John Warren's page

Golarion isn't earth and might have developed jeans/baseball caps at some point over its massive history that might conflict with the order of how they were invented in our world.

Well, that's a good point. Still feels odd to me to see a baseball cap in a fantasy RPG, but it seems like these days people care less and less about that kind of thing.

Also that might be a different lumberjack in the festival than Dingo Dray, the rest of his named pictures have a pretty consistent look that's different from the chapter opening picture.

Hmmm... I guess that's possible. The lumberjack in the other two pictures also has a beard, a red flannel shirt and suspenders, but a different hat. Dingo's hair is redder than the guy in the chapter opening illustration. I still think it's supposed to be him though. :-)

This is not a big deal, but my players were confused by the fact that Dingo Dray seems to be wearing a baseball cap in the illustration at the beginning of chapter 4. Kind of looks like blue jeans, too. Is he a time traveler?

We only got to play 2 or 3 sessions of my 2E campaign before we had to stop meeting in person. We haven't tried to play online yet, but maybe someday.

Overall I like 2E, but I would be happy with a simpler ruleset. Poisons, in particular are waaaay more complicated than I would prefer. I've read the poison section of the rules two or three times, and I still don't grasp it.

I don't think 2E needs four times the number of conditions that D&D 5E has to be a fun game. Oh, and feats seem really weak. But I guess having 1000 weak feats allows for more customization than 250 strong feats?

On the positive side, the action economy is great. Combat seems to move quickly (and I think that will get better once we know the rules better). Overall, I like it, but I'm at the age where I don't necessarily want such a rules-heavy game.

What happened to Dead God's Hand? It seems to have disappeared.

I posted about this back on 3/2, but no one has responded.

I added four items to my sidecart back at the end of January and asked them for them to be shipped with my February subscriptions.

Instead, late in February, you guys shipped all my items separately, and for some reason decided to ship my Gods & Magic book by 1-day priority shipping, which cost $45.

So, for the four items, you charged me $60 in shipping. I wanted these to ship with my subscription at the normal, cheaper rate.

I get it that someone on your end made a mistake, but you need to fix this and not just ignore me. :-)

Thanks.

Hello?

Tried to call you, but no one is answering the phone and your voice mailbox is full.

The point of having these items added to my subscription order was to save on postage, but looking at the order, you split them into four separate orders (map pack, map pack, AP, and Gods & Magic) and charged me a total of $60.48 in postage.

What the heck happened with this order?

I ordered the Gods & Magic book plus two map packs.

I placed the order more than a month ago, and put it in my sidecart to have it shipped with my subscriptions, which are apparently running late this month?

Then, suddenly last week, you shipped just this one book to me separate of my other stuff. You shipped it ONE DAY PRIORITY mail and charged me $45.48 for shipping!

What the heck is going on? You did not have my permission to ship this at that rate. $45 for a single book is INSANE.

Can you please tell me what happened and fix this?

Thanks.

Thanks for the update!

I'm sooo jealous of those of you who have the PDF! I got an email on 1/13 saying my order would ship in "1 to 10 days," but it hasn't yet, so no PDF for me.

Ordinarily, this would be no big deal, but I was hoping to start running the adventure tomorrow....

This is tangential to the original topic (which I am excited about!), but does anyone know who has the rights to the Savage Tide adventure path? It was published in DUNGEON magazine back when Paizo was producing DRAGON and DUNGEON.

Paizo did put out a compilation of the Shackled City AP, but I believe that was while they were still doing the magazines.

I guess what I'm really saying is that some day I'd love to have a compilation of Savage Tide as well, but it seems unlikely that one will ever be produced. Oh, and while we're at it, how about one for Age of Worms as well?

... also I think all of the characters are facing away from the dragon attacking them? (I noticed this because I'm hoping Merisiel's right leg is in front, rather than her left leg, as otherwise her waist is rather unpleasantly contorted — hard to tell with the position of the book title.)

Yeah, it is odd to me that the PCs seem to be ignoring the dragon and looking at something that we can't see off to the left.

My group was smart and saved all their wishes until the end. So, Ramlock appeared when they hit 12 Axiom Points, but they were able to get up to 24 in just one more round, so he only got one round to attack them before he was banished.

So, overall, that was kind of anti-climactic. I welcome smart play, but one of the players specifically said he didn't like how easy it was to get through the last encounter.

