Jackie Porphyrogenita's page

The basic idea of what I'm looking for is the Manakete from Fire Emblem. Manaketes, for those who don't want to or can't read the link, is a race/class of humanoids that turn into dragons.

I am aware of Dragonkin from Starfinder and the Taninim race from Rite Publishing.

Theses are fine options but I'd like the ability to play a human who can turn into a dragon. The best option I have so far is to tweak the Taninim race and their corresponding class Dragonic Exemplar.

Any advice?

I'm making a human Virtuous Bravo paladin. He's level 7 to start.

It would fit the character well but is it worth it mechanically to go to Devoted Muse or should I just stay a Virtuous Bravo?

So what exactly is the range of colors a Lashunta can come in?

Pathfinder has them as mostly white and light pink from what I can find

This Lashunta from Children of the Void (2008) is maybe light pink but looks fairly Caucasian.

This Lashunta from the Gamemastery guide (2010) is flat out Caucasian-looking.

This Lashunta from the cover of Distant Worlds (2012) is also white especially in comparison to the two creatures.

This Lashunta from People of the Stars (2014) is far more pink than her predecessors.

The we flash forward to Starfinder (2017) where we only have two Lashunta to go off of.

First is our lovely Iconic Technomancer, Raia. She is grayish-green from what I can tell. She appears to be wearing makeup and has a glow from the Hologram on her arm making it hard to pin down the color. Either way, she is not white.

The only other Lashunta in the book is a mechanic. She is more gray than Raia and also certainly not Caucasian.

The ones from the Lashunta Page which I can only find the female of online (surprise surprise) are more pale brown than gray or white.

So what is the range? Are there black Lashuntas? Are there more fantastical colors like blue or full green?

Anyone have any better sources than I can find?

So one of Starfinder's big things is that 9th-level spells are gone. We can only cast up to sixth level and the distinctions between arcane, divine, and psychic are somehow loosened despite not being how magic worked for centuries before the Gap.

Coincidentally, the God of Magic has been replaced. Nethys, namesake of the beloved Archives, is inexplicably gone. He's not even mentioned in the Minor Deity section like Calistria or Torag. Nethys has simply vanished.

Whereas in the ancient past, magic in the Pact Worlds was broken into many different traditions, today magic is

seen as a single group of physically impossible phenomena,
regardless of where it comes from or how it’s manipulated.
Traditional distinctions like “arcane” and “divine” magic have
long since been abandoned, and while different casters may
access magic through very different means, from hightech
reality hacking to the study of occult items or the
channeling of divine power, all are simply different means
of accomplishing the same goals.

How did this happen? How did thousands of year of magical study fail to find that Divine, Arcane, and Psychic spellcasting were actually all the same thing and work completely the same?

I propose that it wasn't.

Nethys may have been the reason why spells were stronger and better demarcated. Eloritu is weaker but more egalitarian with magic, granting all he has to just about anyone. Or perhaps he had to make magic easier because of technology out pacing his sixth-level spells.

So in other words, Nethys left and took the big dog spells with him and his replacement just wasn't up to the task of embodying Magic.

Reading the dueling cape deed feat, I saw that the typical cape has hardness 1 and 3 hit points which is important since the enemy has to destroy my cape to remove entangled. But say I have a better cape than that like the cape of bravado or the cape of feinting.

Do wonderous items have more hardness and/or hp as a result of them being magical items?

The last thread about this was from 2012 so I was wondering if things had been clarified since then.

So the forever stun-lock of the cape of feinting was bad and I get that but a DC 13 will save? That seems seriously weak compared to a cloak of Resistance. Even with APB, there should be more reason to waste my turn locking down a single target.

Anyone have any suggestions to buff it back up a bit? Maybe make it a disarm check?

As part of the backstory for my Arcanist, I created a magical sport to counter the whole "weak, frail wizard" stereotype. Basically it's like an obstacle course but there's a defending team and an attacking team.

Anyway the teams are split by the schools of magic (just the traditional schools the elemental schools and such would be too much.) So they all get team names like the Yankees or the Red Sox. I already asked on Reddit and got some good responses. I was hoping I could get some more feedback from this forum.

