The Doc CC's page

So I just received mine (from the Kickstarter) and will share my impression. It's lovely. The brass is nice and weighty, feels solid and tough, with beautiful levels of detail on it. The actual compass face has an elegant black and tan compass imprint. The needle settles on magnetic north quickly, but is very sensitive to external magnetic metals and magnets.

I enjoy the detail on the brass, with rotating dials, sigils, and filigree. For me, the Grand Lodge symbol is too crisp and clean; it looks modern, not old at all. The aeon stones can be swapped out with no effort. The interior of the cover has a blue enamel star-swirl design that looks great. It's lighter than shown in the image above (or is it my monitor?), with a color that's a shade or two brighter than navy blue.

If I didn't know what it was, I would just think someone made a cute little modern version of an antique compass.

Indeed, while it's very pretty, it's not flawless. It's a little stiff to open, there's nothing to give you purchase when you try to open it, and some of the aeon stones look a little too fake. My biggest problem is that the aeon stone is easily dislodged accidentally. Finally, I feel like it's aching for a loop for a lanyard, fob, or chain. Those are minor complaints.

It should go without saying, but no, you aren't going to use this in any practical sense.

I can't tell you if this delightful little replica is worth almost a hundred USD to you, a hundred sixty with the aeon stones, but it's one of the nicest replica props for anything that I have ever picked up. It's a premium product at a premium price.

I don't think 2 makes sense either, as there are a number of abilities that automatically suppress or suppress without dealing damage in the first place.

I actually see that as a disconnect that should be addressed. The weapon or item used should at least have the ability to threaten harm, even if the ability used does not do harm. The real world analogy would be that if you shoot at me with a Nerf gun, I will not be suppressed. I have to believe the attack is dangerous.

N.B. the term "fluff" is disfavored by Paizo folks who have asked us to use a less pejorative alternative (like lore, thematics, flavor, etc.)

Thank you, so noted. I rarely post on the boards.

While I get the idea, Conditions do not have traits. Rather, the abilities that impose conditions have traits. So the ability can be granted the tag, but not the condition itself.

Thank you, yes. The trait tag should go on the effect that causes suppression. This would also allow suppression from sources that simply make the target believe it is in eminent danger, even if it is not.

I could imagine a spell that creates a hallucinatory barrage and that forces saves in order to avoid being suppressed because you believe you are under intense fire.

I don't really like that most of the argument for change is regarding either 'reality' or other game systems and how their suppression mechanics work.

Why can't we look at the Suppressed condition for this game from just the point of view of this game?

The argument comes from the events in the game, where my immersion was broken by having a mindless enemy pinned down because it felt it was threatened by fire. Also, by the strange tactical decision of choosing new targets because being suppressed caused them to want to ignore the character suppressing them.

The discussion for what to change to looks at both the term when used correctly and also what other games have done. What is suppressive fire?

As for the second comment, respectfully:
1: They called it suppression and suppressed. That word is an affordance that clearly is meant to invoke the feeling of being pinned down by an enemy with fire superiority. Otherwise, why are you using that loaded term?
2. The RPG space in fifty years has always eaten its own. A game designer who doesn't look at what other designers have done building a game are simply put not good designers. A familiarity with other systems and what terms mean is helpful.

I checked to see if this has been brought up, but I did not see it. If I am relitigating a topic, please direct me to the correct discussion.

Thesis: Suppression should have traits to make it make more sense narratively, and it might need a buff as well. I think Fear and Mental are needed. It probably could use a buff, too.

Starfinder Playtest Review: The fluff states you are forced to act less efficiently for your own safety. The rules say -1 circumstance penalty to attacks and a -5 foot status penalty to speed.

Playtest Event: So during the playtest, our group encountered some mindless enemies. The enemies were suppressed by an attack that did them no damage. Why? The attack did them no harm and the enemies were immune to being frightened. What is preventing these enemies from simply advancing?

At another point, some ranged enemies were suppressed. So on their turn, despite being suppressed, they closed the distance and shot at the less-defended party members rather than the Soldier. They became more dangerous because they attacked squishier teammates.

What is suppression? In military science, suppressive fire is fire sufficient to render the target unable to effectively complete its mission effectively. I didn't say it neutralizes the target, renders the target completely unable to act, nor that it it has to come from a particular source.

For example, if a squad encounters a hostile team, it would typically engage having one team suppress the target as the other maneuvers to deliver decisive fire. (This is exactly the euphemism it sounds like.)

The reason it works is because the suppressive fire is too flipping scary so the target feels it's forced to stay down, not do its job, and take cover/shelter. Suppression depends on psychology; the target has to be afraid of the attack. The attack doesn't have to be effective. Green troops, for example, might be suppressed by ineffective fire while veteran troops start maneuvering immediately.

Suppression is based on a tacit threat: if you don't stay down, this is going to become effective fire. You are going to die.

Suppression in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Context: Let's imagine a scenario: a sci-fi fire team waits with a prepared kill zone. Suddenly, a group of enemy soldiers enters and the team attacks. The enemy soldiers presumably do not want to die and run for cover. They're being suppressed!

Next, a bunch of expendable robots are sent in. They're programmed to rush and take the position no matter what. Our heroes engage but cannot make the robots fall back - they can only blast away. They just keep coming! The robots cannot be suppressed; you're firing for effect, not suppression.

What other games do: I quickly thought of two RPGs games and two skirmish games that use suppression.

In the old Warhammer 40k series Dark Heresy and related games, suppression required you to roll with a massive penalty to hit - you were almost never going to score a hit. However, every enemy you suppressed had to roll a Willpower roll to do much more than dive for cover.

In Cyberpunk RED, suppression has you roll an Autofire skill roll to affect an area. All enemies in that zone must roll a Concentration roll if they plan to do anything other than dive for Cover.

In Star Wars: Legion, a unit hit by an attack gains a Suppression token, even if the attack does no damage after all saves are rolled (oversimplification). Too much suppression and a unit loses one of its actions on its turn.

In Cyberpunk: Combat Zone, a suppressive weapons forces a character who reacts to it to run for cover without returning fire.

In these games, the ability to ignore or recover from suppression depends on a "courage" stat - Willpower, Concentration, Courage, etc.

Thoughts on Changes: My bottom line.

1. Suppression should have the Mental and Fear tags.
2. Suppression should have a clause allowing you to ignore it if an enemy cannot damage you with the weapon or ability they are using to suppress you. I.E. An enemy with Fire immunity cannot be suppressed by a flame weapon.
3. Even with these further restrictions, Suppression seems to need a buff. Maybe allow the suppressing character a reaction to target the suppressed character if they Move / Strike / Cast a Spell? Or maybe the suppressed targets take a -1 circumstance penalty against an enemy that is suppressing them and a -3 against other targets, which would push them to target the suppressing enemy. Or forced movement?
4. Or would it be better to force suppressed enemies into a dilemma: either spend your first action taking cover / striding away from the source of the suppression, or give the suppressing character a free reaction against you?

Thank you.

The Doc CC wrote:

A Potency Crystal, despite the name, acts as if it was Potency and Striking runes for that minute , much like the Magic Weapon spell.

Ehm, which minute? Just in case, Potency Crystal works "for the rest of the turn". So I guess around 4-5 Strikes at maximum if quickened?

The minute that sneaked out of my brain when I was thinking of mentioning Magic Weapon when talking about a Potency Rune. Thank you for the correction.

Would this give my 10 leaden balls a + 1 bonus to hit or damage?

