Just wondering, could you guys create a Sage Advice messageboard on your web site? It could be just read-only with Sage be the one posting new entries there, but I honesly don't believe that Sage gets only 10-20 questions per month (that's about the amount that's printed in single issue).
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I'd like to see an official place for a D&D Q&A with the sage, too.
But please please PLEASE do NOT do anything on a "Subscriber Only" basis. The last Editors of Dungeon finally put to rest that whole Subscribers Only stuff, and with very good reason...
Some of us want to support our local gaming stores, to keep Mom and Pop businesses IN business. The entire concept of "Subscriber Only" perks goes against the cottage industry that helps to keep our Favorite Local Gaming Stores open.
The Unleashed D&D magazines need to make steps forward, not overturn good decisions from the prior "administration."
'Nuff said.
Ditto to the request for a Sage Advice compilation. Preferably online and free, but I'm willing to pay for it.
I don't believe it would be a huge problem. OK, they'll have to filter the questions, 'cause sometimes even I ask stupid things, but if The Sage lives at Paizo (sageadvice@paizo.com) it really should not be a big problem.
good idea
The collected Sage Advice responses are already available online in PDF format. They are collectively known as the D&D FAQ, and can be found at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a
Turnover between the magazine and the website update is reasonably quick, with just a few weeks passing between the street date and the update of the FAQ file.
Keep in mind that the current Sage, Andy Collins, is also a full-time developer for Wizards of the Coast, and has quite a few demands on his time. He already answers 2 pages worth of questions a month in addition to his workload of D&D books, and I somewhat doubt he has the time available to answer many more questions than what he already covers.
The collected Sage Advice responses are already available online in PDF format. They are collectively known as the D&D FAQ, and can be found at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a
Only about one out of every four (really rough estimate) Sage Advice questions or answers makes it into the FAQ. As DM, I tend to use about 90% of the Sage Advice in my game, so the FAQ omits about 75% of what I would find useful.
There are two sets of questions being mixed here.
1. Can The Sage operate a message board to answer questions?
2. Can Paizo release a compilation of all Sage Advice Q&A?
Time is a factor in the first.
Money / marketability is a factor in the second.
Only about one out of every four (really rough estimate) Sage Advice questions or answers makes it into the FAQ. As DM, I tend to use about 90% of the Sage Advice in my game, so the FAQ omits about 75% of what I would find useful.
Not so. At least, not anymore.
At one point, there was enough lead time between Sage Advice responses and FAQ updates that certain questions didn't make it into the FAQ. The reason for this was simple: some answers were incorrect or misleading, and were omitted because of it.
Now, every question and answer makes it into the FAQ. I took a random sampling of four Dragon issues released since 3.5- 313, 316, 322 and 323--and all of these issues have all their Sage Advice responses logged in the FAQ. It's only reasonable to assume that this will continue. While we certainly can't expect every question that Andy answers to make it into Dragon, we can expect every answer that appears in the magazine to make the FAQ, unless it's discovered that the response is somehow wrong.
I may not be at piazo, but I can answer at least 1 of the questions...
Does the sage reply to all e-mail questions?
not always... I know this because I have sent him questions and not gotten a response before :)
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I sent a question recently. Unless it gets published soon, I won't have heard back.
As long as I'm thinking about it, my question has to deal with ability damage and stat boosting items.
For example, if you have a Con of 12, and an Amulet of Natural Health +4, what happens if you take 12 points of Con damage? What about 14? If you take 16 obviously you will be dead - assuming you can take those last 4 points of damage... But what would happen to the magical item? Does it still provide a +4? Does an item prevent you from having a stat reduced to 0 by ability damage since a score can never be reduced below 0? If any of you know, please tell me.
if you had a modified con of 16 (12 base +4 enhancement bonus)and you took 14 points of con damage you would have a con of 2... if you then took off the con boosting item you would die.
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Right. If you take off the item you die. But can you be drained to below 4 if you're wearing an amulet of natural health +4? If you can, does this damage affect the item in any way?
