Green-Mage's page

So thanks for the feed back everyone lots of great ideas and lots of different points some I agree with and some I disagree with.

After thinking about it and talking things over with my DM draft one of my crossbow house rule works like this.

Simple Weapon Crossbows Remain the same as they currently are. If your proficient with martial weapons you gain proficiency with Mechanical Crossbows. These have the same stats but the Mechanical Crossbow adds a mechanism that allows increased power. This Allows a +2 bonus to hit with point blank range (30ft) and a +1 in the first range increasement against targets with Armor and Natural Armor bonuses. The crank also allows you to add strength bonus to damage in the same way you would with a composite bow, including the same GP cost in crease.

Repeating Crossbows Also gain access to this same mechanism and bonuses

I find the Martial Mechanical Crossbow to be balanced against normal bows because even though the Mechanical bow does more damage and has a too hit advantage they also eat actions to reload. In most situations I still find bows to be better than the upgraded Mechanical Crossbows which I feel like means generally I'm doing this right. I don't want Crossbows to be better just more competitive or equally good.

Repeating Crossbows unless you get the feat for free are still currently sub par as if your going to spend a feat rapid reload on a Mechanical Crossbow seems better. I may want to push the Repeating Crossbow with some other small bonus but I'm not sure what yet. Though we may allow reloading the light version as a move action just to make it more consistent with normal crossbows.

So the classic problem of the crossbow being overly weak is coming up for me. Particularly the Repeating Heavy crossbow. Takes an exotic weapons proficiency and yet does 1d10 damage average of 5.5 damage vs Composite longbows 1d8+STR Mod 4.5+ STR Mod Damage. Even with just a STR Mod of 12 given the repeating crossbows need to take a full round action to reload that provokes and attack of opportunity the Longbow is clearly better. You spend an exotic weapons proficiency feat for this?

I think Crossbows are cool and should be a valid option. I've done a few searches on the topic and I've seen a few different solutions. They all seem to boil down, outside of the crazy ones, to increasing damage or giving armor penetration. The two solutions I've seen to damage are allowing strength to be applied to crossbows which puts damage on par with an longbow 5.5+STR mod average or just up the damage dice to 2d6 for a heavy crossbow 7 damage average. Though given the feat your spending on Repeating to still have the reload draw back this seems fairly meh.

The other solution I've seen is to give cross bows the ability to ignore armor similar to the ability that firearms have. This makes since given the major real world advantage of crossbows was that they where highly effective at punching through armor. I've seen someone propose giving the full Early Firearm Penetration ability and others just reduce the bonus armor gives (Though giving a bonus to attack seems easier to me).

Adding damage seems like it buff the cross bow but does not make it worth using given the remaining draw backs. Armor penetration seems flavorful but also super powerful if not done correctly. Possibly some combination of the two might hit a sweet spot.

I would like the thoughts of the community. Thanks.

Sorry that this isn't really addressing the question on the races, but I found that e8 actually works best for Pathfinder. A lot of things cap off nicely at 8 in Pathfinder (like, half the system), and if 4th-level spells are your concern you can always limit/remove them or turn them into "ritual" spells that take minutes to cast. It's nice having 3/4 BAB classes get their second iterative, along with capping off a lot of great abilities (greater spirits for shamans, third bloodrage ability, monk unarmed goes to 1d10, etc.). In my opinion, 8th is really the perfect end-point for a lot of the game's classes in terms of balance and when builds and stuff come online.

Yeah I'm still toying around with the concept of bumping things up to e8 instead. I totally agree that things would wrap up nicely at level 8. However the other side to it I'm seeing is the entire point of E6 in the first place and that is the power level of the character and the world you are trying to create. In many ways I have the world of Game of Thrones in mind for how strong I want my characters to be. And no matter how amazing the character is I just can place any character from SoIF being higher than level 6 with some extra feat. Certainly once you get a certain number of feats under your belt past 6th level you start to play more like a 7th or 8th level character. However that is different from a 8th level character with feats under his belt that starts to play like a 9th or 10th level character.

Don't worry, I'll read through the races here in a bit! I'm scarfing post-work food right now.

I'll take any feed back I can get. Even if it's just on the system I plan to use.

That Android looks pretty cool!

