Hey guys!
I would like to purchase the Magic 2010 Intro Deck, "Death's Minion's" from you, but there is only a generic Intro Deck option - I didn't see any way to specify which deck I wanted. I already have all of the other ones. Is it possible to order that specific deck from you?
This is a long shot, I know, but any Paizonians in the Flagstaff area? Been a little nerd deficient since I moved here, hope there are others out there. Let me know if you want to get together and chat.
I like the liberties your taking with the setting - I will probably be running a more 'traditional' Serenity game, but it's fun to consider the ways the setting can stretch. I had totally forgotten about Tales of the Golden Monkey - now I want to go watch it again. I really like the notion that Blue Sun is working for the greater good in some arcane way, but it might take a little tweaking to use that in my campaign since I don't plan on introducing aliens.
By all means pilfer away! I'll be interested to see what you do with the setting as well. My initial concept was for a gradually expanding scope for the game - For the first 2 sessions they'll be confined to Athens until they get their hands on a ship - which has a blown pulse drive limiting them to Athens and it's four moons until they can scrape together enough cash to get her repaired and off into the rest of the verse - Even then I am probably going to invent some licensing issue that restricts them to the Rim for a while until they can resolve it. Since there isn't a whole lot written up about the Verse, I thought this would be a good way for me to portion out detailing it as well as letting the players learn how it looks from 'eye level'.
As promised, the PCs:
Rose Robertson: Born to a couple of theater managers on Paquin, Rose never took to the arts at all and instead applied for and was accepted to the MedAcad on Sihnon. She had largely completed her training and was undergoing final certification when she was literally struck by lightning. She was hospitalized for several weeks afterward and even when totally physically healed, the jolt had blown a fuse or two in her brain and while she still had the technical know how to perform surgery and the like, she rather pointedly lacked the discipline and composure. Lacking her official certification she returned to Paquin where she studied holistic medicine from a collection of Gypsies and Houdoun. She got itchy feet and traveled for a spell finding herself on Athens during the Independent Invasion. She took up residence in the Buddhist community of Wu Li Song outside of town and tended to the civilian casualties of the war. She has maintained a small home decorated with herbs, medical gear, and sundry bits and trinkets she picked in her wandering days.
Johnny Farham Jr.: Johnny was raised in a pacifist Buddhist community on Hera, but when the Unification War started he found that the Independent's cause resonated deeply with him. He lied about his age and joined the Browncoats. He had always had a knack for piloting and this landed him advanced training in the army - he was soon running reinforcements, supplies, and medboats through some of the hottest battles on New Shanghai. He was on his home planet of Hera resupplying the Serenity Valley when Independent High Command called a surrender. His sensors showed that there was still pitched fighting ahead and he wanted to make one last run, but his copilot pulled a handgun on him in the cockpit and demanded that he comply with orders. The Independents were disbanded and Johnny was turned out into the Verse with nothing but disillusionment and a long brown duster to show for his trouble. He hired out as a pilot for a while eventually flying for a drug running outfit, but they were nabbed by the Alliance and he got a year in the lockdown. When he got out an old Independent buddy waved him and got him a job running ore to orbit and back from Athen's 2nd moon, Pyrrhic. A boring job to be sure, but it's been keeping him in credits and out of trouble until the next thing comes along.
Helen Roth: Born on Beylix - the Alliance's unofficial trash planet - Helen's family made a living salvaging the junk that littered their homeworld. Her mother died when she was just a child and her father's health steadily deteriorated from a combination of contaminated water and soft radiation leakage that was very nearly unavoidable on the planet. Helen learned the basics of scrapping when she was just a child, and after she managed to find and repair a Cortex mainframe, she taught herself as much about mechanics and repair work as she could. She had a quick mind and nigh inexhaustible spare parts and she soon gained a reputation for getting things running again - maybe not as they were initially designed but running none the less. It was a grim hard life - caring for her ailing father and acting as the sole breadwinner but Helen persisted and made things as comfortable as possible. When her dad's health finally gave out, Helen resolved to get off this rock that had killed both her parents. She did an overhaul on a fairly wealthy private vessel that had made an emergency landing on Beylix, asking only a berth in trade - passage to wherever they were headed. She landed on Athens and made a respectable life for herself running a mechanic's shop before the Alliance bombed it to a smoking crater. Now Edensgate looks a bit too much like Beylix and Helen is contemplating her next move.
