Thomas LeBlanc's page

AARP (Alternate Ages Rules for Pathfinder) 2.0

No rules for aging in the CRB (DMG maybe?) and the first game I am running plans on skipping levels/time with one player in particular wanting aging rules. I wasn't much fan of any aging rules as they pretty much only covered stats and not skills. So many videos of old strong/dextrous people showing up on AGT. Seldom do I see people getting wiser, smarter, and more charismatic with age. Rarely happens, especially not with my family or neighbors...

I will be using the same age categories as PF1. Just changing the benefits/drawbacks of aging. So here is a rough first draft:

Middle Age
Your character can no longer gain ability boosts to Constitution when leveling up. Increase the trained proficiency rank in one skill of your choice. You may not increase that skill to Master or Legendary rank.

Old Age
Decrease your character's Constitution score by four points. Increase the proficiency of two different skills by one proficiency rank. You may not increase a skill to Legendary rank.

Venerable Age
Decrease your character's Constitution score by four points. Increase the proficiency of two different skills by one proficiency rank.

Death {Optional}
After hitting venerable age, the GM rolls to determine your character's maximum age. Death and Dying or Lowered Ability conditions affecting on your character may result in death. Roll a Constitution check against the DCs listed below whenever your character suffers from the following conditions: clumsy, doomed, drained, dying, enfeebled, stupefied, unconscious, and wounded. If the character fails the check, the player decides if the character dies instantly or during their next rest.

Venerable age - 25% of maximum age = DC 0
26% - 50% of maximum age = DC 5
51% - 75% of maximum age = DC 10
76% - maximum age = DC 15

Can someone please make some hex bases for the ships please?

I am not seeing anything listed under the Starfinder Products section of the messageboards...

Please add a void creature subtype!

Anyone else thinks it looks pretty small in it's artwork? It also looks like a ship is making it's way to there. I guess if we knew the size of the ship, we would have more of an idea on the size of the station.

Also, where did it come from? Remnants of Absalom? I kind of like the idea the dome area is Crystilan. Whatever made the rest of the planet disappear was not enough to take the crystal sphere with it, but instead caused it to awaken. After all, the city could have been trapped in time to preserve it from Earthfall. When Earthfall was not as dire as predicted, the city's contingency never activated to release it.

I would like to see the continuation of Shadow Absalom as the bottom side of the station reminiscent of Dark City.

I liked the Compleat Encounters line. Except the metal minis that needed painting... Quick short encounters that stood out a bit more than the usual encounter, as you had everything needed to set the scene for 1 pivotal or key encounter.

I would like to see a new line of them. Perhaps using pawns or prepainted plastic minis instead of the metal ones.

It would really be cool if each set would also double as a PFS Quest.

Just wondering...

If you change the billing address after you input the Name, Card Number, and Expiration, those fields are cleared and you have to reenter them. Very annoying!

Imagine someone submitted a monster close to word count and missed a few spaces or required parts of the template. DQ for word count?

/me wonders how many entrants are going to go double check now

I would really like both, but would settle for one of them...

Disqualification

• Submission does not conform to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

What exactly does this mean? Would the following be DQ worthy:

A) Listed CL too low for the spells used?

B) Wrong level of aura for the caster level?

C) Listing multiple strengths of auras when only the strongest should be listed?

So many negative things have been said about the contest this year (including by me), that I think we need somewhere to point out what we like about what has been announced so far.

BIG THUMBS UP:

1) Limited to PRD only. Will make looking up spells easier and less Golarion specific knowledge of setting for voters. Proper nouns mentioned one time are hard to get excited about...

2) No Technology Guide. I know lots of people like it, but it doesn't have universal appeal.

3) No preview of upcoming rounds! Makes pre-designing much harder.

4) Item categories are much better than last year. I like the change up of not just doing Wondrous Items last year and glad to see it continue.

5) Return of the Owen

I think the format presented in the Open Call Rules is incorrect. Shouldn't some of those things be listed on separate lines? Line breaks needed between item name and aura, CL and slot, weight and description, and construction and requirements.

