IgorRock's page

OK, so here is my magic item. I really would appreciate any comments about this one, because I really like it (and as soon as I find a new RPG group over here in Halifax, I will for sure use it... :-)

Here we go:
Pearl Of Ponding
Aura Moderate varied; CL 8
Slot none; Price 3,750 gp; Weight -
Description
This blue-brown shimmering pearl of average size can be hurled up to 60 feet. Upon impact it breaks and releases a gush of muddy, poisonous water – enough to form some seemingly normal and shallow looking puddles on the nearest, almost flat, 10x10 feet area below the point of impact. These puddles stay for 2 hours (or until triggered).
Any creature standing in or walking into this area triggers the following effects:

• The area is instantly replaced by a perfect illusion of it.
  
• An extra dimensional, 40 feet deep hole with wet coarse stone walls forms (Climb DC 25) .
  
• 30 feet of the hole is filled with the same water as in the puddles.
  
• The hole itself and the area above it (10 feet height) is silenced (as in the spell silence).
  

Speaking of funny foreign names:

I happen to know a (really good looking) Asian girl whose first name is "Takemi" - I think that's really not the best first name for someone studying in an English speaking country... ;)

All those "real name" or not issues always remind me of this one:

Who is Bobby Tables?

*SCNR* - I really love that one.

Hm, only one thing - difficult... but since i only have one go (and I think the "big" ones will be mentioned by others anyway - hopefully =), I go for the good old "Why the hell are ranged weapons not allowed to be keen anymore???". I've searched the forum, but couldn't find a single reference to this - maybe nobody realized this change up to now (or I was simply to stupid to find it, could be possible as well ;-).

I really can't see a single reason why a high precision weapon like a bow (or crossbow, or even thrown darts, most of these weapons are used in sport competitions, and boy, can these guys be precise with them) firing piercing projectiles (or, in case of the darts, actually are a piercing weapon) shouldn't be allowed to get the Keen special ability.

If I have a very fine but strong keen steel edge at the top of a dart, it makes perfectly sense that it has a greater threat range as a dart with, let's say, a masterwork but thicker iron edge, because it goes in more easily (which means: deeper, doing more damage).

Or, to use the example with the bow, why a very well crafted bow which bestows something like e.g. a "Teflon-like-coating" on the arrows fired from it (which would enable the arrow to better pass through most types of armor and could be called "Keen" for sure) shouldn't improve the chance of a critical hit on the target compared to an arrow fired with another very well crafted bow but without a similar ability.

Just my 2 cents.

Rob McCreary wrote:

Ranger Combat Style Feats

There are some problems with the Ranger’s combat style feats.

First, Table 4-10 lists a combat style feat at 10th level, but in the Combat Style Feat entry itself, new feats are added to the list at 11th level. Should this availability be changed to 10th level to match when the ranger actually gains a new feat?

Y'know, I thought this was weird at first too, but on rethinking it, it basically means that you have (list A) from which you can choose with the CS feats you get up to 10th level, and then (list B) from which you can choose afterwards. It basically prevents taking a (list B) feat with your 10th level bonus feat.

A simple question: what's the sense in that? If you shouldn't be able to get the new feats at level 10 but should be able to get them on level 14, why should they be available "At 11th level"? Either they should be available at level 10 OR at level 14 - level 11 just doesn't make sense.

I think there is a simple glitch in the "translation" to Pathfinder. In 3.5, the ranger gets his combat style bonus feats on levels 2, 6 and 11, while in Pathfinder he gets his CSFs at levels 2, 6, 10, 14 and 18. So the "11" is just a "leftover" from 3.5 - and thus a type.

Since Pathfinder tries to "improve" the original base classes, I really think the new feats should be available at level 10.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,
Igor[Rock]

From a realism standpoint (and history/weaponry buffs, feel free to correct me) isn't being hit by a sharp sword generally deadlier than being struck by an arrow?

