eXaminator's page

@ClarkKent: I really like the name wishbringer and the motivation! And I like the idea of him beeing an alchemist and maybe poisoning the food, maybe by one of his goblin/elf minions, and thus there is a way for the characters to find out who is responsible.

I thought about adding some old witch in the forrest as a way to give some informations to the characters. "You need to find the old hag, she is the only one who might know what happend to the wishbringer!" "Bring me the heart of a white dragon and I will tell you where Frostbeart has taken your messenger of the goddess."

Hi Master of the Dark Triad,

thanks for your answer :) Yeah, I think I'll go with some kind of reindeers, but I'm not quite sold on the bloodmage...

Any other ideas?

Hi! :-)

I'd like to run a small Christmas themed adventure in 1 1/2 weeks and have some basic ideas but I'd could use some help and some more ideas to put it all together. And as I know that you guys have great ideas, I thought I'd give it a try and just throw my ideas out there!

Ok, so here is what I've got so far (as I just started thinking about it yesterday):
I plan to insert this into my recently started Rise of the Runelords campaign. I'm in the middle of chapter 1 and I'd like to make the players feel like their characters are well respected. So I'm planning on making a small jump in time, just a few month into December (can't remember how that month was called in Golarion right now ^^) for the "ritual of the stardust", a Desna holiday. But I don't want the characters to get into danger, I don't even want them to be necessary present: I want to pull this off as a play in the Sandpoint theater which is about an adventure the party supposedly went on a few years before the start of the campaign... though of course it's all just fiction. So I basically want the players to play idealized versions of their characters and play through this fictional adventure. This fits especially as one of the characters, a gnome bard, already talked to the owner of the theater and there was talk of him starring in a play some day. So as the bard probably helped writing this play, it ought to be overly heroic and stuff :D

So what is this play about you ask? The Ritual of the Stardust of course! The ritual is all about making a big fire and having a big feast and making wishes after the fire burned down (so it fits Christmas quite well). But there was a problem that one time a few years ago: The messenger of Desna did not come to town to bring those wishes to Desna. In fact the messenger was caught by a frost giant who is a follower of zon-kuthon and now tortures the messenger (a Lyrakien) out of fun (as I lack a better reason for now). Now it comes to the heroes to rescue the messenger.

Some additional ideas which I'd like to integrate:

• The Frost Giant is oviously supposed to be some kind of "bad santa" with a long white beard, maybe the players will find a way to make him believe in christm... uhm... Desna? I'd like to give him a red outfit, which probably is just a white tunic that is soaked in the blood of the many creatures he tortured and murdered!
  
• I'd like him to have some sort of elves... probably Goblins? That would add some extra fun, would fit the Rise of the Runelords theme, and would make sense as minions in such a play (as the people of Sandpoint had their fair share of Goblins and probably like every story where some of them die).
  
• I don't really know where to put "bad santa". I'd love to have some sort of factory, maybe he produces some sort of potions? Maybe he needs the blood of the Lyrakien?
  
• I'd like to have some sort of evil raindeers, I even thought about having "bad santa" ride on the back of the Sandpoint devil...
  

So, that's the idea for the play/adventure. It will play out as a normal adventure mostly, but I'd like to add some specialties to add some extra fun and to highlight the fact that it's actually just a play. Some ideas are:

• Have everyone play a overly heroic or exaggerated version of their characters, as their roles in the play will be played by actors
  
• Have everyone talk in rhymes when talking in character (that would be fun, but I'd have to check that with my players first ;-))
  
• I'm thinking about making a small set of printed stage directions that will add some randomness and fun ("more DRAMA!" or "Start crying" or something along those lines).
  
• I'd like to give characters some bonus or something if they describe the actions of their characters in a "cinematic" way.
  
• I'll probably give the characters some extra hero points, as they should be just that: Heroes!
  

Ok, that's about all I've got right now. I still need some parts, like some way for the characters to actually investigate what happened to the messenger and maybe some more and different minions. The whole adventure should fit a 2nd level party, but I have no problems making some enemies easier or exchanging them with some other stats.

So, any ideas for this? What do you think of my idea? :-)

Well, as I read it the occultist doesn't really bind outsiders but rather spirits. So it's probably more like "great people who once lived", which would fit the thassilon theme I guess. They might be able to get some information they might have missed before by talking to those spirits.

I want to give the players who take the time to actually think about a story some connection to the overall AP as to help to motivate them. The background doesn't need to be fully resolved within the game (though it would be nice), but I'd like it to have some connection to the plot (or at least to specific locations/NPCs in the AP). I like it when the players get the feeling it all fits together somehow.

I like the idea to have some connection to Alaznist, as I have to add some places where the PC can find new spirits to call upon, this might just be the first place to do so. I have to think about the frequency.