I am guessing you're new to PF2e. Welcome aboard! Assuming you're coming from another engine, there is a common surprise for players. That +1 Potency rune does not increase the weapon damage. It only augments the weapon's attack rolls. This includes all attacks, not just Strike actions, so if you add it to a weapon that lets you do something else, it applies.

For example, if I have a +1 light mace, the +1 to attack rolls would also apply if I use it with my Athletics skill to Shove.

That +1 Potency rune is still adding to damage in a different way, however. Because of the Critical Success rule, it has not only increased the odds of a hit, but the odds of a critical hit.

A Striking rune will increase the number of weapon damage dice. A Potency Crystal, despite the name, acts as if it was Potency and Striking runes for that minute, much like the Magic Weapon spell. Higher level class abilities will often increase your flat damage, such as a Fighter's Weapon Specialization at level 7.

Jared Walter, above, said this, but I did want to make it clear for you.

I had an early problem transitioning to PF2e as a long-time PF1e GM; I always assigned too few Hero Points. My solution is a rules variant that proved so popular with my players that as they started GMing, they almost all started to do the same. I present it to you all to take or leave as you see fit. It uses the Hero Point deck.

The Hero Point Draft
'Draft' is not the right word, but this is kind of what we called it, so here it goes. Each session begins with me dealing three Hero Point cards to each PC. These cards are examined by each player, but they keep none of them. Instead, they pass one to the player to their left, and one to the player to their right. The third and final card returns to the GM and is shuffled back into the Hero Point Deck.

The PC's are told since they start with two hero points, the GM may be a bit stingier than expected awarding them.

Benefits
The first benefit is that the Draft allows PC's to have a little extra edge and helps avoid the problem of the GM simply not awarding enough Hero Points in the game. The awarding of Hero Points mid-play feels awesome because it can be a bit less frequent while still leaving players with the same number of points.

It causes players to take more interest in the other PC's. For example, if the Rogue tends to play a high-risk, high-reward, aggressive style, then maybe their friend hands them a card which helps make that strategy work like Strike True. If the Wizard just got a new staff, their friend might hand them a card that allows an exhausted item to be activated again.

Players absolutely love it when a card they gave their buddy helps them out.

Downsides
The PC's having two Hero Points at start does increase their power a small amount, though I do not find that to be a terrible downside.

The bonuses from Hero Points tend to be rather well-tailored to the PC's. Again, this doesn't strike me as a bug, but a feature. Spending a Hero Point should feel good.

A Drafting Variant
I did try a variant where the PC's each received three cards, took one, then passed to to the left. Repeat the process, with each PC picking one of the two remaining cards and returning the last card to the GM. This is more like "Drafting" cards in a CCG.

I found the players enjoyed this less. First, you did not have the thrill of seeing your friend use a thing you gave them. Second, it did not encourage the cooperative spirit of the group, since each PC invariably chooses the best card for themselves at both decision points. They do not have to think, 'What helps my friend out?'

Closing Matter
Thank you for reading. Feel free to steal, use, improve, or disregard as you see fit.

I did not see this variant listed before, but it is possible I've been scooped. With my schedule, I rarely have time for browsing the boards.

Can I just draw everyone's attention to the tooth fairy stealing that tooth on the cover? That is absolutely delicious.

Also, can I guess that that since graveknights and skeletons have been covered, and we see a group of the skeletons there, that 2e is getting rules for the Troop creature type?

HLO is the future and although not a finished product yet, is already very functional as a character builder.

*Snip*

It is also important to note that Lone Wolf have not charged any subscription fees yet, as they still view the product to be in Beta.

Subscription fees for services are unfortunately a way of life, but a necessary evil for companies to survive. I mean I pay over three times the HLO subscription fee to Netflix each month, and certainly spend more time on HLO.....

Emphasis added.

I would definitely argue against it being functional, and have. To wit: the character sheets can barely be tweaked, the character sheets can have overlapping print, you can't take anything offline, it's slow, it's buggy, it omits data, you can't share anything with others, it does not make customization easy, editing the inventory is a nightmare, you can't put your gold down so its bulk always applies, and it omits tables and other necessary data when making up your spells.

So they are charging to be a beta tester? Is that it? Then put pay to be our beta-tester, sorry, Early Access, on the store front, or you're being more disingenuous than Steam. Also, my direct emails from the company never mentioned such a thing. Could you kindly explain your source of insight on this? Take a look at their storefront. You'll find nothing that says, "We consider our product to be in beta and unfinished." If you are correct, then the necessary conclusion is they are being deceptive.

I avoid any game which demands both a subscription to a live service and an upfront charge. They get one or the other; as a consumer, I refuse to accept this is in any way necessary and will point to any game with no subscription as a counterexample. Indeed, your own Netflix example contradicts your argument. I don't pay Netflix both an initial and recurrent price (and that's before discussing that Netflix's content probably costs orders of magnitude more to produce/license than Pathfinder and requires similar orders of magnitude more bandwidth and storage to deliver). I have Spotify; they didn't charge me a special license for the Classical Pack, American Rock Pack, and the Podcast Pack. Nor do I pay Roll20 for both a subscription and then have to buy a special license to use the product. Nor does D&D Beyond have this kind of obligatory double-dipping shenanigans. I could continue ad nauseam.

So if it is a necessary evil, why do Netflix, D&D Beyond, Roll20, and Spotify not need to do it?

I would like to say I haven't had any problems with connection or load time with herolab online.

From their email to me: "As you noted after your purchase there were indeed several connectivity issues that related to the massive traffic spike on the service that crippled the functions several times in the first few days. I understand your frustration at the failure for it to work as advertised straight out of the gate and we do take responsibility for those issues as it impacted things quite severely, and much like yourself, many Users were reasonably upset."

They flat out stated, "Yeah, our launch was a buggy, slow mess." Your personal experience doesn't negate others'.

It's inevitable. You don't own major software like Office anymore. You rent it. My company rents licenses for our AutoDesk suite of products.

Your company struck a proprietary license deal. Many do; organizations cut those deals. You and I are consumers. Hence, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Your example of Office is just untrue; if my hospital licenses it, they cut a deal with Microsoft. not me (and they have}. If I purchase Office Home & Student Edition, Microsoft does not require recurrent payments for me. It would if I wanted the online functionality of Office 365, there is a $99 per year price. This still compares favorably to HeroLab Online's model.

For Office 365 to be sold like HeroLab Online, it would be $99 a year, then $35 for the "Word Core Set, $25 for the "Powerpoint Add-On," then $25 for "Excel Core" and $5 for the "Excel Autoformulae Pack", and then $20 "Access Home Extension" bundles in addition to the subscription fee. Also, you couldn't work on your work unless you had an internet connection, the formatting of all pages would be decided for you with no ability to change it, release day it would be non-functional, and you'd have no right to share your work with others in your organization or to save a local copy of your creation to edit later. If that concept for Office sounds exploitive, why are you so quick to defend Lone Wolf?

You said yourself that the model bothered you. It should. It's anti-consumer scheme for a product that is a pale shadow in functionality of its predecessor. Here's to hoping the HeroLab Classic community uploads files for PF2.

The Doc CC wrote:

today at 1 PM CST, adding a spell to a spellbook requires 5 clicks and 1 minute, 2 seconds, almost all the time spent waiting on the server. So that will be 15 minutes for your level 1 wizard

I just tested this - 21 seconds for me. Sorry to hear you're having issues but just saying - they may be with your ISP or PC. Maybe it's not actually waiting for the server but rendering the page that takes unreasonably long for you.

Do level 1 wizards really get 15 spells though?

