David N Ross's page

This was an utter delight!

RPGSS was valuable to me for visibility and constructive criticism as I was first getting established, so I'd be glad to see something of that role filled again.

I'm happy to judge (provided I don't happen to be swamped when you can pin down the actual period of the contest).

I can't wait to contribute to this panel!

3.) The wing staff is cool, happy to see the avatar flying staff statted out and addas a nonmagical item. Wish the angular descent thing was a little clearer but overall pretty cool.

I'm glad you like it! Thanks for reading.

Matthew Morris wrote:

Though why Iomedae and Saranrae get it...

Sarenrae makes sense to me. She has hidden worshippers in Taldor and Rahadoum and tends to encourage having her agents help people even in places where her religion is forbidden. No specific explanation for Iomedae, though; it might be one of those quirky unexpected domain-picks to add character/flavor to a deity.

I can't make official clarifications, but the reason I personally ascribed the Clandestine inquisition to Iomedae is that her church operates clandestinely in Rahadoum. For example, see the Sword Pit: http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Sword_Pit

I gotta say, I am really liking the Ruse spells in this book. I hope to see more of them in the future.

I'm glad to hear it! Those were my brainchildren. :D

Have I missed something or do a couple of the feats in the book not really do anything?

specificly the sense assumption/relationship ones since arent they already coverd by the sense motive skill anyway?

Good question! As the author of those two feats, I can't offer official rulings, but I can explain why I wrote them this way. Sense Motive's default "get a hunch" function has generally been interpreted to provide less specific information than these feats do. Note that you don't have to talk about things obviously related to the relationship or your potential lie in order to use the feats; they represent being exceptionally adept at figuring out little clues in just about any interaction that meets their limitations. Without such a feat, you can still improvise that use of the skill as your GM deems appropriate (more below).

BigNorseWolf wrote:

I'm seeing a lot of what I was afraid of here: Rumormonger like options. Options that don't expand the use of skills, bur rather by their existence constrain the use of skills only to people with a feat or special ability- feats skill focused characters don't have to spare.

Determining that two people have a relationship is just a sense motive check, not sense motive and 2 feats. Knowing whether a fib is going to be outrageous or easy is something the player/character should have some idea of before they start spinning their yarn. Aiding someone's disguise with a bluff is just a creative aid another, not a feat. Telling if someone knows how to use that sword at their hip is something fighting types know,

One of the reasons people complain about caster/skill disparity is that the expanding system has expanded the capabilities of magic. "Abilities" that already do what the skill does constrains them and makes just getting a spell to do it an even better option.

Yeah, I hate to agree... but I do. I really love the rules make cool things like these are codified into the rules, but I wish it didn't take a feat to do it.

Expanding the existing skill system or utilizing the skill unlocks would be fantastic.

I guess a good reason to keep it in feats is that it keeps the game simple. As soon as they put rules in for using Sense Motive to determining two people have a relationship, people familiar with that rule may feel that they need to make use of that option whenever a situation arises. It clutters the skill page on the PRD if they include it. It is difficult to find if they don't include it directly on the skill page. At least with them as feats, only the people who took the feat will spam the skill use and it keeps the information contained in a relevant location.

Still, definitely lame for feats to remove something you've been doing without a feat.

My philosophy is that the feat is only there to do these things better. A feat is not an excuse to forbid improvisation—it's a lower bound on how challenging it should be to improvise. By all means, let the player use Sense Motive after a lengthy exchange to guess a relationship or how believable a lie is without a feat. Just consider imposing a penalty or raising the DC such that the feat is worth it, and remember feats often let you accomplish something without as much to work with or without navigating as many roleplaying hurdles. Without the feat, you might be at greater risk of being found out or encountering other challenges.

Thanks for reading!

Tenacious Spell...

Is awesome. Very cool. Excellent for PCs and NPCs alike. I look forward to the look on my players' faces when they dispel some ultra-important buff on a BBEG only to discover it lingers for another 1-4 rounds.

That's mine, too! I'm glad you like it. :)

As a contributor to this project, I am excited to see it has already funded. That means there's time for many more stretch goals!

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Gisher wrote:

I love the Liberating weapon special ability. It's like wearing a lesser version of a Ring of Freedom of Movement, but cheaper and without taking up a slot.

