Pete Apple's page

Hey - creating a thread for people coming to our fair city. You locals post some stuff!

I thought of this as I shopped at the farmer's market this morning. As I picked out some fresh cherries and strawberries it occurred to me that I was going to miss the farmer's market next Saturday because Paizocon was... But WAIT! PaizoCon is AT the Redmond Town Center, literally right next to the Farmer's Market. Which got me thinking - Hey - I can just step out the door and pick up some fruit to nosh on all weekend.

So if you're hankering for fresh fruit, veggies, cheese, and crats, stop in next Saturday between 9-2. Just look for all the people carrying yummy food. They've got some food vendors there as well, so you can pick up some lunch. We had some of the wood fired pizza today. Yummy.

Any other suggestions? Malt and Vine seems like a no brainer, sure lots of folks will be over there. Three Lions for the brit-beer/futbol crowd.

A friend is planning to put together some sessions for my wife and a couple of friends - plan is to for the three of them to be "Medieval Charlies Angels" and I get to play the "Bosley". We have a "Townsend Adventuring Agency" that goes out to solve murders, find kidnapped folk, rescue keeps, etc.

He's not on here, so asked me to request if anyone might suggest AP books, modules, or PFS that have "detective" like plotlines that he might pick up and use.

Recommendations? Btw, don't be too spoilery, since I might be playing these! :-)

It was, well, Grand. :-) Good organization, lots of fun. And the rewards - awesome! Our table got through all 5 encounters. How did other tables do?

I have a friend that has SLE (Lupus) that manifasts as extreme fatigue at times. He goes from chipper and awake to comatose on the couch in about an hour's time. The frequency/severity is increased based upon how much emotional or physical input he experiences. Essentially, the more input he gets, the faster he goes down.

We've been playing RPG's for a goodly while now. Were on 3.0, then 3.5, then some 4E, now some GW. Would like to do PFRPG with him, but when we played 3.5 he often got burned out quick. I don't think it helped that he was playing a multi-class thief/wizard (what he wanted to play...) as there were an increasing number of decisions to make throughout the course of a game as we went up in levels.

So - question for the Paizo Team: In playtesting or other studies, or just based upon player's experiences, what is the "easiest" class to play? And how would you cook up that character to minimize things based upon what I've described here.

Thanks!
Pete

Go! Btw, what was the name of the winning team again? My favorite moment was still the one-man SKR wave. Classic!

Link

WotC to Revise D&D 4th Edition GSL and SRD
08/11/2008News Archive

Wizards of the Coast announces a forthcoming revision to the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Game System License (GSL) and System Reference Document (SRD).

“We recognize the important role third party publishing support plays in the success of the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. We have listened to the community and our valued colleagues and have taken their concerns and recommendations to heart. Our commitment to the health of the industry and hobby gaming lifestyle is reflected in the revisions to the Game System License.”
--Linae Foster D&D Licensing Manager

While the delivery date is not yet firmly established, the revised documents will be available in the very near future.

The new fan site policy, to be made public at a later date, will be posted upon completion.

So I'm in Oregon waiting for my daughter to pop our first grandkid. He's being ornery though (takes after me) so there's been alot of waiting around.

Here in Astoria there's a pretty cool game/comic store. Amazing Stories that I've been wasting time at and helping him pay his rent. Btw, it's an awesome store if you're ever here. Stop in!

I perused the rpg shelf and I don't see much of any Paizo on there. I asked regarding Paizo and the minion here went "who?". Not a good sign. I spoke to the owner up front and he again went "Who?" Used to do Dragon/Dungeon magazine? Oh yah. I said "Pathfinder" and he sort of heard of that. Not good.

I asked about the Pathfinder Campaign Setting and he hadn't heard of it. He looked it up in Alliance and stated that it said it came out on the 27th, but didn't seem to be orderable, they had no stock. So he couldn't even order it for me even if I was going to be here for awhile.

So, a couple questions:
If I'm in a strange town, what's the best way to get them interested in Paizo products other then asking "hey, do you have this?" and talking them up. Does Paizo have some sort of retail reach-out program or the like?
And: Why's the campaign setting not in the store, or even orderable by the store?

Creating a specific thread to discuss Thunderspire Labyrinth. Make sure to put anything spoilerish in the proper coverage.

My initial impression is much more positive than H1.

Positives:
Number one for me is the new monsters included: Duergar, Bronze Warder, Enigma of Vecna, Norker, and the Phalagar. They are pretty much in the awesome category both for history and the unique abilities each bring. I can already tell I’m going to have a ton of fun with these guys.

Most all of the material is for the DM. So from a DM perspective you’re getting more content for your dollar.
Player handout pictures – in color – for various locations. The artwork for these are very nice and it’s good to see player handouts back.

Vecna is back, baby! And this works great for me as I changed H1 to be Vecna driven, so it ties well together. If you are considering running H1/H2 consider changing H1 to be Vecna driven and then H2 ties in even better. I can write-up what I did for that if anyone is interested.

Expansive Underdark Labyrinth laid out. H1 was pretty closed – the Keep was it with a few sidetreks that were somewhat optional. H2 lays out a large area of Underdark fun-times and hooks for you to use.

Included: A very interesting underground city to use as a base with its own intrigue. Add onto that multiple underground lair’s to go explore and it doubles-triples the amount of usable adventure compared to H1.

Random Encounter Table: They actually present 10 interesting random encounters that are plausible in the environment. Some of which tie in with the hooks and could lead to "further adventures".

Negatives:
It’s still magazine paper. It still uses the backcover as part of the adventure text. This is still annoying to me. :-)

LINK

Sweeeeeeeeeet!

Does anyone know how this compares to Feng Shui? Does it?

I agree with many of his points too.

Link

I’ve written this and re-written the following five times so far, and each time my opinion of the new D&D 4e Players’ Handbook has got steadily worse.

But first, the good stuff.

4e is great. I love the whole idea of Powers. I like the new Classes, and am even starting to give the Dragonborn some love. Combat is cooler too. While combat encounters will take the same amount of time as one from Third Edition, the characters take more turns, quicker - so it feels faster. That’s a Very Good Thing! Yups, there’s a lot to like about 4th Edition. Give it a few years to supplant my 3e supplement collection, and it’ll be terrific.