I am wondering what people are expecting from this class?

I am looking forward to more of a manipulator, both in social and combat situations. During the RPG Design Workshop at PaizoCon (no NDA this year due to June playtest), it seems many of the people there were looking forward to a type of super rogue. I found the idea of multiple paths to be nifty, as more options for each class are a plus. And face it, a party consisting of arcane, divine, martial, and rogue based vigilantes would be gnarly.

The ideas discussed seem to make the vigilante more focused on staying in one location, which I think is pretty nice. One of the things I think I wouldn't like about the class is the number of people who would potentially know the identity of the vigilante. Here's to crossing my fingers to the low Will save character not getting charmed.

Also, the Robber Baron of Abadar must be a thing...

That one awkward moment when Liz calls out someone for the map they submitted and they are in the seminar...

Pathfinder Society characters of appropriate level are welcome

Players have the option of using pre-generated characters provided by Game Master

A PFS legal character or an actual PFS character?

Rather than a tin badge, I would like a PaizoCon pen with purple ink! I could whip it out during PFS. I would get much more use out of a pen than a tin badge that gets stuck in a small bin of misc crap that lurks in my storage...

Just a thought for next year.

When the results of the lottery first posted earlier today, it showed me as playing in 3 Midgard events. Now 2 of them are missing. 1 on Friday (Gravebinder's Daughter) and another on Sunday (Old Honey Paws). What happened?

I saw the blog post about the female dwarf fighter and was blown away. I would like to see more even more diversity among the minis. And not just gender, but race as well. And not just for the human minis, most of the non-human races have varying skin tones, but are usually presented as white.

Half-Elves = Half-elves from a non-white human parent should have various skin tones. (I have a Vudrani half-elf in PFS)

Dwarves = Ouat and Pahmet

Elves = Ekujae, Mordant Spire, and snowcaster.

Gnomes = Non-white skin tones (e.g. "vibrant colors" ISWG or "floral pink" CRB). Maybe a few Bleached as well? Frankly, I have found most gnome minis to be nearly indistinguishable from halflings besides hair color.

Halflings = I thought they were supposed to be predominantly a "rich cinnamon color" for their skin? Also, need more halfling minis in general.

The NPC Codex shows most of the variations above and I would like to see minis to match the diversity shown in that product.

Freabic slowly backed into the cave, keeping an eye out to make sure he was not followed. He quickly raced to his secret place after one last scan of the area. A place he dared not share with the rest of the Birdcrunch tribe. If they ever found it, they would discover his deviancy and would surely punish him.

At last he came to a small side tunnel marked with a bit of soot. He squirmed into the tight passage carefully, holding a bent and twisted lantern away from his body. The mangled piece of refuse served to hold the few embers he stole from a bugbear's fire on the Devil's Platter. With these embers, he would wallow in an act his tribe deemed unnatural.

He finally came to his journey's end. A quick glance confirmed that no one had been here. His pile of wood and the cage had not been moved, and the ashes of his last obscene act were undisturbed. He carefully set down the lantern and began creating a new pyre. He left a small opening at the bottom leading to the small hollow stuffed with dried grass.

He carefully used a fire blackened spoon to place the embers inside the pyre. He stoked the fire with his soft and slow exhalations. The flames were mesmerizing as they curled and flickered in the darkness of the cave. Oranges and reds beyond counting captured his imagination. He could feel the heat beginning to build in the burgeoning pyre. He could feel his pulse racing as he turned to the cage. He slowly opened the latch and reached inside. He gently cupped the bird in his hand and pulled it out. With a quick snap, he broke the birds neck.

Not content to eat the bird raw like so many of his tribe, he wanted the taste of savory cooked meat. Quickly he plucked off the feathers and placed the bird on a spit, slowly turning it. He could barely contain himself when the glorious smell of roast meat wafted into his nostrils. The sizzle of fat dripping into the fire served to only increase his desire.

