helcat_74's page

CWM,

I'll refrain from addressing the issue of whether WoTC has actually abandonded the fans. Instead, I'd like to address the "sold out" status of the first print run. As many people have pointed out, a large majority of the first runs copies were undoubtedly grabbed by the big book store chains (B&N, Amazon, etc) who according to industry insiders could be returned to WoTC if they don't sell. You yourself pointed out that this does not equate popularity but merely the system is anticipated by sellers to generate a large profit. Even the pre-orders on Amazon which have gone exceptionally well does not indicate the system will be successful. The real test is yet to come in the later iterations of core books, splat books, and campaign books.

Admittedly they have sold out of the first run faster than 3.0 and 3.5. I'm not questioning that and will concede that point. But I don't think it means the system is auotmatically a success. Is it a good indication? Yes. Is it conclusive or even presumptive? No.

This story is not even close to being finished.

FP

I had preordered min from Amazon. The Friday of release I got an email stating that their estimated ship date has been pushed back a wee. That week I got another one stating that it had been pushed back to July 7th. I went to Borders, and they had only a third remaining from what was set out on Friday (I went to scope oout the new system thinking mine were on there way). Anyhow, I ended up purchasing the core set from Borders. They guy that runs my local gaming store said (just last night) they have been having trouble keeping them in stock.

Why not offer a system of 20 levels of spells rather than 9. Monte Cook has already shown us it can be done here.
Its a great solution to the 5 minute work day of spell casters, and it does it without making them overly powerful or week.

Actually, I am surprised someone else hasn't already started a thread on this. I've been checking by waiting to see it. Hmmm, maybe some one has and I missed it

Weapon Swap (pg 39).

Is it really necessary? Just use a double weapon and call it good.

Actually, my gut response was WTF(?) (as another on these boards put it). However, after reading it, it makse sense, not only for flying mounts but flying races as well (such as the cherubim elves from Monte Cook's Ptolus). The Fly skill is a flying creature's version of the Tumble skill (more or less).

Now whether or not there are enough groups (consumers) out there playing such creatures, or even GMs that allow them in their games, to warrant the space it takes up in the RPG guide or not is a whole 'nother story.

Thank you.

In the future I'll pay more attention. It just seemed like it was taking longer than usual.

As I said (and will say again), the orders I've made in the past were received with in a week or week and a half. Which I think is pretty quick. That combined with the selection here, is what keeps me coming back.

I can still remeber the days when just about anything you ordered from anybody took "6 to 8 weeks."

I placed an order a few weeks ago and the status here at the site shows to still be pending.

In the past, when I placed an order through the Paizo store, I recieved it with inside of a week. There may have been a couple orders that took a week and a half, but still...

I'm not complaining (yet) so much as curious as to why its taking so long to get shipped.

My order number is 540077

Other than the DM using software such as Turn Watcher, mapping/tile programs or pdfs, i really don't think laptops belong at the gaming table. With that said, as a DM i don't actually own a laptop, and the only player who regularly brings his pretty much only uses it for refrencing pdfs from third party publishers.

Here at home on my desktop, I have a plethora of third party pdfs purchased from 3rd party publishers downloaded from here as well as places like EnWorld. So, I am totaly into tech for the game, but not sure it belongs at the table in all its force and glory (read; MAJOR DISTRACTION).

Count my vote for supporting any Ptolus products. I already have some of the minis, and I purchased them through this site w/o even being aware of this thread. I also plan on buying the ful set, just waiting on a paycheck from a new employer (I start on the 21st of May)

Some new Ptolus modules would be awesome.

Each adventure in Pathfiner will be about 50 pages long, and will contain enough adventure to generally raise PCs about 3 levels. That said, none of the adventures are going to be focused on a single site, really; there'll be lots of elements you can pull out and run as a side trek, if you want. Similarly to how you can, for example, run the Parrot Island section of "There is no Honor" as a single adventure, or the Sodden Hold section of "Hall of Harsh Reflections."

sweet!

Sorry. I misunderstood something I read earlier.

I am now under the impression that each issue will only contain a level range of a few levels (the first being 1st through 3rd).

If the adventures in Pathfinder will run from 1st to 15th, will the adventures still be broken or seperated by level ranges?

One of the cool things about Dungeon was the ability to just use one adventure with a few alterations. I could drop one in for a side trek or use it as part of on ongoing campaign of my own.

Oops. Oh well.

Its fixed now (in your post).

