Runnetib's page

So is fiction coming back coming back, or is this a special release only?

In the last session, the party finished off the trip through Roslar's Tomb and made it into the Bastion of Light.

The only problem was that they took damage from the sarcophagus trap, fought the Venedaemons, the Living Walls and the Rot Grub Swarm before entering the cathedral of the Bastion WITHOUT RESTING or even healing. So they were in no fit state to fight the welcoming party. We're two rounds in and they've decided to run away and return later.

So: what should I have waiting for them? Now that the cult is aware of the secret way in, they should do something to secure themselves from attack from that direction. I'm thinking traps, alarms and a much larger contingent of cultists. Not to mention a greater level of alertness from the other denizens of the Bastion.

Any good lackey should be reporting to their boss. The wight leading the welcome party resents being pulled off their research, so could see it as a way to get off guard duty. The report goes up the chain, and Val finds out that there are people running around looking exactly like his strange juju zombies that aren't acting quite right. He'll likely send a capture party, but also leave open the secret passage and instead set up an ambush, cuz they're obviously gonna try to come back. He wants to understand what happened, after all

Then I’m not really sure what you’re arguing.

Not arguing so much as confirming that there's no "...secret magic formula..." for "...unique, idiosyncratic, cool, surprising, exciting abilities..."

The only 'formulae' is the same target range of numbers and blanket creature type abilities that they released and printed in the book.

Having to rely on a monster building program to build your monsters isn’t really a good argument.

The existence of a calculator doesn't mean math is impossible without it.

Can confirm as a freelancer of multiple PF1 monsters, the "monster builder" document was a macro'd excel file where you can turn on/off things already in the monster types listed in bestiary, a lot of "hp/saves/AC should be around X for creatures of Y level" and the pages with special attacks, abilities, SLAs and so forth only had colored blocks where you typed out the cool things you wanted your monster to do.

So, in essence, pretty much the same as now, but without the handy excel file to collect it all up and format it for you.

Table 3–11: Druid Spells per Day (p. 312) has 4 cantrips on all levels. According to the text for primal spellcasting on page 130, this should most likely be 5 cantrips at all levels, just as with the other prepared spellcasters, the cleric and the wizard.

I confirmed this with the devs at GenCon that it should be 5.

Good to see Chris Jackson's name show up on some fiction again. I really miss the Tales series.

I've figured out why we can't locate it. #85 is "invisibility"

Speaking of automatic, Jason said there was no skill check! He just made them spend 10 minutes doing it. That is a pretty dramatic change. Certainly speeds up play though, I guess, but I wonder if there might be qualifiers. Maybe you can only identify items your level or lower without rolling, for example.

He was chatting during the twitch stream. He said he made a mistake there, and it does take a skill check.

New day: Cards remaining are 6, 20, 26, 50, 51, 72, 85. Please ignore the false links above.

transcribed list

Plot Twist: They aren't fake.

Link

Classes:They also have a bunch of Ranged Feats but very few ways to do Sneak Attack at range.

Or at all, from the way stealth seems to work.

If you do anything else, you become seen just before you act. For instance, if you attack a creature you’re unseen by, that creature is not flatfooted against that attack.

You can't ever sneak up on someone for sneak attack, unless you act first in initiative or are literally impossible to see. And with only rogues getting surprise attack, no one else can ever...well, surprise attack someone and catch them flat-footed.

Unless there's some way to read it that I'm missing, and if I am, I'd like to hear it.

I'm not quite a fan of the stealth rules either, as written.

If you do anything

else, you become seen just before you act. For instance, if you
attack a creature you’re unseen by, that creature is not flatfooted
against that attack.

I believe this is the line JDLPF was specifically talking about, and it's pretty garbage. This makes it impossible to sneak up on anyone, ever, whether it's to jab a dagger in their throat, scare a friend as a prank, dump a bucket of ice water on the team leader's head for a job well done, sneak past a bouncer to get in the tavern, etc.

And the success condition of sneak just muddies things up.

Success You become unseen by the creature (or remain so)

during your movement and remain unseen by the creature
at the end of it.

=Sneak]You automatically become seen if you don’t have cover or

aren’t concealed from them at any time during your movement

) or not, based on the success result in the same entry?

In essence, it seems sneak attack is only a sneak attack if you roll high enough on initiative. So maybe that's the thing: if you remain unseen (somehow, thought it's nigh impossible), you don't enter encounter mode until you go to strike, and you better hope your initiative beats theirs to get that surprise attack (and that's only if you're a rogue). No one else can ever surprise attack anyone.

