One Angry Monkey's page

rkraus2 makes a good point - take a look at a published adventure before you make your own. Even if you don't end up actually running it, it will give you a good idea of what things you will absolutely want to make sure you have planned.

Another helpful tip: players typically gravitate towards investigating anything that you describe in more detail or that you mention last. Use this to help lead them to the places where the action is.

Visual aids are great, but you don't need to overwhelm yourself with them. There are tons of places on the web to grab generic town maps if you want to have them.

In the end, if you have to make up details just jot them down so you can use them again later. If the world has just enough consistency, most players won't notice when you accidentally change something.

The AD&D sourcebook Netheril: Empire of Magic was once available on the WotC site for free. It contains an entry for Moander.

Kobold Quarterly 15 has a couple of Druid variants for Pathfinder, one of which replaces your standard animal companion with a few different abilities that give you access to various bestial qualities. It isn't quite shapeshifting, but its pretty darn close and interesting to boot.

I love the idea and have heard of other instructors doing similar things. In fact, if I'm not mistaken one of the editors at WotC is a former teacher who has written material for educators regarding the utility of games like RPGs in getting students more interested in math, science, history, and writing. You've certainly got my vote. Good luck!

Starglim has it about right; I don't see any special knowledge required for a highwayman beyond the ability to swing a weapon. However, since gambler is a listed proffession in the core rulebook you might be able to talk your DM into letting you have profession (grifter). Using a variety of confidence tricks, a grifter is basically a con man. I see this being a viable option since the rulebook suggests gambler. Most games on which money is wagered are predominantly ruled by chance, but a good gambler knows when to keep going and when to stop (and possibly when to cheat too). A grifter is going to have to know a variety of specific scenarios to gain the confidence of their mark and then dupe them (the television show Leverage has used a few classic ones). Knowing these tactics and how to pull them off would, IMHO, constitute a proffession. Calling your past victims "marks" would suggest to me that this path might even be more strongly suited for the concept you had in mind.

In the past I have mucked about with Wildscape, Draconic Lore, The Path of the Sword, and Sorcery and Steam. They're definitely among the best sourcebooks I saw for 3rd edition, though I will confess that I didn't use them extensively so YMMV.

Wildscape might have been the greatest of them all: it had some really good alternative class features for Rangers and Druids. There were some pretty good ideas in there as well on effects you could use to make certain types of terrain more realistic.

Path of the Sword wasn't as great, though they did have a pretty interesting idea with their Legendary Classes. They were almost like prestige classes, but involved much more difficult or specific quests to gain entry and the abilities tended to be somewhat more impressive. That book was also overflowing with new options for fighting types.

Draconic Lore was cover-to-cover dragons. Not normal dragons either, but some real odd ones. Things like the wooly dragon. There were several that weren't that terrible though.

Sorcery and Steam has its first 27 pages dedicated to discusing what elements make a game "steampunk" and the kinds of effects those elements have on traditional assumptions of fantasy RPGs. Its a really great intro to the genre. It also gives some guidelines and alternative class features for using the traditional 3rd edition classes in a steampunk game. The new classes, PrCs, feats, and equipment are all pretty much what one would expect for steampunk settings, though the section on firearms does do a good job touching on the history of firearms and how and why they were designed as they appear in the book.

Most of the stuff worked alright, though anytime you have an abundance of material to select from you run the risk of finding combos that are too powerful. Most of the stuff you could easily include into any campaign world, whether it was homebrewed or something published. Sorcery and Steam stands apart on its own much more than the others, but with a few tweaks and a little imagination it wouldn't be hard to use most of it.

I feel inclined to throw a couple of ideas out there; you can feel inclined to ignore them.

The Star Wars Saga RPG uses a damage threshold and condition track that might be somewhat useful in achieving your goals. You could borrow the idea and say that any attack from a giant that misses AC but would have hit touch AC drops the target down one step on the condition track, essentially representing the fatigue of having to brace against the impact of a "near-miss."

Alternatively, a miss that would still have hit touch AC could inflict 1/2 (or all) of its normal damage as nonlethal damage. Depending on how likely the giant is to miss and how long you want the character to be standing toe-to-toe with your giants, you might allow the character to use its Con modifier (or score) as damage resistance against the nonlethal damage.

