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I'm in Arlington, which is fairly close. Tabletop Arena in Lowell is probably the closest (PFS plays there, so it might be the best place to start - I've never been there myself). Three Trolls in Chelmsford and Hobby Bunker in Malden are also pretty close, but they focus more on wargaming. I don't currently know of any games looking for players, but if you are looking for players in that area, send me a private message and I can put you in touch with people who might be interested.
The Boston PFS lodge is quite active. There are bulletin boards at most of the local gaming shops, so I'm sure you could find some groups through either of those. What town are you located in? http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BostonPFS/info
I believe the most recent update to D20Pro now has an updated fog of war system. That looks like exactly what I want. I'll have to play around with the demo. I'll also have to decide whether it's worth $30 for just that one feature.
(Ah OmniGraffle - I loved this program when I had a Mac) That's an interesting idea. Do those programs support multiple views of the same document, or do you have to do fullscreen on one monitor with the layer tool on another?
I've done that in the past, and it's definitely an option, but for this simple use, it's more work than manually revealing rooms.
Here's my situation: I use a projector to display battlemaps onto a physical table, and then my players and I use miniatures. I currently use Maptools, and I love the Fog of War feature, but since we're using physical miniatures I have to manually reveal stuff. I reveal things a room at a time, so the detailed FoW features actually make it harder for me to do what I want. The only other features I use are multiple maps and hiding traps/secret doors. Does anyone know of a simple VTT (or heck, a complex one) that allows you to reveal whole rooms at a time with a simple interface? I'm seriously considering writing my own VTT with exactly those 3 features (room-based FoW, hidden traps/secret doors, and multiple maps), but I'd rather download one if it already exists.
Availability of games depends on where you are in Massachusetts, but you should check out the local chapter of Pathfinder Society.
Further complicated by the fact that there often seems to be people in a group who actively dislike the idea of "talking" to enemy NPCs, making it difficult for players who DO want to talk to them to get a chance to do that. I am very glad for these writeups. They're enjoyable to read, and that's the only action most of these APs are going to get from me :( My PCs had the unfortunately tendency to talk the ears off of random mooks with no backstory - often going to great lengths to take some alive - but for NPCs with a writeup, they'd either blow them off completely (for friendly ones) or go straight for the kill.
Well funny enough I recognized the red-headed warrior in armor from the PG. Not that specific person but what she represents. Minor CotCT Spoilers: If I run this with my CotCT group, this could get fun - the party's fighter got turned Large, then had a bunch of evil twins spawn. At least one of the evil twins is a devoted Ileosa follower and is leading a group of Gray Maidens. At level 15ish and Large, he might be a bit much for adventurers heading into Volume 2 though.
It's also possible that people are reacting to "what might happen." For example, I played a monk in a 3.5 game with an optimizer. His half-orc barbarian could do something like 10 times as much damage as me. Loot distribution was by party vote. The party voted to spend all the gold on items for the half-orc to make him hyper-optimized, and none on the monk since he was worthless. Needless to say, this created hard feelings. The next 3.5 game I played in, I was super anal about making sure the loot got split evenly as an over-reaction to the previous game. That doesn't make these players' actions (or mine) right, but may help you understand where they're coming from, and ultimately how to solve this issue.
Update: I've been using 28lb paper for my maps (not 24lb). It didn't feel flimsy, but was still able to be rolled up.
I had a paladin in my group. I ruled that DR/vorpal was stronger than DR/- and his smite didn't automatically overcome it. It didn't matter. The +12 damage from smite had almost the same effect. What really did the demilich in was the warhammer fighter getting off a crit for 60+ damage. Between the two of them, the demilich lasted 3 rounds - he only got off one attempt at Trap the Soul (on the paladin, good luck with that Mr. Baddie).
@Story Archer
re: resolution
That gripe out of the way, this isn't a problem with most maps. Sure, the resolution isn't the best, but it's still a lot more detail than I get by drawing it. I found that scanning the images at super-high DPI then downscaling gave me nicer results than exporting the images from the PDF. I ended up with "blurry" rather than "grainy". re: projector
I've printed maps before. In theory you could have them printed out on poster paper at OfficeMax, but that's probably $100+ per map of any reasonable size. I have a color laser at home and I got at least a dozen maps (probably 12 sheets of paper each) plus lots of other random stuff before I had to start replacing toner. Here is my process: 1) Export the image in as high a quality as you can.
Adhesive Option 1) I used to use rubber cement. It holds well, and allows you to fix mistakes easily. It also makes a mess and tends to come apart after a couple months of sitting around.
