Squeatus's page

...we either had to go backwards and name them a nonsense word we made up out of the blue or find some sort of workable tree-flavored word that didn't actually build off of the word "tree.

I'm glad you decided knot to bough to traditional fantasy naming conventions here.

You all went out on a limb, and it paid off. The deciduous nature of this remaster required a lot of little creative bits like this to avoid simply branching off the old ancestral roots.

Tree evocation. Without using either of those two words.

Brilliant.

Deja vu all over again.

Glad to see most of the old heads in 3PP are finally in a position/mood to disentangle themselves completely from the rather thirsty and arbitrary business that services the OGL.

This time the licensing lunacy reached even farther than I thought possible, with almost Snidely Whiplash levels of mustache twistery going on in that document.

Glad to wash my hands of that business again, now and forever.

Just when I thought I was out...

Damn you, Pett.

You know what? I'm kind of a traditionalist. I like my fantasy to be classic "whatever D&D was."

Still, if suspension of disbelief includes plate mail blocking arrows and bullets as effectively as swords, you can deal with new technology not being as good at world domination/proliferation as you'd expect it to be.

I mean, it's not like they're going to design an adventure where some guy in full plate mail armor is able to make his standing 10 foot jump across a moat full of acid.

Given all the vitriol aimed at all the chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter stuff, I really kind of hope it winds up culminating in the party battling an insane AI commanding legions of clones in reflec armor.

Geb and Nex, then.

Honestly, from the perspective of a newly-minted BB player, the CRB is just a list of extra options, it's not an all-or-nothing thing. If you already know the d20 core mechanic from the BB (and anyone who's played the BB will) then you can pick and mix extra rules from the CRB and add them in one or two at a time until you find the complexity of game you want.

It's like slowly boiling a frog. :)

AoO's aren't hard to get your head around when they're just another rule incrementally added to your game. Same with the other additional rules.

If the core rulebook scares off players, just remind them that the bulk of it is "just a ton of new spells, magic items, and classes" and that they're already mostly familiar with the rules anyway.

Hiring a full time moderator would be a really good idea.

It's worthy of a full time job, and isn't as closely related to customer service as most people tend to think.

Paizo has some of the best customer service I've experienced, and after enormous success still maintains relationships with the fan base as well as anyone, but there comes a point where moderation can't just be tacked on anymore.

Throwing my vote in for this as well.

I've got four little gamers and they're killing me with the PFBB requests. Sandpoint box set now comes in ahead of Geb/Nex on my wish list.

Ugh, Deckard Cain catchphrase looping in my head. Too early for this...

Oh, you guys should know by now that I'm not going to give any more details than I've already given!

Ok, ok, both are in the Campaign Setting line.

Baseless speculation to run with:

Nex and Geb sourcebooks, obv.

....aaaaand, GO!

Looking forward to more 'wonderess items' for the pinky ring slot. Also any combination of "Black" "Doom" and "Shadow" in the name would get an upvote consideration from me.

Hoping also to find a few more Bag of Everythings and maybe a Six Spells for the Price of Nones hidden in the mix.

There should be a whip-halberd so I can get more reach on my reach.

It would be remarkably cynical for the car manufacturer to just say "well how many people would do that? I MEAN REALLY!" It's a design flaw, a potential problem, a chink in the armor, and should be addressed.

The problem here is they're not even dealing with issues anyone can possibly predict.

"I need you to update the owner's manual to include the amount of time I can reasonably expect my car to operate under water. Also to what depth is my car rated?"

"The MPG estimate is not accurate enough. I need an exact calculation based on my daily commute."

"MPG rating is useless. Everybody worth a damn uses metric weights and measures. Why has this not been addressed?"

"I am living in my car, and even though everybody I know is clamoring for instructions on how to properly install fitted sheets in the back seat, you have consistently ignored us in these forums."

"I got a ticket for selling bootleg t-shirts out of my trunk at a concert. I wasn't told this would happen when I bought the car. Please execute and then fire whoever is responsible."

"I don't see why you needed to introduce all this feature bloat with my car. I would have much rather had a GPS system and HUD than manual controls on my thermostat."

"Thermostat? That would have been nice to know! I've been lighting fires on the floorboard all this time. We need bigger buttons."

"I've never used the brake pedal, and I've had no problems with MY driving. Seems like it's operator error."

"My friend died in a horrible accident outside of Tempe after strapping a jet engine to the roof of your car. You need to issue a recall, obviously."

"Richard Branson is aiming for sub-orbital travel--why are you guys still terrestrial?"

I'm due to run Skull and Shackles next, but I loooooove the idea of running a campaign based around Slumbering Tsar AND Rappan Athuk. Too cool.

Sorry, you're going to be too busy doing other things.

Assuming people hurry up and get their votes in for you before the 4pm deadline in the RPG Superstar event.

Magic Items creation has always been something that was special, pouring ones essence into it made it special because you gave up a part of yourself to create something that was fantastic. Not everyone would want to give up their own essence so creating items was rare. Now it's just a matter of forking over the dough. Thanks guys for taking the "specialness" out of magic items.

