Raymond Carroll's page

My concern with Pathfinder Society is that I am trying to draw in those customers who are interested, but never tried Pathfinder. Pathfinder Society (in my experience) would draw in those who are familiar with the product. So making it official PFS might not work for what I would need it to; drawing experienced gamers rather than allowing new-comers (many of whom are curious regular customers) to sample a game.

Running a PFS adventure might be good, but there are certain concepts I want to get across at least once as examples. Combat, magic, traps, but most importantly role playing and creative interaction. Even more important that tactical strategy is role playing.

With this in mind do you guys have any more suggestions?

To those of you who posted: thank you for the advice and I will take this all into consideration.

I have been asked to run a demo game. Well, it was my idea to drum up interest in RPGs at the store I work at. I work at a comic book store and am the resident gamer. None of the other employees know very much about gaming and aren't very confident that we could become a place for RPG hobbyists to purchase their books, dice, miniatures, ect.

So, here I am with the future of gaming on my shoulders... or so it feels. It kind of sucks that its all on me, but its the lot I drew in convincing my manager to order Pathfinder books and insisting that I can sell them. I know I can! I just need to let gamers know we have them and will be able to get more of anything they need. I need to get people who haven't ever played Pathfinder to try it just once and see how awesome it is.

To be completely honest, 85% of the people who have come in (who are gamers) are not satisfied with the 4th edition option and have gone back to D&D 3.x. Somehow, they have completely missed Pathfinder.

SO...

I need advice on how to run a successful demo game for those customers who would sign up to participate. I will have about 3 to 3.5 hours to run a game on a Sunday evening. I intend to use pre-generated 1st level characters. I don't know how many players I will have; I haven't even posted a sign-up sheet yet. I should have enough space for about 5 or 6 players and myself. I will have to write the encounters and create a generic setting basic enough for first time players to learn from. I will be spending my own money to purchase d20s for all who show up as little bit of swag.

Any ideas?

what i mean is:

how do i determine the amount of treasure a 21st level (or higher) encounter would yield?

i am reminded of a few folk sayings: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." and "just because one can do a thing does not mean they should."

a new edition for the sake of a new edition seems wasteful and frivolous to me. not to mention disrespectful to the great many folk who've invested time, energy, and money into the game.

refinement and necessary change i am all down for. if a rule is causing, problems errata and clarify it. if a better, innovative, and more practical way of doing things comes along, then use it.

once all that errata and clarification equals the dearth of a new book, then maybe its time to create a revised edition. until then, i will be pleased as punch to have online updates and printable documents that aid me in my gaming hobby.

a new genre doesn't necessarily require a new edition. i would LOVE a modern/future pathfinder book. i loved gamma world, buck rogers, spelljammer, boot hill, top secret, and star frontiers. if there were a source book that would allow me to recapture some of that feel and use it all interchangeably in my pathfinder game, i would do back flips.

In one of the campaigns I am participating in, mortality rates are rather high as the DM has a tendency to make very challenging adventures in an attempt to force us, as players, to use our noggins rather than our builds to successfully resolve situations. As a result, most of us tend to have back-up characters that we level up behind the scenes just in case one of our character perishes without hope for resurrection.

One of my back-up characters is an elven sorcerer who has lived for over a century and has written many volumes chronicling his discoveries and theories into the humanoid mind (he's of the Dreamspun bloodline) He is very arrogant, so also keeps up a running series of books chronicling his adventures and daily life as well. I want him to have been able to publish many of these works and also be able to sell some of his books for gold as he travels around our DM's game world (which is homebrew, not Pathfinder). One of his quirks would be to cast suggestion on bad guys or people that annoy him and have them read one of his books in a quiet corner for a few hours.

What are the rules for creating, writing, and selling books, and what determines the books quality?

Skills I have been thinking of have been Craft (books), Linguistics, Perform (Literature), and Profession (Writer/Scribe). Are any of these close to what I would need? I would think for some material my character level (and resulting experience) would give bonus's to the content of the books and as a result increase the value. Are there any concrete rules for book creation?

well, deathcon00, i am glad you are going to start using the old noggin more in my campaigns. sorry about the near TPK last game.

keep in mind, most books are masterwork items, crafted by hand and illustrated (in the medieval sense). only the dwarves of ironhold have access to printing press technology at this point. well, the dwarves and the one of the kingdoms to the west you probably haven't been to. regardless, your books could be printed in short runs and fairly rare. most official documents are still on scrolls.

