kenmckinney's page

I don't understand the OP problem either. It's trivial to align the border when preparing a map for a VTT.

In particular, I am against the suggestion that maps should be smaller to accommodate 5' squares. I like big , sprawling maps because they give enough distance in encounters to allow movement to be a substantial tactical consideration. I really hate runningg encounters in 30x30ft rooms.

Ken

Hey,
A new Pathfinder campaign I am starting has a really big haunted mansion as its centerpiece. I'm looking for a good map.
I have the Tegel Manor map but I think it is just too big; however everything else I've found online seems too small.

Any recommendations? Something about half the size of the Tegel Manor map would be just about perfect.

Ken

All this is an action/isn't an action stuff kind of misses the point.

Your job as a DM is to make the game fun.

Here's a simple rule:

It can be fun when the players exploit a rules loophole to the disadvantage of their enemies.

It's NEVER fun when the DM exploits a rules loophole to the disadvantage of the PCs. You already have plot knowledge and the ability to craft the encounter on your side, if you think your PCs are doing too well use those things instead.

So, even if what you described is technically allowable, you shouldn't do it.

Ken

Yeah, that was my main concern. I'm against the wizard having to subsidize the other PC's magic item habits at all, though. They should take their own damn crafting feats! And get off his lawn, too!

magnuskn wrote:

How much clearer can "The increased wealth for the other characters should come out of YOUR increased allotment" be? It is your increased wealth which you are supposed to give up. Not for the crafting components, but for the increased WBL allotment which you could have spent on crafting your own stuff.

You're giving up your potential income from crafting, but you're not giving up your actual share of the treasure.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding kenmckinney's concern, but it seemed to me that he was under the impression that the wizard would have to spend the actual money he'd already earned in order to craft things for other players.

I.e, you and I kill an ogre, and we sell it's ogre-pants for 2,000 gp. Split two ways, that gives us 1,000 gp each. If I want to craft some equipment for you, I would have to spend some of my 1,000 gp to do it (say, 250 gp), leaving me with 750 gp and you with 1,000 gp and equipment worth another 500 gp.

That is most definitely not the case. Maybe I misunderstood kenmckinney, though.

Add me to the 'more support articles are better than fiction' crowd.

My order of preference:
1) more maps
2) longer APs
3) more support articles specific to the AP

Here's another idea to consider: Use space in AP volume 2 to revisit stuff in volume 1/tie things together better. I'm sure there are lots of times when you wish you could update something but you've already gone to press. The next volume is a reasonable place to do that -- I doubt many people run your AP's as fast as they come out.

BTW, I suspended my subscription recently because I wasn't finding time to play and I already had a huge backlog of APs to run...but I'll be back!
Ken

The fighter should have a mythic ability available where he can throw a spear, jump on it, and ride it to its target, then get a free attack as he leaps off .

I was not aware that Mind Flayers were ever open content, nor had I heard that things once made open could be made closed. Are you absolutely certain of this?

Ken

Yes, I'd like to see the megadungeon AP too!

Ken

I want to see a web app called 'magic item shop'

It takes some parameters from the DM (city size, etc) and generates the stock that a particular magic item shop has on hand. The DM gives the magic item shop a name that is used to store that particular shop's contents on a SQL backend on the server

Once generated, the website can be revisited, the name given , and the magic item shop automatically updates over time. New items appear, old ones are sold and disappear. A few items don't sell and are gradually discounted. The rarest/most expensive items always eventually sell, at auctions that the magic item shop periodically holds.

The DM can supply an exclusion list (things that will never appear in the shop).

I think this would be a cooler way to provide access to magic items than 'here is the magic item section in the equipment manual'

Ken

+1 to

"the freaking players and their wierd urges".

LOL!

I think there's a special exception to railroading where 'beginning a campaign' is concerned.

I haven't read Skull and Shackles, because I've quit reading AP's before I expect to run them out of a forlorn hope that I will find a campaign with a fantastic GM to join.

But my hope would be that the adventure _begins_ with 'the PCs have been press ganged', rather than a staged fight with a forgone conclusion that they lose, and an expectation that they surrender rather than die. The former is definitely not railroading, and actually seems like a really good setup to a pirate game.

Ken

It's not a jerk move. Evil Lincoln has the right approach.

Guys, if you don't want to learn what your spells do, don't play a spellcaster. It's unfair to your DM and to the other players at the table to not know the rules regarding your spells, because it slows the game down and places an unreasonable burden on the DM. When I DM a game, my PC spellcasters should know their own spells better than I do.

Ken

I ran Savage Tide in Maptools through the first six magazines, so I have some perspective on this.

My suggestion is that you make the software free, but sell modules for each AP that you publish, as an optional add-on to an AP subscription that raises the price sufficiently to cover your investment.

The software should allow DMs to import maps/create their own tokens for free. What you're selling is the service of having this done already, much as your AP is the service of creating a campaign for a DM.

Ideally , I can load a campaign module into your tool and the maps are all there, and the monster tokens are loaded on each map (or off to the side, not a fan here of delve-style prepositioning). These tokens should include macros, with buttons for attack, full attack, special abilities, saves, perception rolls, intiative, and such.

The set of people who play online are probably the same people who have more cash than time. We're playing online because the friends we met in college have dispersed to the four corners of the world for their careers. It took me a lot of prep time to make maptools work, and I would gladly have paid you to do it instead.

Ken

Spring attack should go with combat reflexes and a reach weapon. You spring back far enough each turn that they have to incur an AoO to close with you, thus getting 2 attacks per round instead of one.

Ken

Maybe it's because I am a DM , and not a player, but I think it is _precisely_ when the bruiser has to leave those vulnerable party members exposed because he has to get back to the cleric for healing, that the battle becomes interesting!

I don't want the party to have a full toolbox with a ready answer for every problem. Because when they do, the fight becomes boring.

Ken

I agree about the Moon Radish quest. I'm probably going to just have Svetlana ask the PCs to stop by and pick up some Moon Radishes as a personal favor.

Ken

I'm a bit surprised that people playing characters in this Adventure Path are reading this thread. You're going to get spoiled!

Including right now.

SPOILERS
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OK, so I love what I've read so far, mostly. But I'm unhappy with the mites -- I'm thinking of replacing them.

Here is my idea: Instead of mites living under the tree, there are fey cursed children. Human pre-adolescent boys and girls, kidnapped from their homes by Fey, and changed into evil things.

I'm thinking they are children, with all the cruelty that kids can possess and nothing else. I'm debating what physical deformities they should have -- perhaps their mouths are full of razor-sharp teeth. But I think it will up the creepiness factor a great deal.

So, I am pretty new to Golarion. But I gather that the First World is basically Faerie. And I am assuming that there are bad things there..the sort of things that might kidnap children from their cribs and raise them, before casting them back to our world to fend for themselves.

Does that make sense?

Ken