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A thread for sharing and discussing major news stories of the day. Sufferers of 'locked in syndrome' able to communicate for first time via scan of brain activity As this syndrome makes it impossible for the person to move any part of their body it has long been believed to be a hellish existence. However, all the participants in the studay were able to answer yes/no personal questions, proving that they were really communicating, and reported that they were happy with their quality of life.
I received a notice that this order had shipped (and should arrive tomorrow at the latest), but the corresponding PDFs do not appear in my downloads and tracking information still shows no information available. Also note that others are reporting similar issues in the CotC hardcover thread.
So, I have been playing with different options for combining movement and attacks; Pounce ability - Double move. Full attack AFTER movement only. No way to split attacks against targets in different areas. Spring-Heeled Reaping feat - Double move. No AoOs from targets. Two attacks at full BAB, but must be different targets. Dimensional Dervish feat - Double move (or less if dimension door / abundant step range is lower). No AoOs from movement. Full attack split between targets as desired. Rapid Attack (Dawnflower Dervish Fighter) - Move. Full attack split between targets as desired, but highest BAB attack is removed. Whirlwind Dance (Whirling Dervish Swashbuckler) - Move. Full attack, all at highest BAB, but each target can be hit only once. Mocking Dance + Performing Combatant + Master Combat Performer feats - One move or 5' step per performance combat check. Full attack. Cannot predict when moves will occur and cannot end movement threatening any enemy. Jabbing Dancer feat - One 5' step per hit. Full attack. Cannot predict when moves will occur and must end movement adjacent to enemy hit. It doesn't seem like there is anything which quite gets you to the ideal of being able to split a full attack up as you wish while moving between opponents in different areas. Dimensional Dervish would be perfect for a character with 'at will' dimension door, but as it stands it is a huge investment for an ability that you can only use for a few rounds per day. Mocking Dance works great for ranged attackers, but is useless for melee. Jabbing Dancer is crippled if the enemies are spread out (though reach can help). Whirlwind Dance can't do enough damage to any one foe to bring them down (abilities which allow AoO retaliation help). Et cetera. Any comparable options that I am missing?
So I was thinking about the fact that the three 'Alternate Classes' (Anti-paladin, Ninja, and Samurai) are supposed to be archetypes that were so extensive that it made more sense to present them as complete conversions. Wouldn't that mean that you could still treat them as archetypes? They already have the rule that you can't multi-class with the parent class, so the only thing that breaking them out as archetypes might change would be whether they could stack with OTHER archetypes. For example... The Ninja alters every aspect of the Rogue EXCEPT; Hit Die, BAB, Saves, Skill ranks per level, sneak attack, uncanny dodge, and improved uncanny dodge. However, that would mean that, as an archetype, it could still combine with the other Rogue archetypes; Bandit, Burglar, Cat Burglar, Sanctified Rogue, Scout, and Trapsmith... all of which swap out only uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge. Samurai replaces Tactician, Cavalier's Charge, Expert Trainer, Greater Tactician, Mighty Charge, Master Tactician, and Supreme Charge. Thus, it could potentially be combined with the Musketeer and Wave Rider archetypes. So what do people think? Is the Ninja Scout an allowed class? Wave Rider Samurai? Do the various Anti-paladin abilities which exactly mimic Paladin abilities with just the alignment/energy swapped (e.g. Smite Good vs Smite Evil or Channel Negative vs Channel Positive) count as 'replacements'? If so then Anti-paladin replaces everything except Hit Die, BAB, Saves, Skill ranks per level, and Weapon/Armor proficiencies... and thus is unlikely to ever qualify for any other Paladin archetypes. Otherwise... (Un)Holy Gun Anti-paladin? What about Unchained classes? It has been said that they qualify for some of the archetypes of the 'Chained' version of the class. Does that mean they too could be treated as archetypes to be combined with other archetypes of the base class? Would extending the concept to the Hybrid classes (e.g. Arcanist being an archetype of Wizard and/or Sorcerer) be a bridge too far? The rules allow multi-classing hybrid classes with their parent(s), but require matching decisions on class features in such cases. Could we eliminate the multi-classing in exchange for potential archetype stacking?
