Hewligan's page

I bought the game this week for some solo play and also to try and gently introduce my 6 year old boy into the simpler elements of D&D.

My thoughts:

It is really good fun. It is combat, combat, combat, but the game genuinely takes 1 hour to play and does not require a DM.

The miniatures are excellent, and worth the money of the game just for them. However, they are soft plastic, and 2 of the 42 are a little bent out of shape.

I don't play 4e, but in board game form I must admit that the healing surge works really well.

The rules are not clearly written. It took 3 read-throughs and quite a bit of searching on the web to work out how to properly play it. If the game had a very detailed 3 turn walk-through it would be MUCH easier to learn.

Only 1 solo adventure, but then it is easy to just play 2 characters

Adventure 12 and 13 appear to be accidentally mixed up in the adventure book.

My boy is a bit too young (the game says 12+, he is 6), but as long as I am playing with him he just asks me which power he should use, and seems to really enjoy himself. He chose the half orc rogue, and after playing 2 games, in the car to swimming a few hours later rather innocently asked me: "Daddy, why did a lady marry an orc?"

So far, I can really recommend the game as long as you are willing to surf the web for some clarification on the rules and also for some really cool ideas on house rules. Genuinely - WoTC have done an excellent job of making a cut-down version of D&D that is quick and DM-less. They deserve a lot of credit for that!!!!

I like the idea. I am DMing the Justice Ironbriar fight at the moment, and it does feel a bit disconnected from here to the clocktower, so another murderer would work well. I would want to know how you are going to tie the two Lamia's together. Are they working together? Is one rogue? Perhaps an apprentice of Xanesha (or whatever her name is)?

My take on this would be to not use a Lamia as you have 2 very similar BBEGs in the same adventure. How about a murderer that is an apprentice or thrall of Xanesha's but not a Lamia? You probably want a CR7 monster, but vaguely human. Aldern was a ghast, Ironbriar is an elf, Xanesha is a Lamia. Undead, normal, snake thing.

I like hardbacks. I prefer them over softbacks due to the fact that I am very particular about what I buy (mostly Pathfinder stuff only, with the odd other item like Dark Heresy), and am happy to splash out when I do buy stuff.

I would be very happy about 2-3 books a year, and in order of lust I would want to see the following:

Epic. Come on, you guys are the best in the world at this stuff and you just know you could make it awesome!

Bestiaries - themed. In order of themes: Humanoids (gobliniods et al), Horror (and get Nicolas Logue in on this one), Undead

Theme books, meaning how to take the core rules and augment them to give your entire game a strong theme. For example (and this makes me groan with pleasure thinking about it): Pirates: using the Pathfinder RPG to play a massive, immersive pirate campaign. These would allow you to do a few new classes, PrC, feats, spells, races, monsters, all in one book. I would love to see Pirates, Grime/Low-Fantasy, Monsters (playing as monsters), Oriental, etc.

There is a thread in the OTHER RPG forum where Nicholas pops in to sort of answer this question. I think his response is something along the lines of:

His move to the UK combined with lots of work meant that he decided to push the projects back a little to avoid them being rushed. Razor Coast should be first along, and may even be in the next month or two.

Anyway, I too am waiting for Razor Coast, but I want to get a hard copy so will wait for Lulu or Paizo or someone to offer a hard copy.

FINGER OF POINTING

Market Price: 2000 gp

This disembodied finger is slightly worn, with leathery, aged flesh. The finger once belonged to the mother of a distant ruler who was never quite good enough for her, and didn't listen properly, and really should have had a bit more consideration for his mother, and had always been a disappointment.

The finger has been chopped off at the base, and the visible meat is as dark as the finest beef jerky, and equally tough. The nail protrudes slightly from the front of the finger, and is in a chipped and brittle state.

This finger can be wielded as a pointing device. The finger can be thrust and wiggled enthusiastically or menacingly depending upon the situation.

It provides a +2 to verbal BLUFF checks (it does not provide any bonus to combat bluff checks) and +2 to INTIMIDATE checks (but only where there is a shared language and the wielder of the finger is able to use words such as "disgrace", "disappointment", "not as good as your brother", etc.)

----

And not my own, but one I found online (here: http://www.geocities.com/winspir/wei/magic_items.htm#ShoesOfCoolness) and thought was funny:

Shoes of Coolness - This magical set of footwear is actually not unique on that many varieties exist. Each sports a world-renowned logo on the side and grants a +4 toughness bonus to Coolness skill checks. The shoes are typically made by child laborer in a country far from and much poorer than the wearer's.

