Xaaon of Xen'Drik's page

It has been a good run, as a Adventure Path Charter subscriber I've enjoyed supporting Pathfinder from Alpha through the last Adventure Path, however the time has come to split from the path.

Please Cancel order #2707098 and Stop my subscription.

Thank you

I like the idea of a posse...however...traditionally a posse was temporary...so it would have been cool to have that grant temporary Leadership feat...with boon companion affecting them.

And here's Page 9.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

Thanks. I had read it out loud. Thanks for the critique.

Starting page 9...

120) Irrisen Sacrificial Athame
Good: I love athame's I even own several, and the idea behind this is groovy sacrifice some temporary attributes for metamagic on the spot.
Bad: There's a template out there I think for witch where you can have Constitution based casting as an orc- he could handle this too effectively.
Ugly: Not feeling name, might be DQed as this is still technically a weapon.
Overall: Middling to upper middling if not outright DQed for me.

Thanks for the critique.

Didn't know about the Con Based Orc, but keep in mind, dropping that con, then drops the DC of spells.

There was precedent for an athame as a wondrous item already published, so not a DQ. I thought about naming it the Hoarfrost Athame, and having it made of solidified ice, the scarring leaving a frostbitten scar. Lessons learned.

Page 9 items! There were a lot of them!

Irrisen Sacrificial Athame - Blood item, hurts with voters. Name may have eluded some. The item makes complete sense, but lacks the mojo of the top items. Would find in an item book.

Thanks for the feedback...

Technically, my Irrisen Sacrificial Athame wasn't a blood item, the cut leaves a scar. No blood. Creepy yes, but no blood. I ran long on wordcount otherwise the blade would have been solidified ice, and the cut would have been frostbitten.

I thought this item was very well executed. I guess the self-mutilation bit didn't go over well with the public though. You have called out and accounted for most of the unintended consequences and potential abuses. My only problem is that it should be limited in uses per day even though the ability loss is a natural balance. It is too easy to heal ability loss and just fuel unlimited amounts of free metamagic. requirements are unorthodox but ok I think, although the aura is supposed to be determined by the spells used in creation.

Verdict: Personal Keep. It had a good theme and suitable, mostly robust mechanics.

Concerning the aura, it was based upon the metamagic rod, thus it used the same auras. Concerning the requirements, it's a twist on the metamagic rod. Using spell perfection, which itself requires two metamagic feats, was quite the requirement I think.

Yeah, I was a bit concerned about the cost to metamagic ratio, but, as the spells would usually be used in battle, I figured the consequences of going all emo during battle was the off-set. I did increase the cost by 50%, and made the athame only work with metamagics that the character actually possessed the feats for, unlike normal metamagic rods.

As I said before, once I learned it was the public not the judges selecting, I was afraid...very afraid...but I didn't know until after I posted, after all I'm a busy guy.

And thanks for the critique.

I would have preferred to see this use the Drag rules rather than the grapple rules, it's decent, but it wasn't one of my top 32.

congratulations on Top 32 and for winning the Mystery Map contest!

And remember if you're signing up to play in a PbP PFS game, stick with it, otherwise everyone wasted their time and locked up their character in a PFS legal game, meaning they can't play another game with that character while they're in the PbP.

You are running it as an actual PFS game, and are registered as a judge already right Brayden?

No. She's legal. I can sign her up and pick a faction if she's chosen to play.

So you'd be running a level 1 PFS sorc then?

My item is below, the judges never saw it, and the voters didn't really like it, so I'm curious for feedback. There were a couple minor tweaks I made in the final posting which didn't make it to my save file.

