Remorhaz's page

ill come by and check it out. i bought the beginner box awhile back but havent cracked it yet since my players are a bit beyond it but i would like to see how it plays from the other side of the table.

-ryan

is your DM tweaking the CR to account for the eidolon ? in my game i have to tweak the CR to account for the druids boar for most encounters.

later on the fear of dismissal should be enough to keep the summoner in line

im a 3E player myself but i am interested. shoot me a PM with further details.

you might have some luck recruiting at the ffg forums and strike to stun.

well...

if you go by core rule book you get an APL of 4.5 which rounds up to 5. you add 1 for the 6th character and if you add in the horse and the druids companion you are looking at a APL of 7ish. challenging encounters which is what i like are APL + 1 = 8 or 3200- 4800xp worth of creatures per encounter.

as an example the first encounter with a dozen ulfen raiders is 2400 xp giving you a budget of 800-2400xp to play with so they might be led by an additional level 4-5 fighter or barbarian captain with a dire wolf pet.

you can adjust up or down depending on how much min/maxxing your players have done and if they are playing combat heavy builds.

i saw UC in the store yesterday and i passed on it which is the first time i haven't just bought a pathfinder product no questions asked. instead i bought some warhammer products and the goblin pyro minis. when i got home i thought about why i didnt get UC and its not a problem with what paizo is doing but more that i feel they are hamstrung by the 3.5 shell they have to work with when developing new stuff.

they can't introduce a vastly different action, movement, or resource economy without breaking things so in general they are left making cosmetic changes that add a few pluses and minuses or swap one existing ability for another.

this leaves me conflicted. on one hand i love paizo's has carried the 3.5 torch and tell damn good stories and on the other hand i wouldn't mind if paizo took a shot at creating a brand new rule set build from the ground up so their developers can really go to town.

Remorhaz wrote:

If you owned a gaming store would you run a pathfinder event with no support or a 4E/magic event with wizards spoon feeding you formats, prizes and promos ?

Absolutely, yes. I most certainly would.

I would run as many events of as many different varieties as I could stand, and I would incorporate as many different products in doing so as possible - for example, I'd grab a Pathfinder Module, toss some pre-gens together if it didn't already come with some, run it using a combo of a flipmat, map packs, miniatures (even if I had to paint them myself to make them presentable), dice and other game aids.

You know why? It maximizes the chance that someone coming into the store gets to see a product in a light that makes them feel like buying it.

My FLGS, where I do not work, runs anything and everything they can for customers - including that they will sit down with you and run a demo of just about any game (especially board games or card games) to make you want to buy it.

thats great. You are lucky your game store has the time and resources to do that. what i see is my FLGS having trouble making ends meet and using its limited resources to run events they are getting support for. Does some responsibility fall on the FLGS ? sure but i believe Paizo also needs to help make up the gap between full retail price and the 30 percent discount amazon is able to sell pathfinder products for or they risk losing the word of mouth advertising and real life showcasing of their products that FLGS' provide.

Remorhaz wrote:

As a store owner I would only run a pathfinder event if Paizo helped me generate interest in their game and provided support.

Can I just ask why its Paizo's responsibility to help you generate business to stay in business?

Isn't your job to attract potential customers into your stores and then put yourself in a position to sell to them?

Do many of you guys actually work in retail or...?

i dont work in retail at all but i think its in paizo's best interest to offer support. If you owned a gaming store would you run a pathfinder event with no support or a 4E/magic event with wizards spoon feeding you formats, prizes and promos ?

tabletop roleplaying is a niche hobby and if i were publishing books that catered to a niche i would want to dominate that niche. i would want to give brick and mortar outlets selling my products no choice but to put my product on the top shelf and keep that shelf fully stocked.i would make sure the people in that store were playing my products at the gaming tables by providing format and prize support and letting the store owner know if he took care of me i'd take care of him.

now the question of if a brick and mortar gaming and comic store is a viable business at all is an entirely different matter. they do still exist and in my opinion are invaluable for promoting the hobby.

