Vladek Odradek's page

In honor of the legendary BURMA-SHAVE ads, the rules for this game are as follows:

Each 'ad' will consist of 5 lines, each (at least ideally) made by a different poster; each poster rolls (Yes, this is an actual freaking die-rolling game!) 1d4 per post, and the result is how many words can and must be in its line. The final poster of course tacks on the obligatory "BURMA-SHAVE" (which does NOT count for/against poster #5's rolled word-quota!), then the next 5 posters compose the next. Lather, rinse, repeat.

EXAMPLE OF PLAY:

Poster 1: 1d4 ⇒ 2
EMTs came

Poster 2: 1d4 ⇒ 4
But hope wore thin

Poster 3: 1d4 ⇒ 1
Coroner's

Poster 4: 1d4 ⇒ 1
Report:

Poster 5: 1d4 ⇒ 4
"Can't find his chin!"

BURMA-SHAVE

Extra-credit for era-appropriate lingo!

Now, Let's Hit the Road!:

____

1d4 ⇒ 2

I'm Hiding

Coming Soon To A Hulu near YOU-lu!

Years ago now, I became genuine friends (very rare for me) with a poster who, for whatever reason, is no longer with us: DM Under The Bridge.

I would, really, really like to reconnect with him, an I am reasonably certain he would be happy to hear from me again. Unfortunately, I am an American, and I never knew enough about him to be able to find him outside this site, which it appears he has not come to since 2015.

Is there ANY chance anyone in the Melbourne area knows him, and/or could help me find him? I don't even know his real name (I know his profession and home city, but we all knows how or why either of those might've changed since 2015?).

What it says in the headline should suffice, I suppose; I don't want to air any dirty laundry in public (and shame on both all who do so, and on all who actively enable it - but that itself is a complaint far beyond the scope of this post, or indeed this website).

Apologies if this has been asked and/or answered before; if not, it seems like a good candidate for a Sticky/FAQ.

Okay, it's stupid, but at least it's NEW!: This is just a game where we come up with 1001+ variants of the good old "not the [X]-est [Y] in/on/etc the [Z], are you?" genre of litotical insults. SO. Without further ado:

Not the sharpest sword in the stone, are you?

Not the wiliest coyote on the ACME mailing list, are we?

Not the stickiest remora under the shark, are ya'?

Not the smelliest cheese in all of France, n'est-ce pas?

Not the most hand-sanitizing perfume in Arabia, art thou?

Not the perkiest pair of t&%# in the ol' porno, now are you?

Not the very-baddest man who's ever been wished into The Cornfield, is that it?!?

First of all, apologies if a different forum would be better for this.

A few years ago now, I became genuine friends (which is very rare for me) with a poster who, for whatever reason, is no longer with us: DM Under The Bridge.

I would, really, really like to reconnect with him, an I am reasonably certain he would be happy to hear from me again. Unfortunately, I never knew enough about him to be able to find him outside this site, which it appears he has not come to since 2015.

Is there ANY way you could help me find him? I don't even know his real name (I do know his profession and home city, but who knows what might've transpired since 2015?).

There's lots of good stuff in there that offers no reason not to be Society-legal (for example, I have a character for whom the Esoteric Knight prestige class would be ideal), and if the answer is 'never' just because it's 1st Edition, then that's really unfair for those of us who still play 1st Edition Pathfinder Society.

For optimal impact, *first* click here.

Done that? Good. Now - click HERE - mind the final sentence before the inset!

When somebody on here turns off their receptivity to PMs, does that mean they also forfeit the ability to send PMs, or can they still do so?

I'm asking because I hope it's the former; if it's the latter, then that must be fixed. It's potentially a blank check for people to harass others with impunity, or to preserve their own freedom of speech yet deny others theirs. I can even think of a few people on this site (won't name names, of course) I worry might not be above such dirty pool.

Most of the posts I've made on here for the past few months (at least) have managed to 'stick' about as well as a Post-It Note if I'd just used it to pet my Ragdoll cat during shedding season. It seems to be getting worse, too; it's not exaggerating to say I have to screw with it 2d4 times before I see it show up properly. Even posting this itself took two tries.

I've been on this website for about 8 years, and for this and a number of other reasons I and/or others have reported previously and not yet seen improvement on, I have to say that I am no longer at all satisfied with the maintenance of this site.

How does one combine games downloaded from GOG.com that are treated as separate games when downloaded, but are actually just expansions of the same game that would all be combined into one if only you could still friggin' buy them as CDs from stores?!!?

