kyrt-ryder's page

Part of the problem I see in this board is cognitive dissonance regarding levels.

Some of the player base, such as myself, view levels as personal evolution. As becoming something greater, transcending the previous state of being into a higher state. As an actual physical transfiguration from being ‘level X’ to ‘level X+1’

Meanwhile others seem to view levels as primarily a reflection of simple experience and training, of learning to do things better.

Below I explain why I feel my own perspective is the one that most accurately reflects the current game.

Pathfinder can be seen as a descendant of Dungeons and Dragons, but many players and GMs still perceive leveling up in the same manner as AD&D.

Back in AD&D, ‘leveling’ was simply coalescing your experiences with the next stage of training. It was coming back to civilization, finding a trainer and learning the next stage. This is reinforced by the hit dice cap, at a certain point you just don’t get any better at mitigating/enduring/overcoming damage. You’re merely a mortal learning to do your thing better.

When Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 came out, levels no longer require going back to town for further education. They need only a good night’s sleep and BAM, you have risen to the next level. No matter how high a level you reach [so long as there are more levels to gain] your hit points continue to increase as does your skill ranks cap. In 3rd Edition Experience Yield is based on APL vs CR, the more challenging the encounter for the party the greater the experience gained, or the reverse, curbstomp battles yield less experience.

Come Pathfinder 1 and Experience Points no longer care about the level of the party. The party simply grows as a result of overcoming the challenges.

Bear in mind, Pathfinder Characters gradually transcend human limitations whether you like it or not. Surviving contact with lava, reliably surviving tremendous falls (possibly changed in PF2), wrestling Rhinos, the list goes on and on.

In PF2, what alignment is Batman?

Please clearly elucidate your reason.

Has there been any thought put towards allowing members to make a 'signature' appended to the end of each post?

Failing that, is there any policy against a Pseudo Signature, text placed under each post by the member, perhaps under a divider such as a line of asterisks?

***************

Like such.

Have you ever found yourself disgruntled with the standard 3.X ruleset? Martial Caster Disparity, Magic Item Dependency or Material [rather than Option] Bloat getting you down?

Perhaps getting five people together is a challenge and you'd find it easier to play with four in total [one to run and three to play]?

I may have the solution you're looking for.

Over the past half-decade I've been refining what began as houserules and has evolved into an entire alternate ruleset to address these problems.

Moving forward I will be linking from this thread into my website as I publish rules; you are all welcome- nay- encouraged to critique and playtest them ruthlessly. The more support, the greater odds of a successful launch and the better the final product will become.

Are you ready to Eclipse the Cosmos?

Join me and your fellow players on a quest that is sure to leave legends in your wake. You and your two companions start as big fish in the small pond of Sandpoint, but who knows where your adventures will take you.

This is a playtest of my own homebrew system intended to be fully compatible with unaltered Paizo Published Material, powering up the weaker roles [with a little candy for the stronger ones] considerably reduced the Standard Party Size from four to three. Whether we use Text Chat or Mic Chat is up to the consensus of the group, though I do have a slight preference towards Text as something I can reference back to.

I may be running two separate groups to handle scheduling.

Please post your rough character concept [in terms of theme rather than class] and available schedule in your introductory post.

Thanks, I'm looking forward to playing with you all.

Is there an Adventure Path you've always wanted to play, but never got the chance?
Do you hunger for a new experience with enough familiarity to feel at home?

Then this game just might be for you.

I'm looking to put together players interested in playtesting my new Roleplaying Game [intended to be compatible with Paizo AP's] in unmodified games.

Each campaign requires three stable players able to meet online at least once every two weeks. The particular meeting time is open for negotiation, but each session needs to end by 10pm Pacific Time, and if it's running at 7 Pacific there will need to be a 30 minute recess at that time as I have farm animals that need tended to at that time.

Right now I have a Shattered Star playtest going, so that one AP is off-limits for new campaigns [though standby replacement players would be immensely appreciated] but any other Adventure Path written for the Pathfinder Rules [including Anniversary Edition RotL] is available.

WIP Player's Guide Folder (empty at the initial time of posting.)

note: if you noticed this post in the recruitment board, it was explained to me that board is intended for PBPs

I seem to have been running into significant trouble using the 'online campaign recruitment board' looking for players for online campaigns... That happen to be in a realtime format.

Is there any way those of use using chat or gametable software could get our own recruitment board?

