Golden-Esque's page

I'm of two minds about this.

On one hand, I know there's an audience for super hard games, and I think that said audience should get a bone (or a Bonekeep) thrown at them every now and then.

On the other hand, I can't see this idea working out well. At low levels, doing something "quick" like adding the advanced simple template to everything might help a little bit, but mathematically speaking, that template only boosts rolls. It doesn't do anything to prolong the fight, and that's where challenge comes in: monsters need staying power to be truly difficult. By Tier 7-11, the advanced simple template would just be a mere bump in the road; it works for making encounters harder, but not for introducing a true hard mode. Doing that is exceptionally difficult as well, because what constitutes a hard scenario is equal parts monster abilities and the abilities of the players.

In short, "hard mode encounters" are better left to home games, where fights can actually be custom-tailored to a group. It wouldn't be worth the page space that the devs would use.

That said, I'm all for designed hardmode scenarios, like more Bonekeep-type games.

Honesty, I don't fully get the whole idea that GMs have to be given more replay and more rewards to want to GM. If you don't enjoy GMing for its own sake, why are you doing it? Yes, GM credit is a nice and great thing. But I GM a lot of repeat scenarios without credit, and I'm happy to do it, because, well, this is my hobby. I know that some people prefer to play to GM; those people really probably shouldn't be GMing any more than they are.

This line of thought isn't on topic, but I'm going to address it anyway because this is the single most common, "Lazy Man's excuse" that I see whenever someone doesn't want to change the way we reward GMs. (This came up in my "Game Day Boon" thread as well, so I apologize; you struck a nerve with me.)

So here's the dirty secret of life: the time we spend to do anything is the time we lose from something else. For that reason, time is the most valuable possession we as humans have, because all time is restricted. Tomorrow, I could get hit by a bus and my days of freelancing and GMing could instantly come to an end. Every day is a gamble, and so every day every person should get the most out of their time, and that goes beyond mere satisfaction.

For instance, I love writing for Paizo. I can't describe the amount of satisfaction I feel when I see my name printed in the front cover a Player Companion or a Core Rulebook, or whatever. That being said, do you think I shouldn't get paid for the time I spent working with Paizo developers in creating that product just because I enjoyed the process? Should the Paizo developers not get paid simply because they love their jobs? Should the artists that make the art for your book not get paid, or the graphic designers who lay the products out, or anyone else working at Paizo simply because working in the Game Industry is immensely fulfilling? The answer for all those questions is no.

When you're a GM running a game, there's a very real opportunity cost that you're spending. Without going into detail about all of the other things you could be doing with the 4 to 8 hours you likely spend running the game, or the 1+ hours you likely spend prepping it, you're paying for the privilege to GM with the ability to play in a game, the ability to be creative and to actually define an experience. The GM sets the stage, but its the players who really create the experience; a plot is meaningless without players. Furthermore, if you're a creative type who likes to RP, you're missing out on roleplaying as a character you wrote and that you enjoy. You've got some pretty tight constraints on your roleplaying as a Pathfinder Society GM, and that lack of freedom can be frustrating and intimidating. You also aren't always on the receiving end of "fun," and if its fun for you to make your players sweat, you might not get that experience based upon the nature of the scenario you're playing. (For example, Wounded Wisp is an amazing game story-wise, but combat wise a good barbarian completely owns all but the final encounter.)

Finally, I'm a teacher, and one of the first things they teach you at University is that reteaching a lesson you've taught before is the most essential thing that you can do in regards to becoming a master teacher. If you don't get an opportunity to reflect upon your mistakes and shortcomings as a teacher, you never grow. You'll never make superior lessons the first time around. That's the big thing that I don't like about the "no rerunning for credit" rule that GMs have; that it literally goes against everything I learned in college as an educator. We should encourage GMs to better themselves by taking advantage of the unique opportunity that PFS provides to perfectly rerun a game session that we've run before, and we should reward people who take real steps towards becoming better GMs.