But.

The Players’ Handbook is a train wreck.

I mean that both metaphorically and…. uhhh….. more metaphorically. It’s a train wreck because it’s a mess, but also just like a train wreck all of the important trainy parts are there, just strewn all over the place in a very untrainlike fashion. There’s bits of engine where you expect the driver’s compartment to be, the wheels are 300 yards away from their natural location (assuming trains were natural, and they’re not) and the driver is… well, let’s not talk about the driver. It’s better that way.

Ok, enough of the metaphor. I’m sure you get the idea.

Hmmmm. I ought to put in a disclaimer about now, and a little explanation. I’ve RPG’d for roughly as long as RPG’ing has existed as a hobby. I’ve played a metric shedload of different games that all promise to be the next big thing - some of which were, most of which weren’t. I’m no more tied to 3rd Edition than I was to Rolemaster, HERO, GURPS, Bunnies & Burrows or pretty much anything else that’s crossed my path along the way. I certainly don’t think that change is always a good thing, but it’s frequently necessary. When it comes, evolution is almost always better than revision by a completely different design team. Compare Classic Traveller with Traveller:The New Era if you want proof.

In short, I’m not some 3e grognard fanboi who doesn’t like 4e just because. Heck, I do like it. But I don’t like the PHB. Here’s why.

Top level, the PHB ticks all the boxes - there’s a rather spiffy introduction, chapters of Character Generation, Races, Classes, Feats, Skills, Combat and more. It’s great to see magic items in the PHB too, emphasising further the the PHB is the go-to rulebook whether you’re generating characters at 1st level or 25th.

What is there is so poorly referenced, badly structured and just downright lacking that it’s beyond a joke. When you’re seeing commenters on other reviews suggesting using sticky tabs to mark pages like that’s a good thing (no, you’re fixing what’s broken!) or that it gets easier to find things with practise. Well, duh. That’s true whatever the system, no matter how good or bad it is.

One of the important parts of any rulebook is that it has to be easy to find stuff. This game needs a Glossary, bad. It needs a bigger, better index. The one-page index is already a joke among my players. In comparison, the 3.5e PHB has a damned good 3 page index and 11 page glossary. That’s 14 whole pages of frickin’ useful in-game essential goodness missing from the 4e PHB. My impressions are that the PHB designers spent so long congratulating themselves for making such an awesome game, they forgot to actually write the damned thing. Ah well.

Also, the Powers are completely and utterly all over the place, and - get this - they're not listed in the Index!!!!. FFS people, what’s so wrong with putting all of the Powers in a chapter together in alphabetical order then using page references and lists when needed. That’s how Skills and Feats works, after all! The number of times my players have played Hunt The Power in the PHB already is beyond a joke. If you can’t even get this right, give us a f%@#ing index. It’s not too much to ask.

The Character Class chapter is a joke. It’s over 120 pages long, of which 80% is a listing of Powers sorted (if you could call it that) by class and level. That’s ok-ish when you’re generating a Fighter, but less than friendly when you’re mid-game and want to double check a Range. What would have been so wrong with having a Character Class chapter containing, y’know, Character Classes and putting another Chapter listing all the Powers? Jeez.

When it comes to actually creating characters, Chapter Two is just as messy as it tries to serve double duty explaining how to play the game and the steps involved generating a character at the same time. Not good, not good at all. Separate and inform first, then provide the means. It’s no good showing Powers with damage calculations when they’re not explained until much later in the book. Why the heck this book was allowed out in it’s current structure, gawd only knows.

Then there’s Powers.

Powers are the single most significant change to the game. They grant abilities to every class which are usable at-will, per encounter or daily. Every class gets 2 at-will, 1 encounter and 1 daily Power at first level (the Wizard inconguously gets 2 dailies but has to select which one to use each day), but there’s so f#$%ing few of them to choose from it’s laughable. Look, if you’re going to offer a whole new meta-game system, jump in with both feet.

Here’s a quick head-to-head.

1st level Cleric in 3e can pick from a total of 37 0- and 1st level spells, using just the Core Rules alone, plus their Domain spell. A 4e Cleric chooses 2 at-wills from - get this - 4 Powers then has 4 each of encounter and daily Powers to pick 1 each. That’s 12 in total of which they get 4 (5 if Human). It’s the same story for all of the other Classes - there’s just nowhere near enough Powers in the book. As a Core Rule book if should have easily double the number of Powers, right there and ready to use.

Here’s the thing. Restructure the book and remove duplicated Powers and you’ll have room for more. Take out the page-and-a-half double spread artwork at the beginning of each chapter and you get back 15 whole feckin’ pages. With an average of 10 Powers per page, that’s one hundred and fifty new Powers in the same pagecount we’ve got now, just by taking out the spurious padding artwork.

Then there’s Rituals. And frankly, I don’t know why they bothered.

Rituals are kinda like Powers except they take longer to use, might have a longer duration and cost cold hard cash to use. Oh, and they’re tucked right at the back of the book (y’know, where the damned glossary should go!!) like the embarassing afterthought they are. Here’s a thought. Instead of tacking another mechanic into the mix, why not just make ‘em Powers that are usable per week, per month or whatever. This means they could go into that Powers chapter that’s missing, meaning more room for more Powers as there’s no need for a crappy explanation for a crappy subsystem.

I reckon with restructuring, loss of spurious artwork, duplicates and the rules for Rituals there’d be room for at least another 250 Powers - that’s 30 per Class. Perfect.

Sure, I know that the limited number of Powers is designed to get us to buy more books from Wizards tofill in the gaps, but here’s the thing. I'm not stupid. The 3e PHB contained hundreds of spells, yet I still bought the Spell Compendium when that came out because it’s a great product. I’m not gonna buy more Wizards’ stuff just to patch up existing holes in the game that have been put there intentionally. This isn’t Shareware where you’re offered a crippled version of the product to tempt you to buy the full product. I bought the book, so don’t short-change me dammit!

