Murlynd's page

OK, we'll put that on the FAQ stack. Till then, know that you're playing it right when you use a d4 for Perception even if you don't have Perception on your character card.

Thank you for your attention and producing a very addictive game, Mike!

From page 11:

If your character doesn’t have any of the skills listed for a check, you can still attempt the check (unless you’re trying to recharge a card; see Recharge on page 15), but your die is a d4. You may use a skill that isn’t listed on your character card only if another card gives your character that skill.

So you would roll 1d4+1d10.

This is actually the root of my confusion. The first sentence would (IMHO) lead a person to believe Ezren could use the Night Watch for a d4 + d10 Perception check. But the second sentence seems to contradict this by saying you need a card giving you the skill (which, again IMHO, makes the first sentence moot since I assume a card "giving" you the skill would tell you which dice to use).

So ... does Night Watch "give" Ezren the skill? No,. At least not explicitly.

Maybe that's the real question? What constitutes "giving" a character a temporary skill?

I'm a little confused about when I can and cannot use skills, so, here's a specific scenario I'm facing

Ezren is exploring and has encountered "Secret Stash", Check to Defeat - Wisdom, Perception: 9.

Ezren has Wisdom d8. He has a "Night Watch" ally in hand, "Recharge ... to add 1d10 to your Perception check."

Since Ezren does not have Perception, can he use the Night Watch? If so, what dice would he roll?

On a related topic, does anyone have any experience with the Pathfinder PDFs on the Kindle? I don't really need a colour screen to look up some rules, and I like that the battery life on the Kindle is measured in weeks.

I have to agree with Elf. My wife and I each got Kindles for each other for Christmas. You can read PDFs just fine (if you orient the screen to landscape, PDFs are quite legible) but you can't search them, you can set your own bookmarks, but, author bookmarks don't seem to show up. And it is a bit slow on large, graphic intensive PDFs like Paizo's. For comparison, the Core Rulebook actually takes upwards of 20 seconds to flip a page. I have a Microsoft Press eBook with almost twice the number of pages and I hardly notice the difference between it and a Kindle formatted book.

Anyone interested can find it at CoolStuff. I had it on preorder and the website says my last order (containing the preorder) shipped today :)

* First of all, thanks a ton to the board poster who created the map of the Sultan’s Claw campsite; helped quite a lot, particularly since my group meets online via D20Pro. The more visual aids the better!

Got a link to this?

I'm prepping this AP in Maptool and would love to see another interpretation of the campsite.

Anyone have the cactus field encounter drawn out?

And I should say .... very nice tool.

It would be nice if you could toggle off the house rules. One of my players found it on trovetoken through google and passed it around. Healing Surges kind of confused us for awhile and the martial weapon proficiency is also confusing.

But still....very nice. We likee.

A martial weapon proficiency in ANY weapon is being given to rouges and bards rather than the small subset of martial weapons the rules actually allow each class.

Sequel? Frozen Empires?

Oooooh....you listening Wolfgang? I'd patron that one too.

Murlynd wrote:

Vic, I'd love to hear the judges thoughts on Ashes of Memories Lost.

Thanks!

Clark liked the dust and the core concept ... (edited for brevity)

Well, I'm very encouraged that I'm at least heading down the right path. :)

Thanks Vic!

So, it's hard for me to tell who's had feedback and who hasn't (or who still cares). If you still want feedback, can you please just drop the name of your item in here? I'm not promising I'll get to them, though!

Vic, I'd love to hear the judges thoughts on Ashes of Memories Lost.

Thanks!

Here is a list of what's been reported for the Core Book and the Bestiary

No offense meant but, I've tried following those threads. I think they're a complete mess.

I absolutely want an errata and FAQ process that is far better than what Paizo currently has in place. I know you guys are working on it. I know it takes some time to catch up. And I know it looks like the wait is soon over (at least for the Core and Bestiary books) from the statement above. But if we're in the same spot next year (since the APG is going to take up a lot of resources, etc.) it'll start straining my support.

It can't take another 5-6 months to get a simple "yes" on whether a Trip weapon is required to perform a trip combat maneuver. Figure out the official language for the reprint later. But give me a "yes" or "no" now so I can move on with the game.

I have the same kind of feelings.

I can point to a successful model from a brother industry. Multi-Man Publishing puts out what can arguably be the most successful (and complex) board wargame ever published. Advanced Squad Leader. The rules as published rival Pathfinder in length and depth. They have one person appointed to handle errata and FAQ. Like Erian points out in his second paragraph, the actual wording of corrections should be left for the reprints. Coming from a publishing background (long ago) I realize the headaches reflowing text can cause.

But, if a simple answer can be provided in an official questions thread or from an official "Answer" source, why can't we have that? In one place whether it be a wiki, forum thread, web page.... whatever.

Just appoint someone to post an answer in or at an official source. Even if he or she is nothing more than a gofer between the consumers and the designer(s)/developer(s). What answers do exist now are scattered across the forum, sometimes in multiple threads. It's a headache to find out "Is it errata?" "Is it a FAQ?" Has it been asked already?" "Has it been answered?" "By an official source?"

Someone new to Pathfinder/Paizo is sure to become very disillusioned by the current state of affairs.

I certainly don't want to come across as telling Paizo how to run their business. But I have to say, the way it is now ... it's confusing and it's frustrating. Especially given the quality and care Paizo puts into the product in the first place.

