GRiggs77's page

Thank you very much. I'm always impressed by the service you guys provide. I'm proud to support this company directly as a subscriber.

Hello,

My order containing Adventure Path # 169 just arrived and was substantially damaged in the process of shipping. We did have a pretty nasty storm come through recently and I'm guessing something leaked somewhere. I took some pictures of both the book itself completely saturated and the envelope that pretty much just fell apart at the seams. Can I get a replacement copy as this book is pretty much unusable and will likely have all the pages stuck together when it eventually dries out ? I can send in the pictures to the customer service email if needed.

Thank you in advance.

I think their in character knowledge might be limited to the actual identity of that mysterious wizard.

Maybe they are sent by someone other than Mengkare. There are other forces at work in Hermea which may have their own agenda who could use an agent out in the world. Just need a reasonable cover for it.

So I'm about to start running Age of Ashes and things are looking solid with the group of characters.

We have a rogue, a druid and a cleric of Cayden. The last spot is still being worked out but likely a martial type. A bit light on arcane magic but we'll make do.

My thoughts are on the back story of the martial character. Those characters can be a bit dry and the player is one of the more seasoned of our group so I was thinking of doing something special.

I wasn't planning on making him an undercover enemy of the group, just kind of give him some inner conflict down the road and an agenda of his own in the beginning.

It's still in the early stages so I'd love any input. The player says the idea of a knight type fighter works for him. Very honorable and devoted. We were thinking maybe a Paladin but

Let me know your thoughts.

I think there are already things out there that do that.

I want to take a minute to thank everyone for their responses. Doing this kind of market research is very valuable to me when figuring out what path to take going forward. I'd like to get even more voices heard so hopefully this thread won't die on us.

After a bit more I think I'll float out what I'm thinking about doing so far and get some feedback from everyone on if it is something they would find useful. I'll trust that no one is going to steal my idea or at least no one close enough to me geographically to impact my future business.

Hello all

Due to some recent soul searching while toiling away at my mundane job I went through the old exercise of trying to find my "true calling". I basically fell back on the old high school guidance counselor bit: " If you could make the money that you needed to live comfortably doing anything, what would you choose to do ? " Pretty much if money weren't a concern what would you spend your time doing.

For me the answer has something to do with gaming in some way. I love playing, running and just discussing gaming in almost every form from RPGs to board games to card games to PC/Video games. So with that in my back pocket I started brainstorming what I could do. Years ago I ran a comic store that sold games and I organized and ran games there but I know how rough of an industry that is with the big shift towards digital for both comics and games themselves. And all retail is under siege from online options anyway.

So I figured I would reach out to the community and see if I could get some ideas. The basic premise of any business is to provide something that your customer needs or solve a problem that they have.

So this is where you come in - What problems do you have as gamers ? What keeps you from enjoying your games as much or as often as you would like ?

I know the issues I've run into myself but I don't want to infer that my own experiences speak for everyone out there because our situations are vastly different. I'm now an over 40 gamer with a wife and 8 month old baby so the things I run into are different from what I dealt with when I was an early 20s college student or a teenager staying over a friend's house for an all night gaming binge.

Let me hear what you all are dealing with and I'll see if I can come up with something to do with my life that really serves the gaming community.

I received my order of playtest material yesterday. Glad to have all the physical copies after having played our Saturday first playtest game with PDFs only.

Unfortunately my copy of the Collector's Edition Rulebook came damaged. The front cover has a gouge in it through the plastic covering. The gouge is about the size of the head of a screwdriver. I can't be sure how far it goes into the book because I didn't want to unwrap it. I wanted to keep it in exactly the same condition as I received it. You can tell it at least penetrates the outer layer of the cover into the cardboard underneath. Obviously I ordered the collector's edition as a keepsake so this is a definite problem.

I called the customer service line already and left a message after a few tries but I can understand with everything else going on with shipping and all you guys are probably swamped so I thought I would try here.

Thank you in advance for your attention.

In anticipation of running the playtest adventure when it comes out, my group is going to take a hiatus from our Rise of the Runelords AP. While thinking of a fill in I remember people commenting that the premise behind Doomsday Dawn seemed familiar. Are there threads related to this concept in other products ? I'd like to get them introduced to the background before throwing them in the deep end. Thanks in advance.

Hello all.

It looks like I'm going to be adding two new players to my current group of four players. Not sure what they will be playing yet but I wanted to reach out for advice on a couple of points.

1) The group is moving into the final part of Burnt Offerings, after dealing with the last goblins. Any suggestions for a good point to work a couple extra characters in ?

