Eddie the 'Ed's page

During the huge storm before arriving at Bonewrack Island, the party (ftr/rog, rng/brd, kensai, witch, cleric) decided that Fipps needed to die. They did a great job of, during the storm, working to untie his safety line and then push him overboard (opps! big wave got him!). I made Fipps into a particularly obnoxious NPC, both a threat and an irritant, and they really had it out for him.

And on Bonewrack Island there were two noteworthy moments related to Aaron Ivy. First, the bard decided, upon seeing the both hanging there, that he really liked the guy's coat, and after a few rounds of prestidigitation surely it would be clean. So he entered the hut, only to start puking. This particular player is very focused when it comes to collecting loot and so the puke was a challenge to him - he would not be denied his fine coat! So he soaks a bandana in the leftover perfume from the whores (dunno why...I told him it spelled awful), and went back in, made his save, reached for the coat, and was grabbed by the now-moving ghast. Luckily for him he broke the grapple, fell to the floor, and backed out. Meanwhile, the witch doctor, who'd enlarged himself to fight the vine chokers, walked over and, standing outside the hut, used his longspear to easily poke the ghast to death. The encounter, therefore, was hardly as difficult as it could have been, and created an funny image of this giant Live & Let Die-style bocor laughing wildly (he does that) as he jabbed at this dead thing thrashing on a rope.

Eddie the 'Ed wrote:

Our group put an extensive Kingmaker game on hiatus several months ago, and one of the things I did (on the Obsidian Portal) was to keep a close eye on month & year. I figured I'd do the same in SnS, and yet have no reference point that I can find for a start date.

Any suggestions?

I believe standard assumption is that current year AR is current year here + 2700. It is currently 4713 on Golarion. I don't think that months come into play in that AP, so you could make it whenever you like, maybe the Golarion equivalent of when the first book was released. That was February 2012, right? So Calistril, 4712.

I'd never heard that convention before - thanks. Makes for a good starting point. Our KM game left off in the early months of 4714, and while it's highly unlikely that the current party would ever hear anything about the growth of a new kingdom way up north - let alone be even remotely impacted by it - I thought it'd be interesting from a player perspective to juxtapose the two alongside one another chronologically.

I think I'll start SnS in (January) of 4713.

Thanks!

FYI: links to my campaigns are below.
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/kngmkr
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/pirates-of-the-shackles

I just started WWM of SnS, and I'm leaving profanity out entirely - and the stereotypical pirate accent, as well. I think the former isn't necessary to good storytelling; and the latter lends itself to too much campiness. I can easily state that a given NPC "launches into a tirade of vulgarities that make some of the old salts blush and turn away..." and then go back into game-speak, and all is well.

That's my suggestion and my thought.

Our group put an extensive Kingmaker game on hiatus several months ago, and one of the things I did (on the Obsidian Portal) was to keep a close eye on month & year. I figured I'd do the same in SnS, and yet have no reference point that I can find for a start date.

Any suggestions?

I'm working on a character for HoH right now, and am very interested in playing a Sylph air elemental sorcerer, from nearby Nirmathas. I figure he's the son of a prominent ranger from the Fangwood, CG, and would have met the professor while the old guy was on some research expedition in that large forest. I'll also take the 'Chance Savior' campaign trait to firm up that connection.

Any thoughts from anyone on that race/class in this AP? I know that they fit together really well mechanically, but I'm more interested in the character fitting into the story. I figure that a Sylph, born to a respected member of a given community in Nirmathas, would do well in that merit-focused society. Ustalav is a different story, sure, but what are your thoughts?

thx.

Eddie the 'Ed wrote:

Clearly, Zim does not know my players. They were able to find out about the secret entrance into the tunnels under the keep in Ft. Drelev and worked their way up through the floorboards, stomping the Baron and his stooges from the inside out. I have a party that is a combination of character-maximizing rules lawyers and "let's kick down the door and destroy!" sorts. It actually makes for a powerful combination, as the former makes sure that the latter's characters are powerful, and the former's already are.

I think we're talking at cross purposes, or that I'm not making myself clear. Probably the latter. Gaining access to Fort Drelev, finding a secret door into Drelev Keep, and then proceeding to kick untold quantities of ass once inside falls under "intrigue" for me. Well, I say "intrigue," though really mean "infiltration". By "assault" I really meant "conquest".

Roger all of that. So long as tankards of ale are hoisted in celebration afterward, and vast quantities of bread bowl stew are consumed, all is well.

Eddie the 'Ed wrote:

Why would a king do dig around a piddly boggard lair when he could send troops in to crush them or chase them off their land?

