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ACG: shame that the Bloodrager Primalist archetype isn't allowed, when the ACG preview came out my great hope was that there'd be a Bloodrager feat or archetype that allowed rage powers to be taken - seemed an obvious thing for the class. I am curious as to why (not that it actually stops me from getting Spirit totem for my Bloodrager) - doesn't seemed OP or setting-contradictory on the surface.
Here's a question - will this art be available anywhere else? I'm still running RotR and I'd happily pay for an electronic version of the art to use as handouts. I've no real interest in the card game though. I know PDF-only products are an overhead/non-start for Paizo, but I figured it was worth mentioning a potential market.
My experience: let go of the concept and move on. If a concept is patently not going to work (GM says no, players are being are being stroppy) then it's just doomed. A 'no spellcasters' from another player isn't on, though, necromancer cleric and evoker wizard wouldn't have much common ground. Were it me? I'd play a specialist wizard and take necromancy as my prohibited school - I'm getting what I want, and I'm respecting the niche of the other player. Being flexible has served me very well over the years; when I've been inflexible (irrespective of other's degree of reasonableness) it hasn't served me well at all.
These are brilliant - will you be doing 'City of Golden Death'?
(E) mainly - but mostly - just get this project into our hot and swweaty hands!
Sine Nomine Publishing has done some great sandbox OSR stuff with "Red Tide". Now they're doing doing an African-themed FRPG. Check it out here: (boosting the signal simply because I'm a fan, and I've backed the project and would like to see it succeed)
+1 on an earlier question - if I pre-order this, do I get the PDF in mid-July? I'd assume yes, 'cos it would suck to have to then wait to November.
Shipping costs are a mite high for us non-us types. Thanks
+1 on this. Something either along the lines of the SWEX or the size of the Beta playtest softbacks. If there was a softback, B&W player-focused book (basics, classes, equipment, combat, magic, spells, conditions) I'd buy a set for my table.
We don't make comments on our Hero Lab plans because we cannot give release dates for them, this is due to the fine folks working on this doing so during their downtime. Fair enough; that's both sensible and reasonable. One thing that would be really useful to me as a purchaser would for there to be an easy way to find out which of your products have HL support. At the moment, it's a bit of a trawl/detective work to check through your products. So if you had a simple list on your website of the HL-support products, that would 'sell' me - and I could check back on it from time to time. As a bit of consumer feedback; "1001 spells" is the first spell supplement I've bought for Pathfinder, and I got it mainly because it has HL support. I use HL for all my PF games, and having to enter extra stuff in is a real chore.
I notice that on import of 1001 spells into HeroLab, there are also sections for Kaidan. Are the plans to include HL files for the kaidan line?
I've noticed that there's an extra character on my PFS account: # 1794-4 Kiara 184 Not my PC - belongs to someone else. Could you remove it? thanks Simon
Have him play 1 character. have him play a character who is a happy-go-lucky, live-for-the moment thrill-seeker who is after fortune and glory. ...have everyone in the world react to the character as if he were a real person. this is the key way to get across the nature of RP IMHO. The world is real, or rather, it behaves like it's populated by real people - even if the player is playing a bizarre stereotype unrealistic person. Obviously the fights need to be epic, but he also needs to understand that other players like RP scenes and he needs to accommodate that. Also - try "slipping in" RP during fights - villains declaim and react to him; you may grant him the discretionary +2 bonus if he describes something well.
The Skinsaw Murders - an absolutely fantastic haunted house. Souls for Smuggler's Shiv - Lost-style sandbox
While the current venue is good, and has on-site accommodation - food is still a bit of a pain. If another venue is in the offing, better food options and possibly liaison with them beforehand about the money that can be made from 100+ hungry, captive role-players would be good. My preference for Sunday is to keep the early start time; as I can rarely make the (late) afternoon games. Equally - having an option NOT to play in a two-parter on the Sunday would be good for those that have to leave on Sunday evening. Other than that - this year was pretty painless - I had good games all round.
Please could you cancel my subscription to this line - thanks.
This is a great move, well done Paizo. Also, props for your transparency around the whole random/non-random thing. I understand the business reasons behind it. While the situation might not be to everyone's taste or preference, I'm pleased that you're bringing distinctive miniatures back into the market, and I'm doubly pleased that they're for Pathfinder. My main concern is that I'd like to see a variety of PC-style miniatures drawn from art other than the iconics - it's always nice to look at a mini and go "hmm, I could use that for my PC".