My speed test is 111 Mbs. I have tried it on multiple devices, including a lower-end 2-year old work laptop and a gaming rig that runs current games on ultra on a 4k screen. The test today is on the gaming rig. I used it on my institution's absurdly fast connection, my FLGS's wifi, and my home connection. It would be absolutely terrible for this program to run poorly on older computers; that would be yet another strike against it, because HeroLab Classic and D&D Beyond don't require anything fancy to run. And if it's my ISP, that's another strike on HeroLab Online since I live in a large community in one of the most populous states in the USA, and if we're going to be waiting on their servers, then you can bet a lot of other would-be clients will have an even worse experience.

And even then, 21 seconds per spell x 15 spells is 5 minutes waiting on the program, which compares extremely unfavorably to 1) HeroLab Classic and 2) my pencil.

Yes, 15-16 spells. 10 cantrips, 5 1st level spells. Since they must be added in manually, that is 15 spells, +1 if you specialize in a school.

The Doc CC wrote:

I did not say they charge you for the CRB and Bestiary again, but I definitely was unclear.

Gotta say I'm not sure what this is actually supposed to mean, then:

The Doc CC wrote:

Let me be clear; you pay to temporarily license content. If you want just the Core Rulebook in Pathfinder, it will cost you $35 USD. The Bestiary is another $13. This gives you access to the content for 6 months. If you want the product after that, they want you to pay again.

They do not charge you for the CRB and the Bestiary, but you still have to pay for access to the server every 6-12 months. Thus, you pay $48 up front for the CRB and Bestiary, and in six months if you want to keep them, you'll start facing recurring charges. This was pointed out more than once and contrasts very negatively with HeroLab Classic. You have to pay the subscription *and* for content.

Some of what you are saying does not seem to match with what I read on Wolf Lair's site. My understanding is that you pay a one-time cost for adding content, and a recurring cost for server access, but that the two are separate (so if you buy the Core book and the Bestiary, that doesn't mean the recurring cost goes up).

I did not say they charge you for the CRB and Bestiary again, but I definitely was unclear. Thank you for clarifying for the readers. My point is they charge you again, and the analogy is to a video game with a live service ($60 bucks for the game, then recurring charges). This is compared to HeroLab Classic, which was buy the content once, keep your client-side program, no recurring charges.

And D&D Beyond looks like a superior product for that system, but doesn't help me play Pathfinder.

As an aside, the HLO site is a bit confusing regarding refunds. If you buy "HLOnline: Pathfinder 2nd edition" they offer a 60 day unconditional refund option, but not if you buy PF2 as an added game (which I guess you would if you already had the Starfinder version, for example). If the customer service representative told you otherwise, you might want to talk to them again.

No mistake. As I said, I kickstarted RealmWorks and have HeroLab Classic with tons of licenses. Since it is part of my account, as a previously-loyal customer, I get no refund.

I am looking for a character creator that is not HLO, as the program seems to have a serious issue with my use of Firefox as a browser (and it's been an issue since Starfinder HLO, so it's nothing new).

It's not Firefox. I've tried it in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, and it is their servers. They admitted as much to me in an email from tech support. It's a hot pile of slow frustration, and I guess I'll be waiting for PCGen myself.

Gentlepersons, I submit for you a "first impressions" and "user experience" for HeroLab Online. I can't call it a review because the thing doesn't work yet. My goal in writing is to alert you before your money leaves your wallet, so you can make an informed choice. Perhaps someday this product shall worth purchasing, but I will tell you what has happened since I picked it up on August 1st, 2019.

I would have been quick to recommend HeroLab Classic for PF1e. As a matter of fact, when it was on Paizo.com, I did, giving it four stars but quickly noting the pricing was deceptive. (The review is in my profile, but the HeroLab Classic product page is memory-holed.) Thirty dollars bought you Core 1e, and you would spend a lot more for the PF1e full experience. I did it gladly, because HeroLab Classic was a slightly confusing, absolutely useful tool that could do just about anything you needed. And when you bought the product, you *purchased* it with your license, and didn't have a recurrent cost.

I state that in the preface because I want to say I went into HeroLab online with a generally positive opinion of Lone Wolf. I have Army Builder. I Kickstarted Realmworks. Within hours of checking out HeroLab Online, all positive feelings were lost.

First, the new model is a recurring subscription. You have no long-term in this. They are following the monetization model of a live service. Yes, this means you will pay and pay again for content that you already paid for. I hope that knowledge alone turns people off. It certainly was a negative when I was considering purchasing it, but it wasn't enough to make me turn back. With a diminished, but still favorable, view of Hero Lab, I tried HLO.

Let me be clear; you pay to temporarily license content. If you want just the Core Rulebook in Pathfinder, it will cost you $35 USD. The Bestiary is another $13. This gives you access to the content for 6 months. If you want the product after that, they want you to pay again.

The program is now browser-based and always requires a connection. This means it must always contact the Lone Wolf servers to do anything. Your ability to download your creations is limited to downloading PDFs of the characters you've created. This has several implications, such as you can no longer work when not connected, you can no longer save a creation and send it to someone else to review or edit, you can no longer customize how character sheets print and look, you can no longer take your character and use them in HeroLab without a connection, and you can no easily make custom content. All those functions are gone.

When it rolled out, the server-side connections were abysmally slow. They assured me in an email that they have the problem under control, but the roll-out was still plagued with having the product hang for minutes at a time because it couldn't get a reply from Lone Wolf's server. Well, it still does that. It's gotten better; it's now about 10-15 seconds of wait time per click. That's for every skill you are clicking to pick as trained. For every spell you're adding to the spellbook. For every little item you are picking up in your gear. For every time you edit the journal. For every time you want to delete a used consumable (Sarenrae help the Alchemists).

To put some empiric numbers on that, today at 1 PM CST, adding a spell to a spellbook requires 5 clicks and 1 minute, 2 seconds, almost all the time spent waiting on the server. So that will be 15 minutes for your level 1 wizard if you already know what you want. If you want to browse through spells and pick them, get ready to spend even more time waiting for the spell's text to populate the window.

Worse, if a character has a lot of options, such as if they have a large spell-book, the number of options available seem to cause some non-linear increase in the time you must wait for it to load. It also lacks common-sense features. For example, there is an option to hide "unavailable" features, which should hide feats or spells your character doesn't qualify for. That's nice. It also hides all uncommon things, inherently using the rarity aspect. There's no way to filter "you absolutely shouldn't have this" and "this is uncommon so there should be a reason to have this." Thus, the filter only helps if you are making choice limited to common, and can cause you to search fruitlessly for legitimate options the rules do support. It's a minor problem, but just another way HeroLab Online is just user-unfriendly.

Additionally, the customizability is simply barely there. HeroLab Classic, even with just core, would let you edit just about anything until it fit what you were doing in your game. There is no such animal on HeroLab Online. Consider the Core Rulebook itself details alternate ability score generation, and Hero Lab doesn't support it. If you create custom content, it's now no longer available if you decide not to subscribe to HeroLab. Do you want to help introduce a player to the game and send them a character for them to tweak? Can't do that. Do you want to save the files locally to use this when you go on a trip? Better make sure your connection is always assured. Do you want to ignore a rule? Well, the function to customize the ruleset is gone; you're going to have to go add adjustments to everything. Want to roll scores in your game? No option except to do it the other way and make adjustments. Want to customize what text pops up on the character sheets you export, or change what kind of file the sheet comes out as? Those functions are gone.