Please share your stories on times you thought people wanted to play with you... They expressed interest... And then abandoned the game in question.

Had that happen to me today, was even getting ready to buy a Reign of Winter PDF (or at least the first book of it) and BAM both of two people who said they wanted to play bowed out, in this particular case on the grounds they didn't want to partake in a realtime online campaign.

As requested in the Open Call thread I am creating a Playtest of Cosmos Eclipse [a loosely PF-based game of my own creation] by way of the Reign of Winter Adventure Path.

We use Roll20 for chat [text or voice are both options we can explore] and dice roller, but roleplay and combat are Battlefield of the Mind.

Please post your rough character ideas [Origins/Identities/Goals/Ambitions and themes in terms of their capabilities] and we shall work from there.

Also select one archetype for the Character, Hero [skilled warrior martial types], Dabbler [mixes martial and magic of up to 7th level spells, with a special gimmick wrapped around a skill, like Bard with Perform or Alchemist with Alchemy or Cleric with Religion] or Mage [Full Spellcasters and frailest archetype of all] and we'll build from there.

Play time will be at least once every two weeks [once a week is good by me as well] with the exact time and day to be determined by the group as a whole.

Part of my playtest group is unavailable this week and I want to run a game for them, letting them have some fun flexing new characters while seeing how those variants perform against published material.

So here I am seeking semi-urgent advice. What do you feel are the best stand-alone adventures for a one-shot at level 2? A bit of roleplay/story is good, but nothing that requires prior involvement.

Do you hunger for a new experience with enough familiarity to feel at home?

Then this game just might be for you.

I'm looking to put together players interested in playtesting my new Roleplaying Game [intended to be compatible with Paizo AP's] in unmodified games.

Each campaign requires three stable players able to meet online at least once every two weeks. The particular meeting time is open for negotiation, but each session needs to end by 10pm Pacific Time, and if it's running at 7 Pacific there will need to be a 30 minute recess at that time as I have farm animals that need tended to at that time.

Right now I have a Shattered Star playtest going, so that one AP is off-limits for new campaigns [though standby replacement players would be immensely appreciated] but any other Adventure Path written for the Pathfinder Rules [including Anniversary Edition RotL] is available.

WIP Player's Guide Folder (empty at the initial time of posting.)

Who sounds like they'd be crazy fun to play at their table? Who's take on rules or settings whets your whistle for gaming?

I'm running a playtest of my homebrew system with roots in Pathfinder. The greatest problem I seem to run into with players is a lack of drive to play what they want, many seem to want to look at a list of classes and choose from among them.

Here I'm offering you a choice of what YOU want to be, cooperative character creation between player and GM.

We're at level 2 and have plans to start play some time in the next 10 hours [likely towards the later end of it.]

Current party is a Technical Hero [full BAB warrior type with rogue flair] and a Chi Hero [full BAB warrior type with monk flair.]

We could really use a caster of some sort, but any character type is acceptable.

We play via Roll20, either text or skype voice chat.

NOTE: when I say everything, I do mean everything. One of the present players is a weird custom race and a player with spotty attendance is playing a literal [very young, with PC type statistics and abilities] Medium Sized White Dragon.

I feel kind of bad putting out two GM requests in such short sequence but in all honesty... right now I'm not really in the right headspace to PbP GM Pathfinder [honestly... I don't really GM Pathfinder anymore, I GM a chimera freak of a game somewhat derived from Pathfinder.]

So I'm here seeking a GM to run a Pathfinder Adventure Path unmodified [small tweaks for the sake of story are cool, but mechanically please run it as written] for an All Cleric party. For clarity, I'm looking to participate in an AP that was written for Pathfinder.

In part since I've begun playing an All Wizard Rise of the Runelords I've become intrigued in how the other AP's play out, in part I wish to continue my thought experiment on Mono-casting-class parties and in part it just seems like fun.

I'm willing to either construct and run all Clerics myself or to be a player in a group, either two players each with two clerics or one cleric per player [although if there is a group of players I would request the GM give us time to coordinate our character creation so as to cover as diverse a swath of roles for low level practicality as possible.]

It seems wrong to have one player hogging two-three clerics with another player present, but I suppose if only one or two other players signed up and they were fine with it then I would be willing to do so.

Requesting 20 point buy.

I've seen varying opinions and am not 100% certain myself.

Does Exquisite Accompaniment work on Bardic Masterpieces?