Well, if you wanted to try it out with $0 investment you could use the PFSRD for the Core Rulebook and the Bestiary (they're also available as very cheap apps for the iPhone) and try out the three FREE PFS adventures for season three. In terms of what you need to play; I'd say just the core rulebook. You could also do a lot worse that start out with the PFS adventures - many of them are really great and very cheap. Alternatively, starting with one of the 1st-level Modules is also cool. Crypt of the Everflame is specifically designed to start people off on PF rules, and it has two excellent sequels.
I find the use of the iconic-appropriate pronoun to be a really good approach. 'He' is NOT gender-neutral; it furthers the notion of woman as 'other' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other#The_Other_in_gender_studies) I applaud Paizo's take on gender pronouns, it's a real positive in my book.
Hi Ben - Dave mentioned you were moving near my neck of the woods - he played in my Serpent's Skull game for a bit. Drop me a line simon(at)english.net.
Atop this you could have taken deadly shot and been getting +2 damage per shot, when you make touch attacks in the first range increment it doesn't matter if you miss out on the +1 for being within 30ft... yup, on reflection - Deadly Aim would have been the better feat choice. What is interesting about the Gunslinger is the relative lack of different builds at 1st level (compared with a fighter).
I tried playing a gunslinger and quite enjoyed it. Why may I ask did you give Dex 7 to a ranged class!? Fair question - I didn't. I meant to type Dex & Wis 16 - I've now re-edited the post.
Level 1 Gunslinger
So, firstly I misread the bit about equipment and thought it was 2 pistols + 50 shot. But, my character died really fast, so it didn't really become an issue. We were playing Voice in the Void and I got my Brain Eaten by the third (?) encounter. Anyhoo - here's my impressions: Not hugely fun at 1st level - there are just too many things that you need to get in order to make a viable character.
What would have been great is a spend 1 grit to get your WIS modifier as bonus precision damage. It felt kinda 'clockwork-y' as I was super-conscious of how I was spending my actions (even more than usual). Things that occurred to me - Perception should be a class skill; Brave and tough is just save progression masquerading as a class feature. Grit could be usable to give you the benefits of Rapid Reload, PBS or Precise Shot for 1 round. You need these feats to be viable - and it would be cool to have the ability to briefly get their use. I didn't like having to track Grit, it would feel better to have a set number of uses - 2 or 3 + WIS per day. Less fun that a 1st level Fighter, Barbarian or Inquisitor in terms of my experience playing these characters.
I ran this at tier 1-2 for 5 PCs, APL 2.4, so they were on the cusp of the 3-4 Tier. The first fight was the most challenging, and due to their low Awareness point total in the previous part, it was a relatively easy walk for them overall.
Spoiler:
First encounter is pretty good, with highly mobile archers riding around the PCs. it takes a little leap of faith/imagination to figure out why the Aspis Consortium warriors don't have combat-trained horses (obviously they've had to change mounts) and particularly why their leader is choosing to go into melee when he has to make a DC 20 Ride check to keep his mount under control. I made him a Taldan knight and an egomaniac so it all made sense. This first encounter is really good, pretty nasty in places and very enjoyable to run.
Once the PCs arrive at the camp, then the problems with the adventure start to creep in. I had only Taldan & Chelaxian PCs, so I only had to worry about two sets of faction missions. the problem with the Chelaxian mission of "find out about the third dig" is that it goes absolutely nowhere, following the adventure it takes 3 DC 15 Diplomacy checks to get the pathfinder in charge to admit "it's a power from another world". So, there's no real completion signal to the players and it's a bit unsatisfying from a narrative perspective. I just added a bit of investigation and had it be the after-image and residual traces of the use of a Melancholic Talisman - basically the after-effects of a hellmouth - no game effect, but a definite indicator of "we have found out what this is". The Taldan mission isn't quite as go-nowhere, but again, the discernment that the disease afflicting the camp is partly magical doesn't explain it's cause - so again, the narrative doesn't fully complete. I had it be a curse inflicted by the Girallon when it first appeared in the jungle. again, some nice roleplay investigation came out of this. Then we get on the investigation of the tomb/crypt. It’s basically ‘spam in a can’ – six skeletons in a 5’ corridor with three 10x50 chambers – always fills me with dread that sort of thing as it can quickly turn into a dull fight with one character dealing with a group of monsters holding a chokepoint. What I did here was give the skeletons the remnants of some tactics – given that they were originally Azlanti guards, this felt reasonable. So I had the skeletons lurking in the blind spots round corners as the 5’ corridors widened out into the alcoves, using