If PHB II is going to contain Powers from sources other than Arcane, Divine and Martial, filling up the holes left by the loss of the Barbarian, Bard and Monk in the PHB then it’s going to be a while before we get access to the number of Powers that should have been in the PHB in the first place. Sheesh.

As an aside - I don’t mind the loss of those three classes much, really. What’s annoying is that there aren’t enough Powers to be able to simulate them effectively with the existing Classes as a stop-gap. Give me Powers right in the PHB geared toward Unarmed combat, Raging and some Divine music-based Powers and I’d be a happier man.

Going down to the nitty-gritty of the rules themselves we’ve not played enough to take it apart sufficiently to comment much, but a few things stand out.

If you’ve played as long as I have, Page 38 couldn’t have shouted out more if it was circled in red and triggered a siren when opened. That’s the page for the Eldarin Race and contains the dreaded Fey Step Power. I know I’ve ranted about this before, but I’ll briefly explain why it’s so broken and why it has to be nerfed to being a Daily Power, immediately.

In short, Fey Step is a 25’ teleport ability usable once per encounter. They sounds all fine and cool on paper, but it’s a Very Bad Thing Indeed. Per Encounter Powers can be used at most once every 5 minutes. That’s 288 times per day. See the problem yet? Even if you enforce 8 hours of sleep, every Eldarin character could teleport up to 192 times per day. Do the math. In comparison, a 3rd Edition Wizard could cast Dimension Door (it’s nearest (but longer ranged) equivalent) once per day - when he reaches 7th level.

192 (or 288) times per day at 1st level, compared to once at 7th level. Oh, please.

That Fey Step means you can’t put your Eldarin in jail. You can’t have them stuck at the bottom of a pit trap. You can’t have a corridor blocked by a 20’ chasm. You can’t….. awe heck, I’m sure you get the idea. If you end up needing to meta-game around a given Power, that Power is broken. Changed to being a Daily Power it’s acceptable as this puts the choice back onto the player - do they use their Fey Step now, or save it for later? That’s tactical, and less open to abuse.

The equipment list is very limited too, lacking several of the core essentials for any dungeon adventure. Where’s the 10’ poles (personally, I prefer quarterstaves anyhow) and flasks of oil? And why the heck is a Rapier not on the list of Proficiencies for Rogue when they’re entire Power style is based upon swashbuckling? Heck, they can use Piercing Strike and Riposte Strike, but only have melee proficiencies with dagger and shortsword. What gives?

Finally, many of the 3e combat Feats have translated to 4e Powers meaning they’re locked to a certain class and only accessible through use of a multi-class Feat. That’s a fiddly mechanism when all you want to do is to let your Paladin use Cleave! There should be a group of General Powers which are open to all, regardless of Class provided the level requirements are met.

Overall, my impression of the PHB is that we’re being short-changed. The poor layout and structure means there’s just not enough Powers to make character generation sufficiently flexible. The gaps in the equipment list and downright useless Rituals section just don’t help what should be a showcase book for a darned good game.

The crazy thing is that Wizards’ should be able to make this a stunning product. They’ve certainly got the experience and people who can do this, because they've done it before. The Star Wars RPG contains the entire system in one book covering one of the most iconic settings of all time complete with new-player friendly (and GM useful!) starting character templates. d20 Modern is another one-book system that’s pure brilliance. Surely they could have made a better D&D PHB than this.

Apparently not.

Who's considering using it as their campaign setting?
What work have you done so far?
Where should shared information be stored?

A couple of the staff have mentioned they have a big deadline for this Friday 6/13 in order to get things to the printers in time for GenCon. Having product there is a big deal for them.

Support them anyway you can! I bet a good way is to ensure they don't have to waste time policing these boards.

A couple of the staff have mentioned they have a big deadline for this Friday 6/13 in order to get things to the printers in time for GenCon. Having product there is a big deal for them.

Support them anyway you can! I bet a good way is to ensure they don't have to waste time policing these boards.

I got my books yesterday morning. I've read through them completely at this point and wanted to pass along a critical news flash for folks on the messageboards.

I searched and searched and I could not find one rule that said you had to *stop* playing any previous version of Dungeon and Dragons if you play 4th Edition.

I Know! Hard to Imagine! I know *I* certainly had gotten the impression from many here that was the case, but it seems not!

Whew! What a relief!

The other news I wanted to share is that 4E is *not* like 3.5E! I *know*! I hadn't heard that either!

But now that we all know, hopefully people can *stop* *telling* *us* *over* *and* *over* *and* *move* *on*.

:-)

This came up the other night at one of my reguarly scheduled games. Actually in the context of this board and some of the heated debates.

All of the folks in this group are 40+ and have been playing since the "early days". Interestingly, they all want to move to 4E.

We got a bit nostalgic and started discussing the "old days" and the various versions. That struck up a conversation about what *hadn't* changed in DnD from 1E. (we avoided the original books as they were way different - we didn't want to include "chits" :-) )

So, we came up with the following things. What can you add?

Common things that are all in 1E, 2E, 3E, 4E:

Dice: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20

Stats: STR, INT, WIS, CON, DEX, CHA

Races: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling (although they were "classes" too)

Clases: Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, Thief

Mechanic: Hit Points, d20 to attack, Spells

Do all the Andoran's have Microcephaly or is it just that guy in the uniform?

Podcast

Great job Mr. M! Well said, Sir.

2000 characters isn't enough room to write a decent review!

I wrote up a nice review of the gazetteer but found it was 3500+ characters by the time I was done. I had to go prune it back to the bare minimum and it took 8 tries to get it to fit.

This one is very intriguing from a DM standpoint. I really like the concept. Making a "horde" of opponents interesting at higher levels has always been a challenge and I believe this solves it in an elegant fashion. Having the minions AC and attack bonus be at the appropriate level actually makes a gaggle of them challenging. I like it and look forward to using it.

I believe the same concept would also would work in 3.5/Pathfinder games as well. For example I'm planning to run "D3:The Demon Within" soon and having a passel of demon minions will add to the "oh crap" factor.

Pete

So I have some old paint I need to get rid of. It's oil based, so I can't just dry out the cans like with latex.

