Jeremy Hansen's page

I would be in the group that would never "fudge" and hate the idea of it. However I think it depends on what type of people you are playing with. The people I play with just don't take their characters or their character deaths very seriously so living or dieing is not the determining factor in fun. It's more of the social interactions, the story and the challenge. With this type of group why bother? Same goes for the adventure "bosses"

However if I were to be and were to play with people whose enjoyment would be seriously decreased due character death than I would take actions to ensure character deaths were very rare which includes "fudging rolls". The same would apply to making sure "boss challenges" were enjoyable.

Ultimately if you're not having fun what's the point of playing? Every single rule or tradition in that context is optional.

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as confrontational. I am just passionate about using analytical decision making models (former pro poker player, not work in finance) to make business decisions. No offense intended to anyone

waynemarkstubbs wrote:

blope wrote:

Maybe you could split a subscription with someone. Find a US person that just wants the books and split the cost of the subscription between the two of you. Put that person's address down for the books and put your address down for the pdfs.

Isn't the person who is the registered subscriber then selling paizo's intellectual property at a profit?

paizo for better or for worse, sells one product (the hardcopy and pdf bundled together) I don't think they intend for that product to be broken apart and sold in a secondary market.

You're heart is in the right place but I would think this would be a very slippery slope ripe for abuse.

Jeremy Hansen wrote:

As for the escalation in printing costs that's much harder question to answer. An easy answer would be to set the margins for the pdf's at a point where they subsidize the printing much in the way the NYT paper version subsidizes the website. I'm not sure if this can be done in practice however.

The NYT may be a bad example, as, um, they're losing money hand over fist...

If we assume that people who are not reading the website are now not paying for a subscription that they other would then it is an even better example! (in reality it is much much more complicated and you have to account for competitor websites)

NYT hardcopy margins is supposed to subsidize the free online content.
In doing so NYT is losing money.
Therefore if we limit the discussion to these variables, offering free online content is -EV and therefore should not be done.

The decision making process (which is all I am arguing for) still works

Sometimes your gut has more sense than some guy who whips up numbers for you...

This type of thinking is thankfully being used in business less and less. Information generated is only as good and the information collected, so it's true that if for example paizo were to use poorly collected or guesses in determining what price pdf's should be sold at the results would not be useful or worse harmful. But that is not the fault of the model but rather that of the faulty information and those who relied on it.

I'm not saying that selling a pdf only subscription is in the end a good idea. What I am saying is that if this issue has been important enough to discuss multiple times then perhaps it is time to examine it in a systematic and logical way. The outcome may very well be that selling a pdf only subscription is not a +ev decision. or it may turn out that there is not enough information available and they need to do more research, or there could be a price point where selling is +ev. Either isn't it much better to know why you are making a decision and what information and assumptions you used to arrive at it, rather than relying on a "gut" feeling?

It's an open question, of course, whether a PDF-only subscription would cut into the print subscriber numbers. I think if it was cheap enough that perhaps it would. And that's just not something that makes us very comfortable at the moment.

I don't understand this part. Certainly you have dealt with problems like this before and I would suspect have done so analytically. You would need to develop some models that let you plug in different assumptions for pdf price - sales and reduction in hard copy sales and then do some market research. Making a fairly educated determination of what price point maximizes revenues becomes easier at that point.

I can understand if you decide not to do so for various reasons but I cannot for the life of me understand why would you leave things up to how comfortable everyone feels.

As for the escalation in printing costs that's much harder question to answer. An easy answer would be to set the margins for the pdf's at a point where they subsidize the printing much in the way the NYT paper version subsidizes the website. I'm not sure if this can be done in practice however.

However I do think you need to willing to change and risk alienating some current customers (which you will certainly do) in order to best serve your market.

(given time to reflect surely you would agree that paizo is content provider and not a publishing company?)

