KaiserDM's page

Hi guys, I'm back. I've got a new group of intrepid adventurers wanting to take a trip to the Desolation. Right now I'm doing a revamp of my travel maps and randomized charts. Looks like I've got some catching up to do in this thread. :D

Glad to hear it! Missed your recaps James. After years of reading and periodically checking this thread, I finally have a group preparing to make the trek. Currently, they are level 5 and are slogging through the Tomb of Abysthor. Should be ready in a month or 2.

KaiserDM wrote:

Thanks for posting Rust. Very cool to see a new GM getting in on this.

Tell us how your players make out DaveMage! Interested to see how they handle the big bad.

** spoiler omitted **

What are you working on/GMing now if I may ask?

I finally started my Tsar campaign last month and currently getting a low level party through Stoneheart Valley to level them up. I'll post here once they start getting into the book.

Anyone else thinking Brienne of Tarth from the cover art?

Color me excited. We just finished RotL a couple of months ago and I told the GM we found his new AP after we finish the camapaign I just started.

*With the small caveat that my 17th level druid gets to make a cameo, wink wink.

Good to know, thank you. I'll be sure to check this out.

Thanks for posting Rust. Very cool to see a new GM getting in on this.

Tell us how your players make out DaveMage! Interested to see how they handle the big bad.

Live in Florida and likewise got my book this week. Had the PDF for a while obviously, but just now getting around to digesting this spicy meat-a-ball...

....and all I can say is Wow! What a great product. Beautiful artwork, very cool setting material. The timing couldn't have been better too. We are finishing Rise of the Runelords now and I am starting my Lost Lands campaign in February/March looks like.

I will be starting them in Stoneheart Valley and having them make the trek to Tsar when they hit 7th. Can't wait to see what strings the puppet masters in Bard's Gate try to pull when the boys start making headway into desolation and the city of Tsar itself. (Assuming any of them survive that long of course).

Should I make the Bloodmage have ties to the Underguild? Have the party rogue be forced under the thumb of Duloth Armitage? The possibilities are endless!

Ah, been gone for a little while. Glad to be back. Pledged and stoked.

Necroing this thread because it's such a great resource for stories and GM advice...

Have to say, I periodically check this thread every few weeks and would love to start seeing campaign journal/session recaps come back. This is such an amazing piece of work and to see what other people have done with it is always fun.

I sadly will probably not be able to start my group though it until early next year after we finish Age of Worms (after 4 years) and RotRL.
So, I've been living vicariously through other people's campaigns, lol.

I would say to your dilemma, however, that if you are concerned about a TPK and you don't want it to happen, give them a role playing warning about the deadly bone storms from an NPC or something. It would be totally reasonable for someone in the Camp to warn them about it. At least if they don't take it reasonably, it's on them...

Bump

I'm still reading...and still enjoying!

Speak for yourself Cain. My first gaming group had 3 black guys all of which came from poor backgrounds. A few years later when a lot of our high school friends moved on, 1 of the 4 new guys recruited was black bringing our total out of 5 PC's to 2.

Though honestly I've never played with Hispanic or Asian people and have only played with 2 females.

White folk aren't quite as segregated as you may think.

From what I've been able to piece together from several clues...maybe next year. In the immediate future they have a KS planned for the Northlands Saga this fall and another terrain/climate book coming out like Dunes of Desolation (for plains I believe).

I am ready for a campaign setting as well. I will be interested to see how they would format such a book. The setting that I see taking shape is HUGE.

Any type of campaign/adventure can be fun depending on how much time you're willing to craft and mold it to suit you and your player's style. The trick is finding that threshold with which you have to spend on adventures and making them work. Unless your PC's love to just sludge through never-ending combats and traps, you'll need to spend a ton of time to make a mega dungeon engaging.

I ran Rapan Athuk back in 2002 or so and spent several hours crafting plot points and counter-plot points to give my guys a lot of substance. They loved it and then promptly TPKed twice. So, we never got to finish.

I plan to run Slumbering Tsar next year which is a huge open sandbox with several large dungeons in it. The third act of the of campaign has an enormous dungeon set inside a 100' tall statue of Orcus and looks amazing. The wait will kill me, but it is so well done, it will be worth the wait.

...as does roofing. ::stretches back::
Thankfully, I moved inside.

Wow, I am getting huge Dragonlance flashbacks.

