Nicos wrote:

The notion that people somehow relate combat expertise with "playing a smart character" has always baffled me. Nobody flips an eye when a 7 int sorcerer uses his spell with perfect tactical acumen, but int 12 is not enough for LOTS of combat feats in the game (for the record, int 12 is enough for a wizard to know how to turn invisible).

Oh yeah, good point that I didn't even touch upon! If a fighter wants to do more with an attack roll than "hit them with a stick" or "stick 'em with the pointy end" needs a feat and int 13... but metamagic feats don't require a crappy feat with str 13 prereq! For anyone who thinks Combat Expertise is good because it slows power gain and makes well-rounded characters, do you homebrew such a feat as a prereq for all metamagic feats? Because if not, you're hypocritical.

Nicos wrote:

I wonder how many feats have CE as a prerequisite in the books after the ACG

41, out of 109 feats in total that require it.

The more I think about it, I think you guys may be on to something, here.

Int and Wis should probably have an impact on combat reflected in actual rolls. Perhaps as a Class Feature or, maybe, some bonus Feats they get automatically at certain levels (corresponding with the character's BAB).

They wouldn't be *required* but they could be leveraged by a player interested in higher Int and Wis impacts for their style of combat.

Or something like that.

It's late.

I'm tired. :)

Sylvan Scott wrote:

In my case, auto-gaining magic items at x-level doesn't jibe with my expectation for my world or setting.

I think you misunderstood me, and I presume you didn't read the ABP rules. I was speaking metaphorically - ABP doesn't give you magic items, you simply get bonuses on level-up. Most of the bonuses are not at all different from gaining BAB, saves, or the ability score pip every fourth level. It's actually much easier on the willing suspension of disbelieve than having magic item shops at every corner.

What I further meant was that as ABP is based on when the game expects you to have specific items, and since ABP grants +1 weapon enchantment at 4th level, a character in a game using regular loot should logically be expected to have picked up a +1 weapon by then.

Ah, yes: I *had* misunderstood!

Forgive me: I've been trying to understand this thread of conversation without committing to memorizing a new, optional system. (At my age, I have enough trouble remembering all the rules that I *already* struggle to keep in mind!) :)

So, basically, it's somewhat similar to the auto-increase to Ability scores every 5 levels, right?

Sylvan Scott wrote:

McDaygo wrote:

For me Unless I am playing with an advanced group that is there for the story vs. just rolling dice to kill s%&# I soft ban antagonist players. (The player that is always counter productive to the party to slows down sessions. Now with an advanced group and I have a a player I speak to them about it instead who I know can be the subtle hidden villain I’ll allow case by case but that also depends the group. I’ve seen some players get majorly mad out of character at in character betrayals.

There are types of players I have a lot of trouble with but few resources to replace them with. Basically, I'm stuck with the pool I've got. Otherwise I'd ban the moody, edgelord, dark-and-mysterious, never-talks-except-to-insult-someone, gets-everyone-else-in-trouble-because-they-never-learned-to-be-social types...

Is this your entire group?

:)

Just the one...

...And he's a roommate, too. That makes it REALLY awkward!

How *do* you talk to someone who lives with you 24/7?

Yours,
Sylvan

I talked to the players afterwards and the 2 non-participants said they don't really like the "talking" encounters, preferring to resolve everything by die rolls. Now, this isn't a social anxiety thing...

I'm not sure that's true. Plenty of people have trouble "performing" in public ... singing, dancing, giving a speech, acting out what their character does, etc... I have had many players like this who don't seem socially awkward but feel embarrassed about speaking as their character. They always preface things with, "My character asks about such-n-such" rather than role-playing and simply asking the question in their character's role.

That's all.

Not saying you're wrong but there could be another type of social anxiety going for these two than just the shy person who doesn't speak up easily.

Yours,
Sylvan

For me Unless I am playing with an advanced group that is there for the story vs. just rolling dice to kill s%&# I soft ban antagonist players. (The player that is always counter productive to the party to slows down sessions. Now with an advanced group and I have a a player I speak to them about it instead who I know can be the subtle hidden villain I’ll allow case by case but that also depends the group. I’ve seen some players get majorly mad out of character at in character betrayals.

