Philip Dhollander's page

By the way, I managed to snag an original boxed set of this epic adventure off a second-hand website. 100 bucks for a complete edition (with some wrinkles, but that is to be expected with a box that was published in 1995)

I am just kicking of the mega-dungeon "Night Below". An Underdark 2E adventure.

I ran through most of it like 20 years ago when I started playing D&D but we never finished the campaign.

Now, I am picking it up, as GM. And converting it as good as possible to Pathfinder.

I skipped book 1 (my players don't like levels 1-5) so we kicked it off with the absolute end of Book 1 (Garlstone Mines) and we're now going into book 2 after 3 sessions.

Good Times!!! I am not changing the massive treasure haul, so I know full well that my 5 players will have 2,5X the normal equipment by the end of Book 2 (so around level 10). But that is part of the fun for me, and helps with the pacing. They should cut through most of the challenges with relative ease, making for a more-than-one-encounter-per-say play style (which is what we had when we ran it in 2E/3E mode).

And the true boss monsters and especially the long finale of Book 3 need either an army of NPC's and/or alliances, or wel-equipped smart players. I'm option for option 2.

That being said, where does one post his adventure logs on these forums these days? Been years since I posted on Paizo and a bit lost now :)

Hi Guys,

I ordered 4 decks of items cards over a week ago (order 3698225) . Still pending.

I sent three mails about that, no reply.

I understand you are swamped from other posts, but I need some help here.

This item is supposed to ship to my company address in NJ, USA. I am there until coming Wednesday. Flight leaves Wednesday night. If the order has not made it to NJ by Wednesday noon, then I will have to cancel this order entirly.

Please let me know what the status is and whether you can still meet this deadline as I assumed two weeks would be enough...

Thanks!
Philip

Just a question: it is "uncontrolled" and treats the "caster" as an ally... so it is a liability on the battlefield moving in random directions? Or can the caster influence where the swarm goes? Otherwise the usefullness drops drastically...

But I love the item :-)

No reviews? Hasn't anyonbe bought one of these? :-)

No reviews yet? No one has bought this pack yet? :-)

No reviews of this product? No one has bought it yet??? :-)

What Tin Foil said:
***
Why don't you take a break from playing until you get an itch again?
***

Don't do this. It will always end bad:

1/ you actually don't miss it that much and disconnect completely...
2/ You miss it, you start again after a while, but that doesn't bring the spark back...

I've seen it happen to multiple players before.

What I would recommend:

1/ Take the GM chair for a while and rule the world (sort of)
2/ Switch system for a while. Discover a new thrill. Maybe you'll like the new system and you're hooked to it, or you realize the 'old' system which didn't spark you anymore suddenly does so again.

What I tought I'd recommend is to play epic/mythic, but reverting back to 'normal play' afterwards hurts and seems so bland, so I'd skip that :-)

"Paizo's writers and editors are really awesome. They have such an amazing grasp of the rules and everything they touch turns to gold. I really, really, really like everything they're putting out. The balance, the flavor, the power level... it's just perfect. Kudos Paizo employees!"

"Monks really can hold their own in the party against mostly anything our GM throws at us. In fact, he frequently outshines the barbarian and I think I need to take the barbarian's feelings into consideration and tone down my monk and take less of the spotlight in combat"

Hi Liz,

Any time for an update on the card list? :-)

Pretty please? :-)

Die Gotterdämmerung wird schiessen!

Yeah, came up with that name after watching Iron Sky :-)

My alchemist found a masterwork blunderbuss (prototype) in our Way of the Wicked campaign and called it: Gotterdämmerung!

Very appropriate :-)

In the meantime, it's the equivalent of a +3 weapon and it can kick ass!

Ring of Counterspelling with Dismissal keyed to it might work for awhile. The odds of someone having Dismissal prepared multiple times is unlikely.

Unless your GM is trying to get you... like by targetting the Shackles with a shatter and then trying to follow through with a dismissal or banishment... :-)

Want! Want! Want!

