John Robey's page

So I've run about 10 sessions of 2E across two groups at this point (we were just starting to transition when the OGL nonsense went down), and the whole "PF2E encounters are brutal" thing is definitely showing up here. But besides just being brutal, the encounters have been uniquely frustrating in that the players just can not seem to get their specials to land.

The swashbuckler either blows their attempt to Tumble Through and just throws away an action instead, OR has panache but can't manage to land another hit ever.

The champion only ever gets critically hit. The first one breaks their shield, the second one breaks them.

The magus either can't successfully hit with a spellstrike, OR the monster insta-dies from the weapon attack and the spellstrike is wasted.

(The rogue not getting sneak attack is on them for never hiding or flanking.)

Is this... normal? I feel like my players are being trained "Never Attempt Specials, They Do Not Work." One group is going through Abomination Vaults, the other is homebrew stuff using the established guidelines, and both groups end up every fight Wounded 2 and with 7 hp spread across the party. Even handing out hero points like candy doesn't help because they just get hoarded to ward off Dying 2 From Critical Hit.

They do tend towards being gloryhounds, and I've been trying to nudge them towards more tactical, team-oriented play; so I know that some of this is their own choices biting them. But even not-always-optimal play shouldn't be THIS punishing, should it?

-The Gneech

When does this board get renamed to "D&D 5th Edition (and Beyond)"?

-The Gneech

For those interested in such things, a quickie write-up of the first session of my new Starter Set campaign:

Here be goblins...

-The Gneech

It just hit me today, kinda out of the blue, but I really miss Dungeon magazine. The adventure paths have their moments and all, but what made Dungeon so great was its variety.

The Pathfinder stuff, being all made for Golarion, starts feeling very "samey" to me after a while: Lovecraftian this, demon-touched that, PG-13 the other. That stuff is all fine, but as I say... after a while it's all the same. And worse, because it comes in five-piece chunks, it's only useful "off the shelf" if you intend to use the whole thing. If you pick up #4 of 5 and only want to use that part, you have to strip out the assumed "your players have done this" bits and make sure there's a satisfying ending to THIS part.

By contrast: in any given issue of Dungeon, you might have a Shire-like halfling town dealing with uppity ankhegs, bumped up against a bizarre side-trek involving a medusa sorceress who sells "very realistic statues" at a carnival, rounding it off with a high-level trip to the elemental plane of fire that is the capstone of a long arc.

Each issue had a lot to chew on. Until it became "all adventure paths, all the time" it was real easy to just grab something roughly the right level and insert it into your campaign-- bring your own subplots, if any! And if you didn't need that Shire-like town and their uppity ankhegs today, you might discover next year that it fits your new campaign like a glove. I still pull adventures out of old issues of Dungeon that I've been wanting to use for half a decade... although I'm kinda running out, now.

Anyway... not sure where I'm going with this whole rant. Just remembering good times I guess, and wishing there was something like it today. You did great things with Dungeon, Paizo. :)

-The Gneech

(Edit to fix typo.)

My new campaign isn't set in Middle-earth exactly, but it's close enough that it's the best way to describe it. It's got that whole Medieval Literature/Faerie/Mythic Britain thing going on, uses a very carefully-chosen palette of classes, spells and monsters, and so forth. As such, lots of adventures which are otherwise very cool, are simply not appropriate to this setting, and I'm looking for suggestions on ones that might be usable or at least can supply large chunks. Pathfinder scenarios are optimal, but I can easily convert 3.x mods at well.

What I've got so far:

PATHFINDER

Burnt Offerings (RotRL 1): The singing goblins are perfect and have been lifted whole cloth. Large chunks of the first half work well. The big baddie herself does not and is out. Sadly, the rest of the RotRL path also seems to be out.

Hollow's Last Hope: Almost perfect as written, with names/places tweaked to fit the setting.

DUNGEON MAGAZINE (CLASSIC)

Buzz In the Bridge: Almost perfect as written, with names/places tweaked to fit the setting. Sadly, already used.

Iriandel: Almost perfect as written, with names/places tweaked to fit the setting. Also already used.

Bogged Down: Usable with tweaks.

Valley of the Snails: Usable with tweaks.

Elfwhisperer: Usable with tweaks.

THIRD PARTY

Tales of the Old Margreve: Large chunks are liftable.

The main things I'm looking for are things with a more classically "folklore"-ish or medieval vibe... which unfortunately knocks out a lot of the stuff written for Golarian as it tends to lean more on pulp era (e.g., Lovecraft, sword-and-planet stuff) and/or what I call (for lack of a better term) "D&D-isms".

