Excellent piece, Ron! Deepest backstory yet, and the most imaginative. Just what I would expect from you.
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Somehow GaryCon in Lake Geneva, WI did not make the first list above. Just want to make doubly sure that everyone sees that it runs March 8-11 and we'll try to have the snow cleared for Tonya! Meanwhile, congrats to the new campaign coin recipients and to Paul Trani, who probably qualified for that 5th star years ago.
Dearest darling Linda, you are one of very many wonderful people I have met and spent happy hours with through PFS. I had the good fortune to be a VO for close to 4 years, and I've been playing PFS since January in year zero. I don't want this ever to end. My situation has changed somewhat, and I don't get to as many cons as before, but when I do I still encounter friendly people throughout the room - it's a joyous occasion! I've met Auke, Karim and Florent from Europe. I've undoubtedly been at tables with several others from the international lodges and hundreds here in the US. They are all important to me. But one of my favorite memories is the trivia game at PaizoCon a couple of years ago with a certain bright-eyed, dark haired young lady leading our table. Jorsal of Lauterbury for the win! Thank you for sharing with us, your extended family of thousands...
Mark, this is an excellent blog on what promises to be one of the best books in a long time. I haven't read a major book cover-to-cover in a while, but this will be one of those times. If it's as good as you make it sound, and knowing you a little bit I'm certain that it is, I'll be tracking you down at GenCon for an autograph in my copy.
I remember asking about Casmaron at a GenCon seminar some years ago, while I was running a Kingmaker campaign in neighboring Brevoy & the Stolen Lands - getting ready for a sequel campaign!
Our local gnome-loving community will turn the Order of Transcendent Reclamation into a crusade!
Your beautiful imagery conjured the vision of dark, possibly vampiric, figure on a hilltop. With a swirl of his cloak and the cawing of crows he's away and untraceable...
This is the one that most captured my imagination! Wonderful piece of imagineering Crystal!
My favorite author scores again - I'm here to tell you that he probably even designs them in his sleep! Must remember to ask his darling wife...
Great post, indeed! I love playing Ranzak, but he better not go off by himself in Wrath or he'll become plant food!
You had us at ultrasonic whistle...welcome aboard!
You are a paragon of leadership, sir. I salute you!
I should do it as Doug does, as it makes players keep their paperwork up to date. I usually do not, simply because there is usually way too little time left at the end of one game before mustering begins for the next one. Players will only occasionally have decided ahead of time on what they want to purchase, and delaying (or missing) a meal because of the indecision that will naturally occur strikes me as senseless, and in many cases hazardous to your health. In a home game, or at those rare cons where slots are spaced 6 hours apart, GMs should make the effort. @Pink Dragon - what Doug said. Don't be troubled by this not conforming to the strict letter of the Guide, rushing the purchasing process for your character only leads to frustration. Relax, have fun, and just make sure you are ready for the next adventure. (And be sure your numbers are correct!)
Just wanted to give a standing ovation to you for the holy books!
I already admire the creativity that you two bring to the dungeon, er, table! Welcome aboard!
Never envisioned hills like this when I've played or run Murder's Mark, but then I live in Illinois...I would buy a home here in a heartbeat!
I still remember Hodag Park in Rhinelander - the statue there looks more like the behemoth from Titan, but I've made the Kingmaker hodag my wandering monster of choice!
The playtest version has been my answer to the overpowered PCs in my Kingmaker campaign, and this comes out just in time to pump up Choral the Conqueror in a winner-take-all showdown next week!
Harken to the rumble of an assembling horde of buyers!
Sha'ir in my experience were always buying wands and scrolls whenever possible to get around the retrieval time lag. I don't have the books in front of me, so maybe this was a house rule, but sha'ir had to have seen a given spell cast before they could send their gen to retrieve it in our game, other than 1st level, common arcane spells.
For at least 30 years I've ruled that it simply follows you at whatever velocity as long as you're on or near the ground. It is a disk of force with nothing to impede it's progress, but it does follow you, so you can't ride on it, although other characters may do so within weight limitations, of course. It is dependent on height above ground and it's position relative to the caster - nothing else. In the absence of any definition of what constitutes an abnormal speed, any speed you might achieve is normal by default. As Aberrant Templar correctly notes, this can only matter in a combat situation. I believe that being more restrictive on it's speed limitations is an unnecessary complication to running the game.
