| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Especially the John Belushi kind...
Search Posts
Thanks as always for the review, End.
Thanks for the kind words, End. I also loved the character Jeff created for the 1st-person PoV flavor.
Feel free to shoot me ideas via email, Rob, and we can talk about Horse of the Wild 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Two new ones to share! Justicar of Muir by Frog God Staff The Holy Order of Justicars is the living embodiment of the first and most important of the triune virtues of Muir — Truth. As an embodiment of truth, and in keeping with the strictness ofMuir, a Justicar of Muir must follow an extremely strict moral code beyond that required of a common paladin. The benefit of this purity and stricture is awe-inspiring. This prestige class is joined by 13 new feats for paladins of all faiths. Supernal Dragon Dojo by Jeff Swank Overlooking a sea of clouds, the Supernal Dragon dojo is located at the apex of the Xaojing mountain range between the Chi’en Hegemony and Gtsang Prefecture. At the foot of the mountain sits a magnificent and boundless staircase, aptly named the Heavenly Road. Should one attempt to climb this stairway, they will find it weaves a long and treacherous path up the side of the cliff. At the top of the staircase, sitting amongst the clustered snowcapped peaks, one finds the elegant face of the Supernal Dragon palace and dojo. Supernal Dragon Dojo presents 3 new resolve options, 2 samurai archetypes, 5 new samurai orders, and 3 new magic items. Hope everybody enjoys them! If you check them out, please share your thoughts. We'd love to know what you like and don't like in this series as it continues to grow.
Thank you, as always, for the thoughtful words End. I've forwarded a link to the review to Russ so he can bask in the glory.
I'm not familiar with that particular product, so I can't compare directly to it. That said... This is a little bit of both. End's review gives a pretty good overview, I think. It provides variant light and heavy horse breeds with pros and cons for each. It has new feats to expand mounted combat. It also has two feats to grant an awakened or otherwise intelligent mount spellcasting. Lastly, it has "bloodlines" for horses to give them new and interesting abilities beyond just what a "normal" horse would have.
Thanks for the review, and the kind words.
Thanks, as always, for the review End. You've provided some excellent feedback, as always, and given me some things to look at and reconsider going forward. I generally don't "rebut" a review, because it's mostly pointless. That said, I'll just close by saying that the reason the number of uses of the portal ability is limited is because the author had the exact opposite reaction as you, it seems, during his playtesting. He found there needed to be a limit or else it was just too much. Maybe he pulled things back too far, of course. Or maybe it's just a factor of his group and yours having vastly differing play styles. Either way, it's more food for thought for me as the developer going forward. And that's always a good thing.
Thanks for the kind words, Cycnet. We have the Headhunter available now. It's a prestige class rather than a base class, but it could scratch your itch. There's also some archetypes and a new Oracle mystery. My group doesn't do much with settlement building either, but they ended up loving the process of expanding and protecting their own frontier town. I think Town of Glory can - for some groups at least - make a really good campaign starter, as it resolves the question, "Why are we together?" pretty easily. You're together because you were enlisted or hired to defend this small frontier town and help it grow. There will definitely be new classes - and prestige classes - coming down the line. Thanks for the feedback, since it can help us steer some decisions later on!
Just as an FYI for those interested - all of the above mentioned, except for Characters: Krel, are now available here on Paizo!
Weird. This one (and Town of Glory) is now listed twice... Liz? Help?
Characters: Krel by Frog God Games staff Whether it’s because you were invited to the game at the last minute, your GM just killed off your current — and favorite — character, you’re the king (or queen) of procrastination, or whatever other reason, you need a new PC — now. And we’re here to help. The Lost Lore Characters line presents a new PC, ready to roll, for you to use at the table. Each character has full stat blocks for levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. In addition, each character level presented contains background information designed to immerse the character in a Lost Lands campaign while leaving you plenty of room to customize as you see fit. Presenting Krel, the half-orc barbarian.
