Staffhog's page

Thank you, Paizo, for this decision. As an artist (musician) who has spent years honing my craft, I appreciate your support of carbon-life-form-based artistic expression.

Everyone in my family reads voraciously, so I have trouble limiting to just four. In no particular order:

The Elenium by David Eddings (Diamond Throne, Ruby Knight, Sapphire Rose). Sparhawk is my favorite depiction of a paladin.

The Black Company by Glenn Cook (another favorite by Glenn Cook - "Garrett, PI" ) Cook's time in the Navy gave him some excellent insights in to the military mindset.

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Can't wait for the RPG to come out!)

Gaunt's Ghosts by Dan Abnett

Hellboy (created by Mike Mignola, several authors contribute to the novel/graphic novels series) Mignola painstakingly researches and includes real-world mythology into his stories. It's excellent!

Not really a 'novel' series but an excellent read regardless: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Alan Moore is a brilliant storyteller, and the literary 'easter eggs' he works into his graphic novels is amazing.

Honorable mention: Both the 'Merry Gentry' and 'Anita Blake' series by Laurell K. Hamilton. My wife discovered them first, and convinced me to read them.

Enumeration of various transgressive actions by previous poster(s) which led to my departure from forum. Appeal for more amenable discourse. Regret over the tardiness of my post.

More peeves - Drivers who:
- on seeing the '______ lane closed' sign immediately race past two or three miles of cars in the other lane.
- STOP in the right-of-way. It happens, all too often.
- drive slow in the left lane and then pace you, once you draw alongside them in the right lane.
- Truckers who pass one another on a mountain road, in order to maintain their 20-mile-under-the-limit-speed.
- flip cigarettes (or whatever other trash) out their windows.

I've often fantasized about mounting a paintball gun under the hood, on some kind of remote lift-and-fire mechanism. Do they make a paintball gun roughly analogous to a .50 cal?

We had a cleric in one of our groups (waaaay back in the early 80s) who worshipped a god of war. According to her belief system, the greatest honor anyone could achieve was to die in battle. Therefore, she refused to heal anyone during a battle, as that would be an affront to her god. She had an absolute blast playing her, and our characters became just a little afraid of her - she was a little over-enthusiastic when it came to 'helping people along' to their reward. If you survived the combat, she'd heal you, but she absolutely refused to condone resurrections, raise dead (and the like). I've never laughed so hard as when our fighter bought it and she refused to allow him to be raised. It was an heroic death and he'd earned his reward, who were we to deny him his place of honor?

Scrapping alignment restrictions would fundamentally change the nature of both the monk and the paladin - not so much for the bard. Traditionally, monks and paladins who fail to follow the tenets of their order are disgraced, lose benefits, and perhaps have to find a new job. It's an inherent aspect of those archetypes in fiction.

Clearly defined parameters for alignment aren't really the issue. Clearly defined parameters for the respective character class, that seems to be where the real issue lies. I don't think that the rule set, being non-campaign specific, should rigidly define those. What's right for a particular order in one campaign world might not be right in another. That's why any player choosing to run one of these characters should go over these issues with the GM prior to starting the character. I've seen well-defined, rigid rules for alignment and the pages of text and tables (ad nauseum) were amusing, but not useful in the long run. It was just too painful to use.

I don't believe that any of these restrictions should be retired. They are easily house-ruled, and any misconceptions about a particular campaign's alignment 'issues' for one of these classes could be easily mitigated by discussing the character concept with the GM prior to creating/importing the character into the campaign. I discuss character concepts with all of my players before beginning a campaign, just to insure there are no misunderstandings about what is expected.

In no particular order...
1. Robo-calls at work (No, I don't really want to hear about the 'toner mixup' and resultant 'special offer' you have)
2. Texting (yes, in general. I'm certain it's a type of illness)
3. Narrow-mindedness (Ironic, yes? I mean, we're talking about pet peeves here, and I'm saying that...oh, never mind).
4. Drivers who can't maintain a constant speed on the highway (Seriously. You just passed me doing 15 mph over the limit, now you want to be in front of me doing 5 mph below?)
5. Drivers in the 'passing lane' while travelling below the speed limit (Does the phrase "Slower traffic move right" mean anything?)
6. Use of the term "Conversate" (it's 'converse') or any other made-up word currently in fashion
7. "That's the way we've always done it" (despite any obvious flaws)
8. Poor customer service (At least pretend like you want to help, OK?)
9. Arrogant customers (It doesn't hurt to be nice to salespeople, despite how very much you want the impossible-to-obtain item)
10. Parents who don't intervene during a child's public temper tantrum (An occasional outburst is understandable. Screaming and throwing things for several minutes at a stretch is not)

Any and all religions can and will be perverted by those who are ethically challenged, and those individuals will use anyone they can to further their own misguided agendas. That said, we mustn't confuse the message with the messengers. Messengers are fallible and will always be so. The message itself is constant. It falls to us as individuals to study the message and apply it to our own lives, and not just rely on the messengers. Trust but verify, as the old saying goes.

With that in mind, I'd like to clarify an earlier point: the Bible doesn't actually describe Hell other than to liken it to a lake of fire, which fits with the 'Sheol' (or Gehenna - they were used interchangeably) image. If you're trying to describe utter destruction to the uneducated masses, the valley where refuse was burned would be a good start. As for the accuracy of biblical translation, I've learned through my studies that the Bible is actually far more historically reliable than any secular text. Bible manuscripts (copies) were written much closer (chronologically speaking) to the autographs (original texts) than any secular example, and the autographs were written (generally) much closer to the events depicted. Additionally, biblical translations are consistently more accurate than secular examples - comes from having an entire social class earning their living by handwriting copies. Please understand that there are nuances - our word 'love' has multiple possible translations in the greek. It's kind of like our word 'love' being used in multiple ways, depending on the context: "I love playing Pathfinder" or "I love my dog" etc...

Mechanics aside, I've always thought that David Eddings' 'Church Knights' was an excellent depiction of paladins. Military-trained adherents to a religious code of ethics, they are members of a religious order who are trained in (a little) magic. There are multiple orders, all of whom have a different flavor, and few of them would blindly follow the tenets of the code to their own (or more importantly to their faith's) detriment. I've always suggested those books to any players considering running a paladin. I ran a paladin patterned that way (on one of my brief 'player' stints) and had a blast. FWIW, there's more detail about the books/order/etc at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Orders_(David_Eddings)

I'm a GM. I play for many of the reasons eloquently stated above, but I GM so that I can share my passion for the genre with others, to engage their sense of wonder and participate with them in a (hopefully) entertaining few moments of escapism.

And to be evil, of course. Can't forget that. To quote a button sold elsewhere on this site: "I'm the GM...Evil is what I do" (Cue maniacal laughter)

Oh, yeah - we suck. That's why there are so few immigrants to this country and our population is dwindling so rapidly.

"Rage, Rage against the dying of the light..."

I've heard it all before - 2nd Edition, D20, 3.5, yadda yadda. IMO, Hackmaster is the true successor to D&D. All other incarnations of the game, since AD&D, have been devolutions.

C'mon, of course he should get a promotion. He killed Batman, after all. And just think, all of his clerics will get to wear those weird luchador masks, just like his: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bane_%28comics%29

At the risk of sounding like a suck-up, Pathfinder is what brought me back to D&D. As a GM, I've run several systems over the last 20+ years but hadn't played D&D since 2nd edition. Pathfinder (and it's precursor adventure paths) motivated me to get on board again. What I've seen of Golarion so far is very engaging, and hints of the remainder have piqued my interest for more. I plan on spending a lot of time tromping around in Paizo's playground, regardless.