I dig around on the King County website in order to figure out what I should do with said cans. They have various discussions about HAZMAT and disposing of materials that could cause illness, brain damage, and death. (or all of the above)

I find that the closest one to my house is the Factoria Transfer Station

Clicking on the map to get directions I do a slight double take. Wait a second.. this map looks familiar. Hmmm... when I was helping with Paizocon I remember looking up the Paizo offices.. Oh my... Very close, less then a mile even. Wafting distance....

Hmmm.... :-)

So thought I'd throw out a new discussion around a Paizo product.

Critical Hit Deck
Critical Fumble Deck

We already know that criticals have changed in 4E. How would you integrate them?

Discuss.

I just put in another order, realized I forgot something in my first one. Can you combine my last two orders and ship together? Thanks!

So I had not yet seen a write-up on PaizoCon so thought I’d put one together. Thanks should go to Russ Taylor for sharing his notes to help augment my poor memory. Any misquotes in this are my own and permission is expressly given to Paizo to correct anything (or edit for spoilers) as they choose.

So Paizocon initially started as just an idea by a few folks on the messageboards to get together somewhere and play some Paizo. (Btw, I take no credit for the idea or implementation. Other fine folks get all that credit.) It was finally settled to hold it here in the Seattle region with the thought that maybe a few of the Paizo folks might stop by. (Maybe 1 or 2, you know, just to say howdy.)

After a bit we heard that Jason would stop in, and potentially James as well. Well after a bit more that turned into Jason might run a game and maybe James too. We also heard an e-mail had been sent out to the company about it. So some time was set aside in the morning to have a small panel so they might answer some questions by the attendees. I figured with 30 fans a couple folks might stop in for an hour or something. You know, make an appearance.

In the end, here’s what happened:

Jason, James, Wes, Erik, Mike, Josh, Corey, Cosmo, Vic, and Lisa all showed up. (If I forgot someone let me know!) Plus Wolfgang Baur of Kobold Quarterly (and various Paizo contributions). So nearly 1/2 of the 23 Paizo employees were there! At 10AM on a Saturday morning no less.

The day consisted of a morning and afternoon panel session followed by PFRPG and card/board games. Jason, James, Wolfgang, and Russ Taylor all ran tables during the first session. Mike was crazy with the card games. (What was the one with the skip/extra/stop cards?)

Having been to *a lot* of Cons, two things struck me the most: 1) Paizo really values their customers. That was really clear. 2) Some of the nicest people I’d met at such an event.

If you ever doubted that this is a customer-loving company, you were wrong. They collectively took many hours out of their Saturday to hang out with 30 fans. Very impressive. I believe Jason was there the longest (from about 10AM to midnight) doing Q&A and then running two back to back sessions using the Alpha 3 rules. Get some sleep good sir!

I wrote up some notes on the panels based on my memory and Russ's notes. None of this should be considered official Paizo information as it's quoted second hand.

The morning panel was a discussion of Paizo and their product lines. After lunch there was a panel on the industry in general.

RotRL: Erik stated that RotRL was iconic by intent, and they’re putting their stylistic mojo into the current and future AP’s. Second Darkness will be inventive as well, stepping aside from the “Age of Worms” style themes that were in Runelords.

Wolfgang Baur spoke on Fortress of the Stone Giants. Most other Giants had been given some amount of treatment already. Stone Giants just hadn’t really had a culture or an extended description in D&D previously. All one knew about Stone Giants is they were big and had bears. Also Fortress of the Stone Giants gave the Adventure path an opportunity to take a break from the “tone of overwhelming horror” and “Hillbilly Ogres”.

Commonalities between RL and CT are “save your homeland from a menace”.
CotCT: PF#11 Artwork – A skeletal rider on a skeletal horse. Very cool artwork! And the 4 iconics in the background battling away. There were some discussions regarding a haunted castle.

Second Darkness: The overarching theme of Second Darkness is back to “save the world”. “Oh shit the big bad is going down and you alone have the opportunity to stop it.” The AP will start in Riddleport but then travel into the Darklands. And they do mean travel, ultimately crossing half the continent -- Underground!

With the publication of the info on Riddleport in Second Darkness the major cities of Varisia will all have been detailed. This was part of their plan to have Varisia be a fleshed out area for GM’s to use fairly easily.

Drow are the bad guys of Second Darkness – not really news. Cool news is the just printed out artwork. As of PF#13 covers will be major NPC’s – the 12 Iconics will be completed. Passed around stunning artwork of an Elven General as well as a Drow Queen. Drow queen had a nice hand crossbow – good to see that.

Second Darkness has outer space elements. Movies that would fit in - Alien, Night of the Creeps, The Thing, Armageddon, Deep Impact.

Artwork: Cover art of the arch at Riddleport. Includes a meteor streaking across the background – looks to be landing somewhere nearby – wonder what that could be? :-) A couple Iconics battling a variation on wererats (looks like they’re being PF reimaged ala Goblins and Ogres) as well as giant Cockroaches! Bugs! Including a “Cockroach Swarm”. Ick! Love it! (Everyone was excited about Cockroach swarms. What do you want from a room of geeks?)

Side trek adventures - Pathfinder will start having two adventures in Second Darkness. The main adventure as well as an 8-10 page piece that is a complimentary adventure. The first one in PF13 is a thieves’ guild. Not directly related to the main plot, so it can be used for extra xp, running it as a one-off, or as a setting piece as a drop in for later use. "Relevant but useful out of context"

Gazetteer: They had a copy of the Gazetteer on hand. Erik showed off the included poster (note: easily removable – no x-acto required.) It’s a four panel map. Varisia is very small relative to the rest of the map! Huge Tracts of Land!

The decision to stick with Varisia first was to free up the rest of the world for development at the same time. The Gazetteer is designed to support traditional adventuring as well as political and culture-based adventuring. They are specifically designing out areas of the world more than others to give GM’s both “ready to run” as well as “open for your development” areas.

Initially Erik drew the world map as T-shaped then realized that it wouldn’t fit well on a 4-panel poster so got some assistance. J
Various areas of the map are themed around common fantasy, historical, or geographical themes. Vikings in the north, the Arch of Eridan = Pillars of Hercules. Asia-themed lands are on the opposite side of the globe, beyond the ice cap. Mentioned briefly in the first AP, will be expanded later. There will be room for gothic horror, Arabian, oriental....just not in the initial Gazetteer. Sarusan - megafauna and the aboriginal dreamtime.