(What's a D&D-ism? Planar travel. Drow babes in leather. Mind flayers. Reptilian chihuahua-men called kobolds. Stuff like that.)

NOTE: There's nothing wrong with pulp era and D&D-isms, they're just not right for this specific campaign.

So please! Give me any and all suggestions you might have. Note that I've got a lot of the old MERP stuff, all of the Decipher LotR RRP, and "The One Ring." Those I can convert as needed. What I'm looking for here is stuff that's already in a system that's closer to Pathfinder.

Thanks!

-The Gneech

We've all got our pet peeves about one system or another -- this is a more generalized idea of things that happen across multiple systems that annoy you.

For me: "false advertising" -- when a game system's cover or artwork promises one type of experience, but the game itself provides a completely different one, or at the very least discourages it. Remember all those bare-chested barbarians in fantasy games where you had to wear plate armor to survive? How about the SF game with Han Solo's Twin Brother, a sapient Celery Stalk wielding a blaster rifle, and a member of the Pride of Chanur on the cover, which inside had what amounted to "Chartered Accountancy -- IN SPACE"?

Here's another one -- specific franchise books whose supplements don't actually provide any detail beyond what you could see for yourself just by watching the movie/show (or reading the book), or boil down to a book of stats for the main characters and nothing else. (I remember here Decipher's "Lord of the Rings" game map of Balin's Tomb, I think it was -- a square room with a rectangle in the middle marked "sarcophagus". Really, ya think?)

-The Gneech

If you're familiar with 4E, then you're probably familiar with the famous "page 42" of the DMG, which contains your "go to" table for quickly figuring skill DCs, improvised hazard damage, and whatnot. This is a GM's second best friend (after +2/-2), and I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't something similar for Pathfinder. So I put this together using the "Monster Stats by CR" as my starting point.

Check it out!

Feedback welcome and desired. :)

-The Gneech

So, those who've played Pathfinder a while, how do higher-level combats compare in PfRPG vs. D&D3.5? The reason I ask, I have a 10th-level 3.5 game that I'm thinking to move over.

My guess would be, from what I've seen, that it's probably similar (iterative attacks, buff spells, and so forth); if so, that's not a deal-breaker ... there are other good things going for Pf. Mainly I'm just curious of people's impressions of what, if any, difference there is.

-The Gneech

So I'm kludging along in 3.5 because it has E-Tools.

I don't like what 4E did with classes, but I must admit their Adventure Tools utility makes me drool.

I'm barraged with recommendations to switch to Pathfinder ... but other than plug-ins for 3rd party tools that I've never gotten much use for, there's no computer support that I can see.

I know this question must have been asked, but a search of the forums didn't turn up anything ... so here goes.

Is there/will there ever be a suite of gamemaster software for Pathfinder? Something that can build PCs, NPCs, and monsters without requiring a whole lot of tweaking ... but preferably -allowing- a whole lot of tweaking if the GM so desires? (Like custom races, custom classes, that kind of thing.)

I'd really, REALLY like the answer to be "yes" on this one. Pleeeease?

Thanks. :)

-The Gneech

One of the few places where 4E is actually superior to Saga Edition is in the encounter-building system. As in, it actually as one. However, since the "XP Budget" system of 4E is not directly translatable to Saga Edition, I've written up a conversion! (With thanks to Wulf Ratbane for inspiration.)

http://www.gneech.com/swordandsorcery/index.html#encounterbudget

This system makes determining appropriate encounters in Saga Edition a breeze, instead of the enormous headache it was before; as an added bonus, it also works for Dungeons and Dragons 3.x. Can't figure out the difference between CL, CR, and EL? Trying to figure out if that encounter built for four 3rd level characters will be too tough or too easy for your actual party of six 2nd level characters? Does the idea of trying to figure out the appropriate XP award for 4 ogres, 2 bugbears, and 10 orcs give you the shakes? Then fear not! Using the "Encounter Building by XP Budget," you can answer all of those questions quickly while you actually build the encounter, making it easy to customize on the fly.

(For the record, an encounter built for four 3rd level characters [1,840 XP] will be slightly tough for your party of six 2nd level characters [1,380 XP], but not tough enough to make it an EL+1 encounter [2,070 XP]. Also, the XP award for 4 ogres, 2 bugbears, and 10 orcs should be 3,915 for each member of a 4 character party, or 2,610 for each member of a 6 character party. Math-illiterate that I am, I just calculated all that in about 45 seconds with no spreadsheet of any kind.)