There are types of players I have a lot of trouble with but few resources to replace them with. Basically, I'm stuck with the pool I've got. Otherwise I'd ban the moody, edgelord, dark-and-mysterious, never-talks-except-to-insult-someone, gets-everyone-else-in-trouble-because-they-never-learned-to-be-social types...

You can damage incorporeal creatures with magic weapons and spells, albeit at half damage. Against undead, the most common incorporeals, holy water also works.

Oh, definitely! But it's still a case that makes the combat hellishly more difficult in my experience. But when you have the amount of damage dealt being halved against incorporeal creatures, while better than nothing, still feels not good enough ... especially not with the WPL value of 3,000 gp for 3rd-level characters. Since that takes into account not just magic items but overall wealth, equipment, consumables, etc... I figure that maybe 2/3rds of that will be accounted for via magic items ... and most of those, at low level, will be potions. I mean the Big Boss Battle is *supposed* to be tough, true, but I think it still behooves us GMs to tip things a bit more in favor of the PCs ... at least for those lower levels.

Also, in my case, the incorporeal Big Bad in this level-4 adventure is not undead so, well, not much that can be done in that case. Afterall, the rules don't differentiate between the source of the incorporeal ability ... just the ability itself.

ABP gives everyone magic weapons at 4th, which means you're expected to pick up a magic weapon during third level. There can be other tools, too - the Carrion Crown AP (which is very undead and ghost-heavy in book 1) hands out ghost touch arrows and undead bane arrows (and holy water) before you're expected to actually encounter the ghosts.

And that can be a really good plan for many GMs, no doubt!

For me, I have 2 reservations with it.
1. Verisimilitude. Everyone has a different "breaking point" when it comes to what you'll accept as "game mechanics" versus a "realistic setting". In my case, auto-gaining magic items at x-level doesn't jibe with my expectation for my world or setting. Not that this is a bad thing but refs like me simply don't care for it because it undermines our own immersion and enjoyment of the game.

2. It's yet another system. I'll admit it: I'm old. I've been GMing since January 1st, 1980. When I switched from DnD3.5 to PF1, it took me about 10 years to get to where I could actually run things without confusing all the different rules from all the different versions of all the different editions that I'd read. I'm still constantly confusing what's a house rule, what's an old house rule, and what's an old edition rule. My memory is literally not what it used to be. And with different editions using the same terminology for slightly different (or very different) game rules has finally reached the breaking point in my life. I often feel like I'm letting my players down because they'll have read a rule that explicitly addresses a ruling I've made in the absence of knowing about that rule. This happens several times per session ... mostly all because I can't remember or keep straight the various rules that are haphazardly stored in my brain. So, even though the ABP may be a good system, it's still *one-more-system* I have to learn and get confused with all the other out-of-date information rattling around in my skull...

I hope that clarifies where I'm coming from! :)

Yours,
Sylvan

Talk to your GM about implementing something similar. The method of reward can be anything, and can be different every time. Grateful townsfolk, buried treasure, an advance on profits from a negotiated trade, even divine intervention. The only limit is imagination.

If you use Ultimate Campaign's "Downtime" rules, giving rewards in the form of capital (especially influence) from grateful people who appreciate the non-combat solutions, is essentially the "Gift Card" of rewards. The PCs gather up the capital and then spend it, later, when they get back to town.

How do your groups deal with the wealth-by-level issue if/when PCs insist on thinking and talking their way past encounters too often, instead of stabbing and looting?

What I try to do is keep track of what I've created in loot drops and have several back-ups that can stem from different sources: in-combat or out-of-combat. That said, it's a lot of work at times and I messed-up in my most recent campaign. The PCs went around every potential loot-drop area I had set up and, by the time they reached 4th level (where they were about to start facing the incorporeal "big bad") had nothing that would enable them to hit the creatures at all!

I hand-waved it by bringing some GM-ex-machina in and pre-emptively delivering some tools/weapons that will play an important part in the campaign, later, but at the moment will help them with their current encounter.

Additionally, while writing this adventure, I found something odd.