Caster level: 1st; Prerequisites: Craft Cool Item Market price: $60 or more. Weight: 1 lb.

I made a quick sketch of skull crossing for my players, and I of course share. Use it freely.

Skull Crossing

Nice. Very nice. Thanks for that. Something to store away for later.

I got lucky with this one. I had a PC that was older (55) and a friend of her father. He knew a lot of her back story and thus I fed it through him. Later the player of this character had to leave the game, so I retired the PC for the assault on Thistletop. Then, when they met Nualia, facing off across the trap, she asked where he was, assuming he had died above, and gloating on his death. She revealed that this retired character had been much more involved than he had revealed (think birthing the child...), and was complicit in her turn to evil (albeit meaning well). Now the PCs have a dilema of whether to confront their old friend or not.

Still, it opened up a lot of her story in a natural manner, and I think it worked well.

Just to add my own comments: congratulations! Well deserved. I voted for you in most of the categories you won, and think that the recognition you have received is well deserved - go get drunk!!!!

Well, after the advice above, I went and bought the Burok Torn: City Under Siege PDF for $5, and while I was at it, I snatched Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers for a $5 bargain as well.

Gotta love cheap PDFs!!!

I own the hardback book plus a couple of the softback supplements. My view of it is that it is very mature, very dark, and incredibly well crafted. To address each in turn:

Very Mature Slavery, murder, inhuman rulers, the need for constant subterfuge, resistance movements, counter-resistance movements, your greatest allies turning against you ... not a game for children. Not a game, in truth, for most people. The best way to play Midnight would appear to be to use it as a setting that you return to once in a while for a change of pace. I would say it really suits 15+ age group, and ideally 18+ to really be able to exploit the true horrors of oppression that the campaign setting describes.

Very Dark The setting is almost unremittingly dark. The enemy has won. This is not a campaign arc where you may *just* be able to stop the BBEG from winning. He won, a long time ago, and the world has succumbed to his oppressive ways. Humans are either complicit, slaves, or living in fear. Openly displaying weapons will get you killed. You live in a world where you know that to rise up against the evil is going to get you killed, and quickly. Of course, people do still rise up, and private acts of great goodness are done, but for each of these, there is a tattered corpse, or a decimated village, to remind would-be-heroes that their actions are dangerous.

Being an adventurer in Midnight made me imagine a little of what it must have been like to be in the resistance in, say, Poland, fighting against the holocaust. The evil is so great that you cannot defeat it, but you know you still have to do something.

Well Crafted The book is full of evocative ideas. Someone obviously thought to themselves one day "I wonder what would have happened if Sauron has won?" ... and then they went all the way and created an entire alternate history. Everything fits very well together in the setting. The history, the races, the countries, the leaders, the resistance movements (and their fragmented nature); they all entwine beautifully. It is an excellent read, even if you never play it.

So, in short, a great piece of work, probably available for quite cheap somewhere (given that it has been around for a while and may be on clear out somewhere that is moving to 4e, if you get lucky), and a real change of pace from most RPG settings.

I GM a PbP game over on ENWorld. It is Burnt Offerings, and had initially 5 players. We are down now to 4 players, after about 6 months of play. The player that fell away had a really interesting character concept that I enjoyed, but one day he just stopped posting.

Anyway, my observations are as follows:

Player Involvement As GM you need to force the game a bit more, and that can mean that you define very clearly the required player involvement (e.g. all players must be able to post once per day during the working week, with any absences to be posted to the OOC thread). Then, if they don't post, you need to take control of their character for that day, trying to keep them faithful to the way the player has been controlling them. You cannot wait. If you have 3 good posters waiting on 1 bad, or even if the failed poster rotates randomly, you could easily double the time it takes to get the game going. So, when there is a gap, take control, and move things on.

Making Decisions You can easily lose a few days just waiting for the party to come to an agreement of which door to open next. Avoid this by stating that you need a decision soon, and will take the first decision if no consensus is reached within the day. Players do not want to wait for all four people to agree that room C is the next room on the list. They want to burst in there and get roleplaying or fighting with the next challenge.

Keep it Interesting Player's input can wane on occassion, but the best way to avoid this is to keep the game interesting. Make sure your own posts are reasonably descriptive. Include challenges that test all of the players in different ways. Tie them into the story. In ours, we have a barbarian who is in lust with an NPC and is pretty much trying to save the town to impress her (and get her father's permission to pursue). We have another who was a scallywag, always in trouble with the law, who is now revelling in his new-found fame. He loves nothing more that walking around town with his ceremonial guard cloak on, but cannot help himself from falling in with his old buddies for a round of heavy duty gambling on occassion.