My Pertinent Example: I have Disciples II: Servants of the Dark/Guardians of the Light, and Disciples II: Rise of the Elves, but despite their all being expansions to the same game, they're treated as wholly separate games - so I can't access all the new Quests in the latter when I'm trying to play the former.

How do I put them all into one program?

How well would the animate rope spell jive with a snag net? Could the spell be used to wield it effectively, even without proficiency or a good CMB? What if a character DID have Exotic Weapon Proficiency in the snag net (but still a poor CMB)?

Failing that, what other ways are there to telekinetically wield a snag net (particularly with a mind toward characters who otherwise aren't good with weapons or combat maneuvers)?

PARTICULARLY those that others wouldn't likely ever see otherwise, such those as you made for your characters in single-player games, or for your characters in MMOs that disdainfully kicked the all-important "RPG" part to the curb or otherwise went down the toilet sometime after 2006!

Please use the "i" and "bigger" tags to clearly indicate which game these are from, and "b" to distinguish character name and other basic details from the backstory.

I shall start with the 6 backstories for my cadre of characters in Icewind Dale (Enhanced Edition):

MOONLIGHT SONATA, CN female Elf Sorcerer
Moonlight Sonata was nothing like her family, a respectable, upstanding, and frankly boring lot of merchants, artisans, and barristers. From her youngest days, she was *different* - seeing the world in a strange, somewhat disturbing way, plagued by bizarre incidents, and disregarding such things as rules, norms, and traditions. Then came the prodigious talent for magic that left her tutors by turns frustrated, flummoxed, and awed. Her love was discovery - taking every opportunity to join her parents on their rare business trips - and mischief, chasing after the voices in the darkness it seemed only she could hear. When she finally came of age and set out to become an adventurer, her parents greeted the development with little surprise, some relief, and no small amount of wonder - and dread - at what their daughter's place in history might come to be.

PHOTON PURESTEEL, NN male Human Fighter (Kensei)
If Photon had one wish, it would be to be clean. "Clean," to him, means so much more than anything a bath and scrubbing can accomplish (and gods know he's tried). It means liberation from the vileness of the world. It means purity in motion and action. It means standing apart and above from imbeciles and pretenders. It means merciless destruction of falsehood and deceit. It means, well...*clean.* This obsession-turned-philosophy made him a bit of an outcast in his little home village, but when a traveling warrior-mystic from a distant land came to that village for a few seasons, Photon had found someone to teach him a way to realize his will - and when a dark sorceress named Moonlight Sonata passed through, he was entranced. There was something profoundly "clean" in her Chaos, something that his trainer could never have taught him about, so when it was revealed that she was an aspiring adventurer, he followed her with scarcely a second thought. There is much unclean in an adventurer's life...but is not the victory in the cleansing?

MINA THE RELIQUARIAN, LG female Human Paladin (Undead Hunter)
A driven personality like most Paladins, Mina, who foreswore her birth-name in favor of the title "The Reliquarian," chose to dedicate her virtue to fighting the undead - but not for reasons one may think. Hers is a cheerfully morbid personality; the dead fascinate her, and she considers the undead worthy opponents. She would as soon match wits in a chess game with a cultured lich in its parlor as smite depraved ghouls in a dungeon somewhere, and perhaps that is why she came to find a fellow adventurer, the dark sorceress Moonlight Sonata, such an interesting personage to befriend. Mina's faith in the Red Knight teaches her to respect differing and unorthodox strategies, and so she respects Moonlight for her drive, imagination, and power.

IVAN KACZYNSKI, NN male Half-Elf Druid (Avenger)
Whereas most Druids are of tranquil dispositions, Ivan Kaczynski has always been an intense, driven, dynamic sort, a keen advocate of aggression in the defense of nature. However, he also has a somewhat broad and unorthodox view of what nature is, one that goes well with the strange proclivities of some of his companions, whom he encountered after the rest of his druid circle was killed, and their grove razed, by rapacious hobgoblin loggers. While he accepts that he may never find those particular loggers, he has little doubt the adventuring life will grant him ample opportunity to revisit destruction upon the greedy and the stupid wherever he may find them.

CARMEN CORALINE, NG female Gnome Thief (Swashbuckler)
Carmen Coraline is practically joie de vivre personified, her body always in motion, her mind always entertaining some foolish scheme, and her eye always on a pretty gem, an attractive man or woman, or just the next hilltop. A natural with the sword, she used them and her own charm and guile to survive the mean streets of her home city, one with few other Gnomes and many larger races who would gladly take advantage of them. She yearned for so much more, though, so when the party of Moonlight Sonata came through town on their way to freedom and adventure up north, she did not hesitate to sign on.