While there was undoubtedly both internal groups and some external groups that ran the Playtest going level-by-level with the same characters, I think that the lack of this option was perhaps an oversight for the Playtest. People don't get a chance to learn the rules or grow with their characters. This slows things down - to the point that one 9th level encounter took over two hours because my players in the Skype group didn't know what they could do.

Yes, this was a big problem for my group, too. We've only just finished part 3, but the players are really struggling to keep up with all of the rules and what their various abilities do. There's a LOT of stopping to look things up, which is not ideal.

I can't imagine what it will be like if we endure until part 7 and everyone is running level 17 characters.

This seems like as good a place as any to ask:

+ Does the playtest end November 16? Will the surveys be shut down then, or will they remain open?

My groups will only be about halfway through Doomsday Dawn by 11/16. I suspect we will continue to play through it, at least for awhile. Just wondering if I should keep filling out surveys, or if it will be irrelevant by that point.

The lv 12 playtest one person commented that they wanted to play a druid with a pet since it was a lot higher level now, but when he saw that the AC was like 7 less than everyone else's or something and HP wasn't like 100 over everyone to compensate he changed his mind. Players get critted enough when we all have max AC, 7 less and he felt the animal was just asking to get crit all the time from their 3rd attack. Also that their saves were a little lower, not as super bad though.

I ran Part 2 of the Playtest Friday night, and the druid kept sending his animal companion into melee. As a DM I hate that, because it means that I end up killing the animal companion (which I did), which makes me feel like a jerk.

I feel like a lot of players whose characters theoretically love animals don't act in a way that demonstrates a love of animals. (Sorry, veering a little off-topic now. Just a gripe I have about RPGs in general.)

I have to agree that the new rules sometimes feel like a big pile of new subsystems. I cringed a little bit when the 1.4 update came out and it was announced that the problems with Ancestry would fixed by adding Heritage. Heritage addresses a concern that one of my players had expressed about the new system, so that's good. I just fear all the fixes adding more little subsystems on top of the other subsystems.

That said, I have become obsessed with the new game, and I want it to be a success. I have created more characters for this system than I have for any system since AD&D. Character creation is slow the first couple of times, but it gets much faster with practice.

I'm in two groups (one as a GM and one as a player), and both are WAY behind because we don't play every week.

Group 1 is halfway through Part 2 and will finish next Friday.

Group 2 just finished Part 1 and will start Part 2 next Wednesday.

On a different topic (but something also mentioned in this blog post), I enjoy giving feedback via surveys, but some of the questions are frustrating. Several times I wanted to pick an option that was not available or to be able to choose "n/a" when it was something I didn't feel strongly about, and not all of the questions allow that.

I think they need to make this distinction clearer, as well. Until right now, I was also thinking a spell attack roll was a spell roll.

Glad I'm not the only one! I think "spell roll" is a bit too generic to be clear.

John Warren wrote:

So, can someone tell me which spells a wizard would use Strength to "aim?"

A spell involving a melee touch attack only.

Thanks everyone for the responses. This is helpful.

Okay, I downloaded Update 1.3, and I guess I'm just dense, because I can't figure out what this means:

"Q: Is my spell roll the attack roll for my spells?

A: No, your attack roll for spells uses the same proficiency
modifier (as per page 197), but you still use your Strength
or Dexterity modifier to aim it, unlike your spell rolls, which
apply to all other rolls with your spells, such as when casting
Black Tentacles."

So, can someone tell me which spells a wizard would use Strength to "aim?" The ones where he or she throws something? And Dex when he or she fires a missile of some kind with a spell? And then Int for everything else?

I don't get it. I feel like the designers of this game cannot bear to write rules that are easily understood.

That's another gripe. It would be way easier to just include the DC in the monster's stat block so that we don't need to go look it up all the time.

Yes! Yes! Yes! One thousand times yes! Why not just include the DC in the monster's stat block? Definitely something I would want to have on a GM screen.

Likes:

1) Action economy
2) Critical successes and critical failures. This is one of the few things that I find genuinely fun about the new rules.
3) Despite all the things I dislike, the game is still fun to play. I wasn't sure if I would like it after reading some of the messageboard posts, but my group had a great time.

Dislikes:

1) Shields as currently implemented. Shield users having to stop between every combat to remove dents seems like it will get old very, very quickly.

2) Resonance points. I read a potion description the other day, and realized that a character could very easily use up all that day's points using the ability granted by a single potion. That just seems wrong.

3) There are just too many complicated subsystems and too much bookkeeping for me.