Irrisen Sacrificial Athame
Aura strong necromancy; CL 17th
Slot none; Price 81,000 gp; Weight 3 lbs.
Description
This ritualistic silver knife features a wickedly curved blade; shimmering with hoarfrost, the blade is uncomfortably cool to the touch. These wicked ritualistic tools originated in Irrisen, in the hands of powerful witches.
As a swift action, the wielder draws the blade of the athame across their flesh, sacrificing their own life force and leaving a jagged purplish-black scar in its wake. The next spell cast applies the effects of a metamagic feat possessed by the wielder without affecting its level or casting time, as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level.
Each sacrifice costs the wielder 1 point of temporary constitution, dexterity, or strength for each spell level increase of the applicable metamagic feat. Thus adding the maximize metamagic feat will inflict 3 points of temporary attribute damage. The user must possess the relevant ability score in order to use this item (an undead creature may not sacrifice constitution.)
An Irrisen sacrificial athame may be used on any level of spell. A caster may only add one metamagic effect to any given spell with the power of the athame. The wielder may combine the athame’s effect with metamagic feats they possess. In this case, only the feats possessed by the wielder adjust the spell slot of the spell being cast, per the appropriate metamagic feat. This effect may not be combined with the effect of any metamagic rod.
The soft blade is unsuitable for combat, having 5 hit points and hardness 2.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Spell Perfection; Cost 40,050 gp

Eric Morton wrote:

Whatever your item was, chances are good I saw it:

An alphabetical list of every item I saw this year.

[/thread]

My item is not on that list. I saw it once before the cull.

Did anyone see the Nethian Scrolltube? It's really bothering me that among two marathon voters (myself and Epic Meepo) it was seen once.

I saw the Nethian Scroll tube, as did my wife

I didn't design my item with mass judging in mind...I designed.it for the judges...oops...didn't realize they were switching it up this year

Guess I really missed the mark with my Athame...perhaps it was too single classed...though any spell casting class could use it. I felt it would be great in the hands of players and enemies alike

Congratulations on Top 32. This is one of the better of the Top32, and I look forward to seeing your archetype.

What was the cull? Did I miss something?

I've always found the Periapt of Proof Against Poison useful. You can pour a flask of contact poison over your head, and start grappling.

The post about grappling with Alchemist's Fire reminded me of this.

I did this to a Warforged Assassin NPC in one of my games, it smeared contact paralysis poison on itself, so when the monk hit it, bam...save vs poison, which he failed. Fun Stuff.

Please cancel the Companion portion of my subscription. In addition cancel my Roleplaying Game subscription. Dental costs have removed my ability to continue these services.

Thank you,
Xaaon (aka Ron Tilton)

I run Traveller as Mongoose Infantry
I played Dresden Files at Kingdom Con last year, it was a BLAST!!!
I have played CoC about 12 years ago, it was fun!!
I have Dark Heresy, and Rogue Trader, both are pretty cool, just haven't gotten around to play them.

DSXMachina, do you need another player for Dresden Files???

You can look at things like enhancement bonuses and try to price the thing out accordingly. But the way I see it, there are guidelines for designing an item that casts a spell and that's the simplest way to do it.

Take the venerable Hat of Disguise, for instance. It casts a specific first level spell at will. If we tried to break it down, like trying to equate the effect of True Strike to enhancement bonus, we'd be looking at a +10 skill bonus. With that kind of reasoning, the Hat of Disguise should cost 10,000 gold. Maybe more, since Disguise Self provides an untyped bonus.

But it doesn't cost 10,000 gold. It costs 1800. And it does that while closely following the item creation guidelines. Since it's basically just casting the spell, you still need to expend a standard action to activate it and you're still limited to a 10 minute duration as per the CL1 of the item.

A proposed Ring of True Strike ought to follow a similar pattern. It's a specific first level spell castable at will. Now you can argue that True Strike is a much more powerful or useful spell than Disguise Self and that may be true for a lot of campaigns. There's a reason the item creation guidelines aren't called item creation rules. You're free to limit it to a handful of uses per day or bump the price up to compensate. But if you start proposing that an item like this should cost tens of thousands of gold, you might as well just be saying that True Strike should be a 4th level spell or higher.

