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I have to say that cuddles are just about one of the most enjoyable things in the world for me. There needs to be more acceptance of platonic cuddles! (That I would, selfishly, get more cuddles that way is merely a positive side-effect). And Drejk, feeling 'clumsy' sometimes about cuddling is I think pretty normal? I mean, I never quite know where to put my arms half the time because they're just getting in the way, but no one actually cares because cuddles. (at least, no one should care, imo)
I wish that there'd been more (or any, really) awareness of asexuality back when I was younger. It might've saved me a lot of grief. Or it might not have, given all the crap that was going on for me back then.
So, with T-day over. I had my first Thanksgiving with my folks since I came out as trans to them. It was...nice, actually. It went about pretty much how it always used to go. I gave my mom a couple of gentle nudges when she forgot, and she was good about it. It was a huge relief. It was also the first time I'd seen them since I came out to them. It helps that there wasn't any other family around, though. But that was intentional.
Thanks. That's what I thought, but thought I'd get a second opinion. Just in case it was easier than I thought it was. And it was a Mercenary in the Abattoir, actually, this time. (Vellexia, alas, was hiding in the Abattoir.)
So, Spirit Blade has the power "If a monster has an effect that increases the difficulty of the check, ignore that effect." And Abattoir increases difficulty of all checks to defeat for banes by the number of players. I'm pretty sure that since it's an effect on the location, that Spirit Blade doesn't let you ignore it -- but I thought it was worth asking in case I'm wrong.
Thanks for the well-wishes. The appointment went better than expected -- and I now have my first month's hormones. As for your question Wei Ji: my personal experience and personal revelation came through trial and error. I tried things on until something fit. Partly it came through online RP: I could try out new personas as much as I wanted, and one day I noticed that I hadn't had a male persona that lasted more than a couple weeks in years. Then, around trusted friends, I tried out names, pronouns, gender identity feelings until I felt I knew where I was. It'll take time, effort, and willingness to take time to really look at yourself. My way isn't the only, or necessarily the best way, though.
One reason for including iconics that I haven't seen mentioned yet is pregenning in OP: The only pregens they have are the iconics (which mirrors pregens in the RPG). If no iconics are provided, then that makes pregens that much more difficult. And, further, while I don't know what and when they're planning to release as far as class decks in the future, past the 11 Core class, but there's no guarantee that whichever class deck they release at a given point will necessarily have said iconic already released as part of a box set or character add-on: there are a lot of classes, and each box set has overlap in terms of classes. Restricting class deck offerings to whichever classes have been released in non-OP seems....um, restrictive.
So, later on today I have my first appointment with a doctor about getting on hormones. I am excited and nervous. Further exacerbating my heightened emotions, the power went out overnight where I am, and I feared for a number of hours that I might have to cancel the appointment and reschedule since my vehicle is in the garage, which can only be opened via power. Intellectually, I knew it wouldn't be a problem to reschedule, but emotions and logic don't talk well to each other. Especially at 3am.
I think that a separate download being updated once a season would make most sense to me. For one, it'd be easier on the editing staff! I also don't see people using pregens all that often, though I only have experience with my own (small) group that doesn't see many character deaths or new players joining mid-season.
So, I ran into an odd situation while playing tonight. I went with the 'do exactly what the cards say' resolution, but perhaps someone will pipe in with what I may have done wrong. Playing "The Traitor's Lodge". Shardra is at Great Hall, and encounters a henchman Wight. Location text: "When you encounter a henchman or villain, before you act, summon and encounter this adventure's servitor demon." Shardra encounters the demonling, and due to poor dice rolling, fails to defeat it. The demonling's power: "If undefeated, move to a random location." So I roll for random location, and she moves elsewhere. However, that leaves her encounter with the Wight still ongoing. She defeats the Wight, which has the specific text "If defeated, you may immediately close the location this henchman came from." She is no longer at that location, but the card specifically does say attempt to close the location the Wight came from. Am I correct in assuming that Shardra could make the closing check on the location, even though she was no longer there? That's how I played it, at least, as that's the reading on the cards.
Tumblr is like livejournal was. Which is to say, full of people, some communities more loosely connected than others, full of conversations. And it looks and feels totally different depending on which side of Tumblr you're on. The side I hang out on is full of geeky conversations, gif-parties, and support group stuff.