Casts resurrect discussion Howdy, all, and Happy New Year! There's some news to share on this product line. Recently, we added FIVE new Lost Lores to our site. Hopefully, everything gets listed here on Paizo soon as well. Divine Hunters by some guy named John Ling Deities, taken as a group, value their followers like a devil values souls. That is, followers are essentially currency and power for those with the divine spark. Unfortunately for most deities, followers possess free will; nothing gets in the way more of the best-laid plans. Most times when a true believer strays, a simple atonement spell — typically coupled with a suitable quest — is enough to steer things back toward the deity’s favor. Sometimes, though, the offense is so severe an atonement spell just isn’t enough. Some offenses are so severe, so drastic, that forgiveness is nigh impossible. The only recourse in these circumstances is to dole out swift and severe punishment. Most of the time, deities are loath to interact directly with mortals. To handle these special circumstances, they have an unusual breed of hunters called the nel’barzoth. Divine Hunters presents four new monsters, including a CR 22 mythic version, to hunt your infidels; it also presents the GM with rules for creating new versions. Ecology of the Troll by James Thomas Ecology of the Troll takes an in-depth look at this creature of myth and legend, proffering its potential genesis, special physiology, and psychology. New feats, equipment, and alchemical items aid characters in their hunt against the regenerating giants, along with combat strategies so characters can exit the fight victorious. The GM, too, has new options: G'Mash the Troll King, complete with background, custom magic items, and a full stat block. Eminent Domains by Hal Maclean Gods oversee the cosmos. They control the ebb and flow of the seasons. They ensure that the risen moon gives way the morning sun. They apportion all manner of mysteries, terrors, and wonders upon mortals. Gods truly do govern the fundamentals of reality. But domains are those fundamentals. Air and Chaos. Earth and Evil. Fire and Good. Law and Water. When clerics choose their domains they form connections with the deepest and most powerful facets of existence. Whether something primal like the elements or the very foundations of morality, it only makes sense to offer them a chance to expand and enhance their bond. This book gives clerics a host of new options tied to their domains. This product includes three new feats and three new spells, each with customizations specific to the elemental and alignment domains. In addition, each domain describes a holy water variant that provides interesting options to clerics and other pious followers. Schools of Thought by Hal Maclean Conjurers summon monsters to fight for them. Necromancers create undead to fight for them. Enchanters corrupt the will of others to… make them fight for them. Why are those different? What if, instead, we created a school for wizards who get others to fight for them? Let’s call them Lords. This book presents eight new schools of wizardry — schools defined by what their members want to do with their magic instead of how it works. It treats wizards as people. As members of a larger society who must coexist with others. After all, no one, not even the most powerful wizard, is completely self-sufficient. The Headhunter by Jeff Erwin Headhunters are warriors who decapitate their foes — during or shortly after combat — and carry their heads as visible proof of their triumph. Some headhunters, the greatest among them, can trap a little of their victims’ essence in their heads, and can use it to replicate their foes’ unusual capabilities. Included in this product are a new prestige class, three archetypes, a new oracle mystery, and a magic item to protect the wary from having their head removed. Check 'em out, and let us know what you think!
Howdy, all. I've been a little remiss in mentioning that the Portalist and Town of Glory are both available here on Paizo now, as well as on our own site. The others should roll out in due time. Cheers!
Ecology of the Basilisk, by Jeff Swank, is now available. Take a look at the grouchy lizard that can turn you to stone, with information for both the GM and the player.
Thank you for all the kind words, BPorter. I also think Russ knocked Town of Glory out of the park, and I'm glad to hear others are enjoying it. I've been excited about this one since the moment I saw it. I've talked to Russ, and he's amenable to writing a follow up. He has some other projects he's currently working on that he'll need to wrap up, and then he'll get down to the task of creating an outline. Again, thank you for all the kind words. Such feedback is always terrific to hear!
