Shroud's page

I mean starfindees gonna need to be de-OGLed it just remains to see whether they get a "remaster" or just a whole new edition.

It would be nice to see Starfinder get the 2E update. I quit playing it after PF2E came out because going back to 1E mechanics just felt like putting on a straightjacket.

Personally, I can't wait for nice updated books. It's been several years, and the system has been refined over that time. People who complain about "I gotta buy more books" can always just go to Archives of Nethys if they want, but the rest of us would like to have the shiny new tomes for our shelves and games!

If there is a legitimate problem, those employees affected should address it with the Washington State Labor Board. Period. End of Story. Until such an action is resolved, anything else is mere speculation and a lot of 'he said - she said' between disgruntled employees (who would NEVER exaggerate things) and a company (which has legal restrictions on what they can and cannot say regarding employees).

It is ridiculous to run around screaming for resignations, corporate restructuring, reparations, etc... when NOTHING has yet been proven.

I have no doubt that events occurred that some may have found offensive. Whether or not they were over-reacting to minor things because of a pre-existing bias, or if they were acting appropriately to events that caused actual, tangible harm is something none of us know until ALL the evidence has had time to come to the surface.....and that is NOT going to happen for quite some time.

There are VERY few times in history where one side of any problem is blameless.

I give Paizo a ton of money for great products, and for no other reason. Their internal difficulties are their own business and there are legal recourses for aggrieved parties. Public forum is NOT the place for it.

Interesting for those who don't use electronic options for characters, like Herolab, etc... Personally, it's not something I would ever use. However, if they ever decide to contract to do conversions of all the 1E Adventure Paths to 2E, and print them as something similar to the Special Deluxe Editions that were done for RotRL and COtCT, I'd fling money at them so fast their head would spin!!

Personally, I'm glad to see that thus far everyone at Paizo seems to be in good health and working as hard as is possible under the conditions we all have to cope with. As an adult with a mature sense of expectations, I will patiently wait until they are done, however long that may be, confident that the end product will be as fantastic as everything else they are putting out these days. I trust that they, like all sane adults, will pay little attention to the rantings of petulant children who lack the emotional maturity to understand that the world is not about only themselves and their wants. Having already run Kingmaker once, I look forward to seeing how things develop on a second play through with the awesome 2E rules.

I just finished both running 1E Kingmaker and playing in a 1E Kingmaker game. I thought I was done with this AP forever. Then they announce a 2E version...….Dammit! Just when I thought I was out....THEY PULL ME BACK IN!!!

Now I know with certainty that I will run this again. It'll be fun to see the changes both in scripted events as well as the upgrade to the improved 2E system. I'm curious how the campaign will progress and unfold with a new mix of PC's.

Yep, I have the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne collected editions on my desk right next to the Kingmaker softcovers, but as soon as it said "Pathfinder 2" my interest level went to zero.

Hey Jess...didn't know you were on this forum. LOL (this is Max) Did you try the full playtest for 2E? Our group loved the changes that made it through the process.

I don't get the problem people are having. I read the book cover to cover. Character creation takes maybe 30 minutes maximum for any class. Where is the confusion? I can understand it if you are coming at it from a min-max munchkin style but if you just want to build a decent character, it's extremely quick.

I'd rather just use Roll20 and do a little prepwork.

What I'm doing for my campaign is this. I have created a specific character for each of the 10 background traits. (I always give each PC a free 3rd trait which must be selected from the player's guide backgrounds for each campaign).

They get to select the background trait they want, and will receive the character designed for that trait. They know their basic stats (Str, Dex, etc...), Alignment, BAB, Saves and any racial abilities, traits and feats that would be readily apparent to someone who just woke up knowing nothing.

Other than that.....nothing. They don't know their class, skills, abilities, names or anything else. They can learn what they are capable of through experimentation. When they attack with a weapon, they'll find out whether or not it feels 'familiar' and I'll let them know if they have proficiency or a feat/trait that pertains to it's use. Try to roll for a skill and I'll reveal if they have a skill rank in that skill (although anyone with a rank in perception and sense motive will know that upon waking).