I emailed Lone Wolf August 1st regarding my concerns. Their policy is to respond within 48 hours. I did not receive a reply until 10 August 2019 because, as they admit, they have too many angry emails (not their phrasing). In other words, it took ten days to get to my day 1 complaint because they had too many complaints. Not a good look.

I asked for their refund policy, and they have none. They offer no refunds or guarantees on this product. (Check your state; I am in a state where this is legal. If it is not in yours, might I recommend contacting the Better Business Bureau?)

In summary, this product has reduced functionality, wastes your time, and has a greedy revenue model. I would advise you to stay far, far away from HeroLab Online. It will literally take you less time to make your characters with pencil and paper, you'll have more freedom to make it your game, and you won't be charged recurring payments to do so.

And while I'm at it, the no-charge, all-volunteer group at PCGen are working on PF2E. For free.
Without a subscription. They do have a Donate button if you would like to support them instead of the HLO mess.

I'm in the camp that thinks the encounter as written is truly awful.

Let me use an example from a film. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana is trying to find the cup used by Jesus Christ during the Last Supper. He's surrounded by golden cups. Which cup belonged to Jesus? The simple carpenter's cup made of wood.

I completely rewrote the scene. She should exemplify the traits worthy of her station entirely, and those traits should include (but not be limited to) humanity, humility, and dignity that cannot be brought low just because some PC acts like a clown. As a goddess in her own realm, she is beyond their power to insult or make look foolish.

I plan to run it as the PC's are initially greeted by a trumpet archon as her messenger in the scene. Many penitents and supplicants are praying to the Inheritor in the cathedral. Perceptive PC's pick up the prayers aren't for Iomedae to solve their problems; they ask for the strength of character to solve it themselves. The trumpet archon will charge the PC's with the quest, and if they don't investigate the chapel some, that's it. No damage. No injuries. It then offers to give them time in the cathedral while it retrieves the Stole.

In a wing of the chapel is an old sword with a notched edge and a worn-down leather handle. It's placed in a place of honor. If they investigate it, a young human knight asks their opinion of it. It's a perfectly normal sword. Unremarkable. She informs them it was the first sword Iomedae ever carried. The knight herself is unremarkable and I plan to describe her as such; fit and in serviceable armor, short hair in an unruly bob cut, face bearing fine scars, a bit shorter than most, and with a slightly awkward smile. Demeanor courteous and gentle and kind. And only if a clever PC figures it out does the young knight reveal she is the Inheritor.

Iomedae explains to them their their worth or not for this task is irrelevant. They have the chance to act. They are defined by how they rise to this chance to act. Every moment is your chance to live up to Heaven's ideals - or not. And I plan to play up how human Iomedae is. Again, I'm borrowing from the real world, where multiple religions with a truly human prophet, savior, or teacher play up the humanity and suffering of that individual to bridge the gap between human and divine. Does Iomedae need a golden statue and exalted trappings? No; the deeds and teachings are the real glory.

We'll see how it goes. My players are perceptive and conditioned to investigate things; I can usually count on them to kick the tires on things that seem obvious and straightforward, so I expect they'll get to the bottom of the chapel.

Historicaly, fighting with 2 weapons was very rare.

I'm a HEMA and fencing guy, and while we shouldn't completely ignore history, we're not playing a game designed to simulate history or realism. Something about dragons, fireballs, surviving falls off buildings, not needing months to convalesce from a single wound only to die of sepsis, etc, etc. Pathfinder is a *terrible* engine for simulationist medieval and Renaissance combat gameplay and long may it remain so.

I've been thinking about this for a week now. IMHO the system is still skewed, just differently. It's like trying to focus a microscope, it was too far out of focus in 1e, and now it's too far out of focus in the other direction in 2e.

My quick thoughts on how to dial that focus in.

1. Keep resonance. I can't stand it, but I understand why it's there.

2. Kick up spellcasters' # of spells a day so that they max out with 5 spells/day of 1-5th level, 4 of 6-7th level and 3 of 8-9th level.

3. Take the +1 die damage out of magical weapons and put it back into the proficiencies - so someone trained in the longsword does 1d8, someone expert does 2d8, master 3d8, legendary 4d8 (+ability bonuses get multiplied as well). Lancelot's sword isn't the hero, Lancelot is.

4. Double the raising shield bonus, but make it applicable to 1 attack per proficiency level. If the shield is equipped but not raised, you get the regular bonus (so raising it would be 3x in total).

That would get combat to feel more like a life or death struggle, I think. What we have isn't terrible, it's just very mundane. I'm a firm believer that our actions ought to be meaningful if we take the time to do them.

Full disclosure, I know Zi and we are playtesting together.

1) Agree with above.
2) Agree with above.
3) Respectfully disagree with the specifics but absolutely agree a thousand times with the principle. Repeat after me, Paizo: I will learn the weight of my sword. Without my heart to guide it, it is worthless—my strength is not in my sword, but in my heart. If I lose my sword, I have lost a tool. If I betray my heart, I have died.

However...
By tying it to a specific weapon proficiency, the characters become locked in to a specific weapon(s); you now can't use any other weapon and expect to remain effective. If I am a 17th level paladin who because of my legendary longsword mastery am hitting for 5d8+Str, and my goddess personally shines her way down from heaven to bestow a +5 Holy Halberd of Hewing, I have no option but to go, "Sorry. I am only trained in Halberd and that fall-off in damage will get my party killed."

I would choose to link the damage dice to class and level instead, so that 17th level paladin can use any tool in their toolbox well. This is how casters work; we don't force the casters to choose to specialize in specific spells. "Sorry, Mr. Wizard, you're only Trained in Fireball, so it's capped at 5d6. If only you were to have Mastered fireball, the troll wouldn't be eating your face."

But yes. Magic should make weapons do cool stuff; disentangle damage dice from the +X part of a magic weapon. Magic should give weapons properties.

4) Yes.

Bruno and Porridge have expressed at length thoughts similar to my own, but here are my two cents for whatever they are worth. And due respect to the above posts, as while I believe our thoughts are convergent, they did get to the message board first.

It's a simple concept: There are three sources of power going into a melee attack that are static, namely the Item's quality, the magic behind that item, and the character. To be cute, Manufacture, Magic, and Man, no slight meant to females and those who identify as non-binary - good alliteration is all. Let each contribute separately to the overall effect.

MAN: Damage Dice Should Come From The Character: Simply put, a 17th level fighter should be deadly with any weapon he can find. If they pick up a functional longsword in a moment of desperation, they're still a 17th level fighter and someone you don't want to tangle with! Tie the damage dice to the character's level. You can even tie it to class and level; favor the fighter and barbarian for highest damage dice with ranger, rogue, and paladin lagging just behind them, then on down the line.

I am reminded of the old Star Wars RPG's, where the heavy blaster Han used was available to the PC's. You could buy it as starting gear. The weapon wasn't overpowered, but that didn't take away from Han's feats because Han was that good. It made Han special, not the owner of a +5 DL-44 blaster. Han was a hero, not the vehicle by which an OP weapon defeated Stormtroopers.

This paradigm also lets the martials do what casters do; feel the power is mostly coming from themselves.

MANUFACTURE: Weapon Quality Gives a Bonus to Hit and Damage: A better weapon allows for a better to hit and damage roll. For example, allow a +1 to +3 to hit and damage increase for weapons from Expert through Legendary. You can even limit whether someone can benefit from an Expert or better weapon until they gain an appropriate level of skill with that weapon. The justification is simple; anyone who masters an instrument, weapon, or sport knows how good you have to be to really feel the benefit of a high-end piece of gear. I, for example, am an amateur fencer. I can feel a crappy epee when you give it to me compared to a well-made one, but I couldn't really get the nuance of a truly top-tier nationally ranked competitor's weapon.

