baron arem heshvaun wrote:
I don't normally chime in on such threads, however... The Baron has been steadfast for many many years. Anyone who thinks he needs more stars hasn't been paying attention. Not for nothing, anyone can collect stars, not anyone can be the Baron. He was quintessential in helping me run both of the very first Gen Con specials before there was a Gen Con special and some how managed to retrieve a manuscript stolen from my personal belongings during the special which (perhaps ironically) happened to be the near final draft to Stolen Lands.
Thea Peters wrote:
My trick is to get Thea to run the game for me while I sleep "under" a table.
Ixxix wrote: These have all been great. I really liked Tim's discussion on word choice and setting the mood. I'm going to have my whole group read this to see if we can start having more ambiance like this in our games. Thank Ixxix! I think ambience is super important. A real easy way to get ambiance is to find a crazy place to host a game. I once played a Cthulhu-based game at friend's log cabin in the woods surrounded by wild dogs. It was chilling.
, wrote:
For a decent image, google a couple of pictures of Kiberia in Nairobi and then picture that level of sprawling industrial shanty in well Numeria which I kind of imagine to look a little more like Northern Europe. Culturally, I imagine the power base to be a sort of unacknowledged split between older clans of Kellid barbarians and newer transplants seeking to get their thrills by turning themselves on to unknown alien Tech. After centuries of competing for similar resources, I don't see clans don't necessarily like each other, but they work together out of respect, old clan blood pacts and clan law. I kind of picture them much like ancient celts in that respect. Old warrior clans that now control much of the resources/commodities with the oldest clans being the most powerful and holding most of the control. The extort and intimidate almost like barbaric crime families, but with less fitness. They might even possess kill rights or similar rights based on old clan pacts that place them above the law in certain circumstances, which would make them very dangerous. I also pictured street gangs, mostly made up of younger transplants, upstarts looking to cheat the existing monopolies. Think of Mockery as one of many such gang leaders, but with each gang having its own motive, some political, some not— just opportunists seeking to circumvent the establishment. They shift quickly as they fall in and out of fashion or as they get caught and killed.
I recently just finished reading Neuromancer by William Gibson, which was likely an unconscious influence on Starfall, both culturally and physically. Another influence were probably some of the cityscapes in the short stories of China Mieville, and obviously the fantasy work of REH, L.Sprague DeCamp and Pat Mills (who wrote the Slaine´ series for 2000AD). I think of the streets of Starfall as being dark, dangerous, easy to get rolled over for money or other supplies, and full of tricksters, con artists, and thugs. In other words, a lousy place to live but a great place for an adventurer. Everything is for all, but none of the deals are remotely fair and the better the deal you think your getting, the more strings are attached to it...Hope that helps.
DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
Hey Dudemaster. I haven't seen the final piece yet, but let me see if I can clarify a couple of things which certainly appear to be errata.Looking at save progression in my final turnover to Jason, it seems like between a lot of passing the document around my save table got worked, and badly. My intention was to give the class a save progression similar to the alchemist. That was my intention. The DC should all be + "relevant" ability modifier. Originally I was going to tie specific abilities to specific ability scores, but I found that a little clunky as I was going forward and trying to make it more of a pick your powers type of thing. Cyborgs should only be able to dump a number of nanite charges into power equal to their character level, so a first level character can only do 1d6 damage. That isn't explicit in the explanation of the nanite matrix description and it should be. Lastly, yes the hour recharge is too long. That's a mistake as well, originally I wasn't going to have the matrix power up and power down for 8 hours (like regaining spells), so the hour was intended to limit that, but after play testing I was not happy with that and I was going to change the times to either 1d4 rounds or 1 minute. I totally forgot to make that change in the final turnover because I hadn't decided on the change yet. Being as I expect to change it now, I'm open for suggestions.
I adore Nick both as an author and a human being. He is hands down one of the most gifted game designers I have ever met. He can write an entire game on the spot, just make it up in full detail as you're playing it.