Until I see a PF or 3.5 combat take 8 hours for a single turn for half the PCs at the table I'm going to say Exalted is by far the slowest game I've ever played

My apologies, I should qualify my statement about combat durations to PF/3.X in relation to other editions of D&D.

Never played Exalted, but I have played OWOD, and Warhammer Fantasy, and they were pretty quick from what I remember.

Create Mr. Pitt wrote:

That said spells scaling with level does sound like a pretty strong change.

The entire premise of 5th Ed seems to be to dumb it down, make combat take longer, and continue to bend the curve towards martials away from casters.

Who wants to play a game where there isn't any variable dynamics any more? Sure, it's easier, but then you lose so much of the flexibility and variability.

I also never really understood the idea that martials are so underpowered in PFS. Sure, if you have a GM who is completely ignoring the rules of magic/spells and making it very easy it can be otherwise it really isn't there. Certainly not compared to the fact that I have been in a ton of games where fighters around 12th level are running around with AC's in the 40's pretty regularly with saves that are all near impossible to fail all the while the archers are dealing insane amounts of damage every single round pretty much.

Dumb down? Interesting verbiage, but some people do want the rules simplified, so YMMV.

A buddy of mine told me about a session he played over the weekend. Fights were generally very fast paced. The advantage/disadvantage system coupled with flater math made each turn go faster. I think he said the group was 7th level. I love PF, but to be frank, I dont think any system has ever had longer, more drug out combats than 3.X.

Can you expand on why you think combats would take longer in 5th?

What I find interesting is the numbers come from FLGS. A better snapshot would be pooling the financials from the companies themselves. How much does Paizo sell directly to customers of their products and other companies' products as a distributor? Subscriptions? PDF only sales? How much Paizo product is sold through Amazon, DrivethruRPG, etc?

I don't know about you guys, but I haven't bought a single RPG item from my local shop in over 10 years. Almost everything is purchased online now (for me). Sure, PFS brings numbers into the shop and generates sales, but there is a massive amount of people who buy on their own for home games. How does that relate to MtG? Inversely, do most of TCG sales come from FLGS, but not online? Can't buy PDF's of cards can you? So many questions!

This article is an interesting read, but I dont think it gives us a very good picture of anything. (No fault of the OP of course!)

Martials got bumped and casters got nerfed. But, when casters get nerfed in a rule set, everyone gets nerfed. Case in point, they've made it much harder to stack significant amounts of buff spells on targets. So, the days of the whole scry and fry 15 minute adventuring day will be much more rare in 5th edition. Whole party flying at their leisure at 7-10th level+? Doubt it. Animal companions stronger than the fighter? Doubt that too.

Additionally casters get fewer spell slots, but slightly more versatility, so there will be pros and cons much like any 2 systems you compare.

I've read a bit, but haven't had a chance to play it yet. Mostly from what I've seen on the boards, it can be pretty gritty.

Kaiser DM, it's probably just you. When were you a new player?

New players need a PHB and a Dungeon Master. New DMs? They need adventures. Creating their own adventures in a setting is not new DM territory. It's intermediate DM territory. And any veteran DM already has their own favorite setting they want to use.

I was a new player back in 1996, or more accurately I was a new DM.

To your point, sure some DM's want new adventures. And some, dont like published adventures. They want a skeleton provided by a setting in which they add their own adventures through homebrew. When I said "they NEED" a campaign book, I wasn't necessarily saying the consumer needed as much as WOTC "needs" to print one for at least their default setting. Need is a strong word, but at the end of the day I am only offering an opinion. And I do believe that there is "demand" in the market for that said sourcebook to help new as well as experienced players/DMs see where FR sits in the 5th edition world.

And yes, Buri, I can google all day long. But if somebody doesn't really know anything about a setting, coming into a hobby or game cold, and going from forum conversations to blog spots to wikia pages can be somewhat overwhelming. If WOTC announces a book by the end of the year, than viola, that's great. If they don't really care to print a sourcebook, I say its to their detriment is all. The perception in the market place will be that WOTC doesn't plan to support their setting.

LOL, that's awesome. I love in-game retcons like that (even if it's a bit cheesy). But how would a new player even know that?

I understand people's reasoning to use old source materials, but if you're brand new to a game, hobby, etc, most people don't know to trek back to 3.X material because the in-game overgod changed the previous edition's canon back to to circa 2001.

Maybe it's just me, but I maintain they NEED a 5th edition campaign book. (A $15-$20 soft cover gazetter at least)

If it was under a completely new rules system, I'd say yes. The 3rd edition realms is so different than what we have today, I'd say you're better off with homebrew.