Now, I can already hear someone thinking, "With 20 points of Proficiency and more from Strength, does that piddly +2 or +3 matter?" The answer is of course YES! Increasing your chance to hit by a flat 10-15% chance is nice, but that also augments your chance to *critical* by the same amount. If have, say, a 70% chance to hit, your chance to crit is 20%. Adding an additional 10% chance to both probabilities is definitely not a trivial gain; that's almost as good as Keen in PF1E + Good Hope.

MAGIC: Magic Adds Special Properties (and ONLY Special Properties): Allow magic to only add in properties to a weapon. Let magic feel special and practical. DR can come down to weapon types, alignment, and special materials instead of magical weapons.

This fits in much more with mythic, religious, and literary genre tropes and will make magic feel special. Magic makes weapons Returning or Flaming and so forth.

Bottom Line: Let the character (Man) dictate the damage dice. Let the magic give the weapon awesome properties. Let the quality (Manufacture) give the weapon a small bonus that - at the margins - does matter.

Hello!

I am in the McAllen/Pharr/Edinburg area and am looking for a group for Saturday evening Pathfinder. I have a ready-to-go modified and updated Carrion Crown and would be happy to run it. Games would be weekly, subject to professional and family obligations, on Saturday afternoons and evenings. New players are welcome. I'm hope for a June 2018 start.

Please message me if interested; we'll see if we can make something happen. Thanks.

For a 6th-level PC, an AC of 25 is pretty good, but not absurdly high. There's a good chart all about viability right here, and PCs who focus in an area generally want to be between blue and green in that area. (Note: The chart is not about how to make an optimal character - it's how to make a viable one.)

For help with making challenging encounters, I suggest reading this guide. It is full of outstanding advice, and it will help you.

These are really nice advice for beginners. I will be saving them to distribute as appropriate. Thank you.

Back on topic and for the original poster, Lanchester's Laws are worth learning when it comes to the CR system. This will help you think about how abilities that affect the action economy will affect your party. So let me start with a question: how much stronger is a 6 person party than a 4 person party?

Common sense says 150%, but no. It's more, though how much more depends on a choice in the model (traditionally, numbers count twice, and Lanchester's Law uses a square). The 6-person group are taking more actions, and thus have 150% of the offense. They also suck up much more damage or status effects and remain combat effective. Not only that, but multi-target buffs and abilities become even more effective.

You're in the opposite scenario. You have a three person group. This means you have to pay special care to abilities that take out a character from the action economy. In this scenario, the effect is much greater on the party than you would predict by linear math. A party that loses one PC to an effect out of a three person group is about 50% as effective. So keep that in mind as you think about the action economy.

Edit: Also, well, long-term removal from the action economy is rarely fun for a player. If the success of your game is "my players had fun," you may want to think about that.

The ability score increases for level are untyped bonuses and stack with any other bonus, including themselves. Thus, you could put all five into one score.

Wish and similar magic that increases ability scores, such as magical tomes, have a type. They grant an inherent bonus to ability scores, and thus do not stack (unless the wishes are used in rapid succession - this is an exception to the standard rule.) Inherent bonuses are capped at +5.

The text of Wish reads: "Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three wishes for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies."

The text of FAQ stats: "According to Table: Character Advancement and Level-Dependent Bonuses, a character gains an ability score increase at level 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20. How much is this increase? What ability scores does it affect?

At 4th level, a character can increase one ability score by +1. This is a typeless, nonmagical bonus that cannot be changed once selected.

For example, a fighter with Dex 13 could use this bonus to increase his Dex to 14.

A character can also increase one ability score at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level; it does not have to be the same ability score as the one chosen at an earlier level, and stacks with all other bonuses.

For example, the aforementioned fighter could use the 8th-level bonus to increase his Strength from 15 to 16, then use his 12th-level bonus to increase his Dex from 14 to 15, and so on."

I assume the geyser is going straight up. Then the power exerted by one decanter is

power = mass of water * acceleration * height reached / time
= (30 gallons of water / round) * g * 20'
= (113.55 kg / 10 sec) * 9.8 m/s^2 * 6.1 m
= 1130.5 watts

You have two decanters, so they're exerting power of 2261 watts.

This is equal to the force on the rowboat times its velocity. The force is countered by the force of friction,
F_friction = (coefficient of friction mu) * F_normal
= mu * (mass of boat & its load) * g = mu * M * g

Therefore the velocity of the rowboat is
v = (power of decanters) / (mu * M * g)

I will use MD's estimate of ~200 kg for M. That leaves us with
v = 1.15/mu in meters/second
= 2.6/mu miles per hour

I have no real idea what mu should be, but probably not very large. I'll call it .1; then the boat goes at 26 mph. Which is respectable for a bottle-driven vehicle.

If you calculate force, you are generating an acceleration, not a velocity. F = ma.

The boat's final speed will occur when the net forces are zero. Thus, you also would need the equation for drag, and the equation for drag, not friction, since the boat is moving through water and air, not sliding along the ground. What will happen is the boat will accelerate as long as the force from the decanters exceeds the drag force. Fortunately, the drag force increases in direct proportion to flow velocity squared, meaning as the boat speeds up, the drag force rises exponentially.

Anyway, the drag force is equal to 1/2 density * velocity^2 * reference area * drag coefficient.

I don't care enough to solve the equations. :) The boat moves as fast as the GM says it does and I'd reward the player for their crazy little idea.

Realistically, the majority of D&D was just Arneson, Gygax, and company putting their homebrew up for sale.

Back in the days of no competitors, no editors, and nothing flooding the market. Much props for the concept, but trying to read anything those guys wrote today? Ouch, man. Ouch.

Back to the OP's point...

There are a tiny fraction of people playing baseball who are good enough for someone else to pay them to play. Then there is the vast majority who will forever say, "Oh, yeah, I played some ball in high school..." before getting back to work.

That's the situation for homebrews.

First, homebrews are very much subject to Sturgeon's Law. Everyone believes they are a great designer and writer, but relatively few people are that good. Fewer still are going to be better than the people who've already bypassed the gate-keepers of editors and publishers. And of the people who make it through that screen, fewer still have the copy editing, technical writing, dedication, and time it takes to bring something up to professional quality. Beyond that, then you have to ask yourself, what else could they be doing for work?

My homebrew stuff, even if I ever brought it up to publication quality, would detract from the career where I already make an excellent wage. I have zero incentive to pursue the world of publication.

Ok, so suppose you really are the one-in-a-million who has the drive, talent, game design knowledge, technical writing, determination, and luck it takes to make something that can be published. And you have enough playtesting, review, and control to make sure your idea isn't absurd. Now you need the luck and determination to market yourself everywhere and get picked up, or to self-publish via vanity press or similar.

The market is *flooded* with RPGs. Quality ones. And crappy ones.

I know of a few people who as a side-gig or as a hobby stream their games, pay-to-play games in Roll20 or similar, or even have a minor book or two that they've done as a vanity project, but that's about it. Major settings and systems are never the work of one writer now, and usually done by teams who have it as their primary employment working for a major company. They may have gotten noticed doing small stuff, but that's it.

Still, consider doing some little indie thing on the side. Some fun little whatever that you print off on the super-cheap and release. Only treat it as a labor of love, because if you think you're gonna make money off it, you're probably in for a rough disappointment.

It is not explicit, but multiple factors point to no.