There are some feats out there that reference the bearer's character level.

How is this treated when an animal companion [with at least 3 Int] takes such a feat?

Is it equal to their respective 'Companion Level' [the level which calculates their companion abilities]?

Or is it treated according to their Hit Dice?

If a mount is Frightened, can the rider Control it with a ride check as he would a non-combat trained mount? I'm not certain whether that text is only relevant to a non-combat trained mount's fear of combat in general or if the rider can override fear effects suffered by his mount, forcing it to do as he wishes despite its fear.

If a caster readies an action to hit an enemy caster with a Disruptive, Rime spell and the target fails its save, is the caster now subject to three separate Concentration Checks in order to complete his spell? One for taking damage while casting, one for being entangled and one for Disruptive?

Does

A character who chooses alchemist as his secondary class gains the following secondary class features.

Alchemy: At 3rd level, he adds his character level as a competence bonus on all Craft (alchemy) checks and can use Craft (alchemy) to identify potions.

Bombs: At 7th level, he gains the ability to create a number of bombs per day equal to his Intelligence modifier + 1/2 his character level. The bombs deal damage as an alchemist of his character level, but since he doesn't have the alchemist's throw anything class feature, he doesn't add his Intelligence modifier to the damage.

Mutagen: At 11th level, he gains the mutagen class feature, with a duration equal to 10 minutes per character level. He counts as an alchemist for the purposes of drinking a mutagen.

Swift Poisoning: At 15th level, he gains the poison use and swift poisoning abilities.

Poison Immunity: At 19th level, he becomes immune to poison.

Combined with Thuvian Alchemist

enable you to take Discoveries as an Alchemist of your Character Level? You are an Alchemist and have an Alchemist level and are receiving Discoveries. You just received your Discovery Class Feature from an alternate source [one which actually stacks with Alchemist levels and debatably could allow you could take Discoveries above your character level, but that's a bit abusive and not my intention here.]

Alchemical Agents Info for Reference

You cannot use the same item as both a focus and a material component at the same time.

Does this mean that- if the caster has two hands free- he can use one copy of the item as a focus and expend another as a material component? Or does it mean the two functions cannot be used in the same casting?

Reagents do not stack with either themselves or one another, and are expended after use.

I believe this means that Saltpeter [+1 fire damage] and Black Powder [+1 damage to Evocation spells] do not function together, correct?

I'm slightly second-guessing it because they specifically highlight different things, but I'm pretty sure they don't.

Lets say the party encounters an enemy with a spell tattoo who- for whatever his reasons- does not use it during the encounter and he perishes.

Is it reasonable that with the appropriate craft skills [Craft: Taxidermy? or would Craft: Parchmenter be its own independent thing here?] one could take a corpse and create a Parchment Scroll with the spell already on it?

Naturally this is by far the inferior choice to the Transfer Tattoo spell, by becoming a scroll instead of a spell tattoo it is no longer silent and must be held in order to use. Beyond that, a Spell Tattoo has a market value 4x that of a scroll so the crafter is losing treasure value compared to absorbing the Spell Tattoo as is.

Not 100% sure if a player recruiting for a GM is cool on this board, but someone else is doing it and getting good results so I figured I'd give it a go. Without further ado, behold my request.

Four Wizards of largely disparate upbringing, One man, two women and something not exactly either of the two have recently moved to Sandpoint as a group of friends. Three of the four have personal ties to the place, while the last is an outlander, having joined the group of friends during their time together in Minata as they all completed their Wizard training. Having gone their separate ways to establish themselves after completing the move, the group promised to reunite at the upcoming Swallowtail Festival.

What initially began as a thought experiment to prove the viability of a group of four wizards playing from level 1 in an adventure path has since blossomed in me as an adventure I'd deeply love to play out.

I've only read the Player's Guide [to the Anniversary Edition mind], my last GM mentioned this Swallowtail Festival in his initial- and only- post in the campaign - so I'm assuming it's where things start up. If I am mistaken we could always do whatever might be appropriate before that event as solo characters or pairs. [Or I can retcon their appointed meeting, whatever works for you.]

As far as GM-ship goes, I ask for three things.
1st: Reliability- obviously life can stick its nose into our scheduling and screw things up, but I'm doing my very best to post within 24 hours of a reply [and an additional 24 hours at the very latest] and would greatly appreciate similar commitment [though dependent on schedules the committed pace might be a bit slower.]

