Nate Petersen's page

Really excited to have this one up; I don't get to write too many adventures these days, working on the raw setting material, so it was a lot of fun!

Something I'm pretty stoked about with this one is the progression of the adventure, it jives a lot more with how I run Shadowglade at my table which, I hope, helps translate the excitement my playtest groups have felt to the page and to your GM as well!

Short version, for those interested, is that the adventure runs on a short encounter table; several encounters are bland, essentially meaningless, while a good chunk is reserved for "Plot Encounters." Plot Encounters start out as small and innocuous, but experience several of the "Stage 1" encounters and they move on to "Stage 2"; experience a number of "Stage 2" and they move on to "Stage 3." Not earth-shattering, but it does allow an adventure to play out and allow for exploration; it bridges the game between free-form exploration and the need for characters to HAVE to have certain experiences to move the story forward.

I've got some ideas to expand upon and formalize the idea a little more, but this was a great use of the idea here and made the adventure a lot of fun to run, each play through turned out just that much more different than the others.

Woo hoo!

This was actually one of the first items designed for the Shadowglade campaign setting; most everything else in playtest was simply a variant on existing materials~

Woo hoo!

We took a bit of a break from the holidays at the tail end of last year, but finally got our feet back under us for the new year!

ALL NPU Shadowglade titles are now available on Paizo.com! This includes the free Introduction, our packed Players and Game Master's Guides for the setting, several player classes, GM supplements, and the first adventure "The Toymaker of Avenguard"!

Check them out on Paizo.com: http://paizo.com/companies/neoProductionsUnlimited

For those who might be new to the setting, Shadowglade is a magic-lite, low fantasy campaign setting modeled heavily on Renaissance era and colonial era mythology. Churches hold sway while magic is a thing of myth and folklore; technology is emerging, but fear of the unknown grips the hearts of many.
To help complement and enforce this, Shadowglade is an E10 (Epic 10) campaign setting; gameplay is capped at the 10th level, keeping gameplay in the lower, gritter levels and leaving high-level threats a very real danger and making players and GMs explore more unusual avenues to tackle dangerous and deadly threats.

Hooray!

We're thrilled to get this out into the wild and into the hands of players at long last! Even more so, I think our playtest players are happy to have a solid guide as well instead of reams of notes!

I hope everyone gets a chance to check this out and has as much fun exploring the world as we are; there's a lot of possibility here, from straight up adventure to some fun pulp-era exploration and treasure hunting to gothic horror, suspense, intrigue, you name it!

And we want to make it easier to keep exploring! Today's the first such item: we're going to run a weekly item on the Shadowglade website with some fun, interesting, useful tidbits about the world! Today's is a new race, modeled as those featured in the Player's Guide, the Mountainfolk! A Shadowglade-appropriate tweak of the dwarf, it offers a little more insight to the mountainous Centerspine region and new options for players! Check it out, and thanks a lot everyone for your interest and support!

http://shadowglade.neoproductions.net/2012/11/02/lineage-mountainfolk-racia l-profile/

Ah ha! At long last, and I met my personal goal of getting it out BEFORE Halloween!

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8vi2?Shadowglade-Game-Masters-Guide-to-Shadow glade
http://paizo.com/products/btpy8vi1?Shadowglade-Players-Guide-to-Shadowglade

If you like the previews, check out the full campaign setting! And, we have lots more in the pipeline!

Ah ha! At long last, and I met my personal goal of getting it out BEFORE Halloween!

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8vi2?Shadowglade-Game-Masters-Guide-to-Shadow glade
http://paizo.com/products/btpy8vi1?Shadowglade-Players-Guide-to-Shadowglade

If you like the previews, check out the full campaign setting! And, we have lots more in the pipeline!

And mechanics are coming, promise ^_^ And a congrats for the help over the years John :D Just need a suitable logo *hint hint*

We're rocking and rolling gang!
The last of the art is underway and should be in shortly, and that's all that really stands between Shadowglade and release!!

To get the ball rolling early, we've put up the Introduction to Shadowglade, another free PDF with an outline of the campaign setting, history, bits and baubles about the world, lore, and more! Check it out, spread the word: Shadowglade is coming!

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8uwp/

So stoked! This has been a long time coming and we've finally gotten the last bits nailed down - Shadowglade is finally releasing!!

