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One way to maintain secret rolls, but allow the player to roll, is take a selection of rolls at the start of each session from each player, and then use them as the game needs, save any unused rolls, and keep this up, allows for both sides to be satisfied, just let them know ahead of time, what you're doing etc.
How do you pronounce Spivey? I keep mixing Spee-vay, Spy-V, and its driving me and the players a little mad :P
Good to hear about the spirits and mood, hopefully the holiday weekend for you folks, was relaxing? This is by far my favourite thread on the boards, always come back every few days to read you replies, and you've put me onto some kind film and music, I'd have put off otherwise. Spoiler:
As for the Brinewall incident, we do use hero points as a daily resource, with only a slight reduction in the bonus provided to the dice, but the party had been hit with a black tentacles trap/spell, that almost killed a good portion of them (a little bad on my behalf, I failed to do the due diligence and assumed most would be able to avoid it, but that was not the case).
So I was feeling a little more charitable than I normally would be in the above scenario.Far too casual abuse of fireball has left no possible allies inside the keep. Another alternative, could be some Derro who live deeper under the keep (it was there Black tentacles trap that they'd triggered), arrive and kidnap the unconscious party, prompting a desperate and hasty rescue attempt. Thanks for answering :D
I trust the day finds you in better spirits?
Spoiler: Long story shot, I’ve used Brinewall as the source of an adventure side trek, rather than following it as part of the Jade Regent storyline. The group have cleared the Keep, of all the enemies bar Rokuro Kaijitsu (wraith), after finally defeating nindenzago in a tough and close fight, half the party retreated to rest and recover, while the other half decided, with both keys to the vault, to proceed with looting it. I played up Rokuro as a more defensive spirit, that would only attack if they tried to enter the secret chamber. The party failing provoking Rokuro, then got into a fight, I left Rokuro as written, though I changed his CHA drain back to con, as the three who got into the combat, had low cha scores, and I was feeling a little more generous. The party all 7th level, versus a standard CR wraith, then made lots of errors, and provoked many AoO, before they tried a tactical rout, I had Rokuro chase them to the stairs, and halt his pursuit, returning to guard the chamber, but 2 of the three had fallen to his attacks, the third fleeing back to the resting group, abandoned their friends to the wraith.
My dilemma is, would Rokuro, slay the fallen adventurers to create spawn, or do you think, the small measure and nature of his being/damnation, would allow them to lie where they fell, no longer interested in the neutralised threat?
p.s My players loved Brinewall especially Kikonu who I hammed up, they did not fall for Zaoibe ploy, turning on her as soon as possible, she escaped to warn Kikonu.
Long story short the party of 6 lvl 7 pc's had split, and only 3 of them entered the sun/moon vault under brinewall, to loot any possible treasure, the rest had retreated to the village, so are not any help or assistance in the fight that broke out. The 3 to enter included the gnome sorcerer, dwarf warpriest and half elf barbarian, a little down on hitpoints, and spells, but otherwise pretty good for the coming fight. Well a general panic and lots of AoO saw a full rout from Rokuro, as the wraith layed into them, he chased them to the top of the stairs, and that was as far as I intended to have him follow, but the sorcerer, was knocked unconscious, and the war priest soon followed, they both told the Barbarian player OOC to flee, so she high tailed it, and left them, unconscious with the wraith standing over them. I've only just noticed the wraith targeted CHA, not con, but outside of the sorcerer it only would have hastened the unconscious state, the sor con is the same as his cha, so it made little difference to his fate overall, and the dwarf would be down from cha drain, rather than hitpoints, so the result is still both unconscious with the wraith. The advice I now need is would the wratih continue to attack the fallen enemies and of course turn them into wraiths? or would he return to his lonely damned existence guarding the vault? I've played him up more as a reactive, and defensive foe, rather than an overly aggressive one, and for the one of the first times in my GM life time genuinely stumped as to what to do? Wraith them?, or leave them for the eventual rush to save them returns?
