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After searching the message boards, this came up a couple of times, but there was no definitive response. In a PFS game I was running yesterday, an alchemist was rolling Craft: Alchemy checks to identify found potions. This morning, it was pointed out to me that he may have been interpreting that ability incorrectly. RAW states:
In addition, an alchemist can use Craft (alchemy) to identify potions as if using detect magic. He must hold the potion for 1 round to make such a check. The clause "as if using detect magic" seems to muddle what had been, up to that point, a clear rule. Detect magic doesn't allow you to identify a potion. It allows you to identify auras. I believe the phrase "As if using Spellcraft" would also have been easily understood. I would house-rule this in favor of the player. But since this is PFS, I feel like I need to make sure I'm being consistent with the larger community. Does an Alchemist's successful Craft: Alchemy check identify the potion? Or does it identify the potion's auras?
I arrived late last night, and was pretty excited to see the famous Seattle skyline at long last. I've wanted to visit here for years. Based on suggestions made in some earlier threads, I am staying at the University Inn, and headed for Space Needle, Sci Fi Museum, EMP, and Pike Market today. Tonight and tomorrow are still pretty fluid. Is anyone else here, and planning on something fun for tonight or tomorrow? I have been living on an island in the Caribbean for the last year, and have not had any Indian food or Mexican food during that time. I'm jonesing for both in a major way. Any suggestions?
I have mixed feelings about Nick being featured as a special guest. I appreciate his great work, but I am one of the Razor Coast pre-orders that has not gotten a refund. I thought that I had put it all behind me as a lesson learned. I guess I was wrong. I felt a little wrench in my gut when I saw his name on the list. While I am not going to boycott the convention, stone anyone, or introduce myself to him as one of his victims, it does seem a little bit...what is the word I'm looking for...insensitive on the part of the planners to honor him. I don't know how widespread the incident really was, but it was certainly highly visible among the Paizo faithful. I understand the theme. They're putting the band back together. I am all for him being there. But as a headlining special guest? There was probably a less controversial way to acknowledge Nic's excellent contribution to this fine product without seeming to overlook his behavior.
In the game Saint Caleth is describing, she had 21 points of damage and 19 points of nonlethal by the end of the first round. There was a crit somewhere in there. In round one, she hit with Manyshot. She went down just before her turn in round two. We had six PCs and the most horrifying axebeak the hobby has ever known. It ate the dog.
Seattle people (or people who know a lot about Seattle) - I am thinking about flying up a few days early for PaizoCon and doing some sightseeing, including renting a car and driving up to Vancouver one day. Any suggestions for a first time visitor? Money saving advice? I have wanted to visit the Pacific Northwest ever since I fell in love with the scenery in X-Files and Stargate SG-1.
Interestingly enough, I got my master's degree in Louisiana, spent two summers teaching English in Transylvania (yes, really! -- Arad, Romania), and am currently teaching full time in the Caribbean. My favorite author enjoyed exploring the eldritch rural areas of rural Massachusetts. And another of my favorites was partial to rural Maine for awhile. I think you could probably use the deserted areas of Detroit effectively. Given what Jim Butcher has done with Chicago (and the White Wolf people have done with a lot of cities), I would think that with a little imagination you could add some dark corners to just about any of your favorite locales with which you have more than just a passing familiarity.
Hey, friends... I am planning on flying to PaizoCon from the sunny Bahamas this year, and I am a little bit concerned about meeting the PFS criteria of having physical copies or watermarked PDFs of the novels in order to use the associated chronicle sheets. I am packing for a month, so I am a little reluctant to throw four or five paperbacks that I've already read into an already heavy bag. And I'm even more reluctant to purchase PDFs of books I've already read. Does anyone have any advice in this area? Do I need to just forget using those chronicle sheets at this event?