Best of luck with this conundrum, guys, but, it seems obvious you need to try something different.

Every time I see the Bestiary cover I hear Sean Bean's exasperated voice in my head ... "They've got a cave troll with them..."

I only found out about OwlCon last evening. Too short of a notice to get approval from "She Who Must Be Obeyed". :( Hopefully next year I can make the trek from Alpine.

Is there anything else during the year worth going to in the area?

I suspect that the surprisingly low sales figures of 4E books can be mostly attributed to DDI. I've even seen many, many 4E DMs claiming (especially on EnWorld) that "DDI subscription is all my group needs -- myself included".

I find that really interesting. I don't know how folks can do that. Of course I'm a father of three with only one PC in the home, so, computer access can be pretty limited for me, at times ;)

I've taken a look at the sales ranks from time to time (for a month or so now), and every time PF Core Rulebook has ranked higher than any 4E books, with the Bestiary being among top five. I know the list is updated on a hourly basis, and it's not indicative of anything in a short time period... however, I think a month is another story -- especially if you do it at random intervals two or three times per week.

Interesting article about Amazon's ranking formula.

"Books with rankings between 10,000 and 100,000 are recalculated once a day, rather than once an hour."

I had the same reaction as Sean (again?). This would be better as a template....

My immediate reaction was the same as sean's. What a GM nightmare to put a CR on this one.

Also Amazon rankings aren't accurate measures of how good one book really has done compared to another book due to other sellers and the way that Amazon sets up it's ranking formula.

Which is why I said "at the time of this post". It does reflect how well the book(s) are selling on Amazon currently.

Just as an FYI

At the time of this post:

DM Guide 3.5E - Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,208 in Books (from $40.00 new)
DM Guide 4E - Amazon.com Sales Rank: #26,684 in Books (from $13.33 new)
Pathfinder Core - Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,124 in Books (from $31.49 new)

Joining the avalanche....Thanks for doing this Clark. It's refreshing to see industry insiders like yourself and the Paizo staff so willing to interact with fans and aspiring writers. I'd appreciate any feedback/critique.

Ashes of Memories Lost
Aura Faint conjuration and moderate enchantment; CL 10th
Slot --; Price 3,500 gp; Weight --
Description
This extremely fine powder is derived from the charred coals of desiccated wormwood root. The ash is pure white in appearance and feels virtually weightless. Dispersing a single handful of this substance into the air creates a nearly transparent cloud with a 10-foot radius. In any round a spellcaster enters or is within the cloud, he must make a DC 17 Will save. Failure means that the ability to cast a random spell prepared by the spellcaster (or random unused spell slot if the subject casts spells spontaneously) is lost for the next 24 hours. The cloud remains active for 10 minutes. A moderate wind disperses the cloud in one round. The ashes do not function in rain. The ashes affect creatures with spell-like abilities as if they have spells. Failure of a DC 17 Will save consumes the use of a random spell-like ability for a 24-hour period. The ashes do not affect magic items unless the item is an intelligent magic item. Treat intelligent magic items in the same way as creatures with spell-like abilities or as NPC spell casters, which ever is more appropriate.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, fog cloud, feeblemind; Cost 1750 gp

It would be real cool to tie it in with some kind of charity contribution or action.

So, I went through the various threads (mostly, the Clark feedback thread), and I noticed that the judges didn't like random effects.

Well, crap ...... :(

This year, I plan on saving all of my comments so I can look them up if asked, rather than re-analyzing the submission.

Awesome. I particularly would like to see your comments on my item when its time.

Autoreject away, Clark. Leaves more room for those of us who can follow instructions. One less competitor I have to worry about... I think....maybe ... ummmmmm... hold that thought, `kay?

<fx: quadruple spellchecking submission while leafing through his Strunk & White>

I have mine ready to go.

Than again it was ready to go two weeks ago. But, then I went and redesigned it. Thought about the redesign and went back to the original. Brushed it up some and added a little fluff to make it puffy.

Now to just make myself pull the trigger.

Yes, Josh is asking for one optional encounter in each submission...

I'm thinking this is to force writers away from more linear thinking in adventure plotting.

Perhaps you could be constructive with your criticism.

There may be a better way to phrase your opinion.

Could you try that again?

Edit: to the OP.

I looked for a "Technical Issues" thread, but, the site locked up again. :/

Am I to understand the site changed in recent years?

I don't know if anything has changed recently.

I often google D&D topics to get an idea how others interpret or implement the rules. ENWorld often comes up with multiple hits. I finally decided to register.

I've tried posting numerous times to a thread I started asking a question. at least 50% of the time I get a Network Timeout error when trying to access the site or post to the thread.

I also found out you have to pay a "supporting member" fee to access Search functionality. Apparently implemented because searching slows the server down.

Pfft....it's already too slow to handle the traffic, why should I pay for it?

Anyway. I thought the site was a lot more popular than it appears to be from responses here.

[RANT MODE=ON]Can someone explain why that site is so popular? It's the slowest "professional" site I've ever been on. And I'll be derned if I'm going to pay for a site with a server that continually timeouts in the middle of my posts.

Really? What's it got that other forums don't?[/RANT MODE=OFF]

Thank you for your time....

Maybe next dance!

Where do we sign up?!?!?! :)