Pigtails's page

It seems like it could be a little fun puzzle once or twice if you had to scrape together gear, but I feel like ultimately the idea is that it doesn't add anything to the game outside of a few charts and extra bookkeeping because someone might be afraid of players getting specific magic items to 'optimize' their build.

I dunno. Seems like it could be a very flavorful system, but at the same time I think it would be much more suited to another game rather than PF.

I feel like Mordheim is probably the closest skirmish-level wargame with roleplaying elements you could get. With a few rule tweaks you could easily fit all the typical races and classes in from Pathfinder - PF does suffer from a lot of numbers and it is going to be a lot easier to go from rules-lite up than rules-heavy and down to fit a particular scale.

Since the rules are free and everything is measured in inches, you could easily translate the game to a grid and be fine (though three-dimensional movement could be a bit tricky depending on how you tackled it).

I've played Mordheim for a couple of years at this point with a variety of warbands and each and every one has been different. We've always modified a few of the rules so that lists would be less generic (there are obviously superior choices with the regular rules) and keep things a bit more balanced between the groups. My favorite part of the system is when characters are taken out of action - there's always a risk that they die, or end up as a captive to whoever you just fought, or even end up scarred and cause fear when charging foes! The whole system is just filled with little elements that drives home the fast that Mordheim is a wargame with a narrative, even if there isn't an explicit story in regular play.

I could talk about playing Mordheim for days I'm sure! Please though, do look it up - I think you would think it is a suitable game to look at and compare your ideas for a Pathfinder skirmish game.

The fighter has to meet the prerequisites for feats, otherwise he would rival the cleric in power. I mean, come on, he can take Improved Initiative and Dodge at level 1. And if they're a human they can take Skill Focus: Profession (Shoeshine) too! How broken is that? IMBA! NERF PLZ!

Honestly, if I was going to rework fighters from the ground up I wouldn't mind the feat-train we've been stuck with so far as that's actually a handy little setup. Adding in more wouldn't really solve any problems, but taking away prerequisites for sets of combat feats might be a good idea to help make a lower statted character get what they want to function.

I am not the hugest fan of 'preparing' feats or what have you as it ultimately seems like it would involve a lot more rules referencing than I would like.

What I would like to see in addition is something like the Grit/Penache points that, rather than tick down as you use them, build up as they act like more of the rough-and-tumble badass combatant we've come to see in the art. I just want to bounce spells of my shield or peel platemail open with a pick. Is that so hard to get?

I dunno. My 2c without looking over the posts before extensively. :B

+1 Ax Cozy of Love

To try and sum it up as succinctly as possible:

"They have it and we want it; we don't want something like it, we want it."

After all, if everyone is equal then why not let everyone get married and not jump through hoops to have power of attorney and this, that, and the other.

James,

Are you into Magic: The Gathering any? If you are, do you keep up with the story? Would like to know what you feel about the end of Theros block/Godsend pt 2.

I play a lot of Magic, and as such I own a toooooon of cards. A lot of the trouble is transporting everything I want to - sometimes I want to Cube which involves carting around the set as well as lands and this and that... generally speaking it's a rather involved affair. What I've come to do is get some of the (free!) shipping boxes from the local post office and cut them down to an appropriate size. Sure, it's not nearly as pretty as having something professionally printed, but it serves my needs well enough since I can measure them to fit in a backpack.

If the PACG cards are about the 'standard' card size i.e. can fit you regular UltraPros (blugh!) then most card/nerd stores sell these long rectangular boxes for a couple of bucks that can easily hold around 750 cards with sleeves and some room to spare. A pair of those puppies and you'd be set.

Or you could always have a kid. Maybe the return-on-investment won't be too great for the first few decades but at least you'll have another set of hands to lug around your precious cards for a while.

Edit: Yeah, these boxes. Especially good since they're plain white so you can write over them. Can slip in little cardboard dividers too.

Even if you expect the guards to be hiding elsewhere in the room, it doesn't help when the barbarian crashes through the wall behind them.

Even still, I would be pretty dang shocked if someone rocked their way through a door, ready to shoot or not. Perhaps the guards in a fantasy world are more used to it than us, but that's a pretty impressive feat.