Finally, the bird looked finished and he gently pulled it towards him. The sublime scent tickled his nose as he softly blew to cool it off. A small trail of saliva made its way down his chin as he slowly placed the meat in his mouth. Quickly, he devoured his meal; crunching bones, rending flesh, and sucking marrow.

His deviancy complete, he lay down and went to sleep. Dreams of bigger fires and even larger roast birds filled his dreams...

Did you like the big cull in this year's contest? Vote yes or no by liking the appropriate post.

It would be nifty if people got a tag for submitting items. Instead of words, a little symbol with for the number of times they have submitted items to the contest.

The provided template does not show the "ZZspells" italicized as found in the Core Rulebook. The spell entry should appear like "ZZspells". Use the letter "i" in brackets for the italics.

/me thinks Template Fu should have caught this...

I was trying to send a message to someone using the link in their profile, but it was not present. My profile when viewed by someone else does not have the send a message button either. But a few people still have it.

Haves:
Example A
Example B

Have Nots:
Example 1
Example 2

Can all the playtests get consolidated to their own subtab?

They are currently scattered between:

• Paizo Publishing, LLC
  
• Paizo Publishing, LLC: Pathfinder® (Pathfinder Roleplaying Game)
  
• Paizo Publishing, LLC: Products

I am getting the following message when reporting The Confirmation for players that have played it before, but not with that character number:

Prestige does not count. Player has already played scenario at session # 1 of event # 36201 The December We Know on December 02, 2013.

Prestige does not count. Player has already played scenario at session # 1 of event # 37385 ##Olde World Gaming## - The Confirmation on December 17, 2013.

So aasimar and tieflings were added in for Season 5 to support WotR, why were 4 Tian Xia races added into Season 6? Especially after Jade Regent is already out and Lantern Lodge has gone away...

How can it use commune if it can't speak?

If used as a familiar, how could it's master use it's commune?

So reading over the list of subtypes, certain ones are not listed as belonging to a particular creature type.

Subtypes with no type listed:
1) Dwarf
2) Elf
3) Gnome
4) Halfling
5) Human
6) Orc
7) Rakshasa
8) Vanara
9) Vishkanya

I know the ranger's favored enemy lists some of those as humanoid, but does that list allow them for legal choices for bane?

As silly as it may sound, there is no reason to really worry about some difficult terrain! As the Skipping Shoanti, I should know.

1) There is no limit per round to the number of jump checks.

2) By making long jumps over level terrain, you will never fall far enough to take damage and thus, never have to worry about falling prone.

3) With no running start, a result of 2 moves you 1 foot.

Just for giggles:

A) Outside of combat you can just take 10 and skip your merry way everywhere!

B) Just remember high AC and Acrobatics rogues, it may be easier to jump over an enemy than trying to tumble through it's square...

I am pondering the approximate trade value of a banquet ticket. There are a few games I would rather play than attend the banquet. And how would trading a banquet ticket be made official?

I recently had a bag of mine stolen and I was wondering if it would be possible to find out if a series of PFS numbers that were within are still unused? They are on my list of "10 Most Recent PFS Cards" and were in my bag that was stolen.

The series were: 91701-91705, 91707-91709.

Why are only 2 minis from this order shipping? I was hoping everything would be shipped at once to get the reduced shipping. Will this change the Shipping & Handling amount? I had used the sidecart to get my $ limit over $100 on purpose to get the First Ten Shipping discount.

Why did the Sajan mini not ship with the rest of the order?

I miss the days when item's had a smaller word count. It seems too many of the designers are determined to max the word count of their items with needless text. Back story, who would find the item useful, how-to guides, reexplaining the rules, whole paragraphs of physical description, and in a few cases, design notes...

I for one would welcome back the low word count master!

Why does does it still show their board name rather than actual names as with previous years contestants?

Next year, why not use a fillable form for the contest? When you go to the submission page, it would have blank spaces to input data with the aura, cl, slot, price, etc already there with a blank next to it.