This archetype draws on old folklore themes of the changeling children and is a beauty for a villain in a campaign. I agree that "scoundrel" seems inappropriate in the name, fey-marked would be better. The other consideration I have is just where on the body would the player situate this mark? I can see a lot of non-family-friendly abuse going on here if this were available to PFS players, for example.
Great flavor here, but the comments about boats being a limiting factor are all too true. That said, I totally see this for NPC keelboat captains in the RK setting. Nice concept.
Enough with the criticism! The judging rules do not matter nearly as much as the fact that this is a great item! This will exist in my home campaigns whether or not it makes it into a Paizo product because it meets the criteria that matter to players - it is USEFUL, it is AFFORDABLE and it has STYLE. I personally did not vote for any item that cost 25,000 or more for these reasons.
Put me in the "Definitely Buy" column. Looks great!
I am, as usual, in agreement with Al Rigg (and love the goblins comment!). The scenarios are being true to their environment/location on Golarion as they should be. This consistency with Golarion as envisioned by its creators is admirable. I do not want to see more drow UNLESS we're in the Darklands. I do expect to run into orc patrols in the eastern reaches of Varisia this year, because they are neighbors. We should only encounter orcs in the vicinity of the Horde of Belkzen simply because they have been hunted to extinction by civilized races everywhere else.
That's the key - talk about it, instead of getting angry and putting labels on each other. You can justify charging or not charging as you wish and you must consider that Kingmaker is not quite like the other APs. Our group is happiest with the 25% discount, and I let them sell to NPCs "off camera" at higher than the cost to make things. There is a graduated scale that I employ so that getting full price might take you a year of game time, but you can get a small profit pretty quickly. This adds a little verisimilitude, and in a typical winter in the cold north of the Stolen Lands, there just aren't many buyers able to travel over the snowy dirt roads. The other option, for groups that insist on having party members craft for cost, would be to also allow the crafter to spend part of his time crafting for resale with a set scale or a sliding scale of profit. That allows the crafter to act like he is actually part of the world, with the means to generate income for himself. Doesn't he deserve that? I think so.
eleclipse wrote: So, i have a crafting wizard and we're playing kingmaker, we just hitted lvl 5 and started building the kingdom. I'm a LN mage follower of Abadar, the other party member are a paladin a LG oracle, a NG inquisitor and a N druid. I decided to add a 10% fee on the creation cost when crafting item for the party (this mean that a belt of +2 str will cost them 2200 instead of 2000, which is still a lot better than 4000); this caused an unexpected reaction on the other players (not pg, players). They now pretty much consider me to be a jerk, just suggesting this we're arrived to the point of them preferring to buy the items at full price and they said me this is not right since the don't make me pay for cure, tanking ecc ecc. This was totally unexpected by this group since they are always very mature, am i missing something and being "that guy" without knowing? Is this some kind of delicate argument in the average group? Some advice on how to deal with this situation will be most appreciated! :) In the party I am running through Kingmaker, the crafters charge more, usually splitting the savings between the crafter and the buyer. Our group is more accepting of this idea, because this sort of behavior has precedent within the group of players. As the DM, I don't really care. The primary crafter (of several) is a cleric of Nethys who acts more like a cleric of Abadar - I have accused him in jest of role-playing his MBA rather than his character. One significant point is actually the cost - since this is an up-front charge, the end user should certainly be putting up the required $$$ if he expects the item at a zero mark-up. If you play the weather effects (base it on Winnipeg), there certainly is a lot of downtime for crafting.
It appears that your goal here is to have Tartuk reappear later, if he survives the encounter in book 1. Depending on the expertise of your players, remember that Tartuk is encountered in an underground chamber where both exits are probably blocked by PCs. His survival is by no means likely. Perhaps you should prepare a few contingency plans (outlined only) on how to handle the alternatives. The naga has simply dominated the boggard IMO rather than replaced their deity. Like the wisp and Tartuk, she gets in between the worshippers and the worshipped, but does not actually replace a diety. The wisp comes closest to that. I would disagree with moving Tig out to Candlemere island, simply because at their level in RRR, boating to the island is the only option. Being caught on the water by the wisps is deadly, because the PCs can hardly hurt them. The obit board has numerous instances of parties routed by a lone wisp as a wandering monster. Assaulting Candlemere Island needs a lot of prep work by your players. I think you will find that when your PCs are 10th level or more, no version of Tartuk will be much of a threat. The swamp calls for aquatic foes, and I feel you will learn to "embrace" the naga there. |
