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So...long time since I've been here. Wondering what the current status of PFO is in late 2018. I remember leaving around the time 'NewCorp' was supposed to bring in new funding, but in the years since have heard nothing about it. How much has been developed since then? Have all the kickstarter rewards (the bonus items, packs, etc.) been implemented yet? Is it still only a couple of devs left? Basically just curious how things are going.
One thing I always think about when handing out magic items is that somebody made that item. So I always mentally compare what I see handed out as loot to what is actually crafted by players. Usually I see the big 6, pearls of power, (edit: 1st level wands like clw), and a random smattering of scrolls being crafted. Then I think of this comic where someone crafts a Bag of Tricks and realize I'll probably never see anyone do that in a game. So what items do you usually see crafted? Any odd items?
So you can probably guess what we were snacking on when my players mentioned this idea. They insisted I post it here since I'm the only one in the group with an active account. Anyways, their (not sure if serious) request for a product is gummy bear minis, inspired by killing orcs in Scrapwall while snacking. The idea is that if you kill the enemy you get to eat the mini. So take this as you will. I don't expect it to become a real product as this is mostly a "yes I posted it to the forums for you" post. But stranger things have happened.
I'm planning to run some Final Fantasy fans through an Adventure Path (or a series of modules if need be). Ideally I'd like to run one that's as close as possible thematically to Final Fantasy, but the problem is that I don't really know Final Fantasy very well. So which AP would you say best resembles FF in some way? If it matters, the APs I have are:
Thanks!
A couple of Faction Guide questions: 1) How many people use the rules from the Faction Guide (not counting PFS organized play)? 2) Besides Serpent's Skull and Shattered Star APs are there any other modules or APs that use Faction Guide rules? Again, not counting PFS organized play.
At least one of the links on http://paizo.com/store/apparel/tShirts isn't working, specifically "Armor Class 10" linking back to the current page. Trying to go to http://paizo.com/store/apparel/tShirts/armorClass10 directly doesn't work either.
If a creature has a disease as part of one of its attacks are they immune to that disease? Ie. are they effectively just a carrier? Example: A wererat's bite attack carries Filth Fever. He is hit by an Otyugh and contracts Filth Fever. Is he immune to the ability score damage from the Otyugh's Filth Fever? I would assume the answer is yes, but I can't find a reference.
I have a couple of questions as I'm new to PFS. Haven't been able to find the answers through some quick searches, so apologies if these are already answered elsewhere. I have some novels that grant boons. Can I use these boons for every character or just one? Do I have to bring the books to every session or can I have the boon signed and then I don't have to bring them? I DMed my first PFS sessions this morning, but I assume I can't just sign these novel boons myself. I also have the PFO boon that's explicitly for one character only. What's to prevent these one character boons from being used on every character I have? Is it just the honor system or is there some sort of online reporting system for these special boons? Also, can you have more than one of these special boons per PC? Ie. could I use all 3 novels + PFO on one character? Thanks!
I kinda consider it to be a somewhat overdone trope to have the party get hold of an artifact, so I'm curious if there's any APs that don't have artifacts in them in some form. Have only read/played a few APs (Crimson Throne, Serpent's Skull, Shattered Star, Reign of Winter) and they all involve artifacts in some form. So are there any without artifacts?
Have you run one or been in one? If so, how did it go? *Was it just 1 alternate reality (eg. mirror universe) or many (eg. Sliders)?
I'm particularly interested in the many realities case, but welcome any advice and experience on these types of campaigns.
My group is half(ish) way through the second module. I'm a player, not GM so no spoilers please! I'm playing a Varisian cartomancer witch 5/harrower 1 (essentially a harrow themed PC). The rest of the party is melee heavy (ranger,rogue,fighter) and she's the only caster. Her go to abilities are the slumber hex and some enchantment spells, but the number of times that enchantment spells are useless in a fight is quite high. I've had to resort to using more summons/heals/buffs to be useful in many fights than I had anticipated (edit: I know I need other spells prepped, but seriously underestimated). The first module was particularly bad about enchantments being useless, making greater spell focus in enchantment seem like a bit of a waste. So I'm wondering if it gets better or whether enchantments should be more of a backup.
I'm curious as to what rotations people have been using so far in alpha. I'm working on a program to compare various rotations and want to include popular ones. Right now I classify the attacks in the rotation into 4 categories. Not all categories will be part of every rotation. They are: Alpha strikes - attacks you open with and never use outside of that opener.
The logic of the early version of the program works based on going through the above list in order while stepping forward in time, taking into account stamina and cooldowns. If there's a category that you think should be added let me know. example rotations::
For an example of a very simple staff rotation: Alpha - Arctic Winds
Ie. open with Arctic Winds and then spam Winter's Caresse. A wand rotation: Conditional - Downburst (when distressed)
Ie. spam flare until distressed comes up and then use Downburst for cc. A different wand rotation: Other - Flare, Frost Ray Ie. alternately use flare and frost ray
Obviously more complex rotations are possible, such as multiple conditionals, attacks falling into multiple categories. There can be aoe rotations, rotations against creatures effectively immune to certain damage types, etc. So please post any rotation you've tried. If my categorization doesn't work for you please post it anyways and I'll try to figure out a way to accommodate it into the program.
Getting the calculators::
Requires python. Then download calculators *If you have python 3.0 or later in windows, then it should hopefully work fine. For reference I have it working in Windows 8, python 3.4.0.
