TheRavyn's page

Specific gender could be avoided altogether by referring to us gamers simply as "it", "it's" and "those".

TheRavyn wrote:

Kudos to Paizo for the upcoming new edition. Can't wait to see it! Imo, PF1E had reached the "bloated" phase of its life cycle some years back, and its time for a good cleansing! Especially happy to hear the increased presence of Golarion, it's my favorite currently published setting.

Ok - I have to ask - what's your favorite not-currently-published setting? :)

That would be Judges' Guild's "Wilderlands of High Fantasy". Love those maps :)

Kudos to Paizo for the upcoming new edition. Can't wait to see it! Imo, PF1E had reached the "bloated" phase of its life cycle some years back, and its time for a good cleansing! Especially happy to hear the increased presence of Golarion, it's my favorite currently published setting.

Mathmuse wrote:

I find that leveling slows down when the PCs stop engaging in combat. The players mastered using information gathering to avoid unnecessary combat and diplomacy to deal peacefully with enemies and problem-solving to defeat the bad guy without killing everyone.

All these tools make the game extremely fun, but it does not mesh well with Pathfinder's Experience Point system. One day I should mathematically model that system to adapt it to roleplaying challenges in addition to combat challenges.

Actually you should be getting experience for overcoming challenges regardless of whether or not you fight those challenges. If diplomacy allows you avoid multiple CR X encounters, you should be getting the experience for all of those encounters. If you can defeat the bad guys without killing them you still get the same experience points as you would for killing them. Assuming your DM is correctly applying experience for overcoming challenges and using medium progression, you should be leveling up fairly swiftly.

This :)

Please stop.

There might be some helpful nuggets in this thread(link below). In my experience, converting RotRL to 5e was easy and fun. I recommend cutting back on some of the grind in books 5 and 6, your players won't need it for the xp, and adding multiple opponents to solo bad-guy encounters.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rz1a?Rise-of-the-Runelords-in-5th-ed

5th Edition Character Sheet, in the App Store. Very useful app, quick leveling.

I see a lot of folks stopping APs around book 3 or so. Anyone want to clarify why? I'm curious if the quality drops, novelty wears off, high level play gets slower, or if this is just normal attrition.

I loved RotRL, but I thought the last two installments got a little grindy and I ended up cutting out a lot of the encounters that didn't either directly affect the storyline or were particularly cool. I also tried to modify several encounters into roleplaying opportunities instead of fighting. I suspect the design ethic behind the grindiness was to provide the necessary xp to advance to the planned level, but I wonder if cutting a lot of it contributed to my quicker completion time.

Serpents Skull (First book as a solo adventure.)

How does this work?

I think system wise, it doesn't make a lot of sense for a melee character to multi class before 5th level, but 3/2 fighter rogue should be ok as long as you're conscious of your bonus actions.

Apropos of the subject, the OotS 5e boards have a lot of detailed multiclassing discussions and player guides. They are big proponents of the Paladin-Warlock, but I suspect most smart dms would rule that only Paladin spells (not Sorcerer spells) can count toward Smite, and avoid Sir Supernova syndrome. Not to mention the whole Paladin-Witchcraft thing seems like kind of a conflict of interest, thematically. Except for maybe and Ancients Paladin / Feylock combo.

I like FR a lot. My last 5e campaign was set in Golarion, which I really enjoyed, but I do admit some nostalgia for FR. The 3e FR campaign guide is one of the best setting books ever produced, and that coupled with a guide to all the old fallen empires of the setting (Lost Kingdoms?) kept me busy for a long time.

I hear the criticism about high-powered NPCs a lot and don't really get it. I don't think any were ever featured in any of my adventures except for the Lady of SilveryMoon, who was more of an enemy to the PCs than an ally (on account of them tending to dig up stuff best left undisturbed). I can't imagine feeling some obligation to have Drzzzzt or Elminster make an appearance, or why their existence would overshadow the PCs importance anymore than, say, Elrond and Galadriel overshadowed Frodo and Sam's importance to the great events of Middle Earth.