The Courtly Hunter's companion does not stack with other animal companion levels. Thus, you could theoretically have; Courtly Hunter 16
...and thereby have a 20th level Courtly Companion, 20th level Cavalier Mount, and 20th level Familiar. Each potentially with their own archetype(s). Take VMC Summoner instead and you could have a nerfed 20th level Eidolon. VMC Druid or VMC Cleric with the Animal Domain would also grant an animal companion, but those would stack with the Cavalier in this example. Are there any other methods of getting multiple 'pets' all at/near full level?
Would a Skald be able to use UnRage powers? I looked at old threads and didn't see anything official, but there were some comments suggesting that Skalds should only be able to get Rage powers. The problem I see with that is that Skalds can multiclass with UnBarbarians. At which point a Skald/UnBarbarian would have both Rage & UnRage powers... and could use both at the same time while raging from either source. Thus, I was thinking it would make more sense to allow Skalds to have EITHER Rage or UnRage powers and only multi-class with classes granting the same set (e.g. an UnRage power Skald could multiclass with UnBarbarian, but not Barbarian). Thoughts? Is their a society rule for this?
So I had a few players who were interested in teamwork feats, but they were each looking at DIFFERENT feats and couldn't afford the feat tax to cover the different things everyone wanted. That got me to thinking that it would be nice if teamwork feats could be based on a team working together to support each other's skills rather than all having to develop the SAME skills;
Basically, it is like the Inquisitor 'Solo Tactics' ability, but only works with other allies who also have this feat. Would this be unbalancing? Is it still not enough to make teamwork feats more commonly used? Would it cause problems with any of the classes / archetypes that already have special handling for teamwork feats? Should there be different prerequisites / limits on how it works?
The Pathfinder Campaign Setting book 'Occult Mysteries' out this month mentions that the Knights of the Ioun Star (Western branch), basically the Azlanti imperial guard and later protectors of Aroden, attacked the Emerald Spire long ago and that more info on them will be featured in the Emerald Spire super dungeon, out next month. Any guesses on what this might mean for an eventual PFO implementation of the Emerald Spire? Think there will be ioun stones in game? Clues to the death of Aroden? Ancient Azlanti magic only accessible to those completing the Emerald Spire?
To help with efforts to understand what kinds of guilds are participating in the land rush I put together two lists; Please let me know if you would like any of this information changed for your guild. In particular, many of the guilds currently lack an alignment. I'll try to update these lists a few times per day so that they are always relatively fresh. General suggestions on categories or other formatting are also welcome.
This was suggested in another thread and seemed like too much fun to pass up. So let's gather information on the various fine drinking establishments people are planning to open and see if there can be some kind of in game 'pub crawl agreement'. Planned details for my place; The Barge Inn
I've been trying to sort out when various things will be available, so I put together a list of PFO content broken down by stages based on what we know so far. In cases where the timing of something hasn't really been discussed I put it in the latest stage it could reasonably occupy. Thus, many things further down on the list may be available at some earlier point. Please let me know about any errors or omissions.
I've been thinking about the land rush and how we could make things easier for the thousands of people who could theoretically re-engage with the game at this point. The land rush is primarily about founding settlements rather than companies. Thus, I'd suggest that a good land rush 'guild' description would focus on the rules, development focus, and administration of the proposed settlement. Obviously any Company associated with the settlement would be a factor in that, especially if Company membership is required for residence. Since descriptions can't be changed without intervention by the goblins it would probably also be a good idea to keep any information subject to revision (e.g. settlement location order list) out of the descriptions... possibly by linking the settlement description to a 'guild' or Company thread here or another web page set up for the purpose. If some 'guilds' choose to publish their settlement priority list a standard format might also be helpful. I'd suggest just a string of settlement location characters with most represented by uppercase letters and the AA thru AD series given as the second letter in lowercase. For example, 'QaPcJA' would give first priority to Q, then AA, then P, then AC, then J, then A. Counter thoughts and suggestions welcome.
Name: Outsiders
Description:
In PFO there are tangible benefits to being in a Company, and further benefits to having that Company 'chartered' by one or more Settlements. An early Settlement from the land rush, safe storage of goods, access to crafting facilities, advanced training options, and other features of the game are likely to be more easily available to members of a Company than individuals on their own. However, most Companies have specific goals, rules, requirements, alliances, and bureaucracy that might not fit your individual play style. Outsiders is different. If you join Outsiders you WILL NOT be called upon to follow the directives of Company leaders. You WILL NOT be expected to participate in Company bureaucracy. You WILL NOT be required to obey Company rules. Other than limits built into the game itself (e.g. player alignment must be within one step of Company alignment), Outsiders will not impose any restrictions on how you play. Social interaction is a big part of PFO, but some of us like to go it alone or be free of commitments. Outsiders lets you participate in the social aspects of the game without tying you down. It might be a good idea to work with other members to help create and defend Company holdings which benefit you, but hey... this is Outsiders. That's your call.