KaiserDM wrote:

All I know is they have about wrecked the Realms beyond repair (my opinion). I'm tired of every edition bringing "cataclysmic" changes to the campaign setting, I.E., Time of Troubles, Spellplague, etc. In my opinion, the same kind of "earth shattering" events and pantheon shake-ups is what finally killed Dragon Lance for me.

Point being, I really hope that whatever settings they support (whether is just the Realms for the foreseable future or not) is player driven and not NPC/author driven. Golarion will keep a lot of people in Pathfinder.

I just have a bad taste in my mouth with what happened there and hope they can rebound somehow. I know in this new edition they have done away with the Spell Plague, that's certainly a good start.

For what it's worth, 5E Realms seems to be doing everything in its power to bring the setting back to its roots. While they aren't ignoring everything that came before, everything I've heard points towards it being less a soap opera of the Gods and their Chosen (even though it is precisely that plot device that's bringing about this detachment) and more an age of exploration and high adventure for the mortal races again.

Then again, it is the Realms we're talking about. They'll probably have 18 more RSE out the door before this time next year.

It's worth a lot honestly. I miss the setting of my childhood to be sure. And regarding not needing a whole campaign book, I agree with this to an extent, but I would still suggest a soft cover gazetter or something that presents some flavor/fluff information for NEW players as well as old.

for awhile I was just a dude in white with a monocle and tophat

now I am some sort of juju gnome with a bigger tophat and sick ruffle

I guess because I am so #%$&@$#!%@ classy

Ha! It's almost like your new portrait is the old one's demonic child.

I'm very interested to hear the results of the Federal autopsy report. When I read (2) of the (6 or 8) bullet wounds entered at the top of the head, it became very bad for the police department in my personal judgment.

Unless of course, they can prove Brown charged at the cop like Rhino from Amazing Spiderman, they'll have a tough time with that one.

The four time felon thing is a deliberate smear campaign, on part with the 'leak' about marijuana in his blood stream. I can only imagine the non-outrage that would arise if Officer Wilson was found to have opiates or amphetamines in his system.

"I had a poppy seed bagel and some Sudafed!"

Secondhand pot smoke shows up in the blood too.

The marijuana thing kills me too. It would be much more damning for me to hear someone is inebriated when it comes getting to the bottom of violent confrontation than to hear someone smoked pot. If anything, it leads me to believe even more that he would be LESS likely to be the violent instigator.

The power of words...

Popping back in here after lunch. I was not trying to place the blame for white racism on black people. I'm not going to disparage the way people dress, their style (lyrics withstanding) of music or the way they modify their vehicles as some way of justifying ridiculous stereotypes. That would be petty and pointless. But, the N word is a glaring example of something that I think the black community should address with seriousness.

Of course there is old school folk out there that won't put up with that. People who read my first post in its correct context would see that I hinted at that with the civil rights leaders that I mentioned.

To Freehold DM's point, I defer to his knowledge on that being a particular sub-set of society. I also noted that I wanted to be careful in not laying a blanket statement. However, my perspective is shaped by what I am bombarded with from music and pop culture. If I look at rap music and a majority of black comedy, it is chock full of racial slurs and stereotype bashing (a lot of it black).

Not putting the onus on black people to wipe out other people's racial prejudice(s), but I still maintain that this is relevant point that needs to be addressed within the black community.

That's not what I said and and you have expressed a rather dismissive attitude to my core point. I'm simply saying in Ferguson and only Ferguson, (not extracting that example to all of the US) since African Americans comprise the majority of people, they can affect real change by voting to increase diversity or actually have a government that reflects the racial make-up of their town.

Please explain in detail, how the black community in Ferguson couldn't vote as a block to start dealing with the entrenched establishment.

KaiserDM wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I am a god of chaos and freedom.

You're also a cultist of Razmir I believe. :P

I AM MANY THINGS.

Oh yeah, forgot you went Mythic.

I'm going to make some controversial comments here and they are in no way meant to offend anyone, but they are rather bold and just speaking frankly.

Do you want white Americans to take the racism problem seriously? Clean up part of black culture. There need to be strong, concise black leaders coupled with people willing to back it up with dollars and force rappers and black comedians from using the "N" word in every single song and comedy stand up gig. Ok, maybe I shouldn't lay a blanket statement and say every song and I'm not advocating censorship of any kind, but I believe there is a tremendous amount of usage of that word in every facet of black society that leaves a lot of people scratching their heads. To me, that's like someone saying b!$%h or hoe all the time to describe women, and then lecture me about the fair treatment of females. I have a hard time believing MLK Jr and Malcom X, Medgar Evars, etc, would stand for that crap.