Howdy, all. Now that I'm back from GenCon and back to work after the post-GenCon haze, it's time to dive in here and chat. I've been very lucky to have some very, very good authors work with me early on to get the product line up and running. You've already seen pieces from Mike Kortes, Russ Brown, and Rob Manning. We'll also have Lost Lores written by - among others - me (though you may not care), Hal Maclean, Jeff Swank, Vicki Potter, Brian DiTullio, Jeff Erwin, and more. We'll probably have one or two, at some point, by an up-and-coming author named Greg Vaughan too. (If you're one of my writers and I didn't mention you, please understand I haven't had any coffee yet, and was up late last night for a soccer game.) The themes will run the gambit. There are new base classes, such as the portalist. There is a prestige class, with a gaggle of anciliary material (feats, etc) useful to both members of the prestige class as well as others. We have the new mini rules system with Town of Glory, and we'll have others that go ahead and experiment with making changes or adding new layers. We have new organizations, new monsters, new mini adventures that can be played in one 4 hour session, and - one I'm actually excited to see released - a line of pre-generated characters. It'll offer stats for the character at levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20; each level will have a background that is open-ended enough for the player to expand as he or she sees fit - or ditch and provide their own, of course. All through the background text will be little tidbits of Lost Lands canon lore - references to places, people, events, and so on. Each character also provides information necessary to tweak it to become legal for organized play. And there's a sidebar that helps a GM use or tweak the PC as an NPC - for example, how to deal with the character having a lot more treasure than an NPC of that level should. I think it'll be a useful product to a lot of people. As Readerbreeder mentioned, these will be on Paizo eventually, as well as DriveThruRPG. Consider the release on just our page to be a "soft" release, of sorts, so we can gauge interest and work out some kinks. If you have one of the three, I would love to hear your thoughts. Obviously, I'd love for you to sing our praises and proclaim everything is perfect. But if you have an issue or something just seemed off, I'd like to know that too. If something just didn't work, let me know so I can steer efforts elsewhere on future pieces; if something was over-the-top gonzo and you want more of that, let me know. If you just want to give props to the awesome authors (or our awesome artists), by all means go ahead and stroke their ego. If you'd rather not post your feedback here, you can drop me a PM on the site or you can email me directly: zherog at yahoo dot com. For those who have already purchased The Portalist, Town of Glory, or Horses of the Wild already: Thank you! Please spread the word and let others know about them. For those who haven't, Greg and I will keep this post as current as possible; when they release here we'll let you know, and as new ones release we'll tell you about them. Cheers!
I feel very comfortable saying that if it wasn't for Mike, I likely wouldn't be a freelancer today. The first article I submitted to Dragon fell on Mike to edit. And, let's just say I gave him a lot of work to do on that article. It would've been easy for him to pass on it; instead, he opted to polish the turd. And the damn thing shined like a diamond when he was done with it. But he didn't leave it there. He encouraged me to keep sending him queries. He answered any question I asked about how to be a better writer - including explaining passive voice to me (more than once) because I either wasn't taught that in school, or that was taught on one of the many days I skipped. We had plenty of conversations that weren't writing, too. His friendliness shone through even in his emails, and he was ridiculously easy to talk to. By the time the magazines were moved off to digital-land, I had managed to get 13 articles printed in Dragon. And out of that work, everything else followed. And I'm quite sure that after that first article, if it wasn't for Mike's encouragement - "Send me more queries! Whatever ideas you have!" - I'm pretty sure that would've also been my last article. Thank you, Mike. For your encouragement. Your guidance. Your mentorship. And, especially, your friendship.
Cheers, End. Thanks for pointing out the map glitch; I'll need to do better turnovers in the future. I always knew my turnover maps were bad, but this is a reminder that even somebody as awesome as Mario needs decent starting material. A good lesson/reminder. And of course, thanks for the kind words and solid review. And thank you, Mario, for being so willing to revise the error. Working for awesome publishers has some benefits. :)
That's an advantage to working with great companies like 0one Games. Hopefully it can get fixed relatively quick. I appreciate the kind words in the review about the encounters and such in this adventure.