A standard action True Strike at will is not all that devastating. For most characters, it means one boosted attack roll every other round. And half of that character's rounds are spent not doing anything otherwise useful.

Now if you start speculating on what it would take to make it a swift action or faster, you're sailing off into uncharted territory. A use-action or continuous True Strike doesn't make sense by nature of the way the spell operates, that's pretty clear. And command word items are specifically activated as a standard action,...

Well in fact, the true strike spell is root of the problem, it's a non-scaling spell the typically requires a standard action to cast, thus it can only be used every other round, one round to cast, one round to attack. But by putting it into a use activated item, it breaks the system.

If the spell function were caster level based, say +4 to attack per 4 caster levels, then the caster level would factor into the item creation rules and you'd get a more balanced item. As is, you only need a level 1 caster to create it. This skews the entire system.

There's a reason weapons cost twice as much as armor to create, it's a combat oriented game, a hat of disguise is a role-play item, not a combat item, thus it shouldn't cost 10k. (especially since the Pathfinder version is a nerfed version)

Clark Peterson wrote:

...a submission with creativity and innovation and inspiration but a few technical flaws wins...

Yeah.

You can go home now ladies and gents.

Clark has described my entry perfectly...

Honest,

S'Truth,

Really!

OK OK

I can dream...

aspire...

Then good luck to you sir, I hope to stand by the other Top 31 on January 24th, though I know there's lots of competition.

I'll remember the non-italicized comma after the italicized spell next year, I hope my themed SAIC still wows them this year, they say three's a charm and it was, I almost got it with my ghostfire torch but I didn't mangle the costs enough based upon my tweaking of the rules...according to the pricing guidelines it was dead on, but its effect was more than that. So hopefully FIVE'S a charm this year...if not maybe 2x3= three's a double charm.

Perhaps because you can easily envision the original item, that is why it is easier to describe. But if the judges; upon viewing your item see the exact thing you're thinking of, they might auto-reject it.

Perhaps make it similar flavor in a new package?

Change materials?

Definitely steer clear of any naming convention which refers to the original.

Just my 2 cents.

Cosmo wrote:

Xaaon of Xen'Drik wrote:

I need to suspend my subscriptions for now, don't have the funds currently.

Thank you.

Your subscriptions have been suspended. Just let us know when you are ready to resume.

Thanks,
cos

It looks like I'll be able to restart subs next week. Stand By

Restart my Subs please.

Xaaon of Xen'Drik wrote:

I need to suspend my subscriptions for now, don't have the funds currently.

Thank you.

Your subscriptions have been suspended. Just let us know when you are ready to resume.

Thanks,
cos

It looks like I'll be able to restart subs next week. Stand By

I need to suspend my subscriptions for now, don't have the funds currently.

Thank you.

HeHateMe wrote:

An Inquisitor with a bow will pound the tar out of a Gunslinger as a ranged combatant any day.

The DPR thread shows a bow Inquistor at 78 DPR and a Gunslinger at 95 - 144 DPR depending on build.

using what weapons??? At what level?

First I'd like to say THANK YOU for adding the corner protectors to the Ultimate magic book, without those protectors I'd need the entire order resent, because the box was obviously chucked and stomped.

So, 3 of 4 items are fine, but Carrion Crown: Broken Moon was not so lucky it had one corner crushed, I can take pictures if needed.

Thanks.

Kabump wrote:

Grick wrote:

Computer games have been experimenting with DRM free software, and finding success despite the huge piracy numbers. (Humble Indie Bundle and World of Goo are good examples)

Those are small time companies though, who feel that the stigma of DRM isn't worth getting people to try their product. I cant think of a single major game publisher that doesnt have at least a basic form of DRM on their product. Because of their very prominence, the big boys will be larger targets. I'd put Paizo into this Big Boy group.

In the RPG industry though, not only did Posthuman Studios actively seed the PDF of Eclipse Phase on torrent sites they also encourage people to edit their files, and they seem to be very happy with the results Posthuman Studios 2010 Year End Review.

