I'm a bit confused about the conflict points during background generation (which I think is my favourite section, actually).
I understand that CP increase your place on the alignment track, but I can't figure out which track to use: the Law/Chaos or Good/Evil. It seems that the CP are all lumped in together...it can't be that you just evenly split them, or you'd never get mixes from the ends of the tracks (LE, CG, for example).
As I understand it, you can either place all of your CPs (up to 9) in one track (your choice which) or split your CPs between the two tracks as you see fit.
As I understand it, you can either place all of your CPs (up to 9) in one track (your choice which) or split your CPs between the two tracks as you see fit.I'm a bit confused about the conflict points during background generation (which I think is my favourite section, actually).
I understand that CP increase your place on the alignment track, but I can't figure out which track to use: the Law/Chaos or Good/Evil. It seems that the CP are all lumped in together...it can't be that you just evenly split them, or you'd never get mixes from the ends of the tracks (LE, CG, for example).
Don't forget that you can also modify that result depending upon your character's reaction to the situation. My brother rolled through the generator on his Magus the other night; turns out he murdered someone, but he's still good because he was repentant for it. Go figure.
Excellent. Thanks guys. Just wanted to clarify. :)
Paranoid: The DC to grant you bonuses via the aid another action increases to 15.Any Drawbacks examples?
Sorry if I missed some.
Simply brilliant.
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So how difficult is it for a PC to start up an orphanage?
:)
Pretty simple. Raid an goblin village. You now have orphans!
One of the more interesting bits of this book is Chapter 2; the Downtime Rules. In particular, you are able to use four new resources, plus gp, to build most of the Kingdom Building buildings out of your own pocket. And interestingly enough, even if you are buying Goods, Labor, etc. with gp instead of earning them with checks, its still cheaper for a PC to spend his hard-earned treasure making most buildings then it is to build those same buildings via the Kingdom Building system.
Of course, under Kingdom Building you don't actually own whatever you craft; if you use these rules, you have to actually maintain the building you found.
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I guess the Player Companion line has been pretty competent on delivering player content this year. And remember that we still haven't seen the Quests and Campaings player companion that will provide Golarion specific content for the Ultima Campaing Rules.
Another thing you have to remember is that Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 specifically deal with things that concern the PCs. Yes, they're not power options, but they're PC chapters in the sense that they give PCs all-new things to do. The Downtime Rules are quite spectacular for that purpose, actually.
I think as a community, we have to move away from the mindset that PCs options are always new character powers and abilities.
So this book has information on founding monastaries, temples, etc?
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Yes, pretty pretty please. The rules bloat was one thing that made D&D a bit of a drag towards the end and starting with a clean slate was one of the things that made Pathfinder so attractive. We really don't need a new Feats and Spells book every four months. As amazing as Advanced Players Guide is, UC and UM had already been loosing steam. No need to drag it out into indiffeence and insignificance.
If you have something new that really adds something to the game, I am all for it, but more feats and spells just for the sake of increasing the number should be avoided.
Another thing you have to remember is that Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 specifically deal with things that concern the PCs. Yes, they're not power options, but they're PC chapters in the sense that they give PCs all-new things to do. The Downtime Rules are quite spectacular for that purpose, actually.
I think as a community, we have to move away from the mindset that PCs options are always new character powers and abilities.
Completely agree, not saying more player options are bad but to be honest there is already a veritable ocean of options for players (and NPCs) to advance in terms of power, adding more creative systems and rules that expand upon player activity might just be an excellent idea.
If you wanna kick the door of a dungeon down and slaughter and army of monsters (which is seriously good fun, don't get me wrong) there's tons for that but stuff like the downtime chapter and kingdom building add whole new (optional) modes of gameplay.I admit, 9/10 times I'm a DM but I suspect that I can atleast speak for myself and the players I DM for that this is an excellent idea.
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Overview -- I hope this is okay:
Chapter 1: Character Background
This is all very largely for PCs: expanded traits, drawbacks system, system for random generating character background (although this could be used for NPCs too). Story feats.
