Mosaic's page

So, after looking at all the minis and hitting my Mwangi Expanse book to remind myself who a few of them are, here's my thoughts... Generally really nice sculpts and paint jobs, some of them are stunning (Black Heron, Taralu Dwarf, High Sun Mage Oyamba, Senghor Priest, Thabsing Blood-Eye, Goloma, Anwigasi), a few are really thin so they bend too easily (Andai humanoid form, Shisk), amazing for a Mwangi Expanse campaign, a few are a bit niche for a non-Mwangi Expanse campaign, but that's fine, that's true of every themed set.

But looking back at the book, there is some of the most beautiful character artwork yet and I'm a little sad that more of the NPCs didn't make it into the set. I know, sets are generally more critter-heavy, but the people in this book are just fantastic. I also buy the Wizkids D&D sets and they've started doing something interesting over there. For each set, they seem to be doing the big collection of randomized minis, which tend to be critter heavy, with "rares" being mostly unique monsters and bosses. "People" tend to generic folks you might meet a lot of, like guards, soldiers, etc., and some named characters who could double as generic en masse. But then they also sell a separate visible box (yes, it's a money-grab, I know) with named NPCs, so you can a) get more unique people, and b) make sure you get all the big names in one place if you're playing the adventure. Paizo is kind of experimenting with this with the upcoming Runelords set. I know it would end up costing more, but I would totally buy a Mwangi Expanse NPC box set that had more of the fantastic and diverse characters from the book art, or that had Old Mage Jatembe and the Ten Magic Warriors. Same with other sets; I'd be happy with a case of monsters and generic folks and a separate box with all the key NPCs. (This might also help with the phenomena of getting 4 copies of King Whoever because someone at Wizkids decided he should be "common.")

Anyway, just a thought.

Any idea when singles go on sale?

I'm fully unversed on the subject of unions, 95% genuine question, 5% snark: is it normal in these circumstances to specifically use the phrase "voluntarily recognize?" I'm seeing the word "voluntary" stressed a lot, and it comes of as... not suspicious, just kind of peculiar. Is there an involuntary way to recognize a union?

Did you ever get this answered? Companies can fight it, force it to go to a big, formal vote, contest the vote, even file labor complaints against those trying to form the union. Look at everything happening with Amazon folks trying to form unions; the company fights it all the way, often even using undemocratic practices like threatening people's jobs or tampering with the actual ballots.

I'm a teacher, and I've seen it go both ways when the bargaining unit tried to expand who it covered. Counselors wanted into the unit and the district fought it for years even though several other nearby teacher units already included counselors. It finally went to the state Labor Relations Board and the LRB said, "yes" they could join. Another time, school psychologists waned in and the ditrict just said, "fine," and it happened quickly.

Voluntary recognition by the employer is a sign of good faith and willingness to work with employees and the union.

Great news. Congratulations to UPW and well-done Paizo. I've been through excellent negotiations, where management listened to employees' needs and responded with fair counter-offers, and I've been through negotiations that went nowhere because management stonewalled and delayed and came back with ludicrous offers. Let's hope Paizo keeps the momentum going and works toward solutions during negotiations.

Maintain my subscriptions... the ones I've maintained for 14 years without break since 2007 (see "charter superscriber" above). I've been a proud union member for over 25 years, and have even served as a negotiator and chapter president a few time. There is absolutely no way I can support a company that doesn't embrace an employee union and see it as a positive way for employees to have a voice. I've placed almost 500 orders over the last 20 years and been playing in Pathfinder Society since Season 0 (PFS ID# 1969). I would genuinely LOVE to have my faith restored in Paizo, and voluntarily recognizing the employee union would be the first step.

Late to the party but I'm thrilled to see the talented Paizo staff standing up for themselves and organizing for the right to have a voice in their working conditions. I support them and their effort to unionize 1000%. As a "charter superscriber" who's been around since the magazine days, I've done my bit to support Paizo and it's products, because they were high quality and because I liked what the company stood for. That excitement has waned a bit in the last few years and how the owners/management react to this will be make-or-break for me. If they fight this fair and sensible request from their staff, I am absolutely ready to suspend every one of of my subscriptions and boycott Paizo until they come around and see reason. I would much rather have my faith in a good company restored. Do the right thing, Paizo. Si se puede!

Another vote for TOKEN PACKS. Starfinder token packs!

Any idea when individual minis will go on sale? Just received by case and I'm missing 1 and a variant. First time I haven't gotten a complete set with a case in ... forever... I think I've always complete sets. It's not a big deal; they're commons/uncommons, but I DO want pick them up as soon as possible.

I did some copy and pasting. The two middle ones almost line up, but not quite. The canal lines up, but the house and tower at the top are off by one square.

Also, the 4th map almost lines up with the second map. Place the 4th above the 2nd and everything but the stairway lines up.

Just like the potential alignment of these maps, this project just missed the mark for me.

I couldn't believe what you said so I checked it myself, and you are 100% correct. How annoying is that? I mean, really, it won't matter much in actual play, but what a sloppy job with the artwork. How did someone not catch this if they were supposed to line up? Not like it would have been hard to fix, just move the edge building up a square and the stairway over a square. What a bummer.

I don't love that they are all standing on stuff. I prefer my minis on neutral bases.

I've actually been torn about WizKids transition to "clear" bases for large figures in their D&D line. I actually love the the idea of clear bases so you can see the map underneath, but I have SO MANY with black bases at this point that it's a little odd to see just a few clear ones.