Here's how it is. This is going to be my campaign journal for the Serenity game I'm running. It's for my own memory as much as for others to read but I figured if I'm going to type it up I might as well put it somewhere others could see it if they cared. I am going to try to keep things in line with the series as much as possible but being that there's so little official content, I'll be making some up on the fly and I'm going to try to retcon as little as possible. That being said: Here's my little write up of Athens that I sent the players prior to the game.
Athens: Before the Unification War, Athens was known as 'The Jewel of the Rim” It is a large planet that took well to terraforming, supporting a great host of life from Earth-that-was. Vast oceans, sweeping plains interrupted by wide slow rivers, and steep heavily forested mountains dominate the largely temperate planet, and other than rapidly shifting weather and unfortunately frequent tectonic activity, it is as receptive to human colonization as could be hoped for. Originally settled as a scientific outpost to study the flora and fauna in hopes to recreate this degree of success elsewhere, Athens is now home to several Buddhist temple communities in the mountains, a few trading posts serving the sprawling ranches and marble quarries, and a handful of growing cities patterned after the solar panel lined skyscrapers and shining tube lines of the capital metropolis, Edensgate.
Athens supported Unification and became a hotly contested battleground through most of the war. After a flawlessly executed surprise attack, the Browncoats captured Edensgate, and in a grinding ground campaign eventually succeeded in claiming the whole planet. Rather than commit the resources to liberating Athens, the Alliance elected to withdraw, but not before orbitally bombarding all major population centers killing untold numbers of Independents and innocent civilians alike. Refugees flooded to the smaller untouched rural communities or set up shanty towns on the edges of the ruined cities. Three years after Unification Day the Alliance gave rights to Unified Reclamation to license legal salvage operations in the ruins, resulting in a boom of scrappers and smugglers come to pick over the ruined metropolis.
My PCs are a kind of eclectic lot, (as PCs tend to be) but I think they'll do. I'll write them up next time.
Hey everybody! A relatively infrequent DM here starting to collect threads for a new campaign - the New WoD Werewolf set in the Wild West. I saw Arcane Joe's Wild West Post and have already mined it and I have the old WoD Werewolf Wild West book, but I thought I'd toss the notion to the boards and see what other Paizonians would do with this concept. Probably gonna set it in the Idaho, Montana, Wyoming neck of the woods revolving around a little burg with a railway running through it. Just big enough to support colorful western life (read: whorehouses) and serve as a place where farmers and grazers can butt heads. What would you do with that setting?
Also, I haven't read any of the Werewolf: the Forsaken books except the core, do we get a treatment of werewolf history in any of the products?
Mrr. I tacked a post up a week or so ago about not being able post very often but it got eaten. I keep thinking that my schedule will free up and it keeps failing to. If you want to keep toting along an ominously silent barbarian in the background, I might actually catch up at some point, but if you wanted her to just fade into the sunset and recruit a new player, that's totally cool too. Sorry I've not kept up.
It is with a heavy heart that I cancel my Pathfinder AP subscription for the time being. Not for lack of quality, thanks for the great products, ladies and gentlemen. Keep up the good work.
Poor Ross. Hang tight. Ex Lege is more or less couch surfing at this point, which is, I assume, why he hasn't posted. I will poke him the next time I talk to him.
Ha! No I meant the wine! Sorry, should've made that more clear, I was posting really fast. But I'll run with it if you want, so long as it doesn't kill her.
FYI, I'm moving across the country as of tomorrow, so my posts will be spotty for the next few days. Ross, feel free to play Karista with impunity. See y'all on the other side.
