Ravenlute SBC _Prophecy_'s page

Beastiary 1 p 342 describes Covens and lists spells they can cast.
Click for Coven description.

1. Since Covens may consist of monsters of different levels and abilities, how do you determine the spell DC for these spells? It does not call them Innate spells.

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After the coven is formed, each of its members gains elite adjustments, adjusting their levels accordingly.

Click for Elite adjustment description.

Increase the creature’s AC, attack modifiers, DCs, saving throws, Perception, and skill modifiers by 2.

2. Also, since a Coven increases DC's for all members by +2 due to becoming Elite, would that also increase the DC's of the Coven spells?

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All covens grant the 8th-level baleful polymorph spell and all the following spells, which the coven can cast at any level up to 5th: augury, charm, clairaudience, clairvoyance, dream message, illusory disguise, illusory scene, prying eye, and talking corpse. Individual creatures with the coven ability also grant additional spells to any coven they join.

3. When it says 8th-level Baleful Polymorph (a 6th-level spell), does that mean it's heightened to an 8th-level spell?

4. If a Coven made up of level 3 creatures cast Charm could it still be cast as a 5th-level spell? Could they cast that Baleful Polymorph as well?

Round 1
Action 1: the character Hides.

"You cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step."

Action 2: the character wants to stay hidden but doesn't want to move. Technically they aren't doing anything but they are also not actively Hiding, Sneaking, or Stepping. Do they have to make another Hide check?

Action 3: Same thing.

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Round 2
Action 1: Again, just wants to spend the entire round hiding and doing nothing else. Do they need to make any additional Hide checks?

What are the different ways you can Restrain somebody?

I've seen getting a Crit on a grapple check.
Binding with rope or manacles.

Are there any others?

Pull

Requirements Your opponent is grabbed or restrained by you.

1 Action (Attack trait)

Attempt an Athletics check against your opponent's Fortitude DC.

Critical Success You may stride away from your opponent up to 10 feet. Your opponent follows you the same distance and same direction. You may choose not to stride the full distance, or at all, and your opponent moves up to 10 feet toward you until adjacent. This does not break a Grapple.

Success You may stride 5 feet away from your opponent. Your opponent follows you the same distance and same direction. You may choose not to stride, and your opponent moves 5 feet toward you until adjacent. This does not break a Grapple.

Critical Failure You fall and land prone. Your opponent loses the grabbed or restrained condition if it was from your Grapple.

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This is essentially a reverse push with a grabbed/restrained req. with consideration for a restrained opponent that is not adjacent, such as someone bound by rope and being pulled from a distance.

My order has been pending since the 6th. I was hoping to have it by now for an upcoming event. Anything I need to do?

The Powerful Leap feat changes your Leap so that you can jump 5 feet up. (p. 264)

When using High Jump, and not Powerful Leap, a success lets you jump 5 feet up. (p. 242)

So, since High Jump uses the Leap action (p. 242) and a DC 30 to increase the height of my jump, how much more does it add to the height on a normal success with Powerful Leap? How about a Critical?

It wouldn't just stay at 5 ft because then it wouldn't be an increase, as stated.

The Nhur Athemon event has a been a breathe of fresh air. Just fun all around. Much easier with 6 in a party instead of 4!

Great write up Jokken!

I am really looking forward to the Nhur Athemon event!

Check it out!

If you know it, please provide info to fill this out.

We only had a short time to play around with this but I wanted to point something out. When my party killed a Goblin Warchief boss at the end of an escalation, some but not all of the party members recieved Rogue maneuvers.

Should everyone in the party have gotten one or only the people who landed an attack on the boss before it died?

Let's throw a little organised chaos into the world. Announcing the Barbarian Brawl! Melee only, FFA, blood splattering fun-times!

Check it out!

If a Company that is not part of a Settlement claims a Tower, what is their PvP window? Does it remain 23/7 or does it randomly get assigned one?

The attacks in-game already list all their keywords so what is the benefit of ranking them up?