Along with these I would LOVE to see a BIGGER Flip-map of a Drow city on one side (showing the insides of the buildings) and a druegar city on the other, also showing the inside of some of the buildings! Wall areas would be a PLUS!

Until Paizo produces one, check out this map set by Christopher West, who has done a lot of work w Paizo, especially back in the Dragon Magazine days - Maps of Mastery

I've been a subscriber since the beginning and, at this point, I have 145 Adventure Path books and 50+ stand alone adventures. Besides the adventures themselves, there are a ton of rules and character options contained in those 200 volumes... more than anyone can reasonably keep track of.

Proposal, now that we're kicking off Pathfinder 2.0, I'd like to suggest that Paizo consider publishing an Anthology at the end of each year (or each summer, at the end of their cycle) that reprints all the new spells, feats, ancestries, backgrounds, classes and sub-classes, monsters and threats, etc. that were published in the adventure paths and stand alone modules Don't waste any space on context or fluff for them (other than maybe a teaser paragraph for the AP/adventure), just reprint the stats and rules.

I suspect it would be a fairly quick/easy/cheap product to put together given that all the content would already be created and would just need to get formatted into a new book.

I don't think it would hurt existing AP/adventure sales because I doubt there are many people who only buy APs/adventures for the monsters and spells. But I do think a decent number of folks who don't currently buy the APs or adventures might pick up an Anthology to get the extra crunch for their home campaigns. And then I know that, even as (ESPECIALLY as) a current AP/adventure subscriber, I'd pay the extra money to get all the crunch from the year collected in one place so that if I want to use a cool feat or background I saw in an AP once, I won't have to go flipping through dozens of books to find it. At 1/year, each Anthology would corral goodies 12 AP volumes and 1-2 modules each year. That's a lot easier to reference and transport if I'm playing in Pathfinder Society or something.

Anyway, just a suggestion. I'd be curious what other GMs and players think. Would you buy an Anthology each year? And are you a current AP/adventure subscriber?

The DwarvenForge stuff is amazing. I've backed a lot of their Kickstarter projects and been very happy with everything I've received. It can be expensive, especially if you want EVERYTHING, but this campaign seems to be of a good entry-level size. There are lots of affordable bits and pieces that can be used without going bonkers into all the walls and caverns, and then there are 4 nice, complete sub-sets if want more but are not interested in the whole thing. A bit of a luxury, obviously, but lots of fun.

You've seen this map, right?

zoomable Golarion

• Give PCs the opportunity to meet the other parties (Drelev, Varn, the Iron Medusas) before they set off into the Stolen Lands (like a big banquet in Brevoy or something) so they know the other personalities and like/dislike them (or at least have feelings about them) before they meet again in later chapters.

Might also be nice to include little "Where are they now?" sidebars about each party in earlier chapters, before they show up in an adventure sense. For example, right after Ch 1, players could hear that Drelev has built a small fort, Varn has established a town but has been having trouble with X, and the Iron Medusas have ...

(I grow bored with the only discussion being this edition vs. that edition, so let's talk content!)

Things I'd like to see done/redone in an updated version of Kingmaker:
• Do a clearer job of linking all the chapters to Nyrissa's plot (even tangentially) and foreshadowing her more.
• Sprinkle bits of Zuddiger's Picnic throughout the AP, not just in the final chapter.
• Give PCs the opportunity to meet the other parties (Drelev, Varn, the Iron Medusas) before they set off into the Stolen Lands (like a big banquet in Brevoy or something) so they know the other personalities and like/dislike them (or at least have feelings about them) before they meet again in later chapters.
• I borrowed an idea someone else on the boards created, and then modified it a little for my players, where each PC had role in the exploration party (like cook, chronicler or cartographer) that gave little bonuses but also served as practice for when they took on bigger, more important roles as rulers of their kingdom. It also made it feel more like they were actual explorers with a mission and not just adventures looking for XP. My players all reported enjoying it. Consider including a little something along these lines.
• Either move the Rushlight Tournament up earlier to when the PCs are still nobodies or come up with a better reason why rulers (and not their champions) would compete versus other rulers' champions. Personally, I'd go with the former.
• I didn't use it, but I read some great ideas on the boards about a growing monster kingdom as a motivator and foil to the PC's fledgling kingdom.
• Give more details (kingdom stats, army stats, hex maps, etc.) for surrounding kingdoms. If PCs are going to interact with them on a kingdom-to-kingdom level, it would help to know their stats and where they claim their borders are. I'd say Drelev and Varn's holdings, Pitax, Mendev for sure - it's right there across the river and gets very little attention in the current write-up - maybe even Brevoy in case PCs go in that direction.

I ran a Pathfinder elective for a year at the middle school where I teach. Most of the kids had no experience with paper-and-pencil RPGs and very little with RPG-style video games.

We started with some math activities involving dice and probability... roll a d6 10x, now find the average, graph it; roll a d10 10x, find the average, graph it; roll a d20 10x, find the average, graph it; what can you say about the results you get from each die? Also practive with die formulas... 2d6+1, 3d4+3, etc.

Then we got to combat, but SUPER simple. I gave them pre-gen monsters like orcs and goblins with just AC, HP, hit and damage. They battled and this gave them practice rolling dice, determining hits and misses, and tracking HP.

