Michael Johnston's page

KaeYoss wrote:

Did you ever consider that not everyone has one?

There's a difference between being cheap and overpaying for a book you have to wait longer to get, all the while wasting time driving to the store just to have some clueless clerk on the other side of the counter?

Yes, you are correct. If you don't have a FLGS you should not try supporting it.

I am talking about a Friendly Local Game Store. Not game stores that are run by jerks you don't like, staffed by clueless idiots. Not game stores in other countries. Not even just game stores in general, I'm talking about an actual FLGS. If you don't have one, then you have my sympathies and your fine. I don't even know why you'd assume I was even talking about you.

If the shop near you is not friendly, your fine in my book to show your distaint with your purchases elsewhere. That's part of capitalism. If it's too far away, then it's simply too far away and can't be helped.

If, however, you do have a shop that you frequent regularly that is a friendly place to gather and play games then personally I think you have an obligation in this hobby to actually make purchases from their store even if you have to pay a little more. Thus I say “Support your FLGS.”

A lot of folks seem to read FLGS as ANY gaming store. You can't expect others to read your mind and know that you meant the "friendly" part literally; every gamer I know refers to their local game shop as an FLGS, even the one I refuse to go to because the owner is a complete ass who probably eats kittens for breakfast.

Me, I'm lucky to live about a mile from a FLGS, and I'll be getting this book there; I have little use for a PDF version.

I'd love to have something like this, too. I'm using SpellbookMaster, a great Mac utility that gives me all the spells easily located and read on my iTouch (also works on iPhone). I'm currently going through manually looking for changes, but my god this is going to take forever. A list of changes made would make this go by so much faster.

As noted here in this thread

PCGen v5.15.10 (Beta) Released! PCGen is now shipping with a almost complete dataset and gamemode for Pathfinder.

I'm creating this thread here so that people can post if they have any bugs or feedback if they didn't have a yahoo account to be able to log onto our main PCGen mailing list

So beat on it and help us improve!. :)

I just downloaded 5.16, and I've found something I *think* is a problem. When creating a Sorcerer, the bloodline bonus spells take up regular sorcerer spell slots. Unless I'm misreading the rules, those spells should be above and beyond the spells a Sorcerer usually knows.

A variation on this that might work for several bloodlines would be to have spellcasting by the sorcerer provide them with an infusion of life-energy, either from their draconic heritage or fiendish reinforcement or celestial succor, allowing them to heal 1 hp / spell level cast (and gaining any excess as temporary bonus hit points for one hour, but not stacking, with only the most powerful effect taking hold).

So a Celestial Sorcerer might gain 3 temporary hit points if casting a Fireball at full health, but no additional hit points if he then cast another spell of 3rd level or lower. If he's damaged and down to only 1 temporary hit point, he would bump that back up to +3 with the next Fireball.

LOVE this.

The problem was simple, they didn't get enough magic support really, so one of two things needed to be done, get rid of the support entirely or give us more support, you have over killed the later. 1/2 caster level is preferred here.

The obvious question here is, "preferred by whom?" Not me. I like it just fine as it is. Hell, I'd probably lose the -3 spellcasting levels if it was up to me, but that would be, I admit, fairly blatant powergaming and should not be done.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Not everything comes down to spellcasting.. and for the sorcerer, this is an avenue I would like to actively explore. Most classes have a solid niche that they are attempting to fulfill and it seems like the Wiz and Sor are both aiming at the same one (arcane caster). I decided that since the Wiz is more settled in that roll, the sorcerer needs another focus.

They intentionally fill the same role, because a lot of people really want to play the arcane caster but hate preparing spells. As such, the sorcerer needs to be able to stand up against the wizard, since his whole purpose is as an alternative option.

I have to disagree. I've been playing both classes for years, and I almost exclusively play the Sorceror because 1) I like the "flavor" of something different in the character's ancestry being the source of his different casting method, and 2) I hate preparing spells.

I, like a poster above me, have never noticed the sorcerer being at much of a disadvantage, and I've played them both as the party's primary caster and as one of two, the other being a wizard. We each filled a different role, and we did it well.

Jason, I'm all over your take on the class; please don't change.

I think that it's an awesome prestige. The problem is, it's too awesome. I can't see any draconic sorcerer in his or her right mind NOT taking it.

And when you have a prestige class that 99% of draconic sorcerers will want...something is wrong. The idea behind powering up the base classes was making it so that the decision between taking a prestige or going full base class was an even one, a difficult one to make. In this case, it's a no brainer. Why *wouldn't* you take it?

Well, I'd probably take it, especially if I knew that my GM was going to go into Epic levels. However, with no guarantee of Epic-ness, I might hesitate because of the loss of spell levels.

Correct on the Chronicler vs. Red Wizard account.

And elves > dwarves! Everyone knows this! :)

Less Snarky: What about removing the requirement that an arcane archer has to be an elf? Opening that class up to all races? Is that too weird?

I'd be SO behind that. I always house rule that requirement away, anyway.