This booklet is player-oriented background for the campaign; gives a broad look at the history of the realm since the Upheaval, some background on the culture, superstitions and stereotypes, and more! I tried to pack a bunch of knick-knacks, notes, and anything I could hammer out to help lay the foundation for everyone and open up the world.

The Player's Guide, due out pretty quick after some last art acquisitions and final read-throughs, goes into a little more detail and offers up our changes for the system and setting and a whole lot more! And, for the GM, the Game Master's Guide due out at the same time as the Player's Guide, goes the rest of the way so GMs everywhere have a toolkit suitable for exploring the world, its lost history, and building on what came before!

I hope everyone who checks it out gets a kick out of the setting, I'm always more than happy to answer (most!) questions while a few will have to wait ;) Drop a line, let me know what you think, and see you in Shadowglade!

I've been promising it for a while, but life gets in the way...but not any longer!
Final Twilight's revised edition is now underway! We've overhauled the game, streamlined the rules, improved the card wording, and are expanding the card base to finally round the game out to where it was meant to be!
Check out this set of Beta rules and cards, let us know what you think! We're working with players new and old to iron out the last details and make the game as great as we can in preparation for a new print run this fall!

I actually want this. I knew what it was when I saw it, but I was still thinking "Damn, that would be fun!" - A perfect companion for the "We be goblins!" FRPGDay book~

Here's the thing; the gunslinger isn't a lot of a class without a weapon. So part of the class is going to involve making sure the character has a firearm right out of the gate, but it has to be done in such a way that it doesn't break the economy stupidly. This far, it doesn't seem to do that. Your quirky, makeshift gun that you built out of spare parts is what you hit the road with. I've built decks in Magic that, statistically, shouldn't work and no one else can run them. But I can, and I'm the only one, and no it doesn't involve cheating. Likewise, this is something, as my players would say, that is "janky", slapped together and fit for little. It does the job, but its too much if a pain in the rear for anyone else.

The thing about piracy at this level is the intent, really. You pirate "Avatar" because you don't want to spend $50 on tickets and popcorn for you and your SO to spend two or three hours together at a show, and a lot of people share the same sentiment, which is why it happens.
In the gaming field though, a lot of pirates don't even know what these things are. They just have them to have them for the sake of having them. If they had not fallen into their collections, they never would have gotten a hold of them in the first place. So, while yes it is a "lost sale" in that a file exists in someone's possession without their paying for it, in many cases that same person never would have spent the money on it regardless. Contrast that with a number of people who ARE fans of a given work who WILL buy it regardless; a friend pirated "How to Train Your Dragon" because his four year old daughter loved the movie at the theaters. When it came out he snapped it up. I own a FLGS and know players who'll pirate a PDF copy of a book until they can buy their copy from me or it comes in should an order/backstock printing be waylaid. I have a Dark Heresy group right now doing that; half of them have picked up their guide books already while the others are saving up but using pirated PDFs in the mean time. They know I discourage it, but they still do pony up for the books one way or the other. I know of only one person in the local scene who pirates and plays and doesn't own at least hard copies of the books he's pirated.

Basically, piracy in the digital age is weird. Major productions are pirated to sidestep paying for it, but in the particular case of PDF books its just odd. Even the people who pirate them to use them still end up paying for the books, while many of the people who pirate them without intent to buy never would have in the first place and never use the material to begin with.

Special: You may voluntarily add +10 to the indicated DC to craft an item. This allows you to create the item more quickly (since you'll be multiplying this higher DC by your Craft check result to determine progress). You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make each weekly or daily check.

Furthermore, I think it's fine to houserule that you can increase the DC to whatever you can take 10 on. However, then we're into house rule territory.

Now, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not seeing a restriction on how many times that +10 can be applied. You can voluntarily add the +10 to a check, so choosing to add it two or three times, which you can do with a large staff like that, seems more an extended leap of logic based on the rules than house ruling~

I play intrigue and mystery heavy campaigns and Detect Evil at will, or any other alignment spell at will, would totally screw with adventure design as well as global politics. Detect Undead likewise has effects for sentient creatures such as vampires or liches who may be trying to pass themselves off as living. Doing a cursory scan of the party reveals someone is undead, focusing makes you obvious but narrows the field, and go from there.
So yea, having unrestricted access to some stuff like that makes it more difficult to build & manage the world as a DM.

The question is (and I think I know the answer) are you ready for an increased number of firearms in the second round of playtesting?

Aye, and eager for some of the non-Golarion options as well.