2 Years in March, mostly newer players, almost done with Book 2 (A hell of a lot of sidequests) the group averages 6-8 players typically. Play fortnightly, for about 3/3.5 hours in the evening.
They still had bards and story-tellers and singers and such, though. For example, a lot of myths and fairy tales were oral, and only survive because someone wrote them down before they disappeared. We watch telly and listen to the radio. Pre-radio, everyone would to any (live) performances that were on. I don't doubt, but look at a lot of Mythical creatures from real world lore, most are chinese whispered style monsters at the best and worst! The best method really for all involved, is just have a open conversation with your players, on how you wish to utilise Knowledge skills and player vs character information.
The problem with any real world analogies, is that we have vast swathes of information and education available to ourselves, that, in a faux-medieval style magic world, they probably don't. The reason we all know silver vs werewolves, is purely down to pop culture (or a Common monster DC, i.e 10 or lower). Trolls are such a menace to anyone, without the correct knowledge to deal with. That fire kills them should be fairly common knowledge, imho, or at least the common ways to deal with regeneration? Other stuff is nicely and decently dealt with via various Knowledge checks, though revealing pure rules versus fluffier aspects, is one I've always felt a little uncomfortable in siding for one side or the other! I feel it cheapens the game or story by flat out stating a save mod or AC, but agree that using a fluffier message can sometimes lead to massive problems in interpretation.
Major difference is it doesn't break on a 1, I thought? Unlike the standard Macauhuitl (terbutje be damned)
Sums it up for me!
Background Skills
Looking at removing Iterative attacks and auto bonus progression on items, will allow spell power ups, wild magic, skill unlocks and stamina if players wish. Unchained classes are all used now, though aside from the summoner original classes can still be taken if the player wishes. I like it, lovely little book.
Stone, Marsh Giants. Skum / Aboleth, Lamia, Dark Folk are some of my high list of stuff.
Derro, gotta be some Derro!
I'd like to have gander at what you've done.
Spoiler: earthbeardAThotmail.com
I like the think it's an easter egg, related to his holy symbol and a certain game :P
Hey, This is a Great Book, well the parts of it that're correct anyway!
My Issue
What can I do? return to the store and wait for another copy (this one has taken since release day to get to me already), send to distributor or return to paizo and get one re-shipped to me? Any help
One thing that is important is that a lot of the other areas of the Inner Sea, are much more focused on specific settings or archetypes. While it would be great to have Linnorm Kings, Taldor noble city games etc, the appeal for these to me, would seem to have a more limited market. As the staff have a repeatedly said, they consider the AP very carefully, as they want more buyers not less for that whole 6 months afterall. I'm a great fan of the Varisian area to be honest, so I approve of even more stuff.
EXCELLENT!!!! Makes me hunger for it even more now.
It's the best selling Companion we've printed to date, and by a wide margin.Adventurer's Armory. :PI liked the Adventurer's Armory. To be fair, all of the companions suffer from the utterly uneeded npc stats blocks, at least imo.
Now all we deed is the Varisia Sourse Book :)... followed by the Azlant and Thassilon Source Book! I'd jump on those faster than well a really fast thing, something my dwarven shaped body has difficulty with normally.
I would've loved to see more thematic druids that don't rely on 'printed monsters', after all that was their goal I thought. Provide a a simpler to use, generic bonus so players don't cherry pick through the bestiary (or MM). But what I'm thinking is probably more of what Paizo is calling an "archtype", plants, vermin, elemental, etc. Pretty much along the same lines as the Sorcerer Bloodlines.I would also have liked to see Vermin as a type that (at least an achetype of) Druids could Wildshape into. It just seems very thematic, especially for a creepy archvillain Druid. Vermin shape etc is in Lords of Chaos book :D
I'd love to see some more books of the damned, the series gets better with each release imho.