Because there's more than one way to solve problems? Perhaps this kingdom counts kobolds and centaurs among its vassals and doesn't bat an eye at recruiting boggards to its banner. Or maybe the ruler doesn't want to spend BP on an army just yet, and is willing to take the personal risk of dealing with the boggards with just her longtime companions.

Also, pacifying the boggards is a secondary problem. The problem is the Drelev Demense and its designs on the PCs' kingdom. The boggards only matter for two reasons: first, they're blocking traffic on the Sellen, which is something of a minor problem for the PCs' kingdom til they start claiming land along the river, and second, they happen to live between the PCs' kingdom and Fort Drelev. Now, Fort Drelev can be dealt with a number of ways, by assault, or by intrigue. Assault would require an army, and that army could be employed along the way to pacify or drive out the boggards. But an army would be detrimental to subversion and intrigue.

Clearly, Zim does not know my players. They were able to find out about the secret entrance into the tunnels under the keep in Ft. Drelev and worked their way up through the floorboards, stomping the Baron and his stooges from the inside out. I have a party that is a combination of character-maximizing rules lawyers and "let's kick down the door and destroy!" sorts. It actually makes for a powerful combination, as the former makes sure that the latter's characters are powerful, and the former's already are.

So after Tatzylford (our spelling) was attacked and they were sure the threat came from Drelev, they dispatched their own army, to march overland by a northern route, while they went straight through the swamp, blowing past everything they could skip in order to get to Ft. Drelev and go after the baron.

Regardless, my point was that once we got into the 4th book the interest level of the players in dealing with what felt a lot like pre-planned random encounters (work with me on that one...think about it) dropped off significantly. They enjoyed exploring and dealing with a variety of threats in books 1 & 2, and by the end of book 3 had settled into enjoying being kings and having power and people under them.

I ought to go back and count sessions - haven't done that as of yet. We do have about a year of weekly sessions already invested, though. Wow.

I'm just starting book 5 of the series, and am running into some of the same problems you pointed out, namely that the kingdom-building rules become utterly unworkable at some point in the 3rd book, due to kingdom size, and that the exploration/encounters outside of the main events for books 3 & 4 seem...pointless. Why would a king do dig around a piddly boggard lair when he could send troops in to crush them or chase them off their land? The story starts to suffer from the eyebrow-raising plot device of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy always beaming down to solve every little problem...

ANYWAY, that said, I have some questions about mass combat that I was unable to get answered on the thread for that, and any advice would be helpful.

Did you have any armies attack towns or cities that lacked units? If so, what did you do for the town's ability to attack? A town can have a DV, but without a resident unit, it seems that it would lack the ability to fight back...what did you do about this, if this came up?

Any experience or suggestions would be appreciated.

Can we have the spreadsheet be in a format compatible with earlier versions of excel? I am running this on an older machine, and thus Excel 2010 files won't work for me.

I uploaded the XLS file to Google Docs, where I edit the thing. I don't have a current version of Office for my Mac, so GDocs does the trick - and plus, I publish the document to the web through GDocs and post the link on my Obsidian Portal wiki page so my players can see their kingdom in numbers, if they want to.

I see 'megadungeon' a lot throughout the many posts in this thread, and I agree that Paizo would do it justice. The traditional levels of the dungeon - I'm thinking DnD White Box here - could be paralleled and broken down throughout the six books. My suggestion, and spin, on this would be to make the PCs the monsters, and not make it tongue-in-cheek. Or maybe alternate: book 1 would put the PCs in the roles of the monsters, working for some overlord or whatever, building up the dungeon defenses against those awful humanoids who come to despoil and spread their 'civilization' around.

Book 2 would change the point of view to standard PCs, who would then assault the dungeon created in book 1. Book 3 could go back to the monsters, who would come from afar to assist their defeated brothers in the form of a counter-attack against the town from which the humanoids staged their own attack. And so on, back & forth like that.

I'd think that such an AP would result in lower levels by the end - that is, the highest the PCs would reach would probably be on par with what they'd reach by the end of the 3rd book in a standard AP, but so what?

I played 'We Be Goblins' and it was amusing, but that approach (a little goofy) isn't sustainable over the length of a campaign. I think a serious look at monster motivations and the inner workings of evil organizations would be interesting...and the back & forth would still provide players with the ability to be heroes.