having actually taken classes and worked in jobs where i had to physically print and manufacture a book by hand, and having been a bookseller for many a year, let me suggest some things. craft (bookbinding) or craft (printing) or craft (illustration) might all be part of what is needed to physically make a book. profession (bookseller), or profession (journalist), or perform (storyteller) might also play a part. knowledges are very important skills for a writer. at this point (4th level) you are definitely your own biggest fan, and i would say that it seems to me that you'd be rather like a door to door encyclopedia salesman... with magic.

a century-old elf is a babe in the woods by elven standards. i can see where you would describe the character as arrogant. if you have had anything published it would have been self-published and rather costly.

what about treasure beyond 20th level? table 12-5 in the core rule book lists the amounts per level of encounter gained.

the third paragraph of page 400 of the core rule book discusses how to adjust those amounts for the difficulty of the encounter, should the party face a challenge higher (or lower) than the APL.

this could potentially shift a treasure above the 20th level, yet i can find no rules for how to handle that.

A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age by William Manchester. Available in paperback.

Terry Jones' Medieval Lives by Terry Jones. Available in paperback and a DVD series.

Conquest with Peter Woodward. Documentary series on the History Channel. Especially the episodes about medieval and renaissance weapons.

masterwork quality is included in the cost of mithral items.

does a barbarians land speed bonus necessarily translate into faster climbing or swimming?

Raymond Carroll wrote:

36 points. these are supposed to be the heroes of the story. i write very challenging adventures.

You mean based on the 3.5 build rules? Because the system changed for pathfinder.

no, for pathfinder. i write REALLY challenging adventures. ;)

I suspect that we'll do a book like this someday... but since our campaign setting is built with the assumption that players play one of the core humanoid races, it's not a book we're particularly rushing to get to work on. We'd rather produce rulebooks that support our setting first, and then branch out into the ones that don't so much later on.

that, sir, is a book i would most certainly buy and encourage my players to buy.

it is a real shame that LA was removed. my players and i really enjoy having the option to play anything. it was a great positive point about d&d 3x. we never found the mechanic difficult to implement. HD + LA + class level = the end. easy peasy lemon squeezy.

the rules as written are not very clear. i believe there is a large enough section of the community who would appreciate more of an effort to clarify and include more options for "monster race" playability.

paragraph 3, page 314 of the bestiary gives some basic information about how to level up monster pcs in mixed groups. it could use a bit more clarity and perhaps another example.

i never cared for ss way of turning races into leveled classes.

36 points. these are supposed to be the heroes of the story. i write very challenging adventures.

because ride is on the monk skill list does not suggest that they can unarmed strike while mounted. it suggests that monks might rely on riding as transportation.

a military saddle has high sides in front and back to wedge the rider into the saddle. its harder to dismount them as its more likely you'll injure their backs against the backing of the saddle. its not made for trick riding.

http://www.americanmilitarysaddle.com/medieval.html

monks are skilled in the use of spears and it would seem that they could use them from horseback.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohei

"Sohei were quite varied in their armament. The naginata is the weapon most often associated with them, though in legend as well as history many warrior monks are known to have been proficient with everything from bow and arrow to tanto and wakizashi (dagger and shortsword). Many fought on horseback, and many with the O-yoroi armor of the samurai."

"The most traditional weapon of the monk, however, was the naginata, a weapon much like the European glaive or halberd."

http://www.taots.co.uk/content/view/32/27/

okay deathcon00, this is my argument against what you were attempting last Tuesday. i.e. attempting an unarmed strike from horseback, on a large horse, against a medium boar (long, not tall).

1. the spirit of the rules should be followed especially when the letter of the rules is unclear, they should not be taken advantage of. the rules were written to emulate the real world physics and history. of course, magic and special powers are the things that allow for permutations on the rules.

2. being on horseback removes a martial artists from what makes martial arts effective: being in contact with the ground, leverage, torque, low center of gravity, etc. being on horseback and in a saddle limits your movement and flexibility. you need to use your hands and/or legs to steer the animal.

3. historically, melee weapons developed for mounted combat were made longer and to take advantage of the horses height and the fact that the rider must rely on the horses strength and speed. ranged weapons were made shorter to not get in the way (composite short bows and carbine rifles for example).

4. in order to make the melee attack you'd need to lower yourself to the ground by taking the "cover" position. you'd have to steer with one hand while hanging on using your legs. you couldn't flurry. you couldn't rely on your own strength because your not drawing power up from your feet.

it would require a massive ride check and in the balance all that a mounted attack gives you is a +1 to hit. its seems a bit of an exercise in futility to build a character design around mounted unarmed combat.