Nueanda's page

1) Can my 1st lvl oracle (Cha 17) use a scroll of a 1st lvl (divine)spell that is not on her spells known list, but is on her class list, without having to do a UMD check?

Example: She knows Bless, Divine Favor, Cure Light Wounds. She finds a scroll of Protection from Evil. Can she use it automatically?

2) What kind of check is it for a a spell that is of higher level?

Example: 1st lvl orcale finds a scroll of Sound Burst.

I found this:

"To have any chance of activating a scroll spell, the scroll user must meet the following requirements.

•The spell must be of the correct type (arcane or divine). Arcane spellcasters (wizards, sorcerers, and bards) can only use scrolls containing arcane spells, and divine spellcasters (clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers) can only use scrolls containing divine spells. (The type of scroll a character creates is also determined by his class.)
•The user must have the spell on her class list.
•The user must have the requisite ability score.
If the user meets all the requirements noted above, and her caster level is at least equal to the spell's caster level, she can automatically activate the spell without a check. If she meets all three requirements but her own caster level is lower than the scroll spell's caster level, then she has to make a caster level check (DC = scroll's caster level + 1) to cast the spell successfully."

Is this right?
The DC for the above example would be 4=(3 lvl +1).
Caster lvl check d20 +1(1st lvl)>4.

You only have that small chance of failure?

What is the source for this quote?

I live in Utah, the North Davis area, but I can't find anyone here who plays Pathfinder, and so I am finding it difficult to be involved in the society... anybody out there???

I'm out in the Syracuse (Utah, of course) area... you find a group to hang with yet?

Hope this helps.

Perfect, thanks Wraith.

Hmmm, this brings up a question, sorry if it's not in the right forum, I'm thinking about it right now...

If a person does not see you cast Charm person on them, would they still know after the fact, that they had been magically charmed? Or would they just assume that they had been uncharacteristically helpful for some reason?

Nueanda wrote:

I hate to be the one to yank this back up to the top of the message boards, but I was looking through the 4e adventures I have in .pdf and I can't help but comment.

I own all of the released 4e adventures (even though I don't play in a 4e group, all Pathfinder, here) and I was surprised to notice that EVERY SINGLE adventure has all of the maps where encounters take place printed out in full 1x1 inch scale in the back of the adventure. Anyone else notice this?

So I guess my question is, why can WotC do this, but Paizo, which I believe to be a much better company, can't? What does WotC have that Paizo doesn't, and how can we help!?!

I think it would be perfect to have at least the locations where encounters are supposed to take place in, scaled and included in the back of the Pathfinder adventures, like WotC does. Even if it does cost us a little bit more.

Am I right, or off in left field, here?

You'll also note that 4E WotC adventures and products generally have a LOT less art than Paizo products. The money to produce big battlemats has to come from somewhere, and for WotC it looks to me that they choose to not purchase and print nearly as much art. Personally... I think that makes the product look kind of dull. I much prefer to have illustrations of cool locations, NPCs, and events that happen in the adventure.

Another reason too is that WotC has MUCH deeper pockets than Paizo does.

Another reason is that doing battlemaps for every encounter limits design. I'd rather not limit the creativity of the designer of an adventure by telling him "All of your encounters have to fit within 1,500 square feet" or something like that.

ANOTHER reason is price. You'll note that a Pathfinder AP is 20 bucks, and gives you more adventure content than a 4E adventure, which runs you 25 bucks. Even if the two products cost the same, you'd get more adventure and content from a volume of Pathfinder than a big battlemat-enabled 4E adventure. (Correct me if I'm wrong anyone... I don't...

Makes sense James... I agree with everyone's comments too. Part of the reason I'm such a Paizo fan is that the quality of the product is sooooooooooo much better than WotC. Their adventures feel more like a minis skirmish with some mild storylines thrown in...

Okay, I'll stick with printing and blowing up my Pathfinder maps, was hoping for some happy medium, but, we'll see what the future holds.

Oh, and HAHA, on the Life of Brian clip...

I hate to be the one to yank this back up to the top of the message boards, but I was looking through the 4e adventures I have in .pdf and I can't help but comment.

I own all of the released 4e adventures (even though I don't play in a 4e group, all Pathfinder, here) and I was surprised to notice that EVERY SINGLE adventure has all of the maps where encounters take place printed out in full 1x1 inch scale in the back of the adventure. Anyone else notice this?

So I guess my question is, why can WotC do this, but Paizo, which I believe to be a much better company, can't? What does WotC have that Paizo doesn't, and how can we help!?!