PCs are supposed to be able to "afford" the sorts of magic items that enable them to face the types of creatures with CRs that they would be expected to encounter. Incorporeal critters start showing up around CR3 with the biggest introduction being around CR 4 & 5. For a party of 5 adventurers, this would put the characters having a "difficult" encounter (the Big Boss fight) at lower levels having at least 1 ghost-touch item (or something similar) by 3rd or 4th level.

But if you go by Wealth-by-Level, the cheapest of these items would be far outside the range of affordability for the PCs. Essentially, if you use those rules as a guideline, they seem inapplicable. And the more I looked at them, the more I found similar things: PCs in their "big bad" encounters needed a higher guide-point for how much wealth they should have (in the form of magic items allowing them to face certain threats) at the lower levels than higher. In fact, after about 10th level, the wealth-by-level in the book works pretty well.

So, I'm tinkering with it, giving a huge boost at levels 1-4 with significant (but smaller) boosts from 5-10 after which things settle back into the standard progression.

Has anyone else run into this?

Yours,
Sylvan

Sylvan Scott wrote:

Maybe it's because it's so late and this was a very crunchy game session requiring tracking so many conflicting and overlapping conditions, spells, powers, and abilities that I'm figuratively seeing cross-eyed right now. But maybe I'm starting to think that this version of the Playtest, even with the updates, just isn't that good of a game. Parts of it are, sure; I really like several parts of it! But so much of it ... hurts. It's just not enjoyable.

The tracking complexity of mid to high gameplay took me completely off guard. Low level play has been a real delight but higher level play seems to assume that you'll be using electronic tracking aids and some form of quick reference materials.

I'm having a hard time with this myself. I'd rather have comprehension complexity than tracking complexity.

I, too, completely loved numeric conditions at lower-levels. I ran into a few problems tracking them starting in "Sombrefell Hall" (especially in figuring out who was bolstered to which undead's special ability and for how long) but it really got complex and burdensome during "Undarin".

The difficulty comes in how many can be active simultaneously.

If the amount of conditions are few (regardless of whether they are created by PCs or critters) this is a joy and makes things really easy to track! But once we get up there in how many spells and abilities can spawn trackable conditions, it becomes too cumbersome.

I'm not sure how I would address that.

I mean I really like this idea! But it doesn't scale well, it would seem.

Anyone have any ideas we could pass on to the developers?

Or, perhaps, is this just something Kai and I are running into as a problem?

Yours,
Sylvan

There's a real conflict here: it's a playtest, but it's also the playtesters' introduction to the game, and if it is a miserable grind, that will tend to poison the playtester's enthusiasm. Since they are some of the keenest players around, and you want them to be spreading their enthusiasm to others, this is a big problem.

Can you say what proportion of your malaise is the unwinnable scenario, and what proportion is the excessive fiddliness of high level play?

An excellent question; not easy to answer.

But I shall try...

The fiddliness of high-level play was definitely a part of it. I had to keep checking rules and putting more graphics on our battle map to indicate overlapping areas of reverse gravity, swamp of sloth (or whatever the Hezerou has), the PCs' divine, anti-fiend field or blessing, making all those "hidden" Perception rolls (such as for the Omox), and deal with all sorts of Enfeebled, Grabbed, Grappled, and differing conditions with different end-points and countdowns.

I'd say that about a third of my problems were keeping track of all the nonsense. Of the remaining 66.67%, I'd say that about half (33%) was the unwinnable scenario and the last 33% would be level design: aka the fact that this was nothing but a slog.

So, oddly, in answer to your question, it turns out about equal portions contributed to my unhappiness:
33.3% ... Keeping track of everything
33.3% ... The "unwinnable" scenario
33.3% ... The slog of endless combat

Does that make sense?

Yours,
Sylvan

Noted, thanks.

Say, Mark: I just want to say it is not my intent to be a surly, annoying, demanding, entitled gamer. Some of my review was doubtless more snarky than necessary. I have only 1 published module to my name from years and years ago. You are an expert currently working in the industry. I do not, in any way, want to impugn your skill and experience.

I've been a bit unhappy with some things, of late, and I believe that may be making my participation in the Playtest to be more combative than intended or necessary.