It's pretty spiffy! Check it out and let me know what you think.

-The Gneech

I realize that being able to say "Pathfinder is absolutely compatible with your 3.5 material!" is a major concern in regards to getting people to adopt it. I get that.

At the same time, I'm seeing what appears to be a very uneven application of the principle. Getting rid of iterative attacks is bad for backwards compatibility, but completely reshuffling the skill list (and adding new skills that no imported stat block will have an analog for), adding a new "Combat Maneuvers" statistic and rules system, and so forth are not, for instance.

I think at some point in the not-too-distant future, you're going to have to make a strongly-defined decision on where the backwards-compatibility line is drawn, because right now it seems to be a bit "all over the board".

Speaking only for myself, I don't care as much about being absolutely plug'n'play as I do about pruning all of the 3.x baggage while still being "close enough for government work". I'll be quite honest with you, when I thought that 4E was going to be a "Saga-ized 3.x" I was all for it -- it's only when I saw that they were just trading one brand of baggage for another that I decided it wasn't for me.[1] So from my perspective, anything you can do to make "3.Paizo" have the "classic 3.x flavor" on the surface but run with the "modern, streamlined engine" of a post-3.x system is pure win.

On the opposite side, if you aren't going to go that way, then you need to go back and re-evaluate the changes being made so far. The new skill list is NOT backwards-compatible, not directly. The "quick conversion" method on p. 62 isn't really all that quick -- "add feats and powers to high level NPCs, recalculate their hit points, and refigure the CMB for any creatures that aren't medium" is not a big deal for a 1st level module, but is huge for a 15th level one. And what do we do about all those common feats that were removed or changed? etc.

I guess what I'm getting at, is you can't really have it both ways. If you're going to make big changes, go ahead and MAKE BIG CHANGES. If you're going to make it almost unchanged, LEAVE IT ALMOST UNCHANGED. Right now, it appears to be in danger of falling into the "just different enough to be a pain to use" category, and IMO that's a recipe for disaster.

-The Gneech

[1] I don't want to get into a 4E thread here; let's just say I don't like the direction it's headed and leave it at that.

Okay, my earlier "broken out" post got eaten, and then un-eaten. So I'll try again for topic #2, and then clean up my post in the "General Likes/Dislikes" thread.

DROP SKILL SYNERGIES AND SPEED BONUSES TO SKILL CHECKS
Besides being a min-maxer's paradise, these are yet another thing that slows down character building, for very little real benefit. Lose 'em!

SKILL CALCULATIONS
Instead of...

Untrained 1d20 + Ability modifier + racial modifier

Trained Class Skill 1d20 + Character level + 3 + ability modifier + racial modifier
Trained Cross-Class skill 1d20 + 1/2 (character level +3) + ability modifier + racial modifier

I would recommend the following formulae or something similar to them:

Untrained: 1d20 + Ability modifier + racial modifier
Trained Class: 1d20 + 4 + level + Ability modifier + racial modifier
Trained Cross-Class: 1d20 + level + Ability modifier + racial modifier

Cross-class skills will take a hit at low levels and get a big boost at high levels, but again there's less math (especially when creating high level skill blocks, always a 3.5 bugaboo). Trained skills will still always be better than untrained, as well.

-The Gneech

Lisa posted elsewhere that feedback should come in discrete chunks, so I'm going to start a separate thread for each broad topic I've noticed on first readthrough, i.e., Iterative Attacks, Hit Points, Spell Suggestions, and Skill Check Totals. Here's thread #1. :)

Iterative attacks for BAB should be removed. SWSE's model of a single attack that gains a bonus of +1/2 character level to damage works out to very similar math, while simultaneously speeding up combat (no more rolling a bazillion dice for one character's turn) and creating a more dynamic, movement-based encounter.

-The Gneech

...what makes it, well, "Greyhawkey"?

This isn't intended as a bash on Pathfinder/Gamemastery/Golarion generally; I like it. But at the same time, there's a significant (if hard-to-define) flavor that Greyhawk has, that I was rather hoping to see come through in the Pathfinder series, and so far I'm not seeing it yet.

Maybe it's a mistake on my part to be looking for that; if so, I'll accept that with some disappointment.

Or maybe I'm just missing it. If people are getting that Gygaxian vibe and it's eluding me, please help me see it by bringing up examples.

I'm looking to be converted here. :) Not converted into thinking one is better than the other, but rather into thinking that the two are quite similar.

-The Gneech

PS: Please no flamewars. Please don't let it turn into a "this setting SUCKS that setting RULES" thread or anything along those lines.

