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I'm not sure how discussion of resource depletion was covered, but I think that in a sandbox game the mass harvesting of wood should deplete patches of forest. This would have two awesome benefits:

1) The natural depletion of resources will be a realistic and natural source of conflict between nations, cities, etc. Wood fuels nations but the need for wood fuels war.

2) The amount of forest depletion has to be kept in check. If characters like druids, rangers and woodland barbarians have an incentive to preserve their forests, this will create a fascinating new faction: The tree huggers. Whether you love them or just love killing them, nature oriented factions could be awesome if they had a real incentive to fight deforestation.

My 2 cents on lumber.

Alternatively, with the assistance of a necromancer you could have an undead siege team to assist with transport and reloading.

That is the most metal thing I've ever heard

In the neverwinter games, characters could only carry one summoned entity around at a time. If you had an animal companion, then technically two. This was a major nerf and character immersion killer for summoning oriented mages. Sure, it made games run a little faster, but it was a big sacrifice in my opinion.

I hope there will be no major limits to how many summoned creatures you may have at a time. This way, necromancers can really move around with squads of corpses (true to animate dead) and conjurers can summon many beasties onto the battlefield.

I was just kind of wondering about this. When settlements start coming to life, will there be NPC warriors involved in combat? It's logical to say that among the NPC residents of settlements and kingdoms some of those locals would be trained for warfare.

I say warrior NPC's might be a good thing, and here's why:

1) The players won't be on 24/7. Games have peak hours and off peak hours, so a devoted horde of players could probably strike at 4am on a tuesday morning and take out a whole city if they were organized and they wanted to.

2) Large groups of players rarely act in an organized way in battle. I've seen some large scale WoW battles and it seemed like a swarm of people were jumping over each others heads and flinging spells every which way. If NPC armies march at the king/ruler's orders, they will form an organized nucleus around which actual characters can organize coherent tactics.

I'm hardly confident in my opinions, but I'd love to see some discussion.

What concerns me is that pathfinder's art, while frankly awesome, is a little anime for my tastes. I REALLY hope this doesn't look like an anime RPG.

WoW has a very cartoony look, but the world looks beautiful in places and characters look pretty cool within that cartooniness.

Skyrim is beautiful beyond words, and looks much more realistic.

What these two games have in common is a western-centric aesthetic. While pathfinder does have quintessentially Eastern options sprinkled here and there (I'm looking at you, monk) it really is another take on the whole alternate medieval Europe idea. An anime/eastern looking game wouldn't make a shred of sense to me.

Curious what your goals as a company are going to be:

Exploration?
Advancement of dark magic?
PvP?
PvE?
Settlement building?
etc.

The goal with be to settle an area, fortify it, and establish a city state. The state's goal will be to provide a refuge for necromancers, demon oriented summoners, other users of dark magic (and later on) alchemists, trying to establish a good economy based on crafting and masonry while ensuring members' protection.

We will be highly PVP oriented. Threats to our cause, including undead hating paladins, druids and the like will not be allowed entrance to our city, and if they try to enter they will be killed on sight, but only for reasons of self defense.

If PvP is as dynamic and varied as I hope it will be, our soldiers will be devided into a tactical tier system:

I: Swarmlings- Our swarmlings consist of a backbone of necromancers and demon summoners, reinforced by infantry of all kinds. The goal of the swarmling horde is to summon and gather as many bodies as possible for overwhelming shock assaults. Unmounted fighters/barbarians/rangers, etc. Most of our warriors will find their place in the swarm, alongside hordes of summoned skeletons, demons and vermin.

II:Exalted Cavalry- These are our finest mounted martial heroes and antiheroes on horseback. Focus will be on sheer speed and fully armored melee combat brutality.

III: Arial Cavalry- This will consist of men on bat-back, or something similar. Arial cavalrymen will focus on crippling spells and ranged weapon damage, making it an eclectic mix of rangers, spell-casters, and lightly armored bowmen of all sorts.

IV: Infiltrators- The most fiercely devoted stealth characters will work for this group. Infiltrators exist for dual purposes of intelligence/espionage and flanking enemy lines in large battles.

That was mostly a discussion of battle, but economics will be important as well. Crafters and masons of all kinds will be allowed to live in the city, and protected fiercely.

