Elias Alexander's page

Elias Alexander wrote:

Michael Grate wrote:

Have you had any previous enemies that you've taken prisoner and sent to a jail? If so you can do a campaign with new characters who get sent to jail (wrongfully if they want, otherwise have them make their charges to set up the initial character development) and align themselves with these enemies in order for them all to escape.

My current campaign has actually just folded ( scheduling, what can you do?) This is me more addressing an issue of building good campaign arcs after noticing that a lot of my previous games tended to go astray once I had finished the initial introductions.

So you're looking for less of an overall idea and more of a better way of follow through? Well with the prison idea escape is probably inevitable so having a revenge confrontation (initiated by the former enemies) with one's own former characters might work. Or am I missing what you're saying?

I'm less looking for individual stories and instead I'm interested in ways to put stories together. It's the whole ' teach a man to fish' sort of thing.

Have you had any previous enemies that you've taken prisoner and sent to a jail? If so you can do a campaign with new characters who get sent to jail (wrongfully if they want, otherwise have them make their charges to set up the initial character development) and align themselves with these enemies in order for them all to escape.

My current campaign has actually just folded ( scheduling, what can you do?) This is me more addressing an issue of building good campaign arcs after noticing that a lot of my previous games tended to go astray once I had finished the initial introductions.

Put some of the work in the player's hands.

To outright steal a cool idea that could actually work for any RPG:

Fellowship

Get your players to build your world and give you the story hooks to build the narrative around. Get them to put two plot-hooks in their character history: A personal plot-hook and a major plot-hook.

Personal Plot Hook is something specific to the character:
Examples:
A missing parent,
Seeking a cure for a congenital illness,
A material goal (become Captain of a ship, become the richest merchant in the region)
Revenge against the mysterious grey-haired figure that burned down the village
The number XIII tattooed on the back of the character's neck.

A major plot-hook has to do with the player's race or class:
The Elves are at war with the demonlord that has invaded their forest land.
The Dwarves have lost contact with the Deep Fort of Ganundum.
Halflings are secretly agents of a powerful dragon, sent out into the world to retrieve word of a potent artifact it seeks.
The Order of the Dragon Cavaliers have sworn to slay every dragon in the campaign setting for burning down a once great city.
The wizard school of Arhaim library has been transported to an unknown plane.

Then take those pieces the players provide and start trying to find out how they fit. Subvert some of the expectations. Once you have a rough outline just start dropping the cookie crumbs that relate to each character's hooks into the story and they should be able to put together the story themselves as they start listening to requests from NPCs, following clues and fighting the forces that they themselves decided on.

I've been hearing whisperings of fellowship on a bunch of my feeds, but yeah, that's a good way of dialing things in. If I start with an initial burst of flavor like" Hey folks, lets do 1001 nights spliced with some futuretech" to get everyone's ideas mostly on point, then It'll keep things from clashing too badly.

I'd still like to figure out a way to mine my own head for ideas though. :/

Hey, no trouble, inspiration is just about the best thing out there and you've actually helped me phrase my problem in a better way.

I'm very good at building living, vibrant and interesting settings. What I'm lacking in however is good stories to place in those settings.

Once I get my teeth into a setting idea, I can easily come up with themes, food, history, social structures and all the adventures that can be easily gleaned from those. One of my most recent games involved bootleggers in a dieselpunk age of sail/western/roaring 20s flying about in their airship getting mixed up with train robberies, prohibitionist border patrols and swing clubs full of demons. I had the background music perfect, npcs that my players were laughing about for days, and a bunch of adventures that the group was eager to get to the bottom of.

The issue was however that while these adventures were great, and the theme was on point, the campaign really had no direction beyond " lets see what crazy adventure we're going to be having for the next few weeks." I'd figure out something neat, I'd let my players at it, and they'd run through to completion, ready for the next helping.

Rather than a novel with ups and downs, loss and catharsis it was like I was making a serialized penny dreadful. Good for a few laughs and thrills with and continuity drop or two, but overall weightless in the grand scheme of things.

My campaigns have slowly been becoming this over several years. More and more it seems like I can't work out a good throughline beyond what to expect from a simple adventure. It's gotten easy for me to say " we're in a colonial america analog, lets have fun with muskets and tricorn hats" and a lot harder for me to say " alright, you were all nearby when this ship was wrecked shortly off the coast, some of you onboard, some of you on the coast. You all get tangled up in the disaster which will have repercussions throughout the coming weeks." Putting those two things together is even worse.

I've got a couple of campaign skeletons with arcs and twists and I've got a lot of meaty settings with flavor and memorable anatomy.
what I'm lacking is a heart or sufficient necromantic grease to make the story move and react like some semblance of a living thing, not to mention the problem of finding the perfect fit of plot and setting to make everything gel spectacularly.

The past couple years I've been having some trouble coming up with the type of stories that can keep my player's attention between multiple sessions. My campaigns have slowly devolved into tours of local lore and culture between whatever setpieces I can devise, and my games are suffering for it. My players have lost interest in DOING anything in the game rather than just being interested in the chance to game, and I've found myself having trouble keeping things moving once I've fleshed out the world. ( Partially because I build a campaign starting with culture and aesthetic design rather than a cool narrative that I can base things on)

So I'm wondering if any of you have advice about building a really awesome narrative start to finish that can help keep both me and my players engaged. Any help would be vastly appreciated.

Hey there all. It's pretty late where I am, but I've been up all night trying to sort out a problem that I've been working at for some months.