Hello, friends. Spoilers aplenty. In reviewing Silent Tide for tomorrow's game, I noticed a pretty stark difference between the way Grandmaster Torch is presented in ye olde venerable Silent Tide and the last of the First Steps module. In the former, he's presented as a no-nonsense, quid pro quo underworld information broker. In the latter, he's presented as the head of a group of benevolent watchdogs that seem to be Golarion's version of Anonymous. I've been trying to come up with some ways to make the difference a little less jarring, particularly for the player who instantly and enthusiastically embraced the Shadow Lodge after that encounter last week. (I prefer the way ol' G-Pain was portrayed in Season 0, but I didn't start the thread to editorialize.) In reviewing the messageboards, I found two people who'd made suggestions about this issue. I decided that some Pathfinders had been abandoned by the Society during the original invasion, the Lodge needed the skull to try a hail mary 'speak with dead' to see if they knew the Pathfinder's remains. This is good. I like this. However, I am reluctant to use it because it adds story to another author's adventure - something I do all the time in home play, but not in "living style" campaigns.
While clever, it is more complex than the previous. And far-reaching. Not only does it add story to many author's adventures, it also a campaign story arc. This would be a great idea for a home game, but not for Society play. I was personally leaning toward having Torch warmly (heh, heh) greet and congratulate the PCs, ask them to open the safes as a favor to him, and provide the needed information regardless of whether or not they are successful. If they are unsuccessful, or refuse, their rewards would be adjusted accordingly. That seems to me to be the best way to keep the big picture, the world of the Pathfinder, consistent for the players with the smallest impact on Michael Kortes' most excellent adventure. What do you guys think? Suggestions? Ideas? Comments?
In response to the title: After freelancing a couple of times, it is my understanding that most RPG publishers expect the author to do the play-testing. That is part of what you're being paid for. Err, part of for what you're being paid. Err, part of your job. Sigh. So, maybe the better question is, "Does Paizo actually require their AP's to be play tested?"
:Specific overrides general" is a concept familiar to people who frequent gaming message boards. In an introductory scenario, I don't believe you should assume that the GM or players are familiar with such conventions. It could be clarified by only a minor change in the wording. The convention in Pathfinder adventures -- and it is a good one -- is that they include stat blocks for creatures that appear in supplements other than the Bestiary, while Bestiary creatures get page numbers. It seems to be that it would be a logical extension of this convention to include rules that do not appear in the Core Rulebook. It would make even more sense in an introductory adventure. The rules for Haunts appear in the Advanced Player's Guide (and in Skinsaw Murders). And, yes, the room description does have a note about the Haunt going on initiative 10 in the surprise round (which is standard for a Haunt), but that reminder does no good if the GM doesn't know how a Haunt works. It didn't specifically say it in this one... But it's an intro adventure. Shouldn't it? Also, there are some other parts to their personalities that are supposed to shine through... (edit) Colson Madris is arrogant and pompous but he honestly cares about what he believes in and honestly cares about the PCs safety. Aaqir al'Hakam may be manipulative and legalistic but his is still proper and civil, giving the impression of being very knowledgeable (he IS a diviner after all). Beautifully said. I wish this was in the adventure. But it's not.
I ran a playtest of To Delve the Dungeon Deep tonight. It's a good little adventure. I particularly enjoyed the part about the huckster skulk prophet. However, I had difficulty with two portions of the module. 1. The first was the Suicide Well in Area 12. In the text for the room, it states that "...any creature that [looks down into the well] is subject to a suggestion that urges it to throw itself into the hole." However, the suggestion spell text states that "asking the creature to do some obviously harmful act automatically negates the effect of the spell." This is confusing. The wording should probably be changed. How would/did you handle this apparent contradiction? (Also, because this is an introductory scenario, and the Haunt rules are found in the Advanced Player's Guide, they would make a good appendix -- with a note in the room description referring the GM to it. It's not clear that players are supposed to enter initiative when someone looks down the well unless you have the Haunt rules at hand.) 2. The second issue was regarding how I perceived two of the three factions introduced in this scenario were presented. Amara Li of the Lantern Lodge was a friendly, generous person. But Major Colson Madris of the Andoran faction was described as ostentatious and pompous, and dropped a mild insult on the party. And the brusque exchange with Trade Prince Aaqir al’Hakam (Qadira) made my players decide to only take him one of the many trade agreements they found in the structure. This seems to me to be inconsistent with the stated purpose for the First Steps adventures. I am all for colorful characters, but I had to do some improvising in order to feel that I had communicated the aims and objectives of the factions involved. Am I making much ado about nothing?
