caps's page

This is fantastic! Peanut butter in my chocolate!

Heroscape is an asymmetrical wargame that pits warlords known as Valkyrie against one another for control of the planet Valhalla. The game is highly asymmetrical, with fictional factions drawn from all across space and time. But the franchise is also known for its terrain — chunky, stackable plastic platforms that allow for dramatic landscapes. Devoted fans hoard the tiles in huge quantities, wheeling them out to create sprawling landscapes for their home games...

This new collector’s edition is more than twice the size of the original 2004 launch... The terrain will also include a remake of the highly sought-after jungle terrain pieces, which at time of publication are going for nearly $250 on eBay.
...
New factions include the Dryan Lifeborne Order, a powerful group of magic-users capable of fielding only a limited number of very expensive units. There’s also the Nemesis War Brood, a group of insectile fighters that graft armor and other technologies directly to their exoskeletons. Finally, Avalon Hill is adding the Clockwork Combine, a group of militant woodland creatures. Think squirrels, skunks, and possums inserting via aerial recon vehicles, with even more nimble jump troops that forward-deploy onto the battlefield.
...
“What the team was doing in 2004 was they were sort of scraping entertainment trends, different genres that were coming up, and they would build different units based on different genres that were surfacing in pop culture at the time,” Nadeau said. “It created a very interesting brand that is insanely scalable. You can basically introduce any genre, any IP, any licensed partner, anything into the battle on Valhalla and it makes sense in the story. The opportunities going forward are almost endless.”

Excerpts from this Polygon article

This is a pretty cool collection of original unpainted miniatures.

The game itself is also awesome, but this is the miniatures forum; if you're interested in the game, the thread for that is here.

The success of this campaign prompted Hasbro to bring back Heroscape!

This wonderful game is making a comeback via crowdfunding campaign! More here.

Just like HeroQuest did a few years ago via a crowdfunding campaign, Heroscape is coming back!

There are all kinds of details and teasers in this thread, but the actual campaign itself is here. The campaign page is surprisingly light on gameplay examples, but that should come in the next week or two (you can expect it to be similar to previously existing Heroscape sets, which you can find gameplay videos of on youtube).

I am not a beneficiary of the campaign in any way (aside from wanting to be able to buy new Heroscape) but I love this game. Let me tell you why:

The gameplay is elegant and approachable but also exciting with lots of strategic depth and replayability.

It is a game that parents can play with their kids (or siblings with each other) as well as adults can enjoy together.

You can teach the whole game in ~10 minutes, give or take, and then have a fun game.

It's approachable enough that non-gamers get interested in it and enjoy playing it. It has great table appeal which makes it really fun to interact with and look at.

The hex tiles can really bring out your inner architect/LEGO fanatic. They stack on top of each other, making the maps 3-dimensional. They are one of the major factors that set the game apart. Other games might have neat or simple gameplay, but the maps make for so much variety and novelty. You can put together a really cool map in the time that a traditional wargamer is still gluing pieces of their battlefield together (nevermind priming etc.)

The simple interplay of the basic game rules + the terrain effects (height advantage, line of sight, special terrain rules) + unique special powers of each figure give the game strategic depth. It is one of those "easy to learn, hard to master" games that rewards you the more you play and study up on strategy.

The cost of the set is pretty high, but I think it is appropriate to the value. I did some analysis of the contents compared to previous sets...

If another spot somehow opens up, I'll submit

Fingalad Eldahir (level 6 Slayer/Magus)
and
Peribras Sandlock (level 9 Ranger)

Their profiles are both out-of-date, but I would level them up if selected.

Just realized that Fingalad has already played this one, so nevermind, haha.

If another spot somehow opens up, I'll submit

Fingalad Eldahir (level 6 Slayer/Magus)
and
Peribras Sandlock (level 9 Ranger)

Their profiles are both out-of-date, but I would level them up if selected.

I think the theme of the Thaumaturge is cool, but it fell really flat in play (and I played at levels 1, 12, and 13). Hopefully these changes make it feel more fun.

I do hope that the 1e Occultist gets revisited in 2e. It was my favorite 1e class and the Thaumaturge had pretty much none of what I liked about it.

I personally would be fine with that (it seems pretty clearly in line with both RAW and RAI) as a PFS GM so without an OPF ruling I would expect table variation and thus recommend against it. Table variation is the devil IMO.

I usually just ask another GM if I can duplicate their slides. Although I end up doing some of it over to fit my preferences anyway.

What does get posted on pfsprep for some maps (like MotFF) is "homemade" VTT maps that are usually better digital quality than the Paizo maps.

