JimM47's page

I want to give a thanks and shout out to Jon. I just ran this at Tower and had a great time spicing it up based on Jon's suggestions.

I had the players write down a bunch of advance d20 rolls, and asked for their perception modifiers and their will saves. Then whenever they did something significant, like enter a room, or search something, or react to the creepiness of the situation, I would make the person with the lowest Will Save result see, or hear, or imagine something unsettling, or if multiple characters rolled low, give them conflicting effects.

Anyway, it was great fun adding flavor to this scenario (often from the material that normally only the GM sees) and I wouldn't have thought to do it if I hadn't been inspired by this thread.

The Tengu Swordmaster Rogue Archetype, from Advanced Race Guide p. 164, grants the ability to enter a Trance (Ex) that can mimic a Style Feat from Ultimate Combat. For instance, the Swordmaster may enter a Crane Trance and gain the benefits of the Crane Style Feat.

Is it possible to use this ability to take additional feats in the Crane Style Progression? That is, once the Swordmaster's BAB was high enough, would it satisfy the prerequisite feats for Crane Wing while in the trance?

+1 for the idea of Gargantuans being a separate box.

Ajaxis wrote:

Zesdead wrote:

So, had a quick check of the PDF this morning - looks great but one of the pawns has no art???

My pdf has the picture, so hopefully if you download again you'll have the artwork.

My pdf has the picture also if I view in Windows Adobe Reader. I cannot see that particular picture when viewing the same pdf on iPad.

I can confirm the same issue with the PDF on my iPad.

I think it's likely we'll try to add some kind of expansion symbol to sets after this

Please do. It would make storing, retrieving, and re-shelving large numbers of pawns much easier.

Why not make up some feats and let the effect of reaching the damage threshold be based on feat(s) taken by the character who makes the attack?

Consulting your spellbook and swapping spells takes a minimum of ten minutes and provokes an attack of opportunity.

You could make the time to swap vary with its chance of success. For instance:

To perform the swap the caster has to use a full-round action to make a Spellcraft Check with DC 25 + spell level x2, with a +1 for each additional round spent concentrating, and a +5 bonus if the spell slot being swapped was originally empty. If the caster fails the Spellcraft check, he loses the old spell, or empty spell slot, without gaining the new one. If the caster's bonus exceeds the Spellcraft DC, he can cast the spell as part of the swap action. The caster can't take 20 in combat (as always), and if the circumstances demand, the caster must make Concentration checks (with DC determined by the level of the new spell) or lose the additional time spent concentrating.

Sanity check: how do those numbers work out? Assuming a base stat of 20, and maxed out ranks in Spellcraft, a caster who left the slot blank and spent two rounds unmolested on the swap could successfully access her highest level spell 50% of the time. Spells five levels below the max level cast-able could be accessed without risk. And a twentieth-level caster should be able to cast 1st-level spells at will.

If that seems too powerful, you can make the DC 25 + spell level x3. If the casters are preparing still too many spells for your tastes, you can up both the check DC and the empty slot bonus.

I have been trying to do a bit of the same thing myself, but for flavor purposes, becauseI often find that the stock list of Vancian spells contrains the flavor of the world. Every spellcasting character feels a bit too much the same, a bit too combat-oriented, and a bit too mathematically quantifiable.

One concept I have been toying with is "Reserve Feats" from 3.5. The actual published reserve feats were disappointing, but the concept was promising. In exchange for a feat slot, you would gain the ability to cast a 1st-level effect so long as you had an appropriate higher level spell (usually 3rd level) prepared, but not expended.

Thematically, you could explain this as a wizard being able to channel only so much energy at once before shooting his wad (the prepared higher level spell) but until doing so, the wizard could draw on that energy to produce lesser aspects or incarnations of the same type (the lesser effect).

The published ones were mostly combat oriented, but they could be modified, I think, to solve the old dilemma of the wizard who can cast a massive fireball, but then has to use a match to light his cigar, or stand next to the fire to stay warm, or pester the Party cleric to cast light.

I think to make this mechanic really sing, you'd need to have a bit more of a feat path than just the basic reserve feats, and you might want to structure things so that the caster gets fewer high-level slots, but more quickly. You might also want to craft higher level spells that don't do much on their own, but have a lot of useful aspects to draw upon for the reserve effect.