ulgulanoth's page

Huzzah!

Huzza?

That's good to know that Golarion will be moving forward plot/time wise in the new edition, and how the APs have changed the world, but I wonder, will the same be for the modules and pathfinder society scenarios?

So before we start with lists of things we want changed in the new game system let me add this; lets just post on this thread additions of systems the game has, if you want a complete overhaul to a system for example resonance, that should probably have its own thread. The assumption we'll use in this thread is that the basic concepts of the game will remain the same, we're just adjusting the system to do better. Alright so let's get started then:

First off I think we should make stealth work like perception, every adventure should be at least trained in stealth. Now hear me out, the reason for this is 3 fold; 1) Every adventurer will at one point come up to a situation where stealth is the answer to the situation, especially at low levels, 2) Every character should be able to at least somewhat competently try to stealth if the situation demands it, 3) Stealth is the 2nd most common form of initiative from perception, it only makes sense that most characters should be able to, without being too penalised, have the option of rolling stealth for initiative. Obviously rogues will be better trained and start of as experts and so on, but no adventurer should be completely untrained in stealth.

Second point lets rejig how skills and signature skills work. I say we should keep signature skills but divide them like so, each character has 3 signature skills, one from their ancestry, one from their background and one from their class. Signature skills start at expert and then upgrade to master and legendary when appropriate. Simple and makes characters have at least a baseline of what that character is good at.

With that said lets beef up what it means to be trained, expert, master and legendary. This fix would eat the most word count but I think it would go a long way to making people more excited to play. Basically each level of training above trained should give you additional benefits in feats, class abilities, weapon properties and even weapon attacks and spells. For example each level above trained in a weapon should add your strength modifier (or dex for finesse weapons) to your damage rolls in a crit. This would mean that a legendary sword fighter compared to just someone trained with a sword is mechanically superior in and above just being more likely to crit. Weapon properties should scale the more trained with the weapon you are.

If we implement this, untrained should hurt more, two ways to do it would either be 1) to add additional penalties for being untrained (say adding the possibility of hitting yourself on a critical failure with a chained weapon) and 2) the rate of scaling bonus be lessened to half level rounded down or maybe even quarter level rounded down

Moving away from skills, a big disappointment in the system is how little rules exist for outside of combat and the lack of incentive to be anything but a murder hobo. To remedy this I propose a few additions to the game. First we should return the NPC boon and woe mechanics, giving the players an incentive to keep NPCs alive and also invest in them. But we should also expand this system to items of renown, since people will treat you differently if they see you caring the sword of the Baron that just died or the legendary Mcguffin of Doom. Bandits are less likely to attack someone in full plate adamantine armour for example.

Secondly an introducing a contact mechanic, in which each of ancestry, background and class would provide the character with a contact be it their parents or siblings, work/profession contacts or just their friends; because no person goes around the world completely alone; to give players something to do in downtime and to give GMs a way to introduce plot hooks, give the solution to a problem the PCs can't solve and just more options. As the Characters progress through the story they'll obviously gain more contacts, though I don't know if that should be story based or by level.

Finally we should also introduce a fame/infamy/honour/status system because as the PCs do deeds that go out and affect the world, people will start to react to them differently. I'm not entirely sure how many of these subsystems should exist, but there should be differences between circles. The champion of a gladiator ring is obviously going to have a lot of clout in the arena, but probably will be treated no different in the king's court or by the wizard's academy than any other person.

Those are the ideas I have in my head at the moment, and will probably post more here as they appear as the playtest goes on. So What fixes or addons would you implement?

So I just ran the first section of the Doomsday Dawn module: The Lost Star and I have a few thoughts to share. So first for the raw numbers and then I'll go into more spoiler territory.
GM prep time: 30 minutes
Player character creation: 1 hour
Session length: 2 hours 15 minutes
Number of sessions to finish the section: 1
Number of PCs brought to 0hp: 0
Number of PCs killed: 0
Took 1 8 hour rest
Notes: The group was more concerned in completing each encounter as quickly as possible so I expect other games to run for longer
Party composition: Goblin Barbarian, Elf Fighter, Human Wizard, Human Cleric all lv1

GM observations

Finally note: All my players really enjoyed the first session and we'll be doing the rest of the campaign soon. It wasn't too hard to get the hang of the rules, the most difficult one being initiative.