The devs have described how a small problem with wandering kobolds in a hex might, if not addressed, escalate into a kobold warren, organized raiding parties, other monsters moving in, et cetera. Would it be possible to take that concept further and allow NPC forces to oppose the players on an equal footing? Instead of settlements, cities, kingdoms, and other such powerful social structures being the sole domain of PCs, allow computer driven characters to pursue similar development. A lot has been made of how, in many theme park games you have a series of computer controlled static challenges to knock down until you reach the end of what has been built while in sandbox games you are opposed by other players and thus have ongoing dynamic challenges... but there is no INHERENT connection between 'computer controlled' and 'static'. It should be entirely possible to have dynamic challenges generated by the computer following the same options available to the players. The benefit to such a system would be in providing powerful 'evil' opposition without enabling powerful griefing. If you encourage a player group to run an evil kingdom you are inherently handing them the tools to be epic griefers as well. If the computer runs an evil kingdom it does so within bounds set by the program... sure, it will send out raiding parties to burn your settlement down, but it will not seek out one particular player and destroy everything they do on an ongoing basis. You could also have things like a pre-built NPC kingdom occupying a newly added section of the map, kingdoms of orcs, minotaurs, or other races not available to PCs, dev interaction to direct an NPC kingdom to achieve some end, et cetera. In short, you can vastly increase the variation in challenges to the players WITHOUT having to do massive amounts of theme park content building... let the computer build the content in the same way players would. It would also be a good way to pre-test how features might evolve and play out in ongoing use... set up a few computer controlled kingdoms on a test server, add in the new feature, speed up the clock so everything runs faster than normal... and you've got an advance simulation of what may happen with the new feature in regular play.
Any suggestions on resources for developing maps with realistic representation of global climate? I've looked at a lot of 'world building guides' and world map software packages over the years, but have never found any that accurately reflected major climate forces. Most fictional world maps suffer similar problems. For example, while I'm certainly not a professional climatologist, I know enough to cringe when I see hot deserts all along the equator... or on both sides of a mountain range. Ditto maps/guides that show consistent average temperatures at all longitudes of a given latitude... rather than having significant variations due to ocean currents like the warmth provided to NW Europe by the Gulf Stream or the cooling provided to Hawaii by water pulled down from the north. Similarly, some programs will generate water worlds with only scattered land... yet still have polar ice caps despite the increased greenhouse warming from all the water vapor those oceans would give off AND the lack of anything to anchor the ice in place. Et cetera. This seems like something which there should be existing guides and/or computer tools for, but I've never seen any which didn't have enough glaring errors that you either had to say 'the climate is changed by magic' or they were more trouble than they were worth. Any suggestions short of tracking down one of the 'global climate models' used by the IPCC and adding a random terrain generator?
Is it me or do the mechanics of the Horse Master feat from UC seem kinda wonky? "Use your character level to determine your effective druid level for determining the powers and abilities of your mount." So... a Cavalier 1 / Fighter 9 with this feat would have a mount with exactly the same abilities as that of a Cavalier 10. Seems a bit extreme for a single feat. For the price of a feat they're getting nine levels worth of one of the 'major powers' of the Cavalier class... or more at higher levels. For classes that get their own animal companion it is potentially even crazier; Cavalier 1 / Paladin 9
Interpretation 2: Mount level for Cavalier is raised to character level (10), but 'animal companion' levels from each class are evaluated separately... yielding a 10th level Cavalier mount and a 9th level Paladin mount. Interpretation 3: Levels for all 'animal companion' classes stack first (9 + 1 = 10) and the feat then 'raises' this to character level (also 10)... yielding just a 10th level Paladin mount. Interpretation 3 is the only one that doesn't seem 'broken'... but also means the feat does nothing at all and is the least consistent with how the feat works in other cases. So am I reading this wrong or is this feat 'Boon Companion' on steroids? |