My list so far:

Evocation: Tempests
Abjuration: Wardens
Divination: Seers
Illusion: Phantoms
Conjuration: Shepherds, Callers
Necromancy: Whitehearts, Vitalists, Banshees
Transmutation: Wildhearts
Enchantment: Masterminds
Universalists: Prodigies

I could really use new names for transmutation, enchantment, and illusion. I'm really partial to Wardens and Prodigies but the others I'm meh about. Also a deciding vote on the Conjuration and Necromancy teams would be excellent.

A few ground rules based on Reddit responses:

1. I prefer names like most sport teams where they're a plural of something cool so that it fits the others. So nothing like the Crimson Tide.

2. The school is in Andoran (the school itself is homebrewed) so no undead creation or fiend summoning allowed.

3. These names were chosen in-universe by the teams themselves. So it stands to reason that no one would pick anything too evil-sounding. This is especially true for the Necromancers who get enough prejudice even though they only teach White Necromancy.

Thanks Paizo forums!

For Posting and Approving Character Sheets

For OOC chatter and GM clarifications

Here our story begins.

If BAB is allowed to have a fast, medium, and slow progression, then why not saves?

There was already a thread about this idea but it died in 2008 and was on a different forum section.

The basic idea is a type of save progression that "would be as the poor save, but an additional increase of +1 at level 1, 10, and 19; bringing it to 9 max at level 20" to quote the above thread.

I think this would be a great way to help boost single save classes like the fighter, rogue, and swashbuckler.

I think it was be best as a choice depending on what type of each class you play.

The fighter would get his based on what weapon type he masters.

Originally my idea was this:

Resolute (ex): The fighter stands as a shield and inspiration to his comrades. The Fighter gains a fast will save progression. This ability is available to fighters who fight with a shield, close weapons, and two-handed weapons.

Into the Fray (ex): The Fighter is a whirl of weapons whose reflexes are honed to a sharpness that rivals even his weapons. The fighter gains a fast reflex progression. This is available to fighters that wield two weapons, double weapons, thrown weapons and to free-hand fighters.

That left out a lot of styles. This is where the middle saves come in.

Sharp of Mind and Instinct (ex): The fighter has been trained to be aware at all times allowing him to be ready for many types of attack. The gains a middle save progression to both reflex and will. This is available to fighters who wield bows, crossbows, firearms, natural weapons and who specialize in tactics and combat maneuvers.

The Rogue has convincing arguments for both fortitude and will.

They are used common fort problems like poisons and are used to adversity. There are common rogue archetypes like thugs, enforcers, assassins, and gamblers who should be healthy as well.

Willpower should be strong in rogues like masterminds, mafia bosses, spies, and con artists.

The greatest design philosophy problem of the rogue is that they try to be all those things so medium save progression could fit in with that. Archetypes can mess with the saves as appropriate. For example, thug archetype rogues get good fort and bad will. Spies get bad fort and good will.

The Swashbuckler is a trickier problem. They have less arguments for either save due to their novelty. The most common fix is to give them a good fort save because both their parent classes have them. Others rework Charmed Life so that it works like Divine Grace.

Either suggestion is workable to me but medium saves could be a good compromise if they are somehow too onerous for the GM to accept.

Barbarians get a will boost from the their and as such they usually don't get mentioned in the weak saves discussion. After playing a barbarian, I'd give them a medium save progression to their will saves. Combined with the rage boost, it should still be less than the cleric, druid, inquisitor, magus, skald, and warpriest. Bloodrager would also follow this rule.

Cavaliers don't get mentioned either and I have no idea why. Their focus on a particular style makes the Fighter example above not as necessary. I would give them a medium or good will save to help them out.

Basically the intent of this rule would be to do away with the idea of one good save without the comfort of 9 levels of spells to make up for it.

I checked and the last time the idea of Intimidate being based on strength rather than Charisma was in 2008 during the pre-release discussion. Those threads had a lot of vitriol that I'd like to avoid so I will be clear in my opening post.

I am not saying that Charisma should not be used for intimidation. I can totally see how a forceful but physically weak person can be intimidating by using threats, coercion, and blackmail to name a few things.

I merely believe that this is a trained talent, something that is learned through training. Intimidation through flexing your muscles and threatening physical violence is much simpler and shouldn't cost a feat to it. In my mind, spending a feat on something represents training.