Although at the same time, the cost of everything is potentially doubled, so everything sort of falls in line with what you would expect someone to buy starting out.

The problem isn't that Cyrad isn't talking about numerical minutia. It is a pretty big deal to have that change actually, especially when coupled with many of the other changes you have houseruled. When playing Pathfinder it is important to remember that it is a (war)game - bigger dice and +1s are important in a lot of ways even if everyone just sits and schemes or chats in a tavern rather than delve into dungeons.

I am not trying to say that a lot of your houserules seem to be made for the purposes of trying to jab the guy who plays the system, but there's not a whole lot of other ways to cut it; The five-level minimum for classes smacks of being afraid someone will eke out just a little more strength for their build so that they might outshine the part, among other things. A potential double in cost for all items could really short a character's effectiveness if their earnings are not on-par with your altered game and can afford the appropriate gear to keep in line with WBL.

I am sure this game could work out fine for you and your players, but as an outside observer there are concerns. You're moving farther and farther away from the framework of the rules with every additional houserule and while that can benefit the game in some ways as you can tailor it to your group specifically, it also requires a great deal of maintenance.

If you are going to 'enforce' low-stats being roleplayed, make it clear how much you expect that to come up. If I have a character with 7 Dex, should I be fumbling all over the place, or is the occasional wobble enough? What about a Charisma of 9? Things like this should be given guidelines other than 'be reasonable' because that can mean wildly different things.

Just my two cents.

I have a grievance -

"We've been very up front about this from day one - you do not become more powerful simply through the passage of time. You become more powerful through succeeding in doing meaningful things in game, AND the passage of time."

Doesn't time pass normally if we're trying to do something meaningful in the first place? Why is there a need for gaining xp on a timed basis if there are these achievement gates to deal with in the first place? We have to work towards completing them anyways and that takes up time. If it's to prevent people just burning through the path because they want to specialize, what is the real issue here?

This is a legitimate question of mine that I don't feel anyone has answered without injecting a fair amount of vitriol into their reply.

I feel like the 'company whisper' command would be just as suited to being a private channel of some kind, otherwise I could see a lot of conflict with speaking to players, characters, or companies with similar names.

I do think Urman has a great idea with the friends list matching though! Would be good if you started to type it had something pop up like a 'predicted name' bubble to pick from people on your list you could just click on to insert. Maybe it's a little much, but it sure would be a handy little feature.

As far as whispering characters in other games the standard is more or less to use quotes around the character name or have an underscore between names. Either option works and is fairly obvious. I find the underscore thing awkward a little bit (and know some messages have been lost) but I think it's okay as-is.

A neat idea might be to have an option to have something along the lines of a{ /whisper_player "<accountname>" message } command, although that would be a biiiiit tricky if people were multiboxing, but I feel like that would be a cornercase rather than something to really worry about.
Edit: the idea here being that you would message that player regardless of what character they are logged on as. I could see some complaints since it's not like you can just grab a new account if someone starts creeping hard or otherwise harassing you, but we have some safeguards for that, right?

@Senko: If you shot a hog with one, it would probably die I guess? I mean in my experience with hunting there really isn't too much with a hide thick enough to stop, or even particularly slow, a shot put into it - the main factor is where you put a shot. It isn't like people didn't hunt with early firearms or anything despite having bows around alongside.

Back to the subject at hand: does that mean that alongside gunsmithing the price for ammunition and the like is even further reduced Cyrad? I always felt like they were overpriced in general but never really bothered changing things around - the people who wanted to play with guns were gunslingers anyways since, y'know, it's in the name.

My problem is that it makes sense to target touch - unless they're otherwise unawares of the guy firing bullets or bolts at them, someone is actively trying to juke and dodge or otherwise not get hit so taking away their dexterity or dodge bonuses really doesn't 'click' with me. I can see why there might be some grievances but as it stands I think it makes the most sense to be hitting on touch AC at the close ranges.

More on the subject at hand: it's good to hear that your houserule is working out! Would be interested in seeing a bit more of a developed 'study' of a few gunslingers and groups to get a good idea of how things work.