Some characters may have feelings about certain things which will guide them towards choices that will slowly reveal their capabilities.

So far, everyone is absolutely delighted in this start to the campaign and are eagerly anticipating the first game session.

When I ran Legacy of Fire, I opened up the racial options to any humanoid race since Katapesh is sort of the one place where you can find anything. We ended up with a Gnoll (reformed follower of Sarenrae)Barbarian, Medusa (scaled down to PC race level)Sorceress, Kasathan Fighter, Goblin Alchemist, Kitsune Ninja, Serpentfolk (HIGHLY nerfed)Oracle of Sarenrae and a Skinchanger (bat) Investigator.

We had a great time, and remember.....

"Welcome to Katapesh!, where everything is allowed!......except that which is forbidden"

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Johnnycat93 wrote:

A knife costs $200, a wooden holy symbol costs $100, a common musical instrument is $500.

Yes, yes, and yes.

A good knife, the sort you'd actually be willing to rely on in the wilderness, is typically in the $50-150 range.

An actual holy symbol affiliated with a church is usually a little cheaper, but normally in the $20-50 range (among other things, it's a church fund raiser, and the community enjoy supporting their local parish. They're a little harder to find on-line, though, because you need to know which community you're looking at.

Oh, and a common musical instrument? The cheapest guitar by Martin is over $600. A "standard student trumpet" is about $200, but a good one will run you $500-600 or more. A Yamaha "student" flute is $436.

So, yeah, that conversion rate is looking pretty good.

Recall that "dagger" also covers kitchen knives or the 15$ crap I can get at safeway. A masterwork knife, y'know the "good stuff", would be somewhere in the realm of $30,000.

A wooden holy symbol also covers some twigs tied together or something carved in ones free time. $100 is steep at best.

Common refers to quality. You can pick up a crappy aucostic guitar for less than $100. What you're describing could be considered masterwork which jumps suddenly to $10,000.

I'm fine if we want to keep cherry-picking cases for both our sides but things are going to keep breaking down and looking weird the more we examine them.

Um.....a "Dagger" is most certainly NOT a kitchen knife. It specifically states in the description that it is a "Fighting Knife". It does not represent grabbing your cheese knife and going after a Goblin with it. In the past (2.0-3.5) there were clear distinctions between "Knife" and "Dagger", with the former being far cheaper and doing less damage.

My normal game table has 8 PC's and we haven't had any real problems in our campaigns, but we stick to the following guidelines/rules:

1.) Keep a tight control on crazy race/class/feat combinations. The less "weird stuff" in your game the easier it will be for everybody.

2.) Absolutely NO Min-Max characters. In our game no PC may begin with any stat below 8 AFTER racial modifiers.

3.) Double the number of any "mook" enemies to counter action economy problems and have them all act on the same initiative roll.

4.) Give the Advanced Template to all "Boss" enemies and then double their new HP totals. This will prevent what should be a thrilling end battle from becoming a cake-walk as five people smash the enemy before it even acts.

5.) Pre-Draw out any needed maps on 1" grid paper / game mats, etc... whenever possible. Not having to draw things in game is a HUGE savings on time and keeps the action flowing.

6.) Likewise, have any needed miniatures / pawns sorted out and ready to go. Don't spend time digging through your collection for every fight.

7.) Print up cheat-sheets that have the combat stats of every enemy that will be faced in that session. This saves another HUGE amount of time wasted flipping between various books since you have it all in front of you.

8.) Ban all electronic devices from the table. Nothing stagnates a game like a player who has no idea what is going on because they were playing a game on their phone instead of watching the actions of the other players and deciding what to do as events unfold.

9.) All treasure gets divided equally into "shares". If people want to claim an item, it gets deducted from their share or they can toss in additional gold if their share isn't sufficient. If they can't afford it....too bad, unless the entire party is willing to give up the portion of their shares that the item generates.

I just ran CoCT a couple of years ago, but I am going to snap up a hardcopy of this the moment it is released. This is hands-down my favorite AP and I will definitely run it again in the future. Gaming groups change over time and I'm certain that in 10 years I'm going to have a whole group of people who haven't experienced this little gem, and I'll have the nice new hardcover to use when that happens!