If the contest is about finding creative designers, make the creativity the focus and less on the formatting. Bad formatting is really distracting. Although it is good for tie breaking.

Using this button during voting should not count as casting a vote. I assume a lot of people are doing this due to the constant stream of equally bad items I am seeing paired together.

I want to be able to create a friends list of aliases. Then I want to be able to click something to see their recent posts.

I come to really dislike, if not hate, the Knowledge (local) skill in Pathfinder. I never had much of a problem with it until I started heavily playing PFS. For example, the party traveled thousands of miles to a country they have never visited before or needed to learn about. Then to an extremely remote area, a small village in the hinterlands. Only to make a Know (local) check with a 30+ to remember all about a single person who has never probably never left the village. WTF?

Why not roll Knowledge (local and nobility) together? Besides reducing the number of Knowledge skills, you take 2 rarely taken skills (outside of organized play in my experience) and make a single more useful skill. Not all portions of the skills get rolled together, a few are broken out.

As it stands currently:
Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)

Nobility (lineages, heraldry, personalities, royalty)

New skill:
Society (laws, customs, traditions, lineages, heraldry, royalty, humanoids)

But what about the Local legends, personalities, and inhabitants or Nobility personalities? I believe gathering information via Diplomacy is more apt to the situation and allows for more roleplaying. Local legends could easily be folded under Knowledge (history).

The Gen Con site does not allow me to purchase a Sunday ticket online. They can only be purchased on site. I am only going to be able to attend Sunday and would like to hit up some of the Paizo seminars. Is there any way to reserve spots through ya'll?

What skill determines how well objects can be hidden? I am not talking about trying to hide an object while being observed, but the skill needed to keep an object from being found later?

I can see arguements for using either Disguise or Stealth, but neither details that it can be used to hide an object. Disguise to make an object blend in or Stealth to make it unseen. I could see either skill depending on the circmstance, but is there a specific skill?

When hiding creating a trap, the Craft skill is used to determine the Perception DC needed to spot the trap.

Looking for DUST players. I created a "Paizo Peeps" channel. Feel free to join. And maybe we can see each other on the battlefield.

Also, a lot of the phonetic alphabet is common use nouns, that's the point. If someone has never heard of a 'thassilon,' it doesn't function.

It's like when someone tries to make up their own phonetic references on the spot and they end up sounding silly. Words need to be clear, consise, and unmistakable.

Don't overthink it. If it's too flavorful, it could lose functionality.

Don't fix what ain't broken.

Victor Vector

Exactly!

You might want to look into the Aethera campaign setting, once it's released that is.

I agree, Aethera should be load with space faring race ideas. I think the preview guide is still free

Aethera Preview

Only a few days left to help us make this a reality! Please support the Kickstarter.

Indeed. I backed this as soon as I found out about it. Anyone who loves Sci-Fi/Sci-Fy and Pathfinder should want this. If the preview isn't enough to convince you then check out their website Aetherarpg

ENWORLD Just recently did a feature post about Aethera. Anyone with an account should post up there about why they supported the product.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2998-Pathfinder-In-Space!-Aether-C ombines-Wizards-Starships#.VkK7NfmrRph

For anyone who's interested, the io9 article is here.

Please share this with anyone you can!

Yeah, I have been posting the link and a link to the kickstarter page on every RPG facebook page/group and RPG forum that I'm a member of.

There will also be some free PDFs available here at Paizo and on a couple other distributors TBD that will go up within a week. We're still hammering out some details on that.

Hopefully that will help to generate more buzz, but frankly Robert I'm very impressed by how open and honest you've been in answering people's questions (even the hard ones) on this thread. It really shows your passion and that alone should make people interested in this project.