Now, I understand that Posthuman Studios doesn't fall under the "Big Boy" category that you speak of, but it's an interesting (and so far seemingly successful) experiment that I think shows there's a little more wiggle room on DRM for RPG's then most people believe.

Eclipse Phase was also released under creative commons licensing. That's the reason they seed their own work. Probably assuming lots of gamers will get the PDF, then eventually buy their gorgeous books! It's a good plan I think.

Paizo happens to feel they want to make $9.99 off their PDFs but allow people to get them cheap, which compared to $34.99 PDFs some companies offer, it definitely is. But Paizo wants to maintain their copyrights, their IP is theirs, and I don't blame them.

It's a strange time we're living in...

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Xaaon, please post links to pictures - that would be helpful. Was the box damaged at all, or did this look like damage from the contents shifting around inside the box?

The corner of the box was partially dented and scuffed as if it had been dropped (box is already gone unfortunately). I will get pix up when I get home tonight.

My Bestiary 2 was not handled with the loving care it deserved and had one corner crushed and one corner dinged. I can link a picture later if needed. It was hand-delivered to my door so it wasn't our postman, it was one of the boxchuckers at an office.

Sweet job Lilith!

One day I'll move to Washington...YAY And on that day I'll play to Paizo...actually I'll apply before hand, but...I have 7 more years before I can do that...

As my 'Charter' tag indicates, I've been on board from the beginning.

I actually resubscribed to Dragon and Dungeon magazines after a decade long hiatus, only a couple of months before the cancellation was announced. So, I was here for the announcements as they happened. Have had the Beta PDF since the day it was released and the softcover book shortly after that. I wasn't able to actually use the rules for many months as my group at the time was in the midst of a long running 3.5 epic campaign. After that group broke, I found some guys playing PFRPG and have been happily chugging along ever since.

ditto

My subs ran out the month before they went off-sale so I had to buy them from the beginning, rarely been disappointed (no traits in Osirion book was disappointing)

I was there for Alpha 1,2,3 Beta and beyond., and RPG Superstar 1...still trying on that part...

Dragon marks could easily be converted to alternate Racial Abilities.

I do like the idea of converting Dragonmarked houses to Pathfinder, moreso, it would make a REALLY interesting Golarion Campaign, when these marks which correlate to the planets of Golarion begin to appear.

Akiton might appear as a red mark, in the shape of the Draconic symbol for Akiton...

Perhaps they're Godmarks. Each one being attributed to a deity, the beginning of a new Godswar. Demonmarks and Devilmarks might also appear.

All these would have to be non-house related, but with gods giving new powers to random people, suddenly churches become more powerful, and they become the new houses, perhaps through deed, you gain the marks, thus a murderer might gain a Godsmark by murdering, while a healer would gain and increase their Godsmark by healing...

N'wah contact me please.

North Korea would require lots of bunker busters, they have spent the last 50 years building everything DEEP underground. Remember, Obama has said we won't use nukes. Attacking North Korea would trigger a nasty resurgence of a jungle war. Except North and South Korea both have the ultimate in jungle clearing weapons.

The North Korean populace is innocent it's all the government, I'm sure the populace would love to come into the 21st century, if the head of the serpent were cut off...

Best solution nowadays might be if China conquered N. Korea, course S. Korea wouldn't like that...heh

Obviously nothing new until just now. Sorry for all the delays.

But hey! Hellknights! Delicious, no?

NWah, what are your plans for additional sets? Are you cleared to produce cratures for the bestiary? Email me (email is in my main profile) please.

Appearances can be deceiving, can't they? No, they're not, they're produced under a special license by another company (Pathfinder Paper Minis) I beleive.

Well all right then...I was deceived by that...now I know who to ask about being an artist for PPM

Pathfinder Paper Minis aren't a Paizo product?

No discount for paper minis from Pathfinder subscriptions?

I was in checkout and it was full price for the Kingmaker Paper minis...

is that correct?