James,

What would you say are the three most important features that define Golarion as it's own setting rather than just being "generic fantasy backdrop #38"? I've always found it hard to make things like the drow stand out as being different from the Faerunian ones, going back to an earlier question.

Maybe it's just because we're a bunch of sexed-up 20-somethigs, but I've ran a fairly eroticized game before which is still going strong (hurrdurr). Though the first session was the only one in person, we've been playing over Roll20. We fade-to-black if the idea is some kind of throw away fling, but otherwise we make remarks that get across the 'plan of action'. Sometimes there's character development or a good lead-in to some sidequest, etc. Sometimes it's just fun to do. It's not like there's anything wrong with it.

At the table I think you have to have a very tight group to be able to play something like this, but I am an advocate if you're of a mind - you learn a fair bit about both the players and the characters.

Something to point out: despite there being four guys with knockdowns/stuns/Hideous Laughter, this isn't taking into account the fact that the chance of them actually succeeding is only so likely - four saves against a DC 15 spell with a +12 bonus is different than four DC 10 saves with no bonus. You also have to wonder what the more experienced character will do with his own abilities as far as taking out his weaker enemies.

I guess the point is that we don't have too much to work with at this point in time (I think everyone is in agreement with that much at least) but it is a concern that should be kept in mind and paid attention too fairly closely because it could be a real problem otherwise.

We may not know all the variables in the system, but it doesn't take a director to recognize a poor film. While we aren't privy to the inner workings of the game it is obvious that people have grievances with the current system, and understandably so. Don't try and dismiss these suggestions as being made out of ignorance.

The posts on this board and the GW forums are all suggestions - ideas of what could be done to improve the state of the game. These aren't demands. No one is cursing Goblin Works for their design choices. We're just trying to get across the point that we something that doesn't quite seem to work out the best and offer an alternative.

That said, I approve of Keign's suggestion here in just about every way.

I feel like this should be tied in with the 'grappling a succubus' thread.

Personally, I am against arbitrarily limiting the speed at which someone can advance - it smacks of a certain lack disregard of recognition of the casual (and to an extent the hardcore) player by putting forwards a 'rich get richer' scheme.

Bob starts up a month before me. We both kill 500 goblins a day. I still earn the same XP as him and while the gap between levels does begin to shrink as it takes more time for Bob to get that next tier of whatever, I will remain behind him though the disparity between characters will not be so incredibly pronounced. This is debatable acceptable - in any other game if I kill 750 goblins to his 500, I'll get that much closer to being on-par, and eventually we would become equals. Here? No such luck.

Now say Bob has been playing for three months, six months, a year? The gap between our characters is a gaping chasm and will remain as such no matter how much I do until the time Bob stops his advancement entirely or he hits the end of the line.

That's not something I can get behind.

I believe that this system fails to recognize certain playstyles at all. As is, it looks like the idea is to have players go for the 'long term' and eschews much of the game-y aspects of other titles on the market for, perhaps understandably, a very different take on the current MMO scheme. Unfortunately this system forces players into playing at a particular pace than working at their own and that is not healthy - there will inevitably be a group of old farts with characters months old that will dominate the more competitive scenes of PvE/P with no real room for 'fresh blood' to move in until they too become old dogs.

Banned for having facial hair in the first place.

We initially agreed to call the kingdom Great Kenoin (an anagram for 'Greek nation' since we all had pretty Greek myth-inspired characters) but just settled on Kenoin starting out - we'd eventually stomp enough ass to add the 'Great' part after liberating Restov.

As a general note, October 11th is National Coming Out Day! So mark your calendars for that! Volunteer! Walk in a Pride Parade! Celebrate(sexily; responsibly)!

Or, for the gunslingers missing their first attack in the fight:
11. Ker-click! Looks like you forgot to load powder into your weapon!

43. I have an addiction to ale, whores, and stimulating the local economy.

There used to be Magic the Gathering commercials, but they stopped doing them since they ended up being pretty silly.