Remorhaz wrote:

info sent. it wouldnt be hard to miss stores in seattle. unfortunately there are only a couple left. Amazon is eating them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I can think of a half-dozen comic stores that sell Pathfinder (including the Comic Stop nee Zanadu next to the Egyptian and The Dreaming about four blocks from there). In the city itself there's Gamma Ray Games on Capitol Hill and the new Card Kingdom in Ballard (where I live), which may be best game stores ever. There's also Gary's Games in Greenlake, long a Free RPG Day sponsor and occasional haunt of the Paizo staff.

If you're willing to go 10 minutes down 520 you've got Dragon's Lair off 148th. And if you're willing to limit yourself to only D&D and board games (I'm not), you've got even more options.

Most of these places seem to be doing pretty brisk business.

You're right, though, in that not enough of them are hosting Pathfinder Society events.

i hit gary's once a month and dreaming bi-weekly. i've heard card kingdom is awesome but i havent gone yet. i have purchased all my pathfinder stuff at both those stores but its pretty hard for me to continue to ignore the considerable discount i could have buying from amazon if the stores don't provide me with something other than the warm fuzzy feeling i get from support local business. Conversely if i owned the FLGS why would i run a pathfinder events if people are just buying the books from amazon and playing in my store ?

As a store owner I would only run a pathfinder event if Paizo helped me generate interest in their game and provided support. That could mean books with alternate cover art, promotional minis, battlemats,crit decks or dice that players could win or earn by attending pathfinder events. It could mean an appearance by a venture captain on a monthly basis to run a society adventure or it could just be a package of materials that paizo provides to get a store employee running society events.

i say all this suspecting full well you guys probably have some stuff planned to coincide with the release of the beginner box set at the end of the year. i just thought it was odd that pathfinder events seemed scarce in seattle of all places :)

-remorhaz

Remorhaz wrote:

i live in seattle have been buying all my pathfinder products at one of the few FLGS left in the city because i know they are struggling and i think they vital to maintaining the hobby. Even though they sell a decent amount of pathfinder products they focus their in store events on 4E encounters and friday night magic because they get support from wizards to run the events. I inquired about pathfinder and they were interested in running pathfinder events but when i asked if they knew about pathfinder society play they had no clue what i was talking about. wow...seattle is paizo's backyard and one of the last retail outlets for their products doesn't know about society play ? im not saying the store isnt partly to blame for not looking into it but i fairly certain they would have been happy to if paizo offered a little support. maybe the box set will change things. i certainly hope so. id love to go into my FLGS and see it full of people playing pathfinder instead of 4e and magic.

If you have the store's information, I'd be happy to get in touch with them to try and set things up for them. Unfortunately, while I do my best to foster the growth of PFS around the Seattle area, some stores do slip through the cracks, so if you like send me their info at SeattlePFS@gmail.com or give them that e-mail to get in touch with me.

-Dane Pitchford, Seattle Venture-Captain

info sent. it wouldnt be hard to miss stores in seattle. unfortunately there are only a couple left. Amazon is eating them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

i live in seattle have been buying all my pathfinder products at one of the few FLGS left in the city because i know they are struggling and i think they vital to maintaining the hobby. Even though they sell a decent amount of pathfinder products they focus their in store events on 4E encounters and friday night magic because they get support from wizards to run the events. I inquired about pathfinder and they were interested in running pathfinder events but when i asked if they knew about pathfinder society play they had no clue what i was talking about. wow...seattle is paizo's backyard and one of the last retail outlets for their products doesn't know about society play ? im not saying the store isnt partly to blame for not looking into it but i fairly certain they would have been happy to if paizo offered a little support. maybe the box set will change things. i certainly hope so. id love to go into my FLGS and see it full of people playing pathfinder instead of 4e and magic.