Like the title says, how many APs has your group played from start to finish? And how long did they take to play through?

I've only completed one (RotRL), and played a couple more partially. RotRL took approximately a year of bi-weekly sessions.

-Golarion over FR

I feel the same. I know Golarion suffers a bit from "cookie cutter" syndrome but it's still a vibrant newish setting with a lot to enjoy. I'm prepping a post-RotRL mini-campaign for our 5E group, and it features some iconic Golarion locations - the Darklands, the Pyramid of Kamaria, Gallowspire, and the Starstone Cathedral all in one adventure!. Looking forward to exploring this world some more with higher level (14+) adventurers!

I can't recommend Swashbuckler enough if you like mobile combat with lots of flashy stunts and little or no worries about OAs. Mine has done stuff like run up a dragons back to sneak attack, snipe from beneath a rolling wagon, do backflips off tables to drop enemies from behind, etc.

I very much want to post exactly how a 6th level Mage defeats a party of 3rd level characters, but in the interest of survival (I play the swashbuckler Cirrus Marlowe), I must abstain ;)

DonJon's encounter generators are pretty spot on.

RotRL took roughly 15 months to run cover to cover in 5E (the game Smilodan played in), though I think we played only 3 sessions in the last 6 months, so technically it was more like a year. I definitely learned a lot about the difference in game designs (5E v. PFRPG). The AP gets more and more based around fitting in a certain number of combat encounters to basically feed the PCs enough XP to get to the next volume; I ended up cutting a lot of the incidental combats out. I'd say about 20% in book 4, 30% in book 5, and 40-50% ( not even exaggerating!!!) of the last installment, as the obvious "xp grinding" became more and more obnoxious.
With RotRL under my belt, I'll be doing much less combat encounter conversions in the future and substituting way more fun stuff like exploration, intrigue and political RP (you can't even know how often I wanted to just park the PCs in Magnimar or something to focus on all the RP based hooks available), and stuff that lets the party exploit 5Es very versatile skill and ability check set up.
I enjoyed running the campaign, but I often towards the end got the feeling that it had run on for SO long that the players were forgetting why the hell they were hunting down this Runelord in the first place. I won't say the ending was anticlimactic by any means, but maybe "watered down" a bit?
I've got some cool ideas percolating for these now 14th level adventurers to tackle in the future, and feel like I'll be able to execute them far mor effectively now that I have a campaigns worth of experience with the system.
Looking forward to Level 20 :)

Buy a three-ring binder, and print out all the UA articles to put in it: bam! 100% crunch new book!

I like my SCAG book, but it's very much a player resource as opposed to DM resource. Primeval Thule is hands down the best 3rd party RPG book I've seen in a few years.

Merry Christmas gamers!

Not much to add from the playing side to this discussion.

From a DM standpoint - high level 5E is so much nicer to run on the fly or improvise than 3.x/PF was! That just adds a whole other element of fun to the game, for me at least. Very much hearkens back to 1e, B/X in that respect.

Tweaking monsters to be challenging for higher level parties, especially solo monsters, gets easier as you get used to the system. A lot more happens in each round than I recall in any previous edition, so keep that in mind. Lair/legendary abilities that give the big bass more actions in a round are the best equalizers.

For example, if you want a lion to be a challenging solo monster for a party, simply give it the attacks and hit points for three lions, and let it attack and/or move on two or three initiative spots during the round.

I'm definitely looking forward to a DM break when we finish ROTRL in a couple of sessions. Not only because I'll get to play a character for a change, but it will give me time to design my own stuff for the continuing adventures of the high level heroes of sandpoint - which I've been dropping Easter eggs here and there may culminate at 20th level at the test of the Starstone in Absolom (we'll see hehe).