Thanks for the ideas, they are very helpful and I'm sure to use some of them!

So, the next character:
Male human occultist (see below or d20pfsrd)
Player input:
So first of all he'd like to play an occultist. That's a 3rd party class. I don't know if it's balanced, but I like the flavor. Basically he gets do do pacts with some spirits and gains some power by doing so. The higher his level the more pacts he can make. There are some predefined spirits, but I might re-flavor some of them to better fit the campaign.

Regarding his story (keep in mind that he doesn't have much idea about the world of Golarion):
His character grew up in Riddleport with his father. His mother died when he was born. His father is a scholar and was lured to riddleport by the cyphergate, where he met his wife and married her. He had a business in riddleport, though this wasn't really defined by the player. I guess he just did scholar stuff ;). Though it was probably related to Thassilon somehow, as the player wanted to take Scholar of the Ancients as trait. The PC was born and his father introduced him into this undefined business, but that was boring. So he wanted to learn magic, but was neither a natural talent nor could his father pay for a magic school or something. His father apparently grew more and more frustrated as he caught his son trying to learn magic. One day his father left riddleport without telling the PC if he'd ever come back and left the business to his son. His life got even more boring as he accepted that he would probably never do anything else but whatever that business was. Apparently it has something to do with "translating thassilonian writings"... anyways, he kept to himself and his job, becoming more and more isolated. He was really envy of other wizards who sometimes came by to get stuff translated as they were able to cast spells. But some day (somewhere after his 31. birthday) he found something in one of those old books. It said something about old rituals and spirits which could grant a lot of power but are very dangerous. He studied that book and found some rituals and formulas. It took him some time to gather everything, but after 4 years of trying with different materials, formulas and runes he finally managed to summon a spirit. And so his first pact was made.

My ideas
Phew, that was quite a lot and I see some problems with his ideas. First of all, I have another player who announced early on that she'd like to play an expert on thassilon, which would basically be the center of her concept. So I already talked to the player of this character that we'd probably strip out the "Scholar of the Ancients" stuff somehow, which he was fine with. Also I don't see any thassilonian books existing outside of special places like the library in chapter 4. So he'd have to find his knowledge somewhere else.

Ok, I think I'd like to connect him and his father more to the cyphergate. What if his father was a member of the cypherlodge and he worked with them. Outside of that he had a quite mundane business, maybe he had a simple bookstore. Even riddleport should have some people interested in books, no? Now, I don't really know how to connect him more to thassilon without making the PC an expert on the subject. But I'd love to have the spirits be connected to thassilon somehow. Maybe this whole kind of pact magic is connected to the thassilonian school of conjuration.

As for the "my dad left me alone" stuff: Maybe his father found something out about the whole "Karzoug is coming back". Maybe one of Karzougs agents has infiltrated the cypherlodge a few years ago. There should be plenty of greedy souls in riddleport! And some members of the lodge might even be interested in seeing Karzoug to return! But the PCs father found out about it and doesn't want the Runelord to come back. he spoke up but didn't find anyone who wanted to help him. Instead they actually tried to get rid of him. So he fled town in a hurry, telling his son to watch out. Maybe this was the moment where he gave his son a tome of some of his research telling him to keep it safe. This tome then contained the knowledge needed to use the old thassilonian pact magic.

This way, I could have the father reappear later in the AP as he tries to find a way to stop Karzoug (or at least the cypherlodge). But where could I best introduce him? Also, I bet he'd want to return to riddleport some day to find out what exactly happened. Should I try to move all this to Magnimar as to give the PC a way to stop whoever was after his father without derailing from the AP? This would give him a closer connection to the other PC I mentioned before, as they kind of shared an enemy.

Any idea is appreciated! :)

Actually they're on page 4 of the players guide :)

I like the ideas about Tsuto. Especially if he really lives. I might even have him show a bit of his obsession towards the Aasimar. This way, when Aldern starts his killings and writes the letters to a PC (which will very likely be the Aasimar, since she's playing the most attractive female), they might actually think it's Tsuto again! :D

About her class: I think I'll just let her be fighter as she wished, we can still figure something out later on if she decides to return to her faith.

But: What do I do about the recognition of the killer? I don't want her to find out who killed her brother at the beginning, but would like to have her find out somewhere in the second adventure. Would I just carve a Sihedron-Rune into her brother? Would the killer wear his mask and be seen by the PC? Though the mask would be easily known when asking around town, wouldn't it? Any other ideas?

This sounds interesting, i'm not sure what the people of sandpoint would make of this. Most would probably just think they're seeing ghosts... others might just think all of those angel blooded folks look alike. The more suspicious people might try to keep their distance and hide their children ;-)

Any more great ideas?

Hi everyone.