In my group, we are running through all of the AP's in order of release and we are in the final module of Legacy of Fire. So far, here are the results:

Rise of the Runelords:
Great campaign for introducing Golarion and the Pathfinder system. The second module (Skinsaw Murders) was definitely the favorite of the campaign. The PC's bonded will with several of the NPC's and all in all it was a decent campaign with one exception. Runeforge....the 5th module was like quicksand made with molasses. It took forever to get through and really just felt like one endless dungeoncrawl. Which is fine if you like endless combat, but we were having a hard time staying focused with session after session of grinding through it. After that though, we enjoyed the final chapter.

Curse of the Crimson Throne:
Hands down the best campaign we may have ever played or is at least tied for first place. Fantastic and memorable NPC's, Nice variety of quests and locations. Chase rules are always fun when used and bloodpig remains the groups favorite game to this day. Even two campaigns later we talk about this AP constantly.

Second Darkness:
We also enjoyed this one quite a bit, but I think a large part of that was having a Mwangi Ekujae(sp?)Elf Summoner in the party who really helped drive the plot on the players side. We had some memorable moments such as the "tower battle" in the second module and the entire module set in Ziirnakaynin (sp?) was also a blast. The key to this one is to really push the urgency of the built in deadline for the plot. The PC's should always feel like they are running out of time and under pressure.

Legacy of Fire:
We've had fun in this one so far, partially because we all love Arabian Adventures / Persian style adventures and secondly because as a lark, we decided to open up our normally highly restrictive racial choices to allow, well, anything. As a result we've got a Kasathan Fighter, Kitsune Ninja, Medusa Sorceress, Goblin Alchemist, Bat Skinwalker Investigator, Gnoll Barbarian of Sarenrae and an extremely nerfed Serpentfolk Oracle of Sarenrae. With that combination of characters, everything becomes entertaining. We are looking forward to the conclusion as it should be fun, but the party has really learned to hate wishes. LOL

Next up: Council of Thieves.

As a (literally) card carrying male witch, I can tell you that the term "Warlock" is indeed extremely insulting and offensive to us.

However, I personally see no issues with it being used as a label in a game. Most people are ignorant of the difference between the terms witch and warlock, and do not mean to be insulting by their use of it. The phrase "witches and warlocks" has been used so often by literature and media that when used as a reference, I consider it mere confusion or ignorance and no harm done. So, call your male witch a warlock in game if you feel a need to differentiate genders, just don't call a real Wiccan one.

Having fought with both light and heavy blades, I can tell you that the techniques between the two are dramatically different. I think the classifications work well as they are. How you strike, defend, move, etc... can all change dramatically based on weight and style of the blade.

We are currently in module 4 of Legacy of Fire and have had a fantastic time with it so far. I think the biggest problem people had with it stems from an unfamiliarity with Arabian mythology. Most players/GM's are immersed in the western European style of fantasy gaming with knights, dragons, etc... Middle Eastern adventures have a different flavor and you really need to exploit that in order to get the best out of the AP. Most of those in my group are pretty familiar with the music, food, customs, legends, etc... of the Middle East, so we meshed with the themes right away. I have Arabic music playing softly in the background as we play to help establish mood and we started the first game session off with a group meal at our favorite Iraqi restaurant.

We are beginning Council of Thieves shortly. I am absolutely stealing this idea and remaking my character outline.

It is the responsibility of every player to create a character that does not ruin the fun for other players. Clearly, his character violates that basic tenant of courtesy. Why a DM would allow somebody to play an asshat like that is beyond me. I would be very clear up front that you have no desire to deal with his BS attempts to dominate the flavor of the game.

Hmm....where to begin.

I've played several paladins and never had one of them Fall. I think one of the fundamental problems out there is that many people do not have a clear grasp of the concept of "Lawful Good" and what that entails. Too many portray the Gods (and paladins) as uncompromising arbiters of absolute law....and they completely forget the far more important half of "Good". Their goal is the end suffering, to protect and safeguard people, to represent the highest ideals of their deities. They are warriors to be sure, but their powers and abilities were given to them to be used in service of the greater good, not to wander around like killing machines who slaughter their way through every person and creature that has ever made a poor decision.