Great eye storm in the southern hemisphere. Permanent fixture from when the god died 100 years ago. The pirates use the great eye storm to flee pursuing ships.

Plans to introduce some “sword and planet” into PF as they move along. “John Carter”. Golarian is just one world – idea of the “red planet” and “green planet”. Even ruined wastelands like Dark Sun. Dark Sun might be on something like the red planet.

Into the Darklands: Paizo is looking for a fully fleshed underground setting. I.E. you go down and there is a full environment that includes multiple races and opportunities for adventure. Should include some original races. Various literary references included – including the concept of the land of the dead underground. Introduces the concept of “Vaults” – underground pockets created by sources unknown. Wolfgang has submitted an article on a Vault for inclusion in Second Darkness.

Erik: Sometimes the gaming industry kinds of sucks, but sometimes you get paid for an hour of talking about whether or not Golarion is hollow.

Pulp fantasy is the underpinnings of Golarian sayeth Erik. Pelludicar was pushed for being an influence, but the bad nasty science people said Impossible! You cannot have a hollow world! It will fall down, boom. But the English Major says “It is cool! Make me a hollow world!” Seems the Vaults were a compromise they reached – especially when a Dinosaur Vault was mentioned! Ala Voyage to the Center of the Earth. (Dinosaurs can apparently convince James to screw with science.)

The vaults are like time capsules from different times (or dimensions?) in Golarion history. They’ve left it unanswered on who created the Vaults. The Thassilonians? The Sky City guys? The Gods? People in the Ice? Wolfgang has one of the possibilities hinted at in his upcoming Vault article – at least what he thinks the answer is.

There are specific Vaults laid out in the world, but plenty of opportunity for you to create your own.

Chronicles and Companion: Companion is aimed at players as well as GM’s. It replaces the 16-page player guides. First installment is 32-pages and subscribers get that 1st volume free. Elves will be a companion issue as well as Osirion (Egypt).

PFRPG: More than 15,000 downloads of the PFRPG rules so far. (A number of folks pull out home printed out copies at this point) As long as Jason doesn’t write, he can keep up on the boards. As long as he ignores the boards, he can write. He looked tired. L Bummed the D8 Paladin change didn’t get caught, for example. Release 2 errata by next week with any luck. R3 is coming along, includes monk, ranger, and bards. Bard will be included in today’s playtest!

Well-versed is a new bard ability, as is “performance of death”? More combat feats for rangers. Animal companions are optional. Noted that most classes that have it are now are being given an option of animal companion or something else.

Monks receive upgrades here or there. Will be the masters of combat maneuvers – bonuses to those as they advance in level.

Release 3 will include quick and easy character generation rules, includes NPC. Pre-made packages for the classes.

James thanked folks for all the valuable feedback. Results so far: No “new” new skill system. Sorcerer will be upgraded a bit more.

What isn’t in the Alpha (including the Alpha’s not out yet) is largely not changing. Jason has a prototype of a character sheet. There WILL be one with beta.

Beta book out in August. Free download of the PDF. Printed version will not be at much profit – 300+ page book would be expensive for regular folks to print, so they are offering it at near cost if you want a physical copy.

Final version in 2009 will not be free – download pdf or print. The year between beta and final is for quality reasons

Monsters are not in the PF RPG, although there are rules for adopting existing monsters. Expect some sort of Monster rules at some point.

Question: Final product for the Pathfinder RPG - how do you get the playtester names in them? A: 2 point type. Jokes about fitting the OGL on a playing card. They are not sure what it will take to get a playtest credit, it may be a signup process. If you recommend dropping or adding a class, you are OFF THE LIST :) They are improving the organization for playtest feedback as they go.

Pathfinder Society: All PCs in Pathfinder are members of the Pathfinder Society

Brought up for rewards for the living campaign - nothing solid yet, but under consideration. Pathfinder Society will be set in Absalom (previously announced), but it will go into neighboring countries

Five factions based on the neighboring countries, including Osirion and Cheliaxian. You chose your faction; it isn't based on your real-world location. You get faction prestige for meeting specific goals for your faction. Each adventure will include faction goals in addition to the primary group goal. There is talk of rotating out poor performing factions in favor of new factions.

Faction example: If the main adventure is escorting a caravan, you might get faction points for the Cheliax faction by stealing a specific item or getting information in the course of the adventure.

Special events are the larger cons which will have the most impact, but player actions will have some impact in general
GenCon: All the first-run authors for Pathfinder Society will be running their games at Gencon!
GenCon: Second Darkness will have a kickoff event too (that big Drow event that was mentioned)

Events will be orderable 2 a month (planned after Gencon)
"What RPGA lessons do you not want to repeat” Better way to Track Treasure. Make it fun and flexible but not easily abused, not too much time at the end of the table. LG had a bit of wasted resources due to regional adventures only hitting a few hundred instead of thousands. PF Society will use factions and allow adventures to be used anywhere.

The modules are in seasons, Gencon 2008 starts season 0.
Many had just returned from GAMA. Response to Paizo at GAMA was very positive. Game stores seem excited about product and running PF RPG. Feedback that many stores are happy to have alternative to 4E. Retailers on board for organized play.

Favorite part of Golarion:
Wes - The gothic horror nation of Golarion is his favorite area – still to be fully developed.

James - Likes the “underground area” :)

Vic likes Varisia.

Lisa - likes the River Kingdoms. A lot like the Bandit Kingdoms or factionalized dark ages Europe. Lisa also likes "Drenchport" near that hurricane coast.

Wolfgang wants to play around with the River Kingdoms, hard-bitten mercenaries, and people on the run, exiles and outcasts. A den for breeding adventurers!

Erik - Likes the work James is doing on the cosmology. Also in the southern continent, Nex and Geb. Geb has necromancers, Nex used to have arch mages. Geb blighted the land in Nex, so that the only useful land is in the cities. There is a palace that Nex the arch mage used to live in, and there is an extra planar dungeon within, he calls it “Castle Greyhawk” meets “Lost”. He also likes Numeria with the spaceship crashes.