Still More Dislikes

4) There is no character class that would be easy for a new player to play. If you've been playing RPGs for a long time, it's easy to forget how confusing things can be for new people.

5) Skills. Why is someone who is trained in a skill only 10% more likely to succeed than someone who is untrained? Seems silly.

6) The + Level stuff for reasons that others have already mentioned.

7) This is the nitpickiest complaint of all, but I don't like the Action symbol. It looks like it is made of two parts, and the first time I saw it, I thought that symbol meant something that takes two actions. The symbol for "two Actions" is made up of three pieces, and the symbol for "three Actions" is made up of four pieces. Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but it would be so, so easy to use a different symbol that was easier to decipher.

I'm glad you guys are reconsidering Resonance Points. I'm a little concerned about the amount of time you have to come up with a new fix and test it before the final book has to get sent to the printers.

I had a lot of time to read messageboard posts before I finally got to run my first playtest session last night. We actually had a lot of fun, which I didn't feel was guaranteed going in.

So, I am hopeful that you can find some good fixes for the buggy parts of this edition (like shields!) in the very, very short amount of time you have.

My main complaint is that this seems to be a game for people who love bookkeeping, and I don't personally find bookkeeping fun.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks, Vic, for the regular updates! I really appreciate the regular communication.

I BEG you guys to do something different next year when the real book comes out. If you want people to pre-order, you have to give them an incentive to do so. This is the opposite of an incentive.

I stopped by a local game store on Saturday and they had everything (hardcover, softcover, leather cover, maps, adventure). My mail carrier disappointed me again today. :-( Having PDFs to read certainly helps, but it is frustrating.

I know having a big blowout launch at Gen Con is the industry standard thing to do, but why not ship pre-orders a week early? Would it really hurt anything?

At any rate, please please please please please please consider doing something different next year.

Thanks for listening.

I appreciate the update and the $15. I've been eagerly awaiting these books since that weird "11-20 days" email, but I can wait a few more days.

I'm fine with a shorter AP. Variety is the spice of life.

My question is, will this be Starfinder AP #7, or will the numbering start over for each Starfinder AP?

Any chance of the Starfinder Adventure Path going monthly?

Reynard wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

Pregenerated characters for Starfinder Society are in the final stages of production and should be available before Gen Con.

Awesome. Wil they be available for general public download?

Yep!

Soon? :-)

I'm hoping to run a demo for some friends this Friday.

Sure, you tell us their race and class, but since this game has themes and starship roles too, shouldn't we get to know their those, as well? I mean, which one is the pilot, the engineer (my guess is Quig based on what Owen said), or the captain? Who in that crew is an Outlaw, Ace Pilot, Scholar, or other theme?

YES! Please tell us each iconic's theme!

I would like to see an AP that does not assume the PCs are part of the Starfinder Society. It's such a lazy way to give the PCs a motivation for undertaking an adventure, and lots and lots players don't want their characters to go this route.

I feel like most (with a couple of notable exceptions) of the Pathfinder APs are easily playable by characters that aren't part of the Pathfinder Society.

I was very disappointed that Dead Suns doesn't even have a "What if the players don't want to be part of the Starfinder Society?" blurb anywhere.

For a Pathfinder game, I'm comfortable enough with the setting to work around a badly-written adventure and help the PCs figure out why their characters would take on this mission. I'm not as comfortable doing that with a brand new game like Starfinder, but I guess I'll figure it out.

I got The Hellfire Compact in the mail today, and reading through the summary of the adventure path, I've decided this one is not for me, and I'm going to suspend my subscription. Maybe I'm too old or square; I just don't understand the appeal of some of the content.

Warehouse is done with any December subscriptions that were ready to go. I'm going to check up on orders on Monday to see if there are stragglers that need rescuing.

I'm looking at my December subscription (order #3387157) and I don't understand it. Under tracking it says, "Expected to ship in 2 to 14 days."

When I follow the tracking link I got on 12/5, it says that the server at www.ups-mi.net cannot be found.

I don't really know what any of that means. Any insight?

EDITED TO ADD: I *did* get a Christmas card mailed separately from my order. :-)

I must be dense; I don't understand the headline. Is that a movie quote?

There were some pages in my copy of the Monster Codex that were stuck together, but I was able to separate them without damaging them. This sounds like the same problem, but worse.

It makes me nervous to hear that so many products were completed in such a short period of time. Doesn't that increase the chances that there will be a significant number of rules that have to be clarified later?

