avoid certain pitfalls. First, make sure you read the name out loud to make sure it isn’t goofy or suggestive. Google the name of your monster. This helps you not accidentally copy something else, and it helps you realize what people might see if they searched for it. Some searches will make you rename a monster. I’ve been there. Trust me. • The italicized introductory description line in the submission template: This is the one-to-two sentence descriptive text found just under the creature’s name and right before the start of the stat block. This is the first thing people read after reading the creature’s name. This text should be rich and evocative. It should never include “you” (as in, “You see this beast rising up from a stagnant pool.”) This leads in to another no-no. Never assume PC action and never assume location. Don’t mention that a creature “slinks out of the shadowy alley.” in case a GM uses the monster indoors or underground. Bonus points: If applicable, use more than just sight. • Make your first sentence of the flavor text really pop. Establish the monster’s role in the first one to three sentences. • I’ll end with just a personal preference: I dislike joke monsters and only like cute monsters if they are really solid. () Sorry about all of that. I got a bit talkative. :)
So, tonight I was going through some old files and found a note where I made a mnemonic for the planets and thought it'd be funny to see what else the community could come up with. (plantary mnemonic) Planets:
Aballon the Horse Castrovel the Green Golarion Akiton the Red Verces the Line Eox the Dead Triaxus the Wanderer Liavara the Dreamer Bretheda the Cradle Apostae the Messenger Aucturn the Stranger Here's the one I found (dated 5/6/2010):
I see that my game Terror at Tidewater Tavern is full. Who dared to sign up for the Terror?
Returning for its fifth year at PaizoCon is...
Yes. It's that time again. The first ships are already sailing into port and the small ramshackle town near the Black Rock is putting up tents and making the place ready to accept the surge of free captains who come to drink, fight, gamble, and watch their prized beasties spill as much blood as possible on the rock. The captains are docking their ships and going ashore to carouse and get supplies. Soon they will make it down to their boats and get their monsters ready to fight in the tournament. It's time for Green Blood on a Black Rock For those of you not familiar with the event, Mike Kortes started this event at the second PaizoCon in 2009 and I was lucky enough to be a player in the event. Since then it's been difficult for Mike to make it to thhe convention, so in 2010 Brandon Hodge and myself asked Mike if we could take it over. Here's the first report of the first event. I played Inky I haven't been the best at documenting it, but Sozin put together an awesome play by play from 4711. So, now that some of you are caught up, who got in the lottery? Who are my free captains? Sound off!
So yesterday, Wes asked me the following question in the Ask Adam Daigle thread:
You're one of Paizo's more adept culinarians. When are we going to get Golarion themed recipes from you!? I'm about to go to the local farmer's market and do some materials research, so while I'm gone I'd like to see how many of y'all can glean mentions of certain dishes, drinks, and foods that we've mentioned in products over the years. I tried to find a list like that on the PathfinderWiki but didn't have any success at first. Anyone know some good Golarion food and drink? |