Amazing iconic. I love the story and the character.

Good answer, thank you.

I have another question. The Create a Forgery activity states that PCs get a +4 circumstance bonus when the forged documents do not need to match any particular style of handwriting. Obviously that would apply for travel papers. This seems to make the +2 circumstance bonus from having Flitch's papers superfluous. Are they intended to stack despite both being circumstance bonuses?

Meanwhile, the hag coven at Hook Mountain...

The hag coven what?! You've got me on tenterhooks!

Very excited about these! I'm hoping I can find the time to do some playtesting.

Initial read-through, the Psychic looks like a pretty cool blaster-caster class. Thaumaturge feels a lot less versatile at first glance than Occultist did, which is disappointing. Between spells and implements it felt like the Occultist was a toolbox of solutions to problems. The Thaumaturge feels like a toolbox of ways to kill monsters. Almost like a mish-mash of 1e Slayer, 1e Inquisitor, and 2e Ranger. The talisman and scroll stuff offsets that a little, but they take feat investment.

Anyway, looking forward to trying them out!

I think there are a few 1e adventures set in Isger as well. Pathfinder wiki has a list. At the time of this posting that list shows:

Doom Comes to Dustpawn
Falcon's Descent
The Fall of Plaguestone
Fallen Family, Broken Name
Gallows of Madness
The Goblinblood Dead
Hellknight Hill (adventure)
Scourge of the Godclaw
Trailblazer's Bounty

Some of these are higher level adventurers and not a good fit, but it's worth checking out the ones on the list. Converting a scenario to 2e is not that hard, especially if you just reuse the plot and stick to monsters from the bestiaries and NPCs you can reskin from the GMG

@adonara: what I mean is that I spent 8k of my 10k gold from leveling up on a belt *and* a headband. So with the gift from Thrune something is redundant.

caps wrote:

I'm surprised not to see more comments about the note that this book will include an adventure?!?

What levels will it be for? Will it be module-length? PFS scenario length? PFS quest/bounty length? Is it just an outline?

Have we ever had a Paizo rulebook-line book include an adventure before?

We've saved spoilers for Gen Con, of course, so tune-in!

Alright then, keep your secrets

--

But has anyone ever seen an adventure in a Paizo rulebook-line book before?? Is this as unprecedented as it feels?

Is the number of people that can fit on Rolanna's Prayer irrespective of size? So kids count for 1 and Seddothrum does also?

I'm surprised not to see more comments about the note that this book will include an adventure?!?

What levels will it be for? Will it be module-length? PFS scenario length? PFS quest/bounty length? Is it just an outline?

Have we ever had a Paizo rulebook-line book include an adventure before?

You could post the .mp3 on Google drive or something similar.

caps wrote:

Watery Soup wrote:

I get crit specialization but not the property runes with Divine Ally.

To be clear, every round I'm moving so that I'm within 15' of someone I want to protect and 15' of where the enemy needs go attack from, so I am milking my Retributive Strike (Ranged Reprisal). My builds may be suboptimal but I still make the most of them. I'm not out to make comically inept characters.

And most of the time, I'm actually trying to make decent characters, just with weird starting points, like, "barbarian healer." I'll make the best barbarian healer I can make!

I could swear I read that you didn't have Ranged Reprisal. Nevermind--I think your PC sounds well within the bounds.

No, Watery Soup, he's judging my character based on the half-sentence I used to make a point that, yes, you can play characters that don't take "the best" feat for their archetype and still be OK in PFS.

He does make my point that what degree of deviation from maximum is tolerated depends upon the person.

Ah, yes, I found it in your post. I haven't played alongside your PC or looked at your build--maybe they're fine--but if they're a *Paladin* (as opposed to a Redeemer or Liberator) it seems like you're leaving a lot on the table for your party in terms of never being able to reduce damage for them or do other Champion reaction type things, and sometimes leaving a primary class feature on the table like that can be the difference between a mission failure/success or even one or more PC deaths. That's all.

I get crit specialization but not the property runes with Divine Ally.

To be clear, every round I'm moving so that I'm within 15' of someone I want to protect and 15' of where the enemy needs go attack from, so I am milking my Retributive Strike (Ranged Reprisal). My builds may be suboptimal but I still make the most of them. I'm not out to make comically inept characters.

And most of the time, I'm actually trying to make decent characters, just with weird starting points, like, "barbarian healer." I'll make the best barbarian healer I can make!

I could swear I read that you didn't have Ranged Reprisal. Nevermind--I think your PC sounds well within the bounds.

--

I didn't notice that all of the property runes mentioned in divine ally are typically only inscribed into melee weapons. That feels like an oversight.