Dotting for future purchase!

Soooo... was this an April's fools day joke or serious? If serious, I'm game! :-)

I'm a player in WotW and I'm an Alchemist. Great fun all around and very versatile!

We also have a sorceress, I think she's mostly a blaster with favorite spells like magic missile and scorching ray. And she has the infernal bloodline, which fits very well thematically in the campaign.

Furthermore: Ranger/rogue (gestalt) and Anti-Paladin.

But the wizard with his toolbox of spells for every need would be highly useful. There's so much to do in that campaign, it's awesome: sneaking in, sneaking out, outsmarting the good guys, defending a keep (sort of), ...

I wouldn't specialize if I were you though!

I don't know how to do it mechanically, but a system without classes, just a menu of abilities to choose from at each level, with prerequisites of course.

Put simply:

The class is called 'hero'. The hero gets the following abilites:
Lvl1: Saves +1/+1/+1; BAB +1; 1 Feat; 4 skill points
Lvl2: -
Lvl3: Saves +1/+1/+1; BAB +1; 1 Feat; 4 skill points
Lvl4: -
Lvl5: Saves +1/+1/+1; BAB +1; 1 Feat; 4 skill points
Lvl6: -
Lvl7: Saves +1/+1/+1; BAB +1; 1 Feat; 4 skill points
...

Choose
A/ Three MINOR abilities (you can only select each ability once) at each level. You must meet the prereqs (if any) before you can select an ability with prereqs.
B/ One MINOR and one INTERMEDIATE abilty at each level. You must meet the prereqs (if any) before you can select an ability with prereqs.
C/ One MAJOR ability at each level. You must meet the prereqs (if any) before you can select an ability with prereqs.

MINOR abilities:
+2 Skill points; +1 Feat; +1D4 precision damage; +1 BAB; +1 Fort Save; +1 Reflex Save; +1 Will Save; +2 rounds of rage per day; +2 rounds of performance per day

INTERMEDIATE abilities:
+5 Skill points; +1 spell known & +1 spell slot of the highest level you can cast; ...

MAJOR abilities:
- +10 Skill points
- +10 base land speed (can only be taken 3 times in total)
- Magic user (you can learn and cast spells; only one spell list which is a combination of divine and arcane);
- Channeling (prereq: magic user; you can use a spell slot to channel energy, can be used for healing or damaging)
- Fury (you can rage: +4 strength, +4 con, +2 will saves while in rage. You can rage for 2+con mod rounds per day);
- Iron Skin (prereq Fury): DRx/- where x is half your class level
- Trap sense (you can detect and disable mechanical traps and gain a bonus on your save versus traps equal to 1/2 your level);
- Improved trap sense (prereq Trap Sense; you can detect and disable magical traps);
- Musician (something like the bardic songs with inspire courage)
- Vituoso (prereq musician; but can now inspire competence, etc)
...

Of course this is a flawed example, but I just wanted to get the idea across. Endless versatility with one core class :-)

Hope you get the jist :-)

... provided he manages to hit the ground, that is :-)

Well - theoretically speaking - if the OP has a character that has the air-subtype, then he can treat - by definition of the word 'foe' stated above - the ground as an opponent of the earth-subtype (he feels a strong dislike or antipathy for it) and declare the ground of the empty 5 foot square between his opponents as a foe and attack it, then cleaving on into the rest of the 'normal' opponents.

Smart tactic! I like it. As to rules, nothing to add to the above posts :-)

-Don't try to control other people's characters, or boggart their scene.

THIS :-)

Oh oh oh... the 'Tom & ses Chums' movie... I love that one too!

It's a classic at our weekly table too :-)

Now, developers these days come up with elaborate or simple minigames so that the players actual skill comes into play.

What you described is attempting to produce the same satisfaction of completion through what amounts to an in-game movie cutscene free of any real player input.