Simply put, I don't like How vancian magic boils down. There are a million different ways to set people on fire if you use 3rd party stuff ( which I use a lot of), but relatively little in the way of high level utility magic. Plus, if you take it to it's extremes, you get get into a whole world of issues like clerics irrigating the desert with create water spells, or the errant character with wish ruining economies.

I've tried numerous fixes. Initially since I disagreed with the idea of casters running out of 'magic juice' silly, I invented a system that required spell checks. The more you successfully cast in a short period of time, the more likely it was that you would fail. Fail hard enough and the spell backfired, usually in hilarious and/or deadly fashion.

This all seemed great until one of my characters discovered that he could just spam 'save or be knocked out' spell and zap any non-immune characters instantly. needless to say, a problem.

While this was going on I also created two or three other casting systems that worked right along side the first, but had a lot of randomness to offplay the resource that infinite magic could get. " Your spells known are a deck of cards, you 'draw' one new one each turn, and regain your spells by reshuffling the deck" , " Build a chain of spells based around a similar theme, roll some dice based on your level to determine what level of spell you cast. Sure, you might get a lvl 3 spell at lvl 1, but if you're very unlucky that meteor swarm you were planning to cast at 18 comes out as burning hands."

Needless to say, as my play testing party got up in levels, there grew to be more and more of a problem. the pure casters ended up relying on their ' easy KO' spells and while the characters with lesser spell casting didn't seem like much of an issue, I had to give out a small sigh every time one of my big threat monsters or key political npcs were taken out by a silently cast knockout spell or simply whisked out of existence by a bolt of hot plasma.

My real problem came when I ran a one shot this weekend and one of my players decided to play a blaster caster. Now, I know it's strange, but in 10 years of Dming and 4 with playing with a vary competent group, I've never had a blaster caster in my party. BOY WAS I SUPPRISED when he offhandedly tossed off a fireball and barbecued a room full of mooks. The next round: he lightning bolted the boss. The other people in the group were still getting into tactical positions and he had already ended the encounter. Needless to say there were some grumbles, and it got me thinking about Spellcasting systems again. Heck, I've even allowed a trickle of 'Book of nine swords' into my campaigns from time to time ( not the classes though, but that's a rant for another post) and I've never had a raw damage problem like this.

I'm not sure if many of you folks know about the 'Spheres of Power' system but it was on kickstarter a while ago. Simply put, it was a replacement for vancian magic that included a lot of neat ideas but removed the old spells in favor of talent tree like schools which improved in various ways as you invested points in them. There were a lot of other neat ideas in there that I'm interested in keeping, Like the DCs of all your spells being set by your ' caster level' a variable stat that scaled like a character's BAB, or how you got more ' talent points' by pinning on flaws to your caster like armor check failure, somatic components, or the need to shed blood.

My players were quite hesitant to switch to this new system when told about it, and I'm having second thoughts as well. I've decided to keep all the vancian spells in just as items. Even then however Players don't like the idea of giving a lot of their spellcasting versatility, just like I fret and worry about the ever increasing stockpile of encounter and game ending spells that's building up in each caster's back pocket.

This is why I'm asking for advice: I'm pretty much stuck at this point in time. I want to keep the utility that low level spells are so good at, your short range teleports, your Illusions, your useful buffs. Heck, I'm not even opposed to the low level damage dealing spells like shocking grasp, or even scorching ray, as they turn casters into the magical equivalent of the person in the squad with the grenade launcher: requiring a bit more skill for more pay off, and an appropriate amount of damage too.

My problem as my group climbs into higher and higher levels, those utility spells are going to go out the window in exchange for the biggest boom, or the thing that can just make their problem pop out of existence.

What say you good people? Is there any way I can give my spellcasters a steady diet of bread and butter without worrying about the growing cache of nukes in the wizard's back pocket?

As a bit of a veteran of monster books, I can definitely say that this is a quantity over quality book. Sure, some of the monsters are absolutely amazing ( the previously mentioned spider lich actually inspired a whole series of adventures the moment I stumbled across it) but largely most of the critters are the off the cuff sort of stuff that you can find some version if in any other number of monster books. " Oh look scorpion men...again. Oh look, elemental undead. Oh look, various forms of giant animal or bug who's one defining trait is that they're giant."

If you're just starting out and are looking for a few more things to spice up your menagerie then by all means get it. However if you're like me, and have a good number of 3rd party bestiaries under your belt, I'd say skip it. The book has a bad habit of giving you barebones monsters that don't go any further than their base stats.

If anyone at FGG is listening, you guys did a great job getting this out, and all the artwork is amazing, I'd like to see a little more effort put into each creature is all, a little something to make shadowy undead # 3 to stand out from shadowy undead # 1-7.

The core problem here is technological advancement. D&D and PF have weapons from several technological eras crammed together into one system. It would make sense for the high-tech weapons to be just plain better; better metallurgy, balancing, advanced shape design and so forth.

Plate armors should also have gentler dexterity limitations because they're actually body-fitted rather than just a curtain of heavy stuff pulling you down like chain armor.

But game balance. Having some weapons be just plain better than others would be bad for game balance.

Totally reasonable, and and I'd say it was up to the gm to decide exactly how they wanted to set it. I'm currently thinking of having crossbows and two handed firearms in the same weapon tree , with hand crossbows and one handed firearms being in the other. Whether or not guns were in the setting would of course change how that would work.

