Ferguson Finn's page

Awesome. That can be really fun--you two can tailor a great campaign together.

You might consider playing two characters though: get your melee fun and have a little clerical/caster-style back-up ... as you know, each has different strengths as far as stats and abilities, then depending on the challenge or fight, one can step up to lead. You could even snag two of the starter characters out of the Beginner's Box.

It can take a little getter used to, but it's not hard once you get the swing of it. I've done it a number of times. And with you and your GM knowing the types of chars you'll have, and the type of game you guys want to run, you'll have a blast.

Sounds great! Please consider recording key sessions for release as actual-play podcast! yeahyeah!

Heathansson wrote:

S.Baldrick wrote:

Heathansson wrote:

Capt. James T. Kirk.

James T. Kirk would need a phaser. Without the phaser, Conan would kick the crap out of Kirk.

Naah...Conan would be mad cos Kirk stole his girl. Then he'd charge Kirk, and Kirk would do that thing where he falls on his back and flips him over with his feet. Then Kirk would chop him in the neck, and that would be it.

Kirk (who isn't a whimp) would shatter his hand when he tried that chop crap on what R.E.H called 'Conan's bull neck'. Then Conan would snap Kirk's neck like a twig.

Kirk is a bad ass but Conan has tangled with demons and gods and has lived to tell the tail.

However, I will give Kirk the edge on one thing: He didn't need his girl friend to come back from the dead to save his ass. Maybe you're right after all...

I think we're forgetting Kirk's daily power--where as soon as his shirt gets ripped in the fight--and his baby-smooth pecs are exposed-- Conan's stamina would fail, and he'd die muttering something about Crom and witchcraft ... then Kirk would beam up, change his shirt for the fancy one with the gold collar and make a snarky joke the Bones on the bridge. Of course, Scotty would laugh too--Spock, flumoxed.

Damn--so sorry! Glad you went straight to the doctor. Hang out with some friends tonight!

Ah ... that's tough ... but I love my Rogue!

I've been using Fantasy Grounds for several years. It's a great piece of software that does a fantastic job of simulating the tabletop RPG environment. It's beautifully put together, fairly easy to use, and supported by an extremely helpful community that includes the software developers. It's pretty inexpensive, and you get impovements and updates for free - I only paid once, years ago, and yet still got the major overhaul to version II without having to shell out another penny. I strongly recommend that you take a look at it - it's allowed me to game again after a hiatus of many years!

This has been our experience too--we started with FGI about 3ish years ago, and use it to this day for D&D 3.5, current Pathfinder, Eberron, Star Wars, and d20 Modern/Future games ... love the FG! But is anyone planning/discussing converting the Pathfinder RPG ruleset to work in the tool?

Reviews influence? Oh yes, my friend. I read them on everything--books, games, movies, users reviews, professional critics ... blogs, Amazon, metacritic ... wow, yep.

Oh yeah! Nice--sounds really fun. I spent a lot of time in Fallout3 and loved every minute of it. I dig d20Modern/Future too. But, I also like what you've done with your base classes--do you picture playing them like you do in d20 Modern? I.e., one level of Rogue and a level of Expert, etc? Seems like that cross-mapping of skills and bases classes would be a big part of Wasteland survival! ;-)

Whoohoo!!

oooh, yeah--or the Pathfinder ruleset for Fantasy Grounds!

My take: from the surface, random Twitter updates can look shockingly stupid, but once you start to find your people, it's great--many of the well known RPG designers, authors, and gamer bloggers ... even geek celebs throw out quick updates, ask questions ... Ultimately it's like anything really--once you make it interesting to you, its value increases quite a bit. That said, I think it's way more useful as a community tool over a marketing tool--but clearly Paizo has a pretty engaged community that might have some fun with it ... hope to see you all pop in with an update every now and then ;-)

It was really cool ... not really my favorite kind of music--but hats off to anyone busting out some creativity and drive!

Really you guys? Nobody else tweets around here? C'mon ALL the geeks are doin it!

I agree.

Double agree, .... or triple, or something. Love the Twitter!

Ferg's Twitter Account.

Vic Wertz wrote:

That said, we're not completely immune to the poor economy; while we had hoped to have increased sales this year, we're mainly flat... but given that most companies sales are down—and even severely down—in this economy, it's pretty hard to complain about flat.

In an age where (artificial) breast and buttock size seems the rage in the media, here's one of the instances where being flat is all that.

Yeah--haven't you heard? "Flat" is the new "Up" ... that's good news!

However, we are working on a cunning plan to serve our customers. Stay tuned!