My apologies.

Yours,
Sylvan

Personally I'm waiting to see if PF2 gets substantial changes which make it better before I even try to promote it to my friends. As it is the feeling of 'everything is nerfed' would sink it and taint its image enough to stop a second attempt, I think.

Not that these people think that PF1 is perfect. They have played enough of it to have expectations of PFthough.

I hear ya.

And, yeah: PF1 has plenty of flaws. I'm not particularly fond of how spontaneous casters are handled nor barbarians with their rage.

But, over the years, the gradual house-rules and home-fixes have provided a really good social framework of fellow GMs to address these issues. Plus, plenty of fixes from Paizo have been excellent! Unchained, comes to mind, with regards to the Crafting rules.

It is indeed very, very tiring.

We made it through all of Event 1 in a 5 hour+ scenario.

As the GM I wasn't really enjoying myself. I offered the players the choice of continuing or not (by this point its pretty obvious to the players that they're very likely going to die). They all chose to continue.

I'm taking a breather in between, mind. Running this once every 2 weeks is enough for me. Every week would be too much.

I HAD stressed in character how absolutely essential their mission was and how they HAD to hold on as long as they possibly could. Partly to manage expectations. I know that, as a player, I'd be SEVERELY peeved to face wave 2, barely survive, only to be crushed like a bug in wave 3 (I think there is about a 60% chance they'll die in Wave 2 and a 40% chance they'll make it to wave 3 and die there. They've shot a LOT of resources to survive Wave 1).

I'm just ... feeling totally disconnected (more and more frequently) with 2E. If the final product ends up being anything even remotely like the playtest version, I'm really not going to enjoy it at all. And the more today has gone by, the darker my mood has gotten.

I appreciate your support (you clearly get it); I'm just looking at all the TPKs people are reporting, all the arguments over rules interpretations, all the rising tide of dread while the official channels keep saying "this is the greatest thing since sliced bread" rather than giving us any hope that the problems so many are talking about are being heard...

I feel like that adherent to 2nd edition AD&D who refuses to go on to 3rd edition because 2nd was "perfect". And I swear: I'm not that gamer! I love so many different systems! But the more I see the divide widening between people who are having real problems with the Playtest and those who defend it: the more I feel as if there's a portion not being listened-to ... that, in fact, the decisions have already been made and this is going to be the direction the game goes in.

I think that may be compounding my problems with the Playtest: that as things get increasingly monotonous, I'm losing drive, ambition, and desire to play it.

Does that make any sense?

Or, honestly: am I just a fluke, here? I mean, I could very well be too close to my reactions and be the only one having this many problems.

It's hard for me to see.

Good evening, fellow GMs,

I just finished running session one of "the Heroes of Undarin". It's almost midnight, here in Minnesota. I'm exhausted and drained. I knew what the adventure was like before running it but, honestly, it's so much more draining to run a game knowing you're going to kill your players' characters than I thought it would be.

By the end of it, as we were breaking up, I asked if they wanted to set-up a special run between now and our normal, next session in two weeks: to see if we could finish it.

They had made it through about the first third of Wave 1/Event 3. We stopped because one player had to go (other commitments; he volunteers some days) and another also had to leave because combat had taken so long and his ride back to Wisconsin had arrived.

None of them wanted to go on. To quote one: "It was a slog".

And, honestly: I was glad. It was a slog for me, too.

I get that the goal of this adventure is to stress-test characters, seeing how long it takes to kill them. And I get that this is a necessary part of play-testing.

That said, it was such a grind. And I had to wear my enthusiastic "GM Face" the whole time, running it like it was any other adventure.

It was the Pathfinder equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru. Only despite how cool that kinda sounds, it wasn't. It felt like a relentless death march and, for me, that's just not fun. At all. And it wasn't for my players.

So, yeah: we won't be continuing this one. We'll go on to the next.

But, still, I'm not sure I want to. I'm so worn out.

