Tim Emrick's page

I just made a post as my Radiant Oath PC in another thread, and his faction symbol displayed properly.

I checked my Characters list on my OP page, and none of them had a broken faction symbol.

[cue rapturous angelic note]

Praise be to Sarenrae, Triune, and whatever blessed goblins and skittermanders made this possible!

I finished running the Frozen Ambitions arc this weekend, and one of my players (the only one to play all four parts with me) had a question: Can he earn the Ghoran Admittance part of the Friend to the Ghorans boon a second time by GMing all four parts?

As a test, I found that I could download the boon a second time for one of my other characters who got credit for part of the series. But I wasn't sure if the boon was intended as 1. you can complete it once and that's it, or 2. you can complete it as many times as you have legal plays to tick boxes (so, twice if you play and GM all four parts, not counting any potential replay options).

I'm in no particular hurry to start playing the ghoran I've already earned from this series (I already have a couple other race boons I haven't used yet), so getting a second one is not a priority for me. But if leadership could shed some light on this question, I know my player would appreciate it.

I recently played

Which raises a question about how the Dazzling Flares spell actually works. The save entry says "Fortitude negates," but the description never mentions a save, or the effects of failure or success. It just says the flares impose a penalty to Perception in the area. Does a successful Fort save negate that penalty?

My character will cherish his new toy regardless, simply based on its source, but a better understanding of the spell would encourage him to use it more.

Last year, I received the Tune-Bot 2000 RSP boon, and immediately built a new envoy musician to give it to.

Tune-Bot 2000 (Ally Boon):

I've yet to acquire any music-download boons on this PC, but now that I've applied credit from Band on the Run to him this past weekend (and downloaded the two associated Chronicle boons today), I've reread the Tune-Bot 2000 boon and have a couple of questions.

1. If I'm understanding the wording of the Tune-Bot boon, the music-related boon essentially becomes part of this Ally boon, and doesn't count as your one boon of whatever its usual type is. Is that correct? (Both of the examples in the text are Slotless, so that's usually going to be moot. But that leads into question #2...)

2. I'm wondering if Top of the Charts could be slotted with Tune-Bot 2000? As written it's not explicitly related to acquiring music, just having knowledge of a group. But since it's a Social boon, I'd love to have that point clarified. I won't be bent out of shape if the two boons are ruled incompatible, it would just be cool if they could be linked. (Tokno already has more Social boons than he'll ever use, and he's only 2nd level!)

Top of the Charts (Social Boon):

I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere, but my search-fu has failed to find an answer on the boards or in the PFS 2E guide or the APG.

How you determine the rarity of the native languages of ancestries that do not appear in the Core Rulebook? Is the language treated as the same rarity as the ancestry itself? So, for example, would I be able to learn Tengu with the Multilingual feat because the tengu ancestry is uncommon?

I had a great time playing #7-99: Through Maelstrom Rift at PaizoCon Online earlier this week, but have a question about the Elemental Awakening boon on the Chronicle sheet:

First, I'd like to preface this by saying that I DO NOT want to see any spoilers here for what happens in the Season 9 adventure(s) focusing on the Scarab Sage faction. I haven't played Salvation of the Sages yet, but now that Neferanu is finally in-tier for it, I look forward to doing so.

My question is specifically about the language about faction changes in the Season 10 Roleplaying Guild Guide. Page 32 states:

"Halfway through Season 9, the Scarab Sages faction became inactive. While the Pathfinder Society campaign is unlikely to produce more content to support this faction, characters who are already members of the Scarab Sages can retain their membership in the faction and continue to spend Prestige Points on faction benefits. Characters who are members of the Scarab Sages can also switch to another faction at a cost of 0 Prestige Points at the beginning of the next adventure they play after August 2, 2018."

If my Scarab Sage character stays in the faction, can he still earn Scarab Sage-specific boons on Chronicle Sheets from previous seasons' scenarios?

The Guide states the faction is "inactive," not "retired," and the section on Retired Factions (page 33) still lists Scarab Sages having access to Osirion boons. So I think this means that nothing has really changed other than not getting any new faction-specific missions in Season 10, but I would appreciate clarification on that before I next play Nef.

Irori be with you.

I've been a huge fan of Green Ronin's Freeport setting ever since the very first adventure, Death in Freeport, in 2000. I've run Freeport campaigns in v.3.0, v.3.5, and Pathfinder, I've compiled unofficial fan errata for the setting, and along the way I've become an official contributor to the setting.

Ever since my Pathfinder Freeport campaign wrapped last year, I've been pondering using D&D Fifth Edition for my next Freeport game--though I have no idea yet when that will be (my plate's pretty full running my "Time of the Tarrasque" game, plus occasional D&D games for my kids). However, I have taken the time to write a number of columns for my "Studded Plate" blog exploring the combination of Freeport with 5E. This week's, about The Book of the Righteous, is probably my most ambitious yet.

I've decided to start a thread here (separate from my "Studded Plate" thread in Gamer Talk) as a way to highlight these Freeport 5E columns, and see what discussion I can start with others interested in the setting.

