Eric Mason 37's page

We made it. Funded with about an hour and a half to spare.

I'll try to bump this when videos are available for non-backers to view :)

Sneak Peak of "The Incident"

We're in our last two days. All aboard Gamers fans :)

Fan-created Gamers figures:

Update 12

Rogar's story has just been released:

Rogar's Story

Me too Tacticslion :)

At the end of The Gamers 3: Hands of Fate, The Shadow transports the current game group (players from Dorkness Rising) into his world, and sends their characters into his. Here is what you missed:

To Be Continued Video

We have short videos funded by the Patreon showing what happened to 3 of the 4 original characters (Rogar's story is still being worked on)

Newmoon's Story

Nimble's Story

Magellan's Story

The story being funded happens between these shorts, and the "To Be Continued"

The timeline of The Gamers is shown in this new picture:

Timeline on Google Drive

Starting with the incredibly low budget indie film "The Gamers" in 2002, Matt Vancil's story has been entertaining gamers and making us laugh for years.

The Gamers (no budget)
The Gamers 2 Dorkness Rising (better budget)
The Gamers Humans and Households (better budget)
The Gamers 3 Hands of Fate (good budget)

All can be watched for free on youtube, and DVDs are for sale on Paizo.

The current campaign is funding the story of the characters from the original film, who've been trapped in our world since 2002, and need to find out how to get home to defeat the Shadow, once and for all.

The Gamers Kickstarter

There are only a few days left to fund this project. If you are already a fan, or have some time to watch and become a new fan, please consider supporting the project.

This is creator distributed, fan supported media. Only we the fans can cancel projects. If we support it, they will make it.

Just under 13 hours to go.

Quality fantasy entertainment. Have a peek, donate if you can.

Friday is the last day for donations. Every little bit helps.

Please watch the show.

If you want to know what happens to Wren after she's mugged, how Carrow can hold onto his humanity, if Perf can rid himself of his unwanted tormentor, and see the results of Glorion's relentless pursuit of his prize; donate.

The people who brought us The Gamers and other gamer oriented web series (free on You Tube, DVDs for sale here on Paizo) are trying to make a third season of Journey Quest.

Watch the first two seasons here

Kickstarter page

One of the epic stories chronicled by Silver Tom, the master bard is mentioned to be Nethadric's Pranks, and they've written a Pathfinder adventure for it. Backers that pledge $25 or more get it as a PDF (and the season as a digital download).

If you haven't seen Journey Quest, watch the first 2 seasons on You Tube:

First two seasons link

If you liked it, please check out their Kickstarter:

Kickstarter link

So there is supposed to be a lot of fungus, OK, got that. And there are a bunch of scary predatory things, OK, got that. What eats the fungus and gets eaten by the least scary predators?

I've been trying to find the missing fungus eaters... Does anyone know what they are? Or is this one of the gaps in Pathfinder waiting for GMs to invent creatures?

Thanks for any help,

Eric

Wouldn't this just exacerbate the focused stat builds, and discourage characters from being more well rounded?

I guess it boils down to how much overt GM intervention you want in your world.

You have the chance to have a real death. A tangible wound that the foe has inflicted upon the party. A debt that must be repaid. And also the knowledge that there is no safety net. It is do or die, and they have to keep that and an escape route in mind.

I've lived through a TPK where the story continued through the NPC who survived and recruited the new characters to help with the task that killed the original party. We buried their bodies and gave tribute to those who had gone into near certain doom to rescue an innocent. It wasn't in our ability to revive them, so that was that.

If you do resort to random NPC passing through, I suggest avoiding the omnipotent smug annoying being.

I'm in a game that has level ups on GM whim. The first few were a bit sudden (one per session) considering half the party are very new to Pathfinder, and are in great need of practice before they have to start dealing with higher level powers/spells. That stopped, and we're now letting things stay in place for a bit.

However, now I wonder how far we are along. It's just a small measure of curiosity, but I suspect it will grow as time passes.