It's not a panacea, but I think it's an important, relevant step. And I'm not one of those blame the victims guy, but this is just never talked about.

Also, interestingly enough, in Ferguson, it sounds like there is a pretty entrenched bias in the local government of that town if the growing resentment and bitterness there exists as I've seen commented on earlier. In a town that is so pre-dominantly black, I am surprised to see there isn't a black mayor, black city council, black chief of police or sheriff or whatever. The black community could be pratically running that town tomorrow with some civil involvement and I actually hope that more local participaton will be a possible positive outcome to this tragedy. (According to a quick look at the town's Wikipedia page, voter turnout for the last mayoral election was 12%). Instead of rioting against the system, own the system. I'm sure there's more to this part of it, but I hate typing extremely long posts.

I am a god of chaos and freedom.

You're also a cultist of Razmir I believe. :P

I am a kobold with an iron claw on my hand.

Not really, but I like kobolds, and the pose is cool.

Yeah, I got you and Orthos confused for a long time when I first started trolling the boards.

Is it possible that the cleric is ok as is, if people want their buffer/healer type? And if we really want a strong, divine, pure caster, advocate a new class like we got in ACG?

I've always wanted a separate "Priest" class myself.

Yeah, its 2014 now. I mean seriously....

KaiserDM wrote:

I thought a cleric's domains and the availability of archetypes is what helped give clerics their flavor. I don't disagree with the sentiment that individual spell lists would be impressive, but wouldn't separate spell lists for every deity be rather intensive? The page count for the cleric spell section could fill its own book. That's not to mention spells for Infernal/Demonic patrons and Empyreal Lords.

It would not be a seperate spell list. Essentially you would have basic spells every cleric knows (i.e. "univeralist" spells) then the other spells would have tages depending on domain (i.e. "fire" or "evil") kind of like spell schools.

I would think that a cleric would essentially get all spells that fall within their dieties domains (regardless if they actually HAVE the domain as one of their 2).

I don't know about you but it seems weird having a Deity of say... fire granting water spells.. Heck, the only Deity in Pathfidner that is aknowledged as odd and having a modified domain spell list is Pharasma.

Yes except there are over 30 domains I just counted in SRD. It would seem clunky to break out that many "tags" and determine which spell would be diametrically opposed to X deity, etc. I do agree with your example, but certain deities have different portfolios to them. For example, if your Fire deity happened to also be the deity of war and destruction, why could I not cast a Hurricane type spell to wipe out a coastal town (not the best analogy, but I hope you can see what I'm saying)? To my earlier point, if I did have the fire domain, from a flavor stand point, it would stand to reason I would not be granted water spells, but that should be between the DM and player.

I thought a cleric's domains and the availability of archetypes is what helped give clerics their flavor. I don't disagree with the sentiment that individual spell lists would be impressive, but wouldn't separate spell lists for every deity be rather intensive? The page count for the cleric spell section could fill its own book. That's not to mention spells for Infernal/Demonic patrons and Empyreal Lords.

I agree with your assesment. There's people out their that are fine using homebrew and there are people out there that love to play in a giant sand box or simply don't have the time to create all their own stuff.

To me, announcing a Campaign Setting properly is great marketing and can serve to energize your customer base.

Granted, it IS early.

All I know is they have about wrecked the Realms beyond repair (my opinion). I'm tired of every edition bringing "cataclysmic" changes to the campaign setting, I.E., Time of Troubles, Spellplague, etc. In my opinion, the same kind of "earth shattering" events and pantheon shake-ups is what finally killed Dragon Lance for me.

Point being, I really hope that whatever settings they support (whether is just the Realms for the foreseable future or not) is player driven and not NPC/author driven. Golarion will keep a lot of people in Pathfinder.

I just have a bad taste in my mouth with what happened there and hope they can rebound somehow. I know in this new edition they have done away with the Spell Plague, that's certainly a good start.

Cheliax gets people excited. Maybe I missed it, but we're not even sure where this AP is taking place correct? (other than a few obscure hints) I think once that is established, it gets a lot more of the campaign setting entusiasts talking.

Mine is of Darl Quethos from the AOW adventure path. I'm finally starting this bad boy again after a 1 year hiatus and as the party is getting into the final leg of the AP, I decided to update accordingly.