Thanks I really liked the core idea of the Android and wanted them to be set up kind of as observers of humanity, but with some neat un-human tricks built in. I really enjoy how the hair is set up because not only is a cool racial trait but it also allows for duel weilding of pistols, like the weird gun slinger build. One pistol in each hand and reload with your hair! Still a really ineffective fighting style, but doable and fun. Androids will also be the origin point for firearms in setting.

When it comes to Ant-folk, how does Hexapod work with foot magic items slots? Do they need 6 boots of haste? Can they do 3 different types of magic boots?

This is actually a good question. As per my general understanding with races with multiple legs you only have one foot slot. However they likely will not be able to use foot gear made for most humanoid races without some kind of magical modification.

Background on my unnamed setting. Up until about two hundred years ago the Human race ran a multi-continent spanning super empire. The empires interests lay in the advancement of Human civilization though the use and perfection of Arcane magic. Then everything went wrong and the magics that Humanity used in it's everyday life suddenly became undone and the backlash destroyed not just the empire, but humanity itself. Those humans who died and stayed dead where the lucky ones, many more reanimated to varying forms of intelligence and awareness. Those who didn't die, spawned an existence so abhorrent that death is a kindness. In it's wake humanity left behind Chaos. While many of the races that humanity dominated had good reason to resent the repressive system that humanity put into place, now many romanticize the stability of the period.

Design notes: These races are designed using the rules outlined in Advanced Races guide and I'm attempting to build them to around the 15 point level. Some have obviously more powerful traits than standard races. I have at least 6 more races to add to these Including the Four elemental Human offshoot races (The only "Human" race available to players), Golumoids (Human build Constructs based on the Androids [Basically Warfored]), and Kobolds. A few others are rolling around as well. The Human race stats presented are the stats of the Human race before they where wiped out, presented just to show something of what this setting humans where like.

P6 Campaign: This setting is designed around the P6/E6 rule set. Meaning that characters don't advance past level 6 and only gain more bonus feats as things go on.

My descriptions here are going to be short. I'm really just looking for some rough feedback on how people feel about the races mechanically. I know some of the names suck, they are place holders mostly.

Yeah developing ties to the city should be a goal and I'll have to think on how best to do that. Small NPC child who still looks at the world through innocent eyes despite the world around her?

Oddly I'd been thinking about the newspaper idea. And one of the people resisting the regime may actually be a newspaper publisher. Odd how those mug shots never seem to match the description?

Starting in a small district would likely be a good idea and something I was thinking about. Mostly just an area that the local law enforcement don't bother to protect. I don't see the forces of Cheliax forgetting about a section of there city in the Capital. However some good ideas in there overall.

Infernal Cheliax won, that is about all you can say about it. The Empire now reaches across the face of Avistan and the forces of good have now been suppressed for decades. But even in the face of the triumph of evil good still exists in the hearts of men. When small acts of kindness can be acts of rebellion against the infernal throne, heroes will rise in it's very heart.

First and foremost I'm going to be using the Pathfinder Campaign setting very liberally for this campaign. And while I've been thinking about how to run this for a few days I did not decide to use it until 5 minutes before writing this. I just think it will be simpler to use a modified version of the setting than making my own from scratch. I'm only casually familiar with it to begin with (Though I love Cheliax and have been reading up as a source of inspiration) and the larger setting likely matters more to me than my players.

But the goal is to do a campaign in which the PC are in a very large city in which the bad guys won a long time ago. Now the PC have to decide what they are going to do with themselves, how do you make a difference as an individual or small group in the face of an evil that spans a continent. I'm going to leave the exact way up to them. Maybe the lead a rebellion. Or perhaps they become masked heroes and become a symbol for the people to believe in.

What I really need is advice on running this kind of campaign. I'm use to dungeon crawls and quests in the wilds. Normally my players hang out in small towns and rarely do battles in the big cities.

How should I allow them to build factions? If my PC want to create a new church based around a forbidden good deity or want to build a thieves guild or rebel alliance are there any good mechanics out there for that? Other than maybe leadership?

I'm guessing the PC will need to remain largely anomalous or at least hard to find in this setting. They are going to start out at low level up against an empire where the worst of the villains are very high level. But at the same time I hope that quickly they will become the largest thorn in that empires side in decades. What do you need to hide from invasive divine magic? I may just make a magically protected base available to them early on, not sure. Are there any rules for investing in/developing property to be used as fronts for various organizations and develop there defenses for when things go wrong.