-Lisa

Ah, a cunning plan--yes!

Either way, we'll be heading for Seattle for the show and we were really hoping to meet and talk to some actual Paizoians--you know, to deal out some lavish praise and embarrassing fanboyisms ... 'n such ;-)

So--looking forward to the cunning plans!

C'mon--you guys will be there in all your glory right? Anyone? What are Paizo's plans? c'mon--dish!

<Fergus winds back with his Dwarven War Paddle> "Happy Birthday, young fellah!" THWAK! oohh ... threatening crit ... confirming crit! THWAK! "yes!! ... Ya better find a priest, there whippersnapper"

I'll weigh in on the "huge fan" side. I loved the Eberron work and was stoked when Pathfinder chose him for the iconics. I personally find his detail--the costuming, the personality, and the amazing <i>movement</i> in his art is well beyond the quality of most fantasy art. Plus, having had a breif opportunity to corrspond with him, I'll add he seems like a cool guy---responsive, gracious ... I'm a fan. ;-)

Well, yes ... don't mind if I do!

The Sandpoint Devil IS a biped. Plus, you can keep the stats and use a different appearance...

Wha? A Biped? Wow, looking at the image I see you're right ... I guess those hand-hooves threw me off--poor bugger!

Wanna be the next Salvatore? Who doesn't?

You might as well try to be the next Brad Pitt. Look at it this way:
100 unknown actors are trying out for a part. Some of them are very good, and would do a fine job. They get their hopes up.

Hmm--I think it all depends on what you're after. But either way, personal satisfaction is the right place to start. In keeping with the acting analogy, I think it's valid to propose that things like community theater, and other alternative venues can offer actors wonderful, fulfilling creative outlets--in fact, while they may not pull in the kind of money that Mr. Pitt commands, there are some who would assert that being away from Hollywood'$ grasp also frees them from popular sentiment and allows them to create and experiment with much more freedom.

Don't get me wrong, Dave--you nailed it and I'm glad you write anyway, we all should be so commited--but there's no reason to not aspire to greatness from the start, no matter what the venue.

How about the sandpoint devil? that seems to fit in with the general theme you want and is about the right Cr.

Ah, yes--that is a nice fit, though I'm picturing a biped of somekind ... that said, I was just flipping through the Eberron Campaign setting and saw the Dusk Hag ... those things are cool too! So many choices!

Hey guys, I'm creating a short adventure that I'm running out of Sandpoint. What I'm looking for is the perfect foe ... I'm thinking something in the tainted nature category. The background of the story is that this thing has been living in a nearby forest for years but when a local girl, pregnant and spurned by her lover, flees to this place, she and her child are corrupted. There are lot's more details on the adventure overview and the NPC cast list. I haven't DM'd a game in years (just been a player) so I'm just trying to make the first one as good as I can. I'm open to anything really--ideally the beast is about a CR4/5 and as Pathfindery as possible :-)
Thanks!
Ferguson

I know that legal work take some time from personal experience, but, any update on this? I ask because I started a blog about a one-off campaign I'm running out of Sandpoint ... of course I'm using some Paizo images (but not maps) and want to give proper credit ... I'd be happy with even a WIP statement I can post or attach to the images ... thanks!

I just started messing around with a demo of the Dunjinni software for map creation. I really like it--kinda more spendy than I was thinking, but it looks like they have pretty strong community support and if you're going to do a lot of custom maps it would be worthwhile. I posted my tryouts here

Ferguson Finn wrote:

Yes! Nicely done! Any plans on creating a Seoni Claus? Kidding! Just kidding! My God, let's not go there again ...

Why not? That art was awesome!

Agreed--it was awesome. I was just looking to duck the accompanying post wars ;-)

Yes! Nicely done! Any plans on creating a Seoni Claus? Kidding! Just kidding! My God, let's not go there again ...

This is great. Thanks guys for being willing to spend some time with the media. As some of us (including you, no doubt) can remember, during the early days, D&D was so vilified by popular media--you know, "plan of the devil to steal our children" kinds of stuff, or worse, the media would feature it when the needed some kind of human-interest-kick-dog piece and just ridiculed it. So it's great when a group of smart, profession people can put a great, lifelong game into the proper context for the non-geeking world! ... and all the better that it's Paizo, 'cause that seems fitting too ;)

Cheers!

Where do I go to put in my request for a Seoni-cheesecake 4th of July greeting parodying this cover of Vanity Fair?