Maybe it's because it's so late and this was a very crunchy game session requiring tracking so many conflicting and overlapping conditions, spells, powers, and abilities that I'm figuratively seeing cross-eyed right now. But maybe I'm starting to think that this version of the Playtest, even with the updates, just isn't that good of a game. Parts of it are, sure; I really like several parts of it! But so much of it ... hurts. It's just not enjoyable.

Is anyone else having these feelings?

Or, to the contrary, does anyone else have any suggestions that could rekindle my cheer and enthusiasm for the Playtest?

I've been playing tabletop RPGs for 38 years and I've not encountered so troubling a game session before. This really did a number on me.

Any encouragement or commiseration welcome!

Yours,
Sylvan

One of my players asked a very solid question while creating his "demon-hunting hero" for "Heroes of Undarin". Basically, "So, what do we actually know about demons"?

Good question.

The module/adventure doesn't say.

So, I created the following hand-out. You may wish to use similar logic in your own runs of the adventure. I'll let you folk know how it goes.

-------------------

The median level of demons (as a group) in the Playtest Bestiary appears to be around 10 or 11. Most are "Uncommon" which is a "high" DC for "Recall Knowledge" checks with Lore. Almost all of you would have this sort of experience given your backgrounds. I would adjudicate that knowledge of a group or type of critter (ie: "demons") would come from encountering differing types of them over time. This would increase rarity of knowledge but not level. So, if we shift the average of "high" (for "uncommon" creatures) to the right on the DC chart and use a level of 10 or 11 we would get a DC of 29/30. Since this knowledge would be gained over time (like taking a 20; but I don't see this in the Playtest rules ,,, at least not by that terminology), if we go off of logic, I would say that you would probably have some basic knowledge, having gotten at least a '20' several times in your long careers of fighting demons.

Since you are level 12 characters, I'll limit your information to creatures of up to 1 level higher than you: lvl-13.

So, here's what you know:

Demons are fiendish natives of the Abyss who seek to twist mortals to sin. Demons seek to drag more beings into the pit following their death and final judgment. Many different types of demons exist; they possess weaknesses to cold-iron and good sources of injury and damage.

The Weaknesses of Sin
Demons are creatures of sin, and despite their overt displays of strength and magical might, these sins corrupt them. Each demon has weaknesses tied to the sin or sins most associated with them.
Demons of Envy generally possess a weakness to Fire
Demons of Gluttony generally possess a weakness to Positive Energy
Demons of Greed generally possess a weakness to Acid
Demons of Lust generally possess a weakness to Cold
Demons of Pride generally possess a weakness to Sonic
Demons of Sloth generally possess a weakness to Electricity
Demons of Wrath generally possess a weakness to Cold

Additionally, many demons can cast the Abyssal pact ritual to coax others of their kind into servitude. This is, essentially, the "Summon Demon" ability from 1st edition. The creature can call in a favor from another demon with a level of, at most, twice the spell level of the Abyssal pact, two demons up to 2 levels lower than that, or three demons up to 3 levels lower than that. If the ritual succeeds, the summoner owes the summoned demons a favor, depending on their nature and eagerness to pursue whatever tasks the summoner had in mind.

Demons you have heard of (using the Playtest Bestiary) include the following:
Blood Demon (Babau) ... sin categorization: "Lust"
Lust Demon (Succubus) ... sin categorization: "Lust" (duh)
Quasit ... sin categorization: "Pride"
Slaver Demon (Kalavakus) ... sin categorization: "Greed"
* Slime Demon (Omox) ... sin categorization: "Envy"
Sloth Demon (Dretch) ... sin categorization: "Sloth" (also, duh)
Toad Demon (Hezrou) ... sin categorization: "Sloth"
* Treachery Demon (Glabrezu) ... sin categorization: "Envy"
Wrath Demon (Vrock) ... sin categorization: "Lust"

*Those, above, marked with an asterisk are considered the toughest that you know of: your equal or even tougher.

Beyond these, you've heard rumors of more powerful types going by such names as Marilith, Shemhazian, Balor, Nalfeshnee but have no personal experiences or even much knowledge about them in a general sense. Specific Lore ("Recall Knowledge") checks will be allowed during the game for you to recall more specific information.

Lyee wrote:

So, something I found.

The map has 5ft squares. And the church has nice, big, square floor tiles.

