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Oddly, when I restarted my computer the spreadsheet started working... however now it generates a few items on the first tab ("magic shop") but if you click on any other tabs the screens go blank and a box saying "Working" just stays illuminated for longer than it would seem the programmer intended...
Likewise, "Oops, script function generateItems could not be found." Any tips to make it work? Thanks!
Hi, I'd love to get it as well... thanks! fateoptional at yahoo dot com
Anyone know where I can simply download a copy of the buildings to print out several sheets, cut and paste them? No easy access to color scanner or photocopier here... thanks.
Hmm, looks like I chose the wrong month to start playing Pathfinder!
Would I be correct in assuming that I should NOT buy the campaign setting book for Pathfinder (OGL) because they are soon releasing an updated version (World Guide - The Inner Sea - PFRPG)?
That helps a lot, thanks! And I'm interested in opinions from anyone else reading about what they think is the best story to start PfRPG with!
We like campaigns with a variety of terrain, probably more plot/story oriented than dungeon crawl. Settings that allow for quite a bit of side-trekking as my players are out-of-the-box thinkers. I remember that when the first Paizo Dungeon adventure paths began (Age of Worms) a lot of the chapters really had trouble setting up conflicts that seemed absolutely necessary to the plot. You would find yourself going into conflicts and wondering, "Why are we fighting these people?" So, I'd just like to start the group off with an AP that is really well thought out. Thanks for any help!
I see: the PfRPG acronym tells me the answer. In which case I ask: anyone want to express an opinion on which PfRPG adventure is the best one to start with (either a stand alone module, one in a series of modules, or a particular AP)? (Some reviews of Council of Thieves made it sound lackluster...)
Is Rise of Runelords 3.5 or 3.75?
What I mean is:
Or were they designed in that grey area when Paizo was about to end their deal with WOTC and those two Paths are really the 3.5 versions? Is there a "best" Pathfinder Adventure Series to begin with using the Paizo-designed game system? Or is it better to start with particular modules? Any help greatly appreciated!
Is Rise of Runelords 3.5 or 3.75?
What I mean is:
Or were they designed in that grey area when Paizo was about to end their deal with WOTC and those two Paths are really the 3.5 versions? Is there a "best" Pathfinder Adventure Series to begin with using the Paizo-designed game system? Or is it better to start with particular modules? Any help greatly appreciated!
Taking many suggestions from the boards I changed it thusly: 1. Corrected the dwarf guards/cult guards typos, etc., up top surrounding the mine.
I see what you're trying to do but I would encourage you not to change Kyuss to Myrkul. The beauty of the Ebon Triad is that it is trying to create something new. The triad is composed of cultists from three sects, one devoted to a god reborn and two devoted to gods deceased... yet not really deceased. Even though your PCs religion sets him up as an opponent to all things Myrkul (because of the stolen portfolio), it doesn't mean that the PCs wrath cannot be turned upon a new foe (Kyuss and all things Kyuss). I think it broadens the character and is a less "obvious" conflict than trotting out Myrkul to bash on. I say keep Kyuss and let the involvement of Myrkul be something shrouded in mystery. Does the sect of Myrkul devotees within the Ebon Triad know something about Myrkul returning? Or are they just fanatics trying to create another god to woship, even if it's only one-third their original diety? I would use the AOW AP to let your PC bash some Myrkul devotees, but realize that there is a larger thing at stake in the emergence of Kyuss. My two cents.
FR conversion is easy. Take the supplemental materials online and use what's necessary but try to keep everything the same unless it absolutely ruins the game or brings up Greyhawk recollections from your players (my players wouldn't recognize a Greyhawk name if it bit them on the nose). I set Diamond Lake on the Sword Coast, north of Waterdeep and in the mountains, west (inland) of the Mere of Dead Men. I also changed the supplement's suggestion of making the Lizard Marsh (FR) be the Blackwall Keep setting and made the Mere the backdrop instead. That keeps the first three chapters of the AOW (WC, TFoE, BK) north of Waterdeep. Then the characters can travel south to Waterdeep for the fourth installment. As for the Ebon Triad -- Bhaal and Myrkul are not really themselves are they (one's in a crown, supposedly, the other is spread out in Bhaalspawns...) to they can't really be thwarted by the PCs. These gods will come to power as you, the DM, desires. Bane is around, yes, but how are the PCs going to really affect him. So, nothing really is in jeopardy of being ruined. The PCs have Kyuss to go after and this sect of the Triad cultists made up of outcasts from all three Gods' minions. I strongly suggest introducing the subplot of Bane cultists who HATE the Ebon Triad... they contact the PCs and want to work with them to stop the Age of Worms activities. It presents great moral dilemma for the characters (if good) or great allies (if evil).