...And in my case, it always happens when it's all straight white guys except for me (who is very much still closeted to this particular group), and thus not in front of the sympathetic coordinator, who didn't want to do anything unless she actually saw it happening. I finally said that I was going to give this group a pass for a few months to let things settle down... and they haven't run a game I've been able to play in since then, so I've no way to gauge whether anything's changed...Please forgive my paranoia, but that almost sounds like an answer right there? I mean, I could be reading into things, but that sounds... incredibly convenient? I'm not 'on the ground' and I'm not familiar with the situation beyond what you've related, but we've had similar happen with a couple of groups I've been in as a subtle form of ostracism? I can definitely see how it would look that way -- but that would require the person organizing PFS lately to actually know what I was and wasn't able to play. I've been mostly playing at a another regular gameday an hour away (which has been great enough to be worth driving an hour each way to), or at conventions; none of the things that have been played lately have ever been played in our region before. What bugs me is that there are people in this group who I do enjoy playing with. There's more people I like playing with than not. I've been playing non-PFS stuff with them all throughout this, and there's been no problems at all -- just the PFS part has been full of issues.
That sounds a lot like one of the groups I've been playing PFS in, mechaPoet. Or rather, haven't been lately, as after I brought up some of the more offensive stuff to the coordinators and the VO, there was a bit of a brouhaha, people got offended because they were just innocent jokes, etc. And in my case, it always happens when it's all straight white guys except for me (who is very much still closeted to this particular group), and thus not in front of the sympathetic coordinator, who didn't want to do anything unless she actually saw it happening. I finally said that I was going to give this group a pass for a few months to let things settle down... and they haven't run a game I've been able to play in since then, so I've no way to gauge whether anything's changed. While there's been no issues while I've been gming Core in the region, there's absolutely no player crossover between core and non-core here.
I've seen this before, and I do like the idea... but honestly my main "issue" so to speak with it has to do with the immediate reaction to it that erupts every time I've seen it brought up. Which is to say, that in all of the places I can think of where it would actually be a useful tool, its usefulness is completely mitigated by the fact that the people who need to respect it won't, which is why the card was needed in the first place.
(I still maintain that the Mass Effect series is the best Star Control II remake I've ever seen...)Since the Mass Effect series is one of my all time favorites, would you recommend checking out this apparent predecessor? I would, honestly. The people who made it released the source code, and it's available for free download. A few things to keep in mind: It's definitely an artifact of its time, it came out in 92. It's also got a lot of what you could call 'grinding' bits in it, where you'll spend a bunch of time just accumulating materials. It's also very possible that I'm viewing it nicely because of nostalgia: it's one of the very first adventure games I ever played. It's also very much a non-linear game: the game will give you a few directions now and again on where to go next, but the galaxy map is seriously wide-open. As in, every star is visitable, from day 1. Admittedly, the plot in the Mass Effect series far more mirrors the plot in Star Control 3 (which I do not recommend at all) but ME/SC2 feel a lot alike in tone to me.
Actually, what I remember was that around that time a lot of fictitious rumors were floating around about ME's 'character customization' and what all the 'sex scenes' included (namely, you could go so far as to specify breast size, and that the sex scenes were XXX-rated), so they backed off on some of the queer romance plots because of that. (See! We don't even let you be GAY in Mass Effect!) The rumors were so bad and so baseless that Jack Thompson (yes, HIM) was defending BioWare. That was the story at the time, at least. (I still maintain that the Mass Effect series is the best Star Control II remake I've ever seen...)
Now that I look at that, I do see where it is on the version of AD1 that I downloaded. I'm pretty sure that's in error, because there's basically no way of tracking that, or at least it's a ridiculous amount of paperwork. I'd agree that's an error, and you should handle it (when the time comes) in the way that the OP guide says. Assuming no one's corrected it officially by then.
Being 'different from standard' seems sufficient reason to include asexuality/aromanticism in the category to me. One other acronym that I've seen bandied about to combat the increasingly-large QUILTBAG of acronym soup is 'Marginalized Orientations, Gender Identities, and Intersex', or MOGII. Seems fair to me. I mostly don't use it because most folks haven't heard of it, and it doesn't roll off the tongue so well. As for settings full of asexuals...I hesitate to give The Giver as an example, because 1) drug-induced and 2) it's really really not good representation on the matter, being a dystopia and all.