If the Mountain That Rides and Conan the Barbarian

It is my opinion that Intimidation should naturally be based on Strength with a feat/rogue talent/class feature that allows for Charisma to be issued instead or in tandem. Something like Intimidating Personality, for example.

Therefore I would like the forum's opinion on variant rules for those who want them in their games or maybe as a new rules supplement a la the Armor as DR system in UC.

Option 1. The system I mentioned earlier.

2. You choose at character creation which stat you want to base your Intimidation off of and therefore which feat you could take to add to that i.e. CHA as a base and Intimidating Prowess or STR as a base and Intimidating Personality as a feat.

3.As above except it's separated by class. Bards, Rogues, Inquisitor, Gunslinger, Sorcerer, and Witch get a CHA base whereas Barbarians, Cavaliers, Fighters, Monks, Magi, and Rangers get a STR with options to switch that around.

For example, a trait that allows Druids, Paladins, etc. to get it as a class skill and use Str. Alchemists, Summoners, Wizards, etc. would use a different trait to get CHA Intimidate as a class skill. Thug archetyped Rogues would get STR as part of the archetype's class feature.

Also should this be in the Homebrew forum? I wasn't entirely sure about putting this here.

Hello all. I am experienced in Pathfinder but not in PbP. I'm in a regular campaign but I've got too many characters that I wanna play. I'm not very good with PbP so any group that will accept me will have to teach me some things.

The character I have now is a witch that I can play at any level but I'd prefer to play lower to mid levels. Somewhere around 6-9.

I would prefer a homebrew or just a game in Golarion. I don't own any of the APs.

I prefer fantasy games like the Golarion setting.

P.S. Is there a forum for players looking for groups?

I'm not entirely sure which thread to put this into but I think this one should do.

In the Changeling section, it says "Claws: Changelings' fingernails are hard and sharp, granting them two claw attacks (1d4 points of damage each)."

Changelings are born of Hags but they are raised by the nearest community that will raise them. The Hags have no love for their children but don't want them killed or to have much special attention to them. If the children have long, sharp nails, they'd be pretty noticeable. Check the art for Feiya, the iconic witch for example of what have these nails would look like. She's not a changeling but the nails hex does basically the same thing.

If these nails are natural for the Changeling and pretty noticeable, people would make special note of it. They might even know what a changeling is and what she could become. A bad family might kill her and leave her to the wolves. A good family might give her to a good church where she will be protected and not be allowed to follow the call.

Seeing as this is all necessary for Hags to reproduce, it stands to reason that changelings be both rare and unknown by most people. Therefore I houserule that changeling nails are retractable like a cat's to better allow her to hide them.

Is this a fair houserule and should this be the new standard for the race?

I'm Hiding in Your Closet is banned for having managed to not be banned for so long. The Banning Thread will endure !

Schism is banned for making too much sense while being a Derro.

I'm gonna be mastering a session of B/X D&D to my wife and our eleven years old kid... Real Soon Now (how much preparation do one really needs for the first ever adventure of one's son, anyway ?) !

[Note to one's self: don't overdo it ! Relax ! Jeebus...]

Hello, all ! Don't mind me ; just chilling out of reach of the Gnarl Fruitterbold menace.

[*chirps of springtime birds, gentle love on the gentle breeze*]

I'm Hiding In Your Closet is banned for keeping all the best closets to himself.

IHIYC is banned for having stolen my purple pantaloons during a foray in my locked vanity closet.

In the beginning of time, KahnyaGnorc was not one, but TWO separate entities.

Kahnya was a daffodil lover, and an all around fuzzy ball of goodness. Gnorc loved to strangle puppies before eating his hearty breakfast of Myconid People with dressing sauce.

One day they met in a cosmic battle for the fate in the Universe, but instead of one defeating the other, they merged in an untidy union.

Since then, KahnyaGnorc has been mostly occupied with knitting mittens for kittens, but under the surface, the Evil that was Gnorc is still there, occasionnaly bubbling on the surface from the depths of the Interweb fora to mentally scar RPG enthusiasts.

thejeff wrote:

And I fully agree that single payer would be much better and I think that if you could pass it here and actually get it into place within a few years people would love it, but you have to get a huge tax increase and a full government takeover of the healthcare system passed against rabid opposition based purely on promises of how wonderful it's going to be. That's a tall order. That's why we got the watered down version we did get

I have no idea why Americans are so afraid of socialized medicine. Even Adam @#$@# Smith knew that certain functions could NOT be done most efficiently through the free market.