Just a warning: This post might get a bit longer. I'd still appreciate anyone who reads and helps me with this! :)

I'm starting RotRl AE next month and am gathering my players and am trying to figure out some background stories with them that will fit the campaign nicely. The thing is, my players don't have much (if any) knowledge of Golarion. So they basically give me a rough draft, some with some more details then others, and I try to expand on that, give them some more details and background and try to link it to the campaign and the world in some way.

The thing is, I have some ideas based on my players wishes, but I have a hard time to make those stories work, or at least I think I have. So I thought I'd come to you fine and creative folks, show you my ideas and see if you have any further ideas.

So, let's begin, I'll go through the ideas I have up to now for each character. For now I'll just begin with one character and add the others later.

Female Aasimar Fighter
Players input
So the player hat this idea about playing an Aasimar who once had actual wings and was a apprentice cleric. But due to some trouble after loosing her twin brother (and wasn't able to help/heal him) she lost her believes, her wings and her few clerical powers. She wants to play a fighter, but would like the option to recover her faith and maybe even get her wings back (there's that 10th level feat for Aasimars somewhere).

My ideas
I think I'd place her in Magnimar as a young cleric of Desna, maybe in the Cynosure Tower in Keystone, having her and her brother being raised by Bevaluu Zimantiu, a cleric of Desna (see Magnimar, City of Monuments). I'd like to give the PC a similar background as Nualia has, as her being harassed by people all the time, making it easier for her to fall from her faith and maybe this results in some nice "maybe Nualia was just mistreated!" roleplay at the end of BO. :)

Her brother should have gone in a quite different direction, being raised to be a Paladin. He was probably gone quite often to study somewhere else and to learn some more fighting. He probably taught his sister some fighting too at that point.

Now, this is the easy part (though I'd be happy for any ideas as to where I could tune this a bit more). Now its about killing her brother somehow, having her fall from her faith and linking her to Sandpoint somehow.

I'd really love to have her brother being killed by the Skinsaw Men. But I can't quite fit it into the background without feeling I'm changing too much. What I'd like to have:

• A way for the PC to witness the death of her brother without being able to help him and without actually seeing the murderer.
  
• A way to recognize at a later point that the cult they are after had something to do with his death.
  
• I'm not sure though why they would kill him, as he wouldn't be greedy really.
  
• There should be at least a few month between the murder and the beginning of the adventure.
  
• Maybe even have Nualia being involved somehow, as she was in town for a while and would probably either seek some help of other "mistreated Aasimars" or feeling some deep hate for others who seem to have it better then her.
  
• I even thought about making Nualia some sort of lost third sister who was just raised by someone else since Bevaluu couldn't take care of all three. But in that case: Why wouldn't they know of each other? Or Maybe the brother and Nualia did know each other?
  
• How would I kill him in a way that would the PC allow to witness it?
  

Ok, so, after having her brother dead without her being able to heal him she looses her faith (as in "why wouldn't Desna help her n healing her brother, who was a Paladin of her faith?") she tries to find out who is responsible. But after living on the streets for a while (she wouldn't want to live in that temple anymore) she finds it rather hard to get any answers when asking in those shady dock taverns (where else would you ask around? ;)) with her having wings and all. Also people start looking for her, some may be friendly (Bevaluu), others are not (what? A little girl angel is running loose? That sounds like fun...). So it doesn't take long for her to get into trouble. This is where I'm thought I'd send a "shining hero" to help: Jubrayl Vhiski, who is in town for some business. Ok, granted, he's not a big hero, but who would let such an opportunity pass by? So he helps her out, maybe defends her from some thugs (be they real or payed by him) and shows her around the streets, even gives her some tips how "not to die" and just plays the understanding, helpful guy. I mean, there must be some money in a loose angel. And since she doesn't look bad there might at least be some great bed storys he might be able to tell later ;). So after she starts complaining about her "godly gift", especially about her wings, over and over again, he makes her a totally "selfless" offer: He knows a guy who knows a guy who'd help her to get rid of those annoying wings. It's totally safe!

So, since he helped her before and she kind of trusts him, she agrees. So he finds someone, who actually does a quite good job, and even "gets rid" of those nasty, bloody wings. So now the PC is wingless and (without her knowledge) Jubrayl quite a few gp richer.

But the time comes (after maybe 2 or 3 weeks) where he has to leave back to Sandpoint. She still wants to find out some more about her brothers killer, so she stays in Magnimar, just a while longer. But he gives her an invitation to visit him in Sandpoint when she's got enough of the big city.

So, just before the festival she picks up on his offer and goes to Sandpoint.

• So, does this sound reasonable at all?
  
• I love the idea of her wings being used in the main plot somehow, just to have her find out at a later point that this was a terrible mistake. Any ideas on that?
  