Right, so, I'm going to keep this short and sweet:

Over the years I've collected a LOT of 3rd party and backwards compatible products ( one of the reason I love pathfinder so much)and it's given me an overwhelming amount of equipment, feats and spells to sort through. As part of my attempts to consolidate all this disparate crunch, I've noticed a lot of things that don't really make any sense:

A regular crossbow is a simple weapon, but attach a mechanism that saves you time and effort reloading, and suddenly it takes a jump to exotic?

A person can specialize in short blades all their life, knives, kukuris etc, but all of a sudden they're about as well off as a commoner the moment they pick up a swordbreaker dagger.

The sheer number of weapons that are only considered 'exotic' because they come from a non-european culture, rather than any needing any special training.

As such, here's my system. You divide the weapons up into various families, much akin to the fighter's weapon groups, though with a little more specificity: Sword, pole, short blade, etc, as well as families that have to do with cultural influence. Dwarves get a dwarven weapon weapon family people from a meso-american setting get one with obsidian weapons and so on.

The family itself is divided into levels of simple, martial and exotic, with your access determined by your class's proficiency, With martial proficiency ( not just the class ability, but the feat too) opening up all those weapons in the martial level of that family. Exotic weapons are chosen on a one for one basis, as par normal, but out of those families you are skilled with ( unless it's really off the wall).

A player gains access to a number of weapon groups based off of 1+ con modifier, representing the amount of time and effort they have put into training, as well as muscle memory etc.

Most feats that apply to a weapon now apply to all weapons in that weapon group ( so if you take weapon focus axe, you get bonuses on everything from greataxes to throwing axes) though others ( like greater weapon specialization) can only affect one. Much like the bastard sword, or dwarven war axe, If you are using an exotic weapon, you only take the penalties for it if you are using what sets it apart form the base weapon of the group. the aforementioned swordbreaker dagger could still be used as a dagger, but without it's nifty sunder ability.

So that's my budding system as it stands, feel free to let me know what you think, or any advise or suggestions you may have. The main reason I wanted to post this was to see if anyone had any ideas for weapon groups I might have missed, and just how finely I should be dividing them.

Thanks much!

Elias Alexander wrote:

I must ask, Hags and Goblinoids, any new Stuff there? I run a homebrew setting that see these two as main antagonists, so I'm always looking for more.

Lets see there is the Annis Hag(CR9), and a Goblin Snake(CR1) Though the snake is a aberration which has goblin like traits not actually part of the goblinoid family.

Dang, I was wishing for something new. Ah well, the book'll probobly give me plenty of ideas.

I must ask, Hags and Goblinoids, any new Stuff there? I run a homebrew setting that see these two as main antagonists, so I'm always looking for more.

I want to see another Occultist Class or two.

The The Warlock and the Binder were great examples. They used magic that was totally out of the ordinary, and fit into old party roles that magic users usually didnt fit into.

I'm a little sick of magic having such a "clean" feeling. The Witch does a good job, what with her skinmagic and poisonous frogs, but it's still not enough.

Speaking of magic, I'd like to see a new magic system or three, and not one that simply replicates the current one in it's basic building blocks.

I’m sick of colour coded dragons, I’m sick of dragons who’s sole defining feature is alignment with an environment type. The dragon that lives by the water must have powers relating to the water itself, rather than abilities that would help with it survive and fight in a semi-aquatic home. I’m tired of players knowing what to expect with just the smallest glance at a dragon’s sourcebook. Dragons that are red have fire and fire based abilities, dragons that live in cold climates have ice related abilities, etcetera . Last time I checked, dragons are their own creature type, not a sub-breed of elementals, so logically, why would they have abilities so closely tied to the terrain or elemental type. Plenty of monsters can have elemental affinity, or elemental attacks without basing their whole existence around them, showing the same level of creativity usually reserved for kid’s shows and videogames from budget videogames.

Take Hydras for instance: Large, lizardlike, something nasty in their bite and blood that fits with both the mythology/the area that the creature lives in, and a mechanic that spices up the combat encounter.
The Primal Dragons from Bestiary 2 are a step in the right direction, but they still come across as too focused in some cases. Compare the magma dragon in the 2nd bestiary to the red dragon in the first. Both have a few unique abilities dealing with the fact that they’re obviously volcanic inspired creatures, one able to melt rocks, and the other breathing actual molten magma, and having a couple of abilities dealing with that. Other abilities, like the Red dragons being able to reposition the effects of fire spells seem silly to me, and just seem to tie into the narrow focus that we’ve applied to some of the most iconic creatures of Fantasy lore.

Part of the problem I think Is all the power potential that’s tied up with arcane spellcasting. I know in 3.0, dragons were closely tied with the magical powers of sorcerers, but entwining the concept of “ dragon” and the idea of “magic” too closely is what led (in my opinion) to all the super-saturation of dragons in the later 3.5 products. You have to admit. there were more than a handful of draconic player races and classes, and enough dragon variants and knockoffs that you could run an entire short adventure with them, even more so when you’re a monster book collector like me and you get into 3rd party stuff.

Dragons with spells have always irked me, I can understand that a dragon should be a match for an entire party, but allowing a high HD dragon to cast spells just like a sorcerer just seems like throwing all the eggs in one basket. I want a dragon to act like a dragon during combat, not just a sorcerer with high AC and a massive pool of hitpoints. Spellcasting is a system that’s designed to work on it’s own, or for particular “ caster” role monsters, like the naga. Having such large spellcasting capability not only distracts from a dragon’s role in combat, but also takes up power potential that could be used to supplement the dragon’s natural abilities.