Also if Cheliax too over the bulk of Avistan do you think they would keep the Capital in Egorian or is there another city that would be important enough to change it over too?

Da'ath: No progress as I've not really had any free time from my last free post. I'm trying to set up a new campaign and I think doing this right is going to take a large bit of time and I've got other more pressing setting issues that I should likely hammer out first. It will likely be awhile before I can flesh out the full class may just have to sleep on it for awhile till it comes together more in my head.

Evolver is not quite what I'm looking for but some good ideas.

Also I've had similar ideas with lycanthropes and may keep some options vague so it could be used in that fashion.

Tifton: I like the accessible in both forms idea I may work that in. Maybe noticeable and non noticeable traits, and some that scale depending on form. Ideas like that are why I posted this.

Ultimately it's up to you GM as to if you lost your powers. That is kind of the risk of the Paladin class. I think anytime you play a Paladin you should ask your GM what his interpretations are and even go through some examples like this one.

My personal ruling would be that you broke the Paladin's code. Your alignment is Neutral Good. Your expected to be better than the kobolds and turn the other check type of thing. Most of the justifications give for killing the Kobold I see here are not Good justifications, nor are the necessarily evil. Killing a dangerous prisoner for me falls somewhere in the middle. It's a neutral act, something that is done for the greater good, but is not good it's self.

For most classes this is not an issue as alignment is more of a guide line. But for the Paladin, as I said before, your expected to be better.

This is also why I tend to play Neutral aligned characters. They can act for the greater good, be good people most of the time, but don't have to worry about alignment shift when something needs to be done.

At this point I'm thinking of reworking a whole new base class because there just isn't much within the Summoner or Synthesist that really fits the concept as far as class abilities go.

I was thinking the base of the class would be a 3/4ths BAB, six spell level class. It's spell list primarily drawn from the Wizard Transmutation school. Class abilities would be focused on changing it's form and that of it's allies.

I was also thinking about making archetypes for a number of the the current classes that could gain evolutions.

One big game wise thing I'm dealing with mentally is if the evolutions are going to be permanent and always on, or if it's going to be a form that the class goes into like the synthesist. If the evolutions are always active then it creates a likely heavy social stigma in some cases.

I guess I'm dealing with three set ups.

1. Evolutions are always active and represent the character's true form.
2. Evolutions are something the character shifts into with a ritual like the summoners and can last as long as they are wished for, similar to the summoner's ability.
3. Mix of 1 and 2. Evolutions are the characters true form and can use ritual to appear normal.

I'm leaning towards option three for the actual main class where as other class archetypes would be forced to always have evolutions active.

A few years ago during the height of my 3.5 dnd fandom I spent a good deal of time working on a set of rules to use the d20 modern Mutation system in DnD that I put on the Giants in The Playground forum under the title Transmutants. The flavor was that magical waste mutated some people transmuting their forms. Some people just gain mutations, others learn to focus their mutation overtime to there own ends. I had a system of feats, classes and prestige classes that allowed people to take mutations.

I'd always liked the idea but never quite felt that I had it entirely balanced or fully fleshed out. However the Summoner Synthesist archetype is very similar to the idea I once had.

I'm thinking of taking the project back up and working out a class or classes along the lines of my first project, but now using the Synthesist as a base, switching the focus of the magic type from conjuration to transmutation magic and using the eidolon evolutions to enhance the character.

Mostly at this point I'm just looking for any feedback or things I should look out for as I work on this.

I think kickstarters are getting out of hand. It seems like every company is wanting money from kickstarters to produce products. They probably would be making the product anyway and are just making extra money from kickstarters. I am sure there are exceptions. You just need to take a hard look at what is offered and at what price.

Well firstly of many companies are turning to kickstarter as an alternative to traditional funding. IE banks. Many companies would make the product eventually but using kickstarter they managed to make there product better and to gauge customer reaction.

Best example I can think of was Steve Jackson said outright that he would be reprinting Ogre with or without kickstarter, but he did not know what the interest would be and he likely would have only done a very small print run. Because that kick starter did amazing well he knew before the product was printed how many copies he should make and was able to make the product much better.