Then we generated characters using the Beginners Box. For the first one, it was totally step-by-step, whole class... roll 4d6, drop the lowest, that's STR; roll 4d6, drop the lowest, that's DEX... As a teacher, I checked those character sheets for completeness and correctness. Then they got to make their own, and I scored those too.

Once they had characters, they were ready to play real modules. We used A LOT of Pathfinder Society modes because they were nice an short. The Quests might even be better. I preped them a lot like PFS, too. I asked for a group of volunteers (like 5 kids), invited them to come in on a Saturday, bought them pizza, and ran them through a module. After we played, I gave them a copy and we read through the module together and debriefed. The next week in class, those kids GMed for groups of 4 or 5 other kids. I circulated and helped as needed. I also had to debrief with GMs to see how their "leadership" experience went.

We played several mods - enough for them to level up - and then we got ready to write our own mods. Everyone got copies of 2 mods and we deconstructed them - there's an intro, there's a thug fight in the beginning, then some investigation, maybe a trap, another fight, and then the boss. So we created a template and the kids created their own. The did brainstorming and peer editing and everything just like it was a narrative writing assignment or a report. I can't remember everything, but we created an intro page template with a summary for the GM and hooks for players, an area map page templates, encounter page templates with space for box text and monster/trap stats. Once "complete," they pitched their mods to their groups and picked one to run/play, and afterwards they did a little re-writing. A few of them were actually quite good by the end.

The other thing we did was to watch quite a few fantasy movies in class - Hobbit, LOTR, Willow, Dark Crystal - and did some analysis. We talked about themes, archetypes and patterns, story arcs, etc. We also talked about how magic was portrayed, good vs. evil, etc.

If you don't have Starfinder Beginner Box yet, you are probably going to want to simplify the rules a bit, and probably choose a set of 3-4 easier classes to confine them to, at least at first. I'd indefinably go with Starfinder Society Mods, both for length, structural simplicity, and in case any of them eve make it to a Con, they'll be Society-ready. I'd also show a few Sci Fi movies or TV shows - Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, etc. - and have the same discussions about Science Fantasy vs. Hard Sci Fi (like the Expanse), humancentric vs. lots of aliens, magic and psychic powers, etc.

It was a really good experience for me, and, looking back, ends up being some of the highest level application teaching I've ever done because kids were really breaking concepts down and creating something new (Do you know Depth of Knowledge? This was absolutely DOK 4). Good luck!

Congratulations to all (and especially to my wonderful friend and GM Robyn!)!

As for paladins of any alignment... LG paladins are pretty iconic, goi g all the way back to 1E. I don’t love the idea of paladins s of every alignment, but i couple see “champions,” with the paladin being the champion of LG.

And, per my post about goblins and the CRB being setting-neutral, champions would allow home games and 3rd party publishers to tell lots of stories however they want, and then Paizo can make whatever choices and restrictions it wants about Golarion, like only including LG campions (paladins) and CE champions (antipaladins). But the core rules should enable, not limit, the stories people can tell, and different worlds with different sets of assumptions should give us different playgrounds to play in.

This whole deate about if goblins should be a core race or not demonstrates why the CRB should be world-neutral. There is absolutely not mechanical reason why go like a couldn’t be a fun small-race alternative to gnomes and halflings. So go ahead and include them in the CRB if that makes people happy. But in Golarion, the flavor and history and lore makes goblins crazy evil, and therefore inappropriate for cannon and/or society games. Home games...that’s up to the GM and players. Keeping the CRB setting-neutral solves the whole issue.

I love skills, and I enjoy getting fiddley with assigning one point here and one point there, so I am leery of any system where the spread between someone who has invested in a particular skill and built a character around a certain concept can get beat by someone else who is just high level, or where - just by adding "trained," a high level character can jump from miserable at a skill to great at it.

BUT, as a player in a high-level campaign right now, I can see the value in all characters rising in skills. Right now, some of us keep adding points to Survival or Stealth or Perception... and some don't. While I think that those who do should be better at those skills, as a matter of gameplay as a party, it would be nice if the others could at least stay in the same ballpark. My cleric hasn't put anything into Stealth, so the party is either faced with a) never trying to sneak in anywhere because old Mr. Creaky-Pants, b) leaving me behind, or c) using magic to muffle me. All of those are fine and good RP choices/problems to solve, but running into the same problems over and over again also gets old and also limits gameplay styles., i.e., we NEVER try to infiltrate anything.

I can live with, maybe even embrace, a new system where everyone gradually gets better at everything, just because they are higher level (my high-level cleric may not have ranks in Knowledge (dungeoneering), but after a while I've seen a lot of oozes and might be able to pull of a Knowledge check based on experience and level alone), but it has to give "experts" and those who invest in a certain skill a way to shine above the crowd, and ideally, skill levels should have more of an impact on the outcome and success/failure than the randomness of the die roll.

The new system needs to allow everyone to be able to hold their own as DCs increase (think Swim, Climb, Stealth, Survival, Acrobatics or anything where the challenges get harder and harder at higher levels) without making expertise and mastery irrelevant.

What about a Novice proficiency level between Untrained and Trained? At a -1? That might help with the issue of someone going from not knowing anything to being good at it (or really good at it if Training occurs at a higher level)in a single level. You could even say no more that one proficiency level increase per level gain, except maybe at character creation. [If I remember correctly, Call of Cthulhu has a rule where you have to use a skill at least once during play before you try to increase it.]