Here’s my Solution, making up a “ build your own dragon” system. With physical abilities acting a lot like an eidolon, and special abilities working much like an oracle’s mystery( selecting 1 special ability per point of CR, with higher abilities unlocked at higher HD.) This would allow you to make as physically diverse a dragon as you wish, Then slap on set of abilities suitable for whatever flavour fits.

So then, here’s why I brought this up. Do you think I should do this? It’d be a big project and my friend and I ( who are already trying to get into the RPG publishing game with OGL content) are already kinda swamped. Do you think there needs to be a system like this in place? And if so, is there anything you think it should include?

Activating this ability is a free action. A scroll blade
only retains its abilities in the hands of the scrollmaster.
The scroll blade has hardness 0 and hit points equal
to the highest-level wizard spell on the scroll. Each
successful hit by the scroll blade reduces its hit points
by 1; this damage cannot be repaired, but does not affect
casting from the scroll. When its hit points reach 0, the
scroll is destroyed.

*sigh* 250gp for a one off weapon, That's just sad.

I was just reading this over, And I was a little Puzzled.

With a Scoll that has any spell level less than 4 on it having only 1 HP, What makes it worth using such a high cost item as a one use weapon? It's not like you can use the attack action with the scroll to deliver Spells, and It even says that The damage to the Scroll can't be Repaired in any way.

I Understand that It's paper that you're swinging around, But to destory the scroll even if you Miss is insane.

after reading and rereading the blurb, It occured to me that the wording makes it seem as if you can still cast spells of a destroyed spellblade. Do you guys think this is the case? If not, could you Please shed some light on this, as I Love the idea for the mechanic, but am Hating the execution.

Hey there Everyone, I was just getting started on building my summer game, and The thought occured to me how different an underground city would have to be from one on the surface.

I thought I'd ask around the Forum's, getting people's advice on how exactly I could A) make a city under a mountan work B) How I can make it unique.

plotwise, the game is going to have some political stuff, overlaid with exploration. there are two factions battling for political control of the city itself, one more defensive and traditionalist, the other more expantionist and industrial.

Anyway, Just wanted to see if you all had any ideas I could use, Cant wait to hear from you,

Thanks In advance.

Elias.

Just talked things over with my friend who's writing her paper on the history of Japan. She's a Little sad that the Samurai didnt get any of the crazy Sword abilities that the warriors were famous for ( IE: using your razor honed blade to cut through another blade)

I can understand that there was a need for a more realistic class... But it seems to me like a re-skinned Cavalier, way too similar To justify a whole new class.

It seems Like the Samurai gave up the Cavalier's tactics abilities in exchange for even MORE focus on challenge... something that an archtype could easily do.

Every class should be Recognisable by their signature abilities. The Barbarian rages, the Fighter takes advantage of feats, the rogue sneak attacks, clerics heal...and there are different spell lists for different types of casters...
The samurai has an order, just like the cavalier, and can challenge, just like the cavalier... the only difference being that the samurai has a slightly more powerful challenge than its forbearer.

I think It's an attempt to prevent the Gunslinger from being overpowered, but I can deffinitly Agree that The price is too much, especaily for each shot. Let us pick up bullets on the cheap..... But make black powder hard to come by... perhaps Make it an alchemy item that a trained gunslinger can make cheeper than ususal... Not sure.

anyway, just my 2cp.

Something's fishy with Amazon and B2. A friend of mine just got an email that the book won't be released, so his order was cancelled too .. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ?

Funnily enough, the British amazon shipped one copy to another pal of mine ... but now they're waiting for a restock.

Lesson for everybody is: Amazon blows goat balls as far as buying new RPG books goes :)

Actually, they were quite speedy with the APG and GMG... and I got them for a reduced price.

It just seems to be the bestiary 2 that's the problem.

Personally I'd much rather see a martial arts mechanic in game and throw the Monk out on his rear.

The only reason I allowed a Monk in one of my campaigns is because he is basically a brawling Friar pugilist... the idea of some Wu Fang Shizzle Monk hanging out doing Bullshido in a Western setting just wrecks my mind. It's right up there with some Viking barbarian and his Katana.
Now before you say that 'well the class description can be changed for your setting' let me just say flatly, that Cheese is clearly Wasabi flavoured.

So I'd love to see a good Martial Arts guide, provided we tossed all the real life Earthly style names out.

Hence my earlier posts on DIY build mechanics.

The monk is an asian fantasy inspired character, if it doesn't work in your fantasy world..don't use it....instead, you only need to use a monk when it's appropriate for the setting.

If you have mixed fantasy settings like mine... .then feel free to use the monk, it's just that simple.

After an entire Summer, Fall and winter of the date being pushed back days at time, amazon has just offered for me to cancel my order of the Bestiary 2 because they couldn't find any copies. This is crazy.... when daylight rolls around, I'm heading down to my local game store and getting it there,

Herken Didwyk wrote:

Rules for Juju are in the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path book City of Seven Spears (Pathfinder 39) starting on p.66. Among other things, it describes a new Juju mystery for oracles.

I sincerely hope that the Juju mystery gets re-printed in Ultimate Magic!

It would be annoying and frustrating beyond description to have to buy a book just for one article to play/run a particular type of character. Background articles on races, cultures, geography, magic items, and specialised spells plus new monsters are alright to hide in PF APs, but not basic class options like a new mystery for Oracles. Those should also be available in "player-friendly" rulebooks such as Ultimate Magic and the like. It's already irritating that in-depth articles on religions are in the APs, but at least we have the Gods and Magic sourcebook to use instead.