TheRavyn wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

The biggest thing I personally got hung up on was the flattened math: if a 1st-level fighter and a 20th level fighter both fire the same bow at the same target 20 times each, the 20th-level fighter is only going to hit a few more times than the 1st-level fighter, and that bugged me to think about.

That's... Not even close really.

Barring the fact that the 20th level fighter is going to shoot those 20 arrows in 3-5 rounds, and the fact that they had like 7 ability bumps and probably have a 20 Dex...

I can tell you from direct experience that a 1st level 5e archer is dealing out about 5-8points of damage every other round, whereas by 11th they'll be doing 30-100pts a round!

I mean I guess when looked at as static math it might look like that, but very little of a 5E characters combat potential is to be found in the basic numbers. There's a whole lot more going on than that.

I was imagining a shooting range, with someone hosting a contest where they each get the same number of shots (wouldn't have to be 20; I just picked that number because d20) from the same bow and see who hits the target more. The consistency with which the 20th-level archer would actually win that contest is... less than I would desire.

But when I push from my mind all these contrived archery tests and play the game, I can focus on how the high-level fighter is kicking ass ten ways from Tuesday. :)

The problem here is maybe that you're trying to use 5e's combat rules to resolve what is actually a contest. The combat rules are set up to deal damage and kill things, not determine who "hits the target more". No ones really going to miss the target that often. You want to determine who hits it better than the other guy.

For your archery contest, you would use the ability/skill contest rules from 5e. So roughly d20+5 vs d20+11, higher total wins. I'm no mathematician, but my money would be on the 20th level guy winning more often and reliably.

TL;DR: combat rules determine archer vs target. Ability contest rules determine archer vs. archer :)

The biggest thing I personally got hung up on was the flattened math: if a 1st-level fighter and a 20th level fighter both fire the same bow at the same target 20 times each, the 20th-level fighter is only going to hit a few more times than the 1st-level fighter, and that bugged me to think about.

That's... Not even close really.

Barring the fact that the 20th level fighter is going to shoot those 20 arrows in 3-5 rounds, and the fact that they had like 7 ability bumps and probably have a 20 Dex...

I can tell you from direct experience that a 1st level 5e archer is dealing out about 5-8points of damage every other round, whereas by 11th they'll be doing 30-100pts a round!

I mean I guess when looked at as static math it might look like that, but very little of a 5E characters combat potential is to be found in the basic numbers. There's a whole lot more going on than that.

The decapus actually goes all the way back to the B/X days from "Palace of the Silver Princess". It was kind of cool to see that pop up in such a "modern" adventure.

Increasing the number of Inspiration rolls could be a bit overpowering, especially seeing as they can be given to other characters. There's an optional rule in the DMG called action points or some such that might be more in line with what you're going for, which can be used to add a d6 to a variety of situations.

The knack seems fine, though I'd remove the saving throw option from the list, that's kind of OP.

Something I've been trying to come up with is a way to make skill use and ability checks more prominent. I feel like the ability system built into the game is really versatile enough to make adding "special" abilities unnecessary. I think it's just that folks rarely try to use them unconventionally.

It was very entertaining as a DM to watch 6 players totally not grok the meaning behind the name "The Hidden Beast" lol.

I like it. I hope they do Dark Sun and Greyhawk volumes as well.

Mentioned this in another thread, but Google+, Facebook, and Reddit have some fairly lively 5e discussion as well.

I'll second ENworld and GitPG boards, there are also some very active Google+ and Facebook communities. For idea mining, there are a lot of good blogs out there, and I also like Dragonsfoot alot. Though the focus there is primarily 1E, it hews pretty close to 5e in terms of both ethic and rules. Oh, and reddit I guess. Quality of discussion there rises and falls (unless you're really into identity politics), but there's some really cool home brew stuff if you dig around.

It lets the archers use Sharp Shooting, and they're our real damage dealers.

Or they were until the Eldritch Knight got his Flame Tongue. Dude's a human quisinart now!