Now that's an interesting point of view... you're basically saying that some of the mechanics should be based on the actual skill of the player? Not the skill points on the paper? Good luck with that, I would say. So long for all the introverted players playing an extraverted character by investing in skill points. Sure, we - DM's - give a +X discretionary bonus for a smart way of formulating what you want to achieve/say. But to disconnect the skills on paper from the skills in real life is for many a bridge too far...

But if that is the way you see it, why not step away from the CRB/character sheet / skills / feats / abilities altogether and go for true method acting. Describe all the time what you want to achieve and if it sounds plausible (read: if the player is smart) then the character succeeds...

Or did I misinterpret your statement?

By the way, about the 'boring' stuff such as disable device to circumvent traps...

Yup, it's a roll, a d20+modifiers...

Pretty much like an attack roll of your favorite fighter or barbarian, yeah, that's a d20+modifiers too!

The magic starts when you describe the action. Everyone can imagine that sword strike gutting the opponent or chopping the head off.

What's needed is an evocative description by the DM of how the disable device roll of d20+X translates to the disabling of the trap.

Make the rogue fumble with those lockpicks, make him see an obscure opening in the wall, testing it with a rod and then his hands. Describe what he encounters with his hand. A rubbery bag, cold to the touch. It is still somewhat moist. Could be a poison bladder, connected to a tube and then to a nozzle under the lock... etc.

You're the DM, you make the story (and the magic) happen. So do your DM job and watch the smug look on the rogue's face as he just disabled that lethal trap by rolling a simple d20+X... :-)

Guess I'm in this category too, whether you call it 'normal' or 'traditional' or not-overly optimized.

I've never level-dipped in the 15+ years of playing this game. My characters so far have been 100% cleric, 100% fighter, 100% sorcerer, 100% alchemist. I 'optimize' within the bounds of the class, usually only using CRB and part of the APG. (in 3.0 and 3.5 an occasional one-off feat from a splatbook which had to be DM approved)

As a DM, I expect the same from my players.

My play style is to do nifty stuff (but I'm never the DPR/DPS monster, don't overly care for that). My DM style is to continuously adapt to my players' needs. I feel the 'vibe' and I adapt. I can throw a CR 10 or a CR 6 at them in the same encounter, depending on how well they are organized/prepared/optimized. No worries. I wing it, just like that and the maths will be 80-90% correct, but no one will notice.

I have the luck that there are no true rules-lawyers at my table (well, one sometimes tries, but he is very reasonable).

So, +1 to 'normal' roleplaying games with lots of NPCs, lots of interaction, lots of coolness. And -1 to over-optimized stuff, makes for 1 or 2 round combats and I find that anti-climatic...

Well well...

So I posted my opinion which does not seem to agree with most of the negative rogue-bashers on this forum.

And in that comment I wrote that I did not read 10 pages worth of comments and houseruled some of the spellcasters.

Result: I get shooed away... unworthy of stating my opinion. Quite literally.

I've got to say that the general attitude here (and yes, I can generalize too!) is making me stay away from the Paizo community. It used to be great. It used to be positive. It used to be fun. (for me, of course). But these days, it's one thread after another stating that virtually every class sucks (except barbarian with the invulnerable rager and superstition combo). The OP states that fighter is better than rogue for a few reasons, although I can find dozens of threads that fighter sucks and that even rogues do better at almost everything.

What I wrote was that I did not read all 10 pages of comments and yet it was interpreted as if I didn't read a single post and hence couldn't comment in this thread.

What I wrote was that I houseruled the caster class(es) and yet it was interpreted as if I had houseruled everything (nerfed it) to make sure the rogue stood a chance.

I didn't write any of that 'interpreted' stuff. I did read quite a few posts (although not 500 of them, mostly bashing on the rogue and by extension on the developpers). I didn't nerf all classes to make the rogue look better.

Please don't jump to conclusions that are not there.