How I Prepare An Adventure Under Ideal Circumstances This is a riff on a workshop I attended while in high school in 1983 called, "How To Read A Textbook." Evening One 1) Skim quickly through the entire adventure. Read all the headings and look at all the illustrations, taking time to look over the maps. Allow myself to stop anywhere that grabs my attention, but don't read more than a few sentences. 2) Go through the entire adventure reading the first sentence of every paragraph AND all the words that are in bold. Allow myself to stop anywhere that grabs my attention, but don't read more than a few sentences. 3) Check the forums for any GM discussions about the adventure. Evening Two 4) Read all of the adventure. If I have printed out the PDF, I do the following during the main read-through: a) Underline the most important sentence of each paragraph. b) Highlight all the Skill checks with green. c) Highlight what the PCs need to know after the encounter or conversation with yellow. d) Write down on a legal pad any spells or combat rules I don't know or can't remember. Evening Three 5) Skim through the adventure. Make index cards for all the major NPCs. Make a couple of notes about their appearance and location. Write down three things they might say during a psychotherapy session with their analyst. Work the backstory into a couple of the sentences. (With Burnt Offerings, I did this with a database because of the large number of NPCs. Instead of writing three things, I copied and pasted pertinent information about each NPC as I came across it from the PDF into the database.) Evening Four 6) Pre-draw any complicated maps (like the Sandpoint Glassworks) on the large presentation board size graph paper with 1" squares that is available at most office supply stores. 7) Make index cards for the combat encounters. I still use the free ones The Game Mechanics made for D&D 3.5 if I have access to a printer and card stock. --OR-- 6) Prepare maps and tokens for VTT software. Evening or Morning Before The Game 8) Skim the adventure and the NPC cards, reading what I have underlined and highlighted. 9) Review the spells and rules I listed on the legal pad at a website like d20pfsrd.org. Make brief notes on the pad as needed.
I ran this with 6 PCs. Spoilers here: The first combat: I threw in an extra dire rat but it was still over before the first round had finished.
Second combat: The barbarian -- second in initiative order -- raged and scored a crit with a scythe (x4) in the first round and did 34 points of damage. Even with DR, way more than enough to one-shot him. We're now through two combats and there was one player who hadn't rolled a die in combat. The third combat was about right for 6 PCs. Everybody got to play. It lasted five rounds. So, if I were running this in a home game for six PCs, I might throw in two more dire rats and double the imp's hit points.
If you want to go the symphonic route, many tunes by Erich Korngold, Bernard Hermann, and Jerry Goldsmith are quite good for atmosphere. Sea Hawk by Korngold
Prelude and Rooftop from Vertigo by Hermann
The Search from Planet of the Apes (1968) by Goldsmith
This will get you started. All three of these composers did a lot of truly great atmospheric music and have a large presence and following on YouTube.
I am planning on running the First Steps series at a local store, and am thinking about using MapTool on my laptop's screen instead of using a mat. Are the maps from those adventures available without the location keys and text? If not, has anyone photoshopped the existing maps? Recreated them in another program for use with a virtual tabletop?
Here's the event information:
Pathfinder Society play will begin in Nassau, The Bahamas with a special holiday premiere session on Sunday, December 18th at 1PM. We'll be playing at The C.A.G.E. Club off Soldier Road near Marathon Mall. We will begin regular weekly play on Sunday, January 8th at 1PM. The contact at the store is Stan: (242) 393-4652. The store's website is C.A.G.E. Club You can contact me (Ken Austin) here or at saint dot meerkat at gmail dot com. More information will follow. I'm very excited to be a part of launching PFS down here. Some of you may remember me being involved in PFS in the Knoxville, Tennessee; and convention play around the southern US. I have obviously relocated, and am looking forward to resuming my role as Paizo evangelist here in this beautiful new setting. |