YORICK JUVENALIX, CN male Half-Elf Bard (Jester)
Yorick Juvenalix's Elven heritage and deviant personality made him a target of bullies in his mostly-Human home city as he was growing up - even the city guard picked on him, as the city was ruled mostly by mean and stupid people. He had two powerful weapons against them, though: Brazen audacity and a transcendent sense of humor, making him a master satirist. His wit made waves, as well as attracting the ire of those he mocked, and he began to feel unsafe in his own city - when an Elven Sorceress and her entourage offered him the opportunity to take his show on the road, as it were, he took it.

Xukong, my 4th-level Kensei/Bladebound Dhampir Magus SHOULD have a fully-filled out character profile here - but suddenly, it no longer does and I have no idea why.

I'm pretty positive *I* didn't erase it, even accidentally - the erasure's too thorough, and wouldn't have cleaned out EVERYTHING the way it has.

Rather, I suspect this has something to do with the godsawful glitches that have been saddling this site for months, screwing up and even 'disappearing' (though it had always been temporary up until now) new posts and edits (hell, it blanked out this very post the first time I submitted it).

The last thing I did with this character's profile was a very minor edit for purposes of tracking spent abilities in its current adventure - but THIS should not have happened.

Tonya Woldridge once told me before, under different circumstances, that nothing on this site ever *really* ceases to be - I rather hope that's the case this time around.

The Invested Regent is a Monk Archetype (suitable for both traditional and Unchained Monks) that replaces only the class's bonus feats (and even that is technically optional for all but the 1st).

Brawlers get bonus feats just as Monks (and Fighters) do, albeit more of them, and not always at the same levels (2-5-8-11-14-17-20 vs the Monk's 1-2-6-10-14-18).

Given that "Hybrid" classes CAN assume Archetypes from their "parent" classes provided the Archetype replaces only class features that the "Hybrid" class still has, does this combination work?

For what it's worth, I am interested in this for Organized Play.

At what point do psychic powers require money be spent on material components? Is it like Eschew Materials, where anything costing 1 gp or less is unnecessary, OR do things like fiery shuriken (requires a shuriken costing 2 sp) or grasping corpse (requires 1 gp, but no more, worth of onyx) still demand that such materials (or whatever their psychic-suitable analogues would be) be provided?

I forget what exactly it was I saw recently that raised me this qualm, but it has come to my attention that 0-level spells may, in fact, NOT count when considering the effect of Class Archetypes (the Kensei Magus being the example most pertinent to me) that skim off spell slots - ergo a 2nd-level Kensei would only have 1 + high-INT-bonus 1st-level spell/day, but would still have its normal full complement for that level of 4 Cantrips.

Is this the case, or have I been doing it correctly by shaving off a Cantrip slot as well?

Dead Mods: If this is not actually the best forum for this issue, I welcome having it moved there.

I happen to know that I am not the only one who would like an option for privileging some "Favorited" posts above others: 'Favorite+', 'Über-Favorite', 'Favorite Amongst Favorites', 'Arch-Deluxe', call it what you will. I've also seen some people Favorite things just to signify approval or "megadittoes", as the case may be. I think it would be good to have a different thing for this, too, as well as perhaps one for when we favorite things just to keep track of them.

I use the [ooc] tag (is that the word?) in my character profiles to distinguish notes, trivia, and future plans in particular from everything else...but for some time now, it's ceased to work. The tags(?) are successfully embedded(?), but the color of the affected text doesn't change.

The following is for a prospective Pathfinder Society character. If I'd have been better off submitting this to one of the Organized Play Forums, I welcome a moderator to do so:

I have mixed feelings about the Shifter. Perhaps I've simply failed to wrap my head around it (but it's incredibly rare that I can't). One thing I DO know is that, were I to play a Shifter, no doubt I'd want to be an Oozemorph...but how do I do it? I don't entirely understand how it's supposed to work, and frankly, it looks even more underwhelming than the base Shifter. I'm hoping against hope that I'm missing or failing to understand something.

Hold the "cheese," please - and if I decline any given advice, respect my prerogative to do so.

*Very Sad But No Cry - With Michael And Ball Again*

Does a natural slam attack count as equivalent to Improved Unarmed Strike with regard to qualifying for other feats? Does anything?