readied actions to strike characters coming in and generally behaving in a slightly more interesting manner than mindlessly attacking. Just by using some flanking and some readied actions, the fight gained enough of a tactical dimension to be interesting. Then there’s the reveal of the ability of a PC to control the golem(s) and the fight against the Girallon. Firstly – that girallon needs a name! “Golku will smash puny humans” is a lot of fun to bellow, believe me! Secondly, for the final encounter to retain an epic feel, all PCs should feel a bit pressed – the golem takes down the girallon way to easily, even trying to play the girallon reasonably smart. Dramatically, having the girallon go down should be the end of the fight. Now you could run it so that with the girallon down, the camp has a chance to defeat the rest of its besiegers for good, but that is still a stretch. As it was I just threw two waves of charau-ka at the PCs as quickly as possible; once the girallon goes down, further fighting seems like a grind. Now I do accept that it is possible to run the golem vs girallon fight as a sideshow, with the main battle being the one against the charau-ka. Buuuut, a close fight against the girallon keeping time with the waves of attacks seems like more fun to me. Particularly if you vary a key point about the golem control device – I put in a strong implication that once one golem was destroyed, someone else would get a turn in the next golem – after all, why limit the fun? This was easily done with some flange descriptions about skewed perceptions, and having a momentary switch-out when another PC picked up the device. Overall, this can be lifted into a really, really fun game. The end pacing is runnable as is, but I think could be even more fun with less powerful golem stats. The plotting around the faction missions really needs some work though, as it stands the Chelaxian mission is unsatisfying and the Taldan one also just kinda peters out. This is well worth running, but just be prepared to put in a bit of extra work to tie up some of the loose ends.
Check out Anna Krieder's blog:
She calls Paizo on their genderfail over artwork, and Erik Mona responds. In my experience, Paizo as a company have a pretty good attitude to issues of gender, race, and sexuality in their writing. Unfortunately the images in their books don't match up with that attitude.
Nope - I like it; all good.
I'm reading Winter Witch at the moment - it's cracking along! It's a fine romp so far.
Very pleased to see many RotR monsters in there.. and badgers - yay!
Tie-ins with the flip-mats and map-packs ads value to those purchases for me. Before the Dawn #1 was a great PFS scenario for me to run because I had all the maps used in that adventure. More use of existing map products gets my vote.
Simon, living in Walthamstow. Been gaming for 25 years. Been in the same midweek gaming group for nearly 15 years. I've run a lot of different games, but I now run pathfinder pretty exclusively. Our midweek group is currently playing a 2nd AD&D game; but we've also played PF, Buffy, Mutant City Blues and a whole bunch of other stuff. We occasionally lose players, so if people are interested in a regular Thursday night game in Walthamstow, drop me a line and I'll get in contact with you when I next run PF (simon (at) english (dot) net)
NPCs, between the bestiary and the APs I never have problems finding a monster. Generic NPC statblocks on the other hand.... The Gamemastery Guide & NPC Guide are so useful, more of that please.
Better, more interesting, simpler system for counterspelling. At least 3 different theories of magic to give PCs plenty to argue about. Archetypes for the new base classes. Moar magic items; low-level ones <10,000 gp particularly.
I'd love to see a more workable and flavourful system for counterspelling.
To answer the OP's question. I don't mind Psionics, but I've only ever really liked them in three settings - Dark Sun, Eberron and Mindshadows (Green Ronin). In terms of Pathfinder as it is currently, psionics seem out-of-place in the broadly Howardian/Vancian/Lieber-esque world of the Inner Sea. That said, if you listen to the podcast of the Paizo Seminars, Erik Mona makes a good case for 'anchoring' certain rules to certain areas/continents of the Golarion campaign setting. For me, Psionics in Vudra = Awesome; or Psionics on Castroval = Super-freaking awesome. One thing I would say is that like many spells, the generic/science-fictiony names leech flavour right out of the setting. I prefer players to come up with cool names/colour effects for their spells, and I'd really want to see that for Psionics. The Eberron novels in the Dragon Below sequence, had the outright best depiction of psionics I've seen, due to the amazingly colourful Indian-derived names for the powers. The mechanics stuff is something I'm fairly confident that the Paizo developers will work out; for me the reason I don't really like psionics is because the flavour rarely adds anything to a setting, and usually is a detriment. When done right (as in the examples above) it does actually enhance the setting immensely.
Pathfinder, all the way.
Light and Heavy Crossbows are simple weapons. ...riiight - extra dumb-ass points for me. Misled by a quirk in Herolab - le shame.
