Jason_CA's page

4e -- Yes please! I can't wait, I wish it was coming out sooner. I won't be playing/DMing a single session of any 3.5 game after 4e is out.

Both of my groups will be running into Xanesha during their next sessions -- or actually, they won't, because I'm switching her with Lucrecia, her sister from Hook Mountain.

They are the same CR, but Lucrecia doesn't fly, doesn't have silence or haste, doesn't have the mask of turning-to-stone, and does less melee damage. So, I figure swapping the sisters' locations is an easy way to make the encounter a little easier without having to stat up anything or do much work.

And, when they meet Xanesha later in Hook Mountain, she'll be more of a challenge to higher-level characters than her sister. Her ability to fly will give the ogres of the fort an air force of sorts, should the characters try a "flying artillery platform" approach to storming the keep.

I am going to give Lucrecia a pair of slippers of spider climbing, to explain how she gets in and out of the tower. But that's the only tweak I'll make, I think.

(Sorry to single out your post, Jason. It's just it's the 4th one I've read in under an hour that includes the "4e-hater" tag.)

Well, I'm sorry you don't like the tag, but I don't see how anybody can claim that some, even many, of the posts in this thread are NOT filled with hate for 4e. Maybe you're not in that group of haters, but it's pretty obvious to me that there is such a group, and that they are very vocal.

I personally could give a rat's ass if anybody else converts to 4e or not. I don't care what you do at your table. But I'm converting, and I predict most players and almost all 3rd-party companies will too. You don't have to like hearing people make that prediction, any more than I like the way some people are talking about WotC around here.

My point was simply this: I hope Paizo converts to 4e, because I like their stuff and want to keep buying it, and I won't be buying 3.5 once 4e is out. That's all. You do what you want.

Jason

I love the stuff Paizo puts out. It's super-high quality stuff, and an excellent value for my gaming dollar.

But the day Paizo's products aren't usable with the current version of D&D is the day I bid a sad farewell, and stop buying. As it is, I'm almost certainly not going to buy Crimson Throne, even though I love Rise of the Runelords and am running two concurrent campaigns of it.

The reason for this is because, at our current rate, both of my play groups will have just finished Runelords when 4e comes out. Runelords will be our swan song campaign for 3.5, because we're all switching over right away.

I really, really hope that I can buy Paizo products for 4e, because if I can't, I'm sure I'll be missing some good stuff. But I don't have time to do conversions, so I'm not going to buy anything for 3.5 after 4e is out.

If timing is the problem, that's ok. I don't need a Gencon '08 release of 4e Paizo product. Just take whatever time you need to get 4e stuff together, and I swear I'll come back and buy it when it's ready, if it's up to the current standards. I'm sure a lot of the more, umm, enthusiastic 4e-haters on this board will buy enough stuff in the meantime to keep the lights on at Paizo.

Thanks for listening.
Jason

I'm not buying the preview books. But I'll buy almost everything else.

Certainly I'll buy all three initial books (the books formerly known as "core"), and probably almost all of the subsequent supplements. I will continue to buy 1-2 cases of D&D miniatures per set, and will subscribe to the digital initiative.

I'll also buy future Paizo adventure paths that use 4e. But anything Paizo publishes that continues to use 3.x, I'm certainly not buying.

Actually, probably I'm even going to skip Crimson Throne, because at our current pace of going through Runelords, it'll be almost exactly the release date of 4e when we're done. And at that point, there's no reason to buy a 3.5 adventure path, even tho I'm sure Crimson Throne will be great. I just don't have time to convert it to 4e, and I won't be playing 3.5 anymore.

Please Paizo, change with the times. I will miss you if you're left behind.

Anyway what I'm going to do to get them rolling is when they get back to Sandpoint, Sheriff Hemlock would like a detailed briefing from them, explaining their progress with the murders. Obviously when Hemlock hears about the letter, he will immediately suggest that it would be good to tie up this loose end, so the clueless deputies should go check the Foxglove townhouse in Magnimar.

Another way to go is, when they get back to Sandpoint they find a group of merchants have arrived from Magnimar, bringing tales of murders there. A little investigation reveals these Magnimarian murders also feature the Sihedron rune, and some happened at a time when Aldern was known to be elsewhere.

That might get them moving.

One thing your item was, was something that we saw alot--a riff on an existing item. For example, we got more than one new figurine of wondrous power. Our postion was, this is RPG Freaking Superstar! Now is not the time to come at us with another figure of wondrous power. That isnt superstar. I think your gauntlets perhaps got the same reaction. This is Superstar, step it up! :)

Reading this comment, I'd wager that's what knocked me out of contention too. My Fool's Cap was just an adaptation of the Monk's Belt, but for bards. Bards could use some help, but the item's not a unique or revolutionary concept at all. So it doesn't stand out.

At any rate, some of the entries that were picked are very good, and I look forward to reading the country entries!

A little gore and violence gives you an adventure that feels like it's for adults. Too much gore and violence gives you an adventure that feels juvenile and gratuitous. The problem of course is that all of us have a different point at which we think it's "too much".

