Shadavar's page

Hey Guys

I just wanted to say that as much as I try to read through the playtest rules, I struggle to follow what's going on. I'm dyslexic and need reading glasses. While normally I can manage as it not that bad, I find that your new design and layout is a bit of a sense overload for me. There's too many icons and words in odd places that my eye keeps moving all over the page and I'm unable to focus. Other than that the artwork is great.

Hope you guys understand.

Regards
Shad

I found Cristián Andreu's metric conversion guide and updated it for easier mathematics, especially for longer distances and time travelled.

Download: Metric Conversion Guide

In my research on updating Deities & Demigods to the Pathfinder rules, two classes really started to stick out for me: Paladin and Anti-Paladin (renamed to Blackguard, as Anti-Paladin just doesn't sound menacing enough); which brings alignment into sharp focus.

I did a quick search and found a lot of people think that being of Lawful Good alignment means that a character is a ridged do-gooder with a stick stuck up the butt. For me, that's as far from the truth you can get. Being LG doesn't mean the character is without flaws. So lets break down the alignment to its basic parts as it's relates to a single person.

Chaotic = emotional.
Lawful = disciplined.

Evil = selfish.
Good = altruistic.

So a LG Paladin would be a well organised person intent on doing the right thing that follows a deity of a similar mindset (just like a Cleric). They abide by the laws of the land, IF those laws are just and fair (but the speed limit is just too slow).

In the same vein, a Chaotic character is more emotional and less organised and an Evil character is selfish and self-centred.

Characters shouldn't be bound by the Law/Chaos axis as much as they should be by Good/Evil. It's a matter of morals over ethics. A lawful character can be just as emotional as a chaotic one, they just control it better. And a good character can be just as selfish as an evil one, but they feel bad about it and try do the right thing overall.

This leave use with just the LN and CN alignments. LN is more ridged in their ethical beliefs over moral, whereas CN is more prone to random behaviour without regard to either ethics or morals.

To me, a person will follow their moral compass over and above their ethical first. Unless they are LN or CN.

As an example: I see a lot of people like to dump Batman into the Chaotic Good school of thought. He's Lawful Good through and through. He's well disciplined, organised and has a very structured, methodical mindset. Yes, he's brutal, but this serves a purpose in distilling fear into criminals. Now to me, Superman is more Chaotic than Lawful as he seems to follow his emotional side more often than not. Maybe placing him in the NG with Lawful tendencies category.

So ultimately this means that Paladins should be restricted to any Good alignment and Blackguards to any Evil.

Discuss!!!

I've been slowly working on a Pathfinder conversion for the Deities & Demigods 3.5 rules. Taking a page out of impersonater's work on his 5th edition conversion Deities & Divinity, I've decided to submit what I've done so far.

This is still very much a work in progress and far from complete. I got tired of looking at a Word document so started playing around with design ideas before I get back to work.

Faiths & Avatars

I've always been fascinated in how fantasy books and games have portrayed deities/gods/powers. I loved the idea of a semi-structure pantheon of deities, so you can imagine my delight when Faiths & Avatars for the Forgotten Realms came out. And again with Deities & Demigods for 3.x. But there was always something missing that I could never put my finger on, maybe it's just me ...

I also love the idea that Paizo doesn't want to stat out their deities (yet, anyway), but have given us Heralds to play with in Inner Sea Gods. But I still want to know who's more powerful in a general kind of way. So here's my thinking. If you're going to stat out deities do it in a general why so you get a fell of their powers, Divine Rank works well here with abilities and powers that scale based on it. As well as grouping the deities with special rules for each group.

Greater Powers (16 - 20)
Deities of this status/tier are amount the most powerful, either the ruler(s) of a pantheon or it's leaders. Greater powers can have up to 20 avatars at a time, taking 1 day to create.

Intermediate Powers (11 - 15)
While greater powers are the leaders within a pantheon, intermediate deities are the generals. They either lead on behalf of a greater god or have enough power to lead on their own. Intermediate powers can have up to 10 avatars at a time, taking 1 week to create.