Chapter 2: Downtime
This involves a lot of stuff revolving around what PCs do between adventures, and how to track resources built, sought out, or developed during this time. There's guidelines for PCs owning businesses, being part of or even leading organizations, and building anything from a place of business to a stronghold. Some of this, especially some of the "rooms and teams" stuff, could also be of use to the GM in designing such things.
Chapter 3: Campaign Systems
This includes expanded explanations of the alignments for PCs, various systems for tracking things like codes of honor, reputation and fame, and so on. The retraining rules are here (definitely for PCs), as are the rules for creating young PCs, and rules for bargaining and expanded guidelines for PCs who want to create magic items. Some bits I haven't really read yet so can't say what it all is.
Chapter 4: Kingdoms and War
This is the expanded and revised Kingdom building stuff originally seen in Kingmaker. Oriented toward PCs and how they run a kingdom, though definitely applicable to help a GM design a kingdom and make sure all things necessary are accounted for.
Also includes rules for army/mass combat, definitely useful on both sides of the table and the one thing I can say is definitely "for GMs."
Young Characters starting Ages
Dwarf: 20
Elf: 55
Gnome: 20
Halfling: 10
Half-Elf: 10
Half-Orc: 7
Human: 8Formula is basicially: (Start Age/2) and round up
This is going to throw folks trying to rationalize the childhoods of the longer lived humanoid races for a loop. If a 55 year old elf is truly equivalent mentally and physically to an 8 year old human, that is a painfully slow childhood by non-elven standards. That raises the question of whether the proportionality should be maintained all the way down (in which case elves would spend their first decade or more in diapers, unable to walk or talk) or whether their is a major slowdown after an initial spurt (in which case elves would spend most of their first 55 years as the equivalent of 7 year old humsns).
I wonder at the consequences: With toddler children for 20+ years, perhaps elven parents naturally need to be very patient and therefore, they should be very used to dealing with 'dumber' races. Either that or the elves give their children to the state to be communally raised, so they have time to do other things. The long aging period would seem to have a great deal of social and community-based effects.
I wonder at the consequences: With toddler children for 20+ years, perhaps elven parents naturally need to be very patient and therefore, they should be very used to dealing with 'dumber' races. Either that or the elves give their children to the state to be communally raised, so they have time to do other things. The long aging period would seem to have a great deal of social and community-based effects.
I have always assumed that Elves took longer to do things. Growing up? A century. Pregnancy? 5-10 years. Given Elvish life spans (and mine are still based on the old 1E trope, over a thousand years certainly depending on the sub race) they should have patience beyond shorter lived races. And really odd resumes :) They should be able to focus on what they are doing for many years; years a human wouldn't have the patience to do without it being a life long commitment, and then move on to something different. Doing military service for 20 years with total dedication. No problem. Like a human doing a couple of years in the service. Going on a "road trip" carousing for years. Sure thing, like a human on summer vacation. Doing a walk about as an adventurer for a decade or more... just another step in a young Elves life. Raising a munchkin for a century would be a more serious commitment, but the job of raising Elvish children might be more spread out to parents, aunts and uncles, godparents, academies, age cohorts (as they enter adolescence) etc.
Each hex on the map is 12 miles across from corner to corner, representing an area just under 95 square miles.
Just out of curiosity, why was a side-length/circumference-radius of 6-miles used instead of an inner-radius of 6-miles?
Considering that movement on a combat grid is from square to square, it seems odd to denote overland movement as being from intersection to opposing intersection. Wouldn't it have been more intuitive to follow the same convention and denote travel distance as being from the center of one hex to the center of an adjacent hex?
After all the talk that went on about this following the release of Kingmaker, I'm just really surprised at this decision. Any insight would be appreciated...
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I have always assumed that Elves took longer to do things. Growing up? A century. Pregnancy? 5-10 years. Given Elvish life spans (and mine are still based on the old 1E trope, over a thousand years certainly depending on the sub race) they should have patience beyond shorter lived races. And really odd resumes :) They should be able to focus on what they are doing for many years; years a human wouldn't have the patience to do without it being a life long commitment, and then move on to something different. Doing military service for 20 years with total dedication. No problem. Like a human doing a couple of years in the service. Going on a "road trip" carousing for years. Sure thing, like a human on summer vacation. Doing a walk about as an adventurer for a decade or more... just another step in a young Elves life. Raising a munchkin for a century would be a more serious commitment, but the job of raising Elvish children might be more spread out to parents, aunts and uncles, godparents, academies, age cohorts (as they enter adolescence) etc.