I'm well past the age when you meta game to get those last few XP to level up by going outside the story to find monsters, but not so old that I won't do something like explore an adventure thoroughly before going after the BBEG ;)

Does this "wilderness" have roads? If not, forget the cart idea.

Is it plains? If it is you could drag a travois. (Long poles that drag along the ground. You can hitch them to humans, dogs, and ungulates.)

Rivers everywhere? Bring on the canoes, which can carry a lot and still navigate fairly small waterways. They're also light enough for the occasional portage (i.e. pick up the canoe and walk to the next river).

Miscellaneous terrain, a string of pack ungulates (mules, donkeys, horses, etc.) is very flexible. It can deal with most of nature except that which necessitates a very large boat.

I was the numbers man when we had a bunch of horses for a long journey. I had it worked out how many spare animals I needed for carrying fodder for set distances... It was fun to delve into the practical.

Eric

Buffing and summoning monsters are options which can contribute to combat.

As is she has the stats to be a social, knowledge, and casting power house. There is always going to be some aspect of the game your stats fall short on. So summon something, have it smash face, and suck up damage she doesn't have to waste healing spells on ;)

Reach is related to if the creature is of a tall stature or a long stature. Very roughly things with arms tend to be in the tall camp, and your other creatures that are beast/bird/bug shaped are in the long camp.

So off the top of my head, the ape familiar would have 10 feet of reach when it is large sized.

The vanilla bard is quite strong, and should be considered IMO. It does the face thing well, as well as knowledges, and doesn't step on the toes of any of your party members.

Just because he or she doesn't have an archetype doesn't mean you have to give them a boring back story. To the contrary you are freer to come up with almost anything.

How about a bard?

Good knowledges, lots of skills, use magical device as a class skill for the tool box effect, and nice options for survivability.

Archery would put you completely out of melee, or you could go spear for melee agacent.

Few people mind having a bard in the party.

I think there are still too many knowledges, and they even read as having too much overlap.

Geography is supposed to cover: lands, terrain, climate, and people.

Which suggests to me that it would be far more logical for identifying humanoid races that exist over the world.

Then they could lump history, nobility, local (minus the humanoids) together into a generic lore knowledge. You'd get your famous/important personalities and families both current and historic, general history and legends. The GM can alter the DC for a lore check if you've lived in the area for which is relevant...

Using the gather information portion of diplomacy is definitely the slow, but useful back up for a failed knowledge check ;)

Did the players have true sight cast on them?

If not, they should be moving by notes to you, and nothing but the foes should be on the board. Not knowing where your friends are can make charging, and some spells more challenging.

Return note to someone's move:
"I'm sorry you try to enter that square but there is someone in it already, and you're out of movement, so you are stuck in the previous square."

Invisibility can be a pain in the ass for the users too :)

A combat trained mount can be told to guard. You can leave them fodder, and water, and the herd will do its best to protect itself. You can also have other trained animals too. Back in 3.5 I had trained dogs that also stayed with the horses, and helped out with watches. A large group of war trained creatures is fairly good at deterring low level threats.

Size and Magic Items

When an article of magic clothing or jewelry is discovered, most of the time size shouldn't be an issue. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or they adjust themselves magically to the wearer. Size should not keep characters of various kinds from using magic items.

There may be rare exceptions, especially with race-specific items.

Armor and Weapon Sizes: Armor and weapons that are found at random have a 30% chance of being small (01–30), a 60% chance of being Medium (31–90), and a 10% chance of being any other size (91–100).

RAW, pretty much everything but armour and weapons are considered to be one sized fits all unless noted.

Not having something to do during combat can seriously derail a game. A character who can't do social things, can still enjoy the plot. A character who has nothing to do in combat can end out being disruptive as they find ways to entertain themselves.