Storage: Printed paper maps curl like nobody's business. If you assemble them a short while before your session, you should just store them flat. If you do store them in a tube, give yourself time to curl them in reverse and still expect that you'll have to weigh down the corners. I forget the exact weight of the paper I use, but I found the 20lb was too flimsy. I think I ended up using 24lb. Regular copy paper, nice and bright.
I have a Sony Tablet S and Samsung Galaxy SII.
I'd prefer something that would work well with existing settings. When I think of Godlings, I think of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and Xena (although those adventures are basic D&D fare anyway). The main thing that sets them apart, I think, is how close the gods are... They all personally know about Hercules (since he's like a nephew or cousin to most of them). Maybe you could focus on how gods can be "defeated" by mortals - both in the "temporary setback" sense and in the "I now assume my father's throne" sense?
It seems the two major challenges to AM right now are:
However, these two strategies work at cross purposes. It seems a single caster can get the drop of AM, but doesn't have a reliable way of killing him (stands a reasonable chance sure, but if it fails, AM splats him). Casty can get a pretty guaranteed kill by using his army, but I don't think the army can get the drop on AM. Without running the numbers, it seems like AM (or BATTY BAT) will be able to spot the trap before the trap spots him. All AM has to do to make this a draw is add "don't attack casties in the center of an army" to his strategy. That's a pretty reasonable strategy even if AM isn't expecting them all to suicide-bomb him.
River Tam is basically a GMPC. Give her whatever levels you like, but she always rolls high enough to hit and has sufficient AC and HP to survive anything. She also has max ranks in whatever skills are appropriate at the moment. [not trying to be too snarky, but characters in TV/movies/books don't have to follow the same rules as PCs :) ]
The Penny-Arcade guys don't hate 4e (and we don't have to either - love & peace for all!), they're just looking to change things up a bit. No RPG rules set is perfect. But PFRPG is different from 4e in a lot of ways, and you shouldn't really read more into it than that.
I know we all agree this tract is hateful nonsense (I'm a Christian and I still say that), but can't we stop complaining about it? I mean, that tract was published almost 30 years ago.
I personally don't have any issue with presenting drow as either "Always Chaotic Evil" or "anything goes." In my game: Spoilered in case my players are hanging around: Ages ago, drow were "Always Chaotic Evil" demon worshippers. They launched a major offensive on the surface world, but were defeated. The descendents of those who were stranded on the surface have been universally branded as potential demon-worshippers and have magical brands on them which show demonic influence. The elven historians make sure that no one forgets what the drow almost accomplished. They are either killed on sight (elven lands), or slaves/poor (human lands). Most surface drow are just people, although being constantly told "you're a demon worshipper" turns more than a few bad, and only re-inforces the sterotype. The players will have been brought up in this culture that says drow are all horrible monsters, and that's what I'll tell them if they ask, but... Those drow who continued to live underground got over their "Always CE" phase after their defeat, and now live peacefully underground, with no desire to interact with the surface ever again. They have a perfectly normal, albeit underground (where it's very dangerous), society.
In PFS I have a musket-wielding dwarven gunslinger. She claims to be a former gunmarshal, but in reality grew up poor on the streets. The other PFS characters she runs with don't know anything about Alkenstar, so she probably won't be exposed for a while. She's CN and is happy to use violence (or threats thereof) to solve situations. In the home-brewed-world game I GM, the characters are: Ifrit Bard, Aasimar Oracle, Half-Elf Rogue, Half-Elf Summoner and Half-Orc Samurai.
I wanted do to something similar to this for my game - magic is not quite as rare in my game as you desire, but I wanted to make room for "interesting" magic items. I wrote about my Hero Bonuses here. That is taking the opposite tack: instead of changing every single monster they ever encounter, there's a little extra math when they level up.
Dawizard/Iwizard. Improper search and replace is a clbuttic mistake.
Thanks for adding this section! I frequently check the Gamer Connection boards for games near me, so I'm looking forward to Online Games having their own (different) area.
Of course, my players naturally found a hole in this system right away. One of my players is playing a summoner, and this system will work oddly with that class. My first thought was that each time the summoner gets a bonus, he must choose (permanently) whether it goes to the eidolon or the summoner.
I know it's been done to death, but here's my take on removing the Big Six from the game, and replacing them with scaling bonuses. Please feel free to discuss or critique, or to use in whole or in part in your own game. (I'll do my best to format this sensibly without tables)
Weapons no longer have a specific enhancement bonus. They are either magical or they are not. Magical weapons have an enhancement bonus based on the wielder's level, as shown in the chart below: Level/HD, Enhancement
Magical weapons cost the same as a +1 weapon under the standard rules. Magical weapons may have additional properties, the price of which is calculated as if the base weapon had a +1 enhancement bonus.