Some of the monsters from the AP were re-printed in the Bestiary 2... So I Wouldn't be worried. Beides, Juju is too much of an interesting concept to be left alone.

I suspect it's more of a ritual thing then say.... a create undead spell.

What items are you refering too Elias that are just "bonus spells"? Because if your talking about things like boots of levitation, cloak of the mountebank, or ring of telekinesis, then we might have problems.

I'm thinking more like the helm of teleportation... I can create an item like that with the rules they gave me in the same section... I Want more Items that work outside the rules for interesting effects.

Also, something i've always wanted.... cursed items as negative cost modifiers.... would allow me to give my players a literal double edged sword.

as a fellow monster lover, I'm Loving this idea, especially the part about a real skull-cracker tome.

However... I need to ask... is this going to be more then just a rules update? ... are we actually going to see some new stuff in these old monster forms.

For instance..... The Glambado.... It lurks in graves.... and then pops up ,like a jack in the box. It has no other role in the game, aside from a literal Jumpscare at one point for the players... Are monsters like these going to get a concept makeover, as well as a stats update?

Less Items that are just bonus spells wrapped up in a neat little package... more original items that are game bending... Like the Portable Hole... or almost anything in " classic treasures revised".

Kthulhu wrote:

Elias Alexander wrote:

When Considering martial arts for an Rpg, I have to ask myself... doesn't the monk already DO martial arts?

He does. But the supreme martial artist of the game is the fighter. He gets as many combat bonus feats as most classes get feats in general, and it's very likely that most of his general feats go towards combat as well. And really, what is martial arts other than excelling in fighting? A lot of poeple tend to associate the term with Asian fighting styles, but it's really a blanket term that covers ANY fighting style.

+1

I'd also like to see more fighting styles that can work mechanically with one or two feats. For example things like a feat that let someone fight with a buckler and an off hand weapon or a feat that makes fighting with a shield and spear workable. Generic feats with a skill prereq like climb to give a climbing combatant an edge would be good flexible ways to simulate a range of backgrounds like elves fighting in trees, sailors fighting in the rigging, or a dwarven mountaineer who can fight while climbing in caves and mountains. While feats that provide cool crunch to reflect specific cultures and histories in Golorian are cool, I find that more generic feats and traits just tend to be more useful and flexible.

Have to Agree with Mr. Lovecraftian there..... The Fighter is totally a marital artist, and anyone looking to make a true martial artist character should look to them.

and Bitter thorn gave me ideas..... Martial arts as feats... but feats that work with one another.

Lets say there are two feats.. feat A and feat B.... feat A is part of the Combat Expertise.... B requires power attack... If you have both feat A and feat B, It allows you to perform a special combat maneuver, or adds a bonus to feat A, or something along those lines.

I'm not a Martial Arts fan, and I think that's what drew me to this....

When Considering martial arts for an Rpg, I have to ask myself... doesn't the monk already DO martial arts?

I'm seeing a lot... more than a lot.... of Names... no followup, no description of how useful it could be in game, what it could do different.

As a Dm, I want to be able to look at a page.... Like the Monk archetypes in the APG... and see what they do different from The Vanilla class. " oh hey, this one steals energy, this one is super defensive, and this one is all about archery"

I saw someone talk about a martial art that was all about running up an opponent and flipping them onto the ground... Which sounds awfully like a trip attempt to me. This I think Is the issue... We've got four pages full of potential styles, but in the end, many of them are doing the same things.

So far, Pathfinder has rules for full on attacks, and combat maneuvers like trip/disarm/steal etc. We have a few in-between abilities.... Like Charging or Cleaving... where you take a penalty ( under specific conditions) to get a bonus. I think we need more of the last to fill in our need for martial arts...attacking at a penalty to work in a CMB check..... dropping prone for an attempt at tripping....

IN my honest opinion....

more archetypes for the Figher, Monk, Ranger, Inquisitor..... and PERHAPS rogue and Cavalier would solve just about everything.

oh yeah, and +1 on the non-realistic powers.... while I Dont approve of the Anime Overpowered-ness of the Book of Nine swords... A little Wirefu fits right in with My Druid And Wizard friends. I'd Love to see a Wizard type class with a KI pool that Just specialized in crazy powers.

I always give highly detailed loot, gems, music boxes, bundles of exotic fabrics. I allow players to use these bits of loot as Material for making magic items. Sure, you could say that you pay the 1000 for incense and the right magic words to say, but I like to think it's more along the lines of enchanting the sword by say...... magically charging a gem, then placing it in the hilt... or the cost of etching magical runes into the armor.

Should've seen the looks on my player's faces when they discovered this, They looked back through the loot lists of all the stuff they hadn't sold up to that point and went mad trying to think of ways to break it down into magic items.

one of the best ones was when they had the mage break down the music box they'd been lugging about since lvl 1 into a clockwork mace that produced music every time it hit. +2 Warhammer with thundering enchantment.

Idea, make this an archetype for the Mageus?

Sounds like my wife (with out the hyper part)she loves to play Gnomes Nimi Gnarlsnoot trickster rogue has appeared in several incarnations.

I think the thing that put me off Gnomes is that they were Dwarves lite... Or self exploding Tinker types.

The association with the first world and the fey and the bleaching make them far more interesting.