TANGENT

Set wrote:

Rezdave wrote:

my group has gotten great use out of the -4 non-proficient penalty rule.

That's a cool concept, and a sort of sideways means of putting 'stunts' (like in Mutants & Masterminds) into the game.

I like! Don't say 'no,' say, 'fine, roll, at X penalty!'

Like I said, we get a lot of mileage out of that rule. Are you trying to swing a sword while sitting on horseback without the Mounted Combat feat .. take a -4 penalty. Are you shooting a bow from a moving platform such as a wagon or using a weapon while flying ... take a -4 penalty until you take a feat that makes you "practiced/proficient" at it.

I'm a big believer in adapting and extrapolating existing rules rather than devising new ones.

/TANGENT

R.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of "No" either I'm also not a big fan of iterative attacks +20/+15/+10/+5...k...Combat should be more "free-form"

I'll be releasing something about that in the future.

B&W pics of NPCs and action shots of the major encounters. I'm not really sure about any of the specifics yet.

The best case scenario for me would be to get portraits of six major NPCs and 6-8 action shots in B&W and a cover piece in color, for less than $200, but I don't know if this is reasonable.

Probably fine if you're getting artists like myself, and you're not buying exclusive rights to the art, thus the artist retains their IP rights.

Basic B&W Ink for the NPCs? I have time for NPC portraits atm, but not action scenes. I'm not a cover artist, and that's where the biggest chunk will come from.

How are you handling the Cartography?

What about editing?

what kind of art are you looking for?

By the way -- this is grim reading:

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/01/15/expect-gettysburg/?hpt=T2

Agreed, grim indeed.

Any medicine is better than none.

Xaaon of Xen'Drik wrote:

Good deal, I can't make that kinda donation...too many people on my friends of friends lists...but I'm making a donation...and trying to actually raise awareness.

I'm hedging my bets against the display of their breasts. It could end up very well being cheaper than a lapdance in the champagne room. :P

All they've been doing is post what color bra they're wearing.

Here's my take on it:

Facebook Page wrote:

It seems the gals of Facebook think that by posting their bra colors secretly it will raise awareness of breast cancer. Let me put my money where your bra colors are. For each woman that shows proof of their "support", I'll show my support by making a $1 donation to each instance for the sake of Breast Cancer Research. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do ... and I like you ladies having them. :D

Good deal, I can't make that kinda donation...too many people on my friends of friends lists...but I'm making a donation...and trying to actually raise awareness.

I'm reposting this from my own Facebook.

OK it seems the females of Facebook think that by posting their bra colors secretly it will raise awareness of breast cancer. Now if they put their money where their bra color is...they might REALLY make a difference.

If all 350 million FB users contributed $1 for Breast Cancer Research, that would make a HUGE difference...posting your bra color doesn't do anything!

I'm donating today, because well, it's the right thing to do. (And I do like my wife having them)

OK, thought that might be the case, I forgot that it had said 5-11 business days, I don't know if it has been 7 business days or 5, since I don't know if you were closed Xmas eve or New Years eve. Hopefully I'll see it ship before next week.

Thank you Miss Sara Marie.

Hello,

Any word on this Earthdawn order? (Player's Companion & Shards #1). I ordered it on the 22nd, I realize with Xmas and New Years there would be some delay, but my order for Seekers of Secrets and Kill Doctor Lucky is already being shipped and it was ordered on New Years Day.

Xaaon of Xen'Drik wrote:

Hello,

My order just arrived, I received two copies of Upload: Etherpunk and didn't receive my Copy of The Great Metropolis.

I apologize for the mis-shipment! I will put the proper book in with your next subscription shipment. Please feel free to keep the mis-shipped book with our apologies.

Thanks,
cos

OK So next month, since my subscription just left today LoL. (I don't need it right away anyway, so not a big deal) [Just make sure there are enough copies to wait til my next shipment...heh]

No problem, stuff happens, you guys are GREAT! Best Customer service EVER!