To get back to the original topic though, I think we need to look at the original inspiration of the Paladin class. Lancelot.

Lancelot was the quintessential holy warrior. Perfect in mind and body, unswerving dedication to his King, his oaths and his God. But he fell. It was his lust for Guinevere which shook his loyalty and his faith, after which he became a wandering madman priest (in some stories) who spent decades paying for his transgressions. His redemption came in the twilight of Camelot when he returned to fulfill his oaths in the final battle against Mordred, thereby earning the forgiveness of Arthur and his God.

That story is the foundation of the "Paladin's Fall". It is a classic story, but one that does NOT need to be repeated over and over with every Paladin that shows up to a game table. The goal is to have fun, and unless you plan ahead of time to roleplay out a fallen paladin, it shouldn't occur in game unless the player has his paladin commit a decidedly evil act. You are not going to fall just because you chose to show mercy to an enemy (if anything, that is EXACTLY what you SHOULD be doing), nor will you fall if you make a poor decision for the right reasons. Evil is what makes a paladin fall. Not travelling with a questionable companion while completing a quest (great opportunity to redeem them), not failing to kill every goblin in the world (mercy, redemption, forgiveness....you know, "Good" things), not for choosing not to kill a slaver who is operating within the law and treats his slaves well (although given a chance to purchase their freedom, a paladin would certainly do so....what do they need of wealth if another's suffering can be ended by spending it).

That said, willingly aiding someone in acts that are clearly evil (torture, murder, demonic activities, etc...) will certainly cause a paladin to fall, although usually he is going to get a wake-up-call from his deity the moment he begins to walk down that path. Time enough for atonement before the hammer falls, as it were.

/rant.

For my part, I want as much realism as you can get in my fantasy game. Fighters, and other non-magical PC's are there to keep the game grounded. They are the hero that anyone can become....the local farmboy who decides to fight for his town. The cutpurse who seeks redemption via a righteous quest, etc.. That said, a well built fighter can pretty much toast the most powerful caster in one round in most cases. Yes, High level mages can toss down powerful spells like disintegrate, prismatic spray, wall of force, etc... But a prepared fighter is going to shrug that stuff off with either good saves or tactics to overcome those problems. I have yet, in all of our campaigns, to see a martial character overshadowed by the spellcasters in the group.

If you have serious disparity between classes, perhaps the DM isn't doing their job of maintaining balance and flavor. I'm a big one for cultural / regional restrictions. A Katapesh sorcerer is not going to be allowed to select Snowball or Flurry of Snowballs from the People of the North book in my game unless they have run into someone from that area who can teach them this foreign magic. I also maintain a hard line on feats / spells that are specific to a particular race / religion / culture, etc.. If you allow people to just pick anything from any source, you're going to always run into min-max characters who have no flavor other than "this is the most efficient way of dealing damage". BORING.

I was glad to see them go as a standard available race. It gets boring and implausible running games for party after party comprised completely of Aasimars and Tieflings. That said, I wouldn't mind if they were available as a Scenario boon from time to time, but IMO, most characters should be from the core races in the main rulebook. Maybe a new guideline for the funky races could be created which allows you to select one non-core race for each DM star you have. That way those who help make the game fun for everyone would have the chance to pick out a couple of odd races like Ratkin, Dhampir's, etc... and try them out, without there being a tsunami of them in the general gaming pool.

First off: A paladin would oppose the idea of slavery, however, if it is the law of the land, he's not going to just start hacking people apart who own slaves. They work within the system to implement change, and should the opportunity arise to free slaves (such as now being the new 'legal' owner since their previous owner attacked you and died). That said, they would never intentionally send someone into slavery.