2nd: RAW to RAI- I'm asking that the GM change as little as possible in the campaign, for the sake of making it as accurate an experiment as possible. This means not adjusting the encounters for the sake of the party, neither powered up nor powered down. Note: one thing I do ask here is a bit of leniency/reasonability when it comes to feats/spells/magic items. Now and then there's a piece of published content which isn't worded in a manner so as to actually do what it's intended to do. The Undead Master feat and Spell-Storing Armor immediately come to mind as examples. In these cases and similar, I'd greatly appreciate a fair interpretation rather than hard RAW.

3rd: Story Focus- My nature as a roleplayer is one focused on the story, despite my tendency towards optimization. Please provide an environment where I can really get into these characters and bring them to life. This may sound strange given that there are four of them, but my background in roleplaying is from Forum Play By Post wherein it was common for a player to have many characters in the same game/world [though admittedly these characters nearly never interacted with one-another, keeping player-character-character knowledge and personality distinct were still critical skills.]

I know I'm asking a lot, but I believe I have a lot to bring to the table and can help forge an awesome story together with a GM, despite the pre-constructed nature of an Adventure Path.

As an aside, I am willing to run a campaign for my GM in this regard, though I must warn you my style of GMing is a bit off the wall, very instinctive and reactive and I expect a lot of creative spark and world-building out of my players. Also my schedule at this time is such that I'm probably better off not GMing and Participating in games at the same time, so it may be better to have me owe you an IOU than to ask me to run for you simultaneously. [A look at my posting history will show that I've been a regular on these boards for a long time, and while I may take a break from them for a period I always come back.]

Regardless of your decision, thank you very much for reading my request. I hope the rest of your day treats you well.

I've heard/read in places that one could use the Bestow Curse Spell to bestow a curse which is only triggered under certain circumstances, rather than a constant effect but I'm not seeing anything in the text confirming such a claim.

Am I missing something?

Lets say a Negative-Energy-Channeling Cleric multiclasses in Oracle of Bones and picks up the Undead Servitude Revelation.

You gain Command Undead as a bonus feat. You can channel negative energy a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier, but only to use Command Undead. You can take other feats to add to this ability, such as Improved Channeling, but not feats that alter this ability, such as Alignment Channel.

This character now has two separate pools of Channel Energy, each with their own effective cleric level.

Does this mean he has two separate pools for Commanded Undead equal to his respective levels in each class?

I'm wondering if a Contracted Person [according to the Spellcasting Contract spell] is able to charge a staff with his spells.

This spell functions exactly like imbue with spell ability, except that you can imbue the target with any spell you have prepared (instead of just abjuration, divination, or conjuration [healing] spells) and the target may have more than one use of the imbued spells, depending upon the arrangements made when it is cast.

Casting this spell requires a contract between you and the target, explaining what spells are to be imbued and the circumstances that cause the contract to expire. The contract may be as simple as allowing the target one casting of each of the imbued spells (as per imbue with spell ability), or may continue for multiple days or even indefinitely, with the target regaining use of the imbued spells when you next prepare your own spells.

This grants these spells to the Contracted Person, which they regain 'when you prepare spells or regain spell slots.'

Staves hold a maximum of 10 charges. Each spell cast from a staff consumes one or more charges. When a staff runs out of charges, it cannot be used until it is recharged. Each morning, when a spellcaster prepares spells or regains spell slots, he can also imbue one staff with a portion of his power so long as one or more of the spells cast by the staff is on his spell list and he is capable of casting at least one of the spells. Imbuing a staff with this power restores one charge to the staff, but the caster must forgo one prepared spell or spell slot of a level equal to the highest-level spell cast by the staff. For example, a 9th-level wizard with a staff of fire could imbue the staff with one charge per day by using up one of his 4th-level spells. A staff cannot gain more than one charge per day and a caster cannot imbue more than one staff per day.

By my reading, a Contracted Person could recharge a staff that held at least one of the spells he has been imbued with by expending a spell of the appropriate level when his Contractor prepares/recovers spells [much like how the contractor himself must do to recharge a staff.]

The reason for using this is because any given spellcaster can only recharge one staff per day.

The disadvantage is that the staff is restricted to spells of 3rd level or lower, which is an even bigger disadvantage than initially appears because staves must be at least 8th caster level, in essence wasting one of the spell levels a minimum caster level spell could possess.