Dragon78 wrote:

Perception is not a skill! But it is my favorite skill:(

It's everyone's "favorite" (at the very least most powerful) skill. That's a big part of why we give it to you for free (the other part is that it interacts with the game world a bit unlike any other skill). That way you can spend all your skill rank increases on other things that are more of a choice.

It almost sounds like "Perception the new saving throw." I like it.

I enjoy low-magic campaigns where skills and knowledge make a big difference. And, as someone who has learned a second language, I've never been satisfied with how easy it is to learn languages in Pathfinder. What follows is an intentionally more complex system for learning and using language (and it's as much a exercise in rules-writing as something I would actually subject players to). I'd love some feedback on balance and possible angles and unintended consequences I may have missed. I'm not really looking for suggestions to try another game system or questions about why I would want to make language more complex. Thanks!

LANGUAGES

For the purpose of the game and these house rules, the majority of languages player characters will encounter can be said to be similarly complex and equally challenging to learn and use. There are, however, a few exceptions. Pidgin languages and trade tongues naturally arise from the interaction between linguistically diverse peoples and are relatively easy to learn, but, as a consequence of haphazard hybridization, they are unable to express the same level of complexity as languages with longer, more literary and academic histories (Note: With time and concerted effort, these languages might someday develop into full literary languages, but they are not currently capable of expressing this level of sophistication.). The languages of the outer planes, like Celestial and Infernal, and of certain ancient aberrant creatures with strange and alien mindsets, on the other hand, reach levels of complexity beyond anything seen by most on Golarion. These languages have existed for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of years and involve myriad layers of nuance and meaning requiring multiple lifespans to master. The highest levels of fluency in these languages are unobtainable by mortals without some form of special (usually magical) training.

Learning and Using Languages

Fluency
For the majority of languages, there are four ranks of language fluency:

• Rudimentary (1) – Character can either understand/speak or read/write a smattering of words and phrases, enough to attempt to orally communicate or to get the gist of written text. Communication is limited to simple ideas and is prone to errors. A DC 10 Linguistics check is required to communicate successfully, +5 to DC if the GM determines that the message attempted is “too complex”; failure means communication has been unsuccessful, and failure by 5 or more means the opposite of the intended message has been understood/communicated.

• Basic (2) – Character can both understand/speak and read/write the language with growing accuracy, although may still make non-critical errors and speaks with a noticeable accent. A DC 5 Linguistics check is required to communicate successfully; failure means communication has been unsuccessful.

• Fluent (3) – Character can understand/speak and read/write the language with native or near-native fluency. No checks are required to communicate unless dealing with either a distinctly different historical variation or regional dialect of the language or a particularly formal or academic use of the language, in which case the difficulty varies from DC 2 to DC 4, depending on how different it is from the version the character knows.

Additional benefits of fluency rank 3 include:
o For each language in which a character is fluent after the first, he or she receives a +1 bonus on all Linguistics checks.

• Advanced (4) – Character has advanced, academic and literary understanding of the language as well as familiarity with major historical variations and regional and dialects. No checks are required to communicate.

Additional benefits of fluency rank 4 include:
o For each language in which a character has advanced fluency, including the first, he or she receives an additional +1 bonus on all Linguistics checks (in addition to the +1 for rank 3);
o +2 to Knowledge and research checks involving texts written in this language.

A character’s language fluency rank is indicated by a small subscript number after the name of the language, such as: Dwarven2, Elven3, Taldane4, or Infernal1S and Celestial1W in the case of rank 1 spoken-only or written-only fluency. If no subscript number is present, assume the character has a fluency rank of 3 (native fluency), unless the GM determines that another rank would be more appropriate.

Simple languages (such as pidgins and trade tongues) have a maximum fluency rank of 3 due to their simple structures and lack of complex vocabulary, and exceptionally complex languages (such as planar languages and those of ancient aberrations) require an additional level of fluency to full represent their intricacies:

• Transcendent (5) – Character has mastered the myriad nuances and layers of meaning of a complex and ancient language used by the inhabitants of the outer planes or aberrant creatures with strange and alien mindsets. This level of fluency is not normally available to player characters unless they complete some sort of epic undertaking, and it is even rare (though not unheard of) for outsiders and aberrations to attain transcendent fluency.

Additional benefits of fluency rank 5:
o For each language in which a character has transcendent fluency, he or she receives an additional +1 bonus on all Linguistics checks (in addition to the +1s for ranks 3 and 4);
o +2 to Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate with others who speak this language;
o +5 to Knowledge and research checks involving texts written in this language;
o +2 on saves versus language-dependent spells and spell-like abilities in this language; +2 to effective caster level on language-dependent spells and spell-like abilities cast in this language.

Due mostly to physical characteristics and limitations, in some cases characters may be unable to reach higher levels of fluency in certain languages (again, most often planar and aberrant languages) without some form of magical assistance. Communication in Lithan and Terran, for example, involves subtle vibrations as well as spoken words, something that most characters simply cannot produce or perceive. Likewise, Ignan uses fluctuations in heat and the color of flame to communicate meaning, Riman uses waves of cold and frost, Aquan uses the manipulation of water currents and buoyancy, and Auran uses the manipulation of air currents and pressure. Without some form of magical assistance to aide them in perceiving and producing these effects, most characters cannot attain a fluency rank higher than 2 in these languages.

