Playsvillains's page

Is there a place where I can find versions of the maps in, say, the APs that don't have the numbers on them?

I'm really interested in attaching the artwork from the modules/ APs themselves to a foam core board, cutting out each room, and laying them down as they're discovered like a puzzle. Honoring the artwork by actually showing it to the players, rather than having it go to 'waste' on the GM.

All that aside, didn't Age of Worms have two versions of each map?

Would it be difficult for Paizo to put up the maps sans numbers as an errata-like release? I bet a lot of people would be really grateful, especially if they were accustomed to it from the original APs...

I just got my hands on a Harrowing deck, and I'm immensely pleased with how easy it was to pick up. I'm wondering if anyone's come up with more games to play with it, different styles of reading, or, especially, if anyone has elaborated on the interpretation set.

Given the ease with which a 'core' understanding is achieved by the product, I'm wondering if there's another level, post-basics. The guide's kind of ambiguous, I find, in interpretation rules. For the core Past/Present/Future core reading style, it would be nice, for instance, to have more detailed suggestions about... how to interpret *causality* between cards. Specific issues include:

-What, specifically, is the difference between a True Match and an Opposite Match? It would be nice if the differences weren't just a matter of *degrees* of truthiness, but flavors/ style differences indicated by the different kinds of matches.

-For a booklet, the descriptions of each card were totally fine. But it'd be really nice to have longer ones, especially with bulleted alternative interpretations (dependent on type of match or position?)

-How does 'role' interact with the reading? The sample reading at the back made it sound like it's completely up to the individual reader, and while I'm not lazy, some guidelines here would be really nice.

-I believe, traditionally, that Tarot cares whether or not cards come up right side up or upside down. How could this be taken into account?

So yeah! Is there a follow-up guide planned? Has anyone made such a thing unofficially? Anyone have suggestions regarding these issues?

-Paul

Hey, all!

I know that in the old days, encounter design used to include monsters that vastly overpowered the party. Gives you that 'world doesn't only exist for us' feel.

If I wanted to throw something like that into my campaign, and then reward the PCs for just... successfully running away...

Are there guidelines for experience point awards in that situation? Or am I on my own?

Thanks in advance for the help!

So the preferred methods of GMing this encounter seem to be:

a little foreshadowing

alternative attacks like dropping a church on her

clue them in to the fact that it is a limited-time fight.

If she just turns tail (#3), is there an AD HOC experience reward?

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

As far as chatroom gossip and other sources seem to indicate, my impression is that Ultimate Magic didn't go Thassilonian because Ultimate Magic was supposed to be free of world-specific content; however, it's possible that the Campaign Setting line might revisit Runelord magic at some point in the future. Keep an eye on the blog for teaser and spoiler posts for the Campaign Setting line...

This is correct.

Thassilon and the Runelords are very much a part of Golarion. As such, they're world-specific flavor, and aren't allowed into the rulebook line at all.

This is one of many reasons we're doing Inner Sea Magic later this year at Gen Con, in fact—so we CAN talk about things like the runelords in the context of rules.

I wonder if there was a discussion about whether or not to actually *measure* a character's sin... for the purposes of boosting Sin magic? Perhaps as a meta-magic feat that 'takes note' of acts the mage devotes to this purpose?

...A lot of what the bard is is rightfully focused on adventuring, however, in a world with magic, music and the arts must be wonderous, with music and performance arts augmented by magic. What would be the art scene like in Golarion? Who would be patrons to the art? What would music be like? What about performance arts? I'd love your thoughts and will post mine as i develop it in my homebrew.

I'm running a Rise of the Runelords campaign right now, and I'm really excited about Magnimar for this exact reason. It's the 'City of Monuments', and when you think that the entire city is barely a century old, that is a whooooooooole lot of sculpting.

This means that there's a lot of money being thrown around for civic-identity purposes. So for me, it's absolutely essential to create a host of sculptor-celebrities for the nobles to fight over.

If that grabs you, read the list of monuments for the city article in RotRL #2. It's a callout, but still...

Janderhoff as one of the sky citadels should have access to the Darklands if you want to be truly adventurous. Also you might want to look at Irrisen as a destination for trade. However the article on Magnimar in Rise of the Runelords suggests that the primary trade of the city is the exporting of artefacts from Varisia's past to Cheliax, Absalom and Osirion. You should also note that with Cheliax's expansionist dreams on hold, Cheliax shouldn't be considered a hostile coast line and should be considered a potential trade partner. The Jade Regent AP will allow you to potentially export over the Crown of the World to Tian Xia.

Perfect. Lots of options to consider, thank you. Chelliax as a trading partner I'd never considered, but that's an excellent point.

Opens up all sorts of moral dilemmas, too, for PCs involved with that trade. Especially if that's a *significant* source of their wealth. :)

Check out the Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale. It details the reopening of an overland pass through the Mindspins between Korvosa and Nirmathas. Long abandoned due to various natural threats, if it were reopened for trade caravans, by your PCs or otherwise, it makes a great way for Janderhoff to get good to central Avistan overland.

That's a good point. If the module were modified to make it a Janderhoff-ian and not Korvosan effort, and then it were assumed to be successful, they could open it to both cities.

The major problem is that it's so damn close to Korvosa, and with dwarves being such an insular people, relying on mined and forged goods and trading those for absolutely everything else (as I understand it), it makes a lot of sense that it would be Korvosa that opens... and then keeps... that pass open (as the module has it). Hard to convince the dwarves to step outside their mountain fortress, I would imagine...

I'm trying to justify the Italian City-State-ness of Magnimar (specifically I'm thinking Florence, I don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere...), and to do that, it needs to be a major artery of trade and artisan-ship. Seems like raw goods come mostly from the south, via ship, when they're not harvested locally... but the *markets* for those goods couldn't come from there. It couldn't be bi-directional. Cause it's one massive coast-line of *Enemy* (Nidal... eesh... and Cheliax).

So you've gotta puncture that eastern route (to get to 'civilization', where they'd appreciate fine goods, and have the cash for them), and it has to bypass Korvosa (who tax the hell out of everything and have serious animosity, I understand, for Magnimar).

Varisia itself is supposed to be a largely untouched wilderness. So it has little in the way of domestic markets.

Sorry if this is too complicated.

Is there another option I'm missing?

Hey, guys!

I'm trying to understand Varisian trade realities (or invent them, if need be)...

Here's my main question:

----Does Janderhoff have easy access *across* the Mindspin Mountains?

I understand the Treaty of Crystalrock provided for a trade agreement between Cheliax and Janderhoff, while Korvosa was just an outpost of the former. I want to have a part of my campaign featuring the Magnimarian desire to befriend Janderhoff on its own terms, and perhaps sabotage the earlier Crystalrock Treaty...

If I'm a Magnimarian merchant, can I make provision to transport my goods up the river that leads to Janderhoff, and then pay Janderhoff a fee to get across (well, *through*, I'm hoping...) the Mindspin mountains, and thence to the whole of Avistan? Perhaps there are great freight elevators I could use to bring my goods from sea-level-ish up to the peaks, from whence I could coast down the other side into Nirmathis/Lastwall/ Fangwood... and thence to Lake Encarthan. That seems to be the logical desire, no?

This would be crucial, in my opinion, to bypassing Korvosa.

You'd accept raw goods from Garund by sea, refine them, combine them with local goods of open-sea fish, fabrics, and lumber, and then ship them up the rivers to Janderhoff where... I'm hoping that, being dwarves, they've tunneled a route *through* the Mindspins.

So everyone who's been thinking about the economics... please chime in!

Many thanks!

-Paul