I've got no real problems with anything else (except maybe resonance and definitely goblins) so far, but I wonder how after going through the process of rewriting stealth to make sense for 1e, they can completely backtrack and destroy it's usability again. And the ability to instantly be seen no matter what also destroys all the cool things that were previewed and listed as possibilities for skills feats. Sure, he's a legend and doesn't need to roll stealth; yeah, because he never does, cuz it's in the GMs hand now (okay, so all the GM rolls are another issue I have I guess) and because he can't actually stealth anyway cuz he'll be seen immediately.

I mean, I'm much more concerned that what skills let you do, the core of the Skill system, is suitably awesome. Remember, this will go through months of playtesting, so I'm sure that by the end of it, bonuses will feel sufficiently distinct, be that with a +5 difference or a +15, it just means a few numbers need to be scaled and DCs to match. I'm far less concerned with that and more with the fact that YOU CAN PICKPOCKET ARMOR RIGHT OFF OF A GUARD.

"I wanna steal his pants."

I'll add on that I wish the AP maps were front-loaded to better coincide with the AP release schedule. My group (and I must admit myself as well) really wanted to get into Starfinder, and I couldn't hold off any longer, especially not until March, to get the loading dock map. I'm now wishing I had a map for a certain nightclub since that's up next. I was going to try to repurpose the cantina map, but the session ended before that scene, so now I might as well draw it out. But in general (for Starfinder and Pathfinder) I wish more of the maps were the ones used in adventures/APs.

I avoided the actual fleet battle mechanics because for my group, the first one kinda slogged along. I used to suggestions in the book to have it happening in the background.

I did, however, mix things up a little during phase 2 of the fight with the drowning devils. The party still had Aiger's Kiss (Aiger died in the first fleet battle) and I figured it'd be cool to get some use out of it. So I gave Druvalia a minor artifact (a gift from Geryon) that she launched at the PCs flagship as the drowning devils were starting to go down. Upon breaking, opened a gate to Stygia and a barbed devil came through, with more on the way.

I figure, cool, they'll fight their way to the gate, fight off the barbed devil, and in climactic fashion, Kiss that gate closed before a rush of devils overwhelmed them.

I figured wrong.

The captain (warpriest of Sarenrae and holder of Aiger's Kiss) drops all his extra crap, tells the oracle she's in charge, steps through the gate and closes if from the other side, hoping to protect his crew from any potential backlash from the artifact. He set the antipathy effect to LE.

Did not see that coming, but it was a pretty awesome scene. The rest of the party assumes he's dead (IC and OOC) but we're having a secret session of his adventures trying to escape from Hell.

Sorry, but anybody who looks at this scenario and says the paladin should have taken the time to talk to the fiend in the middle of a room full of potential innocent victims is obviously metagaming and ignoring human nature.

There are a number of things the paladin could have done that don't require him to open his mouth, let alone talk to the fiend.

Under intense stress, a person will respond based on their applicable training. If they lack any applicable training, they will freeze, run away, or do something else not very useful. It's easy to analyze situations from every possible angle when you have all the time in the world, but if you're role playing this situation realistically, the paladin slays the fiend every single time. Why? Because that's his training.

I'm not sure if it's part of the actual character sheet or just something that was added through the posts, but the paladin in question is listed as not having Knowledge (planes), so in this instance, it's not his training.

I've spent 17 years working in emergency services, and let me tell you guys how this works: you make snap decisions, in unfamiliar surroundings, with inadequate time and insufficient information. Why do you have to do it that way? Because you don't always have time to ask every single question you'd like to ask. Because sometimes if you take the time to gather all the information you need, someone is gonna die in the meantime.

I spent a few years overseas and if you don't take the time to get positive identification of enemy forces, that someone you rush pull the trigger on could've been innocent, and you've just ruined a whole lot of lives, including your own.

I was just thinking the other day about how I hoped there'd be more books with Captain Vin. And now I'm happy.

There's a thread about naval combat in here where someone suggests doubling the damage dice for all shipboard weapons, as well as segmenting the ships' HP in quarters for port, starboard, etc. Taking parts of the ship down to 0 negatively affects the ship. Those may help, if you want to bother looking into them/use ship-to-ship combat ever again.

Al sets up a contract on Bob, which Charlie accepts. Bob find out before Charlie Carries out the deed. Bob sets up a 'counter assassination' contract on Al, that Dave (or even Charlie) accepts. Al is taken out before Bob. Al's contract on Bob becomes void, and the money in escrow (in terms of how contracts were said to work) becomes forfeit. Al lose rep for reneging on his contract, Charlie is mad but no worse off (even better if he accepted the country contract), Bob gets to live, and Dave makes some cash.