Starting Languages
Characters begin with one language at native fluency (rank 3). Additional languages granted through class features, such as Druidic or Thieves’ Cant, also begin at rank 3. After that, for each +1 bonus granted to characters for above average intelligence, they have 1 additional point to spend on further improving their native language or learning additional languages, as described in Acquiring Languages below.

Characters with below average intelligence suffer a penalty to languages and fluency, and because they probably don’t have additional languages to penalize, they suffer the loss of fluency in their native language (although not as harshly as one might expect). Characters with a -1 Int modifier (Int 8 or 9) still start with 3 ranks of fluency in their native language, but characters with a -2 Int modifier (Int 6 or 7) only start with 2 ranks of fluency in their native language, and characters with a -3 Int modifier (Int 4 or 5) only starts with 1 rank of fluency in their native language (i.e., characters with below average intelligence get a small grace of one rank in fluency compared to their negative Int modifier, but then begin losing ranks at the rate of 1 per -1, as one would expect… although a strict GM might only extend this grace to spoken language and not to reading or writing). Characters with below average intelligence who start with multiple languages (usually gained through a class feature) may chose which starting language to penalize, and any characters who start with lower-than-native fluency in a starting language may invest skill points to increase their fluency as normal, as described in Acquiring Languages below.

If a character has the Bilingual trait, he or she begins with a second language at native fluency (rank 3) for free.

Acquiring Languages
Additional languages are no longer learned by adding points to the Linguistics skill. Instead, skill points are spent to purchase language fluency ranks. For most common languages, the cost to increase fluency is 1 skill point per rank. It would cost, for example, 1 skill point to move from Dwarven1 to Dwarven2 or from Elven3 to Elven4. However, if a character wants to increase his or her fluency by more than 1 rank per increase in character level, the cost of each additional rank doubles, so that +1 rank costs 1 skill point, but +2 ranks costs 3 skill points (1+2), +3 ranks costs 7 skill points (1+2+4), and +4 ranks – going from no knowledge of a language to advanced fluency in one character level gain – costs 15 skill points (1+2+4+8). At the GM’s option, if a character is immersed in an environment where the target language predominates, the cumulative cost of increasing fluency by multiple ranks in a single character level increase may decrease by 1, so +2 ranks would only cost 2 skill points, +3 ranks would only cost 6 skill points, and +4 ranks would only cost 14 skill points.

For particularly challenging languages that are more difficult to learn – planar languages, aberrant languages, and dead languages that are no longer widely used – the cost to gain fluency doubles. Rather than costing 1 skill point per rank to increase fluency, it costs 2 skill points per rank. Cumulative costs for increasing fluency by multiple ranks in a single character level increase are likewise doubled.

For languages that are easier to learn – usually pidgins and trade tongues – the cost to gain fluency is halved. Rather than costing 1 skill point per rank to increase fluency, it costs ½ skill point per rank (rounded up). This has little practical effect if characters only increase fluency by 1 rank per character level increase, but the cumulative costs for increasing fluency by multiple ranks in a single character level increase are also halved, meaning that +1 rank would still cost 1 skill point (½), but +2 ranks would only cost 2 skill points (½+1), +3 ranks would only cost 4 skill points (½+1+2), and +4 ranks would only cost 8 skill points (½+1+2+4). Applying the “immersion rule” from above and further reduce the cumulative costs for increasing fluency by multiple ranks in a single character level increase to 1 skill point for +2 ranks (meaning that, when immersed in a pidgin or trade tongue, most people skip rudimentary fluency and go directly to basic fluency), 3 skill points for +3 ranks, and 7 skill points for +4 ranks (keeping in mind, however, that most of these easy-to-learn languages are the same ones that max out at 3 ranks of fluency/complexity).

Using Languages
While learning languages is no longer governed by the Linguistics skill, using them still is. Once characters reach rank 3 in a language, Linguistics checks are no longer required in most cases, but for characters attempting to use languages in which they only have 1 or 2 ranks of fluency, Linguistics checks are necessary to hold a conversation or to read and write text. The degree of challenge in using a language successfully is dependent on a character’s fluency (base DC = 10 for rudimentary fluency, 5 for basic fluency), and is subject to the following modifiers:

Language Use Modifiers
The other participant in the exchange has rudimentary fluency in the language. DC +10
The other participant in the exchange has basic fluency in the language. DC +5
The exchange is casual or friendly, with all parties having the desire to understand each other. DC -5
The exchange is rushed or takes place in a tense and/or hostile situation. DC +5
The exchange involves a distinctly different historical variation or regional dialect of the language that one of the participants is not familiar with. DC +2 or +4
The exchange involves a particularly formal or academic use of the language. DC +2 or +4
Each additional language closely related to the target language the character understands fluently (ex: Osiriani and Ancient Osiriani, Taldane and High Taldane). DC -2

Ichor of the Unliving

Long story short, Ranger wielding vorpal weapon, hasted, prey ability up , meant that 'lil Jabby lasted only 2 rounds before getting his head chopped off by a natural 20.

Actually... that's exactly how it's supposed to go.

Snicker-snack, snicker-snack...
With its head, did he go galumphing back?

Many thoughts...

First, I like the change to a 6x6 square. I think it will be more flexible and facilitate more variable designs (and thus, more usage) because tiles can be rotated without causing uneven edges.