I have not been able to find a single Tier 2 Gem from mineral nodes since the resource allocation. Is anyone else having this problem?

The color on the chat tabs needs to be much more varied when a message pops up in a chat you aren't looking at. Right now it is a tan color that lights up to white. You can hardly tell.

The next time I send a whisper to someone nearby and I don't get a response because they are in the 'Help' channel, I am going to walk up and stab them in the face. Repeatedly. While shouting, "why don't you ever check your messages! You never text back!"

Yeah. So, drastically different indicators of when a message appears in a different chat tab than you are on would be wonderful. Thanks.

Ryan gives his explanation on the PFO xp system in this new article.

Solo combat using melee is fine. The mob targets you and you fight it.

In a group it becomes stupid. If you do not have agro it is very likely that you end up chasing after the mob being kited by a teammate. I have to sprint in order to catch up to the mob so that I can land a single hit. Then the mob gets slightly out of range so I have to sprint to catch up to it again so I can get my next hit. In that short time any effect on the mob like Distressed that might trigger something on a secondary attack has worn off.

All in all I end up constantly sprinting after mobs just to get in 1 or 2 hits before it drops from arrows or spells. Trying to use something to stall the mob doesn't work either. It stops it sure but as soon as you get the next attack ready to go it's off and running again.

Not cool.

Since we've got a functional Goblinworks forum are there plans to close up and move away from the Paizo forum or will we be straddling both for some time yet?

Here's a pic of the items from the New Player Pack once it is open.

With the inability to swivel characters on the creation screen it makes it hard to see what some of the options are, specifically hair styles.

Does anyone have pics of the various character creation options?

This wouldn't be as much an issue but you can't delete a character if you get it wrong without waiting an entire day.

For example, the Hair 3 option on the elf male is a ponytail.

The Hair 4 option on the female dwarf is also a ponytail.

Can someone remind me what putting ranks in a Gathering skill does besides act as a countdown to the next Tier? Is it only gathering speed? Does it improve the amount that can be drawn from a single node?

I've taken the paperdoll from in-game and mapped how the items and feats react to each other. I also created a quick Excell doc to go with it that you can fill out to help plan your character build after you download it.

Paperdoll

Excell Doc

You'll still need to look up what the items and feats actually do but this should hopefully make it easier to sort it all out.

Ideally in the second column 'Name' you would just click on the space and get a dropdown list of all the available options for that particular item or feat slot and then after choosing it the keywords would auto-populate in the third column. I have squat in terms of programming knowledge however so I leave it up to someone else to take this bare bones layout and run with it.

In case you think this out of character for me, I did it all in nothing but my loincloth. :D Cheers.

I would give a small child for a /sit emote!

It's not my child but who cares? They would be yours now!

(It's the one useful emote I can use in any game and not having it is making me just a wee bit crazier.)

kthxbai

Here's a short article: What Went Wrong?

One line in particular hit home so I'll repeat it here; "however, a strong community is just a foundation on which to build."

Once that community gets in the game, what is going to keep them there? What experiences will they have that will make them tell their friends they should play this game instead of another one?

Farther on in the article they talk about delivering new content. That seems like a purely themepark issue but it isn't. As a Sandbox game under constant development PFO's new content will be new graphic models, functions, abilities, etc. They will need to constantly keep us updated and give us something to be excited about to stay in the game. Wurm Online has done a good job of this with their updates and I hope PFO will do the same.

Due to the restrictive Settlement templates for the WoT and the unique mechanic of Deities and domains tied to specific alignments, will these be in the game during the WoT?

Will a Cleric be able to train and level their spells and such from any Seminary and Temple for the entirety of the WoT? Or will alignments and Deities be added in, causing some Clerics to suddenly not be able to train because they can't find a Temple worshiping a Deity that matches their own alignment?

I worked my ass off writing this fine document so let us give it a spotlight, yeah? Thanks to the other Settlements in the NC that took the time to look it over, make some minor tweaks and give it the go ahead.