I'd love to see your take on it:

** spoiler omitted **

With respect to paladins I agree that the class is easier to enter into as a paladin, and it's obviously designed with paladins in mind, but at least in PF I feel that a paladin loses too much now for it to be a good choice, since smite evil is so good and there are a number of other nice abilities in later paladin levels. Losing the main offensive weapon and BAB from a class that's already defense oriented just doesn't seem like a good call to me. Maybe I underestimate how far weapon bond and the handful of buffs available will go.

I wasn't really thinking of making it a cavalier PrC, just ripping off tactician, but now that you mention it that could work out pretty well. It requires a more extensive refitting but actually dovetails nicely flavor wise, what with the the being a devoted knight of an ideal (nation in this case).

Thanks.

Me, too, please! I'd really appreciate the information and perspective. I'm running a PF Eberron campaign right now - very Prophecy-focused, moving toward the middle levels, and I decided to destroy a good amount of Sharn with a massive wave generated as part of a greater Lords of Dust conspiracy. It was a wonderful moment to announce to the players, through NPCs, that Sharn - their overland travel destination - had been hammered.

Anyway, I could email you for it if you'd like - shoot me a response here.

thx,

jdg

Thank you for the input, everyone. I, too, worry about adding add'l rolls to the mix, and thus slowing things down. I'll keep puttering with the idea, trying to create a mechanism that doesn't add more cost than benefit. And if I can't, so what - the rules are good enough already.

Again, thanks.

I've always had trouble with the idea of a character moving, provoking, getting hit, and continuing to move unimpeded - especially if a crit was scored. I've been toying with a way to address this, and have some rough ideas below. Tell me what you think.

1. If a character is injured by an AoO while moving, he must succeed at a REF save vs DC5+damage scored in order to continue moving. This, in my thinking, takes into consideration the fact that if you're hit, your movement could be disrupted, or maybe you could shrug it off and keep going. It's not a huge DC, but it's there.

2. If a character is injured by a critical hit scored by an AoO during movement, his movement is stopped and he stays in the square where he was when he sustained the damage. I thought about just increasing the DC to 10+damage, but I thought "hey, a crit should be rough, right?" and just went with an automatic halt to the movement. I decided not to add any condition on top of this in order to let the crit do its job - and I use the Critical Hits deck, so many of them include conditions.

Thoughts?

...

so, to the point, what's everyone's experience trying to find alternatives to metal minis for combat encounters?

Once we used beer bottle caps. But the challenge there is that you need a few varieties - to keep track of what's what - and you need to drink them, too. That shouldn't be a problem, right?

Hey all,

as a player in a Kingmaker campaign my character was tasked with creating the map of the explored area. As we also keep up a wiki about our exploits I'm looking for some kind of tool that would let me easily create a hex based map of the area our party has explored.

Any ideas, suggestions?

Thx!

G-Force

I used Hexographer, too, to create an unmarked map of the lands in Stolen Land and Rivers Run Red. I numbered each of the hexes and posted that map on our Obsidian Portal page so that as hexes were explored I could easily update their contents and connect them with other resources on our site. I also provided my players with a paper copy of the (blank) terrain map to use as a reference during play - to give them something to handle and pass around at the table. They've marked that up over time.

I think the combination has worked well. Hexographer took a some time, initially, to get set up, but I never had any intention of updating the map itself once I created it: I only wanted to create a terrain reference and label it so we could easily agree as to what happened in hex 62, or whatever.

...Pathfinder is the game that has the soul of what D&D was coupled with proper changes for the modern game. That is what I want to support. Plus, I love all the people at Paizo and I love what they are all about. And the community here is just second to none...

Clark

Thank you! I agree completely. It's like we, as a gaming community, are in the process of getting the old team back together.

I'm terrible with naming characters so...thought I'd ask for some ideas here.

The character is a dwarven barbarian. He will be using an earthbreaker. Playing in the CotCT AP. For him, barbarian is more a fighting style than a way of life. He will have 'Hulk' as a likely nickname. I was considering using something like 'stonesplitter' for a surname, but not sure yet. Ideas welcome.

Tor'Trach Gar

And the ch- is per German pronunciation. Forget Nordic tropes...go Klingon!

There is a table for each dragon type, listing both abilities and caster level by age category. The table for black dragons is on the top right side of page 92. From that, you can see that the caster level for a black wyrm is 13th, while for a very old black the caster level is 9th.

See? I KNEW I was an idiot of some type! Thanks, Are. Now I go about laying waste to my party of PCs.

Eddie the 'Ed wrote:

I feel pretty stupid right now...how do I determine a given dragon's caster level? The Bestiary says it depends on the age of the dragon, and I see those that are listed in the three stat'd dragons for each type, but what if I want another age, as listed on the main chart?