Erik invented Cheliax. When he was younger Erik's family in Minnesota vacationed at Lake Chelan in Washington during the off season, and damn was it boring. So when he started to write fiction, the evil empire was called Chelan. As time passed the name was changed to something cooler and also less likely to offend people now that he lived in Washington State. :)
Used to be a good kingdom, but about a century ago their god died. Big shake-up. Ultimately the devil-worshipers “kept the trains running”. Not everyone worships them, but the leaders do, and have purged the nobility (some of whom wound up in the River Kingdoms rather than be executed.) Erik really enjoyed the image of Missionary diabolists :) Oppressive devil-worshipping colonists.

The 4th AP will be set in Cheliax!

RPG Superstar #2 will definitely happen. It will be smaller and tighter though – the 3 judges had to pull multiple all-nighters on the 1st one. Probably 1 fewer round.

Q: What is the future for Kobold Quarterly in terms of 3rd, 4th, PF
A: Wolfgang would love to have some PF content. Wolfgang has not seen 4th, he needs to make a call once he sees the GSL and the games.

Industry Discussion:

Company Philosophy: Lisa Stevens told of being with Wizards back when they first purchased TSR. Took a group down to Disney for training on the “magic moments” concept. Every employee is customer facing – make the most of every opportunity with a customer. Treat the customers with respect. Hire people who are passionate about gaming and enjoy interacting with customers. The message boards, blogs, et al are not a “secondary task” but seen as an important part of the job. Building customer loyalty is a strong corporate culture.

Erik states that answering customer questions is treated as a normal part of the job, so if you're doing it you're not "wasting company time" unlike at some companies. Erik says his job is unfortunately moving from fire to fire, and pretty much everyone's is, so there's not much point in complaining about being busy because they all and always are :) Paizo is now almost 6 years old!

Adopting their product to feedback is a big part of their model, because it is the best way to gauge what will drive sales long-term "We are all super geeks", "We gamed before we drove" - Erik

Lisa talked about the best years of WotC were when they all gamed, that the company lost some focus when people lost time to game (she had a 6-7 year break with no games.) Part of that though is just becoming a larger company. There are now 23 employees at Paizo.

WotC: Fallacies: Erik says they are not trying to beat D&D's brand, they are not going to. WOTC has a 2.5M marketing budget. So WotC D&D is going to continue to drive new player growth. In the world as a whole, Paizo grows out of people who move on or want to expand from D&D.

Erik compared the GSL situation to a contractor who says your remodel will be done in “two more weeks”. Two weeks later he says “not done, but just two more weeks”. It’s been like that for some time. Can’t base company decisions on things that haven’t showed up yet. Stake in the ground.

Erik met with Scott Rouse a few days ago, along with other publishers. He believe the exclusivity is real - no OGL + 4th E. Scott Rouse may be trying to push for some wiggle room with non-fantasy games and the OGL/4th E.

Question: Chris Mortika - New Game masters coming in over the next year or so, but with no 3.5E on the chain bookshelves what do they do?
Lisa pointed out there is 3.0 product (even the core rulebooks) in the channels, even now, so expects there to be 3.5E product available for some time. Discussion of the potential to offer SRD materials as well. James stated there is thought to including SRD stats (for monsters, etc.) but it eats up space.

Talking about the worst part of the job:
Lisa - paying bills on Fridays

Vic - sorting the spam folder

Erik - paying bills & work interfering with game time :)

Wolfgang - Freelancing is always positive, but at Kobold Quarterly....headaches dealing with contracts and not getting them done in a timely fashion at his end, not the freelancer's end :)

James - Getting a good submission, and finding he can't use it. Picking Nick Logue, PF #3, a castle article. Due to various reasons, it came in and was short, and was not on the right topic, so he couldn't use it even though it was obviously hard work. It happens to all authors, new to veteran. It’s hard.

Erik - They've even had cover art orders that they could not use. That’s really hard. Always an expensive decision to can a cover, due to needing to get a replacement fast. He’s found that if you as the publisher think the cover isn’t good, the cover probably isn’t good, and you should kill it even if it upsets people, because you will see the hit on sales down the road.

Wes - least favorite part of the job is contracts :) (Because it is like work)

Q: Do you fear the graying of the fan base? A: Absolutely. But we were worried about this 25 years ago. It’s always been a worry. Lisa - retail stores are a dying breed. 8-10,000 stores 25 years ago, she estimates < 2,000 now. Now online sales replace that, but that doesn't bring in new blood quite as well. You can't walk into a store and find the bulletin board saying "looking for players"

WotC's obviously got big efforts to expand marketing. Ultimately WotC D&D is the gateway to Paizo. To spread the brand, go out and get people to play and try it. The free period is partially to give folks a taste.

Writing for Paizo: For AP #4, there may be a closed call for authors. Pathfinder Society will have open call adventures in the future. Those will probably the best way to get your foot in the door going forward.

Getting into the industry: Go into RPGs for fun, not money.

Cultivate a pleasant board’s persona, flamers might get blacklisted. Being a local helps :) James jumped into a game advertised on Usenet with Jim Butler back in the 90s.

Lisa got her start by being a big RPG player in the 80s. She got roped into a new game company via her groups. Lisa says it took 6 years to get paid, and even then it was $100 a week :) Part of why Wolfgang left WotC was the conflict between work on gaming and actually gaming.

Some comments on play testing not being that much fun. Erik got his start by being a voice on the Greyhawk list; Lisa recruited him because she was the brand manager.

Nick Logue (not present) got on board at Paizo by being chummy and bringing chocolate macadamia nuts from Hawaii :) “That guy that brings chocolate” to “Nick” to “Nick that writes some good stuff” to “Nick that writes a lot of good stuff” to “Nick, we should really hire that guy”.

So the note is making yourself known :) And go to big cons, go to panels. And Erik says sell articles to Kobold! So the lesson is finding a venue to get noticed. PDFS, boards, cons, KQ, etc.

Has anyone converted any of the Iconics to PFRPG? At least, the classes currently available? If so, can you post here? Feel free to use this thread to discuss.