I wonder at the consequences: With toddler children for 20+ years, perhaps elven parents naturally need to be very patient and therefore, they should be very used to dealing with 'dumber' races. Either that or the elves give their children to the state to be communally raised, so they have time to do other things. The long aging period would seem to have a great deal of social and community-based effects.
I could literally rant about this topic for pages ... in another thread. My basic argument is that elves are humanoids, not native outsiders. Part of being humanoid is that you have a human-like biology, and that should include a human-like life cycle. Being supernaturally long-lived is fine, and if you could meet an adult who wouldn't be messed up staying 20 for a few centuries while all his friends died, I would be impressed or frightened of said individual.
Basically, the elven "Rule of Seven" makes no sense and the Forlorn character concept works perfectly fine without it. Age of adulthood should be cultural, and it isn't imprinted into one's biology.
I generally roll with an elven adulthood of 22 and that they just stay roughly around their thirties up untill much later in their life cycle.
It takes care of silly things like the elven class starting ages for a wizard for example. This does lead to one interesting change which is in my setting the buggers overpopulate like hell.
Then again nobody in my groups even wants to play an elf in the first place because we pretty much collectively agree that we just don't like elves.
Back on topic though:
Thanks for all the great previews, just a few more days of patience from here hopefully untill I get my own copy.
I can't wait to dig through backgrounds and story feats, they have trouble motivating their characters. I had to kidnap an ex-PC for them to really get together as a group due to their clashing alignments and it being a "sandbox" style campaign. (though they are actually starting to get a feel for the first major plothooks)
I also feel like giving them a plot of land to build a "base" on would help tie them together and give them an interesting reward.
Please do not take this as a "I'm satisfied" statement, any cool bits and bobs of knowledge without copy pasting whole sections from the book will still be read by me at least. :D
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Just got it.
At a glance:
Ton of awesome art. Folks familiar with the iconics and their backstories will find lots of neat tidbits here and there.
Really like that there are multiple honor systems.
Good Lord if you didn't want to punch Alain before this book you will absolutely be sold on that idea afterwards.
There is a LOT of randomized character generation material here.
This book has a surprisingly pleasant smell.
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Just because the book says elven childhood is age 55 will not change how I handle elf children in my campaigns. It's interesting to know that's probably how it is in Golarion, but Golarion is not the world I run in, so whatever. They have to make a call one way or another, so I figure they probably took the easy way of just reducing all ages from adulthood by the same amount. I take stuff like this in books as suggestions--such are the nature of alternate, optional rules systems.
(FWIW, in my world, elves grow up only slightly slower than other humanoids, hitting puberty at about 18 and reaching full physical maturity around age 30; an elven "child" is going to be about age 5-15. They then otherwise age very slowly, not hitting middle age until about 200 years old on the average. From age 30 on, they have to go through a series of rites of passage and training (some of which is of very esoteric stuff not necessarily reflected on an elf's character sheet) and are not considered in the MAJORITY, as adults socially [as opposed to having achieved maturity], until they are around 100 years old. But if you ran into a 55 year old elf, they would look like an adult. A young adult, but an adult. And and for the overpopulation thing, elves have very low fertility rates, to make up for their longer lives).
That's pretty much the only way it makes sense.
The overpopulation thing is kind of a deliberate choice, gives the buggers the motivation to get off their asses and go to war, interact with the world around them, and ofcourse a convenient source of baddies.
Not to mention it resembles their popularity, we're pretty much all used to seeing elves all over the place in every fantasy thing ever so imagining them to be rare just doesn't fit with the established image of elves to some people anymore.
But yeah the whole peaceful tree culture thing I generally leave up to other non-PC species.
Regardless, something that's been mentioned previously is the Stronghold Builder book, was that 3.X? is it any good and is it similar to the building rules in this one? might it be worth taking a peak in there to get a feel for these rules or is it merely a bit of a nod or homage to those rules?