I always emphasize that dealing with gods, even when you're a 'good' cleric, is a traumatic thing. It only gets worse at higher levels when the power you are contacting feels 'closer.' Divination magic is the most susceptible to side effects because it does call, in a way, for intervention. In addition to the "design games for higher levels comment" by Jacobs, I suggest making the higher level divinations take their toll on the cleric either through exhaustion, or perhaps through the party's reaction to him (maybe he's fine but everyone around him is affected in some way by his good/evil radiance). When you deal with gods, even those characters who are "good" or "evil" can't always withstand super-divine "good" or "evil" effects. I never let my players get away with saying, "I'm evil so evil things can't affect me." So, make high level divination magic have alternate costs in addition to what others have suggested.
Another way to prevent railroading and adventuring ennui is to keep a realistic control of your game's ECONOMY. Nothing ruins game mechanics more than gold pieces coming out of everyone's ears. After that, what's the realistic sounding character motiviation for adventuring? Fun? Most people don't walk into chaotic, life threatening situations for fun. Knowledge? Maybe, if you've crafted a campaign where your characters are truly depended upon for exploration. Mostly, the motivation is money. So, make sure your players are charged for things they buy, deduct a fee of some sort for living costs for inbetween game times, and make sure your rewards are within reason for economies. I assure the DM that a well-maintained game economy pays for itself in the long run. I keep the PCs net worth totals myself in my computer so I know what everyone spends. It's not something I do in game a lot, I review it in prep., and one or two judicious raised eyebrows when someone mentions they're buying something (expensive) keeps everyone pretty honest. Players are eager to be railroaded when they want the cash. Plus, it makes them inquire about interesting things: the value of these candlesticks? Can we hawk and of these dragon scales? All those kinds of things can either be done quickly and cleanly by the DM (again, in prep, giving the pcs a total for their loot at the beginning of the next session) or you can let those things develop into role playing with merchants, fences, etc., for clues or other adventure threads. It also ties the PCs into their actions -- if someone sees their guild candlesticks show up in a pawn shop they're going to inquire who sold them to the dealer!
This is only problematic if one's campaign faithfully follows every rule whether everyone is looking or not. If no one is there to see it, "Do 10k wraiths murder a continent?" If you have this situation happen throw in some reason why the undead seem to be congregating in the Free City instead of breaking out and destroying the known world as your PCs know it. Perhaps something with the ritual went wrong. It's keeping them clustered... with a few on the fringes able to break free once in a while (providing the impetus to acutally solve the problem rather than erect a grandstand and charge a gold piece to, "See the city of the dead!"). Of couse the same reason that's keeping them clustered is also keeping them alive... and that's what your PCs must go in and take care of... if you want your campaign to go there.
*Sigh*, if the prices of these things were uniform we wouldn't have to make these adjustments.
Laeknir has it right, I think -- if my PCs fail this part of the mission I will conduct the encounter in the arena as one that starts to get so big (the worm thrashing through the city) that it's clear the PCs should just duck, cover, and get out of town to continue their quest. Or, perhaps worm puts off some kind of undead force/cloud/whatever that basically gives the PCs a hint: don't mess with this, move on. Then, next time they have a chance to come to the city they find the 20,000 wight problem (or hear about it). Depending on how much they want to be involved with this later, I can have them meet up with "experts" and "community leaders" who are staged outside the city and help them find a solution to the problem, or perhaps they have to journey into the city (now an undead hellscape) through tunnels or sewers and see if they can find/use some artifact that could help. In any case, failure at the Champions Belt just allows another world-event to take place that you can deal with at your leisure.