• What about Jubrayl? I like to present him to the Player/PC as a nice guy and have her later find out who he really is and that he has his fingers in some really shady businesses. I also think of him trying to have some fun with her without it being serious. He basically just wants to use her to his advantage.
  
• Any ideas for Campaign traits?
  

As a side note, the Player quite likes it when her characters get some serious personal troubles ;)

I really hope for some great ideas and I'd love some feedback of what you think about my ideas so far.

Somehow I fear that there is no correct/official answer. I think I read somewhere that Nualias Sihedron amulet was added in the AE to have a greater connection (I don't have the old version, so I can't check that), but I think that whoever added this detail didn't think this through.

So now I'm just trying to make this work somehow, because I'd like Nualia to kill an Aasimar NPC in Magnimar as the background of a PC, another Aasimar who would be that NPCs sister.

So my take on this (I haven't read beyond chapter 2 yet, so I don't know if this fits nicely):

Yes but that makes it even harder to estimate.

By the information we have we can assume that Nualia hasn't been in in Magnimar for too long.

We also know, that Tsuto joined her in 4706, so it must have been shortly after (or even before) the murders started.

So the question stands: Who gave her the Sihedron amulet?

I still have some questions regarding Nualias and Xaneshas Timeline.

Please help me to get this straight :)

5 Years ago the runewell was activated, Nualia miscarried her child and fell into a coma for about a month. After she woke up she burned down the temple and fled to Magnimar where she enlisted the help of the skinsaw cult to find and kill Delek, the father of her son. As I see it this took only a few weeks or month.

At about the same time, Xanesha was enlisted by Karzoug to harvest greedy souls. I guess she went on her journey about the same time Nualia and the cult killed Delek. If another thread is to be believed, Xanesha journeyed about 3 or 4 years through Varisa until arriving in Magnimar. This would make sense, since the murders in Magnimar started about a year ago, probably just after Xanesha took over the cult.

Now back to Nualia. The next info we have on her is, that she got the "Sihedron amulet" from the mysterious leader of the cult. That must be Xanesha, right? Or Justice Ironbriar? Why would he give her the amulet and tell her to listen to her dreams or something like that?

Some additional information: In Eryliums background it says that Nualia arrived not long after the runewell was activated.

So, as I see it, this doesn't add up correctly.

Either Xanesha arrived earlier (after just a few weeks or month maybe) to give Nualia the Sihedron amulet or Nualia stayed far longer in Magnimar, raising the question what she did all that time. Alternatively Nualia got the amulet from someone else.

So, what do you think? I know this might never come up in game, but I'd still like to find out how all of this could work out. Every idea/comment is highly appreciated!

Actually, there's a whole threat with lots of custom made stuff from the community, including many battlemaps that can be printed.

Community Created Stuff

You should take a look at the last few pages of that threat, there's an list with all the stuff from that threat somewhere (excluding new stuff that was posted after the last version of the full list).

That does make some sense, though I would have thought they would dispose the body's in a more subtle way. I mean, it does say that they don't really leave any clues behind, but the body's with the sihedron rune on them is a rather big clue (and is what ties those murders to Alderns murders after all). Body I think I can make that work somehow.

On another note: How well known is the actual rune? I mean, it IS depicted on the Varisian flag/icon/whatever. Is this purely out of character? Or does something similar exist in Varisia? And it is the main symbol that is associated with Thassilon I guess. Any ideas on this?

And what about my question about Xaneshas timeline? I'm not quite sure of what would be the best way to have the characters (probably non-greedy) brother killed a few month prior to the campaign start in a recognizable way... but for that I would have to get the timeline strait, since I haven't read after chapter 2 yet and don't want to break any logic beyond that by changing the timing too much.

I'm soon going to run RotRL and am reading this adventure now. I've got 2 questions (which are based on the AE):

1) When did Xanesha arrive in Magnimar? I have read in another thread that she was wandering Varisia a few years and has only been in Magnimar for about a year. But I can't find anything like that in this adventure.

2) How exactly were those people in Magnimar murdered?

She began directing her new minions to "harvest" greedy souls (...). These unlucky men and women were brought back to the cult's headquarters within a lumber mill (...), where they were marked with the Sihedron Rune and then sacrificed.

As the PCs explore Magnimar, they'll certainly hear rumors and news about a disturbingly familiar spate of murders plaguing the City of Monuments. Stories of merchnats (...) showing up dead - their bodies mutilated, faces missing, and chests carved with seven-pointed stars - seem to be on everyone's lips, and it seems every week brings a new victim to light.

So? Did they move the bodys to the lumber mill? If yes, how would anyone know about the murders? Wouldn't those people just be "missing"? When did these murders start? And how many victims were there?

