diana ratcliffe's page

I think surrounding creatures would be pushed out of the way

The Pathfinder version of the Arcane Trickster is considerably improved over the original, it does however by it's nature favor a wizard build over a sorcerer but on the other hand I can say from personal experience that a sorcerer-based build is very viable. My AT was a sorcerer with the arcane bloodline.

If the party lacks a solid meat shield though there is no rogue/sorcerer combo that's going to make up for that lack without a good deal of party support. Although concentrating on summon spells might help.

I'll have a proper look at it, then. But they've not shown any enthusiasm for a move from 3.5 to pathfinder, so it might be too powerful as is.

As for lack of a meat shield, I take care to avoid creatures that dish out huge amounts of damage. (In game, I figure no-one's going to give them a commission that requires a meat shield.) The rest of the party's a druid, wizard and monk. I can't ever hit the monk, the dice rolls turn against me when I try.

...(eg. Dire wolf bite damage is scary). ..

That's for 3.5 (bite +11, for d8+10), obviously, that I've not used in play.

diana ratcliffe - first welcome to the boards. Second have you considered seeing if any of your kids friends would be interested in maybe a set monthly game? I mean you could still run what you are doing now whenever, but then maybe have a set monthly game. The reason i ask is you might be able to get their friends involved then, which would help with balancing. Since all the adventures are written with 4 characters in mind.

A friend of mine runs a game for his daughter once a month and her friends. She is 8 right now and right now he is running Grimm Tales for them. When they get a bit older he plans to introduce them to other games. Anyways just thought I would bring it up and ask. It is cool that you play with your kids though, hopefully it lasts. I know when i was a teen the last thing I wanted to do was stay home with my parents. :)

I'm fairly happy with what I run and when and they each run two characters pretty well (pairs of siblings). Its less 'too few chars' and more 'remember they don't have anyone with high BAB and HPs' (eg. Dire wolf bite damage is scary). And the players are both nicely paranoid, despite the fact I can't remember the last time I succeeded in inflicting damage on anyone. Actually, I do. I attacked them with 2 necrophidi(i?) but had picked up the giant spider card by mistake and inflicted the wrong poison damage. Which would have been OK except it was going to be the same poison damage when they met the spiders. Who never bit them anyway, so it didn't matter after all.

I don't actually want to commit myself to a set time, as RL too often happens. I want to get better at having done enough prep and being organised that I can grab moments when otherwise we're getting bored.

Pual wrote:

There's a thread for introducing yourself to other UK members here

Diana, definitely check out this thread. There are *lots* of us in the uk, and my comments above about copying the odd stat block in shops definitely holds true. Not to mention free 'net access in the local Library ;)

Failing that, there are a surprising amount of game shops we can point you at for such a small country. Last but not least, Waterstones carry a good amount of the Paizo line.

:D

Thanks, will do

Dire Mongoose wrote:

Abraham spalding wrote:

It's on page 2 of the product you buy -- which means you have it for everything you've bought already.

Well, the point being, if you're buying an adventure online you may not know what's necessary to run it before you get it.

Ah, now I see what you are saying -- that makes a completely different level of sense now.

Hm... I still feel that if you are buying online then you have online access enough to fine what you'll need. I do understand it's a bit harder than otherwise but it's still possible and fully capable with the online support available.

Possibly picky of me, but I like to to be able to see at Amazon whether I will have everything, not trawl about the internet looking for confirmation. My thoughts are 'isn't that what the blurb is for?'.

I've probably ignored good modules (not pathfinder) because they don't have guidlines on expected party levels.

Mortagon wrote:

Personally ...

Again, we do this already, on page 2.

Now, ...

.

So far I have bought Paizo products from amazon uk. If it isn't in the amazon blurb I'm not going to see it. I haven't recently visited my nearest, very small games shops, but would expect Paizo stock to be limited at best.

diana ratcliffe wrote:

stuff..

Welcome to the boards, Diana. As a fresh voice to the conversation, what's your opinion on James' previously proposed solution:

James Jacobs wrote:

One possible solution: when we present a monster from Bestairy 2 as a short stat block, we could drop in one additional line on the stat block that basically says: "Substitution" and then lists a monster to replace that monster with. In most cases, this would require a bit of GM prep work, since often such replacements would be to go with a rebuilt monster from the Bestiary with templates or adjustments to its Hit Dice. Examples of how this would look, using two monsters from "Haunting of Harrowstone" who get the short stat block treatment: ** spoiler omitted **

It requires just a little extra work for the GM, but refrences an appropriate way to run these encounters with only the Core books while leaving the option of using other sources for those of us who have them.