Any thoughts/disagreements with my reasoning here?

So I have a character with no interest in Scribe Scroll who would really, really like to get their hands on Spell Mastery and I'm wondering... what do you guys think of swapping the two?

I'm curious what reasoning people would have for or against [aside from the simple 'it's not RAW' argument. Obviously it's not RAW [though I do wonder why, it was probably just a simplicity thing nobody felt like bothering with in the transition to PF, rather than adding an additional choice to level 1 Wizards.]

I've been a bit out of the loop the last year or two so I'm not quite up to date on all the new options that have been coming out.

How would you build a shuriken specialist? Does Pathfinder have a means of using magical ones without wasting money yet?

While my primary objective here is RAW, I am also interested in RAI of things which don't quite work but *should*, and of slight homebrew tweaks to existing items that make sense.

The two things I'd like to request not included in responses is flat out homebrew material [including custom spell-based magic items] and 3rd party. This isn't because I'm opposed to third party/homebrew, but because I'm making this character as part of a challenge within Paizo's published rules.

I was having a very deep conversation regarding the capabilities of mounts [and what exactly Combat Trained is required for] and I can't for the life of me figure out what a Rider must do in order to get a mount to attack when he has no interest in attacking himself.

The rider in question can easily keep at least one if not two hands on the reigns.

The Mount doesn't require a specific trick for a rider to direct it to attack does it?

The Spirit Whisperer references a familiar - as a witch - but I can't tell for sure whether or not the Spirit Whisperer gets Patron Spells.

Is it possible to set up a system where when a moderator deletes a post, a copy of that post is sent to the user who made the post?

Quite often I see 'posts have been deleted' notifications in threads I'm participating in, and I can't help but wonder whether or not something I wrote was lost, what that might be and what I may have done wrong.

Obviously it's too much work expecting moderators to send a message to users they delete posts from explaining what they did wrong, but knowing whether or not we lost a post and the content of that post could go some distance towards reducing the need for deleting posts [because we could better adjust our behavior.]

Also sometimes a post has really good content but breaks a guideline, getting that content back would be much appreciated.

I'm sure I'm probably guilty of this as well from time to time, but I've been experiencing it a lot lately on these boards and it's really infuriating.

People start a thread to talk about X. It goes great for a few posts, and then inevitably people invade the thread to say 'X doesn't matter' or 'X isn't real' or 'X isn't an issue if you play the game the One True Way like I do.'

A simple statement of such is kind of rude, but acceptable.

But then we go on to derail the entire dang thread into an argument rather than letting the thread run its course on its designated topic!

Lets all be gentlemen [and ladies and whatever else you might identify with] and make an effort to stop this behavior, it's not good.

It just occurred to me that I don't actually know the RAW of when 'per round damage' [such as being on fire for example] occurs.

A PRD link or CRB page reference would be ideal, thank you.

In another thread on here I ran into a bit of a clash of views and I'd like to explore that in this thread.

To me, leveling is fundamentally evolving as a physical being. It's becoming tougher, it's increasing reflexes and resilience to both physical and magical effects.

As far as I'm concerned, a level one and level ten person might as well not be considered the same creature. They're compatible in terms of reproduction and transplants, but the one has become so much more than the other.

A replacement for the Fighter class.

Role: Kicking ass and taking names with nothing more than her flesh and blood body and the arms and armor wielded by it.

Alignment: Any

Hit Die: 2d6

Starting Wealth: 5d6 gold coins pocket change, plus whatever equipment the Soldier starts with.

Base Attack Bonus: Full [1 per level]

Good Saving Throws: Fortitude, Reflex, Will

Skill Ranks per Level: 4+int

Special Note: the Soldier's profession is not one which can be entered into and then sidestepped so easily. Once this class is started, it can not be multi-classed out of only completed.

Bonus Feats: The Soldier receives a bonus combat feat at every level he takes the class. He ignores all numerical prerequisites for these feats and continues to ignore those numerical prerequisites for any feats those feats serve as prerequisites for, throughout the entirety of his life [unless he retrained away his Soldier Levels.]

Level 1: Armor Training: The soldier takes no penalties to movement speed from any armor he wears nor suffers any penalty for sleeping in armor of any weight category. Furthermore, he gains DR 1/- this DR stacks with Adamantium Armor and bonus increases by 1 at BAB + 5 and every 4 points beyond.

Lastly, Armor Check Penalty is reduced by one for every Soldier Level taken.