This has been posted in several low-magic threads.

Any idea on the sources for these? This is right up the alley for a campaign I'm working on (and indeed already includes several I had concocted alone). My current approach is to do a two-tiered "masterwork" system, wherein you can buy a +1 to hit, +1 to damage, or special effect, such as those on the list, that are a benefit of design.

"Forcing" participation is never the way to go, because then they do resent it.
Really, you should sit this player down and talk it out at length, use some of the aside conversations mentioned but don't "throw a trap" at him. Really figure out why he doesn't want to participate; "I don't want to fight my tribesmen" puts him, from some basic assumptions, at odds with his village in the first place. So why is he from a village that he shares little or no values with? Iron out that backstory and why he is built the way he is and *really* why he's refusing to get involved. If he's doing it "just because", its probably to pull attention. Let him sit on the sidelines after that; setting precedent by allowing players to PULL attention is a bad thing. If its a certain nervousness about being in the spotlight, work that out on the side. If its that they don't know what they want out of the character, work out the general concepts.

I gotta say, I actually am a fan of the class levels. I've hammered out a set of supernatural player-level races (vampire & werewolf among them) for that reason. Also solves issues such as the "age" powers, an elder vampire is simply a higher level character. Toss in an assortment of feats that unlock wicked fun supernatural powers and you have young vampires (level 1, 2) with skills but not uber-awesome powers and elder characters (level 10, 15) with wicked class skills AND wicked supernatural powers.

Is there a chance the summon might fail like it is with some outsiders, or is it automatically successful?

Auto-Successful, round delayed. I aped the Vampire's "Children of the Night" for the general build. Summon Nature's Ally, the closest spell for these purposes, is a 4th level spell, castable at 7th level, so a CR 6 NPC can summon the same.

The ability to summon creatures is already taken into account with the main creatures CR. No need for adjustments and no XP is awarded for killing the summoned creatures. Also remember that summoned creatures cannot use their summon ability, so there won't be a cascade of monsters.

Actually on this one I'm ADDING the ability to summon to something that normally doesn't, so its not really built into the CR calculations; that's the math I'm attempting to do.

Wondering what folks consider a "summon" ability to be worth on CR; I have a creature summoning 1d3+1 CR3 creatures; the base shell was a CR4 5HD creature that's gotten that tacked on without much else.
As is, by XP values, that's a CR 7-8 encounter at with 4 summoned creatures, 6-7 with 2 summoned creatures. Should the summoning creature get a bump in CR itself?

Thank you for the feedback. This is something we are well aware of, and we did it on purpose because firearms are new, rare, and expensive in Golarion. The final rules in Ultimate Combat will have rules if you want to play with firearms that are not new, rare, expensive, and even easier to use, but those will be options rather than the baseline for the campaign.

That and I'm moving this thread to the discussion list. Please post to this forum when you have playtest reports or if you are commenting on a specific playtest report.

Yea...this is generally problematic.

Nate Petersen wrote:

Woot!! And I'm the owner of a regular participant in the Free RPG Day Program so I really cannot wait!! Swweeeeet!! I love all these fun adventures!

I just hope they include it in the Paizocon swag like they did last year :D

Or failing that I hope they make it available for sale at Paizocon since no-one nearby participates in FreeRPG day.

Where are you at? I'm in the winter wonderland of Michigan (http://www.backstagehobbies.com), but also always happy to ship out if you can't pull one up~

Woot!! And I'm the owner of a regular participant in the Free RPG Day Program so I really cannot wait!! Swweeeeet!! I love all these fun adventures!

My DM will attest to me being something of a min/maxing munchkin, but I'm really glad no one in my gaming group would stoop to things such as unlimited cash production via rules loop hole, or making a gunslinger ust to sell their class items for more other starting loot.

Still, with such an obvious loophole, it'd be good to have rules to clear it up. Something like a bonded item would do that, and in fact something akin to spell-prep may not be a bad solution overall~

Also, the point seems to be moot...

page 6 of the Ultimate Combat Playtest states:

"While the gunslinger utilizes these rules, the following are
only included in the playtest so that you can play the gunslinger.
These rules are final and not open for playtest." (emphasis mine)

By the same token, those are rules printed in the Inner Sea campaign guide, due out next month, as opposed to rules for Ultimate Combat, due in August. Obviously there's an uproar over the rules as written, so assuming they're paying attention (and hey, its Paizo, they do!) they should realize that maybe those rules jive for Golarion but not so much PFRPG at large.