I know it's probably something stupid...

Spells: A dragon knows and casts arcane spells as a sorcerer of the level indicated in its specific description. Its caster level depends on its age, as shown for each type.

Spell-Like Abilities: A dragon's caster level for its spell-like abilities is equal to its total Hit Dice.

___

I read that, and it still doesn't make sense. Bestirary page 93, Adult black dragon is CL 3; ancient black is CL11. The former is CR11, the latter CR16. Base CR for the black is 3...so how are those CL's determined? The numbers to the left of the age categories on page 91 don't correspond; and the CR adjustments for the different age ranges, on that same table, don't either. What would be the CL for a black wyrm? Or a very old black? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

I feel pretty stupid right now...how do I determine a given dragon's caster level? The Bestiary says it depends on the age of the dragon, and I see those that are listed in the three stat'd dragons for each type, but what if I want another age, as listed on the main chart?

I know it's probably something stupid...

Hey there Everybody,

I have, admittedly, not read this entire thread and I am far too busy to get pulled into this sort of debate, but I did want to make a few things clear.

We are not bloating the number of classes just for the sake of bloating. I feel very strongly that every class we make needs its own mechanical and story niche. Creating new classes just for the sake of creation is not on our agenda.

Next up, we are taking a very measured pace on our rules expansion. For a game that is going on two years old, we have only released one major sourcebook filled with character options. We have some more on the horizon, but we are being careful about it. We are very cognizant that rules bloat does not really serve us or you particularly well at this stage.

Finally, we try very hard to present rules to make your game more fun and enjoyable. We expect that GMs will pick and chose what works for their game.

Hope that helps to clear up our position.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Operative words: "...pick and [choose]...." PCs can't get psionic powers in my campaign. I chose that. My players are okay with it. Done. I don't see us using the Gunslinger. Done. Treat new classes that you don't like just like food in a buffet that you don't like: don't eat it. Done.

Hi. I'm Japanese Pathfinder fun.

Now,in Japan,It's Hot to making movie of RPG session.
I'm upload my movie to Japanese movie site.
But I get idea of this movie send to the world.

Goto Moive

This is teaser of my campagin.

I'll soon upload　the movies of from CAPTER 1 to CAPTER 2.

My English is too poor. there is many wrong word. But it is Fun.

I love pathfinder RPG.
Please Look our movie and give comments.

thanks.

My friend, you win the whole Internet today. Otscaray-sama-deshita!

20. The leftovers of another group of adventurers -- makeshift fire pit, animal bones from food, a nasty privy in a corner.

21. A small pile of stones, ala Blair Witch Project.

Nicely done Mad Brew - thank you!

Yeah, maybe that sounds odd, or stupid, but I figured I'd ask. I'm getting a little burned out of always being the DM, and we like Kingmaker, and no one else wants to run it...

Has anyone out there come up with a way to play PF sans-GM? I could easily just not read the book, use the blank map printout from the PDF, and we could populate areas with random encounters in addition to those in the book. We've all played collaborative storytelling games before, and others that afford players a great deal of narrative control (like in the FATE system), so the story aspect of doing it might not be such an issue.

But how would combat look? Sure, we'd have the stats & suggested tactics for encounters from the book...but how do you run the actual combat? Part out monsters so every player controls one or more? Rotate control among players if there are fewer monsters than party members? Elect, on a rotating basis, a player to control all the monsters, and hand off his PC to another person for that encounter?

I figure that since this is all made up anyway, it's not like we'll break anything...might as well give it a try.

Suggestions, anyone?

I know this is probably at the bottom of your "I give a crap"-list, but I just thought I would point it out.

Viewing Paizo PDFs on a Mac (using Preview or any app that uses Core services) is a little quirky. The most common problem I've come across is missing letters (usually capital "A"), but it's remedied by opening the PDF in an Adobe product (bleh).

Link to an example

I have similar rendering problems with some other PDFs in Preview. For those, I just use Adobe. Such is the life of a Mac user.

So, It seems the band Rush is from Absalom.

Or, maybe Absalom is actually in Canada?

OK, seriously ...

I was doing a quick search for the lyrics to the Rush song "Distant Early Warning" (very cool song by an EXCELLENT band, by the way) so I could e-mail them to someone. I noticed that the last few lines of the song say:

I know it makes no difference
To what you're going through
But I see the tip of the iceberg
And I worry about you

Absalom
Absalom
Absalom

I had always wondered what that last word was Geddy sings, but never bothered to check.

So, he is singing Absalom? Huh? Connection? Odd coincidence? Could it be that the members of Rush are originally from Absalom???