Level 2: Survival Training: The soldier gains a +1 bonus to all saving throws. This bonus increases by 1 at BAB + 5 and every 4 points beyond.

Level 3: Weapon Training: The soldier gains a +1 bonus to hit and damage when attacking with a weapon [including Unarmed Strikes.] This bonus increases by 1 at BAB + 5 and every 4 points beyond.

Level 4: Endurance Training: A solider of this level obtains Fast Healing 1.

Do you prefer to play WITH your players, rather than slave over managing a campaign and adventures whilst hoping and praying they don't somehow screw it up [players are good at that.]

Do you enjoy exercising your creativity in the moment, moreso than homework between sessions?

Then Spontaneous GMing might be right for you.

I'm starting this thread as a discussion, sort of a brainstorming session on ideas and methods for GMing in this way, with the potential of eventually creating a guide to people wishing to learn to run their games in this manner.

I'll start the ball rolling with the following:

Rule #1: collaborate with each player on creating the most awesome character the two of you can come up with, fully fleshed out in detail including bits about his...

people [family, friends, allies, associates...]

place [where he grew up, where he trained/studied, where his home is located now, in as much detail as possible including bits about the geographical/political regions these places are located in.

And lastly his...

Persona [who he is, how he behaves and feels about events in his life. How he grew up and where he wants to go in life. Goals, Dreams Ambitions, Fears...]

So here's the deal. I like Pathfinder, but there are things I don't like about it.

My houserules documents change way too much stuff to truly call my campaign Pathfinder anymore, but it's based on Pathfinder, and IMO it's awesome.

We'll be playing somewhere in Graham, the specific location remains to be determined but likely within 5 miles of Graham Square [aka the Graham Safeway complex]

Battlefield of the mind style, no miniatures required.

As for your characters, please reply to this thread with a description of what sort of character you'd like to play. Not with existing game mechanics [I use those for inspiration but I go so far beyond those] but with themes and dreams.

This topic came up as a slight derail in another thread that's now been locked [no, not because of this derail >_<.] Regardless, I've been using 2d10 instead of 1d20 for years in my campaigns and really enjoy the benefits of doing so [far less swingy and cleaner distribution] but I am curious to hear other people's thoughts on it.

I mentioned I do crits a bit differently, using 19-20, 18-20 and 17-20 as the critical numbers, critical threats that overcome AC being automatic automatic crits. Improved Critical/Keen increases the threat range by 1 notch [So a Keen Rapier would crit on 15% of hits.]

To which Ashiel replied the quote below, making me wonder what other drawbacks people might find with this system.

I don't think a game without confirmations would be for me. The threat doesn't even matter if it was going to miss anyway, and the auto-success makes a lot of really great abilities useless and redundant, and it nerfs armor.

In reply, I find the game flows smoother and players tend to appreciate not having a gamble on whether or not their crit threats confirm. Regarding those other abilities? Don't need 'em anymore, I can replace them with other cool s~+! or- in the case of feats- simply clear them from the game.

EDIT: if anybody has any positive experiences/thoughts you're more than welcome to share them as well.

Please forgive me if this question has been posed before [and if it has, any links to threads I've failed to find in my searches would be much appreciated] but I've failed to find my answer through the search function.

If one were to drastically alter aspects of PFRPG [Skills, Feats, Classes etc] in the creation of a divergent game but took great pains to specifically ensure that PCs created under that system were compatible with PF opposition [Bestiaries, Adventure Paths and modules etc] as-written, would that be construed as compatible despite the breadth of changes?

For a number of reasons, I'm currently unable to game very far away from home (and not AT home) except via the internet. Therefore I'm hoping to find or form a group somewhere in the rough Puyallup-Spanaway-Eatonville-Orting circuit, the closer to Graham the better.

I'm not at all opposed to doing the GMing, but I will warn you that I tend to be a heavy (but with a mind towards balance and fun) houseruler when I sit in the GM seat.

I see this all the time on the boards, GMs who have this expectation that players should 'step in line' and 'play by the script' and find myself wondering...

Where are the other GMs who do away with the concept of a script entirely, and play improv-style along with their players?

I can't be the only one on these boards.

One thing that's bothered me for a long time, is the prevalence of touch attacks, and how that complicates Armor Class.

I'm contemplating the idea of replacing Touch Attacks with reflex saves, and wanted to run the idea by the forum, see what sort of discussion it generates.