Like weapons, armor no longer has a specific enhancement bonus. Magical armor, shields and robes exist with enhancement bonuses based on the wielder's level, as shown in the chart below: Level/HD, Armor/Robe Enhancement, Shield Enhancement
Magical armor and shields cost the same as their +1 versions under the standard rules. Magical armor and shields may have additional properties, the price of which is calculated as if the base weapon had a +1 enhancement bonus. Magical robes cost 1000gp plus the value of the underlying robe (magical robes are often made of expensive materials). Any magical robes from sourcebooks with a value over 1000gp provide this enhancement bonus. If the robes become nonmagical (for example, if they have a limited number of charges), they lose their enhancement bonus as well. Magical robes may not have armor special qualities added to them.
Creatures who have great experience fighting naturally become used to combat, and it becomes harder to land damaging blows on them. This is represented by a Hero bonus to AC. Hero bonus is based on class only, not racial hit dice. Level, Total AC Bonus, Flat-footed AC Bonus, Touch AC Bonus
Creatues also receive a Hero bonus to ability scores as they increase in level. Hero bonuses should be tracked separately from starting ability score values. Hero bonuses to ability scores replace both stat enhancing items and the standard ability score increases at each fourth level. Hero bonuses are permanently assigned to ability scores when a creature increases in level, and may not exceed one third the character's total level (rounded up). Level, Total Hero Bonus, Maximum Bonus to a Single Ability
Finally, creatures get a Hero bonus to all of their saving throws. Level, Saving Throw Bonus
Because characters will no longer need to purchase these items, the expected wealth by level needs to be decreased. I believe the correct value should be somewhere between a 50% and 66% decrease. This won't apply to the first few levels.
Hmm...how about this? The player of the barbarian character decided to use a great hammer... The blow drops them below negative con. That level of detail would make me a bit uncomfortable. I don't think it's over the top, as long as your group is all okay with it. I think toning it down for this game was the correct move on your part, since you noticed the players didn't like the graphic descriptions. It's also good that the one player talked to you about it after the game (although calling you "sick" rather than just asking you to tone it down was probably uncalled for).
#1. Only if the GM makes me. I am one of those people who is cursed with significantly below-average rolls, and I used to play with people with the opposite luck. Not fun to be objectively useless in a fight. In my campaigns, it's always point-buy. I've even thought about expanding that to "standard array only." It has the fairness aspect of point-buy without resulting in a party full of idiot-savants. #2. I haven't heard a single complaint from my players, but I don't know if point-buy is their actual preference. #3. About 15 years. #4. Basic Set D&D, I think. It's a little bit hazy. The first systems I was serious about were AD&D and Palladium Fantasy.
Has anyone tried simply building an HDTV into a tabletop? (And no I'm not talking about that Microsoft table.) I'm guessing you'd want to cover the screen in something to protect it from the base of the minis and spilled drinks. Any experience with this?I have a portable version of this. 32" widescreen TV layed flat sunk into the surface of a rolling table. Plexiglass over the screen to keep it from being scuffed. Players love it, I love it and random people that stop in at the FLGS where we play PFS usually take pictures. I can hook it up to either a netbook or laptop (both have their pros/cons). I've considered doing this, but I lack the tools or skills to build a table. Did you build your own table, or modify one? Do you have pics you could share of the finished product?
I'm finding this derailing hilarious. We have a silly "I'm the worst GM evar, and here's how I'm going to make your Firefly RPG experience miserable" joke, followed by a bunch of people saying that's the most unfun GM experience they can imagine. WHOOSH
On the topic of character names... one of my friends made a paladin named Mance Brightwood. Which was fine until another player commented, "Wow, that's a porn-star name." Everyone burst out laughing while my friend angrily started created another character (even if he changed the name, the paladin would never hear the end of it).
Does anyone remember the BASIC program for doing a chi-squared test on your dice from Dragon #78? I think my brother actually typed it in, line by line, back in the day. Here's a link I found to a reduced-math method of measuring your die's bias. http://www.godsmonsters.com/Features/my-dice-random/ Basically, it shows how to use free statistical software to do the math. You just need a few lines of script and the patience to roll dice a few hundred times. You'll need to understand the output a little bit, but a few minutes of reading ought to take care of that.
Note that you need to roll the die 200 times before you start to get a reasonable assessment of your die's bias.
