Michael Chu's page

Ah, that part of the rules was totally confusing to me, then. :)

Michael Chu wrote:

Also, Vexidyre had 3 traitors, even though, as far as I understood the rules, each House should only have had a maximum of 2 possible traitors. The third traitor was actually the most damaging of all.

We had 3 traitors??? Who was our third? I was Krastur Vexidyre, btw.

graywulfe

I'm not totally sure, but I believe it was the deep gnome, the trickster (sorcerer?) and one other.

I was talking to one of them afterwards and they mentioned that they did not have the "traitor/loyal" envelope, but betrayed Vexidyre anyways.

Will faction feats have hooks in Pathfinder Society mods kind of like how some of the character background feats had hooks in various Adventure Paths? I hope so! I always really liked that aspect of them in the APs.

Long live High House Vexidyre, though we are now laid low, we will sow chaos in the city!

A fierce grip makes a blade of chaos!

Well, it was too bad that Vexidyre fell to foul betrayal (likely partially my fault, since I failed to suss out the betrayers soon enough), but I think for my character, Haradro Vexidyre, causing chaos in the city should fit him just fine.

I had a total blast playing Ascension of the Drow even though I was probably one of the players who had the most trouble getting started. I played Haradro Vexidyre, who was an eldritch knight who specialized in mind control and divination spells. It was hard for me to figure out exactly how to use these spells in the context of the game (disguising myself? how does that work? do I get more nametags?). I could definitely have done with more information about potential targets and how to deal with other characters (I noticed that some of the characters had page or two long descriptions, so my one and a half paragraphs felt a little insubstantial).

I think there should have been more time for each house to communicate with each other before the start of the fun, so that we could focus on figuring out what everyone was, did, etc. before the chaos began.

Also, Vexidyre had 3 traitors, even though, as far as I understood the rules, each House should only have had a maximum of 2 possible traitors. The third traitor was actually the most damaging of all.

Vexidyre also had the disadvantage of (I think) having the greatest percentage of players who were unhappy with the event, as half of our remaining table departed at the break, forcing us to resort to drastic measures: abandoning our House and having the Demon Lord Shax turn us into dopplegangers.

That said, I had a total blast at this event and I would do something like it in a heartbeat.

And I can't wait to see the fate of the four scions of House Vexidyre in Pathfinder, Haradro, for his part, I am sure will be extremely excited about his newfound abilities as a doppleganger (or if that is decided to be too extreme, his predilection for disguise and spying should fit his life as a drow terrorist perfectly).

I'm spending what little time I have looking out from the Westin across to the Hyatt. Soon I will enter there for the Pathfinder Society Orientation.

Undoubtedly there will be some sort of indoctrination, hazing, ritual scarification and perhaps even a secret handshake. If I don't make it back. Tell my family I loved them.

/lame humor off.

Seriously, looking forward to meeting my fellow Pathfinders. I can't wait to see what you guys bring to the table!

Anyone know where the Paizo area is located?

Has there been any official or unofficial word about the relative difficulty of scenarios for Pathfinder Society? As a veteran of both Paizo's published adventures and other living systems (LG I'm looking at you!), I'm curious where Pathfinder Society will fall.

Not having any of the 3.5 supplements can make it hard to make powerful characters, and super mind-bendingly difficult mods aren't really very fun, so I'm hoping that the mods have an emphasis on the FUN with a little dash of difficulty in there.

I'm heartened by the mention that the DM should try to make the mods work even after the party might make a plot point screwup (a huge problem with a lot of the RPGA mods I've played).

So, I just read over the rules document and I didn't see anything that explicitly stated what resources could be used (other than the reference to using the Campaign Setting for additional items). Are the various feats/prestige classes in there also usable or no?

Just to make sure, is "Pathfinder Modules" different than "GameMastery Modules"?

Personally, I understand Paizo's desire to be the "big" 3.5 book after Wizards moves on, but I wish that the Pathfinder RPG was filled with universe specific rules. I'm not looking for the Pathfinder RPG as a solution for my own campaign (and if I was, I feel like I could rework the specifics to what I wanted), I want the best possible system for the modules and adventures and products that Paizo wants to make.

I'd love to get the sort of focused content that you get from Pathfinder (formerly Dungeon and Dragon), but on an ever wider level.

I actually love the new stat bonuses. I love the fact that EVERY race is good. These guys are heroes!

I also am a big fan of the racial starting hit point idea, because it is particularly flavorful for people who play across type, as well as being synergistic with people who are playing natural classes.

One too want fighters to have a host of options to play with, I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role.

On the flip-side, I did make sure to add a host of combat feats for them to use, giving them some spice to their general tactics.