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Non-Aggression Pact

1. Protection

1.1 All Structures and Members belonging to NC signatory settlements are protected from assault by Members of any other NC signatory settlement.

1.1.1 Accepting a contract to perform a function for a third party's interests, be it caravan guard, point of interest management, or otherwise, removes the preface of non-aggression.

1.2 Protection Coverage

1.2.1 Terms of the NC apply only to NC signatory settlements, their holdings, and their members unless otherwise stated.

1.2.2 Players entering or leaving NC signatory settlements guarded by 4 or more NC guards will be extended the courtesy of Non-Aggression.

2. Consensual PvP

2.1 Companies and Members of NC signatory settlements may engage in Consensual PvP with each other so long as terms have been discussed and all involved parties are in agreement beforehand.

3. Conflict Resolution

3.1 Conflicts between NC signatories will be dealt with diplomatically through the leadership council and their designated representatives.

Additional Terms

1. Joining the NC requires a Settlement to receive unanimous approval from all current NC signatories.

2. All Settlements within a signatory Nation automatically become a signatory of the NC. They may not opt out as long as they remain within that Nation. This supersedes the requirement for a Settlement to get unanimous approval from the NC signatories.

3. Changes to any terms of the NC must be negotiated, and a reasonable time period given for negotiations in order for signatories to arrive at their votes. Drafts must be provided to Settlements (via representatives) and decided upon before any public statements about NC business are made.

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The following Settlements agree to the Terms of this Pact and having signed below are now considered signatories of this Pact.

Callambea, July 2104

Aragon, July 2014

Golgotha, July 2014

Freevale, July 2014

Mystical Awakening, July 2014

Kreuz Bernstein, July 2014

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Bow using Cleric I'm looking at you. Great range, good maneuverability and can heal self.

You are going to be spending your hard earned money playing in a game to have fun. Some enjoy being told what to do. Well this isn't a message for them.

This is for those of you who don't want your fun to be shackled and abused by other players telling you what you have to do and what you can't do. By their very nature, Lawful Settlements will have to impose and enforce more laws, more rules, more chains. They will dictate what race you can be, what role you can play, what craft you can make. They will demand that you gather a number of resources, steal your money with high taxes and require you to log in every day to get your next set of orders.

Breathe.

Chaos is Freedom.

Step out of the shadow of tyrants and into the streets of Freevale. We offer freedom of choice, the right to have fun playing your game the way you want to play. That's what you came here for, right? We don't expect you to schedule your life around us, and we aren't going to take all your hard earned coin just so that some glorified puppetmaster of a mayor can get a new sword.

Just breathe.

Freedom is Freevale.

Our Settlement is built in mind with the Citizen first. We want everyone to Speak Up and Be Heard. Freevale's Settlement design is crowdforged in all aspects, from the location we want to the structures we're going to build. We are a Settlement of multiple Companies and Free Agents, not just a guild with a town.

When you first heard of Pathfinder Online, a dream was born. Come live out that dream in Freevale.

Dwarves. A race with a penchant for mining, singing and kidnapping young human girls. They live in great stone caves built to overcompensate for their squat stature and fill it with gold that they never use.

It's not easy living that lifestyle and sometimes a dwarf just snaps. They start drinking, cursing and getting into fights with their mother-in-law. It isn't long before these outcasts wake up from an all-night rager and discover they've accidentally killed everyone around them.

No longer allowed to live in their cave, these outcasts are thrown out into the world with no guidance and no family.

We at the Stone Bear Clan understand the suffering, the rage and the hangovers. This is a call out to all of you Dwarven Berserkers who can't return home. We will be your family and help you become the destructive force of nature your soul has always craved.

Seek out the Stone Bear Clan and Be Legendary!

So... how stringent are the requirements for joining a settlement in-game? Aside from the obvious alignment and reputation restrictions, can anyone just stroll in and say, "hmm, I like it here, I'm gonna stay," and make themselves a member of the settlement without having to wait for any kind of approval from the mayor or whatever the ruling body of the settlement is?