Actually, if you take the time to read the full thread, not only will you see that what Gwydion said is true, but you will see a good explanation for why pre-sorted packets were considered, and rejected, by the Paizo staff. Keep in mind that a business cannot present an infinite array of product choices - they must pick and choose based on their customers and other dirty old business concerns (i.e. profit). Despite rumors to the contrary, malice against the customers is not actually one of the things considered. I would like to pay less money to see bad movies, but that is not an option. Paizo can provide item cards in non-random starters or random boosters. Providing item cards in sorted boosters creates a number of problems (as discussed ad naseum in this thread) and (is believed) to only slightly increase the chance of the product being successful. Yes, yes, yes, I've heard your marketing thoughts (analysis -- condescending parentheticals yours) but it does nothing to change my opinion. You know what? Too bad if it only slightly increases the chance of success with the product, that's my review of it and I vote with my wallet. My solution is buy one starter pack and then photocopy anything I need extras of on card stock. Simple and cheap and I get what I want. You have plenty of options, by the way, for seeing bad movies cheaper, and the options are growing in number all of the time. They are driven by consumers who shape the marketplace with their choices, like mine. If you would like to be really helpful, lend Paizo and WoTC and whomever else is involved your economic brainpower and help them solve the Minis mess.
I agree with many posts here -- those of us who are older gamers with money to spend are wary of the marketing tactics. The random cards after the first pack makes me not want to buy them. The Miniatures' variation in prices just makes no sense to me. The whole 'rarity' thing was fun when we were starting to learn our Magic: The Gathering skills but it's old hat now. Make all the cards available for the same price, let us pick and choose the ones we want and do the same with the miniatures. You'll make more money in the long run. If your description is true, then that's better. If only some common sense could be brought to miniatures pricing then we'd have some tools here we could really use (although I'd still be pissed if I bought six booster packs and failed to get an item that I need more of than came in the Initial 54 set. It's the "fishing" around that is annoying, not only for money's sake, but time. This is the kind of product I likely wouldn't buy until it had passed whatever milestone the makers think is necessary to start making the "pre-sorted" packs. They're not so helpful to my game that I'll be sorry if they go, but if the organization gets more convenient I'll be happy to use them.
I agree with many posts here -- those of us who are older gamers with money to spend are wary of the marketing tactics. The random cards after the first pack makes me not want to buy them. The Miniatures' variation in prices just makes no sense to me. The whole 'rarity' thing was fun when we were starting to learn our Magic: The Gathering skills but it's old hat now. Make all the cards available for the same price, let us pick and choose the ones we want and do the same with the miniatures. You'll make more money in the long run.
I hate the rarity of figures thing... not being able to know what I'm buying makes me not buy, it doesn't get me into a lather to buy more, contrarty to marketing beliefs. I'd love to buy some figures if I knew what I was getting and I didn't have to sit on ebay for hours trying to decipher people's crappy photos. How about a simple on-line interface from the makers of the figures where I could choose what I want and order it? Until then, I'll use my money on other things.
Let's hear the good reasons why no one has yet to make good character generation software for D&D. I've tried a lot -- there was the CD that came in the back of the PHB at one point... garbage, and no follow ups. There's codemonkey... emasculated by WOTC but still so filled with bugs you have to double check every calculation by hand to make sure your stats are right. Tympani has a lot to speak for it but it's a bit convoluted and of course, requires nearly everything to be input by hand (custom) for every character. We can land on the moon, we can transplant a face, but we can't build character generation software worth a damn. Why is that? And for the record, I don't buy the economics answer: if people buy core books they will buy something like generation software that saves them lots of time and lookup tables. (Unspoken question of this post: know of great character generation software you can share with us?)
My players began with no one who could turn and no one who was a rogue higher than level 2... so I just planted a magic item in 3FoE that will allow them to rebuke undead (as if its very power and evil doesn't need a "god" to channel the divine power) but it will also cost the player holding it a bit of life (hit point leech) so it's not entirely a "gift". As for the rogue problem, I've changed many of the DCs so they are easier to accomplish for the 2nd level rogue, and then suggested strongly that that player increase his rogue levels first before the others -- and it makes sense that he does because he will get to use the "rogue" abilities more, and thus be 'trained' in them.