I Really wanted to Say thanks to the Paizo staff for having their plan in place before announcing the end of the two magazines. Emotions are running high about this, I know I'm one of the ones pissed at Wizards, but the transition would be that much worse if I wasn't looking forward to seeing what you guys have planned for Pathfinder. I've been playing for 22yrs and Dungeon and Dragon Magazines have always been there. I'm not happy about the loss, and Wizards response to questions about it have been less than inspiring. But with Pathfinder at least we know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you.

An exerpt of an interview with Scott Rouse found at En World.

Read the whole thing here; http://www.enworld.org/index.php?

Actually, we're looking into doing just that, including ads/catalogues in each package that gets shipped from our warehouse. Presumably, that would include Pathfinder as well. So one way or another, news will still reach your doorstep. :)

I just recieved some Ptolus minis i ordered just last week and they came with a "Paizo Spring Catalog 2007". Its pretty cool. I would've expected it to be a little... more, I guess. But there's definately some items in it that will be part of my next purchase.

There is no need for First Watch, as you have seem to find the forum, all the new products are freatured on the frontpage of this website adn updated on a weekly (if not more) bases.

I found the forum because I have it bookmarked. I have it bookmarked so I don't have to go through the front page to get here.

Ads in a magazine that I read over and over have far greater impact than ads on a web page I never see, and won't be going outta my way to find.Also, I know from experiance browsing the store, there are companies that ran ads in the magazines that don't sell their products through the store here. Geek Label is one that comes to mind.

The catalog idea is a good one and I hope you follow through with it.

I realize Pathfinder is more of a "product" versus a replacement magazine. However, I would be willing to see a few more ads (and perhaps pay a little less for the subscription).

I also hope you intend to still include a list of other companies new releases. Through First Watch (in Dragon) and various ads from both magazines, I've been turned on to such companies and products as Dwarven Fordge's 3D terrain, Steal Squire's Area of effect templates, and Geek Label T-shirts just to name a few.

I relize it may not be called "First Watch" anymore, but I think it would be a good idea to have a review and or a new releases section.
(For what my opinion is worth)

Here's WOTC's response.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20070420a

I read that a little while ago and I encourage all of you who are "following the talent" and insist thatthe best writers work for Paizo and not WotC to read it as well.

I'm looking forward to my Pathfinder issues, but I do believe Dungeon and Dragon are in good hands. That doesn't mean I'm excited about them being online only. And it sure as the nine hells doesn't mean I'd payfor them.

Thank all of you at Paizo. I opted for the three issues of Pathfinder.

Having the faith in you folks that I do (developed from years of subscribibg), I'll actually buy the full fledge subscription in another month or two (when I have the cash).

If you're putting as much work into it as you did both Dungeon and Dragon, I'm sure Pathfinder is gonna be sweet!

The only down side I see is that _if_ the other two players in my group who also subscribe to Dragon roll their subscriptions over as well, and then go for the full subscritption, running advenbture paths with out them looking ahead will be a bit more difficult.

There was a very sound reason why Dragon, and Dungeon were two seperate magazines.

Thank you (again)! It was cool to give us subscribers an option for our remaining credit on subscriptions.

First of all, not all dwarven women necessarily have beards. The ones in my campaign world don't. And many of the minis I come across of dwarven women are also absent of beards.

Second, whats not sexy about dwarves? Geeze!
The tough corded muscles with sweat glistening from hammering stone and metal all day. The burly callused hands gripping the shaft of an axe or hammer.
Or how 'bout those stout wholesome female dwarves, eh? Their short stature and broad sexy bodies just cry out with warmth and tenderness with a subtle hint that they could crush the living daylights out of their enemies.

I love dwarves!! They're my favorit race to play.

As a DM, I'm currently running the Age of Worms (the PCs will be entering the lizardfolk lair next session), but have already informed my players that my next campaign will be an all dwarven campaign called Torazduum (wich is the name of a deep dwarven citadel in my hombrewed campaign setting [Atara]).

However, I also just preordered Monte Cook's Ptolus Campaign Setting. So I may try runnning an all dwarven campaign with that instead.

As far as books covering dwarves go, I would recomend Races of Stone (WotC), Quintessential Dwarf (Mongoose), and Hammer and Helm (Green Ronin). All three are full of dwarven goodness.

I use to think i knew the answer to this question and the answer was no. But as I was doing some reading it became unclear.

Do characters with an ECL get their racial HD? Even if it (Monster Manual) does not indicate its replaced by class levels?

Would a 5th level drow (+2 ecl and lets say 3 levels of fighter) have 2d8HD plus 3d10 for a total of 5HD?