Specifically, what time PST, will we need to lock in our decision on settlement placement for the landrush?

Just what kind of roster are we looking at for weapon types in PFO? Will we be getting the full workup of everything in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook?

For certain structures that require a monthly investment to maintain, would it be possible for players that do not own the structure to help maintain it?

Down the road, if GW ever decides to give us the ability to have social pets, I would love to see the Goblin Devs as based off of their forum avatars.

That is all.

Ugh, there are far too many Lawful and Good cookie-cutter guilds out there right now. I know there are some Barbarians in sheep's clothing milling around, looking for a place to belong.

Throw off the guise and join the Stone Bear Clan, the only true home for Barbarians in PFO!

We are focused completely on the Barbarian Way, our unquenchable thirst for combat and our passion for drink and a legendary life.

The Stone Bear Clan is not beholden to anyone, person or Company.

If you enjoy PvP and want to get the most out of it, then we're the group for you. We've got over a decade of PvP experience with a variety of games including Shadowbane, one of the most iconic FFA PvP games to hit the market.

If you want to play it safe and boring, then be a sheep, but if you want challenge and excitement stop being a pansy and Become a Barbarian!

-------Join the Stone Bear Clan now!-------

1. Pathfinder Online will have Open PvP.
2. Open PvP means that you have a good chance of being attacked anywhere that isn't a safe zone.
3. Sometimes you'll be the attacker.
4. Attacking someone that you aren't feuding or having a war with will bend your alignment towards Chaos.
5. A whole lot of people will be slanted toward Chaos throughout their playtime.
6. Chaos wins.

So stop pretending. You're going to have a Chaotic character and do a bunch of fighting. You may as well join the Stone Bear Clan, that's what we do.

This message brought to you by Stone Bear Clan: Be Legendary.
*The Facts may not be true.

As the Landrush approaches, more people are coming back to the forum and creating new Companies to participate. I don't know if this will get any takers but I wanted to put it out there. (It is unclear whether structures for these Companies will be available in the settlement or as POI's but we will accommodate the needs of the Companies however the game mechanics allow.)

The settlement of Prophecy is actively seeking the following Companies:

A Church Based Around The Worship Of A Chaotic Deity.

Faith is a strong and important factor in Golarion, nearly everyone venerates one or more of the deities. We believe it would be a boon and community builder to have a Company devoted to the worship of one of the Chaotic deities (Gorum, Calistria, Desna, Rovagug, Lamashtu or Cayden Cailean) in our settlement.

A Tavern That Never Runs Dry

A good place to meet, get a drink and gossip would be highly valued and frequented often. A Company looking to own and run a tavern will be welcomed with open arms.

Will it be possible to drop items on the ground and retrieve them or will they only exist in bags and inventories?

Your Off Topic Discussions forum and the Pathfinder Online forum are currently being spammed! Can anyone do anything?

Settlement Name: Prophecy
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Tax Rate: What? (Varies, tbd)
Leadership: Democracy
Sponsored by: Stone Bear Clan
Website: http://prophecypfo.guildlaunch.com/

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The Voice has urged that we become known.

We are a haven for free thinkers, free speakers and freedom fighters.

Those who feel shackled by the Laws of others are welcome to find refuge within our walls.

What some call Chaos, we call life. This is what we offer.

Live as you choose. Die as you choose.

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Developed to be one of the few Settlements willing to go "full Chaotic", we are embracing Chaos and all it has to offer. Primarily, the freedom of it's citizens to direct and shape the form the Settlement takes on.

Stone Bear Clan is sponsoring the creation of Prophecy and as such will be vying for Barbarian training, something that few others will offer.

The governing body known as the Council of Visionaries will consist of 2 delegates from each Company as well as 2 chosen by and from the citizens that don't belong to a company. This Council will be guided by the Voice, a member of the Council voted to lead the Council meetings and act as the Settlement representative when needed. A new Voice will be appointed every three months, of which the current one cannot be selected.