However, the changes to Silence (casting time) and the Concentration mechanic had an unexpected gutting of the Mammy Graul encounter.

I should have made her a Sorceror with the appropriate metamagic. The lack of buff-suites impacts the caster as bigbad design.

Which is a plus but a major change to account.

I had a similar experience. Under PFRPG rules, the AP relies heavily on solo-monster encounters. Which were kind of pushovers until I realized what was missing - in 5E the nastiest solo monsters all have "Legendary" and/or "Lair" abilities - once I started making sure my big nasties had these in place, solo encounters got a bit tougher.

Yeah, I'd much rather see a bunch of new feats and archetypes than adding yet another subset of class option. That said, I like the idea of Rune Magic, just not the Prestige Class baggage.

Sounds good! Let us know how the campaign goes...

I'm hoping that after chapter 6, we can go on a high level adventure that deals with that mysterious horse.

Last encounter, book six: Karzoug, defeated at last, falls to his knees coughing, blood running from the corner of his mouth. "I would have conquered the world," he gasps, pulling away his human mask to reveal his true face, that of the Thistletop warhorse, "if it hadn't been for you meddling kids..."

TheRavyn wrote:

Part 5 is complete as of last Sunday! The party is 11th level. Part 5 was pretty good, it started out kind of grindy, but the players soon picked up on there being lots of role playing opportunities in the Runeforge, which made things more interesting. I also tried to up the environmental aspects of the Runeforge, which meant more skill use, something I really need to add more of when doing my conversions. Skill challenges in the original AP (maybe just PFRPG in general?) seem to play second fiddle to combat encounters, which is kind of a waste of 5e's cool pared-down and more improvisational skill system, so I'll be keeping more of an eye on that aspect.

It's pretty satisfying looking back on the last five adventures - it's definitely been an epic campaign so far!

Can you give me some examples of the sort of skill challenges you used? I'm currently prepping Runeforge for my group right now and it could definitely use some spicing up.

Off the top of my head:

Part 5 is complete as of last Sunday! The party is 11th level. Part 5 was pretty good, it started out kind of grindy, but the players soon picked up on there being lots of role playing opportunities in the Runeforge, which made things more interesting. I also tried to up the environmental aspects of the Runeforge, which meant more skill use, something I really need to add more of when doing my conversions. Skill challenges in the original AP (maybe just PFRPG in general?) seem to play second fiddle to combat encounters, which is kind of a waste of 5e's cool pared-down and more improvisational skill system, so I'll be keeping more of an eye on that aspect.

It's pretty satisfying looking back on the last five adventures - it's definitely been an epic campaign so far!

Any experiences with classic modules?

I converted White Plume mountain on a lark, something to keep in my back pocket for a one-off or pick up game. It took maybe an hour or so, and three pages of (poorly) handwritten notes. I think the adventure was originally listed for levels 4-10, I narrowed that down to 5-7 for conversion purposes.

I should also add a quick note about high-level conversion. The AP relies heavily on solo monsters, which can be taken down pretty easily by 5e characters. If you want a solo monster to challenge 5e PCs, it's CR needs to be about 150% of party level (like CR 15 for a 10th level party) and it helps to make sure it has legendary or lair abilities, so it's getting in some actions 2 or 3 additional times during the initiative order.

A quick and dirty conversion for something like when you want a lion to solo your players would be to simply double or triple its hp, and roll initiative for it 2 or 3 times, so it's acting 2 or 3 times during the round instead of just attacking once and then just standing there while the party whups on it. You'll get a more challenging and cinematic fight that way, it'll be more unexpected, and the players will likely feel a greater sense of accomplishment at taking down the snarly bastard.

How did the levels match up? It seems like you don't need to be the same levels as you would in Pathfinder.