Second, i LOVE that they are going to be two-sided. Sometimes, two-sided to give you two different options is fine. But the real utility of two-sided tiles is having two versions of the same area - open door vs closed door; secret door unknown vs secret door revealed; open passage vs cave in; hidden trap vs sprung trap; dry vs flooded; neat and tidy vs trashed; whole vs ruined; summer forest vs winter forest; complete bridge vs broken bridge; etc. A GM can set up an encounter, and depending on what players do, what doors they open, what traps they spring, all she needs to do is flip the map tile to reveal what the scene looks like after the players have triggered the change. Brilliant. The list above includes some of the more common before/after combos, but you could also do an occasional special campaign-tied tile with something unique to a really special moment in an adventure - a magic orrery in action vs deactivated; a key statue complete and broken (sorry, I'm having trouble thinking of adventure=specific binaries).

Third, I like the idea of having a small, discrete number/letter code on each card. If it's small, it would be distracting during play (Flip Mats all have the Paizo log and a name printed on them). It would make it easier for GMs to track builds, and it would make it a lot easier for adventure writers to say exactly which tiles GMs need to build certain encounters.

Finally, a request - PLEASE try to be consistent in your naming of sets and, to a certain extent, in what sets include. Paizo has a bad habit of being inconsistent with naming. Back in the old days of Item Cards, the same item would have different names in different packs; is it a "Small Shield" or a "Shield, Small" or a "Wooden Shield," is it a "Holy Symbol" or a "Holy Symbol (evil)" or an "Unholy Symbol," etc. The same thing kinda' happened with Map Tiles... Sea Caves looked more like Underground Rivers, etc. I know that the first set, the Dungeon Starter Set, is going to have a little bit of everything. That's perfect. And the occasional niche set with a little bit of everything is fine and interesting, too. But for your standards - dungeons, caves, sewers, forests and other wilderness areas - recognize that you have some basic structures that repeat: passages and chambers, and then more unique details and designs. Passages might be passages in a dungeon, tunnels in a cave, paths in a forest, or alleys in a city. Chambers might be rooms or chambers in a dungeon, caverns in a cave, clearings in a forest or swamp, and streets and plazas in a city. But basically you have "long, skinnies" and "open spaces." If there were a lot of cards in each sets, I'd say you could do both in each, and maybe each environment will have a Starter Set, which would be great. But more likely, sets are going to be smaller, like 18-20 tiles, which won't be enough to "cover" an environment completely. So for your most important environments, just plan on doing 2-3 sets - a corridors/pathways set, a chambers/spaces set, and maybe a details set (including a few transitions to other sets). Paizo kinda' did this with the Map Tiles, but sometimes they would skip and just do corridors and never do the open spaces. That's what I mean by being more consistent. Again, not every environment needs the full treatment; I don't need a 3-part set for circuses or buildings-under-construction, but swamps... yeah, I could use a Swamp Paths, a Swamp Clearings, and a Swamp Details. Rivers, too. And Mountains and Mines and Sewers. And one more thought on corridors, whether you like my 3-set idea or not... please throw in some variety in corridor width. 10' wide is a good standard size, but once in a while, throw in a couple of 20' wide corridors and a tight 5', just once in a while, please.

Overall, I'm really looking forward to the new Flip Tiles.

Wizkid’s product schedule has the next set slated for 05 - 2018. That's quite a ways off. I don’t think the sky is falling quite yet.

Wizkids 2018 Fantasy Miniatures Schedule

Hurray for the hydra!

Some of us don't have problems with Ultimate Wilderness the way it is, also. I bought the PDF the first day I could, spend a few weeks reading over it and digesting it, and loved the amount of flavor in it. I bought it just a few days ago.

I am a little frustrated with this thread, because some people are mentioning reasons they dislike the book, and then saying 'well, it's clear everyone dislikes this, so Paizo needs to fix it.' I don't think that is an accurate statement. Some people dislike it, and some like it. There are probably many more people who like it than are posting here, because this thread is negative enough to discourage such posting.

Agree 100%. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about the Shifter... but then I didn't buy the book looking for a new class. I like a lot of the new systems, especially for exploration, and I'm fine with it. Look, I've been buying Pathfinder since the beginning. Really, I only need the CRB and a Bestiary. I get he new books to mine for ideas, this and that, but I don't expect to use or even like 100% of it. I'm sorry for everyone who is disappointed by UW, and you are totally withing your rights to unhappy and even not buy anymore Paizo stuff if you don't want to. But don't assume your opinion is shared by everyone or that you can speak for all of us.

It's useful to foreshadow the other adventuring parties -- it means more when the PCs encounter them later, particularly if they've formed friendships or enmities with them early on.

If I were going to run Kingmaker again, I would start off with a party in Brevoy where the Swordlords celebrate all 4 parties and give them a send off. This would give the opportunity for lots of (backstory providing) speeches and allow the PCs to form opinions of the other parties. The PCs could be the main guys in one of the parties, or - better - they could be low-level hirelings for one of the parties. On the way to their area, the leader of the PCs party dies, and the PCs decide to take on the charter and continue on without him. Helps explain why a bunch of unknowns gets such an important mission. Also allows PCs to form bonds or rivalries with other parties and actually care about what happens to them later.

The more foreshadowing you can do, the better. Maybe even have a crazy old lady who interrupts the send-off party and recites Zudiger's Picnic.

I love my Dungeon Crawler Kraken, too. The D&D one looks more like Clash of the Titans. I can handle that, but the tentacles look super skinny. I also note that they repeat - you get two of each.

The rowboat and trunk are nice. I'm sure I can find a use for the sand. The skeleton on the wheel looks a little too Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride) to me.