While your normal session is typically a bit of everything, there are those sessions where you're in the middle of a "dungeon" where most of the night is combat, and the person hiding in the barrel is going to be seriously bored, assuming everyone doesn't come down with a serious case of dead.

Eric

I think you might be SOL.

It might be better to think of it as a scout, rather than a primary combatant. It has tremor sense, can travel under the ground, and speaks terran, which is pretty cool.

You could even use it as a distraction, by popping up out of the ground, and sinking back in to pull your foes out of position, forcing them to bunch up in defence setting them up for an area attack spell, or even allowing you to move past them.

On rare occasions, it could be used to pop out of the ground beside squishy spell casters who thought they could hide behind their minions.

You might want to seriously consider getting Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot so that you avoid the -4 penalty if someone is in melee with the thing you are shooting.

At third level, Arcane Strike would be better than Extra Performance IMO. At really low levels, it's often better to attack rather than start a performance (foes often only have 5 or 6 HP so your melee characters are one-shotting them without any buff needed), and when the balance tips, you're going to have more rounds per day anyway.

It's just as fair of an encounter as a flying creature with ranged attacks... The melee character who doesn't pack a ranged weapon is just as screwed, and the butt of jokes. ;)

You could throw in some environmental things that could give them some options in various encounters so it's not three hard lessons in a row. Walkways that could be collapsed, heavy objects that could be dropped on them, that sort of thing. However keeping at least one of the fights as is should help drive home that you can't rely on being able to blast things with magic, and need a plan B.

The crossbow wielding human bard sounds like a good build if you're sticking to core IMO.

Is there a reason you skipped a few classes for the half orc? You've got them all for the favoured class bonus section below, but some classes (cavalier, cleric, magus, ranger, and wizard) aren't rated.

Has anyone tried out a dwarf fighter build with Shatter Spell (essentially Spell Sunder)? Would it also be worthy, or is it just too inferior to consider?

Disruptive
Spell Breaker
Shatter Spell (dwarf only)

A note with the link that says if it doesn't load for someone there can be issues with being signed into Google, could be helpful.

You just need to log into Google. I had the same issue a while ago. (I loaded it up just in case there was a new problem, and it loaded up fine.)

Huge gives it 10 foot reach so no need to be adjacent. Assuming they survive the pounce, they can then step in and be adjacent...

It's down to the math.

CMD Fire Giant 31

10 (10 ranks, maxed out)
3 (dex 16, which is pretty good for a strength focused character)
1 ACP (mithral full plate and armour training 2)

Roll required = 19

Add in Skill Focus, which ups your investment and it becomes at least somewhat usable:

Roll required = 13

And that is per threatened square if you were thinking of using it to leave the giant and pop over to your team mate.

Or just suck it up princess, with the added bonus that everyone else can waltz through his surrounding squares without fear.

I am not saying acrobatics is useless for dealing with hazardous terrain (which typically have significantly lower DCs), just that the amazing tumbling fighter is a huge investment of a limited number of skill points since you need to keep it maxed out, a feat, and gear since you're still trying to keep the ACP low but the AC as high as you can.

I don't think I explained my idea properly since it would add structure by having a role, and suggested feats for it, so people could scan by roles, rather than the sort of murky soup it currently seems to be from my perspective.

Well, I'm out. You're happy with what you've done, I'll move on, and let the people who like it as it is chime in. :)

As Set mentioned, Erastil seems like a good god to consider with the Growth domain.

This might be a build where Irori doesn't suck completely. The Strength domain is available, and Improved Unarmed Strike for those times when you want to kick the person adjacent to you while keeping your spear threatening out at reach.

A CR 10 monster has a CMD in the low 30s. You would need to have maxed out Acrobatics, a really good dexterity, and preferably Skill Focus (Acrobatics) to reliably move through threatened squares with impunity.

Or you could spend the skill points elsewhere and accept that sometimes you are going to get hit on the way in and not throw your skill points away on something the is likely futile.