2) I've read the thread on running the AP with larger groups but part of the reason we are adding the new player is because we are pretty regularly missing one or more players. We figured that if we need to run an absent player's character it might be easier with extra people. With that in mind and the fact that I have newer players with sub optimal builds, I don't want to go through and modify each encounter individually. I'm thinking that to account for the six man group that I will just have them hang back a level from the recommend levels for the different sections. I've been just leveling them to match with those suggestions instead of tracking XP. Does this seem like a decent option ? Any particular sticking points ?

Thanks in advance.

Not exactly sure how to do a spoiler tag so I hope that the title helped.

I have been going through Skinsaw Murders to get a bit of lead time in my game prep. ( We just had our first session in Burnt Offerings )

I've read the entire AP before but now I'm going through it with a real eye for detail and I'm trying to envision each step and the interactions that might take place. In the process I've been a bit confused by how the confrontation with A.F. goes down.

As presented in the AP, there is a little conversation that takes place before A.F. loses it and jumps to the attack. Given that he's now a ghast and obviously horrific, wouldn't most parties just attack straight out and not have the little talk ? I would love to play that encounter out a bit more and have an actual physical change take place as one personality takes over but how could I make that work ? I think the visual of the obviously demented but still human having the little chat and then suddenly becoming the undead beast to attack would be a great move.

Am I missing something somewhere ? Any suggestions ?

How married to the Archeologist is she? Nothing wrong with it by any means, it's certainly a fun class to play - but I do find that a Bard who doesn't give up Inspired Courage is generally a much bigger help to her party in combat. Not only does she get credit for all the damage the Barbarian deals when he could have otherwise missed, but it also opens up useful spells like Saving Finale or feats like Discordant Voice down the road.

Either way, probably her best option is to focus on buffs and debuffs rather than straight damage dealing. Battle Cry and Blistering Invective are nice and down the road the Wizard may be grateful to have someone ELSE pulling 'Haste' duty in the opening rounds.

Definitely recommend looking at the prestige class Halfling Opportunist, especially for someone who might enjoy the more creative RP aspects of combat.

Archaeologist is the only reason she's playing a bard.The flavor drew her in and it helps take over the rogue spot that we are otherwise missing.

She's aware that her spells will be buff/ debuff since we went over the lack of direct damage on the bard list. A little control here and there but mostly buff/ debuff.

I will look at the prestige class and see if it fits the character. Hadn't seen that one.

Also if, after a few levels, you feel a little too squishy, an Oradin (Oracle/Paladin) is a very popular and effective multi-class. Even a couple of Pally levels would go a long way.

Is the Bard leaning archer or melee?

Not completely sure about the bard yet. The only feat she's taken so far is Lingering Performance to get the most out of the archaeologist luck bonus. We talked a bit about her combat style choice but she has a few levels before she has to make anymore big choices that lock her in to one over the other.

If she tries to go archer then she will need to take at least point blank shot and precise shot or take those nasty shooting into melee penalties regularly.

On the other hand, as a halfling she'll need weapon finesse to help out her melee to hit. ( Though eventually I think she can get that with a rogue talent )

Either route we have to try to figure out how to get any kind of decent damage output from her with a lack of strength and the small size weaponry. We aren't expecting too much in damage from the bard but she does want to feel like she's contributing.

HP tanking is a lot more viable for long term survival because it scales with level. Your Barbarian should do well at this with his meaty d12 Hit Die (and hopefully a decent CON).

I'd definitely recommend the Combat Casting feat for your Oracle so they can more reliably pull off spells in melee combat.

The Oracle should do fine as the party's dedicated healer. Keep in mind that the Oracle is limited to their known spells. You could run into a situation where the Oracle can't remove a debilitating status condition because they don't know that specific removal spell. The party will definitely want to cover any gaps with healing Scrolls, Potions, and Wands.

The barbarian has a 16 Con so he's pretty good there.

The oracle did indeed take combat casting for that exact reason. He knows he's going to be right in the mix.

They have already discussed as players putting aside some party loot for scrolls and wands to help out with healing. The bard can help out with that type of healing too because her UMD is crazy.

I'm a bit concerned that the front line is a bit squishy with Medium Armor being the best we have. A barbarian can be an offensive terror but can he and the oracle go toe to toe with some of the big hitters in the AP ?

So I'm about to start up a RotRL campaign after a long break from gaming. I'll be GMing a group made up of other gamers who have all had at least several year lapses in their gaming lives. We are a brand new group with only my wife and I having ever played together before. Everyone is pretty excited about getting back into things. No pressure right ?

Anyway we just got finished with making all the characters and I would love some input on the party makeup and pitfalls as we make our way through the AP.

We have ...
Half-orc Barbarian
Human Life Oracle
Halfling Archaeologist Bard
Human Wizard

Any thoughts ?