Do we know why most NPCs don't have levels next to their names? For example, Kumara Melacruz, the current Prime Executive of Absalom Station, is just listed as "(LG female human envoy)" with no specific levels.

It would be great if they were the Drake and the Pegasus from the recent Starfinder Society blog.

Christopher West used to do a lot of work with Paizo through Dragon and Dungeon magazines. His website, Maps of Mastery has a ton of great sci fi and fantasy maps.

Do I need to do anything to trigger the free Starfinder Society subscription? i.e., do I need to add it to my cart, and the price will zero out, or does it just get added automatically?

Any chance Paizo would consider producing a set of clear base-stands for these? 1) I love decoration/details, but I don't like when I put them on the map and they cover up details of the map. Too many decorations and the map almost disappears! 2) Clear vs. black/colored bases would be a nice way to distinguish between object or maybe non-combatant (yet) vs. active threat.

I'm not sure how the colored base sets sold, but I think clear (or at least that semi-clear) bases would be a nice addition to the line.

It might also help if you avoid the "one country of each" trap. Orcs as Spartans, with all the pluses and minuses of being a Spartan, is fine. And maybe the Huns are orcs, too. And Nubians. You could probably figure out a more cohesive "how they got there" story with more sensical groups, but by assigning a few different countries to each fantasy race, you avoid type-casting as much.

Go the other way, too. Even among humans, most ancient countries were at least somewhat multi-ethnic. Maybe your Celts are a blend elf and centaur tribes. By dropping humans, you've also lost a lot of your typical half- races, but you could come up with some new ones for truly multicultural, blended countries.

Here's hoping earth and water are the incentive for the set after. Kind of a bummer water isn't in this one since water is the only huge size there isn't one of for DDM.

I use the old D&D large wave water elementals for Large, and rebased my Paizo large water elementals to huge because they so over-fill their Large bases.

the largest issues are with countries at the edge of the map. The northern border for the Lands of the Linnorm Kings that's shown on page 7 of the Inner Sea World Guide, for instance, doesn't encompass Turvik. It's different on p104, stretching farther north, and different again in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings campaign setting book. Taldor has similar issues with its eastern border.

It's a matter of picking the most sensible borders and going with that.

The original maps were all made to fit neatly on a rectangular poster, so the northern borders of northern countries and the eastern borders of eastern countries are all remarkably straight and form a near-perfect line. If you've got to tinker with anything, I'd say pushing then a little farther north here and there and a little farther east here and there to jive more closely with natural features that lie just "off the map" [the original Inner Sea map] would be good.

New map, new globe! (interactive, gif)

Shrinking the ocean between Casmaron and Tian Xia creates a nice interlocking plate-techtonics look in the northern part of the ocean. Also gives the whole ocean a good basin look; I could imagine a couple of island chains rounding out the shape in the south, between Casmaron/Vundra and Sarusan.

I also like the sea between Garund and Vundra (with Ibydos kinda' in the middle) that creates a nice classical-world sea, kinda' Mediterranean/Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean mash up. And the tips of southern Garund and Vundra being in proximity could lead to some interesting Afica/India cross-polination that didn't really happen on Earth, but...

If you want the Tian Xia/Acadia ocean to be bigger, you could always shrink Acadia a little, end it a little closer to the equator. The Aztlan archipelago has always looked really big and too close to Avistan to me. Shrinking that a little, or moving it a little closer to Acadia, like nearer to that wide gulf in the northern part of the Acadian continent.

That all starts to get a little too revisiony, but I don't think Paizo or anyone else should feel bound by that original world map. It great, but think of how many different versions of the RW world map we had before we got it right. It's totally easy and realistic for early world maps to be off (by a lot) and corrected by later explorers. Need to adjust the sizes of oceans and continents a little, move them a little to the east? No problem.

Doesn't it seem odd if every old woman in the village has about as many hit points as the entire party put together at the start of the game? Why are they hiring the PCs to fight the goblins when they could easily kill them themselves?

Nah. Level 5 Commoner = 5d6 hp. Basic Stats means probably a Con of 10, so no bonus hp. She's "old" by now, so -3 Con penalty = -1 hp/HD. She's lucky to have 13 hp. And no weapon or armor proficiencies.

But the elf thing, yeah. Either elves gain experience more slowly, or they hibernate occasionally, or old elves do accumulate a lot more XP.

This isn't in the rules anywhere, but in my mind, you get 1 XP/day for life. Or, however much abstract experience a regular person accumulates in a day... we'll call that "1." So it would take a Commoner 5-6 years to accumulate enough XP to go to level 2. That seems about right to me, like learning your job. Then it would take another 8 years to get to level 3, and 11 more years to get to level 4. These are the peak years of her career, when she's getting quite good at her job. Depending on how grim and medieval your worlds is, 24 years might be the whole productive life-span of a peasant. If she lives to a ripe old age, maybe she gets to level 5, a true master of her trade. Now, that's just doing her job, day in and day out, for her whole life. That time when she killed a giant rat... extra XP. Was she conscripted into the queen's army for a year? Extra XP. And so on. But, yeah, your average Commoner (or Expert) is probably around level 2-3, depending on her age, and gets pretty close to maxing out around 5, maybe 6 if she's had an eventful life.