He made IRON GM just because he figured thats how he could get the most people to have the most fun in one room at one time. He consistently raises the bar for both writing and creativity. His ideas are always innovated and his characters never short of epic. Most importantly, a five minute conversation with Nick Logue makes you a better person.
TriOmegaZero wrote:
I'm only assuming that A. the PCs want a good challenge.
So, yeah, I'm writing up (which should be taken by everyone as a complement). I assume both the GMs and the PCs want a challenge. Certainly the players in my home game do, so I write material that I'd serve my crew and thats the best I can do. i cannot guess what people outside want, nor do I try to make that guess. That said, I take constructive feedback really well, and definitely appreciate it. now, enough of my ridiculously serious replies and back to hijinks.
Cosmo wrote: Did we get up to enough hijinks at Gen Con, ya think? No... no we didn't! There can always be more and better hijinks. And there can never be too much Cosmo. I can never get enough Cosmo. More hijinks I say. Next year we need to fill Nicky Blaine's with an entire crowd of people dressed as 18th century noblemen all playing Baron Munchausen at the same time.
Just checking... As I've stated many times in the past, GMs kill characters not freelancers.
That and great risk makes for greater rewards. If you've ever read "The Life of Pi" there's a wonderfully esoteric section on how a starving man will look upon a sing fish head as a great blessing.
Justin Sluder wrote: When can we expect an encore? ;) I performed with Rockonomicon (Rone Barton, James Sutter, Jonathan Nelson, and myself) at this years ENnies... does that count?
Julix wrote: Really, completely empty after a year? I would love to ask Tim some questions about the White Haired Witch, that he helped design: sorry, if no one tells me there's a thread, I won't find it. Now when you go to Gen Con, people tell you there's a thread.Julix wrote:
a. yes b. for the hair, all attack and damage modifiers are both determined by intelligence.Julix wrote:
The attack, grapple, and AoO rules work exactly the same for the hair as they would for a human trying to grapple with their arms. The intent here is Flavor... to a huge game breaking advantage of offering extra attacks to low level characters. Assume that the white-haired with is devoting a great deal of mental power to control her/his hair. So in the first example, no the witch cannot take an extra attack with the hair and yes, the witch would have to break one grapple to start another. That said, certain feats might help push those limitations as the witch advances as would the ability to make additional attacks as she increases in level. While it doesn't explicitly say so in the text, I would allow a white-haired witch with multiple attacks to maintain multiple grapples.
Oceanshieldwolf wrote:
Repair Object spells work. I haven't gotten around to making a range of repair object spells for the yohunga yet, but my intent was to make a set of repair spells that followed a progression similar to the cleric's cure spells.And yep, they are constructs so you can repair them outside of combat. As far as skills go, the Yohunga determines what skills are most appropriate for his tikimen, and as he progresses, he might want each of his tikimen to have a different skill set. It depends entirely on what the Yohunga has built the tikiman to do. So like a tikiman designed to be an assassin tiki might do a stealth build, while a tiki designed to be a jungle hunter/tracker might build on acrobatics, climb, or survival. That was supposed to be one of the perks, that you could build your tiki to suit your needs.
