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My two cents is basically parroting what has already been said. I grew up on AD&D 2e, but nowadays, all I miss about it is the fluff (especially Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms). I received the 3.0 trio of core books in middle school and never looked back. So much more variety and simplicity, if (in my opinion) a decline in setting quality. THACO remains a concept that I'm surprised ever got in the final printing. 'Course, I then did the same thing from 3.5 to Pathfinder. ;)
Yeah, I'm aware of that, and it's an option that I'm considering, but I'm very much a hardcopy sort of player/GM. I thought that might be the case - I assume this is a combination of lack of demand and a focus on newer products that sell.
First off, I'm very, very sorry if this is a repost, or if it needs to go elsewhere. The scope of these forums is daunting for me, and after a number of searches, I found nothing around this AP, and little on AP reprints in general. So forgive me and push me in a different direction if that's what's called for, but otherwise: I've been trying to find a *reasonably priced* copy of Bastards Of Erebus for some time now, and simply can't (it sits on Amazon for $150, and has been priced almost as stupidly on eBay). I'm sure there's a backlog of sorts for products to go back into print, and I'm just wondering if there's much demand for this AP, or if I need to keep searching and get lucky. I've heard a couple of folks talk about how hard some parts of this AP are to find and what a blast it was, so I can't imagine I'm the first person to ask this question.
Howdy Pathfinders, I'm re-opening a weekly/bi-weekly game at my home in Oakdale, MN, and am interested in meeting any serious roleplayers interested in regular gaming on this side of the Twin Cities. We're a group of mid-20's gamers that take roleplaying semi-seriously, like to stay on task, and enjoy continuity and character development. The campaign in question has been one of our more casual games, as it is relatively fast and loose - and we are just opening the Hook Mountain Massacre chapter of the Rise Of The Runelords adventure path. We prefer to play short sessions once every week or every other week for continuity, and prefer weeknight play (approximately 5-9:30 or so). Happy to respond to any interested parties and to build some new bridges for future games - we have also played a number of other games including Numenera, Call of Cthulhu 6th edition, Star Wars WEG d6, Burning Wheel, and 3.5 and AD&D (with a strong preference for old-school Forgotten Realms setting). Please post or shoot me a PM if you would like to discuss!
Hmm, I was interested to read this. I'm nearing the end of "The Skinsaw Murders" with my regular group playing Rise Of The Runelords, and I thought that the chapter climax utop the Shadow Clock read as a little bit easy for my PCs, who have fared quite well thus far in most "tough" encounters. I considered adding another pair of Faceless Stalkers utop the tower, but I really prefer the "solitary mistress" appeal of this final fight. I'm now considering a modified approach to this sorceress version - maybe something in between challenge levels.
I also find EZG's reviews quite thorough and very helpful. Like others, they're some of the first that I look for when checking out a product. Hats off man, such hard work and thoughtful analysis is highly appreciated!
That depends, I suppose, on your parenting style. At ages 8 & 10, it's not such a thing that I would place before my children. It seems that gradually introducing children to reality is kind of an obsolete notion nowadays.
I think everyone else's input is good. Railroading is practically necessary for beginners, and I also highly agree on the "monster enemies so as to avoid moral conundrums" point. I think it's fine to offer side quests though, kids roleplaying will do what they think is most exciting. It could be an interesting situation as a GM to try and tie everything back together. Kids do the darndest things, so there might be some strange (and brightly colored) loose ends to tie up. I like the main trek that you have for the story, it sounds like fun. Have you thought of putting in some interesting puzzles and/or riddles?
Ugh. Yeah, you optimize that much and of course you're going to always go first. I don't think this has much bearing on the conversation here. It could just be me, but I don't envision a well RP'd Diviner as being a "boom wizard."