Hello,

Some of the more prolific posts on the Paizo forums might recall a few months ago when I proposed an alternate rewards system for GMs who run Pathfinder Society games. While many people agreed with me that coordinators need a way to reward GMs more, a surprising number of people seemed utterly against rewarding people who take time out of their busy lives to prepare our games for us on a regular basis. I was surprised by this result, but went back to the grindstone to ponder ideas for an alternate rewards system regardless. Then life happened. One thing lead to another, and now I’m a Venture-Agent for my favorite place to play PFS. Go figure.

The place that I’m currently running is old. We’re not talking Season 0 old, but old enough that I have a backlog of data spanning roughly four years in front of me. Yikes. Part of the turf that comes with inheriting a location with such an oppressive amount of data is that it becomes REALLY hard to run Game Days. Why? Well, there’s a few different reasons. First, our gamers tend to be fairly hard-core. They play a lot, and they play often. Most sit down to at least two tables a week, with some managing nearly four a week. Sometimes as GMs, sometimes as players. Crazy, right? Although numbers differ between people, let’s say that as a safe average, roughly half of my store’s player and GM base is sitting down to an average of 10 games a month. Now, it doesn’t take Albert Einstein to realize that the amount of games being played at my store drastically exceeds Paizo’s ability to publish scenarios, so in a nutshell, the problem that I’m running into is that it is getting increasingly hard to deliver games for my store that people can play.

One of the common responses to my issue is, “Well, tell them to GM.” Obviously, if they’ve played a piece of content before, my players should be able to run the game and get twice as much out of the content. Putting aside the implications that my players should “GM or stop whining,” mathematically that’s impossible; it requires all of the players present to perfectly swap with one another; the GM and players from Table 1 switching with the GM and players from Table 2. How often does that happen in practice? The net result is that I have people scattered all over the place, and not a whole lot of flexibility when it comes to offering them things that they can enjoy. It’s sad, really.

Now, what can we not as organizers, but as an organization, do about this? How can we keep people who are interested in playing, but who are almost entirely prevented from doing so? One idea that I had, funny enough, was by employing the Sky Key. Yes, that Sky Key. The fictitious artifact, or at least, its concept. Let me explain.

When we talk replying scenarios, typically the answer is a big, resounding, “NO.” Usually the reasons are twofold; first, we’re afraid that the replayer will spoil the story for people who haven’t yet experienced it. Second, we’re certain that people will use the ability to replay scenarios to farm desirable boons on their characters. In terms of replaying content, that already exists in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The rules clearly allow replaying for no credit, so long as everyone at the table is aware and accepting of the replayer. Furthermore, we allow GMs to replay scenarios if they possess a specific boon. I think that if we can trust GMs to replay scenarios for credit fairly, we can trust every player to. That being said, I think that the issue regarding boon farming is, sadly, an apt one. Which is where my Sky Key suggestion comes in. Basically, we use the Sky Key as an in-universe excuse to allow players and GMs to replay scenarios for reduced credit. Each scenario is worth its normal amount of XP and gold (because both wealth and experience are factored into the game’s balance), but the character gets all boons crossed off her chronicle sheet, save for those that inflict conditions that must be removed via the expenditure of resources (like curses, diseases, or Bonekeep’s debuffs). The excuse for this lies with the Sky Key:

Whether or not we stick with this fluff or come up with something else, I personally think that laxing a bit on replaying is good for the Society as a whole. We want people wandering into our game stores seeing a full, excited, and energetic crowd to make them curious about what, exactly, is going on with this “Pathfinder Society” thing, and we’re not going to get that happen if our gaming rules make it difficult or undesirable for people to play together. This isn’t so much about, “accommodating the few people who are locked out,” as it is, “making it easier for friends old and new to enjoy the game together, without punishing people who are willing to take another trip on an old ride for the sake of newer players,” which I believe is something we should promote and commend, not ban.

I can't believe that document still gets shared as much as it does!

What would you think of a service where Paizo was all like, "Okay, we have WizKids Minis X, Y, and Z in our stock. We can trade our minis for other people's minis as long as they're the same rarity."

Could something like that ever happen? How likely is it?

I think the only Prestige class you're ever going to see that advances curses and hexes is going to be the upcoming Winter Witch prestige class (the PrC, not the already existing archetype).

Personally, that's one of the reason why I use the "base magic bonus" system and tied Hexes / Revelations / etc. to it.

Kitsune!
Kitsune!
Kitsune!