With the release of the second edition of Pathfinder, I thought now would be a good time to ask Paizo to fix one of the rarely spoken problems with the first edition; the less than ideal release schedule. Well simply put it took far, far too long to get books like Ultimate Intrigue, Ultimate Wilderness and Planar Adventures. I for one don't want to wait 5 or 10 years to have rules for mass combat, kingdom building rules, rules for organisations, fame/infamy, rules for harvesting monsters, comprehensive rules for wilderness travel or games set in the planes and so on. On a personal level I would be fine postponing books like Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat until after all the more game master related books are out.

So now to you, I'm sure Paizo will pay attention to this thread (if it gets big enough), so this is your opportunity to chime in on what subsystem(s) you believe should appear as soon as possible, what would be an optimal release of such kinds of books and finally because Paizo doesn't have infinite resources what could be pushed back on the release schedule. PF2e is a chance for a better game experience, so we should all look at every aspect of the game for areas of improvement and I think the release schedule is one. The question though is who else thinks so too?

So just purely speculation here but and interesting thought, what happens to weapons that are more than one dice normally? Does it double every time? Does a +5 Scythe be (assuming that a scythe is still 2d4 damage) 6d4 or 10d4 damage?

One of the many things that I felt that the first core rule book of Pathfinder failed to do was to make the all the downtime and rules outside of killing monsters in the dungeon all that interesting or even have any. So here are some ideas of things I would like to see in the core book if we could.

First I would like to see rules for settlements, kingdom building and mass combat. If they are baked in the game from the beginning I think they can open up a lot of gameplay that we have grown used to, like the Kingmaker AP.

Secondly I would like to see the Boon/Woe for NPCs to be there in the beginning. I think this is a great tool for world building and making the connections with NPCs mean something. This would bring some of the fame and infamy rules from ultimate intrigue in addition, to make the actions that the PCs have are going to affect them in the world they are in.

Finally I would like to see some more different trials for the overland travel that are not encounters. From simple things like armour straps breaking and getting wet, to potentially more dangerous things like the group being afflicted by a disease or curse

Anyway those are some ideas, what do you guys think?

Given the new edition coming around, I would chime in on a desire to see both clerics and wizards to be different from each other by what they specialise in. In PF1 they tried but it really didn't come across. This does somewhat come from the Warhammer roleplaying game but I think it makes sense here and I will elaborate what I mean. In Pf1 when you became a specialist wizard or a followed a specific god as a cleric all you got was 3-6 abilities that where often not all that impactful in the way one played the character and had no effect on the role playing side of the character. Universally I think both of school specialisation and domains should affect somewhat how the character looks, necromancers will look paler and more skeletal, those with the strength domain will look stronger and healthier. Secondly I think that school specialisations and domains should have an equal weight to spells on how a character acts in combat. Looking at the previous examples, I think necromancers would have all sorts of abilities that represent their ties to death, like abilities that allow them to resist effects and abilities that allow them to hurt the living or empower the death. The Strength domain would equally provide abilities that would mirror powers seen in comic book heroes for short periods of time, like being able to break a stone wall or leap dozens of feet in the air. Now while I don't think every necromancer or cleric of Irori should look, act and play the same I do think there should be marked differences. If a player says "I'm a cleric of Shelyn" there should be a marked expectation that is different from a player saying "I'm a cleric of Rovagug". And as a bonus I think that if done correctly people will stop seeing clerics as first aid kits on legs. In the same manner I think wizards should be distinguished from their specialisation more and thus if a player says "I'm a diviner" it should mean something to the group compared to them saying "I'm an transmuter", at least as much as what spells they have in their spell book.

Anyway those are my thoughts, what do you guys think?

So a thread I think would be interesting to have, at least for those of us who are interested in partaking in the playtest, is what are you going to do to test the dice out of this new edition? What do you first want to try out in the new system? What do you want to convert from the previous editions to this one? What mechanics do you want to test for with what you are planning on playing?

On my end at the moments what I have in mind is
1) Convert to PF2E my old characters

Fiendish hype!

And its finally up!

Yes! Its finally up!

That GM looks suspiciously like Matt Mercer...