Tikiman Errata wrote: Hit Dice: For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, a tikiman adds the yohunga's character level to its base Hit Dice. Does this include prerequisites for tiki powers? Or just for calculating effects of the tiki powers etc... I actually intended it to be both, thanks for clarifying that. Tikiman Errata wrote: Hit Points: In addition to own hit points a tikiman gains a number of bonus hit points equal to half the yohunga's total hit points (not including temporary hit points), rounded down. So this is in addition to the 5.5 hp per HD acquired by the Increased Hit Die tiki power? Yes, quite... The increased HD power becomes like a toughness feat at upper levels. The tikiman is the yohunga's primary schtick so the tikimen need a fair amount of hit points to be useful, especially since they are the yohunga's pawns in combat. Tikiman Errata wrote: Attacks: the tikiman adds the yohunga's base attack bonus (as calculated from all his classes) to all his attacks. Use the tikiman's Dexterity or Strength modifier, whichever is greater, to calculate the tikiman's melee attack bonus with natural weapons. I'm a little confused here. The tikiman has a bite which begins bite +2 (1d3 -1), dagger +2 (1d2-1/19-20). So if my BAB is +4 then this becomes bite +6 (1d3 -1), dagger +6 (1d2-1/19-20)?If I have also chosen the Increased Hit Die tiki power four times, the tikiman's hit die is now 5, and constructs BAB is 1/HD. So would this now be: bite +10 (1d3 -1), dagger +10 (1d2-1/19-20)? Yep. Remember, the tikiman is going to be performing most of the yohunga's work in combat, while he hangs back an bolsters the thing or his allies with spells, plus his casting is limited. And I'm right in assuming this is not an increase to the tikiman's BAB, just a straight bonus to his attacks? And thus no extra attacks at +6 BAB etc... Does this bonus have a type? Right!... Because you'll have multiple tikimen at some point so the multiple attacks will come from multiple tikimen, not an increase in the BAB. That would just get too crazy, and well un fun for everyone else but the yohunga (no one else would get a turn)
Oceanshieldwolf wrote:
So I posted some errata which will make the tikiman make a lot more sense. It should solve the whole, what powers do I want to add clause. What you'll see now is that a number of the powers work sort of like feats (because constructs can't have feats).
Hey Folks,
Basically, the tikiman was supposed to progress with the yohunga, and be modifiable by adding tweak powers. The progress with the yohunga rules are missing in the Freebooter's guide so as written, you could be 20th level with a bunch of 4 HD tikiman with 20 hit points each as your primary power. Which sucks, and is wrong. The following errata side bar fixes it. <Sidebar>
brvheart wrote: ** spoiler omitted ** Hey Braveheart, I like the feats, though I think the first two are more in keeping with extra tikipowers. If it affects the tikiman, then its a tikipower, if it affects the yohunga, then its a good feat. For the second group of questions, since the necklace is essentially a bonded item, yes you can enchant it. You cannot however turn it into a ring of protection, strictly speaking (because specific items are geared towards specific body locations to keep your game balanced). You could however turn it into an amulet of natural armor. Because a tikiman is a construct, if it drops below zero hit points it is destroyed. The yohunga must Craft a new one. The tiki can be a simple or complicated as its owner desires, however it takes 1 week to complete the carving and perform the rituals that give the thing its semblance of life. There's no Craft check needed as its assumed that by this point, a yohunga knows how to make its own tikimen out of whatever resources are available. I'm also going to add that the errata (which should hopefully be coming out soon, makes tiki's significantly (and sufficiently) tougher at high levels, providing them with appropriate bonuses to saves, AC, BAB, hp... etc. There is a missing section in the guide that was supposed to detail common features to tikimen, but basically they should develop sort of like familiar and the powers were supposed to provided extra bonuses.
You know... I make the encounters too soft, people complain.
Its a crapshoot. Lots of PFS players really work hard to optimize their characters so they function at a CR higher (perhaps more) than a typical character so its a tough juggling act. Thus, you get the play up/play down option. Its supposed to help folks pick a path more towards their style of playing. Perhaps the GMs should stress that aspect more when preparing to run a group. I think often people get too hyped about playing the hard mode, but in my opinion, Hard mode is for crunch players who dig min/maxing and optimizing stats and the other mode is for fluff players who build characters based on their backgrounds and stories.
The key is really trying to figure out what kind of game your players want to play. Make the players happy and you will have a good game. So yeah, get excited about finding the mode that'll make your players most happy instead of getting excited about making the players play up. The objective isn't to kill their characters, its to make everyone have fun.
Louis Agresta wrote:
Hey Lou, thanks for the plug! If there are any folks out there who are going to be at Gen Con and want to get in on the Razor Coast action to see what the setting is all about...