Evil Baby orphanage is one I put money into and they where able to upgrade expansions and the printing material because of the success of there kickstarter.

And of course you should take a hard look at what is being offered and for what price. That's called anything you spend money on.

Just spit-balling here, but you're talking about something like a $60,000+ stretch goal, as we'd have to do a print run of over 1000 copies of a book approaching 500 pages in color.

The reason I say that amount is because we have existing production costs built into the current pledge level, so not only do we have to factor in the print run itself, but all those other costs.

Factoring in the 10% cut that Kickstarter and Amazon take, artwork costs, shipping costs, etc, it all eats into the amount of budget available for actual printing, and to be able to soak up the distribution discount, that's the volume we'd have to do.

That is not by any means an impossible goal. You've raised nearly 9.5 K in five days. You've got 37 to go. If you can stay creative in those 37 days, post more videos and blogs and keep people interested with stretch goals you could even surpass that mark.

Or heck try for some other project you think is important. I mean I think the book in color would be a better selling product, but maybe you've got other ideas in mine. Just saying. I'm going to be shocked if you don't shoot past your current stretch goals.

we simply can't afford the size of the print run needed to make color viable

Just throwing this out there but you've got 37 days to go and your well over your original goal. Maybe you should figure out what the cost of a print run to make the book cheaper in color would be and shoot for that as a stretch goal, even if it is an insane number.

I don't buy mini's for a number of reasons, but I love the Pawns and I would imagine that they'd be much cheaper to make and sell. I'd buy a bunch, I loved the ones in my Beginner Box.

Green-Mage wrote:

But Pandas are endangered partially cause they are too busy eating to reproduce.

Not to derail the thread, but that's a...decidedly odd...way to put it.

Odd but true.

But back on topic: any thoughts on a dolphin/toothed-whale variant?

I honestly haven't yet. I've been thinking more about land animals than I had any sea creatures yet. I think I'd give them some huge bonus to holding there breath similar to what Star Wars saga did with aquatic races based on constitution. It seems like abilities could be drawn from whale songs and eco-location though I'm not sure what mechanics I would use for that, that would remain balanced.

Well its certainly geared twords d20 modern but it certainly has been worth a look in my opinion. I got a few ideas from it.

Are we talking about as in the Island of Dr. Moreau?

Its where the term comes from, but no not actually talking about the Island of Dr. Moreau. Moreau has been used in a number of place for beast men types, most notably D20 modern. I simply like it more than any other term I can come up with for animal people. Though perhaps now I'm thinking I would have gotten better views on this thread if I had titled it something different.

Monkey
+2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Con
30 ft base land speed
Monkey Around: +2 Acrobatics and +2 Climb
Fling experts: +1 Racial bonus with thrown weapons
Master Throwers: Proficient with daggers and star-knives. Treat Bolas and Shurikin as martial weapons.
Healthy: +2 bonus on saving throws against disease.
Bouncy: Monkeys' gain Dodge as a bonus feat.

Looks like d20 Future paved the way for folks to use a term with less stigma attached to it than "Furries", but without any change in flavour. No doubt much yiffing will ensue.

Yes very much so. I've always like Moreau and it has a good term source in fiction.

Given that Wisdom has always been used as the "instinct/cunning" mental stat, you might want to avoid giving anthropomorphic animals a penalty to it (opinions vary).

Generally I'd agree, but not for all animals. But Pandas are endangered partially cause they are too busy eating to reproduce. So Wisdom penalty.

Any non-human race really should have pre-defined stat adjustments rather than player-choice, which is something that is meant for humans and races that are half human and generally integrated with humans. Since the real focus of AA characters is the animal part, they don't qualify (in my opinion).

I'd likely normally agree with the that if I was not planning to more than triple the number of available races to players. Arguably I may reconsider giving it to the Lizards but at this point

Lizard

+2 Any Ability Score
-30 ft Base land speed.
Darkvision
+1 Natural Armor
+2 Racial bonus on climb and stealth checks
+2 Racial Bonus on saves against charms and enchantments
Skin Shed: When ever a Lizard rests to regain hit points it regains one extra hit point per level.

I may up the healing ability some if people think it is called for, but I feel this one is about the correct power level.