So, as a follow-up (and I'll pass along the info to Tim and Mario as well so it can get updated): I just re-downloaded the product from DriveThruRPG.com so I have a current copy. Based on that version, here's what needs to be fixed on the map for The Test of Air encounter. Potential adventure spoilers:
1) One of the squares marked with a "Y" should instead be marked with a "V". It's immaterial which - both are "safe" squares.
2) All the squares along the west wall should have a "W" in them. These are the "white" squares. 3) In the short term, the GM can randomly select other squares to have "O," "I," and "G." As with 1 above, the actual location doesn't much matter. These squares - and, really, every other square in the room - are unsafe and bad mojo will happen to anybody standing in them. Again, my apologies for the confusion; I'll pass the corrections along to Tim and Mario, and hopefully the PDF can get updated.
Thanks so much for the kind words.
I'm just seeing this review - I don't search myself all that often. ;) End - let me poke around over the next couple of days and see if I can figure out what happened with that map. I'd like to think I included all the information in my map turnovers when I wrote it, but it was so long ago I have no idea for sure. The plus is that since this is a PDF, once the problem is identified - thanks! :) - it should be pretty easy to fix. Other than the map glitch, I'm glad you liked the adventure.
Aim for the rigging - it's more flammable. :)
Twenty-one days left, and it's funded! So... who wants new spells now?
If you've never seen it, I took a stab at halfling rock-skipping champion (though as a base class) in Kobold Press's Expanded Elven Archer. (And for completeness, all of that material also appears in KP's New Paths Compendium. And, of course, I'm finding this topic quite interesting...
To this day, to make John break a cold sweat, just sneak up behind him and whisper "wereshark stat block." Last time, he sat, shook and wept softly for nearly an hour. If you want to see him run screaming, whisper "jone more fel lycanthrope, John...just. one. more. Promise..." He often slams his head on the doorjam trying to get out. It's really funny. This isn't far from the truth...
Wow. I just asked Greg for a quick summary of what I could say without getting smacked on the hand for being a bad developer. Who knew I had summon Greg Vaughan as a spell-like ability usable once per day? Good to know... To add a few other things: From what I've been able to piece together from several clues...maybe next year. In the immediate future they have a KS planned for the Northlands Saga this fall and another terrain/climate book coming out like Dunes of Desolation (for plains I believe). Correct, Plains is next. We've also said publicly that Mountains would come after that. Plains is currently in various stages of editing, and then will come back to me for development. Mountains is just in the beginning stages. Also, Glades of Death is in the process of being converted and might actually make it out before Plains. Also, Dunes of Desolation lists many gods. Greg Vaughan has said that they are all cannon. Yep, Dunes has a ton. A big chunk of them were updates from previous products, to bring them up to Pathfinder from 3.5. Most of them aren't common in the "main" adventuring area of the world, but they are canon and are common in other regions of the world. Plains will also have a pretty long list, from what I recall seeing. Names involved in the writing of the campaign setting in addition to Mr. Ling and myself rhyme with such words as Schwebb, Schminch, Schreenwood, Schristofferson, maybe Schwinter, and so on (I'm sure I've left some out). Just a little tidbit for ya there. :-) Damn it, man! Would you stop being so cryptic!
Nom nom nom!
Well, assuming my memory is right, anyway. That's a 50/50 proposition lately, it seems.
If I recall, it starts about a month before GenCon typically.
That reminds me - I should go ahead and actually write my entry that's getting posted tomorrow...