What about native outsiders. Say a 5th level teifling (+1 ecl and 4 levels of fighter)?

...It'll return next month.

Thank the gods!

The group I DM for just finished off the grimlock archers in the Horshoe Caverns.

We play for 4 to six hours every sunday.

Check this thread:

http://paizo.com/dungeon/messageboards/ageOfWorms/archives/dMsShareYourBlog

Oops. Sorry. I had a feeling that there may have already been a post about campaign blogs. That was burried in the archives pretty good though.

Here's ours:
http://dunec.blogspot.com/

My group keeps a blog of their characters adventures. For the current campaign (AoW) only one player has decided to post about it, and recently he decided to start doing it from his characters point of veiw.

I enjoy reading campaign blogs and would realy like to read any one elses on the AoW adventure path. Is anyone else keeping a web log?

Here's ours:
http://dunec.blogspot.com/

One of my players is a paladin of Heironious, one of the others is a cleric of Heironious.

They turned Filge over to the authorities in the garisson.

We're just getting ready to kick off 3FoE. I dunno what I'm gonna do yet, but there's a lotta potential there for a recurring villain.

The online PDF supplement to Dungeon #130 is now available. This supplement contains all the maps from the issue, as well as player handouts and NPC illustrations.

Medium Resolution: 5MB PDF

High Resolution: 15.9MB PDF

Sweet!!! Thank you Dungeon Staff!!!

Bravo!!!

My f'n party split up!!! The Bard/Rogue, Hexblade and Wizard went after the captives from Blackwall Keep, the Cleric/Paladin of Heiroeous stayed behind to care for the wounded, and assume command of Blackwall keep until the garrison arrives. She will have to deal with the Spawn all by her lonesome. Mwwwaaahhhhahahaha...cough..cough...

Sweet!!!

There's an interesting race created by Monte Cook called Vallorian. It's not quite what your looking for but the weapons and armor the craft (or create)are actually living creatures.
http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_Legacy_vallorians2

They're on page 112 of Legacy of the Dragons.

Have you ever considered using the point buy method for rolling up stats. In my group we use the 32 point buy method. It puts everyone on an even keel, and allows for better customization. With 32 points (versus 28) you get a slightly tougher character.

Gestalting with a small party is not a bad idea, we use gestalt normaly cause the party totals three. However, we will not be for the AoW, the party may have potentialy seven players and a definate five.

Just a long shot but i'm guessing more than 5 and less than a million.

LOL

I will start the AoW Campaign after the 1st of the year.

Five players, possibly as many as seven, plus myself DMing.

Thank you James and Erik.

The fact that you read and respond to the posts after all the hounding over free material is a credit to your character and shows dedication (to the magazines and subscribers).

Again, thank you!

I am definately renewing my subscriptions to Dungeon and Dragon!

Can we get an ETA?

thanx folks.

If a weapon (say a bow) has an effect such as Flaming Burst or Shocking Burst and the attacker rolls a natural 20 and confirms on creatuer that is actually immune, would the burst effect still happen?

I'm not James but I think I'm right to say that none of the adventures that appear in Dungeon are designed for gestalt PC's. Your GM would have to make many adjustments, I think, to make such a game balanced. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just don't think the adventures will work as written for such a party. Regardless of whether you use psionics or not.

Well, I am the GM and in the campaign I have been running for the past year all three players are gestalt.

My previous question was aimed more at the psionic aspect of that character (a player is wanting to play).

As far as the gestalt thing goes, they are not nearly as powerful as some people think. It still blows my mind that there are people out there that think they are overwhleming or are over balanced. At the most, a player ends up with a character that has two good saves (and maybe a good attack bonus) verses the usual one. Unless of course you consider a monk gets all good saves anyway. Further more, the character is still limited to how much it can do at a time, regardless as to how many or which class abilities they have at their disposal.

Sorry to stray off topic.

Psion is an associated class for a psionic mind flayer. To make a CR 11 Zyrxog psion, you need only make him a 3rd level psion. These levels will indeed stack with his existing "phantom" psion levels, giving him the abilities of a 12th-level psion.

One thing to keep in mind though; the way psionics work means that NPCs are MUCH more effective psions than PCs, since usually there's no reason for an NPC to conserve his resources.

