james swetnam's page

I really wish you wouldn't put items up for pre-order if you have no clue when they will be available.

I would enjoy this

Why are Harrowing & Greater Harrowing not on the spell lists of any Occult Adventures classes? They would seem to be naturals for Psychics and Mediums especially.

There are plenty of alien species out they're, both sentient and not. Which classics would you like to see done up in starfinder? Obviously most are copyrighted, but seeing something with a similar concept could be fun. Personally, I'm hoping for stats for creatures based on:

Xenomorphs/facehuggers/chestbusters
Tribbles
Wookies
Little green men (playable?)
ET style aliens
Some version of the borg,but more organic
Cybertronians
The creature from Species (space succubus. Cause why not)
The glorf from Megas Xlr

Puppeteers, Kzinti, Jotoki, Kdatlyno, & Outsiders - all from Larry Niven's Known Space setting. He would likely be fine with them being used.

How about this:
Deadlands- Hell on Earth campaign,which has been running for maybe 20 sessions or so. We had acquired quite a lot of food, water, extra weapons and ammo - all of which were stored in the armored truck we were lucky enough to find. We're helping defend a small town against the raiders who were the focus Bad Guys of the story, when out of nowhere a small plane crashes directly into the truck, destroying everything except what we were carrying at the time.
I looked at the GM and said, "If you didn't want us to have that stuff, why give it to us in the first place?"

Jaelithe wrote:

Dying moment of Awesome

That. IS. A Badass way to go.

This CE Gnoll salutes you.

Way to stand for your principles!

I've got a few gripes with GMs, but what really gets under my skin is when GMs take away the players' agency.

This doesn't usually apply to Society, since the GMs are forced to run the module as written, but it applies to module writers.

What I mean by that is, ideally every player should be able to play their character.
That doesn't mean every character needs to be useful, if they didn't bring cold iron and the creature has DR a billion/cold iron? Sucks to be that player, guess they won't be damaging the monster, however, they're still fully in control of their character. There are things they could theoretically be doing.

My beef is with confusion, dominate person, deep slumber, color spray, certain fear effects, etc. Things which take control of a character away from their player, or just straight up prevent them from acting.

Pathfinder is a game, and games are only fun if you're allowed to play.

Also, don't ignore the tactics. The final fight in ToEE is hard enough at 1-2, you don't need to pull out all the stops, and ignore the villain's exit strategy. Doing that makes you a dick.

Well, yes..all those suck to be on the receiving end of, but it's unreasonable to expect a creature not to use them if it can. You would, if your character had such spells... The thing is,{1} don't take it personally, {2} give the PC every opportunity to make another save, and {3} roll with it. Our group's monk was walked off a cliff by a flock of harpies last session. Her player wasn't happy [BTW, monk survived] but she went with it...because that is what the harpies would have done. Not attack a superior force physically, not run away; they would sing and try to kill us that way. If the sorceror hadn't thrown up a wall of force, 3 other PCs would have taken the fall as well...But the monk had the ability to jump the wall, so the GM had her roll INT to see if she thought of trying while mesmerized. Nat 20 meant she did. The point is, many things take away the player's control...if you don't like it, optimize your saves - but don't complain because the monsters don't play fair.

Aura moderate transmutation; CL 7

Slot shoulders; Price 12,000 gp; Weight 2 lbs.
Description
This glossy black, scaly cloak is made from snakeskin. It closely adheres to the wearer’s back and upper arms, with a hood flaring out like a cobra’s. The wearer’s movements become lithe, granting him the compression monster ability and a +2 dodge bonus to Reflex saves. His voice becomes sibilant, and he may use Speak with Animals with any reptilian animal three times per day. The wearer’s body temperature drops and he is treated as a cold-blooded creature (rendering him less attractive to certain monsters). However, whenever he takes cold damage, he is slowed for one round. Furthermore, the wearer is slowed whenever the ambient temperature is below freezing. Once per day, the wearer may shed the cloak as a serpent sheds its skin. This is a swift action which does not require any free hands. If the wearer is grappled or entangled about the torso, shedding the cloak grants automatic success on an Escape Artist check that round.

Construction Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Speak with Animals, Animal Aspect, Freedom of Movement
Cost 6,000 gp

Very well done. Useful, not over-powered, and above all COOL.