For context's sake, I was thinking that if it did, the Nightmare Fist feat might be great for my Shadow Caller Spiritualist's Shade down the line.

To what extent does an 8th+-level Cavalier of the Order of the Tome's "virtual" caster level count as having an actual caster level for purposes of things that effect and/or depend on a character having a CL?

For instance, could a single-class Cavalier of the Tome with no spell-like abilities from elsewhere take the Allied Spellcaster Teamwork feat?

Ever since the website revamp, the "bigger" function no longer seems to work like it used to - in fact, it looks to me like it makes things smaller now, if anything.

The next sentence should look bigger.
This sentence should look bigger.

For good measure:

The next sentence should look smaller.
This sentence should look smaller.

Okay...it seems like they both do the exact same thing now. What gives?

Also: If fixing this requires making up new tags, allow me to be the first to lobby for replacing "[smaller]" with "[drinkme]" and "[bigger]" with "[eatme]".

Everyone from Martin Luther King and Walt Disney to John Lennon and H. P. Lovecraft have expounded on the power and importance of dreams.

Many people the world over presently feel like we live in a world of lost and broken dreams.

It seems like the whole world's becoming increasingly mean, selfish, frightened, needy, angry, cruel, stupid, unhappy, and unimaginative, and the plague just seems to be spreading.

What if the problem really is within us?

What if the problem is not who we really are, but on the contrary, that who we really are is somehow being destroyed from the inside-out?

I know that I, for one, used to regularly have lots of bizarre and elaborate dreams on a semi-regular basis.

For many years now, I've had barely any...

...and indeed, my life, my mind, and everything about me have been steadily deteriorating.

Can anyone else attest to similar? If so, for how long, and can you think of what else might have changed, either as cause or symptom? Likewise, if anyone has experienced this and managed to recover, HOW???

If "dream loss" is really a contemporary epidemic somehow, it might explain SO MUCH.

My Alchemist has been sporting a non-magical doctor's mask (originally from Adventurer's Armory, I believe) for a very long time; but have the mechanics for it been changed somewhere along the way, or what? My understanding (and how I've been applying it) has been that it grants a +2 bonus to saving throws vs inhaled poisons and stench effects...but I can't seem to find anything that corroborates that (and I'd have to do some digging to relocate my copy of Adventurer's Armory).

What is the quantity of the bonus supposed to be, and what should it apply against?

If this is not the best forum for this, feel free to move this or flag to have it moved.

I've long felt that Pathfinder was terribly biased against the undead and half-dead, and in few places is that more blatant than in the Bard/Skald spell list and the Alchemist/Investigator formula list, both/all of which feature cure wounds, but not inflict wounds.

This is a bummer in particular for one of my characters, a Dhampir Skald (not that he would describe himself as a 'Skald', but that's neither here nor there). Spell Kennings and their heavy limitations notwithstanding, is there any Society-legal way some or all of the inflict wounds spells can find their way onto the Bard/Skald spell list?

The floor is OPEN!

I'm going to require the following information from all of you:

Player moniker:
Character name:
PFS character ID#:
Day Job roll OR any alternative Downtime hijinx:
Faction:
Initiative modifier:
Perception modifier:
Traits:
If your character were in an animated movie, who would voice them (dead people are allowed, just so long as the sound of their voices is well-known)?:

Introduce yourselves as you will when you are ready!

"RULE 0" FOR THIS THREAD: No wish/miracle, shadow Conjuration/Evocation/etc, or dominate/geas/possession sorts of spells, that all's too easy.

1. Repeatedly cast meteor swarm on empty, barren stretch of land that you own in the hopes that some leave behind valuable minerals.

2. Take two rock lobsters, cast stone to flesh on one and flesh to stone on the other, see which works out better.

3. Cast a contingency spell set to release a stinking cloud in the event somebody pulls your finger.

4. Cast iron body, sacrifice yourself to save a brood of starving rust monsters.

5. Visit a party or a carnival, cast maze on paying customers. STEP RIGHT UP, STEP RIGHT UP! DON'T BE SHY!!!

6. Cast power word, stun on someone who was just about to deliver an important expository monologue.

7. Cast telekinetic sphere in some large, colorful city, invent and play "urban pinball".

8. Cast bilocation when you can't decide which of two wonderful restaurants to go to this evening, so you can go to both at once.

9. Cast time stop just to take a candy bar break.

10. Cast magnetic field to cause hijinx at the bank you work at after-hours.

11. Cast as large a wall of force as you can manage in a totally pointless, middle-of-nowhere location, followed by permanency.

