James Hebert's page

I'm not great at image editing, but I put these game aids together based on the new Chase Cards. I hope they can come in handy for your games. Enjoy!

The Perennial Crown Game Aids

I'm not great at image editing, but I put these game aids together based on the new Chase Cards. I hope they can come in handy for your games. Enjoy!

The Perennial Crown Game Aids

For sure, I agree with the sentiment. There shouldn't be a shoehorned new non-evil goblin pantheon. I'm looking more for some insight on how these exceptional goblins reconcile their beliefs with their new lives. For example, a goblin can be motivated to join the Pathfinder Society, seek treasure and glory, even to help others and defeat menacing monsters. This doesn't mean that they stop believing in and even idolizing Zarongel for the gift of fire and wolf-riding. Hell, if it's a goblin that wants to be a knight, the first mount they're going to be drawn towards is a wolf or a goblin dog.

It would be really cool to see some artwork of 'goblin-ized' deities who reach out to goblins, by the way. I liked the goblin iconics a lot.

To compare to a real-world situation, people who break away from Mormonism or Christianity always have an interesting story and the catalyst for them to take such an action is a major part of their personality and world view from that point on. Even so, their past, before their break, continues to be a part of who they are in some way, shape, or form forever after.

In a world like Golarion where it's pretty much common knowledge that the gods exist and are in control of your afterlife and immortal soul, it would take a strong program of outreach to convince creatures like goblins that there's an alternative to spending eternity in Basalfeyst.

I wanted to convey my disappointment in how I feel Goblins were neglected in Gods and Magic. I think that by not including information on Goblin deities and how they fit into the mindset of the "PC Goblin", an opportunity was missed.

I have to admit, I wasn't on board with the decision to make Goblins a Core race during the playtest. I felt like it was pandering and using the success of the Free RPG Day modules to boost the new ruleset.

Don't get me wrong: I love goblins. I've loved goblins since Rise of the Runelords #1's Foreword when James Jacobs declared "...the Ten Commandments of Goblining, if you will."
1. Horse Hate
2. Dog Hate
3. Goblins Raid Junkyards
4. Goblins Love to Sing
5. They're Sneaky
6. They're A Little Crazy
7. They're Voracious
8. They Like Fire
9. They Get Stuck Easily
10. Goblins Believe Writing Steals Your Soul

I wasn't the only one. Everyone went Pathfinder Goblin crazy after this. To me, it was a metaphor for the new world in which I'd be gaming for the next 13 years (Jeez, time flies). Here I saw something that once meant "easy bad guy" and forever onward, it meant "maniac who burns and eats everything."

As time went on, Pathfinder continued to 're-brand' typical aspects of the game, and in so doing, re-invigorate the whole scene for me. Bugbears are stalking psychopaths, ogres are hillbilly murder/cannibals, even hobgoblins were given a strong cultural identity and a cause to get behind, and I was excited to see them get their own nation as Golarion moves ever onward, AP to AP.

With Goblins becoming Core in 2e, though, I feel they've lost everything that makes them Goblin. I was on the fence when the Core was released, and Paizo did a great job fleshing out Goblins as an ancestry and the relevant heritages in the World Guide and Character Guide, but I was really hoping that they'd get some love in Gods & Magic in particular.

In G&M there was an opportunity to flesh out that entire missing piece of the civilized Goblin's culture, and it was passed over. To me, and I'd imagine to goblins, religion is a major aspect of a culture. I can't imagine entire tribes like the Bumblebrashers forgetting about mighty Hadregash, ugly Zogmugot, nasty Venkelvore, or primal Zarongel. I can understand moving away from Lamashtu, but those four deities are where Goblins believe they come from. Even if a Goblin wanted to venture out and do good in the world, and even if the rare town can come to tolerate their presence, I think Goblins would still say small prayers to the four barghests, even if only out of fear for what the afterlife holds for them (and they have to know that they're going to see that afterlife really, really soon).

I hope the world story moves in a direction that helps this make sense soon. My suggestion?

Thanks for reading my rant. I look forward to seeing how things continue to play out.

Alright Lore-brains, the beam is upon you. I'm setting up my campaign calendar, you know, like a well-rounded person, not at all like an over-immersed geek, and I'm going to have a focus on Were-Villains. I feel like it's important to jot down a lunar calendar. I decide to follow the 2020 Earth moon calendar (since my campaign starts Abadius 4720). In Golarion, the full moons are each named and known. Here's what 4720 portends:

• Abadius 10 - Long Moon
• Calistril 9 - Fated Moon
• Pharast 9 - Rebirth Moon
• Gozran 7 - Flood Moon
• Desnus 7 - Blossom Moon
  
• Sarenith 5 - Sweet Moon
  
• Erastus 5 - Lover's Moon
  
• Arodus 3 - Swarm Moon
  
• Rova 2 - Harvest Moon
  
• Lamashan 1 - Hunter's Moon
  
• Lamashan 31 - Black Moon
  
• Neth 30 - Cold Moon
  
• Kuthona 29 - ????

Lamashan 31 being the Black Moon is already at 95% spooky levels, but what are the in-Golarion thoughts on years with 13 full moons? I propose we cancel all blogs until this is decided upon.

It's 240. Do what you want, but this is what works. The fight ends if you subdue 4 farmers, but the encounter is a dozen hostiles.

I'm still unclear on this myself. Here's the breakdown:
- Goblins in room B overhear heroes in room A
- Goblins hide
- Heroes leave encounter mode and enter exploration mode
- Heroes engage in Searching tactics

Does the GM make the Stealth check against the Perception DC of the heroes?

Does the GM roll Stealth and secret Perception checks? Are these the initiative scores? If so, this is one Stealth check for multiple creatures since they use one roll for the entire group for initiative.

Does the GM roll secret Perception checks against a DC of 10 + The goblins' stealth modifier?

If some PCs are Sneaking instead of Searching, what happens then? Do the goblins roll Stealth and Perception, and if so, which is their initiative roll?

I spent today reading this whole thread because I'm sleepy and refuse to do real work, but a thought occurred while going over the point in the conversation where the inclusion of Mythic Adventures and Ultimate Campaign rules became a necessity. The APs are marketed to include those rules and thus expand the possibilities of the game system. The Strategy Guide is supposed to be released soon, and hopefully, for the sake of new players, it'll include hints at building more robust characters so that the argument of 'your party is too optimized' goes away completely. Perhaps this is a good time to buff up AP design and make more tactically sound bad guys.

Kitsune rogue or fighter, basing it off of one of my favorite villains: Don Carnage of Tailspin fame.

Thirdly, I hope "something bad happens to Ameiko" isn't getting to be the recurring theme for every module. I can see many groups turning on the character if she's reduced to the eternal damsel in distress.

Every group needs an Aquaman.

So, the Stag Lord's a mean drunk that doesn't like to actually do anything anymore. I think he's probably too apathetic to care about the Thorn River camp not reporting in after a while. Akiros or Dovan might be interested, but more than that, I had a group of bandits figure out what was going on (some escaped) and try a different tactic. They avoided the PCs for a while, then went to Brevoy and got their own charter. Now they threaten to denounce the PCs as bandits, and are playing the "I'm not touching you" game with them. It's turning into a fun situation, where the PCs could always kill the bandits to get rid of them, but without evidence, folks like Oleg and Svetlana might lose respect for them. In their minds it would be cold-blooded murder, just because the PCs didn't like the other group.

Thoughts?