Finally, more hobgoblin lore! These guys have been ignored for too long!

So I've been running a game for a while for some friends, and recently they've been thrashing pretty much everything I've thrown at them. So I've been inclined to build a monster that will make their lives hard, but my aim is not a TPK. They're are lv9 and this thing is meant to be a rather difficult boss at CR12 but I have been known to make creatures too powerful so I'd like some input

The Beast

Here is where you guys can plot and try to figure out what is really happening

It is morning at the Amber Flame Great Block, for the twentieth day in a row the sky has been pristinely clear, with not a single cloud in the sky. A fact ignored by most of the residents of Amber Flame, who have not watched the sky in months or years, some even having spent their entire lives without ever peering once outside. It is a normal enough morning, everyone just grinding away at their jobs or wandering about the store front of the Great Block.

Alright you all find yourselves at the store front of Amber Flame, so what are you doing?

Alright I've been mulling with game in my mind for a while. This is going to be a pathfinder pbp, no maps, game set in a home-brew setting. The aim of the game is to explore the setting and learn more about it. As such your characters are going to be naive citizens that have lived a sheltered life... until the start of the game at least. Character will be lv1, 20pt builds, 100gp for equipment, 2 traits; core races only, any paizo published class but feats/racial traits/archetypes are limited in that only urban environment related racial traits/traits/feats/archetypes are available due to the setting of the game.

I want to keep the setting deliberately vague as exploring it is the point, but for a place holder, imagine a fantasy version of Judge Dredd, your characters are the normal citizens living in what is effectively a Megablock, and thats where the game will start.

I'm looking for about 5 players. I'll planning on starting in 2 to 3 weeks time. If you are interested please post bellow and if you have questions I'll try to answer them without spoiling. Finally I'll have a list of things your characters will know which I'll message to you once the game starts depending on the knowledge ranks your character has.

Wait so that isn't zombie Savannah? or necromancer Savannah?

WHOOOO its out! And from a quick glance its the best its ever been

I was pondering and unable to find an answer I'm turning to the community; is it possible to create a character that can get to strength 100?

Ok here is the discussion thread, and I apologies for the "you meet in a tavern" introduction

It is a week before the Swallowtail festival, and the town of Sandpoint is gearing up to the celebrations. A few miles from the town a number of strangers are meeting for the first time at a way-inn, it is an old rustic place, with little love to aesthetics. The wooden cabin is filled with tables and chairs but few patrons, many being put off by the numerous stenches of the less than hygienic staff. Many are resting up here today before they make their way into Sandpoint in the morning.

Alright so time to introduce your characters and have them something to do

Well I haven’t run a PbP in a long time, but well I think I have enough time to run one. So to the premise of this game, it will be a mash-up of a number of adventure paths and modules, set in Golarion specifically Sand Point though with a little artistic licence, mainly that it will be merged with Falcon’s Hollow, though it will still be set in Varisia.

Leveling will be done at the of the story arc for the level, basically once all the module and AP stuff for that level has been completed. This may end up giving some harder difficulty encounters at times but it should be levelled out by more wealth accumulated per level.

Characters will be created through a point buy system, 25pts. You get 3 traits of any kind though they must be different kinds each, so you can’t have 2 combat traits for example. Core races only, and any class from the core book, APG, and the ultimates. Obviously starting at level 1. For character backgrounds I’m looking around at least 1 paragraph, and they should be natives of the inner sea, though not necessary Varisia as long as they have a reason to be at Sandpoint at the start of the game.

Right so I’m looking for 4-5 players, first come first served I guess, hopefully we’ll have players who can post at least once a day, but I’m not picky in that sense

dam, if only i was an american teen...

Isn't that guy from the pick of destiny?

So after reading a thread on 3pp, it seemed that the most common complaint was game balanced, which was countered by "well Paizo's stuff isn't balanced either!"

So let’s talk about balance then

1) What is "balanced"? What definition do you use?
2) How much does "balance" affect your game?
3) When you see a class/race/feat/spell/monster/ect how do you make sure it is “balanced”?
4) Do you GM or play mostly? Does your sense of “balance” change between the two game styles?