Yes--now that would be most compelling ... of course it would *have* to be the Andoran flag ;)

I thought it was great--I think we need to keep in mind the array of the iconics: Yes, Seoni is super sexy, but she is only *one* of the awesome iconics (Desna bless Wayne Reynolds)... anyway, and as a whole, they span a wide array of archtypes--which is how they were intended, ya? Does she appear in a lot of Pathfinder imagery? Yes, but they all do. ... In this case I also think part of the look of the artwork gives a great kind of tongue in cheek nod to Americana: the vintage nose art off of warplanes (via Vargas) and many other classic holiday images ... 'cause we're all adults here, right? Surely we have better things to do this season than bicker over POV!

We use Fantasy Grounds--a great tool that works off the 3.5. It gives you a shared "tabletop" where the GM can share maps and players can position tokens ... it has rolling dice and /ooc and emote commands for the text which makes for some great RP opportunities. It's an outstanding product that has an active community around it--they auto-update with patches and post different rulesets (OGL 3.5, Savage Worlds, Call of Cthuhu, and more) just google it. Oh, plus for Pathfinder subscribers who get pdfs, it's easy to grab images and maps and bring them into the tool.

And yes--I know--I'm gushing at this point--sorry. It's just with the busy adult lives we have, a rich-featured online program is a godsend for allowing us to keep gaming around all the other *responsibilites* we have--you know, being all *adultish* 'n stuff.

And, to be clear: I don't have anything to do with the company, we've just been happily using it in our group for the last three years or so--an Eberron campaign and now the Rise of Runelords arc.

P.S. When I say we've been using the tool for three years, I mean *exclusively* we play every week online.

Great call. And I'm happily confident that Paizo would roll out good quality fiction too. Sadly, as an example of what *not* to do, I always found WoTC's Eberron novels kinda lacking (love the Eberron setting though--thanks Keith!). But, if you look at Games Workshop's "Black Library" (The Horus Heresy series) there's a great model of really solid fiction that people read and *love* without any previous experience with the related game setting--they stand on their own as great science fiction. I think Golarian has so many awesome story hooks it's only a matter of getting the right grade of writers to grow it in fiction. And you know, if that's two years from now, fine--I'm in. ;)

Cayden loves a good party. Celebrate on both days. Kampai!

How about this--to take a queue from the gracious Lilith *and* heed Montalve's example ... perhaps we celebrate continuously from Dec 11 to Jan 1. Granted, we've already missed the start of Ascension Day, but really, WWCCD?

Okay--two things: The first, a question. Second a supplication.

So, I'm find information about Cailean's Ascension day a little confusing, can someone help clear it up? In the Campaign Setting it looks like the day falls on the 11 of Kuthona [p239] (roughly, Dec 11)... but in Gods and Magic it says it is "... held on the first day of the year in honor of Cayden becoming a God" [p11]

Now, please know, gentle reader that I'm not pointing this out to be a stickler, rather my *sole* interest is to know which day to throw a serious party ... to perhaps achieve some modicum of ascension of myself :-)

So, with that--on to the supplication: fellow pathfinders, if we can settle this, let us propose toasts and cheer on this day to friends near and far, to friends both dear and unmet! Athbhliain faoi mhaise duit!

... I remember listening to a podcast of a Paizo roundtable (was it from GenCon?) that someone recorded--it might have been The Tome--but it was fantastic. Hearing Eric and Jason talk about the setting and hint at things to come was really exciting.

hmm, quoting myself ... I 'spose I'll go blind at some point if I keep doing that ...

I just wanted to follow back up on this in case anyone was interested, The seminar in question was recorded by The Tome podcast (note I have no affiliation with it) but it featured a Seminar from Origins 2008 that included Publisher Erik Mona, Lead Designer Jason Buhlman, and Director of Marketing Joshua Frost ... was really a treat--look it up!

Please do! I remember listening to a podcast of a Paizo roundtable (was it from GenCon?) that someone recorded--it might have been The Tome--but it was fantastic. Hearing Eric and Jason talk about the setting and hint at things to come was really exciting. Because the fact is, your content is so strong and you guys have so much personal investment and knowledge of the setting that you make the ultimate evangelists. In fact, just 30 minutes, released a couple days in advance of the latest Pathfinder release, updates on the Society, info about the Alpha progress, etc. would be awesome. Of course, I realize too that everything is a matter of priorities, resources, etc., but my two bits is that since you guys are clearly willing and able to successfully blaze new trails and you have a remarkably engaged audience--experiment a little! ;-)

After having read the Elves of Golarian, all I can say is Equal Treatment for Dwarves!!!

Second the motion--there's great teaser content in the Campaign Setting, but the sons and daughters of Torag haven't received the full Paizo coverage they deserve! Bring it, lads!