Ugh, no more THAC0, for the love of the pantheons! And yes, I find fighters far more balanced now as well. Only little tweaks are necessary to keep them more even with casters, in my experience with Pathfinder. Also, as far as "serving levels on a silver platter", that's a personal GM issue. I sure make my PCs earn their levels with Pathfinder, even if it's built to be a little easier. ;)
I didn't like the series too much. Then again, I have little appreciation for the visual medium as entertainment. I've read the books, and after watching through the first season on DVD, I had mixed impressions: On the plus side, I feel that the acting is quite good, and that for the most part, characters are well-represented visually. The environs are great, the props are good, and in general it's a high-budget, accessible series. However, I have a couple of serious beefs. The first of which is that the show was apparently written to appeal to a sixteen-year-old male with a short attention span and raging hormones. I think every sex/nudity scene that doesn't occur with a POV character from the book is inserted just for the slack-jawed HBO viewers. In addition, they seriously water down the plot so that a 10 year old could understand it with relative ease. The killing blow for me was a major plot exposition from (in the books, mind you) a delightfully deceptive character where he just talks to himself for a few minutes, completely cheapening his role and making him transparent. At the same time, a pair of women have sex noisily on a couch for no applicable reason whatsoever. Now I may not be the biggest fan of George RR Martin, but I thought his books were pretty enjoyable. This series, however, has been distilled into your typical dirty American HBO show. It just happens to be fantasy. It also irks me that now everyone that I work with thinks that they not only know fantasy, but that they are keenly aware of its pinnacle in Game Of Thrones. Oh and dude, no. In Martin, most things are a wash of greys. It's a very grim and gritty series. EVERYONE gets theirs sooner or later, and the closest thing to a righteous hero is Jon Snow (or maybe in a twisted sense, Tyrion Lannister). I'm not going into plot details, but suffice to say that this is not exactly high fantasy, and the general consensus I get from readers is that over time, they burn out on most all characters being raped, maimed, or killed. All that complaining aside, it's still a fair to very good representation of the plot sometimes, and it's easy to get hooked on. I kind of object on principle.
Belkzen is an interesting place. I'm hopeful for a Player Companion or (wishful thinking?) campaign setting based on it in the not-so-distant future. I was a bit disappointed in the content in "Orcs Of Golarion" on the subject, myself.
Oh, and score one for Killstring. Austin Wintory is top-notch!
I enjoy ambient music very much (I'm a huge metalhead and love symphonic power metal, but it distracts both players and I in game), and was new to the Celestial Aeon project, "The Fall Of Ragnaros" is almost perfect for what I want, and I'm looking into other material of theirs now, thanks! My best finds (I'm running the Carrion Crown Adventure Path at present) have been the creepier Nox Arcana and Midnight Syndicate albums. Specifically those dealing with asylums, Lovecraftian themes, graveyard, vampires, etc. Does anyone else have any good recs along these lines? Fairly simple, minimalistic ambient material that really sets a great mood without getting in the way?
Bal-Sagoth - "The Chthonic Chronicles" :D
+1 to Pax For me, it was AD&D 2nd edition in...probably about 1996/1997 with help from my father.
Good time to start. Itchy's spot on about everything. My dad got me rolling in a group when I was 8 or 9, and I start running stuff with school friends in early high school. Worked well for me, and hopefully it does for you. :)
Why even bother playing a nonspell casting class than Or...you know, bother having classes at all. Sounds like walls-down mix and match to me, for which there would be little point to classes. And THAT makes me think of...not breaking down the arcane/diving wall per se, but learning things specifically by school or domain. Imagine an Elder Scrolls-esque system where a caster has access to say, the arcane schools of evocation and transmutation, and simultaneously the divine domains of fire and destruction, or some such. Perhaps the caster has primary and secondary focuses that combine these arcane and divine schools, so he progresses fastest in some, secondarily in others, and has few to no spells from non-focus schools/domains. You could have a freeform combination Battle-mage/warpriest a la Dungeon Siege done more fluidly than the current rules allow, at least that's the way that I envision it. But that's at least a little bit off-topic. In context as it is, it makes little sense to me to just throw the gates open and let everyone take everything. Eliminates all sorts of flavor, and as a player/GM, I'm more interested in role-playing than in combat/spellcasting optimization and experimentation. So, you know, grain of salt and all that.
Whee, Lissala! (I can't be the only one excited for this.)
