DM Heathy's Saltmarsh Discussion Thread

[Mothman]

Heathansson wrote:

Are you comfortable with pdf format? It's clunky and uncomfortable to me.

I'm not going to sit down and read the rules as a PDF doc. I'm making a couple of characters atm and just reading the sections that directly relate to character creation. I'll read the whole thing once I have the book, but I'm comfortable enough with the scope of changes to start playing without having read all the rules.

For pbp games I'll probably refer almost exclusively to the PRD.

[dungeonmaster heathy]

Right on;.....just waiting for Elgan's take, and fakey's/kruely's I reckon.

[Ragadolf]

Heh, not much to take. ;P

I can't afford the book, and while I probably will EVENTUALLY buy the PDF, I just prefer having a book.

I HAVE been poking around the Online PF SRD, but haven't even looked at Druids yet,... Which may not matter since I'm playing a variable/splat anyway. I'll go with the group any which way,...

I DO have a character in another PbP based on Beta that I am NOT anxious to update. The nerfs to the wiz class from beta to final are not major, just a lot of little ones mostly. (The specialist's 1st lvl powers have all been nerfed from 1d6, unlimited/day -to- 1d4, 3 + Int bonus/day) But they also majorly nerfed/updated many spells. INcluding Alter self. The power change of Alter Self I can live with, it's the nerf from 10 min/lvl to 1 min/lvl that bugs me. Especially since my PC is running it even as the PFRPG came out! ;P

Er,... sorry, I do tend to ramble. (You should hear me in RL! Or, maybe not,...)

Anyhoo, I'll go with the flow, changing over shouldn't affect this character much as I'm playing a variant anyway.

[dungeonmaster heathy]

Right on; prolly wait a bit then; it'll give me a chance to get fluent with it, and score the monster manual when it comes out in September.

[dungeonmaster heathy]

Ragadolf wrote:

Heh, not much to take. ;P

I can't afford the book, and while I probably will EVENTUALLY buy the PDF, I just prefer having a book.

I HAVE been poking around the Online PF SRD, but haven't even looked at Druids yet,... Which may not matter since I'm playing a variable/splat anyway. I'll go with the group any which way,...

I DO have a character in another PbP based on Beta that I am NOT anxious to update. The nerfs to the wiz class from beta to final are not major, just a lot of little ones mostly. (The specialist's 1st lvl powers have all been nerfed from 1d6, unlimited/day -to- 1d4, 3 + Int bonus/day) But they also majorly nerfed/updated many spells. INcluding Alter self. The power change of Alter Self I can live with, it's the nerf from 10 min/lvl to 1 min/lvl that bugs me. Especially since my PC is running it even as the PFRPG came out! ;P

Er,... sorry, I do tend to ramble. (You should hear me in RL! Or, maybe not,...)

Anyhoo, I'll go with the flow, changing over shouldn't affect this character much as I'm playing a variant anyway.

You have the beta, right?

Huh......I did a (ruff) line-by-line comparison of the Beta druid against the Core druid; they look damn near identical; in saying this I leave out the wild shape/animal companion stuff because for YOUR instance, your variant doesn't have those things anyhow.
Also didn't get into the spells; I think it's close enough to not matter a whit;
so anyway's, I just gotta wrap my head around the rules a bit more then. Need time to sit down and read the whole damn thing.
I'm itching to convert over pretty soon then I reckon.

[Vattnisse]

I haven't looked at the spells yet, but the actual gameplay looks very, very similar to what we are currently doing. Beyond the higher-powered classes, the game is fundamentally the same.

[French Wolf]

I expect this PC to have suffered a little, because I chose the Glroy and Travel domains which are my favs in 3.5E, and I don't they quite have the same punch this time round.

But I'd love to change over. May ditch the level of barbarian, since it was more for flavour anyway and a 9th level cleric may not be quite so rubbish.

Cheers

[Vattnisse]

I'd expect our "new" clerics to have only two domains, as they now kick even more ass than before.