And the Sharding weapon special ability is freaking amazing for thrown weapon builds! You can sink your money into enhancing your melee weapon(s), and then also use those for ranged attacks without ever letting go of your weapon(s). Unlike a Blinkback Belt, it could be easily combined with a Belt of Mighty hurling for STR builds.

David and I both REALLY like thrown weapons and we both felt like there wasn't much support for them in the game. We actively tried to support character concepts that lacked strong options (such as me writing a sling-focused fighting style), and we both wanted to make sure that there were multiple ways of being good with thrown weapons.

So, you have the blinkback belt, which is the easiest to get of the three current options in the game, but its also the most taxing because it effectively takes away your enhancement bonus to Dex / Str. Next, you have the sharing special ability, which is REALLY cool visually and while it takes up more gold resources than the blinkback belt, it doesn't occupy any item slots. Finally, you have the Ricochet Shot weapon master feat, which costs no gold, but instead takes up a feat slot and either requires you to be a fighter or to take a feat tax.

Overall, there are several different options to achieve the same end goal with different benefits and drawbacks, and I think that's a strength for the game overall.

There have been a lot of threads bemoaning the difficulties of building thrown-weapon characters. I think you've made a lot of people very happy. I'm one. Thank you.

As writer of that section, I'm very glad you think so. Thank you! :)

I love the book, mostly stuff like Weapon Tricks, the Divine Fighting Styles or the Advance Weapon Training options which provide numerous bonus' based on pretty normal character advancement.

However stuff like the "Arm Bind" weapon trick is absolutely amazing. One of the issues with maneuver's like Sunder/Trip/Disarm and the like is that unless the campaign is built in a specific way eventually all the feats put into the choices become worthless. For example moving from fighting mooks to fighting dragons.

Arm Bind provides Disarm with sustainable use across the entirety of a characters life, however it'd be nice to see similar things for the other maneuvers. Something like Sunder being able to target natural armor or weapons or Trip being able to target winged monsters for example. In summary, it'd be nice to see more Weapon Tricks for different weapons, maybe following on from the Smashing Style line and make it hammer exclusive.

Anyway great book, hoping the ideas are carried forwards.

Thank you! I wrote that trick for that very reason, and I will be keeping an eye out for other opportunities to employ the idea.

Wow! We're well on our way there as long as we keep sharing this. Thanks for your interest, everyone! I'm really looking forward to bringing another new class to life. :D

If you have more questions after the #RPGChat, you are still welcome to ask them here (or on the Kickstarter itself if you're a backer).

Thank you for backing, folks! Another proud contributor here. :D

Please remember to share this as widely as possible, whether you are a backer or just know other gamers who might find it interesting–this can still make it, but it needs as many eyes as possible to see it. (Especially like and retweet us on Facebook and Twitter if you use those; Facebook doesn't show every post to everyone who follows the poster and Twitter feeds usually stream by too fast for one tweet to be seen.)

Glad to hear my old class is still kicking up interest!

Functionally, I'd say the previous posters are correct; the mediums have little in common and would be difficult to combine beyond spell lists; the OA medium's spirits are just too darn big to fit into the chassis of the Covenant Magic medium. Of course, that doesn't preclude borrowing further material in an archetype or other more elaborate rules change.

p261 Boots of the Earth: Doesn't list how many times per day it can be used.

If I were to edit this item, I would suggest limiting it to 3 times per day, lasting up to 1 minute each (though moving them would throw it off).

The likely author of Pageant is one of: Amanda Hamon, David Ross, Gareth Hanrahan or Jerome Virnich.

If you are curious who might have written something in a book, check out the book's credits. Neither my name, nor Amanda's, nor Gareth's, are in the author credits for the Dragonslayer's Handbook, so it's a pretty safe bet that none of us worked on the bardic masterpiece in question (I certainly didn't). The Dragonslayer's Handbook's authors are Jerome Virnich, Marie Small, and Shaun Hocking, but some of the content will likely have been written by developers or editors after the authors turned over their work and certainly some of it will be tweaked by developers and editors.

Although you might not be able to see all the names who worked on a book without owning it, you can usually see the authors in each product's description on Paizo.com and Pathfinderwiki.com