I have also thrown some non-combat decisions at the players. In the throne room on Thistletop the majority of the clan were gathered, including infants. It changed the nature of combat and post-combat, including making a decision on whether to let the infants go.

I have also tried to reward innovative ideas more than I would in an offline game. Offline you get a constant stream of ideas from your players (are there any trees that look weak nearby, do you think I could topple it with a fireball, do you think I could use my whip to try and topple his magical crown, etc.), that you can respond to on the spot. With a PbP game, less questions like this get asked as the players know that it can take a day or two for each question to be answered, and a plan to be formulated. That means that when they do come up with a really good idea, you need to give a bit more leeway than you normally might.

Only Start if you are Serious

It takes a long time to play a single adventure from start to finish using a PbP format. I am running Burnt Offerings. We are in the dungeon layer 1 of Thistletop. I am not sure when I started, but probably late last year? We have 62 pages of posts now on ENWorld, at I guess 15 posts per page (and this is only the IC, we have another 10 pages of OOC, and a few of character info, etc.). Each post by me can take from 10 minutes, to 1 hour when we are in the middle of a complex battle that requires me to redraw the battle map, resolve each action, etc.

My guess would be that it takes about 1400 posts to complete a standard Paizo adventure. This equates to about 350 phases of actions with an average of 4 people participating in each phase (including the GM, so on average one person missing on each phase). A phase may take a day. Some days you can get 2 done. To do an adventure probably takes 9 to 12 months. Some games go faster. Many more die!

Engage

Talk to people. Ask them if things are okay. Ask (not too often, just once a month or so) if they are enjoying it. Make sure that you include little slivers of excitement crafted to each player. Tailor the items you hand out to reward each player at different times. Tell them when you are going on holiday, and make sure you post a really good, narrative post before you go on holiday that perhaps leaks a few new clues (or red herrings) and makes them excited for when you return.

That would be my advise. Most of all though: ENJOY!

I was expecting the GSL to be bad. It is. I guess that lack of surprise has made me a little sad, because deep down I kind of hoped. Hope can be a dangerous things.

However, I did buy the 4e PHB, and by gosh is it a difficult book to read. The class chapter nearly killed me. I had to give up on reading it and just admit that it will have to wait until I retire in 30 years time.

So the GSL will likely find some support, and from a commercial standpoint, some publishers will want to take the punt that maybe it is worthwhile to cede that level of control in return for the license. I am just glad that I have Paizo, and will continue to have Paizo for at least the foreseeable future, to support my gaming hit.

I think we will look back in 10 years, probably when WoTC has been sold again at least once, and after another revision or two of DnD, and we will talk about the sundering of the DnD player base down the middle into the 3.5e and the 4e crowds, and how it killed large parts of the industry, and perhaps how it led to some new games rising in its place.

I hope that we will be talking about Paizo as being one of the major players to emerge from that time. Heck, it does appear as if WoTC are doing everything within their power to drive at least a considerable chunk of the previous user base to Paizo. They are almost doing your marketing for you!

I am in the last quarter of Burnt Offerings. Probably finish in July, and then take a few weeks break. When I start up again, I think I am going to continue with Rise of the Runelords in 3.5e for at least adventure 2. Long term, though, the plan is to stay with 3.5e and Pathfinder, depending on player support (I GM).

I bought 4e PHB and have been trying hard to read it, but I just find it so sterile, mechanical, and bare.

In the long run, I think I will mix up Pathfinder RPG and Dark Heresy.

Well well well. That is interesting news. Congratulations on gathering up another fantastic creative mind to add to the insane melting pot that you already have (and yes, insane is a reference to Nicholas Logue).

Ditto - running it at the moment. I gave 32 point buy and attribute increase every 2 levels, and even with this it has been tough going on Burnt Offerings. I believe the iconics are perhaps a shade underpowered for the adventure. Personally I would recommend a 30 or 32 point buy, and a slightly flexible GM to avoid needless deaths (still let them die if they are stupid, though!)

We are really enjoying the first adventure on the AP.

Doing away with spells-per-day would be (in my opinion) absolutely awesome. Now, how to actually do it...

How about: spells by encounter. Magical energy has to be drawn from a life source. This means that to cast a spell you effectively have to injure someone, and thus you can use combat oriented spells each time you have a convenient enemy to drain from. The idea could be to extract 1hp per spell level from one target for each spell cast. If there are no enemies nearby, but for some reason you still want to cast a spell you have to drain from an ally, or perhaps from the environment around you, but that pulls on the wrath of the druids who protect nature from the damage of magic.