Each of those tiles is actually a 2x2 grid. The lines dividing up the tiles are really faint, and depending on your screen, pdf reader, print quality, etc, can easily be missed entirely, making the clearly-defined floor tiles look like they're 5ft to a side when they're 10ft.

On the offical Roll20 flip-map pack, this is clear, as the grid is integrated with Roll20 and set to the right scale. Apparently, the other person in my group had DM'd the entire module with only 25% of the grid spaces it should have had.

I had two huge creatures stomping through the church with plenty of room on either side of them.

I must disagree. Yes the church floor is tiled, but to me, it is clear that the tiles are just decorative and that the consistent, mostly-opaque grid lines are meant to show the 5-foot squares. It's more clear if you look at the outside area of the map, the study, or the stable, where the floor design is different. No evidence of additional gridlines, in my opinion.

But, this seems like a good solution to the problem: double the scale of the map.

I've already run my game and had the Treachery Demons Kool-Aid-Man themselves through the temple, using actions to destroy pillars in their way. It worked out ok, but probably reduced the Demons' effectiveness slightly (which is fine, because the PCs have much bigger issues coming)

I may have some insight as to what happened. Or at least a possible clue.

To get where I'm coming from, though, you should understand how I run my games.

I use Photoshop with various layers turned on/off for "Fog of War", secret rooms, creature Tokens, PC Tokens, etc... In order to run these Playtest adventures, I open the PDF version of "Doomsday Dawn", right-click on the embedded map image, and save it before opening it up in Photoshop to prep it for my run.

When I first did this, the map came out maimed; distorted and stretched. No other map that I did this for (in the previous adventures of "Doomsday Dawn") acted like this. Furthermore, when I went back to do it, again, I would frequently not get this problem.

I'm thinking that it was distorted to fit into the final, published version and, perhaps, this indicates that it was originally larger and of a slightly different shape/proportions. Hence, maybe this points to the floor tiles being truly representative of the initial, intended scale of the place.

But, that said, even in the PDF, the grid that overlays the map clearly says "1 square = 5 feet" on it and those squares contain 2 floor tiles on a side.

So, while it may be that this is a bug that came up when they were preparing the final version of the adventure, we still are stuck with 50-foot-high ceilings, a temple too narrow for 1/3rd of the critters attacking it, and references to 10 events when the adventure says there are only 9.

("THERE ... ARE ... FOUR ... LIGHTS!")

So, yeah: I may re-size my map. Or, I may look into "damaging/breaking things" and see if the Huge-or-larger critters can start taking down the pillars in the temple.

Because, as my friend and co-GM puts it, "I may take up a 5-foot Space but to go down a 3-foot-wide hall, I don't have to squeeze and it doesn't slow me down."

But if we're here to test the rules and adventures, as written and presented, we're finding some real problems...

Yours,
Sylvan

** spoiler omitted **

So what is the tenth event?

I still vote for a quasit as Event 10.

While prepping for next weekend's running of this adventure, I was giving the module a second read-through and discovered a potential typo. It's not too crucial but I was wondering what others thought of it.

On Page 62 in the "Lighting" sidebar, it says "The sun has fully set for Events 6 through 10". Additionally, under "Concluding The Chapter" on page 67 in paragraph 3, it says "If, somehow, the characters managed to survive the assault, defeating all 10 events...".

There are several ways to interpret this:

• 1. These are, as I suggest, just typos,
• 2. There was originally an Event 10 that got removed for publication but the sidebar/relevant-text never got updated,
• 3. The section "Concluding The Chapter" was supposed to be "Event 10", or
• 4. We, the playtest GMs, are supposed to invent a truly stunning and awful final encounter to shatter any surviving characters and break the wills of their players.

Personally, for the fun of it, if any of my players' characters survive all the way to the end, I think I'll throw in a quasit for Event 10 so someone can step on it and roar to the blood-read heavens in victory...

Thoughts?

Yours,
Sylvan

Finished Mirrored Moon last Saturday.

Beginning Heroes of Undarin Saturday after this coming one.

(We're a bi-weekly gaming group.)