In another thread here, I came to the realization that many people don't have the visualization skills to handle Theater of the Mind style gameplay, and that mine is getting a little rusty.

So my idea with this thread, is for people to post up encounters (the landscape/terrain, the obstacles, the features of the location of the encounter, the opposition, the party members, etc) along with a rough concept of how the encounter went, or of how the encounter might go if its an encounter which isn't pulled out of a game you've been involved in.

I don't care if these encounters come out of your own head/homebrew, a campaign you've played in, a module you've read, or something you've seen on TV.

There's no keeping score here (nor can I imagine how that would even be possible) its just a bit of a mental challenge to envision encounters happening inside your head.

I'd post an encounter to start the game, but I have pressing matters pulling me away. I'll try to get one posted sometime tonight or tomorrow, but please don't let that stop you guys from posting encounters of your own.

So... tonight I learned that either Herolabs only knows how to price additional spells for a wizard's spellbook by the price of scrolls, or that my GM doesn't know how to access the alternative.

After skimming through my book and online resources... I'm not finding it. I thought one could pay 50% more than the scribing cost (So 20 gold for a second level, etc) to copy from someone else's book (and then pay the scribing costs themselves to put them in your book, of course.) For a total of 60 gold per second level spell.

Am I wrong in this? Obviously the circumstances that would allow this option vary. In my personal case, the Wizard was a student of an Eberron Wizard College and then served a military until level 3, so I figure he probably had the opportunity to rent 'copying rights' for most spells he might want of up to second level.

To sum this post up in a rules question: Do the rules list pricing for a Wizard to copy spells from NPC wizards; if so, what is the recommended cost; and lastly, where is this information in the CRB/PRD (links or links to screenshots are greatly appreciated.)

I have a bit of a dilemma here, and was wondering if anybody might have a few resources they could suggest as to where to start.

Here's my situation. Over the past several years I've slowly been revising the Pathfinder rules and integrating my own. It's a labor of love, with thousands of hours invested and likely several hundred more to go.

This revision has gone to the point where it would be dishonest to tell prospective players its Pathfinder, to the point where I felt it would be ideal to officially make a derivative game out of it (similar to what Pathfinder is to 3.5, but much more drastic.)

At the point of that realization, it occurred to me that there must be some niche market out there for this sort of game. Probably nothing spectacular, especially given my lack of an advertising budget, but it might recoup some of the time spent if I put together a PDF and set it up on some of the gaming PDF webstores.

My problem, is figuring out where to start on such an endeavor. If anybody could direct me to a few things I should read (or has any direct advice) I would really appreciate it.

Oh, right, one last thing (and the reason I posted it here), does Paizo have any particular legal clauses that might override the baseline OGL/prevent a work of this sort? (all PI would be excluded of course. I did manage to get that far into the research.) Or are there any other major obstacles beyond making certain I adhere to the OGL?

First of all, before I begin, I want to note that I do not want to play a different game that uses such a system. Discussing other games that have such a system is awesome for purposes of inspiration and the like, but I will not be replacing 3.P as the 'core.'

Now to get on to my purpose with this thread. Over and over I've seen cases where the turn-based system creates an abstraction that makes the game easier to DM but less intuitive and- to me at least- less fun. My goal here is two-fold.

1: brainstorm ideas for adapting Pathfinder into such a game wherein characters act and react accordingly without trading 'turns' during the same time-frame.

2: applying that brainstorming session to come up with such a system and fine-tune it into something for use in regular games.

I've got something I need to take care of, so I'll just leave this here for now and start coming up with a few ideas of my own when I get back.

Includes DCs to Balance on Slopes of greater than 45 degrees.

Climb includes a DC to climb up a slope 'too steep to walk up' but lacks any information on such a slope.

So... exactly what angle of slope requires a climb check? 60 degrees? 75?

This is just an idea that popped into my head today while doing yardwork and I thought I'd throw it out to the masses for feedback. (This is intended to be a level 1 Monk ability, but I could possibly see it as a feat a Monk could take.)

Inner Focus: a monk who is unarmored uses his Wisdom instead of Strength for the purpose of melee Attacks (including CMB), melee Bonus Damage, and Ranged Bonus Damage. Furthermore, as long as he remains unarmored and does not exceed his modified light load, add the Monk's Wisdom Modifier to his Strength Score for purposes of carrying capacity.