Ouch - wrong example. Ask the French knights about how deadly the English longbows were in the Hundred Year's War...

Bows in general were quite impressive and effective. If you need earlier examples, just think about the Huns - they won nearly every battle with their bows and fast horses (they were the first ones who learned to shoot while riding with nearly full speed - which was devastating for their enemies).

If you (as someone who commands a few archers) had a position which couldn't be reached very, very fast by the other side (e.g. some higher rocks or on the other side of a deeper river or because there is a small force of footmen in front of you), longbows are a very deadly and precise weapon. And remember that without a plate armor (if you were wearing chain shirt, banded mail, whatever), you're simply dead meat against a good archer - he will kill you before you're even close enough to use your sword (and if you think you can "wipe" or "snatch" away the arrow like the Kung-Fu masters in some movies - I recommend watching the corresponding Mythbusters episode... ;-)

Cheers,
Igor[Rock]

(If you don't know French and English history to well: the English long-bow archers were the main cause for the knights to disappear altogether. The "Battle of Crécy" was a complete disaster for the heavy-armoured french knights, it is generally seen as the end of chivalry...
If you want to know more about this, have a look at the corresponding
Wikipedia entry about this battle.)

Also, in addition to OpenOffice, Star Office 8 is also offered free via Google. I find that while I like OpenOffice, Star Office is a little better.

I've added a corresponding link to Google's software pack to the web page. As I said: I'm using OOo, because AFAIK Star Office is only free for Windows (from Google), and my main OS is Debian Linux.

But I still have some old purchased Star Office versions laying around here in my "old software" heap. I think my first one was Star Office 3 ;-)

Quite awesome, thank you!

By the way - I think you 'fixed' the wrong entry - Disable Device is still "Int" instead of Dex, and Disguise is listed as "Dex" instead of "Cha". Typo on Handle Animal.

Looks really good - I've wanted an easily adjustable sheet.

*GRMBL* damn, Damn, DAMN! Looks like I slipped down a cell and changed "Disguise" instead :-/

Should both be fixed now, thank you for pointing it out!

And you're welcome ;-)

D'oh! I totally forgot to mention that adding "Pathfinder is a trademark of Paizo Publishing, LLC." would be appropriate.

Though it's not legally required, adding something along the lines of "This [object] is not endorsed or licensed by Paizo Publishing, LLC." would be good, and we'd likewise appreciate it if, where appropriate, you included a link along the lines of "For more information about the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, please visit http://paizo.com/pathfinderrpg."

Thanks!

I really should have thought of that myself, sorry. I've changed the sheets (and the web page) accordingly.

As already promised in this thread, I just wanted to tell everybody that after some smaller changes my self-made editable character sheets for Pathfinder are available for download now.

I've created a web page with some additional information and download links: d20 Tools for Fantasy Campaigns

If you just want to know how these character sheets look like, you can have a look at Hornswell Hike, my current character in one of Zaister's groups. The equipment is missing though, because we're still using PCGen to create the inventory (with a dummy character). That's easier (and faster) than to type everything into the new sheet by hand 8-)

If you find any errors/bugs in the sheets (beside the glitches already mentioned on the download page of course), please tell me: igor@rock-clan.de.

Have fun!

[treading carefully]

In the future (and we're not ready to promise a more specific date) we'll have a fan site policy that will cover such things. In the meantime, please let copyright and trademark law (especially provisions for Fair Use), and the provisions for open content under the OGL, be your guide.

For now, it sounds to me* like the only thing you've done that's a bit dodgy is use our logo. Our fan site policy will likely cover how you can use it, but since that policy isn't even close to done, I'd rather not give you permission to do something we might have to have you change later. So for now, it'd probably be best if you remove the logo. (You can say that it's for use with the Pathfinder RPG, though.)

*Note that I haven't looked at the actual sheet, plus I'm not a lawyer.

Thanks for the answer, Vic.