In my game the mechanical stuff..stats, feats classes plus dice rolls for combat spells, tactical movement are the owning player's responsibility. As DM I handle the role playing side of the intelligent cohorts, animals pets etc as npcs, I also police "stupid" decisions that players might make with their charges. Pretty much how I do it too. I've already got a heap of stuff to do, don't need the extra hassle of messing around with your summoned monsters etc.
For NPCs: I always point buy the stats. For PCs, I MUCH prefer to roll the dice. Always How I've done it too, I find the group always prefer to roll for stats, it's part of the ritual of character creation, if I have to use point buy, I somehow always feel somewhat less than if I rolled, not due to any statistics, just on the chracter as a whole.
While I use some of the maps etc, I tend to buy them more for completist reasons than practical. Though I always appreciate city/tavern/town/castle maps more than other types.
Exciting news, hope the layout goes to 1 page per, or split, like aniamls etc in PF, the originals are some crazy layout at times, including blank space. Is new info being added, or is it merely going to be updated stat blocks and everythign else a copy & paste job?
Monsters are always worthwhile :P
I'll chalk it up to age :P Thanks for checking for me.
I seem to be missing the Core Rulebook download, can someone confirm if it's a bug or if my old age is tricking me into thinking I had it, when in fact I didn't. My HD died, so just getting the files back and trying to salvage the RotRL campaign :(
Got Mine form the FLGS today in the UK. Very nice book so far, disappointed the equipment guide section seems to be a copy and paste from the adventurer's armoury. But it smells good.
We'll be offering some new options regarding races and customization in the Advanced Player's Guide. I'm not sure exactly HOW that stuff'll work out, but I do believe we're trying to avoid what happened in the Forgotten Realms with so many different kinds of elves and dwarves and halfligns. We DO have subraces like drow and spriggans and duergar and svirfneblin, but these subraces are different enough from their primary race that they're much closer to being their own race. Thank the lords themselves. Never do I want to See something Like the FR Wild Elf again!
I remeber all the polearms being like that...What the devil is Voulge and what does it look like. A friend said recently polearm names are stupid and if it's got a 45 degree hook than a 90 degree hook it gets a different name, but it's almost the same thing! His rant made me chuckle.
Grundinnar, Kols, and Magrim should all grant proficiency with warhammers. Slightly off topic, is this the ruling on the feats as well? Or does "hammer" literally mean any type of hammer?thanks
An Interesting previous few posts indeed. Just finished reading this little beauty - I love the Companion's and the players invested in this and the dwarf/elf ones throughly enjoyed reading them. My one major grumble with this is the near whole page devoted to the "Achievement Feats" I'm not a fan of them, and them being fairly "optional" anyway, doesn't really imho warrant them having a large fonted full page. Especially in such a small page count product. If it's the intention to try out these things more often, I'd side on the Nay side, but if you do continue to use them at least make them small font sized and sidebar'd like the regional feats format etc, that size is much easier to digest with them. It almost comes across as the printed NPC's from wizards complete books straight after the prestige class write up - FILLER. Sorry if this comes across as a little too critical, but it somehow fired me up so much, I came and posted after reading the dratted things for the third time....
It's not something that would keep me from buying the companions per se, but them having stat blocks is a check mark in the consection for me. I redo just about every NPC in any supliment, so it doesn't matter that my players find out that Betty Boop is a low level rogue, as by the time I'm done statting her up she'll likely be a bardic psion. My issue is space. I would rather have a few more paragraphs of background and description of her than a hard and fast stat block. I'm with Fraust on this too. I'd even settle for a Prestige Class for the crunch part as opposed to NPC's, tbh I was a little miffed the dwarves didn't get one. Just feel the space taken up by full statblocks could be taken up by better things overall.
Any in Uk or EU got the print book for this yet? I like me some dwarves and it just seemingly never wants to come out overhere? Cheers
Hi Scott, are we in a 4ed thread ? I know it's wrong, but that did make me laugh. You can always do the conversion and then destribute to people interested via other means?