Icy: that's rough. Reminds me a good fair bit about my own parents. I can still remember when my dad sat me down and gave me a talk about the difference between 'feeling strong affection for friends' and 'feeling strong romantic feelings towards women' and how I shouldn't get them confused like I have been doing. Gee Dad, thanks for letting me know that you don't think I can figure out the difference between wanting to hang out with someone, and wanting to kiss someone. Doublewrongbad when I end up having to come out a half dozen times before my parents realize I'm serious/remember. The denial is strong with them. The whole 'free speech' thing has been a bit difficult for me too. Growing up in my family/church, especially around my parents' son, if I wanted to be heard, I had to talk over people, and that's been a hard habit to unlearn. I still get a lot of the 'is it rude for me to speak up here?' or 'should I just start talking to refute that?' when talking to people IRL. Online I just tend to get more 'do I really actually have something worthwhile to say for people to read?' And usually say 'no', and delete the whole thing and go back to lurking. But on the other hand, sometimes people are just wrong in a way that shouldn't be tolerated, even in speech, in your own home, so to speak. In your own house you can say what you want. But we're in Paizo's house, and Paizo gets to choose what you're not allowed to say. An issue (what can/can't people say in X venue) that I've also been running into with my local Pathfinder group, which is why I haven't been at the local one in a few months. Also: Hi, I'm Mandy, long time lurker, second time poster. And I, for one, welcome the idea that I can play in a setting declared by the game's publisher as canon, where trans women like me actually exist, instead of having to make my own. (Not that I haven't been working on my own gameworlds anyway, mind...)
That's true -- there aren't mechanical differences, and all genders have the same capacity for any societal role, but there are areas of the world that have gender-based limitations. E.g. a woman can't inherit the Taldan throne (unless that's gotten changed), and your membership in a Keleshite merchant or noble family is matrilineal, meaning that those families aren't likely to pass their wealth to their sons if they have other options, since any children those sons have will be members of a different house.people won't be talking about using it for weird forced body alteration on infants to match up with hetero- and cisnormative medieval inheritance politics.Not that this should ever be a thing at all, considering there are literally no sex or gender-based mechanical differences in D&D (or PF, for that matter), and therefore, statistically speaking, all sex and genders display the same capacity for any societal role. Different societies absolutely have different gender roles/gender differentiation... which is part of why I don't think feeding an elixir of shift sex to an infant or even a very young child would necessarily have much effect, even if it would later in their life. Someone who might feel comfortable as one gender in, say, Taldor, may feel differently if they were raised in a different society with different gender norms. All of my other thoughts on use of the item in this present conversational topic revolve more around 'what does "choice" actually mean in this case' and issues of non-magical coercion and other things that, quite honestly, I'm very happy not thinking too deeply about or chatting on the subject of.
Thanks for the responses. Yeah, I kind of figured that you would typically want to keep your tier right at or just above the adventure you're playing, to get Adventure rewards and dice bumps, but I'm also wanting to have an answer in case someone does ask me 'hey, can I do this?' I've been watching these forums and playing since the RotR came out (mostly solo, alas, I've been finding it difficult to find other interested players nearby, so my 'local' playgroup is an hour's drive away), so I've gotten a fair bit of experience under my belt, but I certainly can't claim to know everything. I agree, that playing the Tier-raising game would be definitely a not-ideal way of playing, but I can see one reason at least why you might go that route rather than playing up the Adventure route: if you were playing with a group, and your character died in a higher adventure, you might want to swiftly tier up your new character to rejoin them, rather than go the more leisurely route. I'll wait to hear if Tanis has an update or chimes in later with a clarification on the issue, but for now I'll put it as 'legal, not recommended'.
My PACG group isn't going to be starting Season One for a couple months (we've just finished Adventure 3 of Season 0, and we're going to play through the rest of it before heading to Season 1), but I've been looking through the new Tier rules and trying to make sure I understand them fully. There's just one thing that I'm unclear on and wouldn't mind some clarification, about earning of Tier feats. Let's say I play the first four scenarios of Adventure 1, earning the skill, power, and card feat, and decide to increase my tier after the last. There's still one scenario left in Adventure 1, however, so I complete that with my group. Would I then have earned a new skill feat for completing a new scenario? So, can you increase tier every 4 games, regardless of Adventures? In a hypothetical season with 6 scenarios in each Adventure, that would allow you to hit Tier 5 mid-Adventure 3 if you were that focused on increasing Tier as soon as you could.