First, the feat only has one prerequisite: Con 13. This means there is no magical capacity needed in order to take it.

Second, the feat does not call out having any magical aspect. Most feats which are (arguably) a Su or Sp state they interact with one of your abilities, such as feats that grant bloodline Hexes or some such.

Third, nothing in the wording suggests it's more than just being tough. Its drawback is a purely physical effect.

The "Divine Assistance" clause is fluff; there are plenty of ways to heal without divine assistance. Bards, Witchs, Skalds, some Occultists, some Kineticists, Investigators, and Alchemists are all non-divine healers. I probably missed a few classes capable of non-divine healing, too.

I wish Paizo would write feats like this:

Combat Vigor
Fluff here.

Prerequisite(s): Con 13+

Benefit(s): Gain the following extraordinary ability.

Combat Vigor (Ex): You gain a vigor pool with a maximum number of points equal to your Constitution bonus. As a standard action, you can spend up to 1 vigor point per 3 Hit Dice you have (minimum 1) to regain 1d6 hit points per vigor point spent (maximum 7d6). Each time you spend vigor points, you become fatigued for 1 minute. You cannot spend vigor points while fatigued or exhausted. Spending vigor points doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. The points in your vigor pool are replenished to their maximum after you rest for 8 hours.

It's pretty easy to explain.

They took the weight on a low gravity planet or moon.

The mass is still appropriate though. You just have to back calculate.

That they used weight instead of mass is a separate error.

Well. I haven't seen this thread yet, so please forgive me if I am beating the metaphorical dead horse, but it seems like Paizo managed to demonstrate the writers have no sense of scale.

I ran the numbers on a colossal ship and believe I did it right.

Colossal Ship: Length over 15,000 feet, Weight Over 8,000 tons

Smallest colossal ship:
Length: Feet: 15,000
Meters: 4572
Assume: Width = 400 meters, Shape is a cylinder
(Note: This thing would look narrow like a pencil)
Volume = (3.14) (R^2)(h) = 3.14 * 200 * 200 * 4572 = 5.74 * 10^8 cubic meters

How does 8,000 tons stack up?
Density of Air at 1 atmosphere: 1.225 kg / cubic meter at 15 degrees C
Weight of air: 7.03 * 10^8 kg
Convert to tons: ~775,000 tons

Density of Water at 4 degrees C: 1,000 kg / cubic meter
Weight of that much water: 5.74 * 10^11 kg
Convert to tons: 633 million

For more fun: the USS Enterprise (the real ship) was 1123 feet long, had a beam (max width) of 132 feet, and weighed 93,000 tons.

In other words, they are technically correct that it is over 8,000 tons.

The math for the ships one size category down is even funnier, because it literally seems to say the ships are mostly vacuum. It would be the only way those weights and lengths would work.

Vidmaster and ShroudedInLight think about it as I do. Paizo *hated* the amount of multi-classing and prestige-classing in 3.5, so they used some carrots to encourage characters to single class and took a giant nerf stick to PrC's. Additionally, by buffing base classes, you inherently cause prestige classes to become less valuable.

Paizo wants prestige classes to (mostly) just be flavorful options. Like many archetypes, they exist to give the GM a handy toolbox for making NPC's. Additionally, Golarion's Red Mantis needed its own PrC, and it was easier to make them stand out as "the better assassins" if the other assassin PrC wasn't as cool.

But an assassin antagonist is a great option, especially since some sneaky monsters have only a role-playing requirement before they can take it right off the bat.

Alignment: Any evil.

Skills: Disguise 2 ranks, Stealth 5 ranks*.

Special: The character must kill someone for no other reason than to become an assassin.

Move a couple of skill points around, or give the monster a slightly higher Int and...

Four nasty possible assassins

...a plan which KahnyaGnorc bought, though still refused to pay for Prime.

The RAW: "A destroyed homunculus companion can be restored to life by performing a ritual with its corpse that requires 1 pint of its creator's blood per Hit Die of the homunculus and rare materials worth 100 gp per Hit Die of the homunculus."

This strikes me as very strange. The Promethean Alchemist gains a companion which, if replaced, costs them blood. There's no rules for what the blood loss does to the alchemist, yet it starts leading to absurdity.

At level 5, that's 4 pints of blood, enough to throw the alchemist into dangerous shock (assuming human or human-like physiology). By level 8, it's not a survivable amount of blood loss. By level 15, it's more blood than is in a human body.

For reference, a human adult has about 5 liters of blood volume, takes a 4-6 weeks to replace the lost cells per pint of blood lost, and suffers severe tissue injury with a strong chance of mortality after losing 2 liters of blood. One pint is very close to 1/2 a liter. Square-cube law says a halfling or gnome should have about 1/8th that.

So...the point of all this is that this rule seems silly. I also don't want to have the black comedy of the party continually healing the 10th level alchemist as he sits all night over a basin cutting his vessels open and bleeding into a bowl.

Proposed Re-Write: "A destroyed homunculus companion can be restored to life by performing a ritual with its corpse that requires 1 pint of its creator's blood and rare materials worth 100 gp per Hit Die of the homunculus. Conducting this ritual deals two points of Constitution damage to the alchemist and takes eight hours to complete."

Thoughts?

Pulg is actually three Ewoks standing on each other's shoulders while wearing a trench coat. Strangely, Pulg's dates seem surprisingly cool with this.

The Fiend Fantastic's goatee is barred according to the Geneva Conventions, and using it in combat is a war crime.

I thought of something else to add: you need stuff besides the Pathfinder books, especially if you GM.

First, you need to take a trip to your friendly local office supply store and pick up the folders, notebooks, and assorted other paraphernalia it takes to keep yourself organized. There's no right system here; you're going to need to figure it out for yourself.

Second, you're going to need to make a decision: do you want to use a real tabletop or a virtual one?

If you want to use a real tabletop, a dry-erase marker set and an erasable gaming mat is almost necessary. Don't worry about spending a ton on miniatures right away. Instead, get a stack of index cards or some card stock and cut out shapes the proper size for different things on the grid. Print it out with a scaled image of the monster or character in question, or just write down what the little square of paper represent.

Another option is paper minis. Paizo's Pathfinder Pawns don't look half bad, and some paper standie minis can be made very easily. There are many out there. Here's my guide for making custom paper minis very quickly.

Alternatively, consider a virtual table top service like Roll20 even if you plan to play face to face. If you already have a laptop or tablet you can hook up to a TV or projector that the players can use, you can easily use another computer to manipulate your end, let the players see their side of the game on the projector/TV, and still have a face to face sitdown game. Alternatively, you can play with friends over the web.

Happy gaming!

The Doc CC wrote:

Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer. (p. 174)

That ineffective weapons bit is directed at the rules for attacking objects, specifically unattended objects, like doors and such.

Sunder states: "If your attack is successful, you deal damage to the item normally...."

Smashing an object states: "Smashing a weapon or shield with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon is accomplished with the sunder combat maneuver. Smashing an object is like sundering a weapon or shield, except that your combat maneuver check is opposed by the object's AC. Generally, you can smash an object only with a bludgeoning or slashing weapon."

Which means attacking an unattended object is sunder and that except for one using CMB vs AC instead of CMD, these aren't separate systems.

The rules for ineffective weapons are not under a section for unattended objects, but in the general section.

We'll agree to disagree about what the whip is made of, but might I recommend a video?

I'm not sure why you're trying to advise me on protecting a whip in combat, since I asked for no such advice and am not trying to. I just said that in the hypothetical situation OP described, I could easily understand a spot-ruling that a whip is harder to sever than the initial RAW would allow.