I wish that they put the same effort into fleshing out dwarves.... The Dwarf book is the one Paizo book that disappointed me as it gave me no new options and no new perspectives. I would have loved for a write up on the Dwarves of the Mawangi or Osiron as they are culturally different.

3.5 Halfings get the meh from me as they are bad rip-off of hobbits. FR and Darksun changed that somewhat and Paizo there could be more work done to improve them.

I could never decide on just ONE feel for dwarves, even in my homebrew setting. as such I decided that I'd make a bunch of dwarven Ideologies and have them vary by area. Each of the types are named for something you can find in the earth, and embodies their ideas in some way.

Stone: Stonedwarves are your traditionalists,( classic fantasy dwarves)
Lava:Firedwarves are industrialists ( steampunk and all that jazz.)
Metal: Gold dwarves are merchants who live mostly above the surface and trade with other races.
Water: Riverdwarves are Viking style pirates who long ago left the underground.
Empty space : Void dwarves. ( the Dugear)

Rumors persist of the gem dwarves, though no one has been able to find them. However, their existance must be a fact, for otherwise the metaphor would not hold true.

But yeah, just another little example of a little fleshing out can prevent that whole overlap/ " I hate gnomes because they're too much like ______" mindset.

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

The 8th Dwarf wrote:

Elias Alexander wrote:

...An evil subrace of gnomes Like the Spriggan ... known for their red, pointed hats. they can turn to stone at will... and do so whenever they are looked at, moving when no one is watching ( don't blink). When not being watched, they sow seeds for a fast growing, poisonous ( but neatly trimmed)grass like plant that creeps over buildings in a matter of days.... or.. with the proper fey magic.... seconds.

A farmer wakes up one morning to find his field entirely covered with bright green grass...all of his cows are dead. fetching his lumber ax to defend himself... he turns back outside, only to find his small home surrounded by eerie, grinning statues.

He is never seen again.

... at least until a group of heroes comes along for their first adventure.

that is cool and nasty - you should have used it for RPG superstar.

Maybe not SupaStah!, but there is still the ongoing open call for PF Society.

Seriously. Write it up, get some friends to read/comment, re-write, repeat until it's your best, and then submit it.

+1. That sounds frakkin' awesome.

Thanks everyone, My friend and I are actually aspiring to become a 3rd party Publisher with our own signature setting and everything: so it's good to know my ideas are a hit right off the bat. I think I actually might Submit this, given enough editing.

anyway, back to starting topic..... I think that people hate gnomes/halflings due to the fact that in vanilla DnD, they Weren't very fleshed out. when people tried to flesh them out, they became silly, or outright strange.

My Girlfriend is Actually the biggest source of inspiration for me when it comes to gnomes. She's hyper and imaginative, with hair that seems to change colour every couple of weeks.... and she loves candy.

Elias Alexander wrote:

TheWhiteknife wrote:

Dire Corby?

Is in misfit monsters.... and is kinda scary.

What?!? Why am I just finding out about this? Guess Ill be getting misfit monsters very very shortly.

yeah, they made them absolutely fearless..... If there's a group chasing you, and you take out the bridge behind you.... and only some of them are going to make the jump... all of them will try it.

I bring this up because we need more monsters like this..... with their own distinct cultural and ecological habits that are strange/ possibly exploitable by a well versed player.

kyrt-ryder wrote:

The 8th Dwarf wrote:

Garden Gnomes...... need I say more

Yes, yes you do. I've always found Garden Gnomes to be excellent tools... for target practice :D

They are in plague proportions, poison the water, kill your pets, destroy native wild life have no natural predators (other than the golf club, hockey stick or cricket bat) are bloody ugly and are of no commercial value.....or is that cane toads, they look so much alike I confuse the two.

Dude, you just gave me a great idea.... An evil subrace of gnomes Like the Spriggan ... known for their red, pointed hats. they can turn to stone at will... and do so whenever they are looked at, moving when no one is watching ( don't blink). When not being watched, they sow seeds for a fast growing, poisonous ( but neatly trimmed)grass like plant that creeps over buildings in a matter of days.... or.. with the proper fey magic.... seconds.

A farmer wakes up one morning to find his field entirely covered with bright green grass...all of his cows are dead. fetching his lumber ax to defend himself... he turns back outside, only to find his small home surrounded by eerie, grinning statues.

He is never seen again.

... at least until a group of heroes comes along for their first adventure.

Dire Corby?

Is in misfit monsters.... and is kinda scary.

...

I'd like to see some new sets of inter-related monsters, rather than just ones that were slightly related to ones we already have ( not that i'd mind those either.)

allow me to explain.

you know how your " classic" goblin warren will have hordes of little goblins, some dire rats, some goblin dogs, maybe a few orcs, and then whatever's pushing the goblins around?

I'd like to see more of that, more ... " hey, this monster tends to live with these monsters, uses this monster as a mount, might ally with this monster, is associated with/summons/worships this outsider..... and all of them are new!" a few of those would really help me fill the dark places in my world with something exciting to threaten my players with.