It's a really early 3rd Edition book. And while it has a certain charm, I really wouldn't call it a good book. It mostly consists of prebuild rooms and walls which you can buy to assemble your dream castle.
It's a 100 page softcover, so it shouldn't be too expensive if you really feel the need to get it. If you can find it.
I agree with Yora. It also suffers from very horrible proofreading. There was one portion that just cuts off mid sentence. It's probably a more in-depth book on this subject compared to Ultimate Campaign (not sure, don't have that book), as it goes into various types of construction materials (building a structure from adamantine, or even multiple Walls of Force), how to create a floating citadel, and such. Of course, without having Ultimate Campaign, I can't be certain if it goes into that kind of detail or not.
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Stronghold Builders book was both more and less detailed on building homes, bases, and fortresses. It operated roughly in the same fashion as the system in Ultimate Campaign, using an assortment of rooms and features to assemble a larger structure. It had a much larger assortment to choose from and had options that were more fantastic in nature. In addition it had more advanced rules involving building materials, location, and using magic directly in the construction.
However, once you had the building done, it provided no guidance on incorporating it into your campaign. Unless your DM wanted to spend time trying to work out something, it was likely just going to be a money sink for PC's to dump gold into. The downtime system in Ultimate Campaign makes it much more worthwhile, even if you aren't using a building to earn money or capital, there are a lot more guidelines to incorporating the buildings into the campaign, from the point you decide you want to start building to the point you are actually using the structure, either to live in or run a business out of.
Stronghold Builders Book also came out at the tail end of 3.0. It was one of a handful of books that came out in the period after they had announced that 3.5 was coming, but before it was actually released. Like a lot of the books that came out of that period, it felt like it was filler, padding the release schedule until the new edition came out. Thus the bad proofreading and editing.
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Clearly the 55 years for Elven Children is stupid and always has been.
Have fun creating a group of PC Children, with an Elf and a Human. 10 years later the human is an adult at 18, but the elf will need 45 years more...Stupid.
I never understood the logic behind it...You can be a long lived race and mature as fast as any normal race.
Why would you need a hundred years to be able to do what human can do in 18 years?
As far as I am concerned, every humanoid race reach adulthood and maturity as fast as human, some of them just have a way longer lifespan.
It is especially ultra dumb for race like the Aasimar, according to the rules, an Aasimar reach adulthood around 60 years old, yet most Aasimar are born from human parents and grow in human culture.
So what makes those kids growind up so slowly? Do they stay at pre-school for 10 years?
The funny thing, is that even Paizo does not respect their own rules, in Rise of the Runelords Nualia is an Aasimar, born among humans and is perfectly adult and kicking ass at around 20 years old.
The funny thing, is that even Paizo does not respect their own rules, in Rise of the Runelords Nualia is an Aasimar, born among humans and is perfectly adult and kicking ass at around 20 years old.
I wouldn't say that. Creative Director James Jacobs stated that it was an oversight, and in Golarion Aasimar follow the human life cycle; with Blood of Angels, its quite possible that Aasimar simply follow the life cycle of their mortal lineage, as that book implies that you can be a halflingborn aasimar or an elfborn aasimar.
So if anything, those entries for the aasimar, tiefling, and planestouched in the Advanced Race Guide reflect backwards compatibility more than anything else.
Personally, I'm alright with elves taking longer to mature and such, much like I'm okay with most creature's biology. I don't expect fantasy creatures to have the same biology as people. Besides, there are worse offenders of real world biology.
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I wouldn't say that. Creative Director James Jacobs stated that it was an oversight, and in Golarion Aasimar follow the human life cycle; with Blood of Angels, its quite possible that Aasimar simply follow the life cycle of their mortal lineage, as that book implies that you can be a halflingborn aasimar or an elfborn aasimar.So if anything, those entries for the aasimar, tiefling, and planestouched in the Advanced Race Guide reflect backwards compatibility more than anything else.
The real issue with different life cycle or at least maturity cycle, especially when the difference is 50+ years to reach adulthood, is that it not only feels unrealistic, but it is also a major pain in the a... to create meaningful storylines.
It always feel really really weird to create a character who is 110+ Years old at level 1, what the hell did he do for a hundred years?