And since these sunder rules lead to absurd conclusions like a Str 22 fighter with a +2 longspear can't sunder a glass pane with his weapon unless the GM overrides RAW, these rules are *made* for a healthy application of Rule Zero.

Rope is zero hardness and 2 hp. Magical enhancements add to both hardness and hp per +1. Rope is weak to sunder, but has a high break dc.

Also directed to Azten.

I used the example to explain how an object would respond to a force imparted upon it in the world, not to say ropes and whips are the same thing. Kangaroo leather is preferred for whips if I'm not mistaken.

Again, no question that a whip can be cut rules as written (RAW), but I am saying that per Rule Zero, I can see a spot rule that makes it much harder to sunder a whip that's in motion because it would recoil when hit making the blow less effective. And per Core Rules:

Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer. (p. 174)

And then it is left to the GM's discretion whether or not the weapon can damage the object in question.

The question can't be answered succinctly, so I will try to avoid just parroting what everyone else said.

1) The Beginner's Box is a good way to get your feet wet if you're truly new to RPG's, and the Strategy Guide could be very helpful to avoid overwhelming your new players with core rules.

2) Start with the Core Rulebook and Bestiary. When those seem familiar, then add new material. There is a definite "less is more" when you are new. Have you ever played a video game where you were new and everything was fresh an exciting, and then all the vets overwhelmed you with options and advanced tactics before you've even had enough time to get used to the controls? That is the danger of picking everything up at once.

3) Pick up an easy module, even a free one, and try that first. Read it and figure out how every encounter works. This will help you see how to build encounters and give you a lot less homework to do before running a session, which can then let you think about all the non-rules driven part of GMing. You're the players' eyes and ears. Your storytelling is what makes them invest (or not) in events. You have a lot to learn about player engagement and social dynamics and all the "soft and squishy" sides of RPGs, so don't feel like you can't let someone else do the gruntwork of building the adventure's mechanical aspects. A good module will also show you how to mess with the mechanics yourself.

4) If possible, have a laptop or tablet handy. Bookmark the PRD and SRD. Even if you own the books/pdfs, you can usually search these sites quicker than your hard copy books if you're stuck. There are free and low-cost searchable apps for iOS and Android devices that could also serve. Don't hide behind your devices, but use them to find data you need ASAP.

5) Here's the thing with Bestiaries: each Bestiary has more and more specialized monsters than the last. This doesn't make them useless, but it does mean they often have a smaller campaign role or else they use some of the later rules, such as mythic. Bestiary I is the most "generically useful," with more of the classic monsters that go with high fantasy. They will be easier to run as a GM, to build into appropriate encounters, and they'll be easier for new players to "get" than some of the weirder creatures out there. Later, the other Bestiaries will be a great expansion.

Hope this is a bit of perspective that hasn't been brought up yet. Have fun!

RAW, no question you can sunder a whip with a slashing weapon, and the GM would certainly have every reason to rule a whip immune to bludgeoning and possibly piercing damage. I believe the earlier posts already have solved how many HP and how much hardness to give the whip RAW.

That out of the way, I could certainly understand a spot ruling that provides the whip increased effective hardness or HP if it is being wielded. Imagine a rope that's pulled taut. If the rope is struck by a sword, it has a good chance to be cut. Now imagine that rope uncoiled, tossed into the air, and cut at in the same manner. The effectiveness of the cut will be reduced because the rope will give and be swatted down rather than cut cleanly. The energy of the blow will not be transferred into the rope as efficiently.

A whip in use would behave somewhere between an uncoiled, loose rope and a taut rope.

Of course, it is much harder to get a good cut with good edge alignment on a moving target; that's why attacking the whip requires rolling CMB. I'm assuming the blow against a static whip and a moving whip make contact with the same effectiveness, which is a big assumption.

I've been thinking about how Pathfinder would work with miniatures but without any grids, neither hexes nor squares. Instead using an inch tape measure.

*Snip*

Honestly and without intent to offend, you're reinventing the wheel here.

Open up a 1st edition D&D manual, and you'll often see inches for movement. That's because war games and minis skirmish games have been using the ol' tape measure and template for the longest time.

Plenty of games already have rules which give an area of denial to hostile models. Among recent memory, the obvious candidate to look at is Warhammer 40k, where a model must (almost) always maintain a 1" buffer from an enemy unless it successfully charges the enemy. Starship Troopers used a more complex system where an enemy within 10" immediately activated a unit's "Reactions," leading to a flurry of attacks and defense, usually in the form of a firestorm from the Mobile Infantry as the Arachnids closed to close combat.

All of these games work just fine by the "gentleperson's agreement" to not be a jerk and don't have GM's.

The pros and cons of grid vs freeform movement have already been brought up and I feel no need to beat that particular dead horse. I would recommend taking a ruler and compass and cutting templates for AoE's, which are actually quite easy to handle. Go back to the template weapons of any given skirmish game, the most famous of course still being the templates GW sells for a considerable sum. You could with some work easily create card stock templates in various sizes for PFRPG with a compass, a ruler, and some scissors.

Not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell.

Emphasis mine.

Simple: the highest level spell in that settlement is based on the available caster, but not any spell is available because not every type of caster can be found.

Thorp: The town is a small settlement near a desert oasis. The spellcaster is a grizzled 5th level desert-riding ranger. Both GMG and Core Rules are met.

Hamlet: The settlement is a small keep where an 8th level paladin and their fourth level cleric adviser hold back raiding gnolls. Both GMG and Core Rules are met.

Village: A 6th level wizard retired here, so the actual repertoire of arcane spells is quite limited to what he or she knows, and the local divine caster is a 6th level oracle. Again, both are met.

Small town: The town's high priest is a seventh level NG priest of Sarenrae, so he or she is not going to cast any evil divine spells. She's served by a 3rd level paladin of Sarenrae, and they screen out requests from non-penitent evil-aligned individuals. The next most powerful caster is a 6th level summoner and then a 5th level alchemist.

Not any spell is available, but as you move up in size, a broader and broader list of casters is available, giving you a higher likelihood to find a given spell. It's not just caster level you need, but depth; how else are you going to be sure you can find a spell you want?

Equinoxmaster is not using an avatar. That is actually his photograph.

OP: First point is you may want to expand the gender concept.

Anyway, I'm a dull Kinsey 0 straight cis gendered male.

I've built way too many characters to bother going through the list. In general, I try to make my characters extremely varied on both of those grounds. There's two reasons: so I can have a broader spectrum and since I often GM, I don't want my world to be populated by an unreal slice of reality. As a consequence, I've played characters who are male, female, or have other concepts of gender, such as a Vampire: the Masquerade Tzimmy who thought the entire idea of gender for a vampire made as much sense as gender applied to a computer. The majority of my characters have been hetero on the grounds that most of the world is hetero, but I've written up openly gay or bi or asexual characters, especially when fleshing out a world.

I've also learned to vary the attractiveness of the characters in games and who they might appeal to in order to try to make the world seem more real. There's something downright odd about a world where everyone you meet is an underwear model, and something both creepy and kind of problematic about a world where males can have varied body types and attractiveness but females must all be nubile hotties. It's also made me dig deeper for images for characters and games; face it, a lot of fantasy/sci-fi art is cheesecake or sexual self-empowerment fantasy for a white straight male gamer and if you want your game not to seem like it was designed by a fourteen year old white kid, it's going to take you more time to find what you're looking for.