Why care about balancing races? There are a lot of intangible benefits/penalties to being races, depending on region, the attitude of the GM, etc. I for one don't need it to be "mathematically sound", that sounds like we're moving into more clear-cut board/miniature game rule territory. And I don't think that lawful/neutral/chaos should EVER be done away with. If anything I wish more people role-played better and the alignment system was even deeper (this will never happen), but it's the difference between a devil and a demon, good bards and clerics, and everything else. This would make no sense to get rid of.
I strongly suspect it's because "it ONLY hit 200k", not that I can blame them. I'd like to see this succeed as well, and it's unfortunate that it's so expensive (though again, I understand the reasoning) to get early access. More and more, video games are bleeding people for premium content. I was extremely pleased with Mechwarrior online - where despite those who pre-purchased receiving open beta access, anyone with a free account could petition for admission to the closed beta (and got in 1-2 months earlier than the doors were thrown open for everyone that paid, I might add). I wish we could see something like this with PFO, it'd help out those of us who scraped together to afford the basic $35 tier during a holiday season (*cough*). I say this from the perspective of a heavily indebted student though, so my perspective will more than likely change with time.
My two cents: The Darklands, but with no/minimal Drow! I would love to see a huge cavern-spanning, enormous Darklands crawl, with all of the fascinating creatures and strange biomes that can come with it. Darkmoon Vale/Andoran would be spectacular, in my opinion. Urban campaign in Absalom. Something that seems sorely missing.
Skinsaw Murders, Book 2 of Rise of the Runelords. It's pretty much self-contained and could be very easily adapted as a standalone action-horror adventure for 4-6 sessions. This IS an excellent chapter, but it builds on a particularly strong plot lead from the first adventure. Aside from that, I agree completely. I've been delving into the Shattered Star Adventure path recently with subscriptions, and given the range that you're looking for: Curse Of The Lady's Light is excellent. Just tweak it from "running quest to collect all the points of the Sihedron" to "Go get this one piece for us", and you're pretty much set. Excellent setting in the mushfens, good monster politics, great RP opportunity in the dungeon itself, secrets to discover, and a pretty satisfying ending.
It's a real trick to make Aldern a great character without making him too obvious. Best way to do this: lots of roleplaying with as many townspeople as possible, even if they're not named. Chapters one and two of Burnt Offerings offer a TON of information on these points. In fact, I'd suggest putting in some time (if you have it) with the "Sandpoint" section at the end of the book (assuming you have the Anniversary edition), reading up on the characters and locations. ...but that's all icing on the cake. Landon's post is perfect. DON'T FORGET to make a few things start to go "missing" from Aldern's favorite PC, starting after saving him. This really makes the plot interesting.
After running this with PCs taking the traditional approach through Nettlewood and across the bridge (which, of course fell), this doesn't really sound that stupid (unless I'm missing something) if the PCs skills are in order and scaling the cliff is realistic. Mine ended up with a whole lot of rope use checks to re-establish a usable means of crossing the gap. WHILE under fire by goblin arrows, much of the time. Of course the smartass in the party wanted to chuck the halfling across...
"Funny" aside, I think that intentionally avoiding combat optimization for the sake of roleplaying becomes ever more important to me as both a player and a DM/GM. I've had campaigns grow so tired because of combats devolving into complete boredom. Lately, with getting into Pathfinder, I've attempted to infuse more and more life into characters, and I think that the wealth of options really helps Pathfinder succeed here. A recent example is an oracle of Pharasma who's nearly blind as a bat (well ok, not quite, he's got the "clouded vision" curse), has most of his skills stacked up as a scholar, and with a relatively low strength score, is destined primarily to be relegated to utility use. ...however, he fits very well in the dark fey campaign of which he is a part, and since the campaign intentionally places combat as a secondary emphasis, I find myself having all kinds of fun designing, playing, and explaining the character.
I'd also like to know about Sczarni. My players and I have been using "Zhar-nee" ("shar", but with the hard "z"). I have no idea how it's actually supposed to be pronounced, though.