(My first adventure into posting and am unaccountably nervous, so excuse errors (also too much coffee this morning)).

I think it best to describe a typical(?) gaming session. I consider myself new to Gm'ing, so I probably make all the typical mistakes.

1. No fixed timetable for play. They spend every other weekend with their dad and school evenings, homework has to come first. On free weekends or evenings someone doesn't feel up to it,or any number of
other things come up.

2. As a consequence, it's normally 'lets play DnD (sorry. old habits) this weekend, or tomorrow, or in an hour, or what ever. It would be ideal for me if I could say, 'right, let's play in half an hour'.

3. Consequently, I prep the games as best I can, for play at some future date, and have probably forgotten important points by the time I get to play (yeah, yeah, better prep and notes, I know).

4. Running still makes me nervous, at least when we start up. I lose notes, forget where things are in the books, can't find the books, 'cause they've sidled off and hid under the sofa, etc. The fewer bits of paper I have to shuffle the happier I am. I am geting much better at statting up the monsters on cards before hand,instead of flicking through the book) so in theory for me its no big deal to do that at the computer and applying the simple templates looks easy enough. Not so clear, though, if this is true for a complete beginning DM, like me a year ago, say.

5. I would say a reccommended easy alternative is absolutely essental [/] (for me at least) as I have little confidence in picking an appropriate CR for a substitution. I am very, very reluctant to accidentally inflict a TPK on my two young teenagers, especially when I then have to live with them. And they don't have a martial character. Which probably makes this all baloney, since I'll have to vet monsters for too high AC's HPs and damage anyway (TPK, here we come).

I have little concern about making other options available for others, as long as they are just that - [b] options. Having only got the core rule book and bestiary last month, and this being the first 'campaign' ever for my kids, I'm a long way from exhausting them. Which will be true for anybody starting out. (BTW, I played ADnD at Uni many, many moons ago, with an eccellent DM, whom I mentally thank nearly every session. I doubt i'd have managed at all otherwise).

So, I am hopelessly disorganised (but slowly getting better) and the closer I can get to just needing the AP and core books, the less stressful it becomes, and the more I am likely to offer to run it at short notice.

Why might this be a concern to Paizo? Get my kids hooked now and they're potential customers for life.

I look at it like this:

We have internet at the house where the games are hosted.

Our usual DM has an iPhone with PDFs of the books on it and internet on it if he doesn't.

His wife also has an iPhone with internet.

Another of our players has an iPhone with internet.

I have the PDFs on my Kindle.

Another of our players has the PDFs on his Kindle.

My DM has the PDFs on his laptop.

I have the PDFs on my laptop.

He has most of the books.

I have most of the books.

I have two desktop computers and a printer in addition to the laptop I mentioned before.

----------------------

All of this adds up to likely having the references we need whenever we need them. Also, if we know we're going to be somewhere without internet and need something for the adventure that we can get online, we're willing to take the initiative and grab whatever we need beforehand.

Saying that these AP books are going to be "completely useless" is hyperbole. A DM usually has to come up with little things on the fly for his party. If someone spilled paint on one of the pages and obscured a full stat block, then he'd still have to improvise or if the players randomly decided to do some thieving that wasn't mentioned in the actual AP, that might require other NPCs that they run into.

Honestly, I think it will end up being fine. My issue with not having the stat blocks in there is purely one of convenience and has nothing to do with if I'll have the reference or not. Books are heavy after all.

[Edit: two typos]

I, on the other hand, am a single mother on a low budget, occasionally running games for her two teen-age school children. We have only the books I have bought for us, and the room containing our computer barely has enough room for all three of us to sit down, never mind play an rpg, so internet access during play is not an option. I do not have an i-phone or kindle (or a husband or partner with access to either) and neither do my children. My printer has an irritating habit of going wonky or running out of ink if I actually need to print something out. Buying the APG and bestiary II is a major outlay for me, and they are not at the top of my wish list (like APs for example so we've actually got adventures to play). Printing out the PDFs must also add up.

I don't know how typical your own access to technology is, but I would hate for my family to be pushed out of pathfinder rpg due to assumptions about mine. And, obviously, people with no internet access can't post their opinions here at all.

As for the actual question, while I can see wanting to use all the new stuff, there will (hopefully) always be newcomers, and for them (us?) it's essential that there are at least some APs or modules that only require the core rulebook and bestiary, and that they're easy to identify. It needs to be made very clear if they do not