I am but I, but I totally dug the Andoran art. It's art, fer chrissake's. If you want to discuss proportions, check out Michelangelo's David, and then talk to me about proportion. If you can convey what you're shooting for better with imperfect proportions, more power to you.
Karista was setting up for a coup de grace. She's not paying attention to Verronax, just making with the rage stab. Whatever happened to cure light wounds?
Also, do ballistic pistols still need atmosphere to fire in DS or not so much because of the binary propellant? If so, how does lower density atmosphere effect firearm performance?
Even contemporary firearms don't need atmosphere to fire: It's hard to make things explode when waiting for oxygen from air. Gunpowder gets it's oxidation from saltpeter (potassium nitrate). Smokeless powders use ground-up guncotton, which is an explosive, and requires no outside reactants to explode.
Guns don't behave well underwater because gunpowder won't deflagrate when wet and because of the extra obstruction created by water in the barrel. Guns work great in vacuum, because there is no drag to affect their trajectory.
Most excellent. Thank you for the science lesson, Ross. The only science I was ever any good at was when it was math pretending to be science. I didn't want an intelligence 18 character to be pulling a piece that was completely useless under the circumstances.
Ooh, and just to be clear, I decided that I'm going to get the pdf of the Gazeteer, so if you could just erase the Guide to Korvosa print edition order, please. Thanks.
I sort of justified this to myself by assuming that any enchantment on a bonded item only worked for the bonded wizard. But that opens another can of worms...
Hey Cosmo, could you please cancel my order of the Guide to Korvosa? I meant to pick up the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazeteer instead. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Check. Managed to skim right over that somehow. Karista should be Alpha 2 compliant. Bluff tanked and Sense Motive is gone, but I picked up Knowledge nature in the deal, so you know. Meh. I actually feel better about this Power Attack. It is a good balance.
Ross - still waiting for that ruling on the variant rage. If you want to go totally core for the purposes of playtest and simplicity, I'm cool with that. I prefer this one but it's all good either way.
Power Attack: Add an amount equal to your Strength
modifier (or your base attack bonus, whichever is lower)
to your melee damage rolls for one round...
So I believe you should be:
Melee Falchion +5 (2d4+6, 18-20); Raging: Falchion +7 or +5/+5 (2d4+9) ; Power Attack: Falchion +4 (2d4+8); Rage and Power Attack: +6 or +4/+4 (2d4+11)
... Wow.. I thought you might have some tears for losing that +21 damage.. but +6 or +4/+4 for 2d4+11? Wow.
Where did you get this Majuba? I just redownloaded the Prpg to make sure I didn't miss an update but it looks the same...
Don't have enough consciousness left to update character sheet, but I will by sunday night or mon morn at the latest.
Yeah I am in the 'only care about results' camp. Especially in a pbp where I don't get to physically chuck dice anyway. So, to clarify, it's ok with you if I never do rolls? I am happy to if it's easier for you, but I'd rather just say 'full attack on the dire rat' or 'roll deception to discern whether he's lying'.
So Ross, what's your preference for dice rolling? Do you want us to do it in advance a la Taemin, or just let you handle it? I frankly prefer the latter. It seems like it would be more streamlined if we can just declare our intention and let you handle the DCs, modifiers, rolling etc., but that's certainly more work for you. Your call.
Has anybody worked up a kit to bump old 3.5 classes to the new pathfinder standard? I poked around a bit in the forums and couldn't find anything along these lines. I mean, it's pretty clear that there's been a power bump, I was wondering if there was any standardized way to keep classes like the warlock, duskblade, scout, ninja etc. on par. Maybe one feat level choice (with options for +1AC, +1CL, Spell-like ability, etc.) every few levels?
I will probably try my hand at an update template in the next few days, but I thought I'd see if anyone else had already done the leg work. Even better, maybe there's already one in the works for the appendix of PRPG?
Thanks!
Alright. I've caught up on my sleep. Expect a Harrow reading later today.
I am assuming that you didn't randomly draw those cards, because damn. The odds of the 5 cards picked in the choosing all showing up in the spread are absurdly low. Good reading though, I liked it quite a bit. Do you have the physical cards or were you just working with the abbreviated rules in the AP?