From personal experience I’ve played with some hard core munchkins who could blast through every encounter I made while GMing in a round or two, usually on their own, usually against monsters +5 to the recommended CR. Even so I still allow pretty much anything with only very few exceptions in my games. So from experience it is rare that the problems come up with the published material but from the player using it. Though I admit I wasn’t around 3.0 and the 3pp bloat so that could have changed this statement.

From a GM’s perspective the only problem with game balance is with a group were some players a left out, but I have yet to come up to a situation where a player was to be left out regardless of what they did due to being so underpowered compared to the rest of the group.

Again that’s from my point of view, so to the community, what are your thoughts on game balance?

and we want pictures of this madness

Is that XP value correct?

EDIT: Yes, it's correct, as Blackfingers explains below.

actually i've never noticed that Seelah had a key...

I was planning on making a game based up on the greatest hits, so I ask the community, which would you say were the most memorable parts of the APs that you’ve played through? What do you remember most? (I guess you guys should use spoilers)

Disclaimer: this is only an idea at the moment and nothing has been started. If something like this already exists please post a link here and end this discussion. Finally I have absolutely no clue on how do any of this and I don’t pretend to so if you do like this idea and now how to make it come about please do post so here

Onto the project itself; codenamed: “freelancerpg.com” (that website may already exist but this is just a placeholder name)

Aim:
To make a website to help starting publishers to have everything at their disposal to make an RPG book, as long as they can pay for it. Presumably with advice or services for copyright, print runs and standard fees
To allow existing and well establish publishers find new freelancers to fill any deadline or project
To allow freelancers to show their stuff and be more visible to publishers
To allow starting freelancers get a foot on the RPG industry with non-paid projects

The idea itself:
To make a website that will allow publishers to find all the freelancers needed to make an RPG book the obvious being writers and artists but I suspect there would also be editors, graphic designers, layout designers and play-testers
There would be a rating system for both publishers and freelancers. Publishers would be rated on things like paying on time and how easy it was to work with while freelancers would be rated on punctuality and quality of work.
Each freelancer would have their own page with their CV and writing credit + specialities like writing for fantasy games, OGL or sci-fi
Each publisher would have their own page with a list of their products, presumably with a link to them, and maybe a list of products on the works
There would be a pm service
There would be an advertising page so publishers could post when they were looking for freelancers and what they were looking for the freelancers to do. This place would also include fees and deadlines.
Closed playtest area, where publishers would be able to play test their products
An open playtest area for those publishers who would wish to have a bigger playtest audience
Ideally the services of the website would be free, although depending on costs for certain services and the cost to run the website itself some services may require a fee

Now onto why I’m posting this
First I have no idea where to find programmers and servers to host the website or how much they would cost, so any help on that front would be appreciated.
Secondly I have no idea how useful this would be, so no idea if it is worth pursuing, so any publishers or freelancers out there who read this please post your opinions on the matter

So from the talk of the "GM's don't run" its come up that many people are tiered with the protrayal of the "drunken scotish" dwarf. So this will be the communities effort to make dwarfs "playable" again, a fresh new look for dwarfs.

Personally I've never really seen dwarfs as "scotish" or "drunks". More like master craftsmen, kinda nordic, who can take their ale so well the never get drunk.

Every GM has things they don't run, systems they don't like, monsters that are too complicated to run, spells that break the game, crazy items that destroy the session, ect.
Lets hear yours!

Plot away!

The Grand Council of Gabel has summoned all the contenders to the throne to the Parliamental Place. It is a grand building rivalled only by the Royal Palace, made out of white marble and white jade. The central part of building, the largest room is the council room, a very large dome of 120ft radius. At the north end of the council room is an elevated platform with a semi-circle table, were the council resides. The south end of the room is the main entrance, where nobles and their servants enter from, there are a number of lavish benches making a number semi-circles at the south end, leaving a wide open space before the council.
The council is made up from 5 elders, currently they are: Lady Lamboux (an archwizard), Abalon (head inquisitor), Timtinio de la Garra (head alchemist), Grot (field marchal), Umillo (fleet admiral). All the council members are dressed in long white robes and wearing white featureless masks save for eyeholes. Today only the council and the contenders to the throne are allowed to enter. Outside the mass of nobles are eagerly waiting to hear what has been decreed.