I think it would be perfect to have at least the locations where encounters are supposed to take place in, scaled and included in the back of the Pathfinder adventures, like WotC does. Even if it does cost us a little bit more.

Am I right, or off in left field, here?

tintagel wrote:

Virtual Tabletops man. Virtual Tabletops.

They solve all of your printing issues.
They solve all of your scaling issues.
They solve all of your miniatures issues.
They even solve your long-distance player & gas issues (though I play with everyone at the table).

For my game table, I run my laptop, an ASUS 900 EEEPC (the dinky one for $400), and a monitor. Most groups have access to 2 lappys. The software I use costs $30 and I only need one license.

We are currently going through Rise of the Runelords, converted to 4E (thanks Scott!) and using some of my maps and scans from the modules. No minis, no hand-drawn maps, infinite scaling (I doubled the dimensions of Thistletop), and faster game play. Even better, the images we can use for the game and "minis" are wonderful and just a Google search away.

See our screenshots from the last session.

Do you really need high resolution images beyond what's already in most adventures, though, for a virtual table top? As in: wouldn't the maps in the PDF version be enough?

I'm a die-hard Pathfinder fan. I DM and play in a total of three groups on a monthly basis. My players and I all have laptops and we use maptools to "explore" all of the areas (we are currently playing through Rise of the Runelords). When we get into a combat encounter, my group prefers to use minis and a battlemap because they think it's much more fun. It's easy to copy and paste the .pdf versions of the map and save them out in several seconds with or without secret doors, labels, etc. if you know how to use photoshop and acrobat. I take my printed out maps to Kinkos and blow them up in black and white for a total of 5.00 - 20.00 dollars (depending on how many maps I'm doing). I then cut out the maps for the encounters we are playing on the battlemap and put them on cardstock for sturdier backing.

It's fun and we have a blast... saves time and looks great!

You had also asked this:

Rest assured, I'm sure the subject of battlemats will be a topic of discussion at Paizo... you've certainly got our attention. I'd be curios to know, of course, what percentage of the people who buy Pathfinder would be interested in buying battlemats as well...

My group would love a chance to get something like this, printed format, or I print it out... don't care. It would save me some time from doing it myself.

On a side note, I visit these forums everyday, but I seldom, if ever post. But this topic, was too close to home to pass up. And Tintagel freaking rocks!

Nueanda wrote:

I have looked in several places and I can't find any information on this...

Is there a Seeker lodge for Pathfinder's in the city of Magnimar? If there is, where can I find information on what district it's in, who is the venture-captain there, etc.

Help, please!

I think you can get a version of the Magnimar map with the Pathfinder chapter location here. There are some sketchy details in Pathfinder #2 at the end of page 61 and the beginning of page 63.

Sam

Perfect, that will work!

Thank you so very, very, much, Sam!

I have looked in several places and I can't find any information on this...

Is there a Seeker lodge for Pathfinder's in the city of Magnimar? If there is, where can I find information on what district it's in, who is the venture-captain there, etc.

Help, please!

Well it's 3am and we just got through a long power session with it and the entire group but me hated it lol. Have to make it simpler, and more intuitive yet. But my group is pretty conservative, so if they like it that means it's pretty good.

Thanks for the DMgenie link. I'm in love with the way they did the display of the combat round - round + init. Hot.

Hehe. Keep us updated! Sounds fun and exciting!

I've started working on a DM's tool much like klooge (or the 4e one) but with a better price tag (free).

Maybe I should key it for PathFinder. None of the rules, of course, that aren't OGL, but I think movement is a must. What standard monsters seem logical (goblin? ogre?).

I already use my laptop to DM off of, and I get players who have to wait around waiting for slower players (read rules-lawyers) to hash out details. They'd optimally be able to key in actions for their henchmen while they wait.

Opinions on what should / legally-can be added / left out? Or thoughts in general aboutthe concept?

May I ask you for one favor? If you are going to go through the work of making a DM's application, can you take a look at DM GENIE?

http://dmgenie.com/

It is an excellent program that works spectacular for the DM and Players, but it has no support. The company that made it, keeps selling it, but had stopped providing support some time ago... I'm afraid it will never be updated again.

So, if you are making a new program, perhaps you can get some ideas from that one, which, imho, kicks butt over kloogworks, or any other program out there! (And I have tried over 30 of them...)

/sigh

No, to the minions! For the love, no minions!

They are cheesy and a little out of context in a serious rpg setting. Well, at least that is IMO.

I frequent several boards and noted many Paizo and Pathfinder threads. I've noted a marked change of tone of late, a growing hostility. They question Paizo's business practices to continue to support the 3.x system via OGL and the PfRPG. And there are a few new twists (to me, that is):

1) Companies can, apparently, support 4E products without going GSL (e.g., Kenzer, Redbrick, Goodman Games, etc.) and Paizo should so the same

2) Paizo should "grow some balls" and create a new rpg.