12. Go to an inn with an exceptionally wide range in room quality, rent the cheapest, cast dimension door to spend the night in the most lavish (unoccupied) suite instead, then again to return to the cheap room so you emerge from it in the morning. Repeat daily for as long as you stay there.

@Mods: If this is not the best forum for this inquiry, I would welcome being moved to whichever is.

So. What options are out there for a character who wields a one-handed weapon, but is none of the following:

- a Free-Hand Fighter
- a shield-wielder of any sort
- a stencil-swizzling Wayang
- someone who uses the Steal maneuver
- a friggin' Magus or faux-Magus (like the Phantom Blade)
- a friggin' Kineticist
- a Flagbearer
- someone who casts some obscure spell that requires an empty hand
- anyone else with a class/Archetype-specific quirk that requires a free hand (though if someone just felt like name-dropping classes/Archetypes like this, I wouldn't mind hearing about them)

In case you wonder "well gee, what's left?", I'm hoping people can name things like feats and odd items (in particular, not exclusively).

Okay, so this is 4 years old, but I only just learned about it now. Anyone heard of this? Seen it? Funny thing is, 4 years is about the point I'd place the beginning of the current "boundless moral panic" culture. Coincidence?

In 2009, I went on a vacation with my family around Western/Mediterranean Europe. While in Italy, I accidentally lost a genuinely priceless possession: A black-and-white notebook that I'd been regularly writing and drawing in for over 10 years prior. It was a completely standard black-and-white marble composition notebook, made valuable solely by what I'd put in it. I lost it when I accidentally left it on the dresser of my hotel room when we were rushing out the door to catch the train - and it was only when we were on the train that I realized I'd lost it. We called the hotel, but they weren't very helpful, and while I waited hopefully for a while for them to find it and mail it to us, I never got it back. Uncharacteristically, I surrendered to pessimism and assumed it had been carelessly tossed out and likely incinerated by someone who knew nothing of its value.

But now I'm thinking, miracles happen. If there's one wonderful thing about the Internet, it's the unprecedented ability to find and communicate with people all over the world. Social media, for all its crap, can accomplish flabbergasting things. If I wanted to "set off a treasure hunt" for a small item of strictly personal value that I'd lost in an Italian hotel room in 2009, with a significant bounty on its return, where would be the best place to advertise it?

Please don't tell me Twitter or Facebook - I'm not there, and I don't want to be. I'm figuring the optimum site would be something like an "Italian/EU-specific Craigslist," or an Italian hotel workers' union website, or even some kind of "tourists in Europe who look out for each other" kind of outfit or "International Bibliophile's League" - I have no idea what's out there, that's why I'm asking!

It was a stand-alone order (unconnected with the season) that said it had been shipped 12/5/2017, with an "estimated 3 to 10 business days in transit" - but it hasn't arrived.

#73 has an annoying error, but other than that, this could be all kinds of fun and useful!

Repost from here.

The Samsaran Mystic Past Life racial feature was, of course, published before Occult Adventures, and as such doesn't take psychic powers into account in its wording - should it be considered to apply and work to that realm of power the same as it does to arcane and divine magic? If not, could we please have a formal verdict making that possible for Society play?

Despite "RAW" getting in the way, it seems pretty clear, in hindsight, what the "RAI" ought to be - especially given how fitting psychic powers are to the character of the Samsaran race.

The Samsaran Mystic Past Life racial feature was, of course, published before Occult Adventures, and as such doesn't take psychic powers into account in its wording - should it be considered to apply and work to that realm of power the same as it does to arcane and divine magic? If not, could we please have some formal errata making that possible?

/signed

Newly-discovered Kuiper Belt Objects ain't gonna name themselves!

At least...if they did...that would be spooky and weird.

Every class starts with proficiencies in some or many weapons, and in most cases, armor, and sometimes shields.

My question is: To what extent can these starting class proficiencies constitute proficiency feats so that they could be traded for other feats under Retraining rules?

I realize there'd have to be certain limits, as anyone proficient "with all martial weapons" being able to treat every single such weapon as a "Martial Weapon Proficiency" feat and retrain as many of those as they cared to would be abusable as all blue hell.

My much more reasonable, personally-relevant example: Can my Occultist, who is proficient with non-tower shields (basically meaning he has the Shield Proficiency feat), retrain that in exchange for another feat?

Apparently, he killed himself because he was already doomed - a bittersweet final act of self-determination.

Stansilav Petrov

Show me what/who you've got!

Open for discussion!