Sometimes people are so ignorant it's painful.

Emphasis mine.

That one is easy to answer, particularly to a foreigner.

You Americans have been brainwashed* to fear anything associated with socialism - or socially intended-anything really.

It goes like that : social-anything = socialism = Socialism = Communism = EVIL ! REALLY EVIL ! EEEEVIL !

Of course Communism died a long time ago, but the Cold War brainwashing is still in effect. Less so in the younger generation, which is probably why the Millenials didn't give a fig that Bernie Sanders was a self-proclaimed socialist.

We all have those automatic "nationalist" cognitivo/emotional responses enmeshed in our brain. It's easy to pick in another culture, darn difficult to discern in one's own culture (unless you're a cultural deviant, like our esteemed comrade Anklebiter ;-).

*actually, you've brainwashed yourself, like in all human societies.

KahnyaGnorc likes to take his tea with a drop of milk and honey, and a smidgen of donkey virgin blood.

KahnyaGnorc is one of the many personas of Chron Ayn Ak, the Dreadful Lord of the Transverse Time Flow.

Those days, he mostly fashions giga-origamis with the architectural remnants of dead civilizations.

So this thread has been resurrected from the dead by the grace of quantum mechanics and the Great Old Ones ?
Wonders never cease.

I think the main thing that economic populists have against them is that both parties - that is, the real elected players in both parties - are funded by the ultra-wealthy, who are not willing to let emerge economic populist leaders.

I'm a little unclear as to why grassroots Democrats don't try to forge a new party on a populist economic mandate ? Maybe some Democrats could enlighten me (it's not sarcasm, I'm really curious to know the answer(s) to that one).

I agree that we are largely governed by our emotions.

Strangely (?) enough, if we recognize it as truth, we are IMO freer to exercise our sound rationality.

To refuse to be challenged about one's ideas, in a safe and learned environment, makes one weak and pusillanimous in his life at large. How sad.

This presupposes that both sides will conduct themselves in an intellectually / academically honest manner. Currently in the United States this presupposition is complete farce.

I disagree. It presupposes only that the audience is sophisticated enough to discriminate what is said, and to be able to evaluate the soundness of the speakers. I'm talking here about universities, and not about TV talk shows.

But I agree that if one wants to spread one's ideas, one of the best things to do is to find venues where those ideas can be discussed earnestly. I'm sure there are currently in the USA places (on the web, surely) where one can find intellectually honest Republicans or intellectually honest Democrats, or similarly honest independents, to debate controversial ideas.

If you posit a priori that there's no intellectual honesty to be found anywhere in the opposite party, you're creating the very same divisiveness which is currently tearing your country apart.

To an outside observer, the similarities between two irreconcilable enemies are often striking.

Regarding universities:

those institutions harken to the Middle Ages, when theologians and other learned persons engaged in regular debates called "disputatios", which pitted two speakers against one another, with all the rigour of logic and the sophistication of rethorics, with the goal of enlightening a broad audience about the subject matter at hand.

Students who refuse today to have strong debates held in their alma matter are, to my opinion, disrespecting and antagonizing the heart and soul of the institution which they are part of.

To refuse to be challenged about one's ideas, in a safe and learned environment, makes one weak and pusillanimous in his life at large. How sad.

Debating a bad idea doesn't make it go away, it gives it only serves to elevate it, give it publicity, and spreads it to a wider audience. Especially in today's "choose your own reality" culture, this is not a good thing.

So you don't debate "bad ideas". And I gather that bad ideas are a subset of ideas you disagree with.

So there are some ideas that you strongly disagree with and that you refuse to debate. I'd wager that you refuse to debate ideas that seem to you to be absurd, ludicrous and/or repugnant at face value.

What message does that convey to those who hold to those same ideas that you find so repulsive ? Something like : "Those ideas that you hold dear are absurd, ludicrous and repugnant at face value."

Now, what is your goal ?