I'm thinking of having a characters brother beeing murdered by the cult (as colleteral since he was a cleric) a few month prior as part of her background story, having him beeing found next to the real victim who has the rune and everything. Being unable to find any clues she trys to get out of magnimar for a while and makes a trip to Sandpoint for the festival. So she should later recognize the pattern when Skinsaw Murders begins and have a first real clue to the murderers of her brother and be able to revenge him (just to find out that all of this was just part of a greate scheme). Especially since she will probably also be the key NPC for Aldern as the most attractive female character, this should be fun I hope I can build up some major paranoia on her part, maybe having her think her brothers death was her fault in some way after reading the notes! :D

Hey Kyle,I love this app and was wanting to get it for my kindle fire but I can't get iTunes. Do you have any suggestions. Thanks

You can't. The app so far only exists for apple iOS, but the kindle fire uses Android. Afaik there is no android version out yet (and it might be some while, too).

Hey Kyle,

just wanted to check if there is any chance to get an improved HeroLab import this week before sunday. In that case I would save myself some work with fixing the imported characters, otherwise I will have to prepare everything a bit sooner :)

Thanks!

As I imported some mor characters I noticed some general errors. Some characters didn't even import the ability scores correctly (having - in all abilities).

I just packed up some more files (including the one from before) and uploaded them. Maybe you'd like to test them too.

Here's the link: http://db.tt/zCdj3yAi

Just a quick note as I just imported a new HeroLab NPC and found some bugs (some of them have been around for a while I think):

• That NPC has the Half-Fiend template and CM didn't show its DR and resistences!
  
• Space and reach are added to the attacks section instead to the actual space and reach fields.
  
• The Spell-Like abilities ar not formatted correctly.
  
• The "Other Gear" bart should be formatted (i.e. having "Other Gear" appear bold)
  
• The attacks don't seem to be right and should be reformatted.
  
• I miss the ability descriptions. CM should display them either on the bottom or as links within the SQ/Special attacks sections (like with spells and feats).
  

I have no idea which of those things can actually be fixed within CM and which are attributed to the file format, but maybe you can at least reformat some stuff? Would be awesome!

Anyway, most of those notes are just that and would be ok if left out, but the defensive stuff should be fixed I think.

Oh yeah, also CM doesn't seem to get foreign characters in imported files, in this case the germen umlaut ä.

Here's a link to te HeroLab file: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1586852/Die%20Hauterin.por

Edit
I almost forgot: the CR of imported creature are shown as part of the name in CM!

If we ever get a working android version (and maybe some easy way to sync data between several versions) this might be a reason for me to buy a tablet :)

Yay, that was rather quick, thanks! :)

Hey Kyle,

when have you last updated the NPC database? It seems the NPCs from the NPC codex are missing. It would be awesome to have them in there! :)

Well, I actually thought we're just talking aboutsome data entries in the rules tab or something. If you actually meanpoisons and diseasesas a separate feature I don't see it as to important either. :)

Like I said, at this point-with a rather solid base and the most important features well in place - I thinkquick and simple way to get data updates would be most important.

Hey Kyle,

I'm not sure what your plan is for CM in the near future, but since it seems that you're missing time to do big new features, I think it would be best / most important to get CM's data up to date and maybe find a way to keep it that way. Maybe some sort auf update script for monsters and NPCs from the d20pfsrd database, so we wouldn't rely on you to update the database.

In this regard, poisons and deseases would be a high priority too. I'm also still waiting for the swarm rules ;)

Anyway, still a very useful application, if there'll ever be an android version that might actually make me buy a tablet. :)

Oh, he's right.

And I'm not sure if they were in before, but I noticed that there are no skeleton variants (like bloody and burning skeletons) in there... had to add them myself yesterday.

Actually Combatmanager has most AP NPCs built-in by default! Just change the filter for the monster database to "NPCs" or "All" and search for the NPC you'd like to use.

Hi there,

im currently running Jade Regent with 5 players and they're on their way to brinewall. My players kind of complained that "seeking adventure" and "helping out friends" isn't good enough as motivations for their characters, so I'm thinking about ways to get some more motivation using their background stories which isn't all that hard. But there is something I'd like some advice/ideas/brainstorming for:

I have a player who is currently playing a chavalier, mostly because there was no one else willing to play a melee character. But now he'd rather play a magic user instead. And since I'm the last one to force a group to fill certain roles I'm willing to accept his wish to play a dwarfen oracle (I think it'll be a storm(?) oracle).

No here is my basic idea on how to do this:
I am planning on adding "The Harrowing" into this campaign as I like the idea of that adventure. So I thought I might have the current character (the chavalier) be sucked into the harrow deck without the other characters noticing. They would only hear some strange noises (the gate spell) and find the dwarfen oraclenext to a single harrow card. It will take some thinking and maybe some knowledge checks to find out that the chavalier has actually disappeared and that this card has something todo with it... and that they will have to find the other cards to rescue him.