It seems that if you have a Con of 12, and an Amulet of Natural Health +4, once you take 12 Con you have a "natural" ability score of 0. A score cannot be drained (or damaged) below 0. Thus, you may be immune to additional ability damage.
If you can take damage in excess of your natural Con, does it have any effect on the magical item? If you take 14 points of Con damage does it become an Amulet of Natural Health +2 until it can "recover"?
I really would like a complete explanation of this phenomena.
Move aside, amateur sage comming through :-)
Actually, I´d just like to offer a different point of view... Here's the relevant quote from the SRD:
While any loss is debilitating, losing all points in an ability score can be devastating.
• Strength 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He lies helpless on the ground.
• Dexterity 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He stands motionless, rigid, and helpless.
• Constitution 0 means that the character is dead.
• Intelligence 0 means that the character cannot think and is unconscious in a coma-like stupor, helpless.
• Wisdom 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a deep sleep filled with nightmares, helpless.
• Charisma 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a catatonic, coma-like stupor, helpless.
Keeping track of negative ability score points is never necessary. A character’s ability score can’t drop below 0.
Amulet of Health: This amulet is a golden disk on a chain. It usually bears the image of a lion or other powerful animal. The amulet grants the wearer an enhancement bonus to Constitution of +2, +4, or +6.
A amulet of health offers an enhancement bonus. The ability score itself doesn't change. This means that once the wearer takes 12 points of con damage, he's dead. The amulet, however is unaffected.
As an analogy, take a +4 weapon. Incidentally, the +4 is also an enhancement bonus. The wielder's BAB doesn't change. Which means that for the purpose of e.g. power attack feat, you cannot use the +4 from the weapon's enhancement bonus to further increase damage, just like the +4 from the amulet of health doesn't affect at what point your constitution reaches 0.There are certain effects that temporarily increase one's con score, not just provide a bonus. When determining the amount of con danage a character can take, you should use the newly modified score. When the effect ends, the character reverts to his old score and takes full effect, possibly dying.
As an example, I was going to use the barbarian´s rage ability. Upon closer reading, however, I find this too is a bonus, albeit an unspecified one.
Having written all of this, I am starting to realise that keeping track of all these modified and unmodified ability scores is simply too much hassle. On that ground alone, I would take all these bonusses into account when determining the amount of con damage a character can take. If I really enjoyed all this number crunching I would have gone into accounting, after all.
Contributor
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On the opposite side of the spectrum: I've posted a question on here before and ended up reading a very familiar question a month or two later in the sage advice column--reworded of course with a better written, more well-rounded question, cuz I was more rambling than actually expecting someone to answer me on the board or there. I have no idea if they reworded my question so it'd fit magazine format or not, but it gave me warm fuzzies... :P
If it was really my question from here, he might not just take submissions, but look around for questions on here and other places--something that makes an interesting question that he can add onto, even. Also, another problem is that he seems to pick a theme for every column--a bunch of related questions... That would put a bunch of questions on hold, until he received enuff questions of the same theme.
The Sage, or more accurately the Sage's spearbearer, does indeed look around on the internet for questions to help fill out a month's list of questions. Sometimes the spearbearer finds a few questions on a topic he thinks is interesting, but he needs more to help the Sage reach his prescribed the word count.
The Sage never responds directly to emails because he does not have time.
The Sage never responds to questions about earlier editions of the game.
The Sage never responds to questions about third-party d20 or OGL products.
The Sage never responds directly to emails because he does not have time.
Is this a new policy that started with Andy? Because Skip used to respond to my emails via email all the time... infact I never saw one of my questions see print, but got plenty of answers from the man...
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Contributor
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Is this a new policy that started with Andy? Because Skip used to respond to my emails via email all the time... infact I never saw one of my questions see print, but got plenty of answers from the man...
That's pretty cool, actually. I didn't know Skip did that. :)
Anyway, that's not so much a policy as just a result of how things are done now. I'm not sure how much of the details I'm allowed to go into about this, so that's all I think I'll say about it for now.