Honestly everything I've read so far has got me supper excited. I've long been trying to cobble together my own Sci-Fi or Sci-FY setting for Pathfinder. But with a 3 year old, health issues, working on my own start up business, athletic pursuits and my other hobbies/pastimes, I barely have the time to GM my group's games as it is, let alone having the time to create a campaign setting from the ground up that incorporates various 3rd party supplements, my own rules and conceptual elements and established Pathfinder rules in any sort of usable format. I've tried it before, creating my own 300+ page 3.0 setting. It's was a huge undertaking which, when I finished, I had no urge to run as all my creative energy had gone into creating the setting in the first place....derp! lol

Pregenerated campaign settings (that I can tweak and add my own crap to, rather then create from the ground up) are all that adult life have left me the time for. Aethera sounds like an awesome place, one that I want to read and learn more about. I am hoping for a successful KS campaign as I can't wait to start reading and writing up a new campaign and new adventures for my group.

If you can find it, there is a great article in Dragon Magazine #225 called "I'm Okay, You're One-Dimensional" by David Clark. I always recommended it to both new players and old time players, who haven't read it and who are uninspired when making a new character. Also Jim Holloway did the artwork for the article!

I guess I should explain. I used to baby sit my niece when she was a kid. Often my group and I would let her play D&D with us, since sometimes the night's I'd watch her were also game nights and she was curious. Flash forward to the present and my nicece, now in her mid-20s has become your modern geek/gamer girl. Her boyfriend, whom I honestly don't remember how she met was a nerd as well and completely flipped out when he found out she used to game. He begged her to game with him. I guess they couldn't find a group or she knew that I still gamed, regardless, my niece asked if they could sit in on a few games.

My group was just starting up a new Pathfinder campaign, our first in the Pathfinder campaign setting (running Curse of the Crimson Throne while I worked on my own campaign) so I said sure (I had run for eight player before so seven wasn't to hard). Before that we had been using Pathfinder for homebrew Dragonlance and Dark Sun games.

Things were fine for the first few game session. I wasn't sure when I noticed but I did eventually notice that one the other players (whom I had been playing with on and off for over ten years.. not ten years straight) was acting a little too flirty with my niece. Now my opinion is probably skewed 'cause she is my niece, but I think she's a pretty girl and she is a nerd so I guess I should have seen this coming. So I talk with my player and tell him he needs to tone it back a bit he was like, "Well my Bard is a ladies man so I'm just playing my character". I told him "fine flit with characters and npcs, not with my niece."

To be fair he did tone it back a little, at first, but as I got more distracted by the campaign, raising a three year and work and so on and so on, I didn't notice he started it up again. All the while my niece's boyfriend turns out to be a super jealous, insecure tw*t and they actually had a few arguments about the other guy, my niece didn't tell me cause she didn't want to bring their drama to our game (in her opinion they were guests in our campaign). Finally the whole thing boils over one night with her boyfriend interrupting the game and accusing the guy of trying to seduce and steal her away from him.

Things went insane from that point and there was shouting, name calling and her boyfriend and the other guy almost get into a fight. I wish I was making this all up, I mean it sounds made up when I read it all here, but sadly it's not. In the end my niece and her boyfriend split up, my old time player and his brother (whom I had also been playing with, on and off, for over ten years) both decide to leave the group. So with two player left I was had no option but to put gaming on hiatus.

I don't blame my niece and actually it turns out she has helped me to reform my group. Which is now composed of my wife, my other player from the disbanded group, a friend from high school who's moved back in town and my niece and a girlfriend of hers from college. Also I was able to finish writing my campaign and several adventures for it during the off time. So despite the drama things have worked out in the end and I'm looking forward to finally getting a chance to explore Golarion.

My Paladin lost 4 points of INT to a Deck of Many Things, I said, "My brain hurts!" then changed his name to Mr. R.H. Gumby, Paladin and hilarity ensured for the rest of the campaign. I know it's not quite what you're asking about but I've found that when you're uninspired, finding a real world character to base a PC on is often all you need to do and the character often builds themselves from that point. Wasn't sure I was gonna play a 8 Int Paladin but thanks to Python he became the star of the campaign.