As for the oracle, I'm thinking of him beeing an old possessor of the deck who now lost his memory or who never fully understood what he was doing or why he was doing it (beeing forced by the deck and all). Or he is just someone looking for the rest of the deck.

I'd really like to get some sort of "Dragonballs" quest, having the party search for the rest of the deck to rescue the chavalier. On the other hand I want them to follow the main quest. So here are some questions where I'd like some ideas of you very creative folkes :)

• where could the other cards be? Why would they be in/on their way to tian xia? Could some cards be in brinewall? That would help the "destiny" theme, wouldn't it?
  
• What could have happend to the deck? Why would there be only one card left? Why was it enough to suck in the chavalier? Was the rest scattered around after the chavalier got sucked in? Any ideas?
  
• What could have happened to the oracle? Any ideas on that? Maybe it was his deck? Maybe his patron would like him to secure the deck? Maybe Zassrion, the dragon controlling the decks owner, actually IS his patron? In that case: How could I explain that the oracle doesn't loose his powers after finishing the adventure around level 9?
  

You see, I have some rough ideas which I think could be fun for the group, but I lack ideas to explain everything. I'm happy for any ideas! Thanks in advance!

@Kyle: Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get some help with that. I managed to add a small feature myself and am still trying to figure everything out (which isn't that easy if you don't have any .NET and/or C# experience ;)). It's quite interesting to say the least!

This is really awsome, after trying around a bit I got it to work and started to play around with the code. I'm new to .NET and C#, but I think this will be a good lesson :)

@MendedWall: Some base for a calendar function is already implemented as I could see. I guess someone will finish this sometime soon (or at least I hope so). Eben though I would like it to change a bit (regarding the layout). Should such wishes be added as a ticket too?

PS
When adding a ticket (without an account) it seems that I can now set everything for that ticket (for example, I could set the status to accepted). That doesn't seem to be what you want to accomplish ;)

The difference would be, that TWF is tied to the full attack action (since that is what you need to do to get an extra attack, like any other extra attack beyond the first). An that is a full round action. So TWF resolves as a full round action too.

I see TWF as a modifier for the full attack action. You trade in some of your attack bonus of all attacks within that action to get one additional attack (at a relativly low attack bonus). But it's still part of that one full attack action. You just modify that one action.

It's a bit like casting defensively. You get something negative (a concentration check that might end your spell) to get a different positiv effect (ignore the risk for an AoO). In both cases this modification of your action is resolved within that same action. Casting defensively has no effect on other spells (like a quickened fireball) you cast in that same round (even though in that case I can of course choose to cast defensively again, but that would only modify that single action again).

Another example: It's basicly like Power Attack, just that Power Attack trades attack bonus for extra damage (instead of an extra attack) and that it actually states that it keeps up until your next turn. TWF doesn't say this.

Edit: Took me to long to type... Jiggy was faster :)

A full round action takes up the round, with a bit of time in here or there for you to take a few steps, make a swipe at a foe that leaves himself open, but primarily what you are doing is that full round action. As such, you are still in effect TWFing when you make that AoO.

Which is true in a cinematic scence, but not ruleswise. You are suggesting that I'm still in the middle of my full round action even after i finished my turn. Thus someone would still be able to keep me from finishing what I'm doing. But they are not. Thus the action is completly done after my turn ends as per my last post.

eXaminator wrote:

Otherways it you would be able to kill someone who is TWF on your turn and stop him from tacking all of his attacks (since he would still be in the middle of attacking... which he might be cinematicaly, but isn't rules wise).

I'm not sure this means what you intended.

If someone is in the middle of their full attack, TWF or not, and something kills him, he doesn't get to finish his attacks while dead.

Ok, I'll try to make my point clearer:

It's the turn of Tom the Two-Weapon Fighter. He uses is turn to do the following Full-Round Action: Full attack with both weapons (including penalties).
He's done with this action before the next character starts his turn.

Now it's Bill the Babarian's turn: He attacks Tom with a mighty blow of his great axe and kills him (as a standard action).

Now let's look at this situation:
Cinematically, both characters act at the same moment (= the same round = the same 6 seconds). But nontheless Tom gets to make all his attacks without interruption, even though his Full-Round Action would logically take longer to complete then the babarians standard action to attack and kill him.

And this is what a Full-Round Action is: An action that takes the whole time of your turn (excluding stuff like free actions), but is completed before the next character gets his turn (and again, excluding stuff like AoO - which might actually interrupt Tom and keep him from making all attacks as Grick stated).

Now, in comparison, there are "1 Round" actions. If we replace Tom with Willy the Wizard who is casting a spell with a casting time of "1 Round", he wouldn't be able to get his spell off before dying through Bills mighty axe and thus the spell would be interrupted and lost (together with his life).