Are you hoping to convince, by rational discourse, those people taken by those ideas you find abhorrent ?
You won't, because you do not have a rational discourse with regard to those ideas. You just refuse to debate them. You have a position of moral or intellectual superiority. Which feels good, but does nothing to convince rational and opiniated people.

Are you hoping to convince, by rational discourse, those people on the fence about those ideas you find abhorrent ?
You may do it - but if you refuse to engage the very people proposing those abhorrent ideas, you refuse yo engage the strongest arguments in favor of those ideas.
An impartial, or neutral, or undecided, or even hostile bystander won't help but notice that. That won't endear him to your ideas.

The conclusion is that, if you only want to convince people already sympathetic to or convinced of your ideas while feeling intellectually and morally superior, then by all means refuse to ever engage your staunchest adversaries in debate.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Knight who says Meh wrote:

Are you sure your evidence isn't just a hoax perpetrated by China?

Come on, wasn't it Russia that made your candidate lose? At least get your story straight.

And, bear in mind, I had profoundly hoped that Trump end up in prison, not the White House. I'm not a right wing shill here. I'm an independent middle class American who doesn't want my daughter to grow up in a feudal serfdom run by our corporate overlords.

Just to be clear, you're not right wing but you do believe Hillary Clinton had a secret (or maybe not secret) plan to turn America into a feudal serfdom? That's your reality?

It's more that the exit point of American economic and political life since Ronald Reagan is plutocracy - governance by the rich.

And after plutocracy, when the American middle class is dead, who knows ? Serfdom it may be ; though I would call it corporatist serfdom, more than feudal serfdom.

As for Hillary Clinton she's (to my eyes, at least) a typically corrupt politician, bought and paid by for the tenth of the 1% who are the plutocracy. It's not that she has a plan to turn the USA into a serfdom, it's that that is what lies logically ahead of her policies.

For what it's worth, I hope that the american people will cling to their democracy long enough to give the boot to the likes of Clinton, Trump and Obama, and to establish a more decent and caring society for themselves.

If my players have a sudden urge to discuss "fudging or not fudging",

and tell me that if I fudge in any way without their knowledge they will end our friendship because I will have irrevocably broken their trust,

and that they will feel as if I've been punching them (repeatedly) in the face, and I am an horrible cheater, and a dishonest backstabbing scum,

and any number of other hyperboles,

I will be seriously concerned that something has gone horribly wrong in our relationship, and I would very much want to understand what the problem is, and try to fix it.

But since my players are reasonably sane persons, I very much doubt I will ever have such a drama-laden exchange with them.

So in the meantime, I will happily fudge and lie about it, and I won't apply myself to solve other persons' non-existent problems.

Q : Why is there no good succubus equivalent ?
A : Because only Evil can give it to you like it was meant to be given. Succubus : accept no alternative !

Whichever makes the better experience.

This.

Personnaly, I don't care if fudging is cheating or not. If ignoring the result of a dice roll improves the player's experience, I will do it.

My players appreciate keeping a PC they've invested time and feelings in, so e.g if the die dictates that the character die an untimely or ignominous or an otherwise unappealing death, I will disregard the result of the die.

On the other hand, if a player seems to want his character to die, I will repeteadly put his character in dangerous situations, and roll dies in the open, till his unevitable demise.

I consider my role as a GM to be akin to the role of an illusionist. I must persuade my players that Fate or Hazard alone dictate their PC's existence, while in fact I nudge the odds in their favour, to help them tell the character's story they like the most.

Rolling in the open gives the illusion that the game we're playing rests in the hands of Fate, but in reality that's just a very effective trick.

To give the players a sense of danger, and of defying the odds, I pretend to be an uncaring GM in regard to their characters' continuing survival, while in fact I care very much. So, I regularly lie through my teeth by reaffirming to my players that whatever way the die lies, I'll follow its dictate.

In 34 years of cheating with my players, I haven't been caught once, to their delight.

If I may say something, as someone who is not american.

(The following being purely my opinion, of course).

You Americans are living in a plutocracy. Your politicians are bought and paid for - and that's not a figure of speech - by a minority of your total population (the 10th of the 1 percent who own the most capital), acting through the mega-corporations they control.