Oh yes! Someone should do a "Towards Dreadsmoke" adventurey thing! I was going to write one at some point, I even have the outline for it somewhere, but never got around to it...who knows! Send me an email and we can talk. ;)
Don't worry, Bill. We have Tom booked up on the rest of this series until sometime in 2017 or so. Tom is going to be like Cliff Clavin whenever somebody brings up weather patterns, geography, and indigenous plants and animals. ;)
You could always check out what's available for Crossbowmen & women in the New Paths Compendium; There's an Elven Archer variant, the Dwarven Crossbowyer. I'm very highly biased, but I'll go ahead and second this recommendation anyway. ;)
See, I read that and assume it refers to the flavor text of the class, not the class feature descriptions. As typical in this sort of thing... IANAL and YMMV and ABC and XYZ and doe ray me...
No worries. I know you were just making an observation. I was just curious to get more information about it, is all. It's a totally fair opinion.
I think there's more than you're aware of, too. I'm pretty sure you haven't seen all the awesome images for the new monsters. ;)
For instance: creatures in Pathfinder get feats at every odd hit die, where in 3.5e they'd get feats every three hit dice. So you can use a 3.5e monster manual, but recognize that those monsters can be "missing" feats. Not hard to ignore or on-the-fly address. My general "on the fly" method is to just leave the monster completely as-is (computing CMB and CMD if I need it), and reducing CR by 1, sometimes 2. Overall, that worked OK when I was in the process of "cutting over" from 3.5 to Pathfinder.
I would LOVE to take credit, but the art order was from Skeeter! Which I guess just proves that sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut. * This is actually the first time I've seen the full cover. All I've ever seen up until now was the efreeti by itself - and even that was awesome. The "Warrior" picture has fascinated me from the first time I saw it. The way it captures movement fascinates me. I find myself just staring at it when I see it. * My only comment though is the characters seem a bit too western and not middle eastern. Was that by design? That's interesting. I'm not at all saying you're wrong, or what you're saying is bad. But I'm curious what leads you toward that. Sandstorm doesn't really scream one setting or another to me. The rest give me a Middle East vibe. So I'm curious what it is that gives you a Western vibe instead.
GV - I agree with Vaughan. Your numbers seem pretty reasonable as a ballpark. You probably could go even a little bit larger than that. Spoiler: Harthy should be able to easily muster up all the sahuagin tribes in a pretty wide area, so if you needed more cannon fodder you could raise those numbers, or even the number of skum and scrags. (Side note: "skum and scrags" would be an awesome band name!) So 2-3K combined of sahuagin, scrag, and skum seems reasonable, but I also think you could go as much as 4,000 and still be reasonable. I think the real question in the "other" category you mention. That's where things can get interesting. Some very quick Googling tells me that scientists estimate there are about 3,500 great white sharks on Earth, but those numbers are reduced due to hunting / fishing. Using that as a ballpark, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say Harthy has several hundred sharks at his disposal. Then you can mix in other sea monsters - drakes, aboleth, other kraken, sea serpents, sea hags, etc - and you couild build an interesting army. And that doesn't even factor in his potential reach back to the abyss to pull in demons and other outsiders. I think if you were to add up everything that could fall into the "other" category, you could be approaching 500 - 600 creatures without being unreasonable. And none of that takes into account his influence on land. The Ring of the Kraken doesn't need to be confined to just Port Shaw. Harthy could have his tentacles in other land-dweller settlements as well. All told, here are some real quick numbers for you. But I think it's reasonable to give Harthy an even larger sphere of influence: Sahuagin: 1,750 - 2,500, mostly "standard" but it would include several hundred with various levels in classes. (note that you might also have a case here of several tribes, and potential issues with those tribes working together.) Skum: 500 - 750, again mostly standard but a few dozen would have varying levels of PC and NPC classes. Scrag: they don't seem to live in tribes, which may reduce their number. Call this 100 or so, with only a small handful having any class levels. Sharks: 350 - 500 seems reasonable. A dozen or so of those will be advanced, have the giant template, etc. Sea Hags: Somewhere between 25 and 50 seems decent. Other sea monsters: A catch all for aboleths, kraken, giant squid, sea serpents, etc. Somewhere between 50 and 100 seems OK here, with most of that being squid, giant moray eels, etc. Maybe 10 or so aboleth and another 5-10 kraken in that mix. Demons: For this category, you have to ask yourself how much Daddy wants to help in your version of the world. That's going to influence how many - if any - demons Harthy can pull from the Abyss to join his army. Land Lubbers: As above, it depends on your version of things. Does the Ring of the Kraken extend into other port cities and towns, or is there something special about Port Shaw? If Harthy has influence elsewhere, this could be several hundred people - and potentially their ships as well. Call it, say, 400. I'd peg about 325 of them to be low-level sailors or soldiers. No higher than 2 levels in an NPC class. The remaining 75 would be various levels of competent, likely going up to - or even exceeding - Gregory B.'s level. So that's 2,750 on the low end and 4,000 on the high end - without counting in demons or land lubbers. That would likely include a fair number of combatants who aren't exactly loyal to Harthy, but fighting on his side is a better option than not fighting at the moment.