Sure, you could make points about playing with friends or telling a story collectively or going over all the SUPER FUN AND ENGAGING MATH you get to do when making a character, but who is that directed at? The people who are already interested in playing Pathfinder in the first place? There could be some really fun, quirky ads I'm sure but ultimately I don't believe that it would be a wise use of resources to try and reach out to demographics that wouldn't touch a d20 with a ten-foot pole or do math for fun since that is, you know, a majority of who you'll hit with the ads in the first place unless you're trying to hawk the game on specifically nerdy channels (and, odds are, they're already aware of D&D at that point).

Of course, RPGs just sort of sell themselves anyways - it isn't like there is a lack of demand on any level.

Well, I know I am a sexual poster at least. :B

@Liranys: Yeah, I have a friend who is asexual. It was a little hard to believe at first since he makes so many dirty jokes and hangs around with some pretty overly sexual people, but I guess there's no reason for them to be any less crude or to hang around with us just because we're a bunch of perverts.

Happiness, Power, Friendship, Love, Revenge, 'That really shiny thing I MUST have!', Peace... etc.

There's far, FAR more than just sex as a possible hearts desire, I suspect that in fact sex is probably near the bottom of the list (except maybe for 13 year old boys).

I dunno man, you've seen those pictures of Seoni right?

On the subject again: a heart's desire doesn't naturally have to do with being nasty as all hell - maybe they just want to own their own business, be successful, be worshiped like a hero, etc. If you are playing one of those particularly styled games though, you can hit up F-list or something or some site that is less safe-for-work than the Paizo boards for plenty of educational information on the subject of 'kinky with a side of creature.'

I feel like the exhibitionists and voyeurs of the world would celebrate the momentous occasion.

It would be promptly taken down.

Pen of Erase

while drunk. It

Here is the present list of my reading (well, the Conan writing at least). Been a while since I read any of the good ol' Hyborian stuff.

also thank god for free stuff like wow is this nice wikisource you are the best

@Pigtails

Technically shields are worn, like armor.

But they can also be used as weapons. See the problem? Regardless, you can't use the steal maneuver to take them from someone in the middle of combat if they're using it per the rules given in the APG.

I think that it just has to fall to the GM to see what qualifies as acceptable given the situation.

Human Fighter wrote:

Sword and board example, you can't disarm a shield iirc

It's true, you need to use the steal manuever to get the shield.

Or just sunder the shield if you don't care about the loot particularly (or someone has Mending), since at that point they have to be carrying around a backup or be willing to defend with half a broken shield. Perhaps it's a bit easier to yank the thing off their arm but it's a whole lot more satisfying to just chop it in half, you know?

EDIT: Actually, wait, can you steal a shield?

You can attempt to take an item from a foe as a standard action. This maneuver can be used in melee to take any item that is neither held nor hidden in a bag or pack...Items held in the hands (such as wielded weapons or wands) also cannot be taken with the steal maneuver—you must use the disarm combat maneuver instead.

Because that doesn't say to me you can steal a shield off of someone who is actively holding it.

Also RAW you can disarm a shield I guess, but that should prooooobably involve some house ruling on the matter of how difficult it would be (maybe a +5 to CMD? more?) since of the straps and whatnot.

So far as the whole 'roleplaying feats' goes, have you guys just thought about giving people more traits as the game goes on? They aren't particularly powerful but it does give a progressive bonus in a lot of ways that can give you bonuses to saves or crit damage or whatever without the need of making a 'good feat' or 'bad feat' list.

I particularly don't like the idea of giving players a feat every level. While it may help get some builds off the ground sooner (something I wish was more possible with the rules as it stands) some characters would end up having nothing to spend them on unless they're able to hit the prerequisites at the level in the first place, and if they can't it just sort of bloats character sheets unnecessarily unless you allowed people to 'save' feats up or retrain them.

The benefit of disarming someone rather than bonking them on the head is mostly because it makes them less of an immediate threat - a fighter without his trusty +2 flaming sword of fire does markedly less damage than one with said weapon. It forces the guy into spending actions either drawing a new weapon(likely inferior), retrieving the one he just dropped (likely provoking AoO), or using his fists (both of the above problems). By disarming an enemy, you are acting as an enabler/controller which is just as vital a role as doing direct 'you're dead, bub' damage.

For starting gold, I guess we might use the 'average' for the class?