I'd also like to see another low level monster that you could populate a dungeon with... maybe low level colony based insects.... Just something to fill the few first levels, rather then ANOTHER page full of encounters with goblins/bandits/cultists/ratmen/kobalds

1. Apothecary (poison use expert, minor healing)

2. Aurora (uses magical auras to tank)
3. Binder (supernatural abilities from spirit sources)
4. Cultist (3/4 divine caster, 1/2 sneak attacker)
5. Dragon Shaman (dragon powers and auras)
6. Elemental Exemplar (specializes in air, earth, fire, water)
7. Evolver (shapeshifter)
8. Exorcist (dispelling master, magebane)
9. Hedgewitch (Channel Energy specialist)
10. Invoker
11. Judge (arcane inquisitor)
12. Juggernaut (unstoppable, defense master)
13. Maester (sage, scholar, buffer)
14. Marshal (auras)
15. Ninja (mystic skill-monkey)
16. Noble (buffer)
17. Prodigy (Int-based adventurer Sherlock MacGuyver)
18. Quickjack (teleporting skirmisher)
19. Shadowstalker (shadow based magic sneak thief)
20. Shaman (spiritualist energy channeler)
21. Spellthief
22. Staff-fighter (uses energy staff, fights like Gandalf Jedi)
23. Trickster (spiritualist skill monkey)
24. Truenamer
25. Warlock

great list of class ideas... but lots could be simplified/combined/archtyped out.

1. We already have the Alchemest.
2. Love the idea of a caster tank.
3+4. roll the cultist and the binder together, let the cultist "bind" with the powers they worship at higher levels. otherwise great idea for a class.
5. already have a Dragon shaman prestige class.
6. interesting idea, not sure if it could work: making your entire class devoted to one element kinda makes you a one trick pony. sure a cleric or sorcerer devoted to fire is kinda screwed if the game needs them to take a detour into a volcano, but they still have OTHER spells.
7. Just my 2 CP, but could the shapeshifter class that everyone's talking about possibly make use of the Summoner's Evolution pool, rather than just the buff effects offered by beast shape?
8. An actual anti-magic class is a slippery slope, especially at low levels, or fighting non-magical foes. good idea to give them a small amount of magic ( inquisitor spells maybe?) as well as the ability to "wrack" foes using magic buffs... dispelling one or two and dealing more and more damage depending on how many they have on them at the time. for added effect, make the Magister a curse master aswell, with the " wrack" ability adding damage for the curses/debuffs attached to the target.
9. not sure about this one, explain more?
10. dont need another blaster, plenty of casters fill this slot already.
11. lets just roll this into #8
12. could be fighter build, or rolled into #2, depending on how you wanted to play it.
13. good idea for a class, as said above.
14. dont know much about auras, so I cant say much.
15. monks are lonely all by themselves, need more ki based classes.
16. see my posts above.
17. great idea, I dont think there's been a class yet that takes advantage of a ludicrous intellect for anything besides reading books. class ability could essentially be " make this happen": messing with the DCs for skill and CMB checks.
18+19+21+23. all of these could be rolled together for an arcane based skilled character. would be great for high magic settings.
20. perhaps roll this into 9 perhaps? still need to know what they can actually DO.
22. creating a class that focuses entirely on one aspect is a mistake IMO. this sounds a little too much like the mindblade.
24. with the new Word of power system coming out, we might see a wizard variant that focuses on it. otherwise, we dont need to look back at the true namer.
25. Warlock needs to be pathfinder-ized, I can totally agree there.

One way to expand on the Noble idea might be to play with vassals/troops/contacts etc etc.

Yes this somewhat works with the leadership feat, but that requires hitting level 6 to acquire, is frequently banned, and is a lot harder to work with than an actual class.

I can see a lot of potential in this actually. If I didn't already have so many homebrewing projects I'd get started on it.

Idea, use an animal companion/eidolon build for the Noble's " henchman" or " minions" ( one big one , or a couple smaller ones) This would give the Noble someone to actively buff, as well as provide some extra cover to the party in melee.

the sage is a neat idea, but needs something it can do IN combat while others are throwing around spells or slinging swords. you take too them too much into the skill/support role, and you wind up with an Archivist who can do nothing more then shout out useful tidbits.

Just throwing this idea out into the aether..... battle traps as a class feature. I'm not sure who would take it, but being able to set/throw down beartraps, string tripwires as part of a move. Throwing flashbangs, spraying a large area with caltrops ( poisoned caltrops) would help a non-combat focused character feel part of combat itself.

and back to the OP's comment, I'd love to see a base class highly focused on movement in melee, kinda like what the scout was way back when.

I'd love to see some Giants that weren't just the dominant element of their terrain slapped on to their name, with a few spell like abilities to add to it. The Rune Giant and Taiga giant were great ideas. different species of giant with unique abilities and backstories. When i first saw the Taiga in the core rulebook i was like " oh man, they're finally doing different with giants, now this is gonna be awesome, Finally I have something for my dwarves to fight other than Vikings with elemental resistance and a larger size catagory" but when I got to the bestiary, i was let down.

dont just refresh the rules for stuff that's been kicking around for 20 years, .... mix it up!

With Paizo's re-write of gnomes, they're probably the MOST interesting PC race. Elves and dwarves are basically the same as they always have been.

I generally discount halflings altogether, because they've always been boring as hell. In 0E-2E, they were Bilbo Baggins, only without a cool artifact. In 3.X, they became a bland kender-lite race.

Alright people, how do those people who hate gnomes feel about halflings? how do those that love gnomes feel about them? One of the things that I thought when I first joined the game was how similar the two small races were, aside from stats.

For me, Halfings have always been wanderers, traders and explorers. ( you've seen what i think of gnomes above)

Elias Alexander wrote:

Dark_Mistress wrote:

If they exploded into good milk chocolate in wrappers when they died I would hunt them to extinction.