I've been highly interested with creating a set of rules based on Kingmaker and Ultimate Campaign which can allow for a more flexible set of options for designing your Kingdom. As a matter of fact, it's designed to allow your "Kingdom" to be any other type of government. I'd like for any willing readers to offer feedback on the set.

Here's the quick overview:

1) Raised Control DC's, because of the additional options. Additionally, as Kingdoms grow, DC's do not increase linearly but a bit more quickly.
2) Each Alignment grants a Kingdom a special ability.
3) Added new forms of governments: Autocracy, Feudal Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy, Direct Democracy, Democratic Republic, and Oligarchy.
4) Allowed for the Rulers to set how theocratic their nation is.
5) Allowed Rulers to select from various Economic models.

So, fair warning. First, this is quite long. I've spoilered it to keep the thread manageable. Second, while it's not quite a first draft, I'm sure that there's plenty of boneheaded mistakes on my part in it. I hesitate to add that this will be given to the players in a much neater PDF/print-off with tables that summarize the info, and the other stages of running a Kingdom have been getting their own upgrades.

So without further ado...

Thank you for all feedback, positive, negative, and especially that which tells me where it needs to be fixed.

Alwaysafk wrote:

-Snip-

6) DM troublesome spells as NPC only.

-Snip-

These are excellent ideas. My players are characters in an evil PC campaign: The way of the Wicked. the sorcerer is considering taking this but asked my opinion as not to slow the game down.

I think the biggest drawback for him will be finding bodies to animate and second is the quality of the animated. Like you said crummy at best.
what do you mean by DM troublesome spells as NPC only?

My advice, to use or ignore as you see fit...

First, thank your player for being good enough to ask first and being more concerned about the group's fun than just being awesome on his own.

Also, I'll keep referring to "zombie" in my descriptions, but it is just as applicable to skeletons and other potential creations.

Second, I believe that Alwaysafk meant that spells which prove troublesome to the GM should be considered NPC only. I disagree with this and believe that the GM should find ways around the troublesomeness, only intervening to take something off the table when it's broken or else just not fun at all.

Third, a lot of folks seem to assume that the player is going to create a zombie horde of commoners. Ask the player if he'd rather have a zombie griffin mount or something similar. If the Sorcerer is giving up a 3rd level spell slot for a useful ride and minion, that sounds like a legit trade-off which doesn't add a great deal of book-keeping to the GM's/player's load. I'd recommend that he create such a creature with the "Fast Zombie" template and that as the GM you increase the amount of HD of control this costs him.

A lot also depends on your style. If you are using a VTT like Roll20, then you're in luck; the player can have a macro for all his crappy little zombies and get it done in no time. If you're using miniatures, then you're also in luck, since a pack of really crappy little zombie miniatures solves the problem. After about two battles with that many zombies getting in the way of the player characters, I'm sure they'll reconsider this tactic. If you're strictly narrating, well, you've got a problem.

By tenth level, most of the zombies will need a twenty to hit most of the enemies which they attack. Since the sorcerer will likely be throwing handfuls of dice at once and only looking for twenties, it won't take that long. "Ok, the six zombies on Smitey McRighteous roll to hit." {picks up 6d20} "All miss." The few times they don't need twenties, you could either tell the player their target number or roll those 6d20 yourself and tell the player how many hit.

You could ask the player if he'd be OK with the zombies having an analog to the "Minion" rule in 4th edition, meaning they drop as soon as they take a hit or fail a save. At tenth level, that's about what happens anyway.

The player might also consider what a horde of weak undead will do to the party's ability to travel as well. Zombies would slow the group to a crawl and prevent Teleport and similar spells from being useful. So in addition to cluttering the battlefield so much that the other players will likely hate the things, they will slow down most attempts to travel. Not only that, at 25 gp per HD for the material component, he's going to wind up losing a whole lot of his wealth to making speed bumps.

Animate Dead is really not that useful to adventuring parties because the parties usually take on tasks that would be an objective raid in military parlance. They don't usually construct a static defense. However, if he is tenth level, he could certainly do better by making a "Big" zombie.

Well, huzzah!

We shall take as much advantage of that as we can.

@ Dario: Yes, yes we are. Great minds and all that.

Though I would definitely add there's a big difference between Ryan saying, "I hope to let you guys talk as much as I can without putting my company at risk," him saying "I'm afraid that we will have to restrict information flow," and him saying, "Sorry, I can't answer that question right now." Those are all perfectly fine, but they do create a different expectation and will adjust quite a few plans. All bets are off once the lawyers actually do get involved.

I'm sort of curious what sort of NDA (if any) we'll get tied up with for the Alpha testing.

Or, yeah, that.

So far nothing Dario, Valkenr, or Void Ronin have said or Ryan has implied surprises me in the slightest. That's kind of what I expected from an alpha test, and I know as much about software development as I do about the core of Mercury.

I'm going to ask Ryan to clarify a thorny topic, one which obviously will need to be very clear before the alpha begins. I plan to share as much information about the alpha and my experiences as I can do within whatever framework the company needs to set up. I do not know how tight-lipped GW expects alpha testers to be throughout the project given the new crowd-forging process. Obligatory CYA comment: Obviously I will comply with their policy and any legal agreements I sign, and if something looks doubtful I'll request guidance, but to the extent possible I plan to share information.

Obviously expecting a full answer right now on the forums is absurd, but a heads-up would be nice.

Darkwolf117 wrote:

Curiosity begs me ask, what's the rationale for it being Good?

So the player can get the spell off and not kill the infant? That's the only rationale I can muster. And all four players agreed that the infant was GOOD and should not be affected by the spell HOLY SMITE. /smh My players are munchkins.

Rules are not laws, and even laws have doctrines that allows them to be broken when a situation is so extreme that it requires doing so (such as the emergency doctrine). They are suggestions. This is the case in every RPG and wargame. Any time a RAW situation leads to absurdity, the players and GM are supposed to intervene and change the situation. If you insist RAW must be followed, play CRPGs. They're a lot faster and easier to run.

Please note your own response that in your world, goblin babies are evil.

Returning to this original point, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the GM interpreting Holy Smite to spare an infant because a god-like intelligence is granting the spell to a mortal agent. The writers obviously never intended the spell to be used for sixth trimester abortions. They never expected the spell to be used in close proximity to a bunch of toddlers. Clerics have long known that they get their spells at the pleasure of an outside source, who is entrusting them with their power and can deny or alter what is given to them freely.

My recommendation is: 1) as the GM, make a ruling. 2) Inform the player before the spell is cast if it is going to nuke a baby. Anything else is being a jerk on the part of the GM. 3) If you do rule that the spell would frag a baby, that is certainly grounds for an alignment violation for any but the worst of evil. 4) Since the RAW creates the absurd image of a cleric casting Holy Smite over a bunch of children and killing them all, this is a good time for the GM to overrule an unexpected consequence of RAW.

If a tradesman can place his/her mark an item, can a rival crafter forge a false trademark as a form of fraud and/or asymmetric economic warfare? I can see an arms race of forgery/forgery detection possible, but am not sure it would be a good thing.

@ Kakafika: Are you suggesting a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) system for the avatars and class left hidden but hinted at? I like.

Well, this thread has been derailed.

I hope I did not offend. As far as I know, boob plate is the term which is thrown around for a breastplate which conforms to the breasts, including in articles mocking it and objecting to it. If there is another term in common use, I have not heard it.

Nonetheless, if anyone was offended, I offer an unqualified apology.

You can't loot armour, but the purchasing situations stand.

Equipped armor cannot be looted, but it is possible the character is carrying other pieces. I do not believe the inventory and encumbrance system has been discussed.