Which brings me to one of my concerns about mixing psionics with regular D&D. To use a semi-goofy analogy... think of all character classes as being a big tank of water. The water in the tank represents their abilities and potential havoc. The core classes have a garden hose they can use to empty that tank; the water that comes out (aka the resources and havoc they expend/create) is fairly constant. Psionic characters can burn their resources faster; they have a firehose. They still have the same amount of water in their tank, but when they turn that firehose on full blast, they can do a LOT more damage in an encounter than an equal level cleric or wizard or even fighter. The theory that this is balanced because the psion will run out of his resources sooner than any other class is suspect, especailly when a group rests often enough that the psion never has to worry about being out of points. For an NPC, this worry is nonexistant unless you, as DM, hold back on the firehose.

In an all psionics campaign, this isn't as much of a problem, because everyone's got a firehose. But giving a firehose to one or two characters in a campaign that mostly uses garden hoses is a recipie for trouble. I've seen it happen twice so far. it ain't pretty.

So... Are you saying I should not let one of my players play a psion/monk (gestalt)? ~seriously~

The 126 web supplement is now online.

Thanks, all (or most), for keeping your pants on.

Please give us 12 minutes to rest before asking for the #127 web supplement.

Thanks!

--Erik

How did he know I still had my pants on?

If a creature can rend after making two successful attacks (in the same round), but the creature has a high enough attack bonus that he has 3 attacks, would he still get the rend ability if he was making all three attacks?

(as in claw, claw, rend and claw)

Okay Helcat, I've gota question for you.

How do you figure how far to zoom in when printing the maps? That's the one drawback I've had in running games from dungeon. Even with the OS, I still haven't figured out how to properly zoom in to make a workable map.

I guess I could be more specific.

While I do have a photoshop program, and can say Takasi has a good idea, what I actually do is create a pdf file before I actually print anything. Although the zoom featuer can be used either way, for some reason I think the effect is better used with the pdf file version.

Also, since the maps (and in other cases the pictures of major npcs) are only used as a reference, having them to scale isn't a real problem (we won't be using them as tiles).

Why is damage reduction an extraordinary ability for barbarians and a supernatural abilty for the creatures in the MM?

Is there a reason why I shouldn't treat a dragons DR as an extraodinary abilty (i.e. uneffected by an antimagic feild)?

I admit it is disapointing, checking the site on an almost daily basis for the supplements.

But I must confess: In the event my players start to catch up to the current supplement lacking issues, I have another trick up my sleeve.

I scan the images into the comp, zoom in on the map, hit the print key, and PRESTO!!!! I have a map for my players as well as a image to put into the AoW folder I also created (and both are even in color).

Imagine that.

While the downloads make things a little easier for me, something else that helps is having a copier/printer.

Thank you Erik, and the rest of the Dungeon staff that work on the supplements!

thanx everyone.

I could still swear that I saw something some where that showed how it could be done in game terms.

I am aware of the MM2 half-golem, but that wasn't it.

I would like to see Paizo aquire the publication rights to GH.

Honestly, I have created my own setting, using GH, FR, and Eb. But more recently, for the AoW Adventure Path, I have literaly dropped Free City, Diamond Lake, and even Greysmere into my setting. They fit one region in paticular perfectly. Then that inspired me to develop some of the realms surrounding that one.

Anyhow, just voicing (or typing) my opinion.

Good Luck Erik! Good luck Paizo!

I could sware that in an older issue (a year or so ago) of either Dragon or Dungeon there was an article on crafting limbs for characters (who have had theirs severed and lost), it even referenced a paticular character form a campaign setting or had a character as an example. I also thought that it might have been in my DL Campaign Setting Book. Either way, I cannot find it.

Could some one please help.

What I vaugley remember was that it had some special properties. But I cannot remember any detail.

So, when is the online supplement geting here? Is there an ETA?

It gets kinda old checking the site everyday for it.

Mysthack wrote:

I believe I read on a forum somewhere that they were planning to release it to go along with the store release of dungeon 125, which is July 12th.

Yup, in one of the other threads Dungeon's editor said that Jul 12th is pretty much the 'deadline' for getting the Overload pdf up but the good news is that they are trying to do it sooner. They are busy with some game conventions and stuff so it looks like the earliest is likely to be next week. I'm impatient myself, but the Dungeon team definately goes the extra mile often enough, I can hold off til the 12th if I have to.

And Erik did give a tidbit preview of some of the Overload's content covering the Twilight Monastary and the Bronzewood Lodge near the bottom of this thread:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/ageOfWorms/ageOfWormsOverload

Hope that helps you hold on til they get the pdf posted!

Thanx, modenstein17

Man! I have searched and searched for the Age of Worms Overload free pdf and cannot find it.

Any one mind providing a link or listing the date that it will be availible?

thanx.