Here we go... I hope this works; I've not done DropBox, before.

I have each of the Battle Maps in there as well as a single ZIPped file for mass-download, if you like.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m6gm85xwqcpwkii/AAClqEIW95pVqk0ChqMIhwYVa?dl=0

Let me know if this works!

I hope folk enjoy them!

Yours,
Sylvan

Hey there, everyone,

In case there are some refs out there who need quick Battle Maps for "In Pale Mountain's Shadow" here are the maps I came up with for my group. I created them using assets I purchased and my own Photoshop skills. I tend to display these on the TV from my laptop but I suppose they could also be printed out.

I figured I'd share them, here, for refs who may need them and don't have the time or inclination to draw up their own.

If anyone is interested, let me know: I'll try to find a way to post them.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the best means to post a ZIP-file of PNG-images? By that, I mean, the method that a majority of folk, here, would prefer to use.

Yours,
Sylvan

I have a house rule for combat that's really proved helpful when dealing with creatures with reach who attack past a front-line combatant to reach someone just behind the first.

It just feels logical.

Reaching Past
When a creature with reach attacks a target more than 5 feet away with natural or non-weapon melee attacks, any character adjacent to or in a direct line between the creature and its target, is allowed an attack of opportunity against that creature.

Good day, one and all,

Thank you, everyone, for your insight and suggestions. I eventually spoke to him, face-to-face. I don't entirely believe what he said, but he claimed he hadn't been cheating but admitted to fudging combat rolls and saving throws. He was a bit chipper about it and took full responsibility.

On the other hand, it's similar to what we all do as kids: deny the crime we got caught for and hope to evade punishment by copping to other crimes (not knowing how much the accuser knows and hoping that, by admitting it, you lessen any repercussions).

At least it didn't turn into an explosion.

My plan will be to introduce a shared dice rolling system of some sort.

I normally hook my laptop up to the HDTV in my friend's living room so I can share maps (I erase blacked-out sections in Photoshop) and player aids. What I think I'll try to do is see if I can find a shared log-in dice roller I can put onto the screen and have all the players log into it. I can do it under the rubric of "Hey: isn't this a cool widget" and still not call undue attention to my problem gamer.

The problem is, I don't mind a certain degree of fudging: I fudge die rolls all the time to keep my players alive. (In the last session, I actually rolled three criticals against one player so I fudged the last two and dealt damage normally.) My dilemma is that "once in a while" is okay. Statistically significant alteration of one's die rolls on a repeated basis is not.

My solution would put everyone out in the open.

Yes, I already use Hero Points (so they can save themselves) but I still end up feeling ... awkward about the solution.

I know I'm an old, greying geek who's been playing long into his years of bifocals and bad hearing, but I wouldn't mind perspectives from fellow gamers who may have an alternate approach.

Thank you, one and all, again.

Yours,
Sylvan

Good day, all,

Just a short, introductory post.

I'm a bisexual (mostly gay ... in the same way that Wesley, in "the Princess Bride", was "mostly dead") and just turned 50. When I came out, I was lucky. Mom didn't know but she was already heavily active in church trying to get acceptance for gay folk and ordained ministers. In short, I knew I could trust her when coming out (back in '94).

Dad was a good, easy-going sort, but I honestly wasn't sure how he'd react. I had known for a few years and kept it quiet. My siblings and friends knew, but that was it. When I told Dad, I came over to their house on a Sunday for lunch and told him, "Dad, I've wanted to tell you and Mom something: I'm bisexual."

He had been reading the comics page of the newspaper, put it down, and looked thoughtful.

Then, he said "Like Elton John, right?"

I have to tell you, he was the greatest! All he wanted to make sure is that, with the AIDS crisis still very much in the headlines, that I was being safe.

Anyway, that's my introduction.

It's good to meet you all!

Yours,
Sylvan

Good day, one and all,

My question is two-fold and deals with two specific issues I was hoping others might be able to answer. I'm an aging gamer-geek who started just before 1980 with Dungeons and Dragons. I'm going to be 50 this August. I've been a referee since the start and have had many players in my games but, in recent years, more of a core set of people.