Champaign idea: all the players will be heirs to the kingdom of Gabel, the king has passed away and you all have claim to the throne. The council that leads the nation will set a series of tests to judge the most worthy of the heirs to become the next monarch. This won’t be a pvp game…

Setting:
For simplicity sake, the standard Golarion gods and faiths and the ones from 3.5 dnd, medium aged world, medival-ish technological level, human centric world
Romlon- Roman empire and Byzantine empire combination, lies west of Gabel, N, neutral relation to Gabel
Jade Empire- Rokongan inspired empire, lies south of Gabel, LN, at war with Suldran, doesn’t care for Gabel
Suldran- Indian/Persian empire, lies east of Gabel, N, at war with the Jade Empire, doesn’t care for Gabel
Breiton- standard medieval kingdom, north of Gabel, LG, rival to Gabel but also closest ally

Players:
Kingdom - Gabel: standard medieval kingdom, twin of Breiton, NG kingdom
Character creation:
15pt buy, lv1, core race only, 2 traits (+ adopted for non-human PCs and another trait for humans), 1000gp for personal equipment

This is going to be a scion world building campaign pbp. First because your characters are powerful instead of using normal character creation rules we will use titan character creation (its also easier). This comprising of choosing 4 favourite previous 2 banned previous. You get mental, social and physical attributes pick one of them to be at epic 10 and the others at 8. Unlike normal you get 2 epic 11 attributes which you can put anywhere. Technically titans have dice pools of 20 for all actions before modifiers. Titans also get all knacks and they know all boons up to the 8th one for all previews, and they know all boons for their favourite ones. They know none of the boons for their banned previous. You also get to choose any 5 virtues, and those will be rated at 5.
You can’t create something from nothing. Also since your characters are the ones building the world one the titan realms and its natural inhabitants exists (but other titans don’t), the gods and god realms don’t exist. Were the ‘world’ will be build is just a vacant area (literally there isn’t anything there) also there won’t be any legend expenditure to travel from one titan realm to another or this vacant area. Think in the creation myths from any mythology, that’s where this is coming from.
The actual building of the world will work in the following way:
1) You can’t build something from nothing; you always need some form of sacrifice, such as your characters blood, titan trophies, or similar important ingredients.
2) You always have to activate an avatar (30 legend cost) to create something new and the avatar has to be related. When this is done also say what your characters dice pool and epic level (you get to choice what attribute you use but please explain how you use it) you state were the dice pool came from and if you are using any other boons or knacks while you make the role.
3) The higher the legend spend and importance of the ingredients chosen the more fundamentally important will the thing created be, note though that technically you can’t fail at making something but I can deme if the thing created is ‘flawed’
4) Some fundamental things such earth, sun, life and so on will eventually exist even if no one makes them but just remember that if no one makes it then it will be ‘flawed’ which will have implications later on.
5) Getting trophies from titan spawn for the most part will be just glanced over, however if players want to get high risk ingredients (which by definition will be incredibly important) then I can run a one off combat with the players involve, players can get some titan spawn trophies without fighting them and the same rules apply.
6) For the duration of the campaign characters will have only 900 legend, there is no way of regaining legend and you can only spend up to 90 legend per turn.
7) You can build anything you want, just remember that there will be some limitations per turn due to the avatars you use.
8) You can shape the world and what others have created using avatars or ultimate epic attributes, you just have to explain how and the dice pool size that you use.
9) A turn is defined as one post

Looking for 5+ players

Is steal breath only for catfolk? Cause that is an awsome spell...

Classes and other rules:

So what your thoughts on this?

ps: I still need to do weapons...

This is a small request from us Paizo fans who just can never keep up on who is now part of Paizo, so could all who are Paizo workers post here for us to know who you are?

Because he is a machine! Go Neil GO!

Now at Paizo!

Magnanimous Composition Heroes;
Rules of Heroic Games are Pathfinder compatible rules that allow players and GMs to run more epic games at lower levels by allowing players to make more powerful and versatile characters and giving GMs rules to construct monsters that will always challenge them. This PDF contains the following:

•New rules for character creation
•New rules for character advancement
•Variant monster creation rules

now that we have had 6 issues of wayfinder, I would like to ask the rest of the paizo community what have you used in your games from the wayfinders? what have you found most useful?