I do not remember anyone in those threads giving a DC to craft though... I know the skills needed but what are the difficulties to make?

Looking at listed DCs, I'd peg it somewhere between 20 & 25, partly dependent on how rare or difficult it is to manufacture in your setting. Mine, I already ruled a while ago that it was "difficult" in my setting, but I also account for different aspects, namely that *something* resembling gunpowder can be crafted and used, but with various side effects or defects. The PURE powder is the stuff that fires flawlessly while poor powder (bad formula, incorrect ingredients/quantities, etc) leads to powder that occasionally won't fire right, jams or damages the gun, or has better odds of backfiring.

IMO I think they should just remove the touch attack and misfire rules and divide the cost of guns by ten. Then they would be just fine and reasonably balanced against other weapons.

Really, that would make pistols expensive light crossbows~ While I agree the price is insane, we still need to justify the added cost, as well as the added cost of the ammo & powder.

If they do have to keep some special rules, change the touch AC thing to an attack against flat-footed AC within short range, making guns a great weapon for rogues (Pirates) and allowing creatures with uncanny dodge the ability to "dodge bullets". This also fixes the whole deadly aim issue with guns at short range. If the misfire rules are absolutely necessary then the gunslinger at least should ignore them.

I was kind of scratching my head on that. FF makes more sense, and what I used in a write-up, as opposed to touch AC. Yea, at that point you're looking at the "hit", but does it damage? Good armor says no, it glances and that's that.

I do like the misfire rules, also something along the lines of what I had in a writeup. There's this anal need to be historical, fine, firearms weren't very reliable historically. Weapons misfired. I think they need to expand the pool of effects should a weapon misfire, not just blow up and destroy the gun.

I also find it silly that the deflect arrows and snatch arrows feats work against guns.

Yea...I'd say no to that too. I wrote up a couple spells for that reason, with the expectation that bullets move differently enough that they're harder to interact with. At least they should operate in a reduced capacity in regards to firearms.

I'm also rooting through my 3.5 materials to see how it was done elsewhere.

Basically, across most iterations of the weapons, they're expensive heavy crossbows that requires feats and expensive ammo. Weapons themselves, I'm keen on dropping the damage die a level and adding one; 1d6 becomes 2d4. I'm also keen on exploding dice. I'm crunching numbers now, but that bump in damage could offset reload times.
I'm also for gunslinger attacks that effectively consume ammo for special shots and abilities; flavor it as special blends of powder, ways to pack the weapons, etc. With all of the talk about ranger builds as opposed to fighter builds, I'm looking at the spells rangers get and seeing what could be done to put special attacks on par with spells of similar levels.

If your players want to use a gun, they're going to use a gun. Adding a huge price tag is just punishing them for liking different things.

Its not exactly punishing; players will scream no matter what when they want something that doesn't jive with the larger feel/goal/whatever of the setting. As far as this end of things goes, attaching the price tag says "Ok, you want, it you can have it. You have to dedicate a lot of resources to it, so its up to you what you value more."

Sometimes, it really does just boil down to what do you want to turn up more, crossbows or firearms? Swords or exotic weapons?

Course, I just dug out my 3.5 DMG, and prices are set there at 250gp per pistol, 500 per musket. 300 for pistol puts it at the range of a MW weapon enhancement~ Bullets are 35gp for 10, powder is 250gp for a barrel (320~ doses), 35 gp (320~ doses) for a horn~

I will admit, I use price as a mitigating factor; I didn't want my characters dropping gun fire left and right and did want it rarer in the setting. The character utilizing the firearm used that as a first round shock weapon, followed up with some other weapons; typically short sword or throwing daggers. At the price quoted it was a significant investment in 1st level resources that was easier to bear as he leveled up.
We also ran on tweaked PF Campaign Guide rules (different misfire, exploding dice), not these, so I see where some issues lie there.
My own gunslinger build ran off a series of tactics and assumptions that they were a shock fighter; feats and features that distracted enemies, kept attention, and opened windows for others to sweep in. Actually shooting the gun was to be a tactical call not necessarily to constantly fire but wait it out a hair, let the allies get a leg up (bonuses to allies init, catching enemies flat-footed, etc), fire in with the chance to seriously cripple anything while the rest of the party jumped like wolves. Worked decently, been tweaking it all along the way. Only recently found the playtest here and comparing notes yet.