Tarthrin, your character concept sounds great and definitely something that will be fun to have at the table. Alchemy is a great way to buff the party, so it is always welcome to a party IMO, as long as you're sharing (Alchemist is a support class, after all). The Eidolon sounds like a cool combat buddy.

In general as long as you're building a character that uses their class features and has attributes that make sense for what the character typically does in and out of combat, it will be hard to go wrong. Optimization is a thing for sure, but it shouldn't matter too much in PFS scenarios.

What tends to matter more than optimization is versatility, since you never know when you'll end up playing a social scenario with no one else having social skills, or a combat scenario where no one else is trained in medicine, etc.

A PC playing PFS should be good at one or two things and decent at at least a couple more. Being great at something is always nice, but not strictly necessary.

---

@Watery Soup: Blade Ally specifies that you can use it on "a weapon or handwraps of mighty fists." A shortbow qualifies as a weapon, so you can use Blade Ally on it.

I will say that not taking advantage of your class's main features (Retributive Strike in a Champion's case) does feel like it makes the party weaker in ways that could matter in some combats. The Champion's Reaction is a bit like the Ranger's Prey/Edge or Barbarian's Rage mechanics, in that it is their signature way to impact a battle and make up for not being a Fighter. It doesn't rise to the level of a Summoner that doesn't use their Eidolon, a Spellcaster that doesn't cast spells, it a martial that doesn't make any attack rolls, but it leans in those directions a little bit. It may work for Watery Soup but I wouldn't encourage other people to try it.

Will the pregens from Secrets of Magic be updated soon after Secrets of Magic releases?

I can see Interesting Character's argument as a reason for playing in some APs and Modules. I don't see the argument for never playing PFS at all. Just do both if you can. If you can't get into an AP or module game, at least you can get into a society game. I simply don't see how playing PFS is worse than playing nothing.

I'm approaching PFS2e by deciding that each season's "metaplot" scenarios will be played by a single PC. I'm hoping to revisit 1e seasons the same way at some point.

You could get a group together to play through all the metaplot scenarios for a given season, with some related scenarios sprinkled in so you get enough XP.

There are an astounding number of varied and interesting legal PFS builds. All 39 classes are legal, along with most of their archetypes, most feats, and quite a few races. If you are newer to the game, it is pretty unlikely that the creative build you want to try will be illegal.

I love PFS, but I also love to play in games outside of PFS. I recommend playing PFS *and* trying to get into another game or two outside of PFS.

Tomorrow I will run a lottery for PbP Gameday X's 1-10: Tarnbreaker's Trail. There's enough for 1 table and if 1 more person signs up, I can make a second table.

>CLICK HERE< to sign up. See you tomorrow.

I've decided I'm oversubscribed and regretfully withdraw my entry into the lottery :cry:

But I think you still have enough for two tables.

Huh, I guess I was wrong. The two modes of play are so different I couldn't fathom them both taking the same chronicle, er, slot.

*Makes mental note to never ever play an AP or Module in society mode*

In 1e you could play an AP or module for credit twice--once in society mode and once in campaign mode. I hear you can only do one or the other in SFS. Is that true?

Hello! I am running PFS2E 1-12 Burden of Envy over on the Find the Path discord server for GameDay X.

Swindler, rogue, and occasional Pathfinder ally Guaril Karela has approached the Society with an opportunity that Valais Durant, the leader of the Society's Radiant Oath faction, can't refuse. Guaril has been charging refugees to sneak them out of Xin-Edasseril, a city ruled by the Runelord of Envy, and now it looks like Guaril won't be able to fulfill his contracts. Society agents are charged with sneaking into the dangerous city and sneaking out with a handful of its citizens before their absence is noticed so that the Radiant Oath can help them find new lives beyond their current ruler's tyrannical reach.

This is an intricate and challenging scenario (relatively low on combats) with a 4.5-star rating after 11 reviews.

I will be taking 2 players by lottery and 4 players by GM selection, both of which will be done in the weeks leading up to GameDay.

You can join Find the Path here: Find the Path

And my signup sheet is here: GM Socrates's Burden of Envy signup.

If bigrin's guide doesn't make it clear enough for you, you're welcome to PM me with any questions on discord, or post in #pathfolk-pathlodge on Find the Path. I highly recommend using the "tul!auto" command he mentions in his guide.

Also note that you can perform any Tupper commands by messaging the bot directly instead of using a #bot channel. The only thing you can't do while messaging the bot privately is actually test out your tuppers.

My favorite discord lodge is Find the Path, but I am a member of all of them.