The primary duty of the Council of Visionaries is to vote on what direction the Settlement goes in, what develops and in what order. They will also be responsible for vetting new Companies and citizens.

Prophecy would ideally be located in the Mountains but Hills would do.

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Landrush Info *IMPORTANT*
To promote Prophecy you must join it's sponsoring guild Stone Bear Clan during the Landrush event.

If you are a free agent or otherwise not already entangled in promoting another settlement and think having a truly Chaotic Settlement would be fun or beneficial to you then we would love your support! We are devoted to offering benefits to Chaotic aligned characters that you won't find anywhere else.

If you are a Company that has an interest in joining Prophecy then please post here or on the Prophecy site forum.

For those looking for a challenge or who like to play on Hard-Mode, this is the place to be. It will be an experience like no other.

Name: Stone Bear Clan
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Patron Deity: Gorum
Motto: Be Legendary
Values: Strength, Bravery, Cunning
Favorite Drink: Anything with a kick
Website: http://stonebearclan.guildlaunch.com/

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There is a great void in the landscape of the River Kingdoms that we wish to fill. The land of the free is being overrun by the Laws of military men and profiteers. It is time to take what is rightfully ours. We are beholden to none. We choose our own path. We are the Stone Bear Clan.

We are a barbarian themed Company of chaotic nature. Ruled by the strongest, our motives are ever changing. If you want to be part of a group where your actions really matter, we're what you've been looking for.

The Stone Bear Clan follows a Chief who is always the strongest among us. Any warrior of the Clan may challenge the Chief for leadership by Trial of Combat. The winner is the Chief from that point forward until they are defeated in a future Trial. (More in-depth details will be given at our site.)

Every warrior has a voice and they are expected to use it. Ignorance will not be tolerated. The ability to shape this land is ours, we must simply let the world know.

Great acts of bravery and magnificent deeds will be proclaimed and sung from every hill and mountain of the River Kingdoms and beyond. Seek out adventure and bring glory to your name!

Join us and create your own Legend!

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There has been public discussion on the fact that there seems to be a lack of Chaotic presence. I have taken up that challenge to form the Stone Bear Clan, a purely Chaotic Company with a barbarian theme to it. That does not mean you must have the Barbarian Role (Class) to join, only that you are prepared to embrace the violent, passionate, work hard, play hard lifestyle it entails.

We encourage any and all people of the Chaotic persuasion to join us. Neutrals will be tolerated. Lawful will not be accepted.

Initially formed from a family of Kellid folk fleeing Nemuria, the SBC has come to enjoy the freedoms of the River Kingdoms. They now see that threatened by the hordes of pioneers entering the lands and forcing their petty laws down everyone's throats. They aren't about to become "slaves" to these false barons and will put down anyone who tries to tell them differently.

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The SBC is seeking to establish a haven for free thinkers, free speakers and freedom fighters. That will be a separate post.

What's the Harm?

This article has frustration written all over it. Still it brings up a point that I mentioned before. Exploits will happen. How they are dealt with will say a lot about GW.

So Goblinworks, I really hope you have some plans in place for when these things go down. Plans for small scale and large scale. For exploits discovered right away and for those that players have been doing for extended periods of time. That you have easier ways of tracking the information so you can find it when needed. Give players the ability to police each other with exploit reports that are useful to the devs that have to deal with it.

Really, I'm just asking the fine folks at GW to have contingency plans vs exploits and go over them together as a company every now and again like fire drills back in school. So when they happen, the response will be fast and professional.

To the players, don't be lemmings. If you want a top-notch enjoyable game that retains it's players you need to report those exploits, even if you think it won't harm anyone or it 'might' be okay. Resist the urge to do it or let is slide just because everyone else is.

If we start off with a community that doesn't tolerate exploiting than it will be easier to deal with it and the people who abuse it as it occurs.

It looks like ESO is taking a similar approach to PFO in allowing characters to potentially learn "everything".