I removed the official Pathfinder Logo from the sheets and replaced it with a simple self-made "Pathfinder" text image. I have created a web page where you can download the files and on which I put some links to Paizo and the Pathfinder page at Paizo (as reference to the original character sheet PDF from Paizo which I tried to resemble).

You can find the editable Open Office Version of the Pathfinder character sheets made by me here.

It would be nice if someone from Paizo could have a look at the page (and the sheets, of course) and tell me if I have to change or add anything else to be lawful good with this one... =)

Have fun,
Igor[Rock]
P.S. I'll open a new thread to announce the sheets, as I promised above ;-)

If you want an editable sheets, try Hero Forge. They have a great program for character management that they update every few month with the latest info, including Pathfinder RPG. You can even add your own spells, feats, etc. I talked to them at Origins and their next update will be in August and have the Beta Relase in it.

HeroForge is a free Excel spreadsheet ...

If you read some of my later posts, you will recognize that I don't OWN Excel and that I DON'T WANT TO BUY Excel and that I'm perfectly fine with OpenOffice, thanks anyway. As a matter of fact, I think it might be quite difficult to use it with Linux - which is the operating system I'm using most of the time. Yes, there is WINE, but why should I make such efforts only to run a program which costs too much (of my hard earned) money, which I don't like at all and which is published by a company named Microsoft which I deeply mistrust - when I can have the same functionality for free with OOo (which IMHO has a better UI and which is running as a native program on all the operating systems I'm using on my different computers)?

Don't get me wrong, it's fine that there are projects like Hero Forge (and others), but as you can see, they're not the right thing for everyone. The same is true for some other tools which are only available for one single operating system.

Just my 2 cents,
Igor[Rock]

One of my players took the existing pdf from Paizo and added forms to it. I'll see if he can send it to me to post.

As already stated: The original one from Paizo has some bugs...

EDIT: I forgot to mention that this was my first thoughts as well (using Cabaret or some similar tools), but to be honest: it was faster to create my own one with OOo than to add the edit fields to the original PDF in a nice and good looking way 8-)

Also, there's a great character generator program here. It's still in beta stages, but seems to work very well for creating PFRPG characters. When the Beta comes out ad is updated, I expect to see this updated as well.

Sorry, I'll stay with PCGen. I'm using it for years now, and I'm absolutely sure there will be a Pathfinder compatible version soon (maybe I should mention that I'm playing in one of Zaister's groups... 8-)

I like the sheet alot, is Open Office part of Office 2000, or is it something else altogether. Reason I'm asking is I've been thinking of doing my own sheet for a home game using Pathfinder rules but blank skills (I want more skills then what is offical Pathfinder) and Dodge & Parry rules form Conan (wouldn't ask that to become offfical but trust me it works, just keep Armor AC and Shileds + to Parry). Problem is never made a character sheet in my life and trying to get any tips on how to do it or where to begin.

Thanks for any help Dre.

OpenOffice is an office suit which is open source and completely free (it's a successor of SUNs Star Office suit, which is the same as OpenOffice now - but with additional commercial tools and support). It has very good import/export filters for all Microsoft formats (and a whole lot of others as well) and it's the only office suit I'm using (why should I throw away money to Microsoft if I can have nearly the same functionality for free?). And it can export PDF directly (the newest V3 beta can even import PDF - although I don't know how good this works, I'm using V2).

For more info (and to get it), see OpenOffice.org. If you already have Microsoft Office, you can install it simply beside it - they won't disturb each other (be sure to check your default application for opening files from Explorer, though. I'm not sure if OOo changes them - but I think it will ask you if it should during installation).

And to answer the next question before anybody asks it:

NO, I won't publish the sheets for Microsoft Word. I don't have it. Very simple. That's it. Beside that, everybody can download OOo for free, so why should I publish anything in a format which would only support proprietary software (for which people have to pay)?

Well if and when you are able to post this file please make a big stink of it so I can notice and download one :)

I'll sure do! :-D

zwyt wrote:

Pax Veritas wrote:

What is with the Spellcraft = Dex modifier...? Did I miss this change? I know its on the Alpha 3 character sheet, but has anyone fixed it, or am I unclear about something?