I second the advice about muting servers, but you can actually be more selective about how you do it.

For some servers I have the whole server muted, full stop--no mentions, nothing.

For other servers, I disable desktop and mobile notifications and then mute the categories and channels I don't care about: this way I can still use the "unread messages" inbox in discord (one of my favorite features of the desktop app that I dearly wish they would add to mobile) to browse new messages in those channels without automatically marking them as read. That way I also get the little red notification dot in my system tray for discord, and I can see there are new messages I care about in that server when I'm browsing servers in discord.

For the servers that are most important to me (pretty much just my own server where I'm running or playing in games with friends) I allow desktop and mobile notifications (though I often mute the mobile notifications from my phone).

Most servers have a bunch of "non-Pathfinder chat" channels, and side from a few on Find the Path, I always mute those. I mute some game system chat channels too if they're too chatty for me, ha ha.

--

Regarding the different servers

OPO is awesome for getting answers (esp. official answers) to your PFS questions. There are a lot of really active chat channels there as well. I keep this whole server muted all the time.

Roll for Combat is quieter and more PbP oriented. At the moment, by default, you have to manually mute every single table you're not in, which I find inconvenient, but the new VC there (congrats again Bigrin!) is working on improvements there, piece by piece. I think I'll be in a GameDay X game here.

Cosmic Crittermanders is a very SFS oriented server. It is quiet and well organized enough but doesn't feature the second most important play by post discord quality-of-life feature after a dice bot: the "tupperbot" that lets you use an alias to post as your character instead of yourself.

Cayden's Keg is very friendly, and is mostly oriented around VTT games. They do run the occasional PbD game, and I'm in an Age of Ashes game there. They're putting a lot of effort into building up the server and it has a very up-and-coming feel.

My favorite, its no secret, is Find the Path. I love the mix of active and friendly community, quality GMs, frequent pbp games... And they are one of the most well-organized discord servers (for *any* topic) I'm a member of, which actually ends up being important. I'm in a few PFS games here at the moment, and in the past I have also played SFS, Modules, and APs here.

--

Anyhow, that's probably way more info than anyone wanted about discord servers but I really love them. They're a much smoother, richer experience than playing on Paizo IMO. Also I'll be running Burden of Envy on Find the Path for GameDay X and want to get people excited about the idea of playing there, ha ha.

I recommend against playing a pregen unless there is a reason you need to play that scenario at that time. Also, unless you are trying out the system. It is much more enjoyable to await the opportunity to play a scenario with your character.

I agree with Leo. I don't like playing as pregens typically but I also don't usually like playing alongside them or GMing for them either. It's just a minor dislike though, and I often do it.

I've got to emphasize that this discord server is a really great community for helping you with your conversion needs!

I play almost exclusively play by post, and I play few enough games at a time that I'm not worried about running out of content. I mostly ignore repeatables at the present time.

I would like to get similar value out of the free Pathfinder Society scenario sub I get from having 4 subscriptions. Maybe add the oneshots in as bonus content for people getting that deal?

--

Since this has apparently turned into an Organized Play content feedback scrum I'll add my own to the pile:
- I love metaplot scenarios
- the next best thing are scenarios that are closely related in an arc. I would love to see at least 3-4 scenarios worth of these in every season
- the next best thing are faction oriented scenarios
- of course it is still good to have a few scenarios that fit none of these criteria

Bounties don't do much for me, as I usually don't have level 1 characters. I liked quests a fair bit more partly for the reason.

I haven't tried the one shots yet but it sounds like I need to.

I really appreciate the pace at which new non-PFS content is sanctioned; kudos for that!

Trying to keep this in the discussion tab...

DebugAMP wrote:

... and less likely to have updates eaten by the mysterious backtracking limit monster.

So many... so many.

haunted stare into the middle distance

I too am in a rural region with basically no PFS/SFS around to speak of, so all my Society play is online. I also use HLO which helps immensely because I can just hit "Generate Statblock," choose BBCode, and paste in my character sheet. Then it's just a matter of keeping my taglines up to date (which I admittedly do not always do, to my detriment). If I played in person at all, a form-fillable PDF would probably be much more convenient, so I can see the appeal.

The backtracking limit monster is more of a minor inconvenience if your character profile page is just there to display your sheet. If the "source of truth" for your character is in Google keep/Google docs/Evernote/etc. Then you make your changes there and then copy them over to the Paizo profile. All the backtracking limit monster can eat at that point is the text you pasted in and had saved somewhere else.

I don't keep my current status in the header because managing that from mobile is just way too unwieldy.

caps wrote:

I don't know what would be entailed in getting an event registered with Gencon but if nothing else you could probably advertise here on the boards?

