HawaiianWarrior's page

I recently tried True20, and while there were things about it I didn't much care for, I kind of liked the way it did wounds. It got me thinking about a way to borrow the idea a tiny bit for Pathfinder.

This would be an easy addition to the current hit points system and would not replace it. Basically, any time a character/monster/NPC etc. takes a critical hit, aside from the hit point damage they receive as normal, they also take 1 wound. Each wound imposes a cumulative -1 penalty on any roll that involves a d20: attacks, saves, and skills. There is no upper limit to how many wounds one can have (though I'm also considering a cap equal to one's CON score). Wound levels can be healed magically at a rate of 1 point for each die rolled for the spell (so 1 for Cure Light wounds, etc.) or healed naturally at 1 per day of rest.

With this I'd also let characters heal all their hit points with a 10 minute rest, so the gradual accumulation of wound levels would be their main source of rising tension.

The similarity between this and the Wounds/Vitality system is no accident. I've always liked it, but felt there should be some effect to taking wounds other than ticking off a separate set of points.

Anyway, I'm open to any feedback or impressions. Sometimes it isn't easy to see the flaws in one's own designs.

A couple of years ago I finally got to play my elderly blind wizard, Tolarias Manaster. He was a character that had been kicking around in my head around since the early days of 3.0 but I could never make him "work" because I kept getting stuck on the idea that I needed to do it through some combination of feats, classes, and spells that exist in the books. The problem was that he needed some way to see so he could target spells, much less find his way down a hallway. I imagined him spending his whole life researching spells and prestige classes that would finally grant him the sight he covets, but nothing ever came up in the books, and why would it? D&D as a game doesn't have drawbacks for characters, so even stuff like Blind Fight is more for characters who find themselves in a dark room.

For a while I toyed with the idea of having him born with Arcane Sight (as per the spell) but no actual vision, so he can "see" magic weapons, spells, creatures, and objects (much like Neo sees the Matrix, but with dark gaps where there is nothing magical).

Finally, I just realized it would be really easy to invent my own cantrip. So when it came time for me to get to play him, our DM agreed (see below). This made for a lot of fun because he would kneel down and carve the eyes out of vanquished foes, storing them in little belt jars full of formaldehyde. He had a special magical staff crafted to have a glass bulb on the end which screwed off, so he could place an eyeball in there, screw it back on, then have it floating around at the top of his staff. This came in particularly handy when we needed to peek around corners or in holes. His blindness never really came up in any dramatic way, unfortunately, and my dream of slaying a beholder so I could carry around all those special eyes never came to pass. But he was tons of fun.

Manaster's Surrogate Eye
School: Necromancy
Level: Sorcerer/Wizard 0
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S, M (one eyeball)
Range: Close (10 ft. + 5ft./lvl)
Effect: magical sight
Duration: 1 day
Saving Throw: none; Spell Resistance: no
Description: By casting this spell, you are able to magically see through the eyeballs of another creature. The creature must be dead (not undead) when the spell is cast, and the spell can only be cast on the same eyeball one time. The caster can not see through both his eye and the surrogate eye at the same time, and switching between normal sight at that provided by the surrogate eye causes the caster to be dazzled for 1 round. The eyeball can move under magical propulsion to gaze in any direction. After 24 hours, the eyeball ceases to function and a new eye must be enchanted. Using a creature's eye grants all natural sight-based abilities of the eye, such as darkvision, petrification, etc. as if being used by a creature of your level. Eyeballs have 1 hit point and 0 Toughness and are destroyed instantly by a targeted spell that does damage.

Bride of the portable hole was recommended to me...it is a free download.

From the book: A scantily-clad character gains a +1 armour
bonus to AC. A completely naked character gains
a +2 armour bonus to AC. Found under Nude Defense.

I just started running a bi-weekly True20 campaign, and I've given it a "Sword & Sorcery" theme, borrowing the wonderful Beasts & Barbarians setting for Savage Worlds. I converted a house rule from that setting called "Loincloth Hero/Bikini Heroine," which lets a character who intentionally wears very little to gain a bonus to their Toughness Save equal to their Charisma bonus. Toughness saves in that system are the alternative to hit points (you save versus damage and take wound levels with a failure) -- so, essentially, the hotter you look in a loincloth or bikini, the better your ability to shrug off damage.

Does it make sense? Hell no! But it's fun!