One thing I've found fun for my own characters who is about 90% core: if you're building a true skill-monkey, you're not going to be very efficient in combat, compared to people who are built for it. The way around that is to instead be combat-support. Bard song and bard spells can be very good for support, especially if you grab some wands, too. Add in two levels of rogue for the extra class skills, trap spotter, and evasion, and build yourself with a decent Int, and keep using your FCB on skillpoints, and you'll have skills for every occasion. It's not the most efficient build, and you won't be a specialist on anything, but you'll be able to shore up any weakness that a given party might have.
From what I understand, the Scrolls, Swords, and Spells are not factions the way that the Silver Crusade and the Dark Archive are: There isn't the external politicking/goal-seeking there. They are, instead, three different schools of thought on how to achieve the ends that the Pathfinder Society intends to do. Three schools of thought as to how to approach the missions, as it were. The Spells are more intent on magic, the Scrolls more intent on skills and knowledge, and the Swords more on force of arms. So, they're less "What am I trying to do" factions, than "How do I do what I do" schools of thought.
I gave Seoni Father Zantus in Adventure Deck 1, and never ever regretted it. Even with Kyra as one of the other characters in the foursome of adventurers. One card I found amazing throughout the entire RotR AP is the mighty Crowbar. Not as useful, I've found, in S&S, but the sheer number of strength checks in barriers in RotR made it a constant in both Merisial's and Valeros's possessions. Reveal for +1 Strength die? Recharge for +2 dice? (the recharge check is a 3, you're not going to fail it often with either of those, c'mon). Mok's Club for Kyra, when she has the 'cure for killing outsider/undead' power? She doesn't have to worry about dying. Emerald Codex: This got passed around the group a bit. It finally landed on Harsk. The spells weren't always useful, but they helped more often than not. And we breathed a breath of safety when 'raise dead' happened to pop up in there. Has no one mentioned Disintegrate? Sure, it comes by a bit late, but it utterly negates all of the 'this monster doesn't /actually/ die' crap that pops up more and more often. I haven't used Potion of Heroism yet, but I imagine that if you set it onto an explore-monster character, that it can get pretty amazing to watch, if the character using it has a tot flask to keep it from getting expended.
If anything, I'd recommend either a appropriate card in deck, or having played/succeeded at a certain number of prior adventure scenarios. And definitely if you've completed the prior adventure and gained the reward for it. (I wonder if having access to the loots of that deck would count as having a card in deck of that number? The adventure 1/2 rewards, for example.)
The XP idea sounds like a decent idea to me, honestly. It would have to be balanced and tweaked, obviously, but it seems like a good compromise. And, as a bonus, it would mean that the reward in the scenario design could be tailored to each scenario, rather than having some 'have' to have feats instead of any other reward. It also wouldn't require much extra bookkeeping. The chronicle sheets could be made less adventure-specific, perhaps so that a running tally of XP could be kept without having to switch from adventure sheet to adventure sheet if players played multiple adventures out of order, as could happen in Organized Play. Just thinking out loud.
That may be a fair expectation, maybe not: I haven't heard any word one way or the other from Paizo staff, and it isn't mentioned at all, that I could see, in the guide. PFS having multiple seasons, I see scenarios from all seasons being played pretty indiscriminantly -- admittedly there's no AP binding them together. I would be interested in hearing what any future plans are. In any case, these APs do seem to reward the replay-till-you-win model of play, which may not be the best choice for organized play.
I'm wondering if there couldn't be some better way to regulate replays, that would solve these issues without causing more imbalance. A character with high pack cards and many feats is likely to steamroll over earlier adventures, and that would lead to reduced fun for the people who are adequately levelled. On the other hand, I've been wondering, looking ahead to next season, whether there are going to be restrictions about using the same character for more than one season's scenarios. What would stop someone from playing Adventure 1 of Season 0, then Season 1, then Season 2, before going on to Adventure 2. They'd be ridiculously over-feated by the time they reached Adventure 5-6 at that rate. I know this is kind of out of the scope of the current topic, though.