Lesser Powers (1 - 10)
The most numerous of the gods, lesser powers are generally worshipped in the umbrella of a greater and intermediate deities dogma. Though some have enough power to stand on their own. Lesser powers are only entitled to exclusivity in their portfolios once they attain a higher divine rank than 5. For this reason there is often more infighting between them than those of higher status, they will often seek out and server intermediate or greater deities, or band together, in exchange for protection. Lesser powers can have up to 5 avatars at a time, taking 1 month to create.

Vestiges (0)
I love the idea that a deity can "die" but not necessary be killed (at least by PCs), and this is where they belong. They can still grant special abilities and spells but it's extremely difficult and rare. Under very special circumstances can a vestige power manifest an avatar and only 1 at a time.

Avatars
An avatar is a physical manifestation of a deitie's power used when a more direct approach is required. An avatar's capabilities is related to the divine rank of the deity that created it in the form of Salient Divine Abilities per divine rank, plus bonus SDAs based on Divine Rank: Vestiges +1, Lesser +2, Intermediate +3, Greater +5. They are also limited in the maximum number of class levels they can have: Greater 60, Intermediate 50, Lesser 40, Vestiges 30 (maybe 40, not sure yet). Avatars are not limited to alignment and class restrictions and treat all classes as favoured. The get maximum hit points per level have DR 10 + Divine Rank/magic and a sleuth of other special qualities.

Demigods
Demigods are generally the offspring of deities similar to a half-celestial but more powerful. Like mortals they lack a Divine Rank but it's a lot easier for a demigod to ascend because of their divine natures. Mortals just have a harder time of it.

Quasi Powers
This is a catch all category that includes powerful entities that have learned to grant powers to others, such as some angels, celestials, demons, devils and the like. They don't have avatars in the strict sense of the word, but manifestations with their own (limited) capabilities. Titans can also fall into this category being semi-divine themselves.

So what do you think?

I've been doing a lot of research on character (NPC or PC) age and how they would progress through levels via general lifetime experience.

From all the reading I've done, there isn't much difference between a 16 year old human, elf, half-elf, dwarf or whatever. They grow and learn in a very similar fashion, the only difference is general outlook, not necessary maturity. The shorter lived races tend to start chafing to get out on their own sooner than longer lived races. There's no stopping a 25 year old elf, which has the same developmental cycle as a 25 year old human, from going out and making his mark on the world. He just doesn't have the desire to as he has so much still to learn about all the subtleties that elven life has to offer. In any event he's happy to live at home for the next 100 years as he in no rush to leave. To me this is the easiest why to handle general age between different races.

Now that being said: each race will experience the desire to leave the nest at different stages in their life, hence the starting age in the core rulebook. Which is just a general guideline and not written in stone :P

SO I've come up with a general Life Experience and Level progression for the core races, where the races will earn a set amount of XP over a year and progress through levels accordingly (this is based of other forum threads I've read and tweaked myself).

Some Notes
GMPC: Similar to a PC but played by the GM as a PC with similar advancement but still considered an NPC (4000 XP/Year).
Named NPC: An important NPC that the PCs interact with regularly (2000 XP/Year).
Unnamed NPC: You see that lady over there but you're not sure who she is or what she does but she kinda looks like ... (1000 XP/Year).
Cannon Fodder: Too the walls ... (500 XP/Year).

Here are the tables I did to help quickly see what a given level a particular race would be based: Character Advancement by Age

Let me know what you think.

Oh, I've used the Fast Level Progression table as a guideline so you can get a feel of what a given character can do. As you will see the only race to achieve 20th level is elf (no surprise there).

Hi All

I'm looking to change my career into something a lot more enjoyable than my current situation, so I though I'd try freelance DTP and layout design work for the RPG market.

I come from a design background doing everything from vinyl signs to packaging design, though it's been a few years. I'm currently a hobbyist/semi-professional photographer and retoucher and use Photoshop often if not daily. I've been using CorelDRAW since version 2 (why back in the 90s) and have InDesign, though I prefer Corel. I understand colour processing, spot colours and colour separation for printing, PDF creation, etc.

If your are interested, I'd love to do a 4 page sample based on your requirements.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards
Guthrie Ward

I've been fooling around with new character classes, skills and feats relating to Knighthood and the Nobility, and need playtesters to help bring them to life. So if anyone is interested, please e-mail your request to shadavar@hotmail.com with your full name and location and the subject line of Eclipse Playtesting Request.

Thanks
Shad