This is a little naive. PvPers will know about those contracts because the LG spy in the town will tell them over Vent/Skype. The gankers with daggers and armor won't attack you fresh on your way from the dungeon, they'll wait til you're mid-combat with all your refreshes spent and jump you then. That's the core problem with people worried about PvP when they want to PvE. PvPers don't play fair. You don't ambush people in a fair fight, you ambush them with overwhelming force.

It's a little naive to think that spy will know who got the contract and when they're on their way to fulfill it. It's a little naive that arguments are being made about guards not wanting to contract to watch the mouth of a dungeon, but gankers will sit there and wait for the adventurers. It's a little naive to think the gankers will have screen access to know when those refreshes etc. are used up. It's a little naive to think trained adventurers won't notice being followed by poorly, if at all, trained CE gankers. It's naive to think the gankers will be able to plan a random fight for them to interrupt and hopefully kill the adventurers. It's naive to think the gankers will be able to plan an ambush for an unscripted set of adventurers who may not be going where they hope.

Awesome work.

Is anybody else running this for six PCs? Does anybody have any advice or tips for scaling it up? I added a few more dire rats to the bilge fight.

My group includes a druid, and the group managed to capture all but one of the dire rats. He is currently building cages for them and wants to train them as pets. I don't think that the rest of the crew are going to react favorably to having dangerous vermin.

Any thoughts on how this should play out?

Plugg's lackeys could tattle on them, then during bloody hour Plugg can go on this big rambling speech about the PC being a danger to the rest of his/her crewmates by keeping the creatures alive. That's on top of disobeying an order to go down and kill them, and not come back up til they were dead. Sounds like some serious punishment coming that PCs way, as well as really solidifying the line between sides. Then of course Plugg could kill the rats in front of the PC, order Fishguts and the cook's mate to cook them up and make the PCs eat them.

Dave Gross = best thing to happen to Pathfinder Tales

Hey all, if any of you happen to get Hermine Carating as your GM for a Society event, consider yourselves lucky. Gotta say he was the best I've encountered all weekend. As he was the last GM for me for PFS during Gen Con, his style and technique managed to wash out the negativity I was feeling from the other PFS events I was in throughout the con. I don't know if there's a way to request GMs during PFS, but it's something I'll look into doing in the future.

I think a full-range would be most fitting. Not everyone is going to make an adventurer, and maybe the baker should be able to be a chubby, pasty guy/gal. Even some adventurers could be bulkier, and not all muscle...dwarven beer guts, etc. Just a thought, of course.

The newest blog post has me more excited for the game, and I'm glad to see that the Goblinworks folks are actually listening. I can see things from the wishlist thread that have made their way into the design, despite the constant nay-saying. This is all shaping up to show me that when I play, I'll be making a character instead of a toon. To each their own, but this is the kind of MMO I've been waiting for.

I really, really (really) want to be in that opening group, but I'll be happy just having the chance to play this game.

Winning, duh!

Not sure how your 'griefing', to borrow from another thread, is trying to help me. Anyway...

I actually did read through the Goblinworks website, FAQ, and everything else there before I came and found this particular sub-thread. While VR helmets or some such would be cool (a la Tom Clancy's Net Force series) I of course don't mean such. Since I have to spell it out, I don't want it to be a game where I spam 4 keys on my keyboard waiting for the cooldown to finish. Might this mean instanced combats, turn-based combats...maybe, I don't know. I do know this is possible since I've seen it before. I think the game was called Realms of Despair. It's been a while since I played it though, so I may be confusing games. Said game also had personal housing.

Playing Pathfinder means playing a character, not controlling a toon.

Playing Pathfinder means, despite the purported "Christmas Tree", I'm defined by the choices I've made, the things I've done, not my Helmet of E-Peen Hardening, or my Boots of E-Pwn Kicking.

Playing Pathfinder mean I'm a functioning part of an established world, and things I do have outcomes/consequences, not committing genocide on a pack of dire wolves so Bob the Tailor can corner the market on wolf-skin coats and wolf-fur boas (none of which anyone will actually have any access to).