Double click to run. For now there are two calculators which you can use - more to be added as I get time. There are many combat calculations that could be included, including several new ones I've yet to post. Likely I'll try moving to a calculator with multiple tabs in future versions to avoid the multiple windows issue. (The reason for using separate windows is that allows for a user defined number of items and I haven't found a nice workaround for that.) On the main window there are buttons to open the calculators. One is for threading gear and the other is for determining how long it will take to gain certain rep. Threading Calculator::
On the main page, enter how many items you want to consider. Default is 10, but can be any number you want (don't go crazy though). Press the "Threading Calculator" button to open up a new window which works somewhat like a spreadsheet. Threads available is your total number of threads. Relative repair cost is how much it costs to repair an item from 0 durability up to max compared to just buying it. 1.0 means those cost the same, 0.5 means it's half as much, etc. Default is 1.0, but can be changed. Threads needed should be obvious. Value (full durability) is how much the item is worth at full durability. If you want to use the value at the current durability, just set max durability to be equal to current durability. Current durability and max durability are fairly obvious. Max is defaulted to 10 to avoid dividing by 0 errors, but can be changed to whatever you want. Should you thread is obvious. Loss on death is how much value you lose on average on dying. Threads left over is obvious. Store threading info stores all the current inputs to the table and Recall threading info puts the stored values in. This hasn't been extensively tested, but it does seem to work for me if I close the threading window and reopen it. Minimize pvp losses calculates what to thread based on assuming you lose all unthreaded gear. Minimize pve losses calculates what to thread based on assuming you lose 25% of all unthreaded gear. (The calculation here needs some improvements in future versions). The algorithm is pretty simple:
Reputation Calculator::
This one is pretty obvious in its use. It assumes you gain reputation at the end of each hour, so it only gives whole numbers for time. There is an advanced options button which allows you to fiddle with how reputation gains are calculated. Defaults can be restored on the reputation window. These advanced options are mostly so that if the devs fiddle with the numbers it'll still be valid.
Please let me know if you run into any issues/have suggestions.
I'm putting up an informal poll to see what types of roles people intend to play in PFO. You can vote more than once (ie. one vote for your main and one for your Twin). Please vote here:Poll Poll options::
Assassin/Bounty Hunter Hunting your target for bounties or contracts. Bandit Taking other people's stuff. Crafter Making items. Explorer Exploring the world. Harvester Gathering and harvesting from nodes. Hauler Moving goods. Manager Run a settlement. PVE Fighting escalations. Questing Running quests/missions on your own. Salvager Salvaging from the dead. Soldier Fighting in pvp battles. Trader Playing the market. Other Not listed in the above.
Edit: trying to make the poll link clearer.
I spend all day coding up analyses (particle physics), so why not do it for PFO damage? This is all based on the Goblinworks blog "Murder by Numbers". Following the details in that blog I decided to make a simple python script to simulate damage. Plots are made with ROOT. For my first study of this I looked at 'tier 1' as that is what everyone will be initially:
To simulate the effect of differing attack bonuses and defense bonuses, I simply took the difference between them (as that's what will matter). I varied this from -10 to +9 (20 different differences). Positive is the attacker has more of a bonus and negative is the defender has more. Another key thing based on the blog seems to be the number of keywords on weapons and armor. So I vary those as well in the range 0, 1 and 2 for attacker and defender. Finally I vary what type of armor the defender is wearing (light/medium/heavy). Cloth is left out for the moment. Since we only have one example weapon of the longsword (base damage of 40 and damage factor of 1.4), I only used that. Then for *every one* of the above possible variations (20*3*3*3) I simulate 10,000 attacks and calculate the damage. Computers can do amazing numbers of calculations quite quickly! (To give you an idea: it took less than a minute.) If you want to know how the damage is calculated please read the blog over at https://goblinworks.com/blog ! Note that this is only for tier 1 attack vs. tier 1 defense. I want to study how a geared out player will do against a noobie and vice versa later. I've made 3 plots. In each of the plots the horizontal axis is the average damage. The vertical axis represents the difference in relevant keywords (# attacker's keywords minus # defender's keywords). Each 'dot' represents the average damage of 10,000 attacks. The first plot is versus light armor. The second is versus medium armor. The third is versus heavy armor. Just follow the arrows in the presentation! https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B912ZssD14EJcm0zNUc1X0o5RXM/edit?usp=sharin g Results: 1) Armor type is clearly the most relevant factor in play here. Improving your armor type (light/medium/heavy) reduces the damage against you by something on the order of 10 per attack. Note that the blog mentions having ~400 hit points. 2) For light armor adding a defense keyword decreases average damage by ~1-2 per keyword. For medium armor it's more like ~2-3. For heavy it's ~3-4. Again armor type really matters! 3) Adding an attack keyword increases average damage by ~5-6 per keyword. 4) Increasing the attacker's advantage over the defender in terms of skill is a small effect. A change of 20 skill points means ~3-4 extra damage against light armor, ~2-3 extra damage against medium armor and ~1-2 damage against heavy armor. Conclusion: Invest in heavy armor! Caveats: This is EXTREMELY preliminary and can easily become irrelevant if the mechanics change. If I interpretted the information in the blog incorrectly then these plots are worthless. Also, more variations in input are needed as this is only for noobie vs. noobie with a longsword. I also want to look at more than just the average damage. How much the damage varies should be interesting as well! |