I don't think anyone is saying that all builds have to be cookie cutters of each other. Fighters can do multiple things, and each thing has some great feats that go toward it. The great weapon wielder pretty much only needs strength, and power attack to function, so multiple options can be picked up.

However, there is a balancing act of resources in making sure that you don't commit too many resources to something that doesn't come up much, and/or doesn't pay off well.

Something you might consider are little subsections for different tasks.

Anti-Caster

Back-up Archer

Sundering Specialist

Clearer of Mooks

Bodyguard

etc.

This might make it easier to more clearly/consistently colour various feats. A feat could be blue for someone trying to do that task, but orange for another task.

It says you get a minimum of 1 skill point per level in the Core Rule Book under Intelligence.

From the PRD:

You apply your character's Intelligence modifier to:

-The number of bonus languages your character knows at the start of the game. These are in addition to any starting racial languages and Common. If you have a penalty, you can still read and speak your racial languages unless your Intelligence is lower than 3.

-The number of skill points gained each level, though your character always gets at least 1 skill point per level.

-Appraise, Craft, Knowledge, Linguistics, and Spellcraft checks.

As you go up levels, opponents will be able to ignore the wolf completely if he doesn't keep progressing with you. Their CMD and AC will be so high that even the risk of an attack of opportunity from him will be laughable. So they're going to waltz past him, and smack you anyway.

I don't really see where the problem is.

You hold a town meeting explaining what you want to do. You set a date for nominations, only have PCs nominated if you want to actually run the country as opposed to the GM. You have the elections, and assign portfolios to your staff (i.e. all the jobs described in the rules). Bob's your parent's sibling.

In the field I've often found the bonus distance to be the difference between being in close combat (so that next turn I can full attack), and standing in no man's land. There is also the bonus of +2 to hit, which is handy against that high AC. Toss in Furious Focus (which works every turn), and your Power Attack doesn't have and attack penalty, so you're still doing the best you can against that high AC.

I've never had that much of an issue with DR with a power attacking great weapon wielder... A +3 weapon negates the common material based DR in Pathfinder, and at really low levels most people just try to have a weapon for each of slashing, blunt, and piercing.

The idea of Vital Strike is cool, but when I try in out in play test scenarios (or reviewing fights I've been in) it's just been too limited/situational to justify the feat expenditure IMO.

At low levels, a broad selection of low level powers sound cool, but as you go up you'll likely find that your abilities don't keep up with the power curve.

Stat out your character at level 10 with different builds, plot out your party members, and do a few scenarios to test it out. Some CR 10, CR 11, and CR 12 encounters doing both the single monster and multiple monster approaches. There is nothing like play testing to see how things will work.

The link to this thread from the sticky guide to the guide thread didn't work when I clicked on it. Just a heads up.

I was surprised to see love for the Vital Strike chain since it doesn't work with the charge action.

I would suggest:

Feats:
Combat Reflexes
Weapon Focus (Bite)
Iron Will
Outflank
Improved Natural Attack

Not taking the -2 attack penalty for Power Attack will help him trip more ;)

Stat Bonuses in Int (so you could take out flank) and either Str to even it out, or Con if you want to give Sparky the 9 extra hit points.

Consider giving the ranger improved critical. The more critical hits, the more attacks of opportunity for the wolf when using Outflank, and thus more chances to trip.

Slap a permanent greater magic fang on the wolf, and give him a nice strength belt. Mithril Chain Shirt barding has no armour check penalty, so proficiency doesn't matter. You can put some nice bonuses on the armour if you have the cash to spare.

First the guy needs some time to cool off. Rational talk doesn't penetrate anger very well.

Once he's had a chance to cool down, present what the group would like to do to address the issue. Go to get it fixed right away, wait until a better break in the story and have him use a back up weapon until then, make due with the oversize penalty and use the ogre's magic weapon, or what have you.

