wintermutt's page

Yup, that's what I thought. Bummer. Oh well. Time for a Plan B. Or C. :)

Thanks for the (incredibly) speedy response.

Sorry in advance for a little light thread necromancy, but I've got a similar question (more or less) on the prerequisite for Arcane Strike. I'm fairly sure I know the answer, but while I can't find a concrete ruling anywhere - common sense seems pretty cut and dry. (But if someone could point me a concrete ruling, just as a CYA, that would be great.)

If you are a divine caster that gains a normally arcane only spell on their spell list - the spell is still considered divine, right? After all, the source of the magic is now your worshiped deity/entity/concept. Thus the spell would NOT count as meeting the prerequisite of casting arcane magic, if I'm interpreting correctly? (Though apparently getting access to a SLA, on the other hand...)

... road forks you.

(If you don't get it, check: In Soviet Russia.)

Wow. 'Problem' solved in 6 minutes. On a Friday night.

In case you don't hear this enough, y'all rock.

Ok, I apologize if this is how it's supposed to work - this is the first time I've used the sidecart.

Received the email that my regular monthly subscriptions were processing (that would be order #1666892). I had a few things I was thinking about ordering, so decided to quickly order them and try to get them onto a single order. I ended up adding a new subscription and ordering an additional item (order #1667442). I attached the two orders and the item moved over like I'd expected, but the subscription went into the sidecart.

Now, order #1666892 is still pending. Will the new subscription automatically merge from the sidecart into the original order sometime between now and when it processes? Or will I have to wait until next month's shipment?

Thanks.

Don't like stat inflation, but don't feel comfortable with arbitrary stat caps? Or maybe you can't decide where the cap should reasonably be? (18? 25? 30?) Or maybe you just don't like the prospect of having to reviewing every, single monster and possibly hving to modify it?

Well, you could try the E6 mod

I've got some players in one of my groups talking it up - so we might try it in the near future.

Or you could always go retro - 1e and 2e had (different) stat caps. Heck 1e even had level caps (unless you were human) and multi-classing limitations. (I wonder if you could give 1e or 2e the PF treatment?)

That said, I think PF plays fine as-is. Of course, I haven't seen any truly crazy builds (yet).

I'm not sure how 'magic intensive' your world is. Personally, I would avoid using magic for everything. Speak with Dead, Zone of Truth... these take a lot of the FUN out of things.

I personally believe that with the few times a day a priest/wizard can cast their spells... and the overcrowded justice system I doubt VERY highly that all law enforcement/courts would use them very often. For a family of squatters I don't think the 'crime' would be worth the money.

As for court costs... they only get paid if you DON"T execute the convicted. If he's guilty and left to rot or hung... that's a lot of magic that will never get paid for.

If I was a lawyer I'd fight against it at every turn. 1) it DESTROYS any concept of trial by jury. Kills it DEAD. Instead of 12 people deciding your guilt, it's ONE mage. or ONE priest. What they say is suddenly gospel and indisputable.

What fun is that? Why would they even HAVE judges and courts in that case?

2) How trust worthy are these spells? The dead can lie and be decieving. If the orcs DID attack first, and REALLY wanted the adventurers dead... and then a priest asks their spirits what happened? Why WOULDN'T they try for vengence from the grave??

Even if it isn't the Truth, the dead can be spiteful.

3) How trust worthy is the PRIEST?? Instead of summoning the dead... what if he created an illusion? That said whatever he WANTED it to say?

Elaine Cunningham wrote a short story, that involved a murder coverup caused by 'speak with dead' as it's only evidence... It was pretty good :)

Another interesting point is, how LEGAL would such magical methods be? Would they be admissable in court?

There are, to use a contemporary example, issues with using lie-detector test results in many jurisdictions.

Or, to really push the fantastic aspects of magical divinations, look at the restrictions telepaths faced in Babylon 5 (an excellent show, if you haven't seen it - check it out on DVD). Basically a sufficiently powerful telepath could view memories directly from the accused's own mind. But such things weren't LEGALLY allowed, as it infringed upon the accused's rights against self-incrimination.

I think the Beast of Lepidstadt would be pretty mad if you called him mindless.

Indeed. As discussed in Classic Horrors Revisited, the Beast is a pretty uncommon (and angry) flesh golem.

Ok, if you're running with the current timeline (where it is currently 4711) this probably won't work (as it was a 4 year war; 4689-4693), but check out the War without Rivals.