This could work, but it comes with a lot of flavour:
You have magic as a draining item, essentially culling life to fuel itself.
You have magic less useful against undead as they have no life to cull, although in turn this increases the specialisations between the wizard and cleric.
You have a potential conflict between druids and wizards, at least those wizards that chose to draw energy from the land (one could imagine a lot of devastation would have to be inflicted to cast a powerful spell).

The biggest downside other than the associated fluff elements is that it actually adds an incentive to the wizard to cast his most powerful spells over and over. There will perhaps need to be a personal cost to him as well, or perhaps only certain types of power can be cast per-encounter (a certain branch of magic that draws life, effectively a sub-range of combat magic that is balanced to allow the wizard to still be useful in combat, but less so than a fighter per round, except when the wizard is casting his once a day truely powerful spells).

Just a thought.

About 20 minutes ago I sent my $50 paypal payment to sign up for the Arabian one. Late, but better late than never. THEN ... THIS!!

Bang goes another $75. This is going to be worth every cent though (we hope).

Question: do I get an email telling me how and where to login to look at stuff?

I am running it at the moment (online, PBP), and I am at the glassworks. If/when my party put an end to Tsuto, I plan on having the old cleric in the party, who has spent his life in Sandpoint and was a close family friend to Father Tobyn, recognise Nulia from the pictures in Tsuto's journal. It is up to him whether he shares this, but I expect it to open a floodgate of remembrances ... her pregnancy, her spiritual force, her strange beauty, and latterly, her anger and dislocation.

When I first read the adventure through I felt that she was too disconnected from the PCs and needed to be made more real, especially in light of how fantastic a big bad evil gal she is.

I am running a game online at ENWorld. It is my first game GMing since ... 1993. Wow, it actually took me a few seconds to work out just how long it had been. 14 years ago (when I was 18). The game is on encounter 3, and I have been blessed with an excellent group of players (so far). They post frequently, and are good roleplayers. The characters are:

Jokad The Reaver, Shoanti Human, Shadde Quah - Axe Clan Barbarian, Level 1.
- He grew restless and wanted to travel the world, joining a merchant caravan much to the disdain of his elders. They were beset by foes, and he and his companions were injured. He has been helping the temple to repay for their healing, and was at the festival as a final step to repaying the debt he felt he owed (Father Zantus didn't expect anything in return for his aid, but the big man came in useful)

Danth Brinfield, favored of Sarenae, Human, Cleric, Level 1
- The young Danth hails from the city of Magnimar. As an orphan whose parents died of disease, Danth was lucky enough to find a place for himself within the church of Sarenae. Indeed, some believed him favored of the goddess, due to his unusual flame red hair. His potential was quickly recognized, and soon enough he found himself a place among the clerics of the church, slowly learning the ways of the Dawnflower. Sent to Sandpoint as a representative of his church. Has already mashed a few goblins down to size.

Mandraiv the hermit, free spirit of Desna, Human, Cleric, Level 1, 55 years old
- When someone proposed a 55 year old character I just loved it. Mandraiv the wise, known to most folk in Sandpoint as Mandraiv the hermit, has lived a full life. He once spent a great deal of time traveling up and down the coast with a band of performers serving as their wiseman and seer when the need arose. However, his traveling days have come to an end. Though his heart still beats with wanderlust, his creaking old bones tell him perhaps it is time to retire. The player plays him brilliantly. Holding back in battle, aiding the others, using his local knowledge.

Kael Saern, Human, Sorcerer, Level 1
- Our sorceror is a strange one. Kael Saern has a pleasant look about him, which may be due to his catlike amber eyes, dusky varisian complextion, or easy smile that is usually upon his face that is framed by dark auburn locks that hanf loosely about his neck and shoulders. Not a glamourous start. He was travelling alone when his horse died, and he is in Sandpoint to try and earn enough silver to buy a new horse to pull his cart.

Jovik, Human, Rogue, Level 1.
- A mischievious lad, the son of a local fisherman Kylic Magnix. Jovik would have grown up a fisherman like his father, but an inquisitive nature and a lack of respect for the rules lead to a very different life. The local gossip mongers used to wonder wether this stout refugee family of obvious Magnimar ancestry didn't have some Varisian in them. He is known to the local guards and has already fled a fight when he saw them approaching. He killed 2 goblins in the first fight, and some people are starting to look at him differently. He ran home, picked up his gear, and has decided to use the turmoil to start the new life he craved for so long.