Here is the list to date:

• The Freeport Iconics in D&D 5th Edition, Part 1: Thorgrim (dwarf cleric)
  
• The Freeport Iconics in D&D 5th Edition, Part 2: Rollo (gnome fighter)
  
• The Freeport Iconics in D&D 5th Edition, Part 3: Malevir (half-elf sorcerer)
  
• The Freeport Iconics in D&D 5th Edition, Part 4: Alaina (human rogue)
  
• More Thoughts on D&D 5E Freeport (races, classes, domains, and skills)
  
• Unearthed Arcana and Freeport
  
• Unearthed Arcana and Freeport, Part 2
  
• Unearthed Arcana and Freeport, Part 3 (Class Options, Part 1)
  
• Unearthed Arcana and Freeport, Part 4 (Class Options, Part 2)
  
• Unearthed Arcana and Freeport, Part 5
  
• Plane Shift and Freeport 5E
  
• Unearthed Arcana and Freeport, Part 6
  
• The Book of the Righteous and the World of Freeport

I've recently downloaded the Season 9 Roleplaying Guild Guide, but have had very little time to compare it in detail to the Season 8 guide yet. Apart from the usual changes to faction goals for the new season, what else has changed in the updated guide? I did notice the new options for paying for raise dead in the footnotes for the PP cost table. Anything else?

I was recently introduced to the Condition Cards and Buff Deck through a fellow PFS player who brings them to game. I was able to order Condition Cards very easily, but the Buff Deck is listed as Unavailable. Does that mean it's out of print? Does Paizo have plans to produce any additional print runs?

The Condition Cards have already proven very useful at PFS and in my home game. From what I've seen of the Buff Deck, it would be just as handy to have at the table, too. I've looked for it on auction and reseller sites, but the prices are always absurdly high. I very much hope that Paizo will make this product available again.

Back in 2000, I wrote a GURPS adaptation for the webcomic Sluggy Freelance. It was well received by both Pete Abrams and Steve Jackson, even earning a mention in the Daily Illuminator. However, I eventually drifted away from reading Sluggy and playing GURPS, and I never got around to doing more with it.

I've changed website hosts a couple of times since then, and lost the original files somewhere along the way. But thanks to the magic of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I was able to recover that content and have now uploaded GURPS Sluggy Freelance to my current gaming site, Thastygliax's Vault.

Due to the time that's passed since I was up-to-date on either the comic or the system, I have no plans to update this project, but I wanted to be able to share this labor of love again.

Since October 2014, I've been writing a weekly blog titled "Studded Plate" devoted primarily to RPGs and LEGO, with occasional columns about my other geeky hobbies.

Today's post, "Building the Bestiary #121: Aquatic Animals," is part of an ongoing series in which I discuss building LEGO miniatures for role-playing games. (See the bottom of that post for links to past installments.)

I also frequently discuss RPG campaigns that I'm running (or have run in the past). Last week's post was a summary of the second session of my brand-new homebrewed Pathfinder campaign, "Time of the Tarrasque." (A link to part 1 is included in that post.)

A few other subjects I frequently cover include Green Ronin's Freeport setting (for which I've run multiple campaigns, and maintain an errata wiki), new monsters I've created for Pathfinder (or converted to that system), and reviews of new LEGO Minifigure series (with an eye towards using them for RPG minis).

I will try to post a link here to each week's column when I publish it. Please feel free to post any feedback here or (better yet) post comments directly to the blog entries. I hope you enjoy them!

Every few decades, that dreaded abomination, the Tarrasque, reawakens from its long slumber. At such a time, the world's greatest heroes must defend the land from its nigh-insatiable appetite. Sometimes these heroes fail, and civilizations fall. And even when they succeed, the lands in the Tarrasque's wake are forever changed.

This month, I was finally able to start my first campaign in a homebrewed setting that I've been tinkering with for several years (ever since D&D 3.0/3.5, but we ended up running it in Pathfinder).

I've created a public wiki with information for my players. The Lands of the Sun page gives the basic pitch for the start of the campaign (quoted below), and links to information on character creation and world background.

The region known as the Dragon's Wing is dominated by the coastal Sultanate of Asasor and the Lokoran Desert of the interior. Asasor is a subtropical nation of dark-skinned humans and halflings, ruled by the priests of the sun and moon gods. The sultan claims the borders of the Lokoran, and this frontier serves as a buffer between his realm and the sun-adapted orcs of that desert.

The Dragonspire Mountains, beyond the Lokoran, were once home to the evil hobgoblin empire of Rizagarn, but that nation's power was broken by the alliance of northern nations who founded the Shield. The hobgoblins' territory once extended as far as Asasor's borders, and the surviving eastern tribes remain a thorn in the sultanate's side. Fortunately, the hobgoblins and orcs hate each other as much as they do humans and halflings, which keeps their numbers from growing too great. But one of Asasor's greatest fears is that a charismatic warlord will arise among one of those races and undo the precarious balance along the frontier.

The priests of Asasor are also vigilant against the cult of Asmolon, the evil god of darkness and undead. This cult was responsible for the destruction of the halflings' ancestral homeland across the southern sea, and the sun god's champions try to prevent another such catastrophe by finding and destroying any evil they can uncover. They are also wary of the Cult of the Tarrasque, which has numerous adherents among the orcs, who zealously guard sacred sites in the desert where the beast has appeared in the past.

"Lands of the Sun" will initially focus on the hills and deserts of the frontier, with the heroes dealing with threats from orcs, hobgoblins, and death cults. Most adventurers here are humans, halflings, or half-orcs, but the other core races do visit and live within the sultanate in small numbers.

I've posted summaries of our first two sessions to my gaming blog, Studded Plate:

#1: New Companions
#2: Featherclaw, Terror of the Sands