Brutal trench warfare for control of the Dragosvet Plains in Ustalav between Ustalavian Counts. Think WWI with magic - lots of deaths, very little territory changing hands. And I can definitely see non-Ustalavian forces being hired on, late in the war, as both sides began to feel the sting of losses. Eventually Count Neska of Barstoi pulled his forces back to their own county. Of course, his men had orders: burn and salt every piece of land they surrendered. 18 years later the territory once known as Furcina is now the Furrows - a barren land still scarred by empty trenches and haunted by restless dead galore.

There's not much detail right now (just a small write-up on page 192 of the Inner Sea Guide), but with the new AP being in Ustalav and Rule of Fear (the Ustalav guide) releasing next month - I'd expect more detail soon. The big downside would be the fact that the war ended 18 years ago, not exactly condusive to a young soldier concept without a little work.

There are some really good tips here. One I really want to emphasize is:

Pass notes. When you do, make it short and sweet and give them 5 seconds to read it. I've heard a player describe the same scene but in a completely different way. And when the group went in, NO ONE agreed on how it was described. And with the player running on just his memory...

Many years ago, I played a Ravenloft game with an exceptionally large group. I hadn't played with most of the players, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It didn't take long to notice that there was a lot of note passing going on. And I mean a LOT. Not just from the DM to the players, but players to the DM and even player to player. Really added a sense of paranoia, because there was a distinct feeling of secret agendas and/or concealed information.

Of course, then I started getting notes from the DM myself. Some of them were the usual kind of notes you would expect, but a lot of them were smokescreens. He'd send notes like "Read this note. Visibly think about it for a few moments, write a response and get it back to me." or "Read this note and react surprised. Roll a D20 and tell me the number." So now you didn't know which were "real" notes and which were "fake".

Surprisingly, the feeling of paranoia got worse knowing that many (or maybe even most) of the notes were meaningless. After all, did the fact that the rogue just got a note and didn't pass anything on to the group mean he's holding out? Or was the note bogus? And paranoia at a gaming table is a remarkably good gateway to horror. It's not actually horror itself, but it definitely puts players in a state to be more receptive to some of the other tricks in the thread.

I'm hoping when I run this AP, some of these tips will help offset I won't have any control over (we play at a FLGS, so lighting and distractions are things I can't do anything about).

I don't see how Wisdom makes any more sense for Ninja than people say Charisma does. In fact, it makes less sense to me. Ninja are not, in most any instance I've personally encountered, noted as a rule for being wise. Quick? Sure. Devious? Certainly. Sneaky? Absolutely. Wise? Not so much. There are certainly instances of wise ninja, but they're almost exclusively "elder ninja" (Splinter from TMNT, the Kages from Naruto, Eg Shen from Big Trouble in Little China, etc), and presumably that wisdom comes from age and experience, not from being a ninja.

I don't really see Eg Shen being a ninja. Wizard? Sure. Sorceror? Why not? Heck, I could even see him as a priest, with the right fluff. (Eg Shen as mystic theurge? Hrmmm... me likey. Me likey a lot.)

Now, to throw my $0.02 into the matter of CHA vs WIS debate: both camps have points. It really depends on what the player sees as a ninja. As has been mentioned several times by people more intelligent than I, the term "ninja" covers a LOT of territory. Personally, I like the idea of a CHA based ninja - it plays into what I personally see as a "true ninja". But I see the WIS camp's point.

So where does that leave us? Well, Paizo could scrap the class completely. Now while that would apparently make some players happy (from reading comments on this thread), I think it would upset a lot more.

Paizo could just leave the class be. That would make the CHA camp happy. And the WIS camp? Well, they'd either avoid the class, house-rule it or be 'forced' to multiclass with monk.

Paizo could change ther ninja to be WIS based. That's the flipside of option two: happy WIS camp and not so happy CHA camp.

Or Paizo could take the tack that several have suggested here - let the player decide what their Ki is based on (CHA or WIS) at first level. That makes both camps happy, but it seems a bit wishy-washy. But with the right fluff (for example, unverified's yin versus yang scenario) it could fly.

Ultimately, that's Paizo's call not mine (and they might see another option I don't). It's their world, they just let me play in it. And yes, things can always be house ruled or rule 0'd - but that depends on the whim of the DM. In my games I can do whatever I think is best, but in someone else's game I play by their rules or I don't play. And I haven't really seen a lot of PF houserules yet, most of the PF DMs I've seen have been happy with Paizo's published rules.

EDITED: to give unverified credit for the yin-yang concept of allowing either CHA or WIS Ki pools