While I occasionally have new members join the group, we are -generally- an aging gathering. As such, there have been increasing issues that go beyond the standard "I have a mortgage and family, now" problems that arise as the years tick upwards.

So, yes, the first part of my question is "How do you deal with aging as backs get worse, eyesight fades, and general health issues may interfere with sitting for long periods, eating whatever you want, etc...?"

The second, more specific question, is with mental issues. Two of my core players have suffered strokes over the past couple years. Both are still eager to game and, moreover, they're great friends. One has trouble hearing, focusing, and engaging as he once did. We all love him but I'm finding it difficult as his referee to provide him with things that can elicit his participation. He has assured me that he's still having fun. At the same time, he'll forget things or not hear things quite often. I know he has trouble reading, now, which is why I don't default to preparing hand-outs as a work-around.

I have some issues, too: the afore-mentioned "bad back" which has gotten in my way of sitting for too long, having to wear bifocals, and my hearing (which can vex my players). But those are things I can solve by pre-planning and taking care during our runs. They make me even more aware of people's limitations and disabilities: perhaps disabilities that are more difficult to work around.

Does anybody have any recommendations for accommodating and helping players who may have mental disabilities like those I've described? I really do want to keep all of us together and make certain that everyone is having the best, possible time at our bi-weekly adventures!

Thank you in advance,
Sylvan

A really fun game supplement to work on with a really useful NPC class, the Arcane Worker, to use in my game-setting. I'll be able to look at my PCs and say, "Yes, that's a 'real' spell: it's in a supplement! I also wrote it!"

This was really cool to work on and I'm happy to see three spells of my devising in print for other gamers to enjoy! Makes an old gamer-geek proud!

Castellan's Dungball for the win! Whoot! :)

My stocking will not feel complete until Krampus is in it!

Any chance that we'll see a preview post of stats, soon? :)

It works well. I've been running a campaign world called "Skylands" for about 20 years, now. The airships which connect the islands and the isolation that many of the continents/skylands possess with respect to one another can be an extremely good way to combine many different cultures and themes into one campaign.

Great minds think alike, eh? :)

Kudos! Go for it! And post updates!

I'd love to see what you come up with and compare to what I've been doing.

Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)

Recently, I've had my sorcerer character go through a bit of a transformation during the events of "Rise of the Runelords". While I wrote him as a poor son of a farmer with a hatred for goblins (who would raid the farms outside Sandpoint, where he lived), I decided (once in play) that my character was a religious sort. He believed that evil creatures, such as goblins and some giant-kin, were evil because they lacked souls. The cleric in our party encouraged this belief.

Well, during the raid on Thistletop, our referee had a goblin beg for mercy and surrender. My NG Sorcerer immediately stopped, stunned. It seemed as if this creature was honestly remorseful and, therefore, might actually have a soul. I spared him and, honestly, never ran into the goblin, since. Something similar happened with some of the ogre-kin near Hook Mountain. Our cleric (of Abaddon) kept to his position that these creatures were purely evil and irredeemable.

So, upon gaining 11th level, I had my character take a level in Cleric and devoted himself to Sarenrae and her teaching of redemption.

I've found it to be rather exciting to go in this direction as it offers some perspective on redemption that our adventuring party has lacked in the past. It's still fairly recent so I'm not sure how it's going to play out, but so far I think the key element I've focused on is the idea of mercy.

From what I've experienced, the quality of mercy is at the heart of Sarenrae's clergy. It is mercy that speaks towards redemption or, if no redemption is possible, a swift and painless end. If you put mercy at the core of your portrayal of a Sarenrae cleric, most of the rest will follow.

Yours,
Sylvan

Space was indeed the main factor for how this monster appeared in this book. The ahkhat originally appeared in Pathfinder Adventure Path #79: The Half-Dead City where it got a full two pages and plenty more description.

Y'know, I really appreciate your attention to fans of your games. It's contact like this, plain and simple talk, that makes lifelong gamers like myself loyal. :) I've been reffing tabletop RPGs since January 1st, 1980 and playing for a few months before then. It's always great to get into conversations with the creators.

Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)

An excellent thread; I'm looking forward to seeing more postings in 2016!