Many of your woes - impoverishment, lousy healthcare, crushing debt, etc. - are due to the fact that the interests of the minority controling your political system are not the interests of the huge majority of your population.

The task of the leaders of the Democratic and of the Republican parties are to deliver the consent of their electorates to a national leader - the POTUS - who will then act, for the most part, according to the wishes of your ruling class, the tenth of the 1 % .

There's no doubt in my mind that some blue and red politicians deplore that you're living in a plutocracy, but that's the way the system is working, and they have to deal with it during the course of their political life.

Say what you will about PETA, but I couldn't help notice that their letter to Games Workshop was respectful, and made their case with rational - if debatable - arguments.

To wit: they didn't try to paint Game Workshop as amoral, and dissolute backwards thinking perverts.

I can't help but to find that refreshing in those times.

EDIT: removed part tangential to the main argument.

Looker-Up-To-The-Sky, from the Bearded Bear tribe.

Regarding the subject of the thread, I think it’s time I unequivocally spell my belief on the subject.

The foundation of my belief system:
I believe all of reality consists of various densities of being, from the realm of the absolute to the realm of the physical.
These are not really separate realms, more like different modes of being, but it’s simpler for the human mind to conceive of « realms ».

From this paradigm (a Western cabalistic paradigm, in case you’re wondering), the spirit world is real. In fact, contrary to the oft-proposed viewpoint of modern materialistic thinking, the basis of our reality is not material but spiritual.

About the afterlife:
So, does a reality exist after our corporeal disappearance ?
I believe that it does.
What does « our » continued existence mean vis-à-vis our earthly persona ?
I don’t know - though I consider it improbable that we continue to be ourselves beyond death.
That is, when I’ll be dead, the man behind Quiche Lisp will be no more. Someone (some soul ?) having some indefinite relation to the past "me" will continue to exist.

So, in fine, my belief is that the afterlife exists, but that this here life, with us appearing as discrete human subjects, is unique in all eternity.

Iron Cactus

Antenna Girl

Perhaps it is better to be grateful for the general hostility and unfairness of the universe?

I feel the universe is full of love, and I wish I could communicate that feeling to you :-).

Maybe you would be interested in reading this.

There's no mention of magic in the article.

This particular website presents articles from all venues of science - hard, soft, and in between :-) - by actual practitioners of science.

Thinking that every notion you've not been previously exposed to and that challenges your current understanding of things is "woo woo crystal theory" is the epitome of lazy thinking.

I hope for you don't practice science because you would be exceedingly bad at it.

Speaking of meditation, Jon Kabat-Zinn has been studying its virtues and proprieties since, at least, the nineties.

Look it up in the net, or continue to wallow in your smug ignorance reinforced by half-baked notions about what science is. Hint: it's not simply the currently admitted paradigm and world view supplied by your social and cultural environment.

Do you think this conversation has benefited from your focus on painting amorphously large groups, that can be shaped however you like, with broad strokes?

Yes :-).

And I get it, IronTruth: you can't be so arbitrarily defined.

Unless it's by that big chip on your shoulder :-p.

Cute Trans-Kender.

Dammit, this isn't the Nickname thread ?

The next poster has a big one under its coat.

Quiche Lisp wrote:

Let me guess : you don't identify as an Atheist +. Nor are you sympathetic of their views.

No, my question is how many people do you think identified as Atheism+. As in, how many people in the whole world. Give me a ballpark.

You're equating them with the "leftist american crowd", which can include millions of people, so what % of them are Atheism+? I would assume a significant number (not a majority, but at least double digits) for you to be able to conflate the two.

Republicans in congress are currently trying to outlaw abortion, but I'm guessing you don't consider that shoving beliefs down people's throats, do you?

I think a significant part of the american left (and the left in general) has an inclination - not always acted upon - for disparaging people when confronted by their arguments regarding hot-button issues.

They do this in a leftist fashion, by painting these people they disagree with as morally repugnant and socially retarded.

The conservatives (some of them, at least) have their specific way of disparaging people, but it's more that they tend to find those they disagree with as morally repugnant because of their breaking away from tradition [the (mythical) way things have always have been].

Also, on the left, there's (broadly speaking) a tendency to assert one's prejudice in more intellectual terms than on the right: " Those that disagree with me have faulty thinking or a lesser intellectual capacity ; they're dumb."