Gotta like when you're described with lyrics from a Thin Lizzy song.
So, feats. This book has a few. Thirty-eight of 'em, to be exact.
And there it is. Some whimsy; some GM fodder; and most definitely, feats PCs will want.
It's never too late. ;) This evening, I'll post up a list of the feat names. And sometime over the weekend I'll post up a list of the new spells. Also, the proofs are back to Chuck. As I understand it, the printer should have the book next week.
Yay for anniversaries!
Yeah, I thought it was clear that Tom is either Cliff Clavin in disguise, or he really did his research on desert stuff - between the weather, geology, how people survive, and so on, his research really came through. I learned stuff, and that's always awesome.
Congrats.
Let's talk adventures. Because Tom wrote three fantastic adventures for this book. Spoilers used in case folks don't want to read adventure summaries. Child's Play (5th level):
Child’s Play is a 5th level rescue mission set in a cursed dollhouse populated by childhood monsters and constructs as well as the tormented souls condemned to haunt it for all eternity. The fate of a young girl hangs in the balance as an evil creature bent on exacting revenge and the forces set loose by a cruel genie centuries earlier threaten to consign her and her would-be rescuers to eternal imprisonment in an accursed house of horrors. Part rescue, part mystery, part urban dungeon crawl, this adventure has a fantastic Arabian Nights feel to it, with the PCs being transported inside a doll house, where they must rescue Lakta Jamar - a 10-year-old girl with a mysterious past. The PCs must rescue Lakta from the monsters residing in her doll house, and recover her missing organs - snatched away when Lakta was transported inside the house - lest the child die, all while working out how Lakta came to be entrapped in her own magical doll house in the first place. King of Beasts (8th level):
A famous hunting band is paid to take down a sphinx - only they kill the wrong one. The murdered's distraught spouse goes on a rampage, hiring his own killers to hunt the hunters. The heroes must do what they can to prevent the murder of innocent victims, while either soothing - or destroying - the sphinx who was wronged by fateful hunt. My Blue Oasis (12th level):
I love all three of these adventures, but this one might be my favorite. A blue dragon, a haughty human diviner, derros, more derros, weird gravitational effects, morlocks, and then toss on top some fascinating pseudo-science that could save or destroy the desert and everybody in it. This adventure has some great build up. The tension is high, and ramps up throughout until you reach the conclusion. It's quite possible that if PCs allow certain events to unfold, the desert be changed for miles. I'm a believer that dragons should be special, not random bags of hit points. Tom did a nice job with Eyegouger, the mature adult blue dragon. He has a great personality, an interesting treasure hoard, and dangerous minions.
These adventures all have their own unique feel, and each tells a great story.
Well, that makes it better than my iphone's autocorrect. Damn thing constantly wants to change "well" to we'll" for some some reason. Ugh.
|