The print edition sold out already? I don't know whether to cry or leap for joy. Please print more! :D
As the "new player" in the campaign, but without trying to meta-game (and hoping you don't mind, Mark), I'd like to offer my input: This has partially been my homebrew experience in the past. My players always liked shiny source material to read, and so running something in the Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder world was ideal, because there is both a a ton of existing material, as well as an immense amount of freedom to build your own. I don't consider it a weak point in the campaign, but I know that for example, were this actually set in Pathfinder's Ustalav, I am certain I'd have a stronger connection because I'd have more information at my fingertips, knowledge of the world around me, and be in familiar setting that I'm already very engaged with. Secondly, time between sessions: this has always been an issue for players and I, and why I try to forge every week/every other week games- we used to forget a lot of stuff! Even with my weekly games, I run a journal and write up interludes for characters to keep them thinking about stuff between sessions. You hardly do a poor job of contact, so I think that the time lapse between sessions is likely a good part of this issue. This is often inevitable with families. Interesting that I used to be the one that had to MAKE time for semi-frequent games, and now I'm always the one pushing for consistent play.
Hi there, I have a number of items that I am looking to liquidate. NONE of these items are listed on eBay. That is a last resort for me, as I'd prefer to see them go to new homes where I know they'll be used by gamers. Please note that I am looking to make any sales via Paypal, shipping via USPS (your preference, at your cost). I live in Minnesota and will ship to the lower 48 United States only. Please note: I'm happy to consider trades for Pathfinder materials (see below). HAVE (All items in used good/very good shape unless noted otherwise): Star Wars Roleplaying: Core Rulebook (Wizards Of the Coast d20 system)
WANT: Will consider anything for Pathfinder, but specifically anything on my wishlist. Please send me a private message if you want any more specifics, have an offer, or have any other questions. I'm not pricing these until I know interest, though I have a decent idea of pricing for everything on the list. Thanks for looking!
Thank you, much obliged. :)
Hey all, I've been looking for a place to list some RP materials for other gamers to look at/buy at a good price. Given the traffic on this board, I was a bit surprised to not be able to find much of anything on this topic here, which leads me to my question: is posting about selling/trading my old source materials kosher here? If yes, is this the correct place to do it?
I always track it, seemed silly not to. Oftentimes things can turn around or someone left for dead (as mentioned) will come back to play an important role. I guess I kind of just assumed everyone did that sort of thing. Never played with a group that was just "dead" at 0 hp.
Wow, this sure exploded! I was very interested, but got hooked up with a solid local group, and so I'm going to focus on that for a bit. I retract my interest for the time being. :) Good on you Black Fang for picking this up, that's awesome. Hope you guys all enjoy.
I worried about this exact same thing. My party just happened to work its way through the CoW in pretty much the perfect order though, so there was no real trouble. The reason being that they seemed to want to explore the more visible areas just 15-20 feet in front of them (and within light radius), rather than walking down a long, dark hallway to the shrine/cathedral. I realize that caution won't work for every group though. :D And I would think that Savah's should be able to supply something cold iron, if specifically for this encounter. I made sure something fell into the party's hands for that reason.
Speaking of Catholicism. This is slightly off-topic but well worth the read.
Also, I don't think I misunderstand the pricing model, unless the Kickstarter page and FAQ somehow mis-state it. Note that I wouldn't say that Goblinworks is doing anything wrong/irresponsibly. Like Avari, I appreciate the cooperative approach of Kickstarter and don't mind at all being the investor in a situation like this.
If you find anything else, please post it here. I'm pretty excited about Kaer Maga myself, and have been looking for as much material as possible. Thanks!
I enjoy Kickstarter, and don't have much against the company doing it this way. That said, I have mixed feelings. I feel that subscription-based MMO's are on the way out, and ESPECIALLY by release, that will be an obsolete concept. I would have expected that a fairly competent and forward-thinking company like Paizo/GW would have recognized this. This is also a BAD time of year to start a Kickstarter. Waiting 'til Jan/Feb would have been far preferable. I don't think I can afford to get in on it at this point even if I wanted to. All that out of the way, I'm very interested to see what rolls out, and I imagine the content of the finished project will be rather excellent. However, I don't see myself paying a subscription for a game like this unless it's a rather different format than most existing fantasy MMOs.