To my understanding, any pick-up games put together at in-person GenCon will not receive any special event. It will be the same as putting a game together randomly at any other place and time.

I mean registering the event with GenCon so that people can look it up in the catalog, etc.

I am nearly finished running Menace Under Otari for my two kids. I'm about to start running it again for one of those same kids plus some other friends of ours. I would like to mix up the encounters a bit and I am curious if anyone has suggestions.

The idea is to not change anything fundamental to the adventure while still making it feel fresh the second time around.

DebugAMP wrote:

GM Bret wrote:

Watery Soup wrote:

There's a near-universal format that most PbP GMs are used to.

There is? I haven’t seen that as the case.

There are a lot that are similar, but still a lot of differences in where things are and how they are placed.

There are many that I've seen, but I finally just settled on a form-fillable pdf of the normal character sheet. Since I play both in-person and on the boards with the same character, I found that keeping 2 sets of books so to speak meant a guarantee that one or both were missing information. Probably not ideal for some GMs, but at least they are accurate now... and less likely to have updates eaten by the mysterious backtracking limit monster.

What I did to maintain consistency between meat space and PbP is write my profiles in GoogleDocs. I update the master when I add a chronicle and cut and paste it to my profile. When I played at the store, I just opened the link on my phone. When I went to GenCon, I printed out the ones I planned to play.

Just my strategy.

This is more or less what I do as well. After getting used to the customizability and unlimited space of plaintext character sheets it is hard to go back to the traditional ones.

Pathbuilder web might finally make me change my ways... But there are still some things I really love about plaintext sheets, like being able to keep track of all my boons and a full history of every purchase, sale, and each thing I've done or earned on my chronicle sheets.

Thanks for fixing both issues at once, Diego!

I think you inadvertently linked the 1e version in both places.

Here are mine:

Version 1: Profile Sheet

Version 2 (dice code integrated): Profile Sheet

Thanks for correcting my error! That's what I get for messing with copy-paste too much on my phone. Yours is indeed the one I meant to list.

The school item list is dramatically nerfed. There is *almost* no point in the Spells school, for instance, and it was one of the only good ones.

I think the "near universal format" is a reference to this widely used template (there is a 1e version here and one for Starfinder that I don't have a link for). Many people also get bbcode exported from herolab.

But the order stuff occurs in is pretty similar in that most folks model their plaintext character sheets off of "standard" Pathfinder stat blocks.

Any word on the cover? Is it going to be the stock core rulebook line tan on the sides? Or is this alternate art where the side is blue and there is cool metal-colored filligree on the edges of the cover going to be what it actually looks like?

They broke from the norm for The Mwangi Expanse book--it would be cool to see a similar experiment here. I love consistency, but when you've already broken the precedent...

Order #36273627 was shipped in two separate shipments. At the time I complained about the additional shipping charge and received no response.

However, I recently realized that the Troubles In Otari shipment never even arrived! I did pay for it, so please send it to me with my next subscription.

The other shipment containing Alien Archive 4 and the Pathfinder Beginner Box arrived with no issues.

Organizing in person PFS/SFS amongst yourselves seems like a great idea. I don't know what would be entailed in getting an event registered with Gencon but if nothing else you could probably advertise here on the boards?

Also to be clear for any readers, I believe Paizo *will* be hosting online PFS/SFS events at Gencon.

Thanks JTT. That is how I interpreted the rules but I wanted to be sure I had that right and that it had not changed. My son will live despite the limitation :-D

Nefreet wrote:

So what does that mean, exactly, in this case?

Because, to me, that sounds like using the Beginner Box rules as a basis, that can then be amended by the GM however they choose.

I also don't quite understand how the line could be drawn to say that you're not playing Pathfinder by bringing in Star Wars characters.

GM houserules that lightsabers exist; game on.

It means that each GM is free to judge where the line should be, but the game and setting should still be recognizably Pathfinder and Golarion.

Emulating a starwars character? Sure, just give their weapons the Brilliant Fusion and add an occult spellcasting archtype.

Dropping in starwars characters using starwars mechanics? Or just running the same adventure in the starwars roleplaying game set on Mos Eisley? Not really appropriate.

The line is somewhere in there, and it is up to each GM, acting on good faith, to decide where that line stops for them.

I'm a little sad to see that they changed this with 2e PFS. I never took advantage of the rule, but I always thought it was cool that I could use a different game system to run a 1e AP or module and still get PFS credit for it.

--

I don't feel like I have much more clarity on my original question, though, in terms of something definitive.