... that counts as three votes, right?

Cheapy wrote:

F. Wesley Schneider wrote:

Eric Hinkle wrote:

Yes, but they SPARKLE! in the sunlight when they do. (So, so sorry.)

You're off the force McHinkle. Turn over your badge and your d20s.

I believe that Eric forgot to mention that he just cast Glitterdust on them.

If it's Sparklepires the only spells I want to cast on them are Searing Rays followed by Sunbeam and Sunburst. But your explanation works too.

YOU FIEND!

Twilight's Vampires don't burn in sunlight! Your spells only make them SPARKLE BRIGHTER!

If you want to kill a Twilight Vampire, you apparently need to chop it up, stuff its parts in little bags, and then burn them.

So basically, you need HIM.

If I'm a poor college student who can't afford to subscribe, am I ever going to have a chance at getting beasties like the Black Dragon or the Rune Giant again without having to risk the dreaded Craig's List?

Call me a negative Nathaniel if you must, but since when are animal companions and mounts considered "equipment?"

I would have so preferred to see an expansion on equipment tricks over new beasties in this book.

Cheapy wrote:

Are there suggestions on how to deal with the goblin's hatred of books and the fact that alchemists must use them?

Or are they intended to be the exceptions?

Most likely it's not going to be touched on, since the reading taboo is a Golarion-specific thing.

Then again, so's the pyromania... Still a very nice thing for goblins though!

Goblins of Golarion states that Goblin Alchemists and Wizards record their spells via pictorial instructions instead of words.

However, the Goblin love of fire and hatred of horses, dogs, and books is written in Bestiary 1, so it might be OGL. Maybe. Kind of hard to tell nowadays. :-P

Cheapy wrote:

It modifies the normal proficiencies in the same way that the Bonus Feats archetype ability modifies discoveries without explicitly saying so.

Bonus Feats: A fire bomber can select the Burn! Burn! Burn!, Fire Tamer, or Flame Heart feat in place of a discovery.

that is a new class feature. alchemists dont have "bonus feats" as a normal class feature, and says they CAN do something inplace of a discovery

Its not difficult to understand at all. Plenty of archetypes modify or add on to something without replacing anything. Goblin alchemists gain proficiency with torches as a simple weapon (if I'm not mistaken, they're usually an improvised weapon). It doesn't replace any of the alchemist's base proficiencies because it doesn't say it does. For a similar-yet-difference example, see the Monk (sensei) archetype, which adds Diplomacy, Linguistics, and all Knowledge skills as a class skill. It doesn't replace the default Monk skill list; it adds on to it. Another example is the geisha archetype, which adds Tea Ceremony without replacing any class features.

I made a grave mistake, James. My birthday is next week and I have no idea what to ask my friends and family for!

Normally I could just ignore them, but my friends and family are practically pounding on my door like party zombies, moaning, "Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifts, giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifts!"

What should I ask for? Let's pretend that I have ... eight individuals who want to buy me presents. Give me eight gift ideas. Be specific too!

If it helps, I own the entire hardcover line that's currently available, as well as:

(Campaign Setting) Book of the Damned 1, 2, and 3, and Inner Sea Magic.

(Player Companions) Adventurer's Armory, Blood of Fiends, Dragon Empires Primer, Halflings of Golarion.

What monster(s) are you sick of?

I have a very important question.

The fate of the world hangs in the balance.

On page 16 of Blood of Fiends, under the Variant Tiefling Ability table, #40.

I quote: "As a full-round action, you can bleed and collect 5 sp
worth of precious blood per day."

WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?! Once per day the tiefling can bleed and their blood turns into 5 silver worth of coins? For what? How does this work? What are you smoking? Am I just insane?

Other than that, this book is awesome. Keep it up and I'll keep bleeding my bank account into Paizo veins.

I would interpret it as you essentially bleed yourself and the blood has some sort of magical or alchemical property due to your fiendish heritage that makes it worth 5 silver to some wonky investors.

Stratagemini wrote:

So, you said that the idea governing Prestige creation was "Which organization/religion/society needs a prestige class in the inner Sea region?"

If that so, does Cayden Cailean's Church get a prestige? Or is chevalier all we get?