Count me in then! Was thinking something along the lines of a 'tanky' Phalanx Soldier/Sacred Shield - had a rough plan before but the game never got off the ground. Of course, considering the fact that we'll be starting with two variant rules I've never used for combat, hopefully I can hammer out something at least semi-effective!

Is there any particular way you'd like character sheets done up? How frequent might you want posts to be? Can't say I've done a game on the Paizo boards before so not entirely sure if there are particular norms I should be keeping in mind.

This sounds like it could be pretty cool. Would appreciate some info on how exactly this is going to work though! That said, dotting.

...and got an early preview of the pain spells she had in a more intimate setting.

I wonder if there is a 3PP spell called 'Lower Lipstitch'...

Lurked in the thread a bit and something relevant came up in the office the other day, so I thought something should be said on the subject of

Do not expect everyone to act with 'common courtesy' (as The Minis Maniac described) when interacting with people currently transitioning - a lot of folks have never dealt with that situation before in their lives. Be mindful that they aren't being ignorant or (possibly)offensive on purpose and don't get your panties in a twist about the fact that they aren't as 'in tune' with the situation as you think yourself to be. It's a learning process; referring to one of my coworkers as he took a while to become second nature, and we've been sitting next to each other for the past two months, and I like to think of myself as pretty hip when it comes to social issues like this.

If you are going to speak up and remark on how to act when interacting with trans* people, be polite and don't act so put-upon; it smacks of a certain smugness and feeling superior on a certain level.

I would assume the reasoning could be that the +dex to hit makes some sense given the nature of the weapon in question. Or it could just be an oversight on some level.

In any event, as the rules stand, you can apply ranged enchantments and whatnot to the dart.

Well, what is the problem exactly? Do you personally have an issue with the character's advances on N/PCs? If so, you could bring it up out-of-game with the player and try to explain the situation. If other players are uncomfortable, you could all get together and have a conversation.

If it's mostly a GM "something nasty is going to happen" problem, a child might be an angle to approach, but unless they've been adventuring for the better part of a year since the conquest in particular it's unlikely there will be a little babe to greet them - certainly some room to play with the idea that the father isn't known or something.

Personally, I wouldn't do too much; odds are I might be that player. :B

Make sure they're aware of the big party-smashing monster if they're not aware already - particularly bold heroes may rush in and fight against the thing if they're not aware that it isn't meant to be fought. Eventually though it won't be too out of the question for them to delay/avoid/sneak around/outright kill the abomination or otherwise to turn 'running away' into 'running towards'.

While a good crit can take someone out of a fight, the same goes for either side - the baddies have to deal with six adventurers who want them just as dead as the other way around. I'd put my money on the PCs to pull through in most published encounters set for the level rather than not - they're a fair bit more durable than what you might think when looking at their sheet.

If you are not running a pre-written set of adventures or something, keeping things balanced should be easy enough considering you have an APL of 2 right there and so have plenty of enemies to pick from that are at a 'normal' CR in groups and as single enemies. You have a lot of enemies for making encounters of acceptable difficulty without having to worry about killing everyone (or even anyone) off; no need to pull punches if you're being vigilant about designing appropriate combat scenarios.

I've been using Roll20 to play out Kingmaker for a while now, and so far it hasn't been giving me too much in the way of grief - not only can you import the Stolen Lands maps pretty easily (sizing them can be a bit finicky, but once you get the hand of it the process is fairly painless), but you can also use hex tiles from the marketplace or free resources if you want something a bit more 'personal'.

A good trick is to set all of the icons like gold bars or forts (and possibly the corresponding map letters) on the GM layer, and once the hex is explored you can just swap it into the token layer when they discover it.

For later on when they get to making their kingdom, it's also pretty easy to make outlines with the line tool and whatnot.

Conversely, there's Hexographer, but that probably won't work too well to meet your needs.

Edit: One thing needs to be said about the drawing tool and that there is no 'erase' tool unfortunately. When you finish drawing up a line or a shape it becomes it's own object that you can scale and move and stuff, but the only way to take out a little bit is to remove the whole object and start again.

Also someone will draw a phallus on the map within the first two minutes.