i initially avoided the game because i was disappointed it was not forgotten realms. i did explore a good portion of the 1-14 content when it went F2P and im glad i did. Some of the quests chains remind me a lot of a pathfinder adventure path. The long chain that leads to the first "raid" is very well done and there are some truly epic moments along the way. i played a cleric and i nearly ruined my keyboard trying to heal all the barbarians who thought they could compensate for no AC with higher DPS lol.

im running a pathfinder game in north seattle as well however we are rocking a full group right now. i do know the dreaming comic book and game store in the university district is planning on an introductory pathfinder games(sort of like 4E encounters) on wednesdays in the next couple months which could be a good way to meet some new players. ive been trying to buy all my pathfinder stuff there (they dont have a lot but the owner will order anything if you ask) to support one of the last FLGS in the area.

Vow of Poverty

The monk has sworn a vow of extreme poverty and can never own more then simple non magical garments appropriate for the climate in which he dwells, a bed roll, a begging bowl and prayer beads or holy symbol made of wood. All food, water and lodging must be begged, foraged or gifted as long as the total value of the gift does not exceed 1 gold piece per/day. All monetary and magical wealth the monk would accumulate as a member of an adventuring party must be donated to his order or church to be redistributed to the poor in a timely fashion.

At 4th level a monk who has taken a vow of poverty gains a +1 circumstance bonus to armor class, to hit and damage. This bonus increases by one every 4 levels to maximum of +5 at level 20. If the monk breaks his vow of his own accord or is forced to break it under the effect of charm or compulsion all bonuses granted by the vow are lost and cannot be regained in any way.

thoughts ? im not super familiar with what bonuses stack with what in pathfinder by my intent would be to have the bonuses granted by vow stack with all other monk abilities.

if i were designing this a monk with a vow of poverty would be rewarded for maintaining his vow at certain level milestones. for example a monk who maintained his vow until the 5th,10th, 15th, and 20th level would be granted some sort of supernatural bonus roughly equal to gold equivalent a character of his level would have in magic items. the monk would be required to donate all the wealth and magic items he does accumulate to his order, church, charity in order to receive the bonus and if he fails to do so within reasonable amount of game time could be considered in violation of his vow - dm discretion - and these milestone abilities would be lost until he could atone.

this way the monk would not be too far behind his friends in power level and his donations would be a gold and item drain for the DM. as its written now the items that would go to the monk would just be sold and redistributed among the other party members so all the vow really does is make the rest of the party strong at the expense of the monk. as an added bonus there are all sorts of opportunities for RP as the monk tries to convince the party that extra magic longsword should be sold and the money given to the poor.

in my last homebrew campaign i designd a gambling skills challenge that the party could undertake to help one of the gamblers in a dice game catch a cheater. the cheater was having a wizard friend in the crowded room use an unseen servant to mess with the rolls of his opponent. my idea was to have them observe the game and with perception, spellcraft, sense motive, bluff, intimidate and other skills they thought applied, spot the wizard in the crowd, then help the quest giver win his money back in the honest game. my party just decided they wanted to play in the game to catch the cheater. i hadn't prepared for this so it didnt quite come off the way i wanted it too but i think a skill challenge like this is better than actually playing a gambling game.

for gambling handled during downtime i let people with profession gambler choose the stakes they want to play. low dc10, normal dc15, high dc20,ultra high 25-30. they made make the roll they win an amount based on the stakes with bonus wins and losses for beating or failing the dc by 5 or more or rolling nat 20 or 1. i use the same system for people who want to be gladiators, bards, animal trainers, chefs etc.

the cool thing about this is a characters downtime exploits can lead to adventure. a gambler loses his shirt in his weekly game might suddenly be motivated to go adventuring to pay his debts. a bard who gives a virtuso concert performance may attract the attention of a local noble etc. a gladiator might become famous attracting a cohort or two who want to train under him etc. the possibilites are endless.