So 600 for Pistols and 700 for musket?

Gotta double check some sheets, but I think I was looking at 700~ for pistol, 1000 for musket. Using the aforementioned trait as blueprint, we were able to allow a player to start with a firearm, ammo, and powder without getting wonky. Course, 600 for pistols could still be perfectly viable; musket should still roll in higher.

I'm thinking 700 gp~ is more about right, especially for the class to start with it. PF already has the trait "Rich Parents" that starts you out with 900 gp over your normal, so its not insane at that point to start a character with one weapon at 700gp and some ammo (a build I did started with 10 shots).

Hmmk...with the aforementioned feat, its not too bad actually. Catch is the build, always is the build, but that makes sense.
At level 5, you possibly have 5 ranks in the skill. You get +3 for your class proficiency. If you're doing it right, you should have a class that uses the same stat as your primary, so say a conservative +3 bonus there. Add +2 for a lab, if you're going to do it right, +2 for a racial trait if you're a gnome (or even +1 for a trait-trait? Hell, +1 trait as well!), and +2 for the feat. That's a +17. Taking 10, you're at 27, 28 with trait-trait. Average roll, you're at 28, 29 with trait-trait. That's enough to do a rush job on many poisons and make serious progress in a week, roughly 600-850gp worth of poisons.
So, a fairly built gnome rogue spending a feat can crank out reasonable poisons at about 3 doses a week for about 200-300 gp yes?

Agreed on the economics ^_^ I'm just trying to align it with a few of the assumptions better and for my own needs. The generic cash generation (1/2 gp of profession check with average abilities) is *alright* and I can run with it, I'm just working to extend it across the larger sense of the world and see how it falls out.

I'm tinkering with masterwork details for a campaign setting and I've got some ideas percolating but want to mull them over with a bit of input. Setting is LOW magic (and only divine at that) with a 10-level cap; its not a fantastic fantasy world, so I want to keep the occurrences of super-awesome-world-changing-magical-items to a bare minimum, story elements for the few that are appropriate (as we view the Holy Grail, Ark of the Covenant, etc.) This has me falling back on masterwork items and some appropriate special materials, the general expectation that they'll be more common and in use for much longer than in other settings.

A) I see stuff quite a bit for darkwood shields, but not for darkwood weapons. This is something that would turn up in the setting, and honestly I've never seen one statted up before. Would it get the +1 enhancement bonus (add 10 gp x pound to the value of a masterwork version of the item) or does it just get the benefits of the darkwood material? The shields in the Core book lack the armor penalty, appropriate for a masterwork item, but again haven't seen a darkwood weapon.

B) I'm constantly tinkering for a consistent economy with the setting and with working on masterwork items I'm finding simple weapons driving me up the wall. 302 for a masterwork dagger or 315 for a masterwork longsword? Seems...wrong to me. Looking at other masterwork items over in the tools and adventuring gear we don't see that 300 gp boost; it comes out around 3.3~ times the original cost. Manacles, 15 gp normal or 50 gp masterwork. Thieves kit, 30 gp normal, 100 gp masterwork (and a pound heavier, which probably also means more tools).
I'm *thinking* following suit with the special materials, going with an "exceptional material" outlook and saying 35 gp per pound to craft a masterwork simple item; 600 gp for a mwk quarterstaff, which is by the rules a stick, is a bit out there, but 140 gp for a nicely crafted quarterstaff a bit more reasonable.

Setting wise I don't mind the bit of imbalance that cheaper masterwork items would have as players generally won't have the awesome magical tech they're used to in other settings. And, this applies only to simple weapons, an attempt to bring costs more in line with how the rest of the "tools" are established. And, as I grapple with some other economic concerns, this could end up being fairly priced in the end.

That's round one of pondering~ Say it makes sense, say I'm insane for considering it, whichever ^_^ Feedback is always a good thing!

Thanks Paizo staff for weighing in! Its pretty much what I figured~ I was hoping to avoid columns of text when referencing one, unrelated, item but it makes sense how it all falls out. I'll have to borrow that Kingmaker booklet and use that for my scarecrow block & reference then, much shorter and to the point!