Inquisitor weapon proficiencies: An inquisitor is proficient with all simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, longbow, repeating crossbow, shortbow, and the favored weapon of her deity. ...but not ordinary crossbows? Deliberate or errata? Seems odd.
I've only found them useful for Pathfinder Society - the pre-gens download for that is useful. For home games, I've never used them. If you free up two pages what I'd like to see is more player handouts/props/player-focused illustrations. That's content that saves time for the GM and is cool for the players.
Spoiler:
So in Burnt Offerings, the pages from Tsuto's Journal would have been extra cool. Handbills, wanted posters, proclamations, player crib sheets, depictions of items, landscapes etc. More stuff like that (I know there's usually a good amount of prop-worthy illustrations/handouts; but "more is more".)
Why thank you, first time out for the Inquisitor, and I really liked the dynamic of that group - made it most excellent fun. You were playing the "mortally wounded" dwarf?
Having played a number of PFS scenarios this weekend at PaizoConUK I can testify that the timeslot limit is a challenge, but a good ref knows how to quickly weave in a description; good players can do the same thing. I routinely use the GM Fiat rule (it is RAW) to give the +2 bonus for clever or appropriate description, as the player is adding to the creativity and overall fun of the game. The trick is being able to describe quickly. If I'm in an encounter as a player and the referee's dialog is:
Now this is just the difference between good reffing and mediocre reffing. From the Ref's point of view, they have to know the module, know the monster stats and know the rules in order to free up their cognitive processes enough to roll out good descriptions.
"I yell, and unleash a powerful set of blows at the Troll - I'm using Power Attack (clatter of dice). 1 hit; and AC 17? (confimed by ref); okay that's a longsword blow for 10 and a shield bash for 7." Now a mediocre ref simply writes those numbers down and moves on. The good ref actually responds with a quick description - and, critically, feedback on how the monster looks: "you slice open its shoulder and punch it in the side with your shield, it howls and reels back, it now looks heavily wounded.". This does take up time, but it's well worth it. I may be teaching people to suck eggs here; but my experience over the last few years at PFS games has been that this sort of exchange is sometimes present, sometimes not. A good description adds greatly to the overall play experience; if a player intimidates an opponent and roleplays it, honing in on something that the NPC is going to strongly react to, I'd give them that +2 - they've earned it.
It's very easy, particularly when faced with a time limit, to fall into a trap of just shouting out numbers - but it doesn't make for a fun game. RAW can be used to support a more rewarding style of play, but I'd say it will be the PCs benefiting mechanically most.
I like Ambrus’ solutions – it is much like what I’ve been considering. My thoughts on this – sexism is boring in rpgs. That’s the response I’ve got when discussing it with the female players I know. If you’re having to deal with endemic patriarchal nonsense every day; having it crop up in your escapist rpg is just not fun. There’s also a mechanical issue here: is it feasible that society can be male-dominated, when mechanically there’s absolutely no difference in strength and stamina between men and women? There are no ability adjustments for gender – imagine the effect his would have on say, sports, in our society – so I have a harder time figuring out what Erastil’s rationale is for placing men at the centre of the household – makes no sense to me. One factor that I’ve not seen brought up often enough is the fact that sexism is more covertly embedded and societally ‘acceptable’ than many other prejudices, so for me it has an additional status that does need to be recognised. I note that the Erastil article has a lot of gender-based ‘traditional values’ stuff – but not one word regarding homosexuals. One would assume that Erastil (as portrayed in the article) would be vehemently opposed to non-progeny producing relationships, yet there’s just no mention of this prejudice at all. I would lay even money that far fewer posters would feel comfortable ‘defending’ a write-up of an overtly ethnically racist or anti-homosexual LG god. My issue with Erastil being sexist is that it’s a bit boring, it’s not fun to roleplay, and it potentially opens the door for less-enlightened roleplayers to behave in a boorish manner, espousing attitudes that I have no time for under the guise of “that’s what the writeup says”.
I echo much of the above. I'm moving house, and I'm going to (eventually ebay) my 3.5 library - except MIC, it's a really useful book. Also, some means to keep hold of weapons and have them grow in power is a must-have for my players. I've house ruled out the non-upgradeability of mundane>masterwork in just about every game I've run. Earthdawn had a great system that involved learning more about a weapon's history to unlock it's powers - something along those lines would be great.
Hello, Could you cancel my Gamemastery map subscription please after you've shipped order #1423736. Thanks Simon
All sorted - thanks Cos. |