My Endgame is Not Your Endgame

The games are entirely different but I just wanted to point out the continued character progression.

Now I expect this will be a more and more common theme in MMO's but there is a certain danger in allowing everyone to be everything.

Champions Online suffered a bit from this fate before going F2P and creating "classes" for their F2P players. If a player can create a character that can do anything, they will not have a reason to team up with other players. If a challenge is too difficult or dangerous then players will team up for that task and then split off into their solo adventures once it is finished.

PFO, while allowing a character to learn everything, is restricting how available those skills and abilities are. So it is likely that you will still have characters focusing more on tanking or healing or controlling, etc. which will (hopefully) help to encourage teaming. That's in addition to the "encouragement" due to the FFAPVP aspects of the game.

Like Kickstarter has become a good way to get funding for a project and Twitter is a good social media tool for updates and minute to minute coverage, Steam has become a useful platform for upcoming games to pre-sell or introduce their games to a wider audience then would normally be possible.

I think PFO would get a lot more folks to give it a run if it was available on Steam. It shouldn't be Steam exclusive but it would be good to have it available.

Offering OE on Steam would not only allow PFO to reach a much wider audience but provide some more funding which is often a good thing.

I was poking around and found this article which goes into the difference between rules and restrictions in a FFA PvP Sandbox MMO.

I didn't see this particular article linked here in my search but I may have missed it. Even so, it's worth another read through.

FFA PvP Sandboxes

As the subject line: Do items have to be equipped to be Threaded or can they be in your inventory and still protected?

I would very much like to see some sort of trade/storage system that would allow someone to stash items/money for another player to retrieve later on payment of a C.O.D.. This can be as simple as a mailbox or bank of some kind that the players visit to trade. I think it will be needed because of the time it takes a player to bring materials from one location to another. A trader might travel half the map only to find his buyer has gone offline. And if I was the buyer I sure wouldn't want to hang around waiting for a trader to get to me only to have them not show up.

It would prevent a bit of scamming as well since payment would be required before the items could be retrieved.

I'm not asking for a mail system, I like the idea of traders running goods through out the game. But it would make the actual trading a bit more ideal to have these drop boxes.

Everyone knows by now that you can train up in pretty much whatever skills and roles you want and swap them out and such, but how many roles can a character embody at one particular time?

Could I have a Greataxe wielding, lock-picking, magic missile shooting character? Are there enough 'slots' to equip the required spell casting item, lock-picking tool and the greataxe?

It's clear that you can mix and match at least 2 roles, but what is the maximum?

I've played a lot of MMO's and some of the most memorable moments are ones that have happened in a PvP setting.

One such moment was in Age of Conan. It's not a FFA PvP game but it does have arenas and siege zones where PvP is enabled. It is also important to point out that there are skills you can rank up in that game as well, including Stealth. All characters could learn Stealth and it was encouraged to have at least a little bit if you played PvP so you could have a chance of sneaking around. There is also a Perception skill that you could activate to counter the stealth, it wasn't automatic.

So, on to the story.

My guild members and I were helping defend a keep during a siege in a PvP enabled zone. We had arrived early to discourage enemy scouts and came up with a fun little game while we waited. We had our Conqueror (a warrior class) stand in the fields outside the walls, then the rest of us formed a half circle around and behind him and fell into stealth. When a lone enemy came upon us all they saw was the Conqueror by himself not moving around and more often than not they thought they would get the jump on him. Of course once that single enemy blew their alpha strike on our wonderful meatshield we all jumped out of stealth and slaughtered the foolish soul.

The best part was that we did this more than once while waiting for the siege to gather forces. All because of a lack of communication on the enemy side.

I bring this up now because of the recent stealth discussions. A tactic like this seems plausible with the current setup as well. If the hiding players are equipped with ranged weapons/spells/attacks they could stay out of range of perception of an enemy taking the bait until it's too late.

Remember:
1. Don't travel alone.
2. If you do travel alone, assume no one else is.
3. See 1.
4. Players are tricksy.