I don't mean to be negative; I like the game a lot. My only complaint about the Rise of the Runelords game is that it seems like there were a lot of typos on the cards in the first set, and a lot of unclear rules that had to be clarified later.

Thanks for the suggestion, Sara! I split my order (22 items) in two and was finally able to get it to go through after hours of trying.

If you want to combine the two orders (#2882872 and #2884052), you can. :-)

(Do those numbers mean you guys have gotten 1200 orders in the last few hours?!?! Yikes!)

When I had 22 items in my order it would not go through. I took 11 off using "Save For Later" and was able to get the other 11 to go through as one order. Now, to re-order the 11 I took off!

Same experience here. I put a bunch of stuff in my cart for the Golem Sale and I can't get through the checkout process.

At lower levels its good by mid game a lot of things are gonna be resistant or immune. A second level cleric can create the two gallons of water with out much issue and 1d6 per round isnt much to something with a tons of hp or to something thats just gonna rush and die and knows it or doesn't care.

I agree that the ongoing damage isn't that severe for a tougher creature, so most of the time I've had the creature ignore the damage and keep attacking.

That said, it still bothers me from a role-playing standpoint. How many creatures would reasonably ignore being on fire? I feel like most creatures should make an effort to put the fire out, but that's a full-round action, so the alchemist gets to attack again before the creature can do anything else.

Anyway, thanks for commenting!

Thanks for the responses!

Fire bombs are good but they are not eternal.

But in the RAW, they *are*. They do not have a duration. Seems like something that should be addressed in the rules, not left to GM discretion.

And whether or not it is hard to put out the flames is not really the issue. Extinguishing the flames is a full-round action, so you don't get to do anything else on your turn. As soon as you get the flames out, the alchemist can ignite them again with a new bomb. So, if a creature wants to attack the alchemist back, it has to ignore the fact that is it on fire.

My experience (from DMing a group with an alchemist in it), is that this is too powerful.

So, the paladin in my campaign cast "Knight's Calling" on a wyvern the other night, and the wyvern failed its save. The spell description says that the "target moves its speed toward you, avoiding any other dangers along its path (including any movement that would provoke attacks of opportunity)."

In this particular situation, it was not possible for the wyvern to move toward the paladin without provoking multiple attacks of opportunity.

I was not sure how to handle this. If the creature is not able to move without provoking attacks of opportunity, does it simply remain where it is? Move as far as it can without provoking the first attack of opportunity?

I got the "Friends and Foes" pack. I love the cards and want more. I'm using them with a non-Pathfinder campaign right now.

I find the face cards much more useful than the item cards or the map folios. More! More! More!

I just got my copy of "Robots Have No Tails" in the mail. I love Paizo and I love the Planet Stories line, but I very strongly dislike the new format.

I thought the cover illustration for "Robots" was by far one of your best yet, but the cover layout really bugs me. Why the omnipresent Planet Stories logo? Gah!

Because of the layout and the paper stock, I think "Robots" is too much like a magazine for its own good--it feels disposable. I'm not sure people will pay $12.99 for something that looks and feels like it should be read once and then thrown in the recycling bin. I assume the magazine look is intended to capture some kind of nostalgia for the pulps, but are any of your readers that old? (I'm 41, and I don't have any nostalgic feelings toward that era.)

Add me to the list of those who are not fans of the two columns of text on each interior page--it's hard on the eyes. Modern magazines that use a format like that put an illustration of some kind on virtually every page to break up the text and make it more appealing to the eye.

Finally (and I apologize, because I am full of complaints today), some of your choices for the line are confounding to me. I can't wait for A. Merritt, but why Piers Anthony? It seems like you're really running two different book series under the same name. Maybe I'm being too nit-picky, but it seems like some of your books (Piers Anthony, Gary Gygax, Worlds of Their Own, etc.) belong in a separate series from Planet Stories.

I suspect there are financial realities that make a lot of these choices necessary, so I understand if you feel you have to do some of these things to keep the line alive.

I really want you guys to be successful, but if "Robots" is the future of the line, it is hard for me to imagine continuing my subscription.

Thanks for listening.

Have to strongly agree with the 'please take maps out of the chronicles subscription' camp.

Me too.

I got this product in the mail today and it is completely useless to me.

Particularly useless is the giant poster map of Zirnakaynin. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with it. It has no numbered locations on it, and it's not made at a scale where you could use it with minis.

I honestly can't figure out what its purpose is.

I am a huge fan of Paizo, but this particular product frustrates me to no end.

Please, no more map folios.