So, is this based on the old boardgame with the rotating electronic tower, or what?

Sure looks like it. 0.o

Not that it's a bad thing -- I loved that game!

-The Gneech ("Dang it, the dragon stole half my gold!")

I'll readily admit that I immediately subscribed to Pathfinder as a lifeline on the announcement that WotC was killing my beloved magazines. But as time goes on, I'm beginning to wonder if I should go with GameMastery instead.

You see, much as I loved Dungeon magazine, particularly on Paizo's watch, the adventure paths were actually something I was -not- real keen on. As an occasional special, yes, they were good, but by the end of Age of Worms they had overrun the magazine, severely limiting its utility for anybody NOT running an adventure path.

Thus it was with mixed feelings that I subscribed to Pathfinder -- happy to be getting SOME kind of print periodical with adventures in it, but wishing it was simply an anthology of random smaller adventures every month rather than big, serial blocks.

On the other hand, looking over the upcoming Gamemastery modules line, I'm seeing a lot of stuff I like. The urban adventures particularly are catching my interest as I get ready to begin a new "Lankhmaresque" campaign of warriors and rogues in a city corrupt to its core.

My gaming dollar is limited, as is my shelf space. So I'm wondering now, should I cancel the Pathfinder subscription and switch it to Gamemastery?

Opinions welcome!

-The Gneech

What's the scale on these guys?

-The Gneech

Back in November of last year, I ordered some minis off of the Magnificent Egos website and paid via Paypal. The miniatures never arrived, and my e-mail inquiries about the order status went unanswered.

Since they are partnering with you good people at Paizo now, I'm hoping you can connect me with whoever it is over there I need to talk to so I can either get my minis, or a refund. I've tried emailing "mercury@magnficientegos.com" -- their listed contact -- and not heard a peep. There are no phone numbers to be found on their site.

Thanks for your help in this matter!

-John "The Gneech" Robey

I received #346 last night ... great issue! I'm really enjoying the "Core Beliefs" series and want to see it go on as long as there are deities to cover. I'm particularly looking forward to Wee Jas, just because she happens to be a particular power in my current campaign, but they're all interesting! I did think the illustration of Pelor was a bit odd ... what's the deal with the '80s hair? I always pictured Pelor looking a bit more roof-of-the-Cistene-Chapel-ish, myself.

The "Class Acts" article for Scouts is quite handy too. My Legolas-clone is very likely to take advantage of a few of those feats in the not-too-distant future! Nice illo, too.

While I'm praising the art, I'd like to single out the cataphracts, too -- very nice!

-The Gneech

PS: Oh, and the upcoming Princes of Elemental Evil? YES. Between those and the avatars in MM IV, my players are in for some big, big trouble!

...and it's very cool! There are few issues w/ the paint (the wash on the rider's legs went "outside the lines"), but overall it's very good. I'm already working on a way to put it into my campaign. :)

So, thanks!

-The Gneech

I'm going to be starting a new side-campaign set in Luskan, starting with "Mad God's Key" and then going on to "Box of Flumph" (they're both harbor-city adventures featuring a half-orc thug with a single out-sized tusk -- coincidence?). However, I'm not that familiar with Faerûn, so I'm looking for suggestions on how to transpose the Greyhawk-specific elements of "Mad God's Key."

Zagyg, I figure, can pretty easily be swapped with Halaster. But who would be the best choice to replace Vecna for the cultists? Beshaba? Cyric? Mask?

I'm open to suggestions!

-The Gneech

As my campaign has progressed, I've come to really depend on Dungeon. About half of my campaign has been run more-or-less off the shelf from Dungeon magazine, with suitable alterations to fit my particular corner of Greyhawk.

I've now also started using it as a campaign planning tool: I downloaded the 3rd Edition Adventure Index from 3d6.org, sorted it by level, and started lining up adventures that I can start working towards. It's been an eye-opening experience ... two weeks ago, I was wondering just what the heck to do with the next session, but now I have about five 6th-level adventures that would fit just right and I have to figure out a way to choose among them.

I've created my own rough "Adventure Path" from this, looking a progression something like:

"Cradle of Madness" (Issue 87, 6th level)
"Beast of Burden" (Issue 100, 6th level)
"Seventh Arm" (Issue 88, 7th level)
"Elfwhisper" (Issue 90, 8th level)

...and so on, with the "City of Shadows" arc having a nice, solid spot at 11th-12th. However, I have noticed that there is an effective ceiling of choices in Dungeon after 16th level. Since issue 82, there have been NO 17th-level adventures, three 18th, and one each of 19th, 20th, and 21st -- many of which were the climax to Shackled City.