Going through this in depth for the first time, throwing out impressions.

This section seems to be a jumble of ideas from various sources. I'm not sure how well it makes things easier then in 3.5, really.

My thoughts:
I like the consolidation of some of the skills. That's great and long overdue.

Cross-Class skills should be removed. That table has always been klunky and I know alot of folks have houseruled these out. Honestly, if I want to have my fighter spend time learning to be sneaky, he ought to be able to do it. He has alot less skill points to spend and he has to wear loud armor, so he's not going to be as good at is as the rogue anyway.

Since this is supposed to be based upon 3.5, you should keep the skill points. The leap to a SWSaga/4E set bonus is likely too far for most folks and doesn't really fix anything. I'd present it as an option. I'd certainly use it as a DM building up NPC's, it's great for that!

Pete

I haven't been able to go through all of the document in very much detail until just today, so throwing out initial impressions. If this is already covered already, apologies.

My first throught on the Rogue write-up is that it's too complicated.

As a DM, this doesn't make my job easier. If I want to build a 14th level NPC rogue, I've got a number of minutes (an hour?) of time involved just in building the Rogue.

Again, just giving impression.

Finally had a chance to read through 1.1.

The product confuses me a little bit. The majority of the Pathfinder products are aimed at a DM. The Modules and Adventure Paths, etc. Sure there are a few things that Players might buy too, and a new subscription started for players, but overall the majority of the products are DM oriented.

But this new ruleset looks to be focused almost entirely on PHB info. Races, Classes, Skills, Feats, Spells, etc. Combat has a few pages, Running the game has a few pages. I was glad to see the bit on experience, for example.

As a DM, I really haven't felt that classes are all that broken. Building NPC's is a pain. This sort of addresses that but not enough. And even so, building monsters is broken too, and nothing much done here on that. Building encounters is broken at times, especially at higher levels. I don't see anything that helps with save or die and the power issues at higher levels.

This is a common problem that I've seen with some of the 3.5 add on products - they seem to focus almost everything on PHB variations. I'd like to see alot more DMG and MM "fixes" compared to the amount of pages devoted to the PHB.

Now, I don't need you folk to get all "but it has this, and it has that." Yes, I'm sure I missed this or that. Just giving a general impression that hopefully can help Jason et al think about some of the broader issues with 3.5 that they could address.

-Pete

Some familiar names got ahold of the interweb test rules and posted their experiences. Then some WotC folks weigh in on it in the comments with some rules clarifications.

Linkified!

A nice compliment is included.

Linkification

Text follows is from the Link:
Paizo’s 3.75
By The Game on Mar 19, 2008 in Editorial, Music, RPG

Paizo announced yesterday that they will be sticking with their own re-branded version of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 for their popular (and well made) Pathfinder series. The Pathfinder RPG will serve as the core book, which will update the 3.5 D&D Rules. You can even download the nice-looking Alpha document from Paizo’s site now. After looking through the rules, they incorporate what I consider some “no brainer” updates to 3.5, and nothing that struck me as brilliant game design. It’s also not nearly complete, since they just offer a selection of updated classes and such, still having the expectation that it’s an add on to the PHB.

I personally am not happy about this because I loved the first Pathfinder series, but I’m definitely moving to fourth edition, which means I won’t have a Pathfinder in the new edition. (I am glad to see that Necromancer Games, a Paizo partner, will be publishing an adventure path for 4e. I just hope it’s up to the same standards.)

Looking at it from a business perspective, however, this makes a lot of sense. WotC is behind in offering the big third party publishers the new license and rules to use 4e. Paizo is uniquely positioned with the existing 3.5 market. Judging from the divisive reaction to 4e (and those who just don’t want to pay money to switch rules) there will be a market for 3.5 for at least the near future. I’m not sure they had a choice.

Still, I hope they produce high quality accessories and adventures for 4e, even if they don’t switch for Pathfinder. The truth of the matter for me is that no one else is making products up to their level except Wizards.

Some friends over at Flying Lab Software got together this afternoon (March 14th) and had fresh baked Pie in their kitchen. Can you guess why and at what time they had it?

-Pete

PS: They're geeks.

Found this, scanned it in just for fun.

26 year old pic

Anybody got some from the same era? Older?? :-)

-Pete

This thread isn't about the content of the new release. Go beat that dead horse elsewhere!

So I watched all the DnD Experience vids and was glad to see the R&D guys fired up talking about their work.

I thought I would give a shout out to the good folks at WotC (we know who the "good" ones are, right?) for working hard on creating a new edition of the world's most famous role playing game. Good, Bad, Ugly, whatever it turns out to be.

If you kids can't manage even just a little "woot" I'm going to track down Lorraine Williams and bring her back! Don't make me turn this car around to 1996!

-Pete :-)

I'm curious if those in the know have some ideas of the impact that 4E has had on sales for 3rd parties so far?

Have sales of 3.5 materials dropped? Is there someplace this is tracked? (industry numbers, etc.)

Also, what's the impression as far as the Paizo impact?

Paizo lost that subscription revenue of Dragon/Dungeon, but my impression so far is that the new subscriptions they've come out with have taken off very well. Does anyone know if the new subscriptions have exceeded what they used to pull in for an average Dragon/Dungeon month? Everyone was PO'd at that, have they recovered that revenue and exceeded it at this point?

WotC seems to be doing an admirable job of shooting sacred cows for their primary campaign settings. This can only help 3rd party campaign settings and support materials, I would think.

So overall, is 4E good or bad for the 3rd parties? Bad in the short run (3.5 sitting on the shelf), good in the long run (reboot pushes new products - either to support 4E or to counter it.)

What thinks you messageboard masses? Anyone from Paizo want to comment?

-Pete

This is limited to those in King County, sorry.

I put in a request to KCLS.ORG to get copies of WP: Races and Classes and WP: Worlds and Monsters. They came through and those are now available for holds. Mine are down at the library ready for pick up.

I.E. You can read them without having to pay directly to WOTC for them.

If anyone outside king county has a local library, you might see if they take requests as well. It's a great way to check out books, cd's, dvd's, etc. without having to resort to piracy. Then if you really like it, buy it outright.