I already know my way around the OGL, so while I'm not a lawyer I'm mostly comfortable with that. Already have that included, updated for myself and the material used up to this point (which is pretty much the core Pathfinder stuff).
What I'm questioning is the Paizo agreement for the Pathfinder Compatibility; I had intended on using some material, I was working up scarecrows for my setting frex, and Bestiary 2 includes them so no need to reinvent the wheel. The OGL requires that, for any title I use OGL material from, I include the *complete* Copyright Notice of those works (see #6 on the OGL). Bestiary 2, due to how Necromancer Games worded their copyright notices for the Tome of Horrors Revised, has a column and a half almost of citations. What I'm thinking about then, to avoid having to pull all of that, is referencing the Bestiary 2 ala the Pathfinder Compatibility Agreement, which allows us to say "See Section A in Pathfinder Book X" as opposed to importing the stat block and making the changes.
One possibility is I was told the Scarecrows came from a Kingmaker adventure, I could always mine that in place of the Bestiary tag (I imagine that isn't listed because Paizo owns that material as well, so its a matter of their own text from another book).

Curiosity question: I'm working up some material with the intent to reference material found in the Bestiary 2; not actually using, quoting, etc any of the raw text, just saying "See X in Bestiary 2".
I always like to keep my legal up to speed and I want to see if I'd have to actually include the Bestiary 2 Copyright Notice (Which is monstrous! *cue rimshot*) or if the Pathfinder compatibility clauses allowed me to simply make the reference without including the text.

Personally, I liked it. A lot. Its possibly the most used book going forward for me next to the Core book. Great sub sets of rules, great examples of materials, etc. I never touched the first half, running and managing a general campaign, but the rules materials and what not are just fantastic by themselves. Bravo Paizo on what you did right!

Any more word on this? been very eager for the final product!

Life got in the way, sadly, but I've been trucking through it slowly when I can. Right now, I've powered through the Player's Guide for the setting and am wrapping up final tweaks and compiling the Game Master's Guide, the two really critical pieces for this project. After that, I've got adventures, races, classes, and other material ready to roll! The Wyre, for example, are pretty much good to go aside from some tweaks~

Actually, I really like the Combat Maneuver approach here. Fits right in with the other items available under the same rules. Trade damage for effect; strike with a bladed weapon, score the hit that scratches but isn't a serious wound, blinds as mentioned. Go for the legs, an appropriately armored character wouldn't necessarily get their hamstrings cut but it would certainly smart and slow them down some. Strike a solid blow on the forearm and they drop their weapon.

As to the discussion above, about "What are you doing if you're *not* going for those spots", I imagine in most combat scenarios you're just trying to survive. *Something* like a called shot system says "I'm not JUST trying to survive, and I'm not JUST blindly swinging at my opponent, I'm focusing in on a particular spot, give me a second, BAM!" - blind, slow, injure an arm, WITH PURPOSE. The crit-hit system is a good stand in for random luck of the draw, I swing and HAPPENED to hit them in an important spot, and crit-feats allow the addition of other effects, but they're not reliable. You have a 1 in 20 chance normally (1 in 10 if you have a 19-20/crit weapon, to say nothing of skill), and without the feats it simply deals damage.

Yea, I like the Combat Maneuver idea. Add a few new tricks to that list.

[Edit] And now I feel bad for the thread necro. Found the post ala Google and, forgetting it was a Google-find and I should really check the date, posted as I do when I'm here otherwise. Apologies!

I'm mostly interested in seeing it used right, both as a means of protecting that of mine which isn't Open Content and as a means of properly and respectfully utilizing that which others have made open content. I'm thrilled with the amount of material Paizo has made open, and will be utilizing a fair amount in the expansion of my setting; no need to reinvent the wheel and all. They receive proper credit for their contributions per the OGL (obviously I can't say "Thanks Paizo for X, Y and Z!" in-material due to the same license, but with diligence I also know I'm not hijacking their work).

That said, I'd be really worried about that interpretation. That amounts to a hand-shake and hearsay when compared to the legal text; while I appreciate the source, I also know there have been disconnects between PR and Legal. There's a vast difference between what is allowed under law/contract and what is allowed when certain folks look the other way. From the OGL:

1. Definitions:

(c) "Distribute" means to reproduce, license, rent, lease, sell, broadcast, publicly display, transmit or otherwise distribute;

(g) "Use", "Used" or "Using" means to use, Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify, translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of Open Game Content.

2. The License: This License applies to any Open Game Content that contains a notice indicating that the Open Game Content may only be Used under and in terms of this License. You must affix such a notice to any Open Game Content that you Use.