Kudaku wrote:

You mentioned "gargantuan" and "colossal" monsters were not feasible because they were oversized - would it be possible to include bases of the appropriate sizes (gargantuan and colossal, respectively) anyway? Some DMs modify their monsters via the "giant" subtype, there's various "enlarge" spells and the like. I don't mind improvising pawns for the monsters, but I've grown addicted to using the bases... I'd also like to join the choir of people asking if you intend to sell the bases separately - that would be excellent.

The expensive part of making things in plastic is making the molds... so I wouldn't expect to see larger bases without a really good reason for their existence.

On the other hand, that means that, when it comes to the more standard bases, we've already done the expensive part, so we should be able to provide them separately. Stay tuned.

Perhaps you could do one of two things: make colossal/gargantuan pawns so that they have more than one tab to use two or more bases, or design them a little differently so they come in two pieces that interlock in an X shape and won't need bases at all.

Its better to dump charisma and have a character that is effective and enjoyable than to spend a large amount of a very limited resource on it and then have to post on the internet complaining about how your character is ineffective and how it isn't fair that other people's characters aren't as ineffective as yours, and then call them names for it.

As to your second paragraph, when you have to put "YMMV and IMO" before something because otherwise you think it might sound insulting, well, even with YMMV and IMO, it still sounds insulting.

I never said my character was ineffective. I'm actually quite happy with her effectiveness. The issue was (at first) that someone else in our group had min/maxed to make a character that outshines mine in every way, effectively making it extraneous. Then I started to see other things going on and realized this wasn't an accident, but appears to be a conscious effort to sideline me as a player.

Yes, I complained, but I'm not saying I think it's unfair that "other people's" characters are more effective than mine. That's a Straw Man argument. I am talking about one specific person, one specific min/maxing situation. This player always min/maxes, and it's something I'm not crazy about, but what got me this time was how he seems to be aiming to make my character irrelevant.

Also my guess if these moves were all of the sudden he has probably seen this thread and is doing it because you have offended him. So he won't stop making your life hell till you talk to him.

Well, if that's the case then I REALLY need to find a new group.

Anyway, to those who have suggested I stick with this character and just try to enjoy myself, you're probably right. I was having fun, though even before seeing his character there were many times when he jumped in to take over when I was performing some "ranger-y" task or another, or when I was having some success he tried to rally all the other characters and NPCs to abandon my plan and follow him some other direction.

I guess I've been blind to this behavior for a while, and it all just caught up with me at once.

At this point I'm stepping up my efforts to find a new group. Until then, I think I might just stick with it and just ignore him.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I guess this has turned from a "min/max" thread into a "bizarre rivalry" thread!

I thought I left all this stuff behind with high school...

@ loaba: Thanks for the suggestions. I was thinking of boosting my CON at 4th level, yeah. We do point buy so in order to get an odd-numbered Dex I'd need to do some serious shuffling of stats. I might be able to do that though. I'll talk to my DM about it. I chose a high CHA partly because I see the character as being physically attractive, though she doesn't have "people skills" -- but also because literally EVERYBODY else in the party has a CHA of 8 or lower, using it as the dump stat. So I guess I kept mine high just so we wouldn't be the party of ugly rejects. The smart DM would make life very difficult for us by exploiting that dump stat! ;)

@ Magicdealer: Well things are worse than I thought. He has decided to use a spear, like my character, and because of his high strength and the fact that he has also taken Power Attack, his character actually does more damage with it. When I mentioned that I am thinking of going with a panther for my animal companion next level, he said he's going to swap out his current animal for a panther, too, but because he's a Druid his will be several levels more advanced than mine.

Spear fighter and panther -- that's like my whole concept right there, stolen out from under me. He didn't start using a spear and didn't start with a panther. Funny how that works!

I'm starting to think this guy's agenda is to squeeze me out somehow by making me irrelevant. Like Evil Lincoln guessed, I think there might be something else going on here.

I'm still looking for a new group, but can't find anything in the area. This sucks.

EYE SEE YOU!

I got my players pretty good with this one:

The characters were investigating the "Cult of the All-Seeing Eye" (yes, the idea was stolen from Baldur's Gate). The cultists wore amulets with an eye design on them, and the characters were able to kill one cultist and take the amulet. Down in the dungeon, they found a long room (about 60 feet long) covered in eye sigils that beamed dozens of Rays of Enfeeblement around the room. The only way to safely get through the room was if one was wearing a cultist's amulet. However, the party only had one! So they had to have one character walk across, then toss the amulet back to the others, have another walk across, rinse, repeat.