The more stringent lefties will sometimes describe their opponents as "insane", or some similar term.

The people on the right rarely describe the opponents (many on the left) that they want to disparage as "dumb". The lexical field of their condemnation has more to do with religious values.

To sum it up, in simplistic terms: the conservatives disparage people by painting these people as breaking away from supposedly traditional values. The leftists disparage people by striking a pose of (unawarranted) intellectual superiority.

Quiche Lisp wrote:

There's a word for that (well, 2 words) : intellectual terrorism.

I was thinking it and you f+%%ing said it!

When I heard about the marathon bombing the first thought I had was: "Damn, this is like those lefty atheists on that message board!"

Intellectual terrorism is not material terrorism.

Intellectual terrorism is a concept that predates the 21st century by a large margin.

Maybe you think it's an hyperbolic notion ; and perhaps it is. But it's a quite useful concept.

I love my (cooking hot) wife.

On the first day of this new year of Our Lord, I promised myself I wouldn't held myself accountable to my New Year's resolutions. I feel very fulfilled !

Next poster thinks original Pathfinder rogues are up to the par with god wizards.

355. Mary-Sue characters :-P.
356. Players who don't read the "Previously on".

Obscure Nicknamer

As I said, when dogmatic American leftists don't get what they want, it is ALWAYS because people are misogynist, racist and otherwise *ist, not because the stuff they wanted might not have been attractive enough to matter for those who could join.

I couldn't agree more.

There's a word for that (well, 2 words) : intellectual terrorism.

Not that misogynism isn't a real thing. But when it's always about misogynism, gender or whatever - in the afterlife ever :-p -, well, then it isn't about these things at all.

In my opinion, it comes from a (typically North American)* puritanical worldview : the tendency not to discuss subjects, but to reduce people and their argumentation to their supposed/surely irredeemable flaws.

I.e : "You're a BAD person, and you corrupt whatever you say with your BADNESS."

* It's also a very leftist essentialist point of view a.k.a. ideological purity.**

** I was raised in a very leftist environment. I've got nothing against Lefties (Is that a word ?) that I haven't got against Conservatives :-).

I just finished reading The Gods of Pegana by Lord Dunsany, which was published in 1905, and I'm currently reading Time and the Gods by the same author.

In my day, the level one thief opening a chest might get stuck by a poison needle, fail his save, and DIE.

Back in my day, my one-level thief character opened a chest, got hit by a poison needle, made his saving throw, took 1d8 hit points [the master rolled a 8] divided by half (because I had succeeded in making the save)... and died.

The game was not afraid to kill your ass.

Indeed.

There are excellent suggestions in that thread, and much to my liking.

What I would really like is for all of Kobold Press Midgard products to be converted to 5e D&D.

...

Ho, wait : did the deities of Midgard hear my pleas ?

Praised be Loki ;-) !

Back in my day there were no "grognards", only fellow teenage gamers.

Many, if not most, doctors say that there's no causal relationship between vaccination and autism.

So the people believing there's a relation do not so because that lone doctor established a relation with this one study.

It's rather that they were previously wary about vaccinations, and that they use that study as corroborating their previous doubts about vaccination.

They choose data that validates their point of view.

Like we all tend to do, scientists or not.

I disagree that there's a useful and necessary hierarchy of how we learn stuff.

Eg., when growing up as toddlers we learn by experimenting with our bodies, and by social immersion.

Much later, in school, we learn by being exposed to the scientific method. More generally, we then learn to learn in cognitive ways.

When we finally hear about the science's processes, we, hopefully, have already learned a good deal about being a human being and an affable member of society.

Science is not the way of learning to trump all other ways of learning.

I appreciate all my various ways of learning.

It makes me want to go conversion crazy.

A horrendous condition ;-).

I love the Midgard campaign setting !

This book looks like it's awesome !

Any chance for a D&D 5th version of this ?

Because that would make me go all "Squeeeee ! Take my money, please !".

In truth, if the entirety of the Midgard campaign setting was transcribed into D&D 5th edition, i think I would go (temporarily) bonkers with joy, and surely broke.