-Pete

I seem to have somehow clicked the wrong button and gotten this into my cart when I was looking at other items. can you clear it? Thanks.

This is a great game. I highly recommend it. You should check it out if you haven't already.

Yo-Ho!

-Pete

I'm running Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Wizards has some nice maps posted up for it on their website. I'd love to use some of the battle maps as is by printing them out in a larger size. Only issue is they seem to have all the secret doors and moster locations marked on them.

I always find it sad that there are these very beautiful pictures/maps/etc. posted that I can't share. I end up drawing a crappy outline on a mat and I don't feel like the player's get the same atmosphere, obviously.

What is your favorite way to get these type of maps "player ready" ? Go to town with Photoshop or is there a better way?

Pete

So I put this on here so others can see it and share their thoughts too.

I was a subscriber to Dungeon magazine and had a ton of issues left, so I received the first 5 issues of Pathfinder for free. (Like I said I had a ton of issues left). Those have all arrived and I went through the books.

Overall, I thought the books were nice. Production quality is excellent, I love the artwork and cartograhpy especially. The production and designer notes in the margins are great and I love the characterization that the team has brought to old favorites.

But.. I'm not subscribing. Here's why.

I've got a couple campaign's going and they're in full swing. So the whole idea of this "adventure path" is problematic to me. I need gaming resources out of a magazine, not a serial event. So even when I was getting Dungeon, they mostly were fun to read and I'd occasionally slip in a short module or two or steal some concepts here or there.

I can do the same sort of thing with the Pathfinder, but it's got so much history and serialized story to it that I'd end up doing alot of work to do so.

Another issue is that it's not like I'm starting a campaign from scratch all the time. So if the particular adventure path that's coming out for the next 6 months doesn't fit to what we're doing, I'm spending $20 a month for 6 months waiting until the next Pathfinder starts.

When Dungeon came out, there was usually at least 3 adventures - low, middle, high level. I could usually use something out of there with any of my campaigns. Not so with Pathfinder. I'm stuck in their serial story.

The price point/month vs. what Dungeon cost is a big factor here too. The wife gives me the eye over the gaming budget as it is. Spending $20/month ($240/year!) on books I'm not using is tough. For $20 I can get a bunch of .pdf content.

I think Paizo might have been better off giving the option of Gamemaster modules as the replacement for Dungeon. I would have preferred the modules at this point. I can slip the modules into an ongoing campaign much easier and I would have received more modules vs. the 5 books I have sitting on a shelf.

So for me, the decision is clear. I'm not going to pick up the 6th Pathfinder. I have the first 5 books. IF I ever do have a new campaign starting and IF we decide to do Pathfinder and IF we do manage to get to 15th level then I can pick up the 6th book then. Lot of IF's isn't it?

Similarly, when the next Pathfinder starts, I can pick up the first .pdf and check it out. If it seems interesting I can subscribe and get those. If not, I can wait until the next one starts.

Some of this also depends on how they go with 4th edition, because I know some of our guys are debating that as well.

I don't necessarily make these comments to knock Paizo, but to hopefully give them feedback about their market. All the people on these boards already saying "pathfinder's great!" are not who they need to get to buy the product. Most of you folks reading this are already subscribers, so give them some feedback on what you think they can do to broaden their market and strengthen the company.

I would be very interested to hear if Paizo is already aware of this and how they view it.

-Pete

Now, if you're not already sitting down, you probably should. I haven't read any FR novels. Ever. Not a one. In 27 years of playing DnD.

I just started playing in a FR campaign just recently. I was thinking of picking up a book or 6 from the king county library just to read over the holidays. Then I saw the list... oh my..

So! What should I read first? What author is worth reading? What should I avoid? Looking for opinions and/or pointers to reviews.

Thanks!!
Pete

There seem to be a lot of threads about the problems with 4.0 edition, even though it actually hasn't even come out yet.

I thought I'd start a thread to talk about the issues with 3.5. There are many, I believe. I recently switched from SWRPG to SWSaga and found the things fixed there to be great.

Some of my common issues with 3.5 gameplay:

Grapple

Spell casters quickly run out of things to do at low levels

Multiple-attacks become cumbersome at higher levels

Save or Die

The bloat of classes and prestige classes

New classes/prestige that are so specialized they don't fill the "core" necessities of a balanced party

Cleric's out of spells, time to go home

ramp up of new players

mapping is cumbersome and serial between GM and just one player

Players/GM cannot begin to try to remember all the various supplements that have been released.

Too much reading rules at the table, not enough playing.

Skill points too watered down to mean anything since all the checks are broken down on +5 increments (DC10, 15, 20, 25, etc.)

This is just a start off the top of my head. Please feel free to add.

In a number of spots the Pathfinder materials mention the dead deity Aroden, who was the patron god of Cheliax and Taldor.

I've been unable to find much information about Aroden.

What sort of deity was Aroden (alignment, philosophy, spheres of influence, etc.)

What deity would former clerics of Aroden turn to if they did not agree with those devilish Thrune folks.

If none of this matters, just say "make it up", that's an ok answer. But I'd rather not if there are answers in someone's head at Paizo.

Pete

So I received my last edition of Dungeon in the mail yesterday and it had "final issue" and all that. Heavy Sigh.

Anyway, I then remembered that I had signed up to get this new Pathfinder thing since I had a bunch of issues still to go. 5 free Pathfinder issues, who could beat that.

So I downloaded the players guide and it's pretty nice. Great artwork.

A question (and sorry if it's been addressed, I don't have the energy to go read all these posts).

A couple places in the players guide it says (in effect) "more details on this in Pathfinder #1"

So, my understanding is that the Pathfinder issues are 50pages of adventure and then 40+ pages of "supplemental information".

So how is it I can share this supplemental information with my players? I'd tell them to buy the Pathfinder book, but of course that's not going to work as it has the adventure in it...

Seems like there's a missed opportunity for sales for Paizo if they'd separate out the supplemental info that's player safe into a pdf or something so I could make my players buy it, rather them me having to print out multiple copies of specific parts of the pdf file.

Has someone already addressed this?