Key consideration lies in the words "distribute" and "use". While you can cook up that Godling/Beguiler for your own purposes, the instant its out of your hands and say online on a forum, it really ought to abide; its been distributed. Many times Wizards or other companies won't care, doesn't make sense to tap the lawyer who charges several hundred dollars just to take a call to send a C&D to "PhantomLord26" for posting a mash-up on a forum. Additionally, with such limited use of the material (aspects of one class) used for public comment & crit ("Here's my guy, any advice on how to optimize the build?"), should action be taken there's always arguable "Fair Use" of the material.

Besides that, a lot of the issues at hand here stem from incomplete (or in the case of Rite, a misunderstanding) OGL-required features in publisher released products. Again, it is in our interests to be fully compliant and make sure our full intention is known in the framework of the agreement.

Okay, there's a lot here and I can't read it all, but I can tell a lot of it is hot air on both sides. I was asked to weigh in, and I shall as politely as I can. In the interests of full disclosure, I am a d20PFSRD contributor, though more infrequently as of late, and a publisher (Neo Productions Unlimited).

A) John's usually one of the first to admit, but as many of us know he's not always the greatest at dealing with requests, responses to, and some of those come off differently. I know from dealing with him for a while this is NOT intentional and he means nothing crass or rude by it. Those who HAVE dealt with him and have worked with him know this, as should many folks around here given as frequently as he posts, so cut him a bit of slack, read for intent, ok? Too often online we get caught up in words and not in meaning; once you know the person (and many of us do), remember how that person interacts. Mind, I've said the same to John before as well, so I'm not picking on any one person, everyone would do well to remember this.

B) A complete, accurate, OGL statement is IMPORTANT. I cannot tell you how important it is. It can often mean the difference between buddies and potential lawsuits. An improperly used and marked-up Section 15, PI and Open Content statement can end up giving away entire products, including artwork and other property, releasing it into the community. A mistakenly assigned amount of OGC could be corrected by the publisher, but if someone has a copy of the uncorrected material its legally free game; read the license, once its in, it can never be retracted. If someone wanted to be an ass, they could hold them to the letter of the original printing. Many of us wouldn't, but the option is very real.
As a case in point, an unclear OGC statement in Kobold Quarterly almost led me to use material FROM that issue in a commercial item. That material was, in fact, not OGC at all. Best case scenario is KQ writing me a friendly letter saying I'm using their material inappropriately; worst case scenario is a misplaced lawsuit for infringement and breach of contract (because that's what the OGL is, a contract). Thankfully it was cleared before anything was done with it.

C) As to the use of the OGL, whomever said its not a fan issue is dead wrong. The OGL is pretty explicit about including EVERYTHING, which means commercial, non-commercial, freely distributed or for-sale material.

D) Open Content statements are, regardless of what a publisher might feel, a legal statement saying "I release this into the wild. I care naught where the wind takes it."; meaning the publisher (should) know that it can, and probably will, be distributed freely. It is COURTESY that it often isn't. To those who believe it tantamount to giving away material, it is. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what its intended for, very much like copy-left practices. To those who think it harms profitability, I guess we should ask Paizo; theirs is an INCREDIBLY lenient OGC statement, and I have seen the same statement in EVERYTHING. Basically, without the proper names, nearly all of their material is OGC. And yet, Pathfinder and its materials continues to grow.
On a personal note, I have three preview items out for my Shadowglade campaign setting; one of which has a monster stat block which IS OGC, and clearly marked as so, while two recent additions are virtually pure fluff with character stat blocks, of which nothing outside of existing OGC (feat and mechanic descriptions really) is OGC. Publishers have complete control if they want to restrict it to free use or not.

In short, tempers flare often for naught, folks on both sides please keep in mind the person and intent before breaking out the torches and pitchforks, and yes the maintenance of the license is vital to the continuation of the 3.X lines. Those without experience dealing with it should probably read it through, and even ask around and see if anyone has the RPGNow publisher guide books; they're great for breaking down the agreement to plain English alongside the legaleeze.

Joys of owning a B&M retail outlet; already got copies on hold! Told 'em as soon as they were in, I wanted 'em! ^_^

Very glad to have you check it out ^_^ Always glad to hear from folks, let me know what you think!

It has the Multiattack feat, which does absolutely nothing for it - as it's attacks, bite and claws, all considered primary.

Ah ha! I wasn't too sure on that (over-thought that segment on my part), and the readers who reviewed it didn't pick up on it so it made it through.