Not at all. The PCs should hit 11th by the end of part 5, I think in PF they would be 14th or so. 5E characters are very resilient at higher levels, and have a wide breadth of options and versatilty. I've been surprised at how tough they are, you can really tell this system was well play tested before release. The game definitely harkens back to 1e/2e in that respect. I had projected ending the campaign at 15th or so, but now I'm projecting 13th. We'll see. Fortunately there's plenty of stuff to mine for adventures regarding the Runelords and the mythology behind the AP, so there'll be plenty to do if the players decide to keep these characters going rather than starting a new campaign (which I have about a zillion ideas for, 5e definitely inspires DM creativity!)

It's been great fun to run this AP so far. It certainly has a classic, epic feel to it, and even towards the end now (we are wrapping up book 5 next session), conversion is easy as pie. In fact it's kind of easier now that I've learned more about 5e by running it for months now, and how elements between it and PF kind of relate to one another. For instance, in a recent encounter with a lich, I ended up with kind of a mix between the 5e PHB version and the original statted in the AP.

If I have any complaint it is likely to be that the AP is Extremely combat focused, to the point that it's obnoxious sometimes. I feel like a lot of it is just there to fill some kind of xp quota, and I cut a good portion of it. If I ever run this AP again, my conversion time will involve less stuff to fight and more stuff to explore and RP with.

I'm looking forward to the big finale!

So I have been working on some 5e stuff, and I thought it might be fun for you guys to see what I've been working on.

Looks good! I may have to steal the Goblin Markets idea, in some form or other.

I've been tinkering with a 5E campaign setting myself:

Campaign Premise

I'd like to see he most essential feats for PF classes "baked" in, instead of being feat taxes. 5e rogues don't have to "pay" for weapon finesse or two-weapon fighting for instance. PF 2.0 classes would have a lot more customization (which seems to be a big deal in these parts) if they didn't spend the first 3-5 feats just getting down the basic features they should have to begin with.

I think concentration serves its purpose, which is to cut down on over-buffing, which in turns speeds up combats. What I do need to do about concentration is find a better a better way to keep track of it with 6 players at the table lol.

Everything from Dex damage to move-attack-move, what 5E'isms would you love to see in a possible future Pathfinder 2.0?

Though I prefer the earlier iterations of D&D, Pathfinder was easier to find players for, and dammit the Core books were well done and beautiful. On top of that, the campaign setting and APs were hands down some of the best stuff published for gaming in general.

That said, the system has been bloated beyond recognition in just the last couple of years, I fear its past the tipping point. The boards are stuffed to the brim with discussion of optimization and never-to-be-played 20th level "builds" to the point that I wonder how many folks are playing the table top game as opposed to sitting at home and endlessly tinkering with character concepts. All these new character classes seem to be filled with far more bookkeeping than a sense of wonder or adventure. The Swashbuckler is a good example of this - an awesome character concept that's perfectly easy to build with the core rules (and would be even easier if all the feat taxes were removed) reduced to a series of points and conditions and so on.

I'd love to see a completely overhauled Pathfinder 2.0, unafraid of burying the mistakes and obnoxious design complexity of d20's past. If anyone can do it, I think Paizo's excellent team can, and they have a great starting chassis in the Beginners Box.

Nice! Southlands looks really good.

OP, this is one of funniest posts I've seen in along time, not trying to be insensitive but this sounds hilarious!

Why not embrace your fellow players' anarchy? Try upping the ante a bit, cranking the antics up to 11 or so. Fight fire with fire OP!

Some things to do:
-any time a PC is near a cliff, atop a building, etc, push them off "to train them in falling techniques".
-taint their rations with sleeping poison during rests and then move them to random dangerous locations.
-steal from PCs and place your gains in other PCs backpacks to frame them
-dump out / replace healing potions / wands / scrolls etc with useless fakes.
-come up with annoying and innappropriate catch phrases and overuse them constantly "m o o n that spells Orc!" "Where da elf wimmin at!?" "Let's get jiggy with Zeus!" "At's a spicee meat-a-ball!"
-have wanted posters with your fellow PCs faces hung up everywhere
-cry. A lot.