All I was saying (and like all others here, I think I'm entitled to an opinion) is that I find the rogue does NOT suck. Sneak with bleed is vicious (especially if it can drain strength... I saw a rogue take down a strength 30 opponent to a measly strength 12 by the time the critter went down...).

It's about tactics, it's about teamwork, it's about playing smart.

And it's also about the ability to do a lot of things outside combat, things which the über barbarian or standard fighter can not do.

That makes the rogue versatile and that's what makes him cool.

That's my opinion anyway. And I'll probably stop reading and posting on the forums here, as it has a bad taste to it, especially the negativism (but I repeat myself)

Cheers all!

I like rogues 'as is'.

I haven't read the past 10 pages of comments, but I can't find the problem with rogues.

I do however houserule some of the other 'very powerful' (YMMV) classes... magic users of all classes have some powers reduced. Fighter gets a small/medium boost. Barbarian is ok 'as is'.

A lot depends on the DM and I let all classes and players shine.

So no, they don't suck. Their DPS (or whatever that cr@p is called) is 'low', but I let them shine in other ways (skills, social, ...)

But that's just me!

Roll 1D10 for initiative i/o 1D20... makes dex and improved initiative really count. Takes away the randomness and rewards specific builds.

please add me too!

PS: using some of the initial ones already, mostly to boost the fighter and the monk and bring them more in line with say the barbarian and rogue :)

a very large catapult...

I almost blew my coca cola through my nose reading that... thanks!

You, sir, win the prize for most original (though terminal) solution :-)

By the way, is it me, or is the OP (question) running at least three threads with the same arguments simultaneously...?

thread 1 I found by briefly looking at the OP's profile

and

thread 2 I found by briefly looking at the OP's profile

By the way, the OP is trying to make a point I think, judging from this quote from the latter thread:

As i mentioned in the last thread, spamming the forum with about 10 FAQ threads for one class ability is not very productive. But if Paizo REALLY wants us to do that, by all means, have someone from Paizo post here saying "yes go ahead make 10 threads for this hex, we will then look at it".

Guess he didn't wait for someone from Paizo to tell him to do so.

Oh my god... this is still ongoing?

Amazing, simply amazing...

Some people have so much time on their hands, I'm jealous.

I see the same arguments and comments being rehashed and rephrased every so many posts.

It's being handled (and has been on the queue for quite some time). It seems to be a complex matter to solve (more so that the things fixed in a single post and five minutes). We have a guarantee (by SKR) that ALL faq's will be addressed evetually (or simply parked if no errata is needed)

So leave it be guys, seriously...

Thanks!

And SKR (and other Paizo posters): amazing amount of self-control in your posts here, I would have replied less eloquently and polite at some of the replies here.

Same problem in Belgium :-(

No love for Mummy... :-(

No card list? What can we expect in this set. Interested, but need to know roughly what I'd get...

thanks!

Wow... just wow!

One of the best resources I've found online in a looooong time!!!

Scorching Ray with several applied metamagics... best to include energy subsitution too for good measure :-)

Split it, empower it, quicken it and subsitute it... or something of that nature :-)

And slap some feats on it, so the metamagics cost less of a slot increase!

Still a ranged touch to hit, but touch AC will always be poor in comparison...

Congrats neighbour! :-)

Good luck man, and I'm sure we'll still see you around some day :-)

Just re-read this little gem. Awesome stuff. As I'm running a campaign in the Bandit Kingdoms and Iuzian territory, I'll be using a few of these.

I hope you find the time to keep writing these conversion, they truly are excellent!

I'm hiding in your closet is a huge fan of David Bowie and has been buying the same make-up ever since he saw the first video clip of his hero.

Well, placed a bunch of votes (quite a few) and the duplicates start showing up, even pitting one item I already read and voted on versus another one of those... and then there is the 60 seconds cooldown...

I understand why that's needed, to avoid spamming of votes without reading, to dissuade the dishonest among the voters, but still, it turns me off... the voting takes too long, although I really want to do my part in this!

meh... just meh...