Just on the other side of the room was a short flight of wide stairs that emptied into a huge chamber with a hole in the floor. This was the "chapel" of the cult. Someone in the chamber could look back and see anyone on the stairs, though not into the Enfeeblement room at the top.

The whole party was invisible, standing on the stairs, watching as the cult began its daily ritual. Then out of the pit came... a BEHOLDER! Instantly the characters were visible. They were also trapped, as going back through the chamber was a long process. (This had the added effect of revealing the true nature of a drow PC character who had been hiding as a high elf -- good times.)

Besides, cantrips are so paltry it shouldn't break anyone's game to be able to cast them all day long.

Str: 20
Dex: 10
Con: 14
Wis: 10
Int: 18
Cha: 7

LOL, I think about 90% of the population Golarion is ill-mannered and unattractive.

Please? This subsystem is BEGGING for cards.

Make them in different colors:
Blue for Target Words
Red for Effect Words
Green for Meta Words

That way players could slap down the two (or more) words they wish to use.

As a bonus, it would also be kinda cool if there was an actual word and symbol printed on them ("Klaatu Verata Nicto!") but that isn't really necessary.

Yes, I second that. Despite my preference for painting and gaming with my own metal miniatures, I would also like to have the heavy card stock pawns as well! For some reason I can't get into plastic, but the paper pawns just seem too cool!

I like the portability of the pawns and, the high quality with which they are printed. Much easier to carry a bunch of these for times when I travel to GM a game. I hope they do this. :)

Bel. ^^

For the last ten years I've been using Steve Jackson Games' Cardboard Heroes, but they're starting to wear out, they've always been annoying to fold, and, frankly, I'm getting bored with them.

Paizo, I want to give you my money for these pawns. I would buy all the sets and store them in those plastic tackle boxes. Please let me give you my money. :)

I mentioned this in the Beginner Box Preview thread, but I think these things deserve their own thread.

Pawns:

I LOVE THEM

Paizo, I think you should seriously consider a line of these things. Think about the plus side:
• You already have the artwork
• They must be relatively cheap to make (compared to minis)
• They could be sold by the sheet or in campaign packs
• You could also sell the bases separately

From our end:
• They are easy to store
• They are easy to assemble
• They are light-weight
• They are durable
• They are simple to use
• They match the art from the books
• They don't need to be assembled

A win/win all the way around!

That sounds awesome. Whilst I am not really interested in Pathfinder as it stands, the Pathfinder Beginner Box looks very good. I would definitely be keen on seeing adventures that follow the format and agree with deinol that it is possible under the Compatibility Licence.

I also suspect there will be an opportunity for an Expert book add on, under the Compatibility Licence, that essentially takes levels 6 to 10 and even new classes and races and gives them the same treatment. Paizo understandably doesn't seem to be keen on the idea of a follow up, but I suspect that there are many people in a similar position to myself and a market to be exploited.

I'm with you. Pathfinder is way too "crunchy" for my tastes, though my players like it so I grit my teeth. I'd like Pathfinder far more if it scaled back on the crunch factor and made something more easy and streamlined. Like the Beginner Box, for example....

I like the sandbox idea but I would recommend doing it kind of like how Pinnacle does their "Plot Point" campaigns: The characters are free to go where their interest in various juicy leads might take them, and the adventure they find at each location starts to create a sense of a larger scheme by the villains.

At any rate, I'd love to see lots of creepy islands, each with their own unique "personality." Yes, an underwater adventure would be good but only one please.

As someone who has run a pirates campaign I have learned that random sailing and attacking of ships sounds good on paper but lacks a sense of purpose and direction in reality. Another thing to consider is that naval battles are long, drawn-out affairs of tacking, evading, outrunning and outmaneuvering because rarely do both parties want to grind together and fight it out by hand. I would recommend limiting the amount of tactical naval battles in this AP to once or twice, and let the rest of the adventure happen in other ways, because these things can become tedious.

If it does include naval battles, we would need rules that govern five-minute rounds (for the long process of ship chasing and maneuvering), hazards like reefs or rocks, turning arcs, cannons or something to replace them, and simple rules for wind/currents.

It would be AWESOME if the AP contained something none of the others have had: top-down cardboard markers of the various ships one might encounter so these battles can be handled on a regular tabletop grid (instead of 1" = 5 feet, more like 1" = 50 feet?) in turn-by-turn strategic combat.

A good plot that doesn't take the characters too far away from the water.

It would also be cool if we had a terrestrial villain, not something/someone from hell or another plane. A dragon? A lich? A demi-lich?