You could even get really crazy and use BOTH!

Hopefully this helps.

Now would be a good time to fill out your profile. ;)

You are entirely correct. I play around on Paizo sporadically and hadn't noticed my ommission. Rest assured that I have corrected it.

I'll be interested to see if its as big a stepping stone for the 4e writers as it is for us Pathfinder/OGL writers.

I'm probably not a good example. After nearly a year of constantly bombarding WotC with proposals I managed to nab a spot in their magazine before I did anything else. I enjoyed the process and went looking for other opportunities, finding KQ as a result of my search. Its a very different experience. KQ offers more creative freedom in exploring the game's content while Dragon/Dungeon provide a lot of feedback during drafting and you often end up going in interesting directions you wouldn't have anticipated when you first submitted your proposal.

Of course the dream is to do work of such exemplary quality that you really build a reputation for yourself, with my personal goal being to find an opportunity to self-publish something like a small campaign setting. I have other pieces that I'm currently working on (both for Wizard's and KQ), so perhaps I'll reach my goals eventually. Mostly I'm just happy to be doing something I enjoy.

Congragulations.

Thanks. I only just started doing this freelancing stuff earlier this year, but I've been fortunate enough to have one piece already published in Dragon and now this one for Kobold. Its very exciting to contribute material to a hobby I love and imagine something I created enhancing the enjoyment of the game for others.

Hopefully you'll all be seeing more of me around, as I have a few more projects in the pipe.

I'm looking forward to seeing this. My piece on 4e mounted combat was the first contribution I've had the fortune of making to this magazine.

It depends on your perspective of what constitutes "low-magic."

Obviously having fully-fledged spellcasters like Wizards and Sorcerers as player characters can dampen the impact of the narative you're trying to relate, but your players might be willing to accept restraints on their character choices. You could also allow them to play spellcasters, but reinforce through NPCs how wonderous their abilities actually are.

As has been pointed out, a dearth of magic items significantly stymies the abilities of most classes that emphasize combat with weapons. One idea to get around this however, would be to figure out what level of enhancement bonus the players are assumed to have in terms of gear at each level and then treat them as automatically obtaining this at or near the same level. This helps you deal with issues of overcoming DR and prevents you from having to adjust the AC of every monster when you're building encounters. Obviously there are a few cases where this won't work perfectly, but you could always consider repackaging magic items to be an alternative type of reward: That +1 Keen Longsword isn't actually a sword, but rather represents advanced training from a legendary swordsman.

There are other games that have rules for handling this type of thing and its always worth it to check them out. You never know what kinds of great ideas you'll be able to borrow.

I encountered a variation of this problem early in my play experience. The idea that a fighter could have an attack that he only used once in a day broke my immersion. I had a few semesters of beginner's fencing and the idea that you would learn a technique that had a limit of one day seemed absurd. The breakthrough came when I changed the way I thought about how the martial classes use powers and its an approach that relies heavily on a narrative perspective.
When a fighter uses his daily power, that doesn't represent as much of a conscious decision to try the attack as it represents the circumstances of a fluid combat aligning to allow him make the attempt. In other combats later in the day, the opportunity doesn't present itself for him to attack the same way again.
For me, this seemed a more realistic interpretation that ligned up with my experiences in fencing. You might learn how to "take 6", but if your opponent's blade wasn't in the right place or they were too far away or you just weren't ready then you couldn't make the attempt. You might only have one or two chances during a match to even try it. This doesn't hold for every power (at-wills for example), but I've found that since I started thinking of them this way and explained it to others, my group has not had a problem with powers breaking game emmersion.
How does this apply to the discussion at hand? Its not perfect, but if you think of combat being a dynamic scene, Come and Get It could represent a fighter's proclivity for spending an entire combat spewing insults to everything he fights. When the wizard finally has had enough and senses an opening to smack the fighter in the mouth to shut him up, the fighter takes his chance and lets fly with his attack. Everything fits within the narrative, but it requires a significant investment in thought on the part of players so YMMV.