I don't have anything against the Eberron setting, per se, but I find that everything Eberron was supposed to have 'added' to the game I already create in my own campaign set in FR. The "cinematic" nature people describe Eberron to contribute, the "pulp" flavor... all these things are added by a good DM. Nothing about the setting itself makes me think I should abandon all the work I've done on FR or buy the books for Eberron. "Magic" is more center stage in Eberron? Come on... FR is nothing but magic... the weave, the shadow weave... gods being involved in practically everything... nothing. but. magic. And Eberron's use of the Warforged, while fun, is just something many of us have been using for a long while -- golems with "enhanced intelligence", etc. So, I'm not an Eberron basher -- to the contrary, more settings that attract more players and interest in RPGs only serve to make more $$ available to all the other games we like, in the end. But I haven't been convinced to leave FR, the setting that comprises a majority of the materials I own. I do find it easy to pilfer from Eberron adventures in Dungeon Mag, though -- no more work than converting a 3rd level adventure, let's say, into a 8th level one.
Go get yourself the album "Passages" by Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar. 'Nuff said. Best. D&D. Music. Ever.
I chose summer specifically to avoid the treacherous winter that would beset a place like Diamond Lake (I've put my town in high mountains). I also wanted to give the town that summery feel of people outside at late hours because it's so temperate. It makes the Vein pulse with life!
I encourage players to say things like, "I'm going for his head!" and then, on a successful hit, I know where to put my description ("Your blace cuts open his chin!"). It also allows me to utilize the "effects" of called shot (although this is not in the rules) if they do massive damage. For instance, if they say they're going for the knees and then reduce the NPC/monster by something like 35%-45% of its hit points I will describe the shot effectively kneecapping the opponent and reducing their initiative place, or giving them a point of Dex loss, etc.
I think your suggestions are pretty good for the Silver Marches (I'm running it in FR, on the Sword Coast). I would consider having the Gladitorial Arena outside Silverymoon -- perhaps run by local Barbarian Tribes. It can be a kind of "Thunderdome" thing out from under the watchful eye of Alustriel. This would allow the arena to be brutal and such. I'll take a look at the Silver Marches map and see if I have any suggestions for those other places (I haven't finished reading ahead in AoW yet).
This is what you get for deviating from the Forgotten Realms (where AoW fits snugly). Down with Eberron! Long live Faerun! :)
Yeah, we play a lot, though (the one-off doesn't hold much appeal then), and they are all veteran players (25+years; i.e. set in their ways and "firm but fair" is how I have to run EVERYTHING) so it's just something everyone's decided, they want to play nothing less than 7th level... but that's fine, it just becomes our "1st level" for all intents and purposes! What is nice, though, is that all my players really use the advanced levels to make detailed characters -- so they have reasons why multiclassing has gone on or why a character is going into a prestige class, etc. It's actually pretty fun to take these lower level modules and make them tougher -- I get to add the usual "spicing up" I do to a pre-written Dungeon anyway while I"m doing it.
Just wondering how other FR DM's are altering the Overgod to reflect aspects of the Dead Three. My thoughts were to give it a skull-like head for Bhaal, and skeletal hands for Myrkul. Not sure what to do about Bane and the six arms. Any thoughts? I'm not collapsing the gods into one Overgod -- I'm keeping the three Deities separate as if the "plan" of the entire thing is to create a triumvirate. I anticipate taking any big foe that is, in the AoW adventures, a representative of a singular Overgod and either splitting it up into 3 slightly less powerful creatures or just making the singular representative only related to one god. I like the idea of keeping the gods/religions different so that I can always choose to have them betray each other, or have the party gain a temporary truce with one, etc., who is afraid the others are trying to screw them over. Having not read too far ahead, I don't know what kind of trouble my idea will get me into, but I figure at the worst I just have to do a lot of stat adjusting. Since the Bane (Hextor), in the FR history as far as I am knowledgeable, is the most powerful (or, at least, the most "established" -- I believe Bhaal & Myrkul are regaining power after their "deaths" during the Time of Troubles) I have chosen to make the Bane-followers a little more organized, a little more numerous, than the others.
We've just begun the Whispering Cairn, and the PCs are about to enter the cairn itself... the whole thing's just beginning! |