This is why Two-Weapon Fighting (along with any other Full-Round Action) is completed at the end of a characters turn - including all penalties except if noted otherwise (for stuff like Power Attack).

Was that better explained, Mr. Grick sir? ;)

Like Grick said: "Full-Round Action" is not the same as "1 round action". Spells that take a Full-Round Action are completed before the next player is able to do anything. 1 Round actions are completed just before your next turn.

There is no such thing as a "1 round action" outside of spellcasting that I am aware of, since there is nothing that can be interrupted in that way. You can't interrupt someone who is TWF. He starts his action on his turn and all of its effects (the extra attack AND the penalties) are completed at the point the player ends his turn and the next player starts his. Otherways it you would be able to kill someone who is TWF on your turn and stop him from tacking all of his attacks (since he would still be in the middle of attacking... which he might be cinematicaly, but isn't rules wise).

A thing I'd like to know: Are you going to put the current version onto Sourceforge? Or your current development state? Or are you going to finish the current set of features befor releasing them on sourceforge?

This is cool! I can't wait to at least see the code. I'm not experienced in C#, so I might not be able to contribute anything, but I'd love to have a look at the code and maybe be able to figure the stuff out and change some stuff to fit my own needs. I'm also very excited about all the stuff we might see from other users! :)

Is there a way to track things like spell effects from round to round?

Right-click on any creature and add a condition. You can select from a lot of spells, effects and other conditions. You can even select how long the condition should be applied or if it's unlimited.

I can't wait for that either!

Anyway, there are some bugfixes I'm looking for even more (and some things you havn't commented yet...)!

But I'll wait as long as it takes and keep using this awsome piece of work!

On thing for the campaign calendar: Would it be possible to have any sort of publishing function in place? Maybe some sort of generated HTML-Version that can be automatically uploaded via FTP or something along these lines? That would allow my players to keep track off time (I'm using google calendar for that right now), especially for my just started Jade Regent campaign :)

Thanks for the quick fix :)

I think this request as been there for a while now, but I'd just like to get your attention for it again: Would it be possible to show an indicatore of some sort if you are dragging someone within the initiative list so that you see where exactly the entry is going to end up?

Hi Kyle,

is ran a session yesterday and ran into a rather annoying bug in the initiative list. I was able to reproduce it partially today:

• I have a group of 5 PCs (irrelevant I think, but anyway...)
  
• I have a saved encounter with 3 Goblins, two of them ar linked to the first one and are hidden (so they don't show up in the external initiative list).
  
• If I add the group of Goblins via "open file" everythin works fine. But then a second band of goblins arrives, so I add the same encounter a second time.
  
• It basically works fine, until I try to drag a PC between the to Goblin groups in the initiative list.
  
• What basically happens to me: PCs (and the goblins) dont end up where I thought they would by dragging them. Clicking "Next turn" a few times might result in funny beaviour by not jumping to the right entry or having the green arrow and bolded textcompletly disappear until "next turn" is pressed again. Yesterday I also had the same Goblin group in the list twice (though it was only present once in the monsters tab). Both entries were selected as "current" at the same time.
  
• Resetting Initiative fixes everything, but isn't always desired.
  

I just made another test and had a similiar bug:
I have 2 bands of Goblins. I clear the Party and add another party via a file. I rolled for initiative. Now the Goblins (highest initiative) are selected as active AND ar shown as "Active Charakter". Also one of the PCs is marked as current character (see screenshot: link). He stays marked until it's really his turn. Pressing "next turn" then removes the marker.

I hope this is just a minor bug that can be easily removed :)

Doesn't work for me either, could this be a version conflict of .NET or something?

Had a little hospital stay, I'm out now and much healthier. I'm going to push a new version out with B3 probably tomorrow and figure out where I am feature wise so I know where to go next. Needless to say things have been a little off track recently.

Hey Kyle,

I'm glad you feel better now. When you said you had health probles I thought you meant a flew or something. But since you had a hospital stay I guess it wasn't that easy. Anyway, good to have you back, active and most important: healthy :)

Kyle,

Just noticed that when you link initiatives the undocked initiative window hides the name of the person to whom the initiatives are linked, but not those linked to it. That makes for a bit of trouble when I'm trying to hide the creature types from my players. :P Hopefully something you can fix for the next update?

Thanks

He's already aware of this bug and I trust that he might jave already fixed taht for the upcoming version :) (or at least has it on his todo list :))

will beastiery 3 be added to it soon?

I guess it'll be in the next version (if chopswil has it in his database on d20pfsrd.com). :-)

And if possible change the add monster button into "add x ___ monsters" with a text input so entire goblin tribes can be spawned at once rather than 70 clicks later... (yeah thats the most extreme case but the feature is still handy at smaller numbers.) Have it reset to 1 after u push "add" so that u dont accidentally blow up the computer either.