Oh yeah according to the Alpha 3 book Spellcraft should be Int not Dex, yeah that needs to be fixed unless I missed something too but I looked it up in the book just to be sure.

Charles

Seems like there might have been another skill that was messed up too; having the wrong ability associated with it but I am not sure.

Charles

Thanks for pointing this out! As I said, I used the character sheet available from Paizo as PDF as model, not the corresponding data from the book. Now I compared the skills with the book and yes, there are actually three(!) skills with wrong ability modifier in the sheet!

I corrected the corresponding entries (Disable Device is Dex, not Int, Spellcraft is Int, not Dex and Swim is Str, not Dex) and uploaded the updated one to my server (to the same URL as before).

I'll buy the 4E screen which is supposed to be sturdy book cover strength and print my own PFRPG charts to glue onto it :)

I really, really like that idea! =)

First of all, the character sheet for Pathfinder available as download from Paizo doesn't have any editable fields (the ones you could use with Adobe Acrobat Reader), so I created a new one by myself for OpenOffice 2.

I tried to stay as close as possible to the original, so I downloaded the Pathfinder Logo from this page and added it to the sheet as well. Here is an example PDF (generated by OpenOffice) of my current character: Hornswell Hike.

Our role-playing group is going to use these self-made character sheets for our characters until PCGen is able to handle Pathfinder characters.

But I can imagine that there are other RPG groups who would like to have an editable version as well, so my question to Paizo is:

Am I allowed to make my editable OpenOffice version available to others on my webpage or are there any license/copyright problems?

I don't want to get into any legal troubles... :-)

Cheers,
Igor[Rock]

Hi all!

(beware, long posting! And please excuse my bad english, I'm not a native speaker)

I've some thoughts/ideas about the druids wildshape special, which I want to discuss with you. First of all, some information about me: I'm a long time RPG player (about 23 years now, and one campaign ran for over 10 years and even switched from one system to another more than once in that time), so IMHO I'm at least a little bit experienced in this area ;-)

But back on topic:
I can understand that you had to nerf the druid a little bit more than even the polymorph errata did - he was clearly too overpowered. But, as always, there is a big BUT if you do something like this without changing other things. While it's fine to change something which overpowers a class, you should be aware that (to keep this class interesting to play) you shouldn't overshoot the mark in doing so.

Let's start from the beginning: Why does a druid need wildshape, anyway?

That's a good question and I came up with some answers:

1. To be able to effectively attack enemies in physical combat (that's the one the druid in 3.5 is mainly build on). You wildshape into a dire bear and, boy, this stupid fighter looks like a wimp. This is way too overpowered and gets boring very fast (for everyone beside the druids player, that is).

2. If the druid gets engaged in physical combat, he can fight (like a cleric), but it's much more impressive if he changes to some wild animal/elemental/plant and does so. It would be OK just to scare enemies so much that they won't attack him at all.

3. To get some place he wouldn't be able to reach as a human(-like) being, e.g. he wildshapes into a snake to pass the portcullis in a dungeon, to an eagle to sound out the situation from above or into a heavy horse to get someone from one place to another - fast. I think this is what the wildshape special was meant to be.

4. To adopt to some environments which would/could be harmful for him in his normal form, e.g. when drowning, falling off a cliff, being surrounded by a forest fire or hit by a mud landslide and so on.

So, what can we do to change the druid to something which is worth playing but without giving him to much power? And how can we archive this without penalizing him compared to the other classes?

