Zachary W Anderson's page

Big thumbs up to the mapping! Specifically, little details about where smaller things are (I had been sketching these in myself and often guessing) and the door openings (I've been rolling 1d4 to decide left/right/in/out, then forgetting which one I had for which direction and having to roll again...)

I also have a general approval for what seems to be a greater availability and better integration of non-combat XP. Not that there's anything wrong with slaughtering hordes of evil mooks, mind you... but I appreciate the textual support for a non-hack-and-slash play mode.
1) Specific details and rewards for pieces of plot advancement, and bonuses when done "well".
2) Redeemable (and not always "Evil") antagonists. There are still some "made out of evil in a pot full of evil" villains and "you can't reason with this rabid wolf" scenarios, and there is space for most or all of the baddies being played as mustache-twirling black hats if you so choose. But between several of the antagonists being at odds at each other, and having goals that seem laudable or at least understandable, even a few of the Evil aligned characters seem less like bags of XP to pop with your sword and more like someone to work around (or with). This depends on your table's play style, of course. But I'm glad we were given enough bones with which to build.
(Of course, going too far in this direction, you end up with your PCs trying to befriend everyone they meet and bring them along everywhere and having a cast of thousands...)

Lamp Blighter: Art has wings, ecology describes flying, and skills include fly +20. But it doesn't have a fly speed!
I'm assuming an oversight and including Fly 30', but open to other explanations: Lost their flight because of a curse, bound through the air, train fly skill in anticipation of getting tiny winged boots or sorcerer levels...

Full disclosure, I'm not planning on exploiting it myself. I'm a GM, running through the adventure paths, and we're still back in Crimson Throne, so it'll be years before any are encountered on the given track, and I expect the heroes will dutifully eliminate it before anyone even asks what its name is. As it is, I don't expect this type of situation to come up; and having seen the possibility of such, we can recognize if players start poking their noses around that direction.

I'm also just interested in the ramifications of "The Nature of Truth", and how it interacts with the fact that James has said there will be some unanswered questions in the universe. As for why they haven't conquered the universe, it seems like they're not that interested in conquest so much as secrets.

Options:
- Subtle influence: Every time you trap one, some tiny thing goes wrong that lets it escape after a few weeks; and your questioning makes such incremental dents in the wall of unknown knowledge that it's still effectively impossible.
- Inevitables popping up.
- Kyton heads exploding.
- My favorite, maybe it only works when repeating a Truth known by someone they're "interrogating" or touching. So they still couldn't play 20 questions about the imponderables unless they're touching someone who knows the Truth about such.

Deadbeat Doom: Part of the idea is either they want to find something out, or are magically compelled to do so.

Boomerang Nebula: Assuming the "can tell infinite truths" option, the first statement would be "π has a finite number of digits." If they can't say that, then they similarly couldn't say, "The last digit of π...", because it contains a false premise.

Pharasma, Lady of Graves: You gave me a fantastic mental image of a dinosaur driving a mecha-dinosaur tearing strappy Kytons into chewy bits. Comes with its own skewer!

I'll start at the beginning:

Rise of the Runelords: A greedy wizard gets his greedy minions to kill a bunch of greedy people to release him from the palace of greed in the capital of greed in the forgotten empire of greed, but then he's killed by greedy adventurers.