Many of the items seem to have pricing issues. Way too cheap or way too expensive. Strange!

On a sidenote, some of the entries... nice... others... well, not! :-)

Haven't seen a Superstar Item yet though.

I guess this reference from 'River of Blood' refers to Castle Maure?

The Poems of Thalac Jiwo (value 30 gp, 2 lb.):
Written by Thalac Jiwo, also known as Thalac the Sighted, this is a collection of prophetic poems.
Although his prophecies are thickly buried in riddles, word-play, and vague descriptions, scholarly wizards agree that Thalac was an amazingly talented seer. The volume is written in Old Oeridian.
A poem near the middle of the book has been circled in blood red ink. Entitled "The Lowborn," the poem contains the following passage:

When the mystic device doth shine
o’er broken basalt walls
And nameless echoes sound
within the Dreadful halls
We’ve come upon the date
of the Gathering of Eight.

Oooooh, shiny little gem, this thread!

Fits perfectly into my home brew campaign, fully based on strung-together RPGA Living Greyhawk modules (which I own, all of them... my preciousssss!)

My players have already run through 'River of Blood' and went into Bluto's house and found a reference to the Octych and saw the old eight-pointed star on the ceiling. And had a premonition of the 'Lowborn' as written in the module!

The Octych will be back, and a stop at Castle Maure is in the works, in many many levels...

Exciting!

But this thread is golden, as it fills in a few blanks for me. Thanks to all the contributors!

@Eileen: do as I did; start a cool Greyhawk Campaign with all the nifty stuff Gary Gygax dreamed up (which I adapted to part homebrew, part canon) and just use the Pathfinder ruleset :-)

Wow, what's wrong with going to a strip club and blowing 200+ bucks... as long as you're only watching, right? Right?!

Sorry for the joke, couldn't resist.

On a more serious note, I've been with my wife for 16 years, married for 4. Recent child of 3,5 months old.

I've been gaming for uhm... 13 years or so, D&D all the way.

We've had a conflict about 11 years ago when I was DM'ing two groups at a time, all night on Tuesday (6 pm - 3 am) away from home and all afternoon Sunday (1 pm - 7 pm) at our place. At that time, my wife (girlfriend at the time) said: "it's either the hobby, or it's me"

So I quit RPG'ing alltogether for about a year and was profoundly unhappy... I looked for ways to get back into the game, but couldn't start a conversation about it.

Then I made a compromise: one group only, on Tuesday night, so not at a time when it would conflict with our time together (on a Sunday) and away from home.

No worries since!

In our case, it was about the game and the fact that it was too much (two days basically), the fact that she did not have a real hobby and was stuck at home and the fact that she finds it a 'silly hobby'.

She's still not into gaming, still finds it a 'silly hobby' with minis and fantasy and dungeons and dragons... but she tolerates it, including the prep work I do as a regular DM.

When the baby came, I took a month off playing to take care of my wife and child and took a player's seat. That worked fine! And now, I enjoy my weekly games again :-)

So, best of luck to you, but talking really helps. And sometimes, a compromise is needed.

By the way, I'm 35, just for reference.

Welcome aboard! :-)
Enjoy the ride!

Level 1: Alarm, mental ping on the outer door and some crucial intersections, where several hallways meet. That'll get you every time!Have the mage show up and catch/chase the culprit.

3.x spell, not sure whether translated into PF: Guards and Wards. Nasty!

Level 2 (I think): unseen servant, made permanent (lvl 5). Have 3 or 4 of these roam the house. It would be logical that a lvl 18 caster doesn't have to carry around his own tray of tea and biscuits. Or clean up his mess or laundry! Even at night, they roam and do some chores. Big chance that they see the intruder and go wake up the mage!

Lvl 4: divination (he IS a diviner, right?). "If I go to bed now without securing the house and hallways with an alarm spell active, will I have an intruder tonight/will anything be stolen tonight?"

Just some options :-)