IMHO, the druids wildshape should be even more different to the beast shape and other spells than it's right now. I would like my druid to be a fearsome creature which can unleash the power of nature to his advantage - to protect himself. You see, a druid is e.g. very limited in the kind of armor he is able to wear. So why don't we use wildshape to get him some (small) advantages? Let me explain:

1. A druid should be able to wildshape at will as a standard action (same as it is right now), but he should be able to change into the appropriate creature for the environment/surrounding as a free action if he is in danger. Let him loose his DEX bonus when doing so and let other people have an attack of opportunity if he does it as a free action, that's fine. This would mean your druid falls from a cliff, but is able to wildshape into a bird before hitting the ground. Or if he is submerged and close to drowning (because he ran out of air) and can wildshape as a free action before doing so. He should only be able to change as a free action in the round in which he would take damage if he doesn't. This would add a lot of flavor and would be in accordance with most of the fantasy druid stories I heard. If this is still to powerful for you, simply define that he has to make a will save to prevent himself from wildshaping if such a condition appears.

2.a. Variant 1: let the druid get the special abilities as already mentioned in the corresponding beast shape, elemental body and plant shape spells. Most of them should be the actual reason for the druid to wildshape, anyway. Let him get a little bit of ability bonuses as well - even less than stated in the spells, but don't let them be enhancement bonuses. They should stack with the "standard" items.

2.b. Variant 2: Let wildshape be exactly what the name already says: a shape or hull, but not much more. Let his equipment meld into the new form, but keep its function (like it does with an enlarge spell, but in this case without the change in size). This means that your druid with his hide armor, wooden shield and his "scimitar+1, keen" would still attack and defend himself as if he was using them (even if you can't see them anymore). Other size related changes - like reach - should of course apply. If you use this variant, let the ability bonuses simply nullify the size modifiers (so the normal AC bonus for being small would be nullified - as well as the AC malus for being huge). This means: "no strength or dexterity bonus through wildshape at all".

3. If you nerf the druids wildshape like that (it doesn't matter if with variant 1 or 2), let him still be able to communicate with the others. No one really cares anyway - the player will be talking to other players while his character is in wildshape anyway, no matter what. That's simply a matter of fact, sorry for that. Enforcing the silence on a player never works out. Someone will be pissed all the time (either the GM, the player or even both). This of course means, that the druid would be able to cast spells with only verbal components while in wildshape - without taking any feat (but it would give away that the dog accompanying the group actually is a druid in wildshape (with natural spell, he would be just another barking dog...).

4. A druid should be able to use something I would like to call a "daunting aura" while in wildshape. Normally, while wildshaped, the druid resembles a perfectly normal animal/elemental/plant, but sometimes he would like to make it clear that it wouldn't be a good idea to attack him (for Terry Pratchett Fans: this is what I would like to call the "Greebo effect" :) ). This means that if the druid activates this aura, everybody in, let's say, 30 feet radius will have to make a will save (depending on the wild shape level. Hm, maybe the radius should be defined by that as well) against fear. If he misses his will save, he will get something equivalent to either Shaken, Frightened, Panicked or Cowered - but only in regards to the wildshaped druid. This means that if he e.g. is frightened, he would get the -2 penalty to every action against or from the druid. He won't run away as long as there ar other enemies to fight, but he would try to avoid fighting the druid at all costs. Of course, if you add such an aura, variant 1 from above is no choice anymore. You could even restrict the number of times a druid should be able to use this aura, let's say wildshape level*2, running for 1 round per 2 class levels which give you wildshape (ranger, druid, arcane hierophant, ...).

I think that's pretty much it. I think that especially the Variant 2 from above combined with 1, 3 and 4 would be a very nice character to play - even though he wouldn't be much of a fighter anymore. One could argue that these changes bring the druid to close to a cleric, but I don't think so.

IMHO the current ruleset in Alpha 3 is suboptimal - for both sides, as well for the side who wants to play a strong, impressive and interesting character as for the other side, which still thinks that giving away +1 ability scores over hours "for free" is a very bad idea.

If you are reading this right now - after reading everything above - you have a lot of patience! 8-)

What do you think? Is this something to consider and to improve the druid for gameplay and flavor?

Have fun,
Igor[Rock]
(If you find some spelling errors, feel free to keep them ;)