Pendabrok's page

There's no coding involved at all - at least not on my part. All I did is install programs and move things around.
Also, I don't use the PDFs on the iPad. I copy the maps out of the PDF, and paste them into PhotoShop for resizing and cleaning. PhotoShop is the only thing dragged over to the display. And since it isn't the iPad rendering it - it's my laptop - it's a relatively smooth experience.

And the 9.7" map really isn't an issue when you can move it freely.

My players are just about finished with Burnt Offerings, and have enjoyed the usage of my iPad as the battlemap. I've seen a few different applications of the iPad in this manner, but none of them really met my desires as a GM.

This is what I do:

I have Splashtop XDisplay on my iPad - this program allows you to use your iPad as a second display via your wireless network.

I have Adobe PhotoShop on my laptop, and with it have adjusted the maps included in the AP (PDFs), and enhanced their grids. Each map is a PSD, and within it I have layers for "Fog of War" across unseen rooms, and "token" layers for the PCs and NPCs.

I leave PhotoShop's tools and menus on my laptop screen, and drag the file over to my iPad display. A minor zoom-adjust allows it to fill the iPad's screen.

I am now able to dynamically adjust PC visibility - such as in dark areas, including the ability to add extra vision to characters with darkvision (via sight range rings around each PC). My players don't have to lean over/move around the table to adjust their character, all of that is done from my end. They just say where they want to move, and I move them. Having multiple cats, this has saved us a few times where we would have had tokens flying everywhere from a well-aimed kitty jump.

I can have all of my PDFs (I don't have all the books in physical copies) open and available to me, as well as various other web resources, while still controlling the display on the iPad remotely with my mouse and keyboard.

If you have PhotoShop - or probably anything that can view/manipulate PSD files - and an iPad you can do this. It's been really great for us.

I have the maps from the Glassworks to Thistletop Level 2 all made, and would be more than happy to upload them somewhere if people are interested in trying this method. I'll be continuing to produce maps as we continue the campaign.

EDIT: I posted this here because I'm doing this for the RotRL campaign... but, thinking about it now, it might do better in a different part of the forum :\

Well, all good advice for the future, thanks, everyone.

My two players have decided to "take a break from Pathfinder for a while."

Who knows..?

Sorry, clarifications required because I misinformed.

Roll 4d6, reroll 1s, drop the lowest roll.
Do this 7 times, drop the lowest result.
Allocate.

This is the same stat system he used in his games, so I used it as well.

Callum: Definitely possible, but the improbability of it makes me rank it just below a block of all 18s.
And if it were just one of them, that's one thing. But both of them giving me unusually high stats? I must admit the fact that they live together creeps into my assessment as well.

This is the highest-point character we have not counting them:
Str 15
Dex 16+2
Con 15
Int 12
Wis 14
Cha 16

I know I'm making accusations at this point, and by now I totally agree that I'll want to see my players roll stats - not necessarily because I don't trust them, but because I'm apparently very paranoid about probability.

Rathendar: That's pretty much what I did, I think. I'd like the party to be balanced. I think he may have taken it negatively, I'm not sure.

Part of me believes that they both rolled their stats, and they both got really lucky.
But part of me knows the probability of those dice rolls.
I think the part that knows statistics may have gotten across a bit more than I wanted to.

I'm a new GM, running my first campaign. Two of the players that are going to be joining our 3-party team just showed me their characters.

The rolling system is (4d6, drop 1s) x 7, allocate 6 highest results.

The average point-buy score for this is around 38. Your average roll is 14.

These are their stats:

Str 16
Dex 15
Con 17
Int 14+2
Wis 18
Cha 15

Str 17
Dex 16
Con 14+2
Int 17
Wis 15
Cha 18

I immediately saw these as highly improbable and became somewhat suspicious. I know these two, played with one while the other was the DM. I trust them... but those stats are just ridiculous, right?

I've asked them to reroll/adjust their states to be more in line with the rest of the group (which has point scores from 37 to 41 - compared to their 59 and 65)

I did my best to avoid using the world "improbable" but I don't know how subtle I necessarily was that I found their stats dubious. This was all handled via text.

Thoughts? Am I being stupid, or is this a legit response?