Yeah I agree that the Panda is a little on the light side at the moment. I'm aware that Panda's are rather strong, but if I focus on that just about every race is going to have a Strength bonus rather than anything else. As well I'm planning to have a more general bear moreau to represent grizzle, brown and polar bears that will be +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Dex.

Panda's have cultural connections to Luck and being Regal/Royal. Hence the skill bonuses.

I feel like a +1 to Natural Armor along with the bonus to saves might be a bit much though, and I'm not sure I want to pigeon hold every panda as being bouncy.

I'm working on a few Moreau races for a upcoming game.

Right now I'm focused on a Panda Moreau and Wolf Moreau race.

The Wolf Moreau are based on a build I did for 3.5 updated for Pathfinder:

Kogui:

+2 Strength, +2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: Kogui are inwardly focused and do not speak often thinking over what they do say for along time. Kogui prefer words with meaning over words of honey.

Medium: As medium creatures, Kogui have no special penalties or bonuses do to there size.

Swift Runner: Kogui have a base land speed of 30 feet. However when taking a double move action, charging, or running Kogui base land speed increase to 35 feet as long as they are wearing light armor or no armor. The long legs of the Kogui are most effective when running at full speed.

Low-light vision: A Kogui can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.

Keen Senses: Kogui gain a +2 racial bonus on Perception Checks.

Social Observer: Kogui gain a + racial bonus on Sense Motive checks

-Keen Scent: Kogui gain the Scent Special Ability.

The Panda race I've got a little less fleshed out and I think need more work.

+2 Constitution, +2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom:

Medium

Normal Speed: Pandas have a base speed of 30 feet

Lucky Panda: +1 luck bonus on all saving throws

Royal Bearing: +2 racial bonus to Diplomacy checks

Well Versed: +2 racial bonus on Knowledge (Noble), Knowledge (Local), or Knowledge (History) of there choice.

Panda Magic: 1/day- Message, Ghost Sounds, Comprehend languages, Purify Food and Drink.

Keep in mind I want them to be balanced next to the standard races.

Its a house rule its your call. You largely sound like you already have your answer. The majority of people here are going to rightly tell you that Arcane casters are already the most powerful in the game. Because well, there whole thing is telling the laws or physics and reality to sit down and shut up. And they are really, really good at it.

But if you really want to slap armor on them and make them slightly harder to kill for the classes that aren't able to tell gravity to go away with a wave of a hand, well feel free I guess.

I'd love to see an official update on the Force Missile mage. I take my online persona from that class after all. Personally I think you could do more for the class in Pathfinder other than dropping the dead spell level but I can't say what right now.

I'd say the energy resistance and damage reduction are throwing you into the ball park of tifflings and Asmir. Do able as a player race but more powerful that the basic races.

I've always liked transmutation magic, its one of my favorite areas of magic. Transmuters turn one thing into another and for the most part when your wondering how a Gorrilalion came into being when you say a Wizard did it you likely mean a Wizard specialized and transmogrification.

Yet there exists very little in the rules in regards to permanent enhancement or transmogrification. It seems like a Transmuter should be able to make permanent changes to other living things.

I think these changes should have a cost greater than magic items certainly that have the same effect.

Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts.

I like the spell lets my transmuter do his mad wizard thing.

That said that blog post that people keep referencing makes no sense and clearly Paizo does not realize that quite a few animal in the real world use tools. Crow, primates otters all make use of tools. And many species have been seen learning to use tools imitating humans. Once you give animals hands and a higher intellect they should certainly be able to use hands RAW or not. This is a good case of keeping in mind that the designers of this game, as much as I love them, have stupid moments like the rest of us. Frankly given what Anthropomorphic Animal does it seems like it could be a first level spell. That said I still like it.

I do feel that if you cast this spell and permanency in conjunction with the 24 hour Awaken ritual it seems fair that the spells should work together as a fairly simple house rule. I would however like to see a higher level version of this spell that allows the animal to keep its other attacks and speeds, at least swim speed for aquatic animals.

Anyone know a way I can get Awaken on my transmuters spell list/spell book?

I did search the messageboard archives, but all I could find were references to Heavy Armor Optimization and Greater Heavy Armor Optimization in D&D 3.5's Races of Stone.

I'm looking for similar feats that allow a heavy armour wearer to raise his armour class in official Pathfinder products. I am a fairly new convert to the game, and am not yet familiar with all the products available, since I have only the core books.