So my request is for a few more solid stand-alone adventures in the 17th-20th block! I won't need them right away, mind you -- my campaign is still at 6th level. ;) But I figure if I make the request now, there's a better chance they'll be around when it comes time for me to start the heavy-duty planning for that part.

Meanwhile, keep up the great work! And thanks.

-The Gneech

This past weekend, I finished running "Totentanz" from Issue #90, and I thought I'd post my thoughts on it for those who were interested.

My game is set in Greyhawk, specifically in Bissel, and this adventure came right on the heels of "Vanity" from an earlier issue. At the end of that adventure, two characters had suffered level drains from the spectre of Dorl Tavyani and one was dominated by Skullcrusher, the evil, intelligent club. However, he had a problem: between the negative levels inflicted on him by the spectre, and the negative levels inflicted by picking up an opposite-alignment item, he should drop dead on the spot.

I decided this was no fun, and instead had it be that every time he picked up the club, he passed out. And because I didn't want the characters to have to worry about permanent level loss (I don't think any of us could have taken them being fourth level again), I ruled that Tavyani's peculiar drain could not be shrugged off, but also would not be permanent if they could find a restoration spell. Thus, they were searching for a cleric, and given how undead-heavy Totentanz was, I put an NPC in the town to join their group for the duraction of the adventure.

The module took three sessions of roughly four hours each; combat, while present, was minimal and generally not very taxing to a group of six 5th-level characters. This suited everyone fine, after the pounding they all took in "Vanity."

The first part of Totentanz as written has the characters travel to the town of Luzern through a handful of villages, picking up rumors, and occasionally having random encounters. I discarded all of this, and got the characters to Luzern by chasing their mentally-dominated member, who had fled the group, dragging the club on a rope behind him to avoid passing out. I also inserted an encounter that ties to my long-range campaign plot, which isn't worth going into here. Instead of a remote mountain town, I moved Luzern to the edge of "The Burning," a section of Bissel that was devastated by the war with Ket.

THINGS THAT WORKED: Overall, I was pleased with how it went. Alas, the actual "Dance of the Dead" part of the adventure never came up -- when the characters learned what it was, they made a point of getting the heck out of town at night. The creepy ambience of the skeleton farmers in the fields, the skeleton townies going about their business, and of course the skeleton innkeeper serving them empty alemugs made a nice, Halloweeny atmosphere. Setting the Wizard's Keep as the only thing across the river was a brilliant stroke on the designer's part -- since it contained most of the big clues, making it be the obvious choice of something to check out right away managed to get the players the info they needed without hamfisting them into it.

I also liked the little snippets of Luzern history (the suggested background of Lord Bohort and the river nypmh, reflected in the town fountain and the shrine, for instance); that made Luzern seem like a real place, rather than Generic Fantasy Village #1047. The strength in this adventure is really in the flavor text.

The best moment in the thing, actually, came in the cellar of the wizard's keep. After coming up with creative ways to get past the lightning-floor trap, they encountered the gray ooze in the well, and decided it would be a handy way to get rid of Skullcrusher the evil club. In a bit of inspiration, I had the ooze absorb the club and undergo a metamorphosis into a _fiendish_ gray ooze, which burst out of the well and attacked them. (Only in D&D will you hear a phrase like "The fiendish ooze attempts to Smite Good on Dragor!")

THINGS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: I've never been a fan of forced-perspective exploded maps; I much prefer good old-fashioned flat maps of the "Keep On the Borderlands" variety. I eventually broke down and copied the maps over onto my own graph paper. While doing so, I added a walled courtyard and some servants' quarters to Luzern Keep to make it a little more interesting than just a big square block of stone.

The writing was very scattered -- the contents of "The Book of Dancing Death" were detailed in the Wizard's Keep, for instance, even though the book itself was located at the Bridge Shrine. The description of Lord Bohort's sword was similarly buried somewhere in the text of the castle, even though the sword itself was hidden in the town temple. There were lots of examples of this, unfortunately. Background information being scattered through the adventure is annoying but workable; stats for items or key information about characters need to be where you encounter that item or character.

OVERALL SCORE: I'd give this one 3.5 out of 5. It's a nice, solid adventure, if a bit pedestrian (driving the Wraith King out of Luzern was fun, but hardly epic). The not-so-great maps were outweighed by the strong sense of "place" given by specific details of local color. If the item stats had been WITH the items, and the whole thing been a bit more organized, it would have earned a 4.

-The Gneech