What is an elf doing every single day for 100 years, that is so un-meaningful that he is "equal" to a 18 years old human in both skills and knowledge?
But then suddenly as soon as he reaches adulthood he starts gaining experience as fast as everyone else and gain a MASSIVE amount of skills and abilities in sometimes less than a year?
What kind of background do you create for such a character?
"For a hundred years I stayed with my parents, not learning or doing anything because otherwise I would have way more skills point, or even would already be higher level than you humans."
If you wanted to be fully logical, elves adventurer should continue to learn and advance very slowly, taking very long break, watching nature or whatever.
But of course no one wants that, so the whole thing is completely unlogical and feels "forced".
Anyway, in the end to each their own, but on my games, the elves or any long lived race, will always mature and learn as fast as human, in order to make it consistent and easier to deal with on a daily basis, especially if I ever make a game where the PC starts as children and have different races.
The real issue with different life cycle or at least maturity cycle, especially when the difference is 50+ years to reach adulthood, is that it not only feels unrealistic, but it is also a major pain in the a... to create meaningful storylines.
It always feel really really weird to create a character who is 110+ Years old at level 1, what the hell did he do for a hundred years?
Agreed.
Anyway, in the end to each their own, but on my games, the elves or any long lived race, will always mature and learn as fast as human, in order to make it consistent and easier to deal with on a daily basis, especially if I ever make a game where the PC starts as children...
I do slightly stunted, personally. The longer-lived races take a little while longer to mature, but they're all biologically adults by 20 years or so.
Then again, the only requirement to be "biologically" an adult is to be able to procreate, so as I implied earlier in one of my other posts, age of adulthood (aka Starting Age) differs from Culture to Culture. For example, a 20 year old elf might go out and adventure for a while, and he might even reach 20th level before his 50th birthday. Despite having so much more experience than his peers, he's still considered a child by elven society, and a rather unfortunate one at that because of all the horror he's experienced at such a "young" age.
Can we take the "pre-adult ages for non-human races" to another thread, please?
Can we take the "pre-adult ages for non-human races" to another thread, please?
So, threads reproduce asexually by budding off / deviding. Or is it sexually? With an OP and someone who "suggests" a split? Interesting. You can learn so much on message boards :D
*edit* Ahem, normally, in more ways than one, this would not have popped into my mind, but I just read a couple of articles on genetics and reproduction.
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Re: the downtime material. I just imagine players saying, "Sorry, DM, we're not interested in rescuing the princess tonight. We're building a tavern."
Its a LOT quicker if you rescue that prince, grab the gold, and use it to straight-up buy the resources you need. Doing the work yourself takes MUCH longer.
What are story feats?
What are story feats?
Feats that require that a specific event happen to your character during the course of the campaign. Some of them have prerequisites that can be met if you roll a specific outcome on the Background Generator instead.
Story Feats tend to be fairly powerful; they have a baseline effect, plus an additional effect that occurs after meeting a specific goal. Some are combat-oriented, others aren't. One of my favorites is the Monument Builder story feat, which gives increased efficiency in all manner of construction projects.
Sort of like a reversed achievement feat.
I'm pretty sure the Brothel got renamed the "Dance Hall."
I just busted up laughing about that one. I had wondered why dancing was so popular... I guess it's the horizontal kind :D
I'm pretty sure the Brothel got renamed the "Dance Hall."
After comparing values and checking the document, yeah, looks like you're right.
Still absorbing the content but so far:
Lke the character background generators & expanded traits
Like the story feats
Like the building system. It's not as detailed as I like but I suspect it will be ripe for 3pp expansion. If not, it looks like it would be easy enough to expand to include considerations for location, building materials, etc.
LOVE the downtime rules. Finally a set of good rules for running a business or organization. Also ripe for 3pp expansion. It finally provides a system that allows for granularity & differences between different businesses & trades beyond skill level. This + the investment rules and I can come up with plausible incomes, costs of living, and available wealth for players & NPCs alike. Bravo!
Well worth the wait. I DEFINITELY want to see more books like this rather than/in addition to "the next book of spells and feats".
...I thought things like globally renaming brothels "festhalls" were off the table with Pathfinder? Where's this sudden prudishness coming from?