Playing Pathfinder means that when I take out the Stag Lord, the Stag Lord is taken out, not is taken out for a few minutes, or until the next group starts the dungeon/instance. (I do realize this would make for an expansively large number of quests, but I think player generated quests could help with that, and for 'big' events such as these, perhaps staff can play the part(s), or players can 'apply' to run the scenario/quest on the bad-guy side. I, at least, think that would be a great addition to the game.)

Playing Pathfinder means that if there is an end game, it's me taking a nice, deserved, comfortable retirement from the adventuring life, whether as a landowner, baron, king, or hermit getting back to nature, not waiting for patches to come along with a new shade from the rainbow in tow that signifies the newest most powerful items, for which I'll have to end game endlessly to get the new set, only to have for however little time, stagnating, waiting for the vicious cycle to start all over again.

Didn't think I'd need to explain and detail that for a fellow RPG gamer, but there ya have it, at least enough that should make things clear for you.

Runnetib wrote:

Why is it based either on numerical stat value or the planet/campaign setting,

No, it was rules vs. setting.

If you want an online game with Pathfinder rules, you'll be disappointed.

If you want an online game in the Pathfinder setting, you'll probably be pleased.

You focused on a very narrow set of rules there. Also, can I borrow the time machine that lets you know what Pathfinder Online will be? If you can jump into the future to know all these things already, I can jump ahead for some Powerball numbers. I'll give you a cut for use of your time machine...

and not, say, I don't know, clicking a mouse and mashing macro-ed buttons

How, exactly, were you planning on interacting with your computer if not through a mouse and buttons?

With your extensive knowledge of all that is MMO, I'm sure you're just splitting the sentence here to push my (mouse) buttons...

vs. a living breathing fantasy world?

You will never get this no matter how hard you try. Everything will be a disappointment.

I know, I'm not a programmer, nor in any capacity a member of Goblinworks. If only there were a Wish List thread where I could make requests for things I hope the game to be...

I don't want GolariWoW.

You're not getting GolariWoW, so I guess you can be happy about that?

Apparently is HAS to be GolariWoW to be anything playable, based on what a lot of people are claiming. I wasn't aware so many people had a BS in MMOs.

I want to play Pathfinder, online, with a world full of other people who want to play Pathfinder, online.

Right, but you still haven't made it clear what that means to you.

I think it is rather clear the different gameplay/playstyle inherent in Pathfinder vs the standard MMO. Then again, I do realize there are gamers out there who play Pathfinder as a PnP hack n' slash. Maybe that's where your confusion spawns.

*EDIT* and-->as

Betcha the Ring Wraiths were wishing for floating name plates after they felt like idiots for stabbing, skewering, and gutting those empty beds at the inn...

You see kyrt, one of the points about the fact that the guy starting PVP will be the one choosing the moment, location and conditions, is that he will not do it in a location where the city guards or whatever will intervene and "punish" him. He wii do that where he can do the maximum damage for the smallest loss.

If he will do that in a city or other law abiding location it is because he is sure that the consequences will be lower than the loss.
The law abiding citizens will not loot his corpse while his friend is ready to loot the target corpse or the loss for his characters is smaller than what the target will loose and so on.

Criminals can be intelligent.

Looking to the River Nations and Kingmaker, "bandit" activity can also be reported, and wanted flyers or handbills posted for the goodly folk of the towns, who receive a bounty, incentive, etc. to go take care of the bandits. Who says quest lines must only involve NPCs? Pathfinder Online has the real opportunity to destroy the preconceived notion of WoW-era MMO, and become something SO MUCH MORE. No one likes character death, but were I so good at bandit-ing that I was put in as the target of a quest, I'd happily accept permadeath with a sense of fulfillment for contributing and being part of not only MY story, but the story of those who took me out, and became heroes to all those I'd wronged. Taking out a legend should make you feel legendary, not like someone in line waiting for dailies or weekly dungeons to reset.

Think of all the bounty hunters, assassins, mercenaries, and such that would become blocked concepts by not allowing PvP like this. If someone builds up a character to be super sneaky and deadly, with the ability to disguise themselves, and takes on an expensive contract to steal into a town/building/etc. to take someone out, they shouldn't be allowed to play the character they want (assassins have backgrounds and roleplay elements, too)?

This is the type of game I've been looking for, and haven't really found much of it without RP-strict MUDs. Living evolving world, your actions have consequences, people WILL be better, smarter, faster than you. I'll take realism for 2000gp, Alex.

So, this past week we were playing. Our cleric tried tossing a fireball through an arrow slit in the side of a building. Needed to roll a 5. Failed. Engulfed herself in her own fireball as it hit the wall next to the arrow slit. After chuckling at her bad luck, someone calls out, "Well, that idea blew up in your face," and we just laughed harder.