The playtest forums, remind me a lot of character/class forums from MMO's a lot of the time. I enjoy them, but you have to mentally filter out a good half, as with any internet text.
The obvious solution to cursed equipment is surely that the Eidolon does not shake off the cursed item, it stays with the beastie and is still there when it returns. I'm glad somebody else pointed this out as well.
I like him. KI-Arrr as a friend would say!
I'm just doing one last check on regions to be included in my list. It could be useful to list the continent for each home region too, just a suggestion though!
One point that was made was that using 3.5 splats with PF pretty much negates all the nerfs. The wizard actually comes out ahead if he can use the Spell Compendium spells unmodified with his PF class structure, because plenty of those spells were just like the PHB spells with different flavor text. So he gets the same game breakers along with more hit points and extra class features. My thoughts exactly. Plus if my players show a strong interest in certain things, it enables me to bump that up the TO DO list in regards to converting to be 100% compatible.
I've always used O-earth myself.
Ouch, best of luck getting them back.
If the GM assigns X amount for magic items and you have the feats. Then i don't see why not. Agreed, Can't see any real valid reason to penalise a player who did choose Item Creation feats. Of course you'll always get some crafty so-so who tries to abuse it like an old forgotten toy.
As I said in my opening post I APPRECIATE the effort the OP put into this, just because I don't play that way, doesn't mean I don't have a valid interest in such number crunching. But why does everything have to be "exactly" balanced within a very small % variance, it's about team play, not BATMAN esque escapades. A lot of people in Bestiary threads are complaining that a goblin is weaker than a drow, it's been this way since the beginning of both races introduction, this balance seems to put blinkers on the fact that something doesn't have to be same comparable power as something else. But I'm meandering away from the basic topic. ON TOPIC - Why not allow the "lower" powered races an extra background trait as opposed to a feat, they often give nice characterful bonuses and are often seen as a "Half" feat in power/design, helping to mitigate some of the more powerful feats compared to less potent feats. As I've said a player chooses a halfling etc knowing it flaws and boons, granting them a boost due to a statistical flaw, would lead many other people to look at other races and ask why they don't get a boost as well. It also brings into immediate thoughts that each player of the game has a slightly different thoughts on how to mitigate the "lower" power balance of certain weaker classes, perhaps in the process granting a more unjust balance by creating certain "fixes" to help balance them. EDIT - Personally I'd give Elf Weapon Familiarity a higher boost than the other races, maybe just by a 0.05. As they gain extra weapons for free ontop of "elven" racial ones, still very situational, but as a Prof - Martial usually costs a feat, surely the automatic granted ones for elves at least simulate this in way? Any thoughts on this?
Dragons were always scary, and considering that I have one coming up in a few weeks I guess I should check to see what they may have gained. The tarrasque finally got a ranged attack, but I still think its AC is to low.Take the Dragons for instance matey, now they are really fearsome. As is the tarrasque and i'm sure several others that were kinda lame before.I think it's fine the way it is now. They do not provoke as per the Grapple rules, they just don't get to do it for free with their every attack, that's fine by me. Most monsters got some new neat abilities and bonuses, so, I think this is a good thing, and makes sense to me.What did they get? I have not looked over the book in detail so I may have missed some things. You could be extra mean with the Trrasque and make a "Chosen" of a god, like half the forgotten realms npc's :D Can;t see any reaon why old Rovy wouldn't like one of his maniac children that much "nicer" for civilisation :D
so barbed devil would have to to do a normal grapple check, and provokes an AoE. Why would you even want to us this ability? Fluff wise it's Devil covered in Barbs it likes to do it, who cares if mechanically it's not perfect at doing it. Besides most Devil's probably don;t fear things the same way we do with res/dr etc.
Question: why do most Huge (4-legged) dinos have a reach of 15 feet??? I'd imagine it has a little to do with James description for the Tyrannosaur a few posts above. Pesky climbing adventurer's, Besides a lot of the Dinosaur's attack with either long tails or necks, so could be another reason? |