On a related note! Are all of these 10 level prestiges? or are there some 5 and 3 levels mixed in?

Nothing specifically Cayden Cailean related in the book, but there's certainly going to be some good cleric choices.

They're all 10 level classes. 5 and 3 level concepts are, in my opinion, better served as archetypes.

I personally don't like 3-level prestige classes, but I disagree on the 5-level ones. Halfling Opportunist is the perfect example of a Prestige Class that only needs five levels to do its thing, but wouldn't work as an archetype. After all, restricting the class just to rogues (which would be the most obvious choice if turned into an archetype) removes the point that the class is for halflings of all creed that make their own luck.

But that's just my two sp.

What reason is there for me to buy this book? I don't need 320 pages of stat blocks. I'm tired of seeing generic NPCs showing up in my Pathfinder Chronicles books (not to mention the 4 NPCs statted up in every AP volume now) as it is. What is your compelling case for me to purchase the NPC Codex? As it stands I'll be skipping this book in my subscription (much like I did with the Beginner's Box last year).

If you do not need 320 pages of NPC stat blocks, then you are clearly not a GM! I'm giddy with the thought of how much time this book is going to save me.

If we can have scary backstabbing rogue squirrels, we can have a wolverine magus. Just treat the wolverine as if it had the awaken spell cast on it. Move on from there.

This is probably the best suggestion in the thread. Here's what I would do, personally.

1) Use the following as your base physical ability scores: Str 14, Dex 15, Con 16. This is the Medium-sized base physical scores for a wolverine animal companion. Use your mental ability scores before you died. (Link to Wolverine Companion: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/wolverine)

2) Your creature type becomes Magical Beast (augmented animal), as if you were an ordinary wolverine that had an awaken spell cast upon them. Likewise, you can speak any languages that you knew before you were reincarnated. (Link to Awaken spell: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/awaken)

3) You are required to take a specialized version Natural Spell in order to cast magic. You ... did just level up, right? In addition, I'd allow you to apply your special, um, circumstances to all shapechanging effects you become subjected to. (Link to Natural Spell: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/natural-spell---final)

Hope that helps!

Alternatively, you could also work it where you use Alter Self to transform back into your original, humanoid body. But only temporarily. Get a lot of badger scrolls and whatnot, allowing you to transform into your humanoid body in combat only while remaining a badger at all other times. It has a bit of a Ben 10 feel to it, but it should work well.

I know this is not a question, but I'm too stoked not to share it.

Back during Christmas time, my friends bought me the Pathfinder Heroes set (the four Iconic figures) in hopes that they could get me to buy more figures (I don't have any). We were at a semi-local gaming store and on a whim I picked up the Champions of Evil set and four Small figure packs. I open my first pack; okay, a spider. Not bad quality but a little "meh" to actually pull. My second pack; ooh, Mummy. That's nice quality but I don't use Mummies much. Third pack, OH! Snazzy Human Ranger who matches a PC I have quite nicely? I'll take that. Final, last pack. Watch it be another mumm-OH SWEET JESUS ITS THE ICONIC PALADIN! OMG LOOK HOW PERFECT AND PRETTY SHE IS. ERIK DID HER ABSOLUTELY NO JUSTICE ON CAMERA!!!!

Needless to say, I am hooked.

Well since there are 46 monsters in this book so you would need 5-7 of these books just to equal the number of monsters in a hardcover Bestairy.

I would rather have both this and Bestiary 4 but that isn't going to happin this year.

Personally, I'd rather the NPC codex if only because humanoids are much more time consuming to stat up on your own and there isn't many of them. Considering that there are already hundreds of monsters out, I'll take the small Bestiary in favor of the NPC codex.

Plus, I still haven't gotten to use an ooma in a game yet. No more Bestiaries until I get to use the whale ... IN SPACE! first, please. :D

Commoners need more love.

I thought you typed "Communists need more love."

Based on this old post, should we just let this thread fade into obscurity? ;)

Permission teh make dis scallywag walk the plank, Cap'tin Jacobs?

... or at least introduce 'im to yer wife, if yer be catchin' me winds ....