[*Putting a kobold's skull helmet askew on his rotund gnomish head and waving a miner's pick in a (self-harming) menacing way*]
"Come on, darned kobolds: make me bonkers and broke, I dare you !"

I like Pathfinder as a player... with Hero Lab running on my laptop as I play around the table with friends (and a good local beer brew).

I've decided to stop GMing Pathfinder altogether, as it's too demanding (for me)

- in terms of rules mastery
- in time passed to create and to tinker with NPCs (even with Hero Lab)
- in time passed to create the crunch side of adventures (NPCs, traps, random monsters)

I will now be GMing D&D 5th ed play sessions, as that game seems to adress the above problematic (for me) points.

I decided to switch to 5th ed after spending approximately 6 months trying to adress Pathfinder's problems (in my opinion) with houserules.
Then I decided I could make a better use of my precious time, and took the time to review the 5th edition rules with an eye to solving the aferomentioned (to me) problems.

For what's it's worth, I fully subscribe to Kirth Gensen's analysis of the martial/caster NARRATIVE disparity problem in Pathfinder.

Now, regarding Paizo. I think they're an awesome cutting edge company, particularly regarding customer relationship management, with a policy of minimal b*#~+*$!ting* of their customers and of transparency and accountability about their products.

I'm sometimes baffled by the ire Paizo draws from a vocal minority of their customers.

I mean, come on guys !: the vast majority of (non rpg) companies out there deceive and blatantly lie to you, and then take your hard-earned dollars in exchange for s@*@ty and uninspired products, and here you have a company (Paizo) lead by real people, whom you can meet in person during conventions and who honestly answer your questions in their forums - and it seems to generate so much venom in some people !

I can only surmise than those people are so bewildered by simple and deliberate honesty than they confuse it with deviousness. Sad.

Long live Pathfinder, Paizo and 5th ed, and good gaming to everyone.

* it's spelled b-u-ll-sh-itting. Stupid amerikanish neo-puritan profanity filter ;-) !

pH unbalanced wrote:

137ben wrote:

You're making a perfect case against yourself. Neither of those have anything resembling spell slots of 3e sorcerers. They are both closer to using a pool of energy a la 3.5 psionics.

Actually, I'm not making any mechanical arguments at all. Only thematic/fluff arguments as to why psionics <> magic.

EDIT: In order to make mechanical arguments, I would have to actually have read the mechanics for 3.x Psionics, which I haven't. I can go into great detail about the mechanical details between Magic and Psionics in GURPS, though. :)

To simplify: Psionics is Mana Magic.

It's Magic... cast out of a pool of magical stamina rather than spell slots.

It still uses pre-packaged spells [and as such could be considered the next Step of freedom within Vancian Magic, going from Preparation to Spontaneous to Mana.]

Kyrt-Rider, that was an informative, concise, and illuminating reply - expressed in an uninflammatory manner.

I thereby shun you for having broken the most sacred and unspoken rules of internet forums !

pH unbalanced wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

Kthulu has it exactly right.

From a mechanical standpoint, it might not make a big difference, but from a thematic standpoint the difference is huge. The types of stories that you would tell with magic are very different than the ones you would tell with psionics -- and it's more than just fantasy vs sf.

That's why I tend to only have one or the other in my worlds, but not both.

Can you elaborate here? I'm really trying to rack my brain over the division between the two in terms of story, and how a Psion is any different from a Sorcerer in that regard.

Absolutely.

I'll throw out two of my favorite authors, which I think demonstrate the difference very well.

Sean Stewart has a couple of different books (Ressurection Man, Galveston, The Night Watch) which deal with people with an awakened inborn magical talent dealing with learning how to control it. The important thing here (and what distinguished it from psi) is that the magic itself is still an external (and ultimately more powerful) force. To me this is the clearest thematic depiction of the 3.x Sorcerer.

** spoiler omitted **

Joan Vinge's Cat series (Psion, Catspaw. Dreamfall) deals with a psion awakening to his power. Because the power is internal, the thematic...

You're making a perfect case against yourself. Neither of those have anything resembling spell slots of 3e sorcerers. They are both closer to using a pool of energy a la 3.5 psionics.

I'm shunning you for entirely missing the point of the poster you're replying to.

Sometimes the very inanity of superfluous posting will make you roll on the floor in the throes of absurd humour !