I used to play in a group that used paid-for facilities in the basement of our FLGS. I think it was something like $25-$50 for a 4-hour [weekday evening] slot once a week, for 3 months. We used it for less than 6 months however because of several reasons.
We then tried to do the same thing at another FLGS nearby. They were very nice, but the space was unacceptably small. Now, to answer your questions: Must have amenities - private or semi-private room, sturdy table, chairs. food/drinks must be allowed, although restrictions are okay. I'd be willing to pay about $10 for a gaming session: for me that's about 5 people for 4-6 hours. The competition (someone's house/apartment) may lack amenities, but you can't beat the price of free. Prepay is fine - I'm never going to run a pickup game of Pathfinder. I'd be willing to travel up to an hour for a great facility. For an "average" facility, probably 30 minutes. It also obviously depends on the average commute for all players. This is the same sort of competition as with price. My own apartment has a travel time of zero.
I had the PCs track rations at a high-level during my playthrough of the first book of Kingmaker. Basically, they told me how much food they were taking with them (subject to how fast it would go bad) then had to make sure they were back at Oleg's before it ran out. I wanted to encourage them to think of Oleg's as their home base. In practice, the Oracle picked up Purify Food and Water as soon as he possibly could, then they bought like a month's worth of food and headed out into the wilderness.
Seems to be a popular topic recently. Check out this recent thread.
We were playing 3.5/Eberron weekly with a regular group of 3 players, and a fourth slot that we could never keep filled for more than a few weeks at a time. After the group comes up with a plan that would surely get my character killed, the new guy quips "Don't worry, you'll be avenged."
It's not "between," but Pandemonium Books in Cambridge is running the adventure at 1 o'clock. One table, I think.
Edit: as a side question, is it just me who had had a terrible experience with less committed players? If not, how did you (or the DM) deal with the problem? I gave up trying to play PBP on these boards after 2-3 attempts where the DM bailed after a short time. I used to do PBeM (play by e-mail) and had several games that ran for years.
I'm starting up a new campaign in Arlington/Woburn, MA and I'm looking for 1-2 more players. The current plan is to play once per month on Sunday starting in July or August. I'm going to solicit player input on what sort of game it will be, so I don't have firm plans in that regard yet. If you're interested, shoot me an e-mail at:
Normal: Spellcasters don't lay eggs. This is my favorite part.
The accidental circumstance has been fixed. Sorry about that! Confirmed! Colors have reverted to normal for me.
The reversed behavior is the first thing I noticed this morning when I checked the site. I don't know whether it's just because I'm used to lighter=read, but I like the old way better.
I'm always reluctant to add new forums—we have a LOT already. What if we recommended/required putting "[PBP]" or something in the thread title> That would certainly help, but I can see two potential problems: One, as others have mentioned, is that there are a lot more PBP games advertised in this forum than local games, and local games quickly get moved down the page. Two, "other" style games are becoming more popular. VTT-based games are IMO more similar to PBP than local games (in that your physical location doesn't matter), so they wouldn't be tagged as PBP. I suggested online/offline so that it would be clear where those sorts of games fall.
I'd like to suggest breaking the "Gamer Connection" forum into separate online and offline forums. Many subject lines aren't clear as to the format of the game, and I think this would help with that. It also seems to me that most gamers would be interested in only one or the other (and if they're interested in both, they could view just the parent).
I think this is an awesome idea, but one rules issue I can see is that alter-self modifies your physical stats, and intelligent magic items only have mental stats. Actually, all transmutation spells are modifications now, so you'd have to hand-wave a bit no matter which one you chose. You could either just pick stats for the humanoid form, or use the same method you would use for generating a cohort's stats. Extending upon that thought, there's no reason an intelligent item couldn't use Beast/Elemental/Plant/Dragon Shape, subject to the same hand-waving of physical ability scores. I once played in a 2e campaign where each member of the party got an intelligent weapon. One of them contained the soul of that player's previous character (who had been brutally murdered, and soul-trapped [or something similar] in the last campaign). None of them sprouted bodies, though that would have been awesome - all the intelligent weapons except for the one described above turned out to be working for the BBEG and betrayed us shortly before confronting him.
I tried this with my players, and they didn't like it. They got excited by a few of the deals (picked up a bag of tricks for 25% off - probably the magic item with the most "history" by the end of the campaign), but mostly they were just annoyed that the prices were unpredictable.
Honestly, the ultimate Magic/Combat books seem full of things that should be optional, or are flat out alternate rules. These books *are* optional. They *are* filled with alternate rules. I'm personally looking forward to these options.
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