KestlerGunner wrote:

We've had four years of gaming with the core rulebook. Are you absolutely sure you're not going to be bringing out a book of repetitious NPC statblocks that players and GMs have seen before in Adventure Paths, PFS modules, home games and built quickly on Herolab?

Does that seem consistent with the types of product we usually do?

I just got the mental image of Vic doing a gangsta "burn" gesture while at his desk. The image makes me smile.

Golden-Esque wrote:

Silly question, but is there any rules crunch in this book? Character traits, rules settings? Fun stuff that you won't mention until June 20th comes closer?

Plenty of rules crunch as well as flavor. The exact ratio of fluff-to-crunch is very similar to that found in Dungeons of Golarion.

... I don't own that one! The analogy, it does NOTHING! :-P

(Sorry for the re-post)

I have a problem with the 'Fiendish Sorcery' racial Trait.

Blood of Fiends wrote:

Fiendish Sorcery: Tiefling sorcerers with the Abyssal or Infernal bloodlines treat their Charisma scores as 2 points higher for all sorcerer class abilities.

There is no indication in the book that this effect only applies to 'mongrel' tieflings, or those who stem from the 'appropriate' fiend type.

So, by RAW, neither a Beastbrood nor a Grimspawn would have any problems in getting this bonus when claiming an Infernal Bloodline (after all, it has been a long tradition that pretty much any sorcerer can be of any bloodline)... while, for getting this trait to work with his defining parental bloodline, the Beastbrood has to take the Improved Fiendish Sorcery Feat. The Grimspawn is out of luck altogether.

Umm... huh? Can anyone help me with this type of logic? Am I the only one who thinks that for those 'pure-blooded' Tieflings, their heritage Bloodline would be the one they are most closely tied to?

Talk to your GM. If you want to apply that bonus to the Rakshasha Bloodline instead of Abyssal / Infernal on your Beastborn Tiefling, I doubt your GM will say no.

Will the Paizo Golem be in here?

I think that got stats for a Holiday special or something. Believe its CR 20.

Stratagemini wrote:

I noticed that all the gods of the test of the starstone are human. is there a reason for that? Is the starstone granting divinity by using all the human spirits of the azlanti it slayed to only empower humans?

Is there another reason? or is it just because no non-humans have passed yet?

Golarion is humanocentric. The starstone is located in a human city. It was raised from the deep by a human, who thereafter became the GOD of humanity.

By law of averages alone, it's not surprising that the first three gods to ascend via the starstone were human, but that doesn't mean the 4th one who comes along will be human.

Is that a story you'd ever consider adding to Golarion's canon?

Why can't the iconics be listed in a 64 page book instead? That way you could do the stats for non-Core classes as well. I'm fine with an NPC Codex, but I don't see how the iconics line up to be in this product, especially since their back stories are Golarion-specific (and this book is not).

Considering their builds, it looks like those iconic pages are also reserved for "characters in a can" if you need a quick PC to play at a Pathfinder Society game or something. If that's their intention, I double that the space would go to adding the non-core classes; it would go to putting a quick-and-easy PC option set into the book.

Adam Daigle wrote:

I should have made that distinction. Thanks, James.

That's Daigle for you! Always trying to drain away the power of the world's GMs for his own machinations!

BEWARE!

So when can I expect to see the Flumph Bloodline in Golarion, then?

An NPC Codex AND a new Bestiary?

...

Hey Liz, what's the maximum number of times I could type the word "want" in a single Paizo thread post? I don't want to try if its not going to be enough to show how much I want this book.

A Bestiary is a Bestiary, no matter where the title says the monsters are from, after all!

Have you ever run a game where you were able to convince your players that a monster was more dangerous then it actually was? If so, care to host story time with James Jacobs?

As an aside, I was able to convince my players that a CR 6 mothman was some sort of epic spellcaster. Which, of course, I retconned into reality because my players already thought he was.

Anticlimax - The Test of the Starstone is a "shell game" in which a being places the starstone under a cup and mixes it up with other cups. Each player must successfully guess which cup the stone is under in order to become a deity.

Silly question, but is there any rules crunch in this book? Character traits, rules settings? Fun stuff that you won't mention until June 20th comes closer?

Gordon the Whale wrote:

What deities, if any, are each of the genie races being most likely to follow?