... but I'm kind of fond of the idea of making spell casting a bit more vulnerable. Wizards and sorcerers would have to stay clear of battle or even have bodyguards during combat while clerics, paladins and such would really have to think deeply about when and where to cast their spells.

Any thoughts?

You seem aware of the seriousness of doing this, so I'll leave it to others to criticize you for wanting to do so. What I will do instead is offer you an extension of the idea you mention. If you want spellcasters to be more reliant on bodyguards and be more removed from combat, consider allowing situational factors to mitigate your general rule. For instance, spellcasters might not be able to cast defensively UNLESS they have an ally adjacent to them. In other words, find a way to encourage the specific tactics that you would like to see so that the penalty doesn't feel as onerous to the players.

The reference is under Major Image, but since it says it's just like Silent Image except for having additional sound and so on, I view this as also applying to Silent Image.

I am afraid I must respectfully disagree. If an editor somehow realized that an intended feature of all the Image spells had been left out, the most logical place to put the reference would have been with the spell that all the subsequent spells claim as a foundation. Even allowing for this to be a peculiar error, it originally appeared in the 3.5e PHB and was not corrected to a more logical form in Pathfinder. Further, those WotC articles are very explicit about how the majority of figment spells are dispelled instantly when hit. Given this evidence, your conclusion seems unlikely at best.

You should note the text of the spell, where automatic disbelief on a successful hit only occurs if the illusion's controller fails to have it react appropriately

I double checked to make sure I wasn't missing something, but the text of Silent Image says nothing about "reacting appropriately." All of my discussion has been solely focused on that spell, as it was the one cited by the OP. I appologize if I missed something and it would be helpful for me if you could clarify which spell and particular pages in the rulebook that you're refering to.

*EDIT: Kevin, if you're talking about Major Image then you are entirely correct and it would be a much more preferable alternative for this tactic given the fact that it won't simply vanish when hit.

It is your interpretation of RAW that despite not being able to attack, he still can deal damage if he could attack.

No, that wasn't exactly what I was saying. In one of the articles I previous linked to, WotC provided a formula for figuring out the attack bonus of a figment. That suggests to me that it was their intent to allow figments to appear to make an attack. The rules for figments clearly indicate that they cannot deal damage. Therefore any attack that a figment did attempt to make would not deal damage (and would, by my estimate, cause the figment to be automatically disbelieved on a successful hit).

A real creature that can attack, but would deal no damage still threatens and therefore still provide flanking.

This I agree with and as the WotC article seemed to indicate that a figment could attack, then I concluded that a figment had the potential to threaten. Despite being illusory, while they are still believed they may very well function as though they were real.

Also, I would like to make clear that I advance this argument hesitantly. In my mind it makes a certain amount of sense and, as previously indicated, it does not seem to throw a terrible amount of additional power into Silent Spell. I would personally allow it, but as there seems to be dispute over the nessecity of pointing out whether individual illusion spells need to explicitly state how they function in regard to flanking I feel that its just as reasonable to disallow the spell in question to flank.

Nothing in that link hints or otherwise suggests your illusion would grant flanking bonus.

I didn't intend to give the impression that that single article provided all the answers. Taken with the previous article and ALL of the preceeding quotations of the RAW, it was my opinion that using an illusion to set up a flanking situation was defensible. I find particularly telling the assertion that you can use a figment to fool an opponent. Using the existing rules for the consequences of interacting with an illusion it does not seem to be an overly powerful tactic and I would therefore allow it.

The issue clearly is nowhere explicity resolved.

FYI, figments (p210) can't attack and if you can't attack you can't threaten and if you can't threaten you can't provide a flanking bonus.

It actually states that figments can't deal damage. Since a Wizard providing flanking is not required to actually deal damage, I am inclined to feel like a target believing that an illusion COULD deal damage to him might be enough to provide the flanking. The WotC article indicated that they were okay with figments making or seeming to make attacks. This is the primary reason that I feel like this might be a viable possibility. When you look at the potency of using Silent Image for the purpose of granting flanking it clearly only has significantly longevity if you're lucky and the target never hits the illusion and always fails the abundant disbelief saves that would be incurred when attempting to use an illusion in such a manner. This is why I would be comfortable allowing the tactic.