It's written very ham-handedly. I think the notion was that you shouldn't just assume that monks and barbarians get it - you need to justify why. my 2 bits.
Additionally: Sasha you have an extra feat choice. The technical proficiency feat is "free" as per the book. You get it when your backstory justifies it. Merry Christmas.
Sorry for the delay. took a little work to get Steve and I in the same room to hammer out all the expository bits. Last speed bump I hope, let's see if we can get some momentum. If no one has any questions I'll probably post again late tomorrow night or thurs afternoon at the latest and get things rocking.
Ok she is updated to new stat load out. I'd appreciate it if someone could double check my power attack math again, it always feels wrong to me somehow.
The other perk of this is that I feel like I stepping on Haedrik's toes a lot less. Let me know if it's a go.
Hey Ross...I'm thinking I might redo Karista's stats a bit before we actually get to the dice rolling. The Harrow deck is kind of a big deal in this path from what I've skimmed and I like her as the bear so I'll probably put the stat bump into str instead of dex. Also, I think I'm going to shuffle her socials to Int 10 Wis 12 and Cha 8 both because I feel that's a little more the way she's ended up now that I'm playing her and it will also give me a bit more flexibility later on if I decide not to play her as a straight down the ticket barbarian. I'll go a ahead and retool her numbers but I'll save a back up so I can keep her as she was if you don't want me changing. Thanks.
It's a pretty good article, and I tend to be pretty critical of deity writeups. (I read the pdf too, though I usually get the mag within a few days of shipping. I live like 20 minutes from Paizo.)
So...Janx/Jam hasn't posted in a week...is there a cut off point?
Did I just hallucinate Haedrik's post a minute ago? I'm glad I checked before I posted a response...**EDIT**aaaand it's back. I'm feeling a little crazy.
Yeah going to go ahead and switch Thrown to Bows for Karista. I really wanted the bola but, in the end K picking up a bow makes a lot more sense than a shuriken or what have you.
So are we implementing the Pathfider RPG revisions as we go? because one of the 1.1 revisions reads
Pathfinder Development Notes #1 wrote:
"Human Racial Traits (pg 7): Add the following ability
to the human racial traits. “Weapon Training:
Humans are proficient with any one weapon of
their choice, in addition to those granted by class
proficiencies. This weapon must be chosen at 1st
level and cannot be changed.”
. If this is the case, I'll take the shoanti bola for my 'free' weapon choice and spend the exotic weapon feat on some thing else.
I ended up putting the stat bump into dex instead of con, I like that her highest stat changes from dex to str when she's raging. She's all retconned and ready to ride, I do believe.
I believe Karista is compliant now as well. I am still not totally decided on Con for my stat bump, but it was the quickest to do, and I don't want Karista overshadowing any other character's schticks. If I didn't do Con I'd probably bump her Dex - I have a hard time stomaching that 18 str right out of the gate, I've had to deal with too many munchkins to breathe easy about it. Plus Con is more barbarian-y anyway. See anything I missed?
Hit Points/Dice: 11/11 (1d6 hit dice + 1 CON, +1 FC, Toughness)
AC: 15
Flat-footed: 11
Touch: 15
Fortitude: 1 (base 0, CON 1)
Reflex: 4 (base 0, DEX 4)
Will: 1 (base 2, WIS -1)
Class Features:
Bloodline: Naturally, Kib has the draconic bloodline! He is descended from a mighty red dragon!
Bonus Feat: All sorcerers learn Chew Materials as a bonus feat at first level. This helps ensure Kib always can cast burning hands!
Spellcasting: Sorcerers need not prepare spells in advance, but they know only a few spells. Kib can cast 5 first level spells a day! He only knows 2 first level spells and 4 cantrips though!
Special Notes: If you are at least one size category smaller than your target and have taken no effective offensive actions that your target has seen, you gain a +5 circumstance bonus on bluff checks to feign harmlessness.