Themselves perhaps? Geniekind tend to be an arrogant bunch.

Just saying "elemental lords" is a pretty easy fiat as well.

Almighty Creative Dinosaur of Paizo do you think it's within Wish's limit to grant the Quickness supernatural ability?

Sure is! When they wish for it, just have the wish permanently polymorph any object the player into a roper. Copying polymorph any object is well within wish's powers!

harmor wrote:

Hi James,

Does using ** spoiler omitted **
require a concentration check (DC 15 + level of the spell) when:

1) Hovering
2) Moving less than half speed
3) Moving at half or greater speed

Appreciate your time.

Why would it?

The question-answerer ... asking ... a question?

Does not compute.
Does not compute.
Does not *BAM!*

Golden-Esque wrote:

So I was reading through my shiny new copy of the Adventurer's Armory and I just wanted to say that I thought that Equipment Tricks looked really cool!

However, I was reading through the description and it says something along the lines of "choose a type of equipment such as rope, boot blade, heavy scabbard, etc." and then states you can use Equipment Tricks that relate to that piece of equipment. Well, the section has two types of equipment ... but nothing else (heavy scabbard and shield, I think).

So, how likely are we to see any of the new subsystems introduced in this book again (such as the Channel Foci, Power Components, Equipment Tricks, etc.)? Ultimate Equipment seems like a good place to have them ....

If we're not going to see things like this again, do you have any tips on balancing them for a DM who wants to add more to the system?

We've done a few other equipment trick feats here and there in various books. We'll be doing a few more now and then.

Ultimate equipment is NOT the place these will show up, since Ultimate Equipment is about Equipment. Not feats or spells or character abilities or anything that's not something you can pick up and carry.

That kind of makes me sad. I don't mind if stuff pops up in the Campaign Setting line because I find those books interesting, but it drives me crazy when rules or new mechanics pops into the Adventure Paths. : / Hopefully those tricks get reprinted / complied somewhere else.

Note that I don't mind when new Monsters are introduced into a new Adventure Path. I think that's an awesome place for new monsters and the Bestiaries consistently have reprinted monsters in them. I also don't mind rules systems that make sense for the topic of the game (like Kingdom Building in Kingmaker), but I do wish that those would get put into a hardcover / specialized softcover too ....

So I was reading through my shiny new copy of the Adventurer's Armory and I just wanted to say that I thought that Equipment Tricks looked really cool!

However, I was reading through the description and it says something along the lines of "choose a type of equipment such as rope, boot blade, heavy scabbard, etc." and then states you can use Equipment Tricks that relate to that piece of equipment. Well, the section has two types of equipment ... but nothing else (heavy scabbard and shield, I think).

So, how likely are we to see any of the new subsystems introduced in this book again (such as the Channel Foci, Power Components, Equipment Tricks, etc.)? Ultimate Equipment seems like a good place to have them ....

If we're not going to see things like this again, do you have any tips on balancing them for a DM who wants to add more to the system?

Cheapy wrote:

I thought the anti-paladin pictured in the APG was the iconic. Weird!

Nope. It's just the picture we commissioned for the anti-paladin.

If it were an iconic, we would have had Wayne Reynolds illustrate it and it would have been in its own section up at the front with the base classes.

Huh, I guess I never thought about it, but he's not an iconic when the other alternate classes are, is he? Weird.

UPS Truck pulled up today. Got so excited. Even had a book-sized box. Then the UPS Delivery person asks for my sister. Turns out she ordered a book of eye shadows.

I was so disappointed. Not the book of shadows I've been waiting for. :(

BladeMaster0182 wrote:

Mr. Jacobs,

First off, I want to thank you and your team for doing the Reddit AMA. I loved reading it and I can't wait for the one for the Pathfinder artists.

My question is this: Your team has written a story for every Iconic expect one: Balazar. What's with the Summoner hate and can we expect to see his story sometime soon?

Actaully, I believe we've also not yet done a Meet the Iconics for Imrijka as well.

In this case, it's not summoner hate. Someone had to be last. It just happens to end up being one of those two.

Once we're out of the Gen Con rush in about 6 weeks or so...THEN we can turn our attention back to hard-to-genereate blog posts like the Meet the Iconics posts.