However, I don't think it is really wrong to disallow it. The issue of whether or not a figment can threaten in a rules sense is not addressed anywhere that I have seen and that is ultimately what the viability of this tactic hinges upon. This is just my humble interpretation and I'm more than willing to admit that it could very well be wrong.

I don't know if i would accept anything short of an explicit answer from WOTC on what they meant, to change my opinion.

A link to the WotC "Rules of the Game" series for 3.5e in an early post didn't quite target the issues pertinent to discussion here. The subsequent articles in that series are more relevent. Summaries and links are below.

Incorporating the information from this article into the previous points brought up in the thread, it seems like Silent Image can be used to create an illusory warrior that would grant flanking to a rogue. If flanking is interpreted as being a rules abstraction for a coordinated distraction in combat, then using the illusion to flank would likely count as an interaction between the target being flanked and the illusion and therefore allow for a saving throw to disbelieve. Even if this is not the case, when the flanked target attempts to attack the illusion they will recieve a saving throw regardless of whether they hit or miss and a successful hit will automatically result in their disbelieving an illusion. This makes sense because an illusion created by Silent Image has no substance. Now, a clever wizard might decide to make the illusion appear to be a ghost. This scenario doesn't seem to be addressed by the rules, but a reasonable ajudication would likely be to allow the wizard to use an opposed Bluff check to prevent the target from recieving a saving throw to disbelieve on a miss and changing the automatic disbelief on a hit to a save instead.

This article touches on what constitutes "making something look like something else". It appears that you can use Silent Image to create an object around a target, but the instantaneous appearance of the "box" would likely provoke a saving throw to disbelieve (and could be navigated around with a DM ajudicated opposed Bluff check on an intelligent target).

On the whole, this makes Silent Image a useful spell without allowing it to be overly abused. I could be wrong though.

And what happens when one of the middle ranking paladins has reason to suspect things are not as they appear but no solid evidence...either because of the influence of a good deity seeking to free the paladins from the lies or possibly even the meddling of another Prince of Hell just out to ruin their rivals plans.

Perhaps your attempt to cast Bless Water turns out to have cursed the water instead?

Brilliant!

Monkey, I would not personally consider you a powergamer.

Thanks. It really does seem to be a matter of intention though. Even your organically developing method can be exploited. A player that was thrust into a developing campaign against the undead and decided to pick up feats or classes to help aid him against undead could be doing it simply for the power it affords in the expected combat or because the deprevation of the undead scourge against the living has kindled a hatred of the abominations. However unlikely it may be, a player could theoretically end up powergaming even when restricted to an organic character generation method. Part of it also depends on the personality of the character you're roleplaying. I tend to gravitate toward characters that are very driven and dedicated to a cause, so it takes some serious changes in circumstance for me to be inclined to radically alter a character's goals. With the right story though, it could be compelling to play something like a Paladin that learns their god is not what they had once thought and deal with the radical character advancement retooling that would come as a consequence.

I have never prepared a character that didn't have some feature optimized. When it comes to optimizing or powergaming, I might be one of the worst offenders. I seldom see it as powergaming however.

I scour sourcebooks for feats that work well together and build a character around them. I do it with the intention of building a character that has some fantastic characteristic. Why do I like doing that sort of thing? For me, using these bizare combinations are a delightful exercise in creating a one-of-a-kind story. To roleplay the character, I have to know what events turned him into who he is and so explaining why my Monk is driven to take levels of Ardent gives me detailed narrative hooks that might be difficult to create if you were trying to fabricate them out of a blank slate.

I also ALWAYS make sure to inform my DM and players of precisely what exaggerated characteristics I'm going to have. I don't want to step on any toes and I don't want my abilities to always get me out of trouble. I want the challenge, but I like to occasionally find a situation where my skills let me shine too. Given that caveat, I am not inclined to see myself as a powergamer. I might use all the same tools, but my objectives are different. Its like that old Discovery Channel show "It Takes a Thief." The guys utilize the mindset and techniques of criminals to help people protect themseleves from crooks, but they aren't law-breakers when they're doing that.

It could be that others talk about optimization instead of powergaming for the same reasons. Of course, powergaming does tend to have negative connotations and they might just be trying to avoid that association by being politically correct like to OP alleges.