And so on. Have fun OP!

Aeshuura wrote:

What if it plays out as a wizard tradition? ^_^

That's an interesting thought. Trade in the School powers for a little more martial aptitude.

I could see that.

Fighting style and light armor at 2nd, war magic at 6th, extra attack at 10th and so on. Unlike the Blast-focused Eldritch Knight, Bladesinher might be more buff-focused?

So I see the Purple Dragon Knight and Swashbuckler on the cover, anyone want to guess what the other three are? Arcane Archer? Some sort of Elemental sorcerer archetype? No idea what the halfling might be?

I don't have a lot of worry that the new archetypes will be over/under powered - all the archetypes are built off the same class framework. I worry more about all new classes.

Speaking of classes, this and the psionic class playtest from a few weeks ago makes me wonder (hopeful?) if next year's book could be Dark Sun.

Do you guys know of any open spots in a 5e campaign, or anyone willing to run a solo campaign? I would like to give the system a try.

Try Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20. They're about as close as you can get to a tabletop experience online, and there are constantly new campaigns starting up. I play an Eldritch Knight in one occasionally (6th level now).

We were all just 1 hit away from dying. My cleric was at single digits. They were really tough fights. Really tough. Actually kind of stressful and exhausting.

It's really hard to comment too much on this dragon fight without giving too much away, knowing two of the campaign's players are in this thread lol.

Suffice to say, the dragon serves a couple of specific purposes in the adventure, and neither of them is "murder the party and end the campaign". Could I have set it up so the party had no chance of winning? Of course, it's a frickin Ancient dragon and I know the party's strengths and weaknesses very well. That said, I also tend to let the dice fall where they may; if the party had played below their ability too much, or been too miserly with resources, it could have been a tpk.

Things like inspiration rolls, the Diviners portent ability, a handy dragon slaying arrow, and the barbarian and rogues ability to to resist a ton of damage definitely give them an edge in fights like this.

ETA: I admit I was surprised when the party deliberately went after the dragon a second time. Definitely one those WTF! moments that keep DMing interesting lol.

I played the game and I like the system, my biggest issue is the company. WOTC/Hasbro are never going to support the game like Paizo supports Pathfinder. Just this week WOTC was discussing their "transmedia" strategy...basically put out a bunch of other products video games, toys and such to drive people to table top game. Sounds like they are really going to milk the name until it is dry.

I always felt that Paizo put a lot more sweat, blood and tears in Pathfinder. But I agree with the amount of character options out there being difficult to get your hands around but the base rules of the game have not changed much.

From day one, the stated objective of 5E was to derail from the splat train, and focus on the core game. Lessons learned from the past: AD&D had 2 iterations in 20 years (1E, 2E) D20 had 4 iterations in 8 years (3, 3.5, 4E, PFRPG). The splat model is good for collectors, but the real money is in the estimated 2 million casual players who almost never set foot in a game store or post on sites like this or ENWorld. Eventually, the splat based model causes an iteration to collapse under its own weight - 4E had so many books on shelves casual gamers literally didn't know where to start, and by all accounts a good portion of those casual gamer sales just disappeared.

Licensing and diversified media for the D&D brand is a way to keep the RPG division in business without burying the core game under a confusing pile of splats. I think PFRPG services the collector-minded subset of tabletop gamers just fine - if you want a monthly stream of new stuff, it's definitely the game to play. For me, I have years of gaming still in store for me based on just the core 3 5E books and all the easily converted adventures I already have from other systems (pathfinder APs included).

"Milking the name until it is dry" is an odd way to look at it, imo at least.

DMG pg 274 lets you eyeball what your PF monster should have in terms of AC, hps, dmg, DCs, etc. Make those changes, tweak any special abilities as you see fit, and keep an eye on stats (Str, Dex, etc) and you're all set. It takes me a couple of hours to convert an entire issue of Pathfinder AP to 5E.