IF there's ever another base class added to the game (which I doubt there will be) you should totally make that iconic something wild and crazy. Like ... a kitsune.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

Ambrus wrote:

If I were in a game with someone playing a arcane caster with a toucan familiar, I'd feel obliged to play a druid with a tiger animal companion so that we could embark on some breakfast cereal themed adventures together; preferably vs a leprechaun BBEG. It'd be GRRRRREAT!!!

I'll play Diggum the Boggard barbarian!

Play a Grippli instead. They're actually a 0-Hit Die player race.

The toucan should, of course, grant you the scent ability. :)

That might be too overpowered, Erik. After all, Scent is a little TOO good for something like a familiar to just up and grant to a spellcaster. But I think if you lowered it down to only allowing the toucan's spellcaster to detect the presence or absence of fruit or fruity products, it'd be pretty balanced.

OK, how many people are going to call their plant companions Russel? :)

My carnivorous flower will be named Audrey, thank you very much!

Foghammer wrote:

From a gamist standpoint, I like to be able to put a couple of points into my animal companions' Int score and play it as if they are 'super-intelligent' animals, and put at least one of their skill points into understanding a language my character speaks.

That's how my groups handle it.

Having an Intelligence of 3 is basically this. Its wen you can put skill points into basically anything you want , take any feats you want, and if I'm not mistaken you no longer need the Handle Animal skill because the animal is now smart enough to (kind of) understand what you're saying to it. A 3 represents the most basic vestige of humanoid intelligence, probably like very early cave people (which is why I was annoyed that cave people were a playable race in Frostburn).

Dragon78 wrote:

So the the variants do have different abilities and skill bonuses then, not just racial mods, cool. Thanks for the info Dark Mistress.

Yes and in case i wasn't clear. Each one also has 2 racial traits per variant above and beyond the general racial traits chapter.

I'm surprised you waited this long to jump in this thread, DM!

So tell me, since JJ said all of the tiefling variants had art ... who's the sexiest?

messy wrote:

what do you think of my revelation?

It's funny you mention that because in my Jade Regent game, I'm playing a bard with a shield and longsword that is based on Link. Great minds :)

Skill Focus (Arcane) + Eldritch Bloodline (Arcane) + Improved Familiar = Navi

Mr. Quick wrote:

Golden-Esque wrote:

Dragon78 wrote:

I will be waiting a little longer since I forggot to get a subscription for this product line until yesterday.

As far as I know, you don't need to get a subscription to actually get the product mailed to you in the first batch, as I don't have the companion subscription either but I was still in the first batch of shipments. Us non-subscribing pre-orders just don't get the PDF to nom on until the book gets here.

it's totally worth getting the subscription tho. I usually snarf up PDF files like this and put 'em on my iPad. then let the gamer group see the new book next game session and ponder character ideas for later.

Yeah PDFs on the ipad are awesome. its like having the entire pathfinder collection on one easy to carry tablet. however when it comes to PDFs above 100 pages it starts to get a little sluggish.

If only technology had evolved to the point where my iPad could handle the Core Rulebook. T_T

I'd say that this book suffers a little bit from trying to cram too much into 32 pages. Most of this type of Player Companion lists stuff for a single region while in in Dragon Empires Primer, the fluff-per-region is condensed down to the size of a paragraph or two.

Granted, I don't think the book is bad, but its definitely a test-the-waters style of book and if you want more expansion in Tian-Xia, you have to make your desire known so the Paizo crew will make it happened.

That being said, the new archetypes are pretty cool (Sword Saint in and of itself is awesome; think Rhonin Kenshin) and the general tone of the book is spot-on. Its definitely not one of the best Player Companions (of the ones I own, I'd personally give it to the Adventurer's Armory, but to be fair I only own three of them) but it is a solid purchase and I don't regret picking it up for 10 bucks.

Actually, we've been doing 4 hardcovers a year of late. 3 in the rulebook line and 1 more in other lines. Last year, the "bonus" one was the Inner Sea World Guide, while this year it's "Rise of the Runelords."

Can next year's bonus be 'James Jacobs and Friends' Guide to Everything Mythic and Cool'?