Secondly, as regards blowing up a fortress. I play a paladin in PFS, and my characters first thought would have been....."How do we know there are no innocents inside that place who would be collateral damage?" What about prisoners in cells, or poor enslaved peasants who are used to clean and serve but want nothing more than freedom. Or what about the BBEG's henchmen who just want a stable income and would jump at a chance for redemption. Paladins are not stupid, nor are they engines of righteous destruction that crushes everything in a quest to kill the bad guy. They are not about to sacrifice innocent lives without those at risk being given the choice unless there was absolutely no other way, and in this case, there are clearly countless better choices of action.

That's my two farthings.

Cleaning battle grime and blood off of armor and clothing is probably the primary use of Prestidigitation in every game I've ever been in. That, and making bad food taste edible.

I have no idea where the idea of Paladins as psychotic battle-zealots came from, but I've been playing them off and on since the 70's. Paladins are "Lawful" and "Good". They don't break their word, they don't don't lie directly to people, they don't harm innocents, or allow others to be harmed if they can take REASONABLE action to prevent it. The old adage was "The greatest good, for the greatest number of people."

Paladins do not throw their lives away pointlessly, but understand sacrifice for the greater good. Paladins do not automatically kill every "evil" being on the planet because they believe even the blackest mortal soul should be given a chance for redemption. Yes, they will kill when necessary, but their primary duty is to the beliefs of their God, which usually encourages them to try to redeem the fallen wherever possible.

If an associate of a Paladin does something evil, the Paladin would absolutely confront them on the matter.....demand restitution to victims and appropriate punishment. They would seek to have the associate recant their evil actions and walk a path of at least neutrality. They would not instantly turn on them and slay them, nor would they lose their powers because of the actions of someone they cannot control. Now, if the Paladin just shrugged and said "oh well"......THAT would be grounds for a deity to send a little 'wake-up' call to their supposed sword on earth, as it were.

Paladins will deceive to achieve their aims, but not through lies (that would violate their values of truth), but they can disguise themselves, or merely let people get the wrong impression. There is nothing wrong with a sneaky Paladin if sneaking into the Evil stronghold to rescue a prisoner is smarter than charging the gates and dying against impossible odds. Paladins are not idiots and they are not suicidal. They do the best they can and try to uphold the highest ideals, but they also understand that everyone else in the world does not live by their standards, and they can forgive that, as long as those people are not committing acts of willing evil.

The rant could continue, but I think the point is made.

Why the 18 Int at 1st level? You're burning LOT of ability points for something that is of minimal use until you are higher level. Start with a 17 (freeing up points for other stats like the OMG important in PFS Charisma), and bump it to 18 at 4th level when you get your free increase.

I am no longer allowed to bypass the entire fight scene with an army of Giants by the judicious use of Floating Disk, Silence, Spider Climb and invisibility 10' radius to sneak the whole party past them in broad daylight.

I always viewed the Kellids as a sort of fusion of Cimmerians and early Picts, with a bit of Inuit culture thrown in for polish. Primitive cold weather tribal types that tend towards more Druidic forms of worship to match their harsh environment.

I've been running since about 1979, and over the years I've always found that the easiest way to handle all of these problems is for the DM to retain all character sheets between games and to regularly review them for problems every time they level up. Sometimes I find that people have shorted themselves and have extra skills, etc... to allocate, sometimes I find that people didn't get the math right and think they have more than they should.

In any case, I review all characters and must approve all concepts prior to the start of any campaign. I do not allow min/max characters, to the point where I will not allow a player to reduce more than a single stat below 10 and then only as low as 8. Another way to keep power levels from getting too out of hand is to eliminate the ability to ignore item creation prerequisites. All magic item creators must meet all requirements themselves, no cooperative creation. It keeps one person from taking brew potion and whipping out both clerical and arcane potions at an insane pace, etc...

In the end, it's your campaign, but the best advice I can give you as a veteran DM is to err on the side of less at all times. If you have any hesitation about a concept or option, then the answer should be no until you have better information, if at all.

Additionally, any player who says their concept is ruined by anything based on numbers and stats is pulling your leg. This is a role-playing game. You do not need a +1 to "this cool thing" in order to have that as a concept. People get too wrapped up in bonuses and feats and forget that it's all just a matter of choosing to act in a particular way. "Concept" is a roleplaying issue, not a character sheet issue.