I think the point with Season 1 was to have the overall plot be a little ambiguous, and show how the event of the Sinkhole influenced numerous other things without the focus falling so much on the sinkhole itself, particularly because what was in the hole was going to be more challenging that low level characters were going to be able to handle. That sort of changes in Season 2 as I was forced to reel things in a little, so as Season 2 progresses, there will be more of an order to the adventures, at least towards the end. With season 1, you can get away with changing CRs on a lot of the adventures, and moving them around as you see fit, and slipping them in between other adventures and whatnot. Of course Epicenter Rising has to be first. That said, I suggest running Ascension of the Prophet early on. Tatterdemalion should play sometime before Widow's Walk (as the later riffs of characters in the first).
Once Seeking Dawn is released, the rest of the series follows a plot to the conclusion. and my post probably just made everything more confusing...
I just want to add that what really drew me into professional game design was the OGL. That was the whole point, that the whole concept of being "official" was really what was holding gaming back, because brilliant ideas became limited by an "official setting" or what have you.
I even liked some of the crappy 3.0 books because they gave me ideas or got me psyched to try something new, even if I was only going to pull that stunt once or even if the idea was mechanically broken. So really we're all getting this vast avalanche of ideas, and what's not fantastic about that? I've been playing D&D now for about 35 years, how happy am I that people are cranking out new ideas like crazy. I just call that fun.
doc the grey wrote:
Well, I can definitely admit when I'm wrong. This is a prime example, the text should read 400 lbs. I actually wanted the weirdstone to be a bit lighter than normal stone so the slough could tote it about, but heavy enough that the slough couldn't just flee a combat with it without a certain amount of effort.That said, a clever slough could certainly gather enough minions to haul around a 4,000 pound chunk of stone, especially if it suited her dastardly plans.
Jim Groves wrote:
Thanks Jim! Ironically, I'm just about to start reading Shackled Hut. I'm a little behind on my AP reading.
Mikaze wrote:
Thanks Mikaze!
TwilightKnight wrote: ** spoiler omitted ** Lets see if I can answer this: reply spoiler: When I wrote this, my intent was for BMM to remain trapped within this chamber long enough to start giving birth to her vile spawn, so yes the bindings were designed to hold her. Still, she can move almost the entire length of the chamber, she just can't leave the chamber without breaking her bonds. Also, she isn't particularly described as wearing manacles, she is bound with multiple chains and stuff, so she not necessarily bound with any type of fancy material. The reason there is a DC 35 chance is because there should always be a chance. I was also thinking that the PCs appearance would rile her up more that usual.
DeciusNero wrote:
Ulcris shouldn't just throw anything out. The way I played it is simply this (note: this isn't really in the rules, its just kind of the way I ran it).Ghosts are in a state of torment unknown to them, which is why they hang around the material plane. After convincing Ulcris he was dead, they helped his soul achieve some sort of peace allowing him to "pass over" as a reward, he offered them one last favor before departing. Naturally, the PCs asked them to get information about Vrood.
Louis Agresta wrote: ok. who wants to have a Razor Coast release party at Gen Con sponsored by Kraken rum with Alestorm playing? I could figure out the costs and put up a kickstarter just for party and the Alestorm appearance fee...hm.... Of course I do!!!!! which means you might want to rethink that plan.
GeraintElberion wrote:
curse you homophones! curse you!
golem101 wrote:
Ok so I'm not the only one to jaunt over to this thread because of the Bester reference. I'm not sure whether I feel relieved about that or more nerdy, but thank you Golem101. Thank you very much.
Nicolas Logue wrote:
No Nick, I meant live. Sort of like how I've seen The Craig Shackleton live in a dress... except more British and less Canadian.
Itchy wrote:
Its pictures like these that make me cry. My madgascars and tarantulas are all dead! Curse you hurricane Sandy!
Richard Pett wrote:
Ha! Typical Hitchcock siding with the wushu power because it sounds a bit like tequila. Good idea Wakedown, this could build into something very memorable, I have the pig grease ready Logue. Huzzah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Play how you want Pett. I'm only stating the facts. Here's another fact... Nick has actual pirate's blood in him.And probably the blood of Appalachian bootleggers who practiced their own backwoods surgery. Of course the latter half is only a guess, but its a very educated guess if I know my Logue.
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