Is there anything like this out there, or am I out of luck?

Umm yeah you can take Heavy Armor Optimization and Greater Heavy Armor Optimization as is I think. After all Pathfinder is supposed to compatible with 3.5 material. I'd just check with the person running the game but I don't see a problem with it.

I took a few points out of Wisdom to increase Intelligence so the feat is now covered. I decided I wanted to use Combat Expertise enough to justify it.

Really I think my question is what feats and spell should I take as the character levels up from here?

Fun stuff, fun stuff. I'd trade my subdomain for travel though. Remember you don't get the domain spells and the aura can only be used once a day and doesn't stack with shield of faith.

Well the aura is allies only anyway. Also you also get the bonus to save from the protection Domain still, which is really quite nice.

Not to be a downer but you need a 13 Int to take combat expertise and the trip feats.

Crud... That would be a rather good point.

Talynonyx wrote:

Only Clerics can take subdomains first off.

This is not the case, search the forums. They took a step in the opposite direction many months ago.

Agreed I saw either Jason or James state that any class with access to domains could take subdomains. And frankly I never saw anything in the rules that seemed to limit them to clerics only to start with.

I'm entering a game with a Half-Orc Inquisitor of Abadar full stats found after the link.

Davor
Male LG Half-Orc Inquisitor 1, Level 1, Init +2, HP 11/11, Speed 30ft
AC 16, Touch 12, Flat-footed 14, Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +7, Base Attack Bonus 0
Heavy Flail +2 (1d10+3, 19-20/x2)
Longbow (40) +2 (1d8, x3)
Dagger (2) +2 (1d4+2, 19-20/x2)
ChainShirt (+4 Armor, +2 Dex)
Abilities Str 14, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 10

His selected Domain is Protection, with Defense subdomain.

I took the Sacred Tattoo, and Chain Fighter Racial traits.

And have taken Combat Expertise as my first level feat planning to take Improved Trip and may be Improved Disarm for use with the Heavy Flail.

Spells are 0 level: Acid Splash, Create Water, Light, Daze. 1st level are Divine Favor, Shield of Faith.

I'd just like advise on the build in general and where you think I should go from here.

I have done something similar for years. In an attempt to breath a little mystery and unpredictability back into my dragons, I basically started mixing and matching their stat-blocks and energy damages/resistances (with a slight preference toward the classic fire-breather).

Sometimes I would make other tweaks, like plucking off their wings, describing all of their scales in earthtones, etc. In all cases, I stopped referring to them by colors and started referring to them in "Harry Potter Terms" like, Phylurian Finback, and Crested Crag Dragon...

The players responded so well to it, that some of the other DMs in the group have started to do the same thing - so for the last 5 years or so dragons have been interesting again.

This is good to hear and sounds a lot like what I'm planning as well.

What if I limited their choice to be between aristocrat, commoner, and expert?

So your limiting it to just expert then? Seriously no one will pick aristocrat or commoner over expert. Unless they really really want proficiency with that one martial weapon.

What do you guys think about each player, at start, take one NPC class and one Player class, with the NPC class to show their life before they became heroic? I would make the max level for player be 21 to compensate and they would follow the same CR and level progression as usual. This is for both flavor and mechanic reasons. I find that the game can be a little unforgiving to to first level PC's, so a little more hit points and some skills shouldnt hurt too much, right?

Personally I'd be against it. NPC levels add very little to back-story that can not be included in PC levels. Frankly the difference between fighter and warrior is a bonus feat. A fighter is just a warrior who is a little better. At one point he trained with all his warrior friends and he was just better faster.

If your worried about survivability just give double hit points at first level or hit points plus con score at first level.

i feel it can work if you use dragons few and far between, and make these mothers absolutely terrifying.

This.

My thinking is that fighting a dragon should be very unique and even if the vast majority have certain things in common each should also be highly unique. I'll likely steal some of the abilities of the various colored dragons. Plus with spell casting ability and various feats that breath weapon could change energy types still.

Even if you know that dragons share some common traits the one you should be very worried about is just how much they can destroy. I always liked the adage that if your players fight a dragon of there challenge level and it was not a TPK you did it wrong. Mind you I'm not going for that but I see dragons as masterminds and challenges of the highest order.