For me, Hook Mountain crossed the line over into juvenile and gratuitous. I grew progressively more uncomfortable reading it, and I was fairly disgusted by the time I got to the

Do we really need that? What does it add that we haven't already seen at least a dozen times before that point in the adventure? Ok, I get it, ogres are bad, can we move on please?

But then, upthread someone was complaining that the worst thing about Hook Mountain was a picture with an exposed nipple and breast. I didn't bat an eye at that, and wouldn't be bothered by more explicit pictures or text in the future. So everybody has different things that bother them I guess.

My players wondered how it got across the bridge, too, since it's probably too heavy. I just smiled knowingly like it was something they hadn't figured out, but I dunno either.

Wow Erian, that map is exceptionally useful. Thanks for posting it!

Thanks very much Mr. Jacobs! That's exactly the information I needed. I didn't see it on the first read-through of the Sandpoint section; there's no numbered entry for Old Light.

But that's enough to satisfy the group's curiosity for now. Thanks!

If we were readers going through a fiction series, there could of course be these kinds of "all will be revealed later" mysteries. But we're DM's and if there's a reason that Dungeon A

needs to be under Building B, we need to know that.

Right, that's kind of what I mean. Moving the Catacombs of Wrath had occurred to me, but I foresaw that it could possibly be a problem in future episodes. Hence this thread.

Actually what I really need to know is, in what way should I describe the ruins?

Is it a big pile of rubble with no intact structural elements? Is it a mostly-intact tower that just has no intact entrance? How high is it? What color is the stone? How old? How weathered? How resistant to players chipping at it? Do parts radiate magic?

I can make up stuff like this, of course. Any DM could. But it'd be nice if the stuff I make up now matches the stuff I'll read in box-text later on.

Ok, it's kinda neat that in Burnt Offerings, Old Light is revealed to be some kind of ancient arcane artillery piece. I like that, it's cool.

But you can't very well plop down an old mysterious ruin in the middle of a town and not detail it at all in the first adventure! Players will immediately gravitate toward it when you give them the Player's Guide map to look at. They'll want to check it out right away.

I rather expected Burnt Offerings to feature a dungeon under Old Light. Putting the dungeon under the Glassworks instead was a surprise that left me wondering how the heck to handle the inevitable "My character wants to go explore the Old Light!" requests.

Sure, I can say some variation of "there's no way in" but that's kind of boring. I'd want to at least stick a couple dire rats or whatever into a ruined room accessible through a narrow crack, or something.

Is doing this going to screw up a future adventure in the RotRL path? If yes, then what's a good alternative? Is there anything under Old Light that we'll learn about later?

Awesome, thanks for the link!

It'd be cool to try out the new setting with one of the Paizo guys as DM. :)

I assume that if such sessions exist, they are already sold out. But I'm asking anyway, since I have some free time Saturday and am really excited about Pathfinder.

It's improved from yesterday. Now it does calculate the number of Dungeon issues past the end correctly.

However, it still doesn't add those issues to the ongoing Pathfinder subscription. I tried switching my transition choice to refund, then back to Pathfinder, but that didn't help.

It is supposed to be a 1:1 ratio of issues of Dragon/Dungeon to Pathfinder, isn't it?

EDIT: Err, no, I guess it isn't. I have a total of three issues left after the end of publication, 1 Dragon & 2 Dungeon, and it gives me only one issue of Pathfinder. But reading the page carefully, that seems to be the intent.

Do you mean the ad for Cold Steel Reign? That's the only cowboy ad I can remember from recent issues.

Thank you, Jeremy, for mailing me a replacement issue.

I would like to distance myself from Derek's complaints, I'm kinda taken aback by the venom in his post. I just wanted to politely request a replacement copy for one issue that got eaten by USPS. I don't share Derek's low opinion of the general level of service Paizo provides, on the contrary I think it is very good on the whole.

In any event, thanks again.

This is the worst part about the current submission process. I mean, how many people actually have a damned scanner? It's ridiculous.

How about using a digital camera? Print out the form, sign it, and take a picture of it. If you're careful about taking the picture from the proper angle, it should be nigh-indistinguishable from a scan.

I checked under "my subscriptions" and it seems that issue 333 was shipped on May 31. However, it has yet to arrive. At what point is it considered lost in the mail? And, if it is lost, how do I go about getting another issue sent?

Thanks,
Jason

Thank you for the advice!

I do frequent several messageboards and fan sites, although I think my posts on them are a bit too loose and off-the-cuff to submit as a sample; I would want to submit something that represents my best effort.

I'll put something together that fits that description and send it in. Again, the advice is much appreciated!

Aha, thanks. I didn't look there.

As I've not been previously published anywhere, I guess that kind of rules out submitting to Undefeated.

But thank you for the prompt reply. Now I'll know where to look when I check back in the future to see if you're considering submissions from unpublished would-be authors. :)

--Jason

I can't seem to find the submission guidelines for Undefeated anywhere? I found the Dungeon, Dragon, and Amazing Stories guidelines, but for the life of me I can't find a link to the guidelines for Undefeated.

Am I blind, or are you not accepting submissions currently, or...?

I would appreciate someone pointing them out to me (and possibly pointing at me and laughing, if they're obvious!) ;)

--Jason