When I think about what "backwards compatibility" means to me... it's mostly about stat blocks. Can I pick up a 1E or 3.5E or Pathfinder 3.5 product and run it pretty much as written? Can I grab a monster out of an old Monster Manual or Bestiary and drop it into my game? I don't care how many skill points a human got relative to a monkey, or how many choices a wizard had for feats or familiars, or what the rules for concealment were back then, or how (or if) the sickened condition was defined. I've got current rules for all that stuff and I can apply those rules to onto any old material I come across. I just don't want to have to re-write a bunch of stat blocks for monsters, and I guess things like traps and magic items.

I, for one, am ready for Pathfinder 2.0, in the sense that I feel like there are rules and other "core" material spread of multiple books at this point, and sometimes the newer rules don't jive well with older rules. And there are some old rules ported over from 3.5 that have never worked that well. I don't think it would be that cataclysmic for Paizo to survey all the products they have out there and pull together a "new" core rule book that consolidates many of the original and newer rules and sub-systems in one place, fixes some of the lingering problems, better defines some of the conditions, standardizes language and word-choice to make descriptions of conditions and effects more consistent, maybe punch up some of the original classes that look a little weak versus newer classes... and call it "2.0." That's really not much more than happened 3.0 to 3.5, Wizards just went with .5 to show how minimal the changes were. Maybe we even call it "Pathfinder 1.5."

Point is, most of these updates and changes wouldn't invalidate any of the old modules or APs. I could still run the same encounters, use the same monsters and their stat blocks would still be valid. It would still be backwards compatible for the folks who don't want to get rid of old mods or even want to stick with the original core rules. Having updated rules for Stealth, or having Darkness and Light work differently, or even the the action economy run a little differently, doesn't make old material unusable. You're not even changing the rules that much, so folks who don't want to update couple probably keep buying new modules and APs and keep using their original CRB to run them. That's forward AND backwards compatibility!

To calls to scrap Vancian spell-casting... sorry, I think that's pretty much hard wired into the game, like hit dice and using d20s. There are things I don't love about Vancian spell-casting, but I would never want or expect that to go away. If I really can't handle it, I'll go play a game like Ars Magica that has a totally different rule set. Otherwise I'm going to be content tinkering, playing spontaneous casters, maybe a Magic Unleashed book with optional alternative casting systems. But if scrapping the core magic system is what folks think of when they talk 2.0, then I guess what I'm in favor of really is a 1.5.

I'd like to see something that has a different narrative structure than so many of the other APs. Instead of gradually discovering what the Big Bad is, maybe you start out knowing... because it's your fault.

Chapter 1 would be a party of young would-be adventures exploring a dungeon. Many of the other APs save the dungeon crawl for later chapters, but start there instead. Almost 1E feel, not much back story, rights-of-passage or just met in a tavern. And at the end, PCs accidentally set something loose, something ancient and bad that was locked away or trapped or something.

Then, for the rest of the AP, they're chasing it down, trying to put it back in the bottle, so to speak. It's going around, doing bad things, killing people, destroying villages, getting more powerful, etc. Maybe it even looks like one of the PCs, or has taken one of them captive, or even has possessed one of them (get a player agree to play a PC in Chapter 1, and then switch to a new PC for 2-6).

PC have to learn more about it, gather things to defeat it, try to prevent it from gathering things that it needs to grow more powerful, maybe even revisit deeper levels of the original dungeon looking for clues. And then there is the final showdown. This would also allow the PCs to face the Big Bad a couple of times as it grows in strength along with them.

Kinda' Harry Potter-ish I guess, but I'd like to see something other than the standard "solve a problem, only to discover there is a bigger problem, to discover there is a bigger problem, to discover that the whole world is in danger" story line.

Was Steven a sci fi fan? Maybe Paizo could name an iconic ship in Starfinder "the Russell" in his honor.

It's probably too late to introduce this to Golarion cannon, but I always liked the idea of "high" court languages and "low" regular-people versions. Like "High Taldane" spoken by anyone who is anyone in Oppara, and "Low Taldane," aka "Common" spoken by riffraff around the Inner Sea.

All the Cerulean Seas stuff is fantastic, either as a unique campaign setting or to steal ideas from for another campaign set somewhere else. I highly recommend all the books, there are like 5 - the main one, a polar one, a deep water one, a bestiary, and a Asian/terrestrial adventures one. A psionic one, too, I think, but I don't have that.

Regarding Alluria and money, they ran a Kickstarter several years ago and never fully delivered on the products. I contributed at the hardback book levels, and I got all the pdfs (so the writing/editing/publishing was complete) but never the physical copies. Some of us nagged for a while about in the Kickstarter comments, and the author said she ran out money and wasn't going to be able to fulfill print copies. It was a little weird/annoying because they continued to publish and sell new pdf material, so it's not like they went out of business, they just decided they weren't going to be able to provide the print materials. I ended up paying for the books again print-on-demand. In the big scheme of things, it wasn't that big a deal; I'm cool with it and have moved on. The material is REALLY good and I'd mostly just like to see them continue putting out neat stuff. If they've got a sale going on to raise some money to keep going, good for them and good for anyone who snatches up as much of their old stuff as possible.

Seems like a good mod. We've seen the plot before - locals are trying to drive off colonists, PCs can fight the locals or try to make peace.

But it has a hexploration map!!!! Great coastal/jungle/river area, nothing like the Kingmaker maps. I would LOVE it if Paizo would put out a hexploration map pack some day - desert, mountain, forest, coastal w/ islands. But until then, I think this map is going to get reused several times.