Those things said, is it enough? Let me know.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

That's a really good point. As an experienced D&D player, I, of course, don't think about such silly necessities as making the game accessible! ;) I think, though, that at the later levels (when the player would be more accustomed to the system and rules), it would be nice for Fighters to get a "transcendent" ability, like the high level domain powers of the Clerics (I'm really excited about the Cleric domain powers and Wizard school powers, as a side note!).

I guess, what I'm asking for, is something that Fighters can do that the other martial characters cannot. Barbarians Rage and run fast, Paladins have their holy abilities, but it always feels a little disappointing for Fighters to just have more feats.

Maybe giving them some sort of weapon mastery based ability (though I also wouldn't want to shoehorn Fighters into specializing with a weapon or type of weapons) along the lines of the damage type breakdowns of the Critical Hit Deck.

But I'll definitely have to try it out, otherwise it's all theorycrafting!

Some specialized feat trees for weapon groups would be cool but I would hate to see maneuvers brought in. That's one of the reasons I couldn't get into 4E.

Ultimately, I just want to be able to make interesting decisions during a combat that aren't just five foot stepping for a flank and how much to power attack with.

Expanding the rules for using skills in combat in a useful, fun way I think would be a great step in the right direction, along with some new, cool combat feats.

I like the addition of the armor and weapon bonuses in the Fighter tree, but I'd like something a little more flavorful than a flat bonus. Maybe some things I can choose between (like the rogues) at some of the levels.

Anyways, these are just some ideas off the top of my head. I just want playing a fighter to be as fun as playing a spellcaster.

One of the biggest complaints I have with 3.5 is the lack of things for fighters to do. The combat maneuvers introduced in the later 3.5 supplements helped, and I think that the ideas Wizards put forth in Tome of Battle are also good ideas. I'm also excited about what I've heard on how weapons will work in 4th Edition.

I think that it's essential that the Pathfinder RPG have increased combat things for fighter types to do. I'd like to see a combination of skill-based things (which players love to do, but the rules don't really account for, like tumbling around, climbing things, jumping, etc.) and maneuvers (yes, spells for fighters!).

Looking at the new Fighter progression in the Alpha release, while I'm happy that Fighters are finally getting SOMETHING at every level, I don't feel like +# bonuses are exciting and sexy enough.

Is there a list or some place on the website I can look to find the bonus downloads available for Pathfinder? I seem to remember there being some maps, or something, but I can't find them easily.

No Mac version... :poo:

Ditto!

You get access to the PDF when we ship the print copy from our warehouse. You'll get another email telling you when that has happened.

I think those emails were sent out, right?

Will we get another email with the download link?

I wish we could get a little more information about why to ignore all the cool disease stuff if we plan on running this before D1. But I suppose D1 is coming out soon enough. :)

Guennarr wrote:

Do I assume correctly that subscribing to both periodicals would count as a book posting in terms of delivery cost calculation?

They both qualify for "Bound Printed Matter" rates (which we display as a "USPS Package Service"). However, for some destinations, it's slightly cheaper to ship GameMastery Modules by USPS First Class. Pathfinder is too heavy, though—USPS Package Service is probably always the cheapest method for it (and that's also true when you combine Pathfinder and a Module).

If you'd like to estimate your combined shipping cost, put any one GameMastery module and any one volume of Pathfinder into your cart, and go through the checkout process until you get to the shipping options. Choose to ship them together, and the quote you see should match the quote you'll get when we start offering combined subscription mailings. (I think for most international destinations, the combined shipping cost will be $6.49.)

oh, shipping! ;)

Is there a difference in the packaging for USPS First Class, USPS Standard Mail and the Package Service? (for gamemastery modules(

If I understand correctly, you can only get the free pdf copy of the books with a subscription.

You may find that's worth the additional 20% you pay (due to shipping; and assuming you would find $25 worth of merchandise at Amazon and qualify for free shipping) at Paizo. At least, it's worth it to me.

I would much rather purchase the mods directly from Paizo and get the .pdfs (and have the money go directly to them). My consideration is that I currently pay $80 a year to amazon for the free second day shipping on everything, so I'm always looking for ways to maximize that. ;)

I just noticed that all the GameMastery mods and Pathfinder "issues" are listed for preorder on Amazon.com. In the past, I recall it being pretty much impossible to order stuff through Amazon. Is this just Amazon zeal or are they actually planned to be offered through them?

I would prefer prepainted plastic miniatures if they were of the Heroscape quality (rather than the D&D minis).

As my life has less and less time to dedicate to the activities surrounding gaming, I've grown to appreciate these slightly less awesome, but time-saving gaming tools.