Collecting RPGs is a hobby of mine. I don't have the whole print Pathfinder yet (though I have all the core books). But in print I have virtually all D&D 3.0/3.5 books (save for the 3.5 FR reprints). About half of the D&D Gazetteers, 1st ed D&D core books All 2nd ed D&D Core and Ravenloft, Dragonlance and Dark Sun supplements. All d20 Ravenloft supplements, All 7th Sea (even the d20 books) all L5R (every edition and the d20 books), 90% of Werewolf, all Kindred of the East, all Blue Planet, all Fading Suns, all Tales from the Floating Vagabond, 90% of Gary Gayax's Dangerous Journeys, all 1st ed Exalted, all FASA Star Trek, all d20 Star Wars, 2nd ed Paranoia, Transhuman Space, Mechwarrior, 1ed Rune Quest and CoC ....

I'm going stop here as this is starting to sound like bragging. Let's just say I'm like collecting, my wife worked at a gaming shop when we were dating (employee discount helped with late 90s and early 2000 game collections and first pick when folks came into sell their old games with others) and I have been gaming for 30 years (ugh feel old. I still have my D&D Red Box, my first d6, d10 and d20 (don't know where the d4,d8 and d12 went) and the handful of Endless Quest books that got me into gaming in the first place.

I say yes you can. In regards to using a Sword as a thrown weapon as the PRD states
"It is possible to throw a weapon that isn't designed to be thrown (that is, a melee weapon that doesn't have a numeric entry in the Range column on Table: Weapons), and a character who does so takes a –4 penalty on the attack roll. Throwing a light or one-handed weapon is a standard action, while throwing a two-handed weapon is a full-round action. Regardless of the type of weapon, such an attack scores a threat only on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a critical hit. Such a weapon has a range increment of 10 feet."

The nature of an "attack of opportunity" is as a quick interrupt action or as the PRD states "a single melee attack". So I would say you could at least throw a light or one handed weapon as an AoO.

Thanks guys. Really appreciate the advice. I think my main thing is I am just getting sick of needing to make the character that has to go along with the party and everything that isn't done with a full OOC vote and doesn't comply to the majority is wrong.

Compliance with the majority is a part of playing in a group. If you don't like that then RPGs, at least group based RGPs (which are what virtually all pen and paper RPGs are) might not be the game for you. Now your group should try to reach decisions that accommodate every player. But let's face it there will be many times when one or two players won't agree with the rest of the group, that's just they way it is. When you're that one or two player, rather then be purposefully disruptive in your play, an alternate would be to say, "Okay I don't agree with your idea, however I'll go along with it, but next time I'd like to try things my way."

Also if you feel the to make these kind of characters as a response to the group's play style (you mention," everything that isn't done with a full OOC vote and doesn't comply to the majority is wrong") you may want to voice your grievances with the other players in the group. You'd be surprised at how often and quickly that can fix things.

The Companion Book on Taldor states that only Taldor’s royalty and senatorial classes are known as “the bearded.” The Senatorial Class is described as "hereditary members of Taldor’s senate, the governors of Taldor’s prefectures, and various heads of the bureaucracy."

The section on the Unbearded closes with "Taldor’s military offers such an avenue to advancement, and because of that the Taldan Horse, Taldan Phalanx, and Imperial Navy are loyal and strong, and fight hard for the empire—if only to gain the notice of their commanders and receive a promotion to the ranks of the bearded."

In the following section on the Military, The Taldan Horse section states that, "The horse legions are comprised entirely of heavily armed and armored knights, led by a knight-captain" Ergo a Knight is not a commander but rather a specialized solider. I would go so far to say that even a Knight-Captain isn't a commander, rather they are a mid-level field officer.

All this leads one to infer that in Taldor the word "Knight" is a military rank and not a social rank. Becoming a knight can set a person on the path to becoming one of the "breaded" but does not make them one in and of itself.

That's just my 2cp and my interpretation of what's written.