To extend on this: Their initiatives should automatically be linked (at least as an option) :)

Glad to see that you're still alive :)

Ok, I'll be patiently waiting for that new version.

Though, a version that just has some bugfixes (like that taskbar thing and the external initiative window) would be great too (if some of those new features take to long to finish up without too many bugs...) :)

Hey Kyle,

it's been a while now. Any news on that new version yet? It's been a while since we had our last Combatmanager shot ;) I'm getting nervous here ;)

Hi again,

I had some more thoughts about this app and how I think it become even more useful in my games (since I can't talk for anybody else here ;)). So I'll just post some random ideas here, ok? I definetly posted some of these ideas before and Iyou might even have considered some of these before or actually used them for the upcoming version, but I'll post then anyway ;)

I thought about how to make managing all those encounters and stuff easier. And here's what I came up with: What if Combat Manger stored almost everything in one single campaign file? A campaign would consist of stuff like the upcoming calendar data, a Party of PCs (basicly what you get if you save the Party-list to a file), and even Custom Monsters, Condition and Spells! Maybe you could even use this to have an easy way to give XP to Characters and have it save this information, this would make keeping track of XP much easier. Additionally the campaign (and thus the campaign file) could contain several "adventures" which themselfs would contain several encounters.

What I'm thinkg of is the following: I have one campaign file. I can take this to any computer that has Combat Manager installed and just open it up. It would contain the majority of data that I need for running a session in that campaign, I wouldn't need to transfer any other files. It might even contain some configuration data for Combat Manager. After opening Combat Manager I can select the current "adventure" (which it should remember for the next startup). So there should be a screen to create, delete, rename and select "adventures". For starters I think it would be enough to be able to create encounters and save them just like we can do now, but instead of a single new file it will just ask for a name for that encounter and then save it within this "adventure" in the same campaign file. And then we could have a list of encounters somewhere - without having to navigate my harddrive and search through dozens of files - to select from. After defeating that encounter it would be cool to have a button next to the XP-number of that encounter that allows us to give a certain amount of XP (default: the amount that the current encounter would grant) to the whole party or just certain characters of the party. It would then calclulate the individual xp for everyone and would add those to the existing XP. Then there could be a new field in the Monster Editor "current XP" and maybe even a small bar under each character in the playerlist that shows how may XP that character as gained and how much is needed for the next level.

This idea is just a very rough one and might be far to complicated regarding the current way how combat manager works with data (many different files and the combination of both SQL and XML... maybe you should resort to one or the other?). But nevertheless I think this would speed up the selection of encounters, it would make managing XP easier, make it easier to exchange the campaign between two or more Computers without having to exchange all those custom content too and it could be greatly improved in the future (random encounters anyone?). maybe you're thinking about some sort of campaign file for the calendar function anyway?

Additionally I'm still hoping for ways to free up screen space. I'd still love to see the tabs in the titlebar next to "Combat Manager", just like Firefox does it. And maybe a way to reduce the tabs to just the icons, in case the tabbar gets to bloated with new stuff ;) I'd also like to see the OGL, About, Undo, Settings and Sources Buttons repositioned (maybe even to the "Combat Manager" menu, so that we get a few pixels there, at least as an option itself.

Also the problem with the taskbar that won't reappera still stands. Or have you corrected this in the new version?

I just noticed that I can zoom text via the "search" bar by pressing Ctrl+F. This is cool, especially since I can zoom out a bit to reduce the text size and again get more info on my small screen. Could you change it so that this setting is actually saved for later sessions? Or even an settin in the options dialog to change the default size?

I think some of my idead may be easy to accomplish while others might be far to much work to consider, but I don't really know since I don't know your code or your future plans for this software. Anyway, as soon as the next release is due I'll get another donation on its way, regardless if my wishes will be fulfilled or not ;) Keep up the great work, I hope the new release will come soon and I hope you'll keep adding to this awsome programme for a long time :)

Hey Kyle,

I just thought of 2 minor wishes, maybe even for the next release:

1. It would be great if the application would remember what I selected regarding the Monster DB filter (Monsters, NPCs, Custom, All).

2. It would be nice to be able to completly remove certain tabs from the main View. I don't really need the "current monster" tab, so I'd love to hide it. :-)

Oh, don't worry, take all the time you need. I was just curious :)

So better get well first and don't get stressed over this thing! Especially if performance is a reason, since I'm very interested in performance. I'm still running this thing on a weak netbook! :)

Sooooo.... anything on that new version? ;-) I can't wait to see it!

I think I'll get a new donation on its way in the new year when that new version has arrived :)