If things keep going this way, pretty soon demihumans will be able to reach any level and dwarves will cast arcane spells.

Seriously, though, for those concerned about the possibility of moving to an earthquake/volcanic zone, the city of Seattle (presumably Redmond too) takes the natural disaster threat pretty seriously and is keen on citizens being prepared.

...and then there's the hundreds/thousands of years periods of inactivity and the fairly reliable early warning ("Ranier is 10 feet bigger today, think it's time for a road trip everybody") so it is kind of like worrying about the sun burning out on us. :)

@Kirth: If you're out that way and something does happen, please don't run toward it. I'm betting the lava is pretty interesting, but I'm guessing the superheated gas, ash, and razor sharp rocks blowing by at the speed of sound might complicate things. :)

Couldn't resist the urge any longer.

Picked up a sub and hardcover. Damn you first edition feel. Double-damn you ToH:C

Good thing I can take all this anger out on my players.

When is the fight supposed to start?

When people realize Paranoia "Fifth Edition" isn't on this list.

On the other hand, though, if the initial answer is always going to be "No, you can't do anything except what obviously seems like the most basic intent," then there's no point in debating spell physics, becuase they're irrelevant. Don't make excuses -- if you need to be an authoritarian and lay down the law and tell those stupid players who's boss, then just do it -- don't claim it's about "realism," as some sort of ideological crutch.

It may help if you didn't set up a dichotomy of what you would rule and "heavy handed, uncreative types with a control issue."

Creative use of water walking, to me, doesn't include propelling ones self through a waterfall. It doesn't fit with the intended use of the spell in my eyes.

I'd reward an encounter being ended immediately with a shark or aboleth ending with a failed save vs. water walk. I think that's one creative use of the spell. I wouldn't simply rule "it says water WALK and sharks can't WALK so you FAIL!"

As for the "you must be railroading...what's at the top of the waterfall you want to hide so badly?" Nobody really had that information, did they?
As you well know, there could simply be nothing at all up there because the waterfall was a description of a location in a random encounter.

I'm still not understanding why "creative" has to mean "succeeds."

If it gets abused by a party optimizing so they're essentially doubling their actions and increasing their APL by like +43, turnabout would be fair play.

Maybe have every NPC above level 6 use the Leadership feat so they all have fully optimized cohorts that compliment them perfectly or insane awakened mounts with sorcerer levels of the custom "Haste Debuff" bloodline with a Cure power to boot.

Then base all encounters only on the CR of the NPC's and award zero experience for their cohorts since they're "obviously built into the difficulty of the NPC who had to expend a feat. For instance, this one gave up +4 on init for a spell monkey, and this one has ten less hit points for his haste/entanglebot with UMD and a backpack full of healing wands."

Some of the more evil NPC's could be "roleplayed" as just having gained their leadership feat, greasing up their loyal companions in a combustible material, equipping them only with a necklace of fireballs and convincing them to voluntarily drop their saves (for his fireball or other fire-based spell) when they get into melee range because "it'll increase your DPR by a lot and I can just wand you to full after we beat the heroes."

Stop producing the most successful and popular product line in a year because The World's Oldest is having another identity crisis?

COME ON!

No but I'm allowed to have my opinion

...but it's probably best expressed in another thread which isn't about things you'd like to see in a game you hate and won't ever play.

Maybe the ogres do what my two year-old did...

If it doesn't break, open, or respond appropriately to abuse, he starts throwing it. Dwarf-tossing for the win.

Can't dodge bonus/expertise your way out of hitting the ground from a great distance, being on fire, or drowning. Surely there's a rain barrel they could stuff the dwarf into, or something tall they could drop him off of.

Nets could be useful, too. Plenty of things which deny him expertise since he'll be taking actions other than swinging a melee weapon.

For me, it's just some "we want a simple game, this one is too complicated for us, too many option" argument wrapped up in "we need better presentation for new players" paper.

Please don't interpret every call for reorganization or clarification as "make the game simpler."

I'm not asking for new rules, or simplification of the rules, or tweaks to the rules, I'm asking for an improvement to the presentation of the rules. Density doesn't concern me, but disambiguation and simpler presentation does. (i.e. As simple as it can be without losing meaning.)

Using your "for people who can't understand math" comment as inspiration for the following analogy:

Current CRB could explain the measure of exterior angles of a regular n-gon like this:
A = (180 * n - 180 * (n - 2)) / n

And I'm saying a Revised CRB could say:
A = 360 / n

Same rules, simpler presentation. They are compatible, they always arrive at the same answer, they invalidate no previous calculations, but they simplify the presentation, save space (more density possible!), speed play, and reduce errors.

That's it. No fundamental changes, no new systems, just the inclusion of missing information, the rearrangement of words where it is useful, and the correction of errors.

Oh man! I can't wait for 5th Edition! I've already got a set of d30s ordered!

There will also be a simultaneous launch of customizable virtual miniatures and a 3DTV virtual tabletop. All fully functional and available on launch day as part of a new subscription service, which will include all new artwork and frequent updates and add-ons for an additional fee. They promise.