So, this happened during this week's game, though not in character.

We were discussing the spell Honeyed Tongue, and myself and one of my players were trying to convince another player that you could crack open a bee and eat honey from inside it.

Target: "Can you really?"

Me and other player: "Yeah."

Target: (looking up) "I don't believe you. And gullible is written on the wall."

Me: "You're looking at the ceiling, jack-ass."

Runnetib wrote:

I just ran the Dancing Lady combat. She cursed the group paladin with her dying curse. Before we realized that the curse took away his spellcasting ability, we got into a bit of debate about whether or not the lesser restoration he had prepared would remove the effects of it. Reading the dying curse, restoration vs. lesser restoration, and bestow curse, I get the feeling that it's not supposed to be able to be removed with a lesser restoration. However, he reads the first line in the description of the spell as being able to heal that damage.

As I said, his spellcasting is gone (CHA dropped to 10) so he can't cast it anyway, but I would like some clarification if possible.

Thanks.

The ability is obviously modeled after bestow curse (-6 to an ability score). I'd go with what is written in bestow curse. EDIT: As a matter of fact, I did rule it took a remove curse to get rid of it. Of course it was a moot point since the Paladin that was affected in my party was killed by the Grimstalker and the Assassin Vine soon thereafter.

On the flip side, you're the GM, and what you say goes in a situation like this.

Of course, if you feel that having to send them someplace to get a remove curse cast would be detrimental to the flow of your game, you might be better off letting the lesser restoration handle it.

I run into issues like this with my group because their only divine caster is an oracle with a limited spell list. He never bothers to pick up scrolls he can use to counter his limitations either.

I kinda love how things seem to work themselves out...crazy, but get this:

The sorceress (now dead) was affected by a negative level. She sent correspondence to Brevoy to seek out a divine caster to travel to their kingdom to cast the needed spell to remove the negative level. Sorceress, follower of Desna with elemental bloodline (fire) dies. Rest of the party gets back to town on the summer equinox with her corpse. The summer equinox is the day of the Ritual of Stardust, Desna holiday in which bonfires are lit. Same player makes a cleric. They're level 6, which means she's got access to the remove curse spell now needed by the paladin. The game worked itself so I could story her into receiving/answering her own request for aid. I love this game.

EDIT: Fragment replacement.

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

James when are you guys going to start doing hardcover compilations of older APs?

Do you think that would be a good idea?

If so, when would a good time for that to happen be?

Now-ish?

It was a while ago, back in 3.5. We were doing the standard meet-and-greet at a tavern. Soon after we were all together, a halfling approached us to offer us a job.

DM: The halfling jumps up on your table and stands in front of you(character A).

Player B(me): His halfling penis is in your face.

Table erupts in laughter.

DM: It's a female halfling.

Player B: Okay, her halfling penis is in your face.

Table erupts again, game temporarily halts.

We have more written down somewhere, I'm just not sure where they are at the moment. I'll direct others from my group here in case they have them. Good times.

Calendar Issue:

The charter was issued on 25th day of Talistril, Umm that I think translates roughly to February. The adventures is only a few hundred miles form the polar North, OK so is the charter incorrect? Is it summer in February on this planet in this area? The rivers are running, not frozen. What season should this adventure start in? Also, any suggestions about the weather, I am thinking central Canada like conditions.

Incidentally, I charged each PC 5GP for the charter from their starting gold, unless they were LG and none were. I explained it was a free to all who would care to apply for the charter, but they were issued the charter after a ‘small’ administrative cost. They all understood. It gave them an introduction to the future politics even before Oleg’s cursing a blue streak.

The font is a bit weird-looking, but it is Calistril, named after the goddess Calistria, and is the February equivalent. Based on the story of the bandits coming on the first of the month, it's usually good to have the party arrive on the last day of Calistril so they can prepare for the next day, the 1st of Pharast. I use Dresden when determining the weather, based off a suggestion I found on here. I live two minutes walk away from a river, and while there may at times be ice in or on top of it, it's never really frozen solid. I from PA.

What date and year does Kingmaker start?

And it says they arrive at Oleg's the day before the bandit come to "collect their taxes", which is always the first of the month, so 30 Calistril 4710 to arrive at Oleg's, with the bandits showing up on 1 Pharast 4710. You can change the year obviously, but with the gazetteer of Brevoy in the back, as well as the 2010 thing, I think it fits perfectly. Of course, this is just how I read things, so YMMV.