I think the new Willywonka said this best.

" But that is called "cannibalism," my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies. "

Except I am not a gnome or even from the prime material plane.

that brings up an interesting concept... how do you define " cannibalism" with multiple sentient races? .... does an orc who chews the bones of dwarves risk becoming a ghoul?

If they exploded into good milk chocolate in wrappers when they died I would hunt them to extinction.

I think the new Willywonka said this best.

" But that is called "cannibalism," my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies. "

Elias Alexander wrote:

Ok so, Pron aside, From what we've seen of the characters, ( and knowing the exciting and dangerous job that adventuring is) who do you think is likely to hook up with who, and for how long?

Don't get your honey where you get your money...

SM

heh, sorry ^ ^" just popped into my head. I'll try to be more careful next time.

Ok so, Pron aside, From what we've seen of the characters, ( and knowing the exciting and dangerous job that adventuring is) who do you think is likely to hook up with who, and for how long?

While most games i run tend to have " fade to black" scenes, sex is part of life ... so it's in my games.. I'd like to hear how others handled it in theirs. I actually had a really Nice NPC in one of my games who was a retired adventurer not because of his friends getting killed but of sexual tension/drama in the group itself.

In my home game, I play the gnomes in stark contrast to the dwarves, which is funny because they live in the same settlements.

Dwarves are steadfast, crafty, though a little blunt. Like a skilled craftsman working at his table.
Gnomes are Hyper, Imaginative and Inventive. They see life like a party ( what with their ability to create sparkly rave lights)

Dwarves emerged under the skin of the world, and have a history dating back to one of the biggest disasters of all time.
Gnomes emerged onto the Prime material plane because of a war with the troglodytes, who were invading the plane of dreams.

Dwarves fight and die with honor, Fighting foes that have vexed their kind for centuries.
Gnomes explode into Smoke, Confetti, and small bits of candy when they die.

Wow, lots of variations on the rules here....

I think the problem is, are you looking for a " the times they are ah change-in" gun that can cut down seasoned adventurers in a single shot, or just another sort of weapon that just happens to shoot small projectiles.

Dwarves in my Gameworld have guns, I've got cannons, Pistols and riflemen depending on the area. They've actually been around for a while. The reason I give as to why those nations/groups with guns haven't taken over the world are "Sparks" ( read: PCs or NPCs with class levels). About 1 in 500 people are sparks, they dont live very long, and tend to go out in blazes of glory, but all the lore points to one thing.... they're tough. The more balanced riffles up there ( or at least balanced with other weapons) does around 1d8 damage. that's about the damage of a longbow. think about at lower levels.... yeah, a good longbow shot will kill most things with 1hd... that's why we have goblins. However at higher levels, the fighter can take a direct hit from a mook's longbow and laugh it off.

so yeah, honestly depends on what feeling you're going for. as a DM , I'd go with a more balance friendly one, just to prevent being overpowered.

I had one player attach a beartrap to one side of his maul.... deadly first strike there.

and fallout new vegas has a new " beartrap gauntlet" which is pretty much just a smaller version of the beartrap strapped to your hand. I could also see one going on a heavy shield.

I'd like to see a 3rd type of basic undead other than just Skeletons and Zombies, it seems like there's not enough low level undead to fill a proper crypt, even with modifications. Hell, maybe you make them inflated gas bags that levitate and have Dr5/ Peircing.... giving them the ranged support role.

More new monsters, Please, I'm a monster book addict, and I've blown a lot of cash during my time browsing through books only to find a lot of monsters that are just mishmashes of old abilities. I want new creatures, new foes that dont just follow the same old patterns

it seems like in most monsterbooks ( thank goodness the bestiary 2 wasn't like this) just copy/paste one creature type onto another.

Elemental + golem
Elemental + dragon
elemental + outsider
elemental + undead
elemental + elemental
elemental + humanoid

dragon + outsider
dragon + undead

etc.....

Give me new, awesome stuff, not modernizations of creatures i've been seeing in literature for my entire life, not stat upgrades of some creature that was thrown into 1st or 2nd edition just to throw off the players for one encounter, never to be seen again.

the witchfire was great, a logical play on fantasy tropes that hadn't been attempted before. the players get the local hag burned at the stake and get a more powerful foe in return.

the Totenmaske is what undead should be... terrifying and strange, rather then just " oh, here's another undead that froze to death and has ICE powers, isnt that unique?"

the shantack flies through space.... SPACE: just reading that creature's entry made me reconsider my whole Prime material plane..... " do I have nearby planets that players would enjoy visiting? how many? what lives there? " i want more monsters that make me think about how my game world is structured.

anyway, that's my rant done, i'd like to hear what others would want.

We love journeyquest over here in Holland! WHen is episode 8 coming out? =D

as far as I know, episode 7 is the last episode until they get more funding. so make sure to spread the word to as many people as possible, so we can continue to watch Perf get his yellow robed behind handed to him.

You know, Journey Quest was written and directed by Paizo's own Matt Vancil, who works tirelessly to pack and ship orders to all our fine customers when not making excellent geek genre comedy movies.

Really? i did not know that, I'm shocked it Hasn't been Plugged on the site yet.

Hey there everyone.

For a little while, it was tradition in my house that before every game of pathfinder we would sit down and watch this awesome Web series, Journyquest.

http://www.journey-quest.com/

being fan supported, I thought I'd bring it to these forums and try to get some support.

Hope you all enjoy it!