One of the disadvantages of the using craft magic arms and armour to upgrade equipment is that fewer characters have that old weapon still in their gear for emergencies. My high level barbarian back in an earlier edition always had his last axe in reserve in case the current one was lost or sundered... Which did happen. I wasn't thrilled, but I don't think anyone is when their toys break. :)

Sunder is more reversible now, which is good, but the cautionary is to use it only occasionally. Even mellow people will get edgy if it's happening regularly.

Eric

You're first level, and probably your characters don't know the murderous character well.

How would you deal in real life with someone whom you'd just met, and randomly assaulted people? I suspect you'd either do the brave thing and try to subdue them so the authorities could apprehend them, or run like heck, and avoid them like the plague.

If he randomly attacked someone else, what's to prevent him from spontaneously murdering you when the opportunity inevitably presents itself?

Play it out in character, and when the questions come up out of character, present the above "obvious" logic.

Some people do think it is fun to create characters that would never be able to function in a group, and it is a silly RPG thing that we include those characters just because they are a PC, rather than ostracising them IMO.

Good luck,

Eric

I've been up to my ears in plotting a wolf companion for a ranger too, so I can point out some errors, and make some suggestions of things to consider. :)

The wolf can't take power attack at level 1 (i.e. Ranger level 4). It's because their BAB listed is due to hit dice rather than actual BAB.

From the PRD under feats for animal companions:

"Note that animal companions cannot select a feat with a requirement of base attack bonus +1 until they gain their second feat at 3 Hit Dice."

The wolf also can't take furious focus, because it's only for two-handed weapons or one-handed weapons wielded in two hands. Your GM could of course house rule it, but rules as written, it's not allowed because it is a natural attack (admittedly one with str bonus*1.5 damage, but still natural attack), not a two-handed weapon.

At level 8 for the wolf (when he's truly BAB 4 for feats) I would highly suggest you look at Outflank instead. (I'm assuming you'd bumped up the wolf's intelligence in his jump from level 1 to 5 so feats not on the restricted list are fair game at all.) Increasing the flanking bonus from 2 to 4, and attacks of opportunity when the other person crits adds a lot of damage potential to both of you. That flanking bonus will apply to the wolf's trip attempt too, which is pretty darn sweet.

With Outflank in mind, and the fact that there could be prone enemies getting up, you might want to consider picking up Combat Reflexes, so that the wolf will be able to have more than one attack of opportunity per round.

Pack Attack seems a bit gimmick-y to be honest. The wolf is pretty fast, and you can both use five foot steps as normal to set up your flank attacks. The wolf only gets a small number of feats over the build so it seems a shame to spend one you should be able to do via tactics IMO.

Another feat to consider for the wolf is Improved Iron Will. It's his weak save, 'nuff said.

Well, speaking of animals, mine is wondering when I'll get off my butt and walk her ;)

Good luck,

Eric

To be honest, I'd either make the dwarf bard, or I would make a dwarf ranger, and just take a couple traits to make some more of the knowledges that seem most important class skills, and not worry about the ones that are missed. Put skill points in all the knowledges anyway, and not worry if some of them "only" have +2 instead of +5.

The main hurtle is the fact that you want to be an archer, which is a feat hog style, and you want to take a fluffy feat and you want to be a dwarf which doesn't get a bonus feat... So ranger seems like the best path through that.

Spring attack is a full round action, so can't be combined with another action.

The manner in which they want to create the symbol should factor fairly strongly in what sort of DC you set, as well as determining how sturdy the result is.

Macaroni art will be very easy (DC 5), but would carry the risk of being destroyed when stowed, or used in adverse weather ;)

A scratched shape on a coin that was flattened with a hammer would be fairly easy (DC 10), but be much more resilient.

In-game experience: We actually ran into this in game when we rescued a cleric in some sort of hellish plane. She had no equipment of any kind, and the dwarf barbarian made her a symbol from a coin. As the quest continued, the god gradually transformed the symbol from its humble appearance, and by the campaign finished, it was a really cool sacred relic.