Game run pvp of any kind doesn't strike my fancy at all. This is a sandbox. Pick something to believe in, pick an organization to follow, and slay enemies of that ideal or threats to your kingdom's land. You know, like war. Like real life.

I want kitty cat race >.<

Weakness
Yarn - dazed for 1d4 rounds batting it around.

Furball
A spit attack that grosses out those who see it happen, causing them to be dazed for 1d4+1/lvl rounds as they try not to throw up. Once used you have to wait another 5 rounds to build up for another shot.

There's nothing funny about furry races. They RUIN online rpg's, especially MMOs.

I see no reason why a copy of your character sheet should be available to others, even allies. After all, in real life you do run into people who clearly appear to be soldiers, cops, nurses, fire fighters, office workers, etc. However they don't walk around with copies of their resumes and diplomas hovering above their heads. They could be impostors!

I had a good deal of fun playing a disguise oriented rogue in neverwinter nights' online servers. I had an evil streak back then, and some of my favorite tricks involved pumping points into UMD to appear as a mage or spending feats on armor/weapon proficiencies. (I had a great deal of fun pretending to be a paladin). Typically, I'd murder those who fell for my disguises, pickpocket them or otherwise be a deceitful bastard.

This brings me back to Pathfinder Online. I think it would be wrong to force people to reveal their true "class identities". World of Warcraft does it, but I think this is going to be an altogether different game. In a sandbox, spies and assassins should be allowed to do their thing without basic game rules rendering their roles obsolete.

Discuss!!!

Think about it! You could need powerful siege weapons to destroy or damage buildings (except for wood buildings which could be burnt) so it won't exactly be easy to destroy an enemy stronghold. If destroying key buildings is difficult enough, it could require sieges over an hour in length. Of course it's always easier to defend a castle than it is to tear it down, so such sieges would require a tremendous prolonged effort. This could give the game a cinematic "Helms Deep" feel as player factions struggle to aquire/destroy land.

Destructable/stealable buildings would heighten the stakes for players in a game where death doesn't grant terrible penalties, and it would make Pathfinder Online's wars feel much more important that some world of warcraft guild battle.

One of my problems with the monk class is that I've always considered it an Asian flavored class and I prefer a more typically medieval setting for my games. I was wondering how other DMs/players treat the monk in their game settings: Is it something to keep out of a medieval Europe style fantasy setting? Or would a monk style character feel at home in a Lord of the Rings style setting?

I was looking for a name for next session's NPC hero. He will be Q'Oshea, a proud kobold freedom fighter.

Considering the entry for tieflings in the bestiary AND the advanced/alternate tiefling rules in council of thieves, are there any fans of the race? Is it overpowered?

What is your opinion of tieflings non-mechanically as a role to play? Any memorable stories/characters?

Several years back we had two groups playing at the local hobby store (Comic Emporium in Panama City, Florida) and both of us who were DMs happened to be running adventures around Keoland. At one point, it happened that both groups (about 7 players in each) were in the Dreadwood Forest at the same time. So we decided to come up with something to involve both.

I built a palisade at home out of cardboard, painted it up, and brought it to the hobby store. It was 4' X 4' with a few buildings inside, steps up to the ramparts, and corner towers.

We had the two parties arrive at the fort on the same night of play, just as a large humanoid force was preparing to attack it. The groups had different reasons for being there and though each had seen signs of large humanoid groups in the area, neither was aware they were going to combine into one large party to help the residents of the fort fight a battle.

We took them to the back room where the fort was set up and let them fight a full scale battle against several hundred orcs, goblins, and ogres. Casters got to expend every AoE they had on large groups of monsters, melee fighters got to take on the ogres, and the healers had to try to keep both parties plus the npc's alive. They had a great time.

I just came.

I don't know if anyone is going to agree here, but I think that looks-wise, pathfinder absolutely butchered gnomes. The wacky green and purple skin tones and crazy hair just do nothing for me and I think the gnome's picture in the Races section of the PhB almost looks like a joke.

As characters, MY gnomes have always been brooding and sinister little fellows- and while this was not really your typical gnome lore wise, I could always take comfort in their dignified, NORMAL skin and hair. To me, they were basically smaller, more neurotic and magical humans. What I see now irks me. Sure, I still make gnomes and imagine them in a D&D flavor, but the gnome as presented in the book is a freaking fairy.

Anyone agree or disagree?