In RotR, I kept the crowbars around. Actually kept one in Merisiel's deck for the entire game, and it never stopped being useful, really. 1 or 2 dice on any non-combat strength, lock, or obstacle check? That's a sizeable number of barriers, half the weapons....
This may be a silly suggestion, and too late now for the ACG classes: but would it make sense, with new classes going forward, for any retraining synergies to be a part of the class basic description, such as: "This class functions as a wizard for retraining purposes." or some such thing? Since you need the source for the class to use it legally in PFS anyhow (or to use it in general), having it with the rest of the information about the class would seem to make sense.
No deaths. Only a few fails. The first fail was on the Flood. One ally short! Character Name: Merisiel
The armor only ever really got used once the whole time she had it. It replaced the Snake armor that she used like twice, even for dex checks. It just never ended up in her hand. And I forgot about the recharge blessing feat that she got until just now... whoops. Character Name: Seoni
She held onto the Staff of Heaven and Earth all through Chapters 5 and 6...and never actually used it. On the other hand, Father Zantus got picked up in Chapter 1 pretty early on, and he got used pretty much every scenario. Maxed out the spells early on, and never regretted it. Character Name: Harsk
Ordikon's staff was Kyra's, but transferred over to him for the last scenario only. The extra weapon and ally were the last card feats from winning the game. 5 weapons was plenty, and he held onto the Troubadour for the whole game, never found anything that suited him better. He was a beast on the Mountain Peak. He'd always go there first thing during a game, never lost a card to it, especially with the Headband. And for combat... well, with Dex+3 and +3 ranged, and magical weapons, and the accessory, he frequently got +8-+10 before rolling dice. Deathbane Xbow got replaced with the extra Giantbane dagger when we started facing the Wardens more often. Character Name: Kyra
The Toad was the only ally she had for the vast majority of the game. Funnily enough, Mass Cure showed up for her in the final scenario. Mokmurian's club did very well for her. Especially against undead. Healing two cards per whack is heavy. She had the Falchion, but the Glaive works better. For about half of the campaign, Kyra really ran hot and cold. Either she was on fire and could do no wrong, or she was a wet noodle who could do nothing at all of any use.
Based on the card text as written, no. "Attack" trait tends to be attached to spells where the text is "For your combat check...", whereas Righteousness is a buff spell, along the lines of Strength, Speed, etc., that adds to all of your combat checks during the turn. Unlike the turn-length mage spells, it only affects your own checks, and not anyone else's, so it is more like a buff than an area-attack spell. Short answer: I don't think so.
I don't have a printer of my own. I don't tend to print things very often, so I don't see the point in making the investment. So, when I need to print something, I load it onto a thumb drive and drive two minutes to the local Staples to use their copy center. I've run into problems doing this with my purchased Paizo PDFs, though. The free ones work fine, but when I try to print the purchased ones, like the new PACG OP scenarios, I'm told it's a 'protected file'. I can print it fine if I use their computer to print or if I take it to the print center front desk for them to print there... but the first option is much more expensive, since I have to buy time on the computer, and the second only works if the copy center isn't working on any other jobs at the moment. Is this something I'm just going to have to live with? Or am I missing something?
Holy Candle in RotR was a great boon to provide a few additional turns. Why this item is no longer available in S&S and in the class decks? This is just speculation on my part, not knowing what the devs were thinking: the only thing Holy Candle does is turn back the clock a bit. Sure, it's a useful power, but it does mean that it's taking up an item slot that could be doing something useful to the scenario/checks instead. Turning back the clock, while useful to the players in some swingy contexts, doesn't really otherwise do a lot. An item that, for example, reduced damage from structural damage would be more useful, since that would prevent (rather than fix) blessing deck damage. Further: If it was in S&S, then encountering it in OP would basically be 'succeed at this check to turn back the clock', making the item an anti-barrier, rather than an actual item you'd be using, since there would be no point in not using it immediately if you weren't in the first five turns. And by putting it in the class decks (cleric, probably) you're basically telling that class 'blessing deck management is in your purview', which isn't something that the devs probably wanted to say. Just my 2 coppers. |