To hit an earlier point very briefly: I've often found that most thinking RPGs (such as Pathfinder), seem to reward characters as much or MORE, both materially and intangibly, for non-violent solutions that are often more difficult to achieve. And yes, if violence is involved, it's a far cry from our everyday world. Malevolant monsters that are unequivocally evil (and sometimes not even sentient) make for rather guilt-free sword fodder. Slaying humanoids, however, becomes much more of a moral issue. In fact, I often find fantasy to be sadly more ethical about this than real life (where there is no one else, and we just butcher each other).
I would be immensely interested, as this looks like a stellar AP. I think we'd have people all over it if a GM were to kick one up. ;)
I appreciate it, might take you up on that. I did check out that thread, and may put in an application. I'm always bigger on longer, more rewarding engagements and deeper character development (not that I expect it will be poor, but one primary feature is how small the story window is).
Howdy all, I read a post similar to this a couple days ago and yes, have been checking the recruitment threads here. Most posts have been full and others not really what I'm looking for, so here goes: I'm a moderately experienced role player that's new to Pathfinder. I find myself rather addicted to it, and have been GM'ing a Rise Of The Runelords campaign with a local group. This has been inconsistent, and I'm always online, so I'm hoping to find a group at the genesis of an adventure. I have only a very little online campaign experience, and am not comfortable with captaining my own (yet). I'm also still getting used to the PFRPG rule set after years of 3.5 and d20 (my local group is doing the same, which is why I've been all right GM'ing with them, since we're all learning), so I more or less want to be treated as a newbie until I wrap my head around things better. I have made a pretty sizable investment in Pathfinder in the last 6 months, and would love a committed PBP group to play with, especially one embarking on an AP that I'm not familiar with (these really only include RotR and Shattered Star). If anyone has any guidance or interest, please hit me up! I note a number of pbp AP's going on, so I am hopeful.
I think I would find the Pathfinder pantheon supplanted by Christian saints, canons, etc., to be very boring. I've never had to "tone down" my campaigns, even though by and large I've played with people of similar spiritual beliefs. Actually, I think playing with the 3.5 Heroes Of Horror sourcebook helped pushed me into some of the darker, grittier fantasy that I now enjoy. I think that this is really personal preference, and something that every DM needs to gauge with their parties at the outset of an adventure. I must say that I'm pleasantly surprised by how diplomatic and thoughtful a lot of the discussion has been here, interesting topic.
I kind of thought the same thing when I cracked "Shards Of Sin". Figured the motivation was low, there wasn't a ton of RP/plot building, and it felt like a hurl into a pretty serious dungeon crawl (which is not necessarily a bad thing). Just starting poking through "Curse Of The Lady's Light" last night though, and I'm very impressed. It's definitely a change of pace and a pretty refreshing adventure all around. Seems it will be worth the possible slog for some people through the first installment. :)
Jumping in late here, and I haven't read every post in the thread. I'm 25, a practicing Catholic, and was raised by a Catholic/Lutheran Father/Mother (respectively) who MET by playing AD&D in college. Faith and gaming have never been at odds for me and in fact, I often enjoy the fantasy setting as a means to explore moral dilemmas, create particularly obvious black and white good/evil dichotomies (unlike the wash of grey in our lives), etc.. I remember having a high school friend whose parents were dead set against him playing 3rd edition with me because they were a "Christian household", but numerous other comparable (playing Diablo) or much stupider (getting drunk and arrested in high school) things were "Ok", and "a part of growing up". That always rankled me. I guess I'd turn it around as well. "How a game like Pathfinder be deemed "religiously dangerous?"" Only, as I see it, if one begins to take it too seriously or spends too much time/money on it. Even though it's just a game, everything can relate to one's faith or lack thereof. From my perspective, it's quite harmless entertainment that has a ton of perks.
Rush's "Clockwork Angels" at present, and Orden Ogan's "To The End" pretty much ceaselessly last week. :) |