Some are serious, some are funny, some even a little bizarre.

Is your avatar your favorite NPC from an AP or module?
Do they phyiscally represent your favorite PC or maybe what you envision yourself as in the RPG world?
How long have you had your current portrait?

M'naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr!

LOL, this has become the Budweiser, "Wassuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuppppp!" of the Fantasy/Lovecraftian RRG world.

*Cough* I feel that I should link this video, but I can't get on Youtube at work, so I recommend you google it and subsitute the "wassup" for "M'naarr". I think Cthulu would be amused.

In all the games I've ever played in, including 3.0/3.5, we needed a dedicated healer every time. UMDing CLW wands didn't cut it past 3rd level. Personally, I don't think a dedicated healer should be imperative to the core adventuring party in RPG's, but I like them due to tradition and quite frankly, their utility spells were too good not to have around.

Remove X, Protection from X, Restorations, Raises, Ressurections, etc, etc, the list goes on. Oh, NPC in town can do that? Awesome, except we're a thousand miles from a settlement large enough to have the casters high enough to do any of that and we're on a time table to save the princess before she's killed by the BBEG. Not to mention, our wizard can't teleport the 4 of us, my animal companion, his own familiar, the paladin's leadership cohort and the NPC exposition guy that the DM stuck us with. We need it now! (Or latest tomorrow, early AM, Mr Cleric).

I think I saw on the Mikaze Gencon thread that Paizo is not a fan of power points and will keep everything Vancian. (speculation). They also do not plan to overlap the work already done by Dreamscarred Press.
I should link the thread, but I'm feeling lazy today. ;D

Personally, I really like Psychic/Psionic stuff and think its a great addition to any fantasy setting.

Curious to know how powers are linked to ability scores and if they'll use the old 3.X method of tying the different disciplines to different scores.

Looks like we're up against Mokmurian tomorrow night ourselves. It's taken forever, but win, lose or draw we wrap up FotSG then. Our GM keeps teasing that we won't make it.

MMCJawa wrote:

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Dragon78 wrote:

This is disappointing, a devil themed AP, and so close after a Demon one. Well this might be the first time I have ever ended my AP subscription:(

I wouldn't call this disappointing -- it has the potential to be awesome. Depends upon what they do with it. Now, what is missing is a Daemon-themed AP.

Galt? I could easily see them being behind the scenes bad guys to any AP set there.

did somebody say Gal.... oh whats the point anymore! it'll never happen!

i'm going to go cry in the Shower for awhile again:(

I'll write you a Galt AP Cap. The title will be, "Let Them Eat Cake"

So it appears that we are going back to where it all started with issue 100. Not where Paizo adventure paths started but where Pathfinder adventure paths started.

From what I've gathered on my forums sojourn, James Jacobs is not a huge fan of devils. That is to say, he doesn't hate them, but rather likes to see when they get knocked down a peg. I predict some major Asmodean hurting for his worshippers in Cheliax?

And oh, what of our precious Hell Knights?

We’re only like halfway through this thing afterall.

Wowsers! I am amazed you've kept this going 5 years and you're only 1/2 way done! What level are your PCs now may I ask?

I loved his stand-up work in "Live on Broadway" 10 + years ago. Got me back on his band wagon. The last commmercial I saw where he was the voice over for...apple? microsoft? Can't remember and dont have time to look up as I'm at work, but his voice was phenomenal.

Great actor. I thought he could throw down with Pacino like the best of 'em.

Funny guy obviously.

He had interesting insights into pop culture, politics and society in general.

This is the saddest I'v been by a celebrity death in a long time.

Ok, ok. Geez.

I think a point that is being over looked in the several 5th edition threads I've been reading is that many people are comparing the wealth of options in Pathfinder to the one and only 5E PHB. (Some are really only comparing it the starter box or free PDF). Pathfinder has 5 years of splat books, so yes obviously flexibility and options would be immensely more available in PF.

"I'm going to create a halfling paladin who does ranged combat" and still come up with two completely different characters, in look, feel, and playstyle.

Sure, this is true today, but would it be true if you only had the PF CRB? Probably not. If you invest in D&D 5E, you are starting a brand new game. WOTC is going to produce splat books and depending on how the OGL shakes out, 3PP are going to come out in droves to offer splat books as well. By that point, there may be a slightly more level playing field in comparing which system offers you more "options".

Not campaigning for 5th edition by any stretch of the imagination, just thought I'd throw that out there.