I looked up the lyrics on a number of additional lyric sites to confirm and they all say the same.

So, are the folks at Paizo (or, the person that invented Absalom anyway) Rush fans?

I did also see on Wikipedia that Absalom is the name of someone in the Bible as well ...

That was a most awesome post...math rock and rpgs, a perfect combination.

On a somewhat related note, go mining Iron Maiden lyrics for story ideas -- they've got all manner of historical themes and stories in their songs.

I will be providing Paizo with a listing of my house rules for them to publish so that other people can finally begin to play the game correctly. I expect Paizo to pay a large sum of money to me for the privilege of publishing my house rules. I expect payment in advance.

Please send me your payment information. I trust the word of all Elder Gods Whose Names Shall Not Be Mentioned.

Eddie the 'Ed wrote:

I think you should win the lottery and buy Paizo, then use the leftover money to invent a 'Pocket Universitron' which you could use to capture your cousin. Then you could publish at will, and never be bothered by the pesky demands of others (namely, your cousin, who'd be drifting forever in your artificial cosmos). And build an orbital mind control laser, too, so you can compel people to buy your new products.

That should do the trick.

Being completely realistic and serious, how much do you think all that's likely to cost? Do you think it could be reasonably accomplished on, say 28k a year?

Good point. Maybe the a few lotteries would be needed. And an inheritance or two. I don't think 28k would cut it -- not if you want a modern OS for the satellite. C'mon.

I think you should win the lottery and buy Paizo, then use the leftover money to invent a 'Pocket Universitron' which you could use to capture your cousin. Then you could publish at will, and never be bothered by the pesky demands of others (namely, your cousin, who'd be drifting forever in your artificial cosmos). And build an orbital mind control laser, too, so you can compel people to buy your new products.

That should do the trick.

What a great idea. I love Kingmaker, and played Eberron exclusively from the time it came out to when I started playing 4e two years ago. Since I have no stopped playing 4e for good and switched to PF, I may steal your great idea. Thanks for taking the time to share it.

First of all, I'd like to preface this: I've been a lurker here on these boards for a fair amount of time, and have been impressed with the amount of support offered from both players and Paizo employees. I first noticed Pathfinder about a year ago (just before the Core Rulebook came out), and after realizing that it was an extension of 3.xE, as opposed to a whole new edition,I was hooked. Heck, I've even warmed to Golarion; I've generally favored homebrew campaign settings, but have reconfigured my bias to include Golarion as a world-option for GMing, due to the fact that Golarion is, in my estimation, the most interesting/diverse published setting I've yet seen.

That said, I've also never used APs/modules in my life (I've always made my own adventures, you know, back when I actually had the time to do so!), and am interested in running an AP in Golarion. Out of curiosity, which AP would be the least complicated for me to run? Are the APs pretty user-friendly? Would something like Kingmaker possibly be overwhelming to a first-time Pathfinder GM/published adventure-user?

Note that I am an experienced RPG adjudicator (DMing since early 2E); I've just never ran modules or the like.

Thank you all for reading this random "newbie soapbox-request". I look forward to any insight you can offer.

~~Mike

Rhys,

Before my suggestion, a touch of background so you can put my comments in context. I played DnD since 1e, and heavily during the 3/3.5 years. I eagerly switched to 4e two years ago, and spent the last two years, as player and DM, trying to like the system. I finally gave up, for a number of reasons, but the one relevant to your post is story-related. I like modules and source material that's well-written, interesting, and create believable settings, stories, and characters. I'd read through the Alpha and Beta playtests of PF, and decided to pick up the book...and was floored with the improvements to the system and -- probably even more so -- the quality of the 'fluff.' I also picked up two adventure path books: The Stolen Land and The Bastard of Erebus.

I like the latter, and I love the former. I cannot wait to run Kingmaker. Consider this: you never run a published adventure exactly as written, right? You always put your own spin on things, in order to fit the preferences of your gaming group, right? Kingmaker facilitates that wonderfully by providing the story and the stats, and subsystems, too, for a massive, multi-level, sandbox game. One of the great challenges of that style of adventure/campaign is the need to have encounters, plots, and character ready for wherever the PC wander -- and have them, taken as a whole, make sense. I have since bought the second book in the Kingmaker path (River Runs Red), and they've done exactly that. The books have solid primary plots, with numerous encounters, locations, and people each, and a number of smaller side plots to mix things up as you want.

If you've been running games for a while I don't see any problem with launching Kingmaker. It's huge, flexible, and still have the detail at the encounter level to make it consistently interesting.