I love this thread so much. thanks for updating

Thanks for the quick help :)

When a wizard is making a ranged touch spell attack (example evocation school ability energy beam) are there any bonuses added to that attack roll such as Dexterity or Intelligence. How about the wizards BAB?

Thank you

yes, a human Fighter should have 3 feats, 1 for first level, 1 as a bonus Fighter feat (chosen from the Fighter bonus feat list) and 1 from being a human. (you should also ask if you can get a weapon focus out of your useless free martial weapon proficiency from being a human... just advise)

I see what you mean. Has there been an unofficial ruling from Paizo on that? If not I was think of allowing a human fighter to select one exotic weapon to be proficient with. Does that seem reasonable?

Does a Human 1st level fighter start with 3 feats? In the fighter table it says the fighter gets a bonus feat but in the description it says the fighter gets 1 at each level, is the 1st level bonus feat on top the standard first level feat. Ie 2, meaning then a 1st level human fighter would start with 3 feats.

Thanks

Just spent the afternoon reading this while trying to get work done. What a great job you have done both in running a creative a fun game and in telling a great story! I feel so excited to go home and play some D&D and was bummed when I got to the last post. Please continue telling the story and thanks for the good times.

Note - as someone who is new to pathfinder and anything past AD&D2 the DM Notes and mechanical discussions were very educational. I loved reading about how you set things up.

JH

ok so I think I understand how the two weapon option works with the twin strike at will power.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

By choosing both the ranger may attack with both his main hand weapon and off hand weapon. Whereas other characters cannot attack with both weapons and/or would suffer greater restrictions in the off hand weapon choice.

I haven't come across anything about penalties suffered, can I assume there are not any.

Thus it's Ranger (two weapon fighting style) Roger's turn to attack he uses his twin strike and attacks with the longsword in his right hand and then the longsword in his left hand. These attacks rolls have identical calculations and identical damage calculations.

Correct?

Thank you for your help

thanks, I think that makes sense to me. I'm just learning the rules now but it sounds like if I read over the normal attacking with two weapons section (in dmg?) the above will make more sense.

Another question I have. For the powers that are able to be used as either two melee weapons or ranged, does selecting it once give the ranger both capabilities? ie if he picks careful attack, can he choose to either use it for a ranged or melee attack depending on the situation or would he have to select it twice. ie careful attack melee weapon, careful attack bow?

on page 104 under fighting styles it says.

"Two-Blade Fighting Style: Because of your
focus on two-weapon melee attacks, you can wield a
one-handed weapon in your off hand as if it were an
off-hand weapon. (Make sure to designate on your
character sheet which weapon is main and which is offhand.)

What the does using an offhand weapon as if it were an offhand weapon mean? what else would it be? Is that a typo?

let's say a fighter has quick draw and combat reflexes.

will using his bow for ranged attacks is provoked with an attack of opportunity/ies be able to switch to a melee weapon (free action) and make as many AoO equal to his dexterity bonus?

thank you

please excuse the simple question this is my first exposure to the d20 rules and pathfinder.

A human gets a bonus feat
and a figher gets a bonus feat at 1st level
all characters get 1 at 1st level.

does this mean a human fighter would have 3 feats at first level?

I am currently starting The Keep on The Borderlands using 2.5 rules but I would like to include a Barbarian Character class. I am interested in some ideas for abilities and restrictions I could use.

Here is a general outline which what I'm looking for.

HD12

Some type of restriction on magical items used.
no rods, wands, and non warrior misc weapons

Beserking ability.
I figure I could just adapt this straight from 3.5

sometype of movement bonus.

An Armor restriction
this is the one I having the most difficulty with. I know in 3.5 barbarians can wear up to medium armor but I haven't found anything which specifies what types or armor are medium and which are heavy. Ideally Id like them to be able to be moderately armored. Should chainmail be the cutoff and which side would it fall on?

damage bonus? I'm not sure if this is needed in 2.5 as other classes do not have it and they are able to use magical weapons.

all thoughts appreciated