Has anyone else who frequents other boards noted the same as well?

I've noticed half the comments seem to say "you guys have it all wrong, this is NOTHING like 3.x!" and the other half of the comments say "you guys have it all wrong, this is TOO MUCH like 3.x!"

The grass is always greener... you can't please all of the people, all of the time...

enter any other cliche...

Roman wrote:

I like the idea of scaling spell DCs, but I share the concern of some posters that this would give an undue power boost to spellcasters - an increase in power they really do not need.

I... wow. That's all I can say. :)

So your solution to the proposed scaling of DCs to match the scaling of the way they are defended against is to make them worse for higher level spells? As it is, lower-level spells are almost auto-saves, and higher level spells are pretty iffy, too.

I don't know if you've been playing through the adventure paths, but nothing has bad saves (I'm in Rise of the Runelords, so I don't know if the others are this way or not). If something *does* have a bad save, they write in some kind of ridiculous "morale" bonus, or "silly" bonus, or "out-of-nowhere" bonus that boosts the enemies' saves to the point of almost making spells useless on them at the appropriate PC level. I just assume that any spell I cast that allows a save is either wasted or is going to do half damage. (Although to counter this I've been sort of specializing in spells that don't require a save - lemme tell you that *really* cuts down on the number of spells that I can cast effectively, and it doesn't really do what the wizard class is supposed to do - affect multiple targets).

Wizards already suffer from all-or-nothing (or all-or-insignificant) major class abilities (spells), while every other class has very limited instances where its major class abilities are rendered useless.

Cut the wizards some slack... they're already lying on the floor with their heads kicked in. No need to break a few ribs just for the heck of it. :)

That said, I reiterate my support of a scaling DC system (not sure yet what would be the best way to do it) - but one that doesn't *decrease* the DC of spells at any level..... It's counter to the point of this entire discussion.

So, you guys, what would be wrong with having Spell DCs set to this:

Spell DC = 10 + Spell level + 1/2 Caster's level + Ability mod.

I've always thought that it was silly how the lower level spells became more useless at higher levels. I know, I know... they ARE lower level spells... but, they are the caster's primary weapons... Since when does a fighter's sword become less effective at higher levels, forcing him to look for new ones? (And I'm not talking about magical bonuses and crap, people...)

So, because I have way too much free time, I decided to have some fun in Photoshop, and provide a handy tool for fellow GMs: Status Condition cards.

Check it out here: Image Madness

Grab them from the site and distribute them as you see fit. I find that printing them in a 3x3 array with Windows Photo Gallery (Windows Picture and Fax Viewer in XP) yields some good results. I also suggest laminating them, so players can write on them then wipe them off easily, though any numeric values can be dealt with using dice. Put those D12s to use! Don't forget to reduce the size on them. They are by default pretty big.

Each card has a color version (sort of?) for those who like copy stores or buying new ink, and a black and white version for those who like cheap or happen to have reams and reams of ivory colored cardstock sitting around their apartments because a certain relation thought it would be a great idea to purchase heaping piles of it.

Anyways, I hope people like these. I'll try to work up some more quick reference cards later.

The link isn't working for me... getting the "cannot display the webpage" error.

Good stuff, keep the updates coming! Could it be left more open for homebrew campaigns, or the addition of house rules?

Anyone know if they announced or have an ETA on the ranger update?

Is Wizards of the Coast insane? Publishing a Compendium of its rules system less than a year before they implement an entirely new rules system.

It's bad enough that they had to publish non-sense complicating rules system in 3.5. Now they are admitting that they screwed up the works AND CHARGING YOU FOR IT.

Nimrods.

Although I agree that WOTC really pushes the money-making (or is it grubbing?) envelope while cleverly masking it under the auspice of "you'll love this, it's so much fun" I actually think this book is one of their best ideas yet.

All of the "game day" rules in one place. That's great! Think about all the peeps who won't convert to 4.0, this is perfect for them. Or all of the people that run campaigns... for me at least, it will be a year before I can consider running a 4E campaign, and this book will help me and all my players out a ton. Not only will I get it, but I've recommened it to all of my players as well.

And no, I don't work for WOTC (Blast! How dare you even think it!)

Our group likes to play with FUMBLES as well as CRITICALS. Any chance there's a Fumble Deck in the works?

Amen, I DM two groups and play in a third, and we all use Critical Fumbles as well... any info on something like this coming out too?

Please, please?