I've never much cared for the 10 different dragons and plus a whole bunch of others possibly convention of DnD and its continuation into pathfinder. For my campaign setting I'm going to go with the idea that there is only one race of true dragons. Each dragons appearance can vary greatly as well as varied magical abilities.

Otherwise these dragons will function as most of the true dragons presented in the Bestiary.

I'm planning to have each dragons breath weapon be dragon fire. Dragon fire will be a green flame that is both hot and corrosive and will deal half fire and acid damage. All dragons will have fire immunity and some level of resistance to acid based on age.

Has anyone else done anything similar? Or see any problems with my plan?

I've always been a big fan of the Paladin/Sorcerer multiclass. For me it was the holy warrior with tainted power. But I find this combo a lot harder to pull of in Pathfinder than it was in 3.5 because of a lack of both multiclass support of a prestige class designed for such a set up. With the bloodlines of Pathfinder I think it would be even more interesting concept. Your a Paladin who finds out he had a Lich, Demon, or Red Dragon ancestor and now you have some of there power.

I would also point out that unless it's going to be a big thing in your campaign - IE, the PCs are expected to own an airship (or a PC wants one/is crewing one) - you really don't have to worry too much about it. Vehicles should otherwise travel at the speed of plot.

This is a very good point. I'll most likely just use some of the existing rules for ships and the fly skill.

Short of having your PCs compulsorily point at the Sky and scream in terror..."Dragon!" on accout of the fact that they will have likely seen neither if you have gamed well enough, THey should have no such piloting skille unless they are trained in it.

By this point in the game air ship will have been around for at least 100 years and while still outnumbered by normal sea faring ships by 100 to 1, they'll be a common sight in many trade ports and flying over many areas.

I'll likely be using profession (sailor) I think.

Your all giving me a lot to think about especially given that I'm planning to have a few different types of airships. I'm planning to have your normal magically enchanted airship and then also have a living airship that only one nation can currently build. I need to settle on exact methods of enchantment and such still. I'll keep you all informed.

I've been thinking about running a game including air ships similar to what exist in the Ebberon Campain setting. However I'm unsure as to what mecanic to use to pilot them.

I was going to give each ship a fly speed and I was thinking they could then be regulated with use of Fly skill however I was not sure if this would be an appropriate use of that skill.

Thoughts?

I definitely think the Kusarigama should be increased to being a one handed weapon instead of a light weapon as it was in 3.5. Otherwise I think your staying fairly true to the weapon.

And its not like we don't have a reach trip disarm weapon, the Whip has a range of 15 feet after all.

I may argue for a bump in the treat range of the Kama. I've never understood why it deals so little damage and has such a low threat range. Kama are fairly deadly weapons after all.

Personally I'd just be happy if they carried over the stats from 3.5, but granted the nerf that happened to the Spiked Chain I can't see that happening even though those would most likely be the most realistic stats to how the weapon is used.

I can't see a Kusarigama ignoring shields. After all none of the other chain weapons due this and the chain end of a Kusarigama is not even as focused on damage as it is on disarming, tripping and generally harassing your opponent till you can bring the Kama into use.

It looks like the iconic Ninja in the play test is carrying a Kusarigama are we going to be seeing stats for the weapon in the game or are there any that I'm missing?

Our interpretation of goblins has been one of Paizo's greatest successes; they're VERY popular, and one of the things that a lot of folks identify with. Whether or not a goblin is precisely balanced with the other core races, I predict this book will sell VERY well because the goblins have a lot of fans out there.

Actually the treatment of goblins (all the goblinoids actually) in Pathfinder has personally been my least favorite element of the game. But then I also don't use the game to play in the Golarion setting. Frankly I guess this ties to one of my other least favorite element of the the product line is that even the books that are setting neutral that I've seen, mostly the core books, keep Golarion in mind too heavily.

I guess I just find it annoying that the question is how will this effect Golarion? Personally I don't care how it will effect Golarion nor do all the Pathfinder players I know.

But then that is my game and I'll modify goblins, hobgoblins and kobolds as I see fit. In all honesty it's not exactly hard to develop a PC race.

Personally I'd like to see a big book of PC races. But I really hope it's not done with just Golarion in mind. Add a side bar for races that fit into Golarion, if they don't fit no side bar.