Traits:
Bandit: Since you were young, you’ve been a member of one bandit gang or another.
Benefit: Choose one of the following skills: Escape Artist, Intimidate, or Stealth.
You gain a +1 trait bonus on that skill, and it is always a class skill for you.
Piracy: You have been caught in the act of piracy on the high seas. This is a rare crime these days since Markadian I called the Victorious burned the last major pirate fleet to threaten these isles. Still the crime is punished harshly. Likely you are the sole survivor of your ship.
Punishment: Death by hanging
Benefit: You may select either Bluff or Intimidate.
The selected skill receives a +2 trait bonus and is always a class skill for you.
Racial Traits:
Racial traits are as standard (link in race) with the following exceptions.
Dragon Affinity: Kobold sorcerers with the draconic bloodline or kobold bloodline treat their Charisma scores as 2 points higher for all sorcerer spells and class abilities. This racial trait replaces the armor trait. This puts his charisma at 18 for spells and class abilities.
Day Raider: You’re one of the few kobolds born with a greater tolerance for sunlight. You don’t have light sensitivity, and you have low-light vision instead of darkvision. This racial trait replaces light sensitivity and darkvision.
Spellcaster Sneak: Traversing the tunnels near big, nasty, hungry creatures, you learned to keep quiet- and to keep your spells quiet too. You gain a +2 racial bonus on Stealth checks, and once per day you can gain the benefit of the Silent Spell feat on a spell you cast. This racial trait replaces crafty.
Pyromaniac (3 RP): Prerequisites - None.
Benefit: Members of this race are treated as +1 level higher when casting spells with the fire descriptor, using granted powers of the Fire domain, using bloodline powers of the fire elemental bloodline, using the revelations of the oracle’s flame mystery, and determining the damage of alchemist bombs that deal fire damage. This trait does not give members of this race early access to level-based powers; it only affects powers that they could already use without this trait. If a member of this race has a Charisma score of 11 or higher, it also gains the following spell-like abilities (the caster level is equal to the user’s character level):
1/day—dancing lights, flare, prestidigitation, produce flame
Equipment:
Current Money: 0 GP 0 SP 0 CP
Current Load: 0 lbs.
Kib knew happiness when he was small. He could fish in the tide pools for easy food. His matriarch Sindrasa trusted him to bring her succulent fish and sear them right before her eyes. Trust was what filled his belly. Trust was what gave him a comfortable bed. Trust made him Sindrasa's favorite consort.
Then the pirates came. Coming ashore in numbers with nets and harpoons. His matriarch, whom he revered as a queen trusted him to help her escape, and Kib was happy to do so. He did not expect her to hamstring him with his own hooked fishing line. He was taken easily, with so many others of his kind.
The pirates had no interest in most of the kobolds they took. They tossed more than a dozen from their boat. Those who could swim were wounded and thrown overboard. Those who could were thrown to the sharks after. Only those with pretty scales and talent as slaves were kept. Kib was their biggest prize. His scales a deep scarlet. His horns unchipped, symetrical, and pristine. He could speak, bow and scrape. More than that, he could work magic. He was spared.
He was never left with his hands untied to weave magic. Not after Kib slipped a captor and spent several days hiding. The captain did not have him gagged though. The captain trusted money. Kib could be worth even more money if he could sell himself. Lie about being the servant of a great dragon. Lie about treasure. Lie about his potential as a mage. It was trust that spared him the beatings other slaves received. It was trust that ensured he received gruel every day. It was trust that he was kept in the captain's cabin.
Then the pirates came under attack. Other humans fought the pirates. Fought to free their slaves. Kib saw in the eyes of the soldier though. He saw it clear. He did not trust a kobold. So Kib burnt him to death. He would have hidden, but the scorched coin purse of the soldier gave way and shiny silver fell free. Kib was caught trying to scoop up those precious coins. He was not freed, but imprisoned.
Trust is why Kib is still alive. Trust is why he lives to see his punishment meted out. Trust is a commodity that Kib understands very well. He will not give it, but he will have it. Until the value of your trust declines.