[Patrick Curtin]

I have to check out the bard. I imagine it's pretty much the same. A chore for today, thanks to stealth PDF! :)

[Aubrey the Malformed]

The bard is a bit different, actually, though as a non-bard player I didn't commit the details to memory. Did anyone also notice the change to casting defensively - now it's DC 15 plus twice the spell level as the DC?

[dungeonmaster heathy]

that means
fitarz iz pwnd wizzerts!!!
pooyow.

[dungeonmaster heathy]

meh. the game's draggin' anyhow; you guys wanna start convertin? I'll have to like look up a lot of stuff at home maybe; but what else is new?

[Vattnisse]

I'm halfway into the conversion - and then it occurred to me. How many points to buy stats?

[dungeonmaster heathy]

uh, do you guys wanna just add 2 points to something?

[dungeonmaster heathy]

I haven't really run a comparison of "25 point buy new" vs. "32 point buy old" or anything.

[Vattnisse]

Unsurprisingly, I put the +2 bonus in INT. There are new rules for INT devices and skills, so I'm recalculating all my skills. As I made the amulet (which, BTW, is my Arcane bond item), I'll chose the skills associated with it. They'll probably be social skills - not sure yet.

[Vattnisse]

OK. Altai's fully updated to PF rules. It took me about 90 minutes, with the skill revamp taking the longest. It wasn't difficult, though.

PS: Shapechanging has taken a serious hit, but has become much, much easier to keep track of. Other than that, the main change is that Altai no longer has a familiar. He also got the Combat Casting feat and knows a s~@!load of new languages.

[Aubrey the Malformed]

I've got Gittik converted on paper too. I'll stick him up later.

[dungeonmaster heathy]

Cool!
I can do the n.p.c.'s now whithout guilting.

[Mothman]

Haven't converted Beldan yet, but I don't think rogues changed that much ... probably take a while to re-organise skills.

I'm currently trying to put together 3 PF characters for different things, so by the time I'm finished them converting Beldan should be a breeze.

[Vattnisse]

The PF xp table is different from the D&D one. So we'll need to update our xp totals at some point.

[Patrick Curtin]

I'll work on Pip tomorrow

[Heathansson]

Vattnisse wrote:

The PF xp table is different from the D&D one. So we'll need to update our xp totals at some point.

Yeah; I also don't know what xp speed to do; I was thinking "fast" maybe.

[Heathansson]

Fast xp looks good to me. Fast looks like about 7 encounters 2 cr above party gets you to level; I think that's about what we've been running anyhow.

I don't know if it will apply to you guys; I'd like to leave the feats "overhead swing" and "backhand" or whatever they're called from the Beta.

[Vattnisse]

Um... you mean you don't want them? They didn't make it into the PF rulebook, after all.

[Ragadolf]

Cool, I'm not worried about transferring Elgan, but I will when I get a chance. (STill haven't picked the feat from my last lvl up yet!)

I need to find and peruse this 'free transfer from 3.5 to PF PDF' I read about,... somewhere. That probably has all the answers that I need in it.

I'm also in the middle of trying to create a new wizzie for another game starting up next week. That'll take most of my 'free' time this week!

AT least I know where to turn for answers! :) YOU guys!

[Heathansson]

Vattnisse wrote:

Um... you mean you don't want them? They didn't make it into the PF rulebook, after all.

Yeah; I want them.

[Heathansson]

Ragadolf wrote:

Cool, I'm not worried about transferring Elgan, but I will when I get a chance. (STill haven't picked the feat from my last lvl up yet!)

I need to find and peruse this 'free transfer from 3.5 to PF PDF' I read about,... somewhere. That probably has all the answers that I need in it.

I'm also in the middle of trying to create a new wizzie for another game starting up next week. That'll take most of my 'free' time this week!

AT least I know where to turn for answers! :) YOU guys!

I found it; it's on this site next to the Pathfinder game stuff. Free download.

[French Wolf]

I'll try to carve out some time for converting Oso over the next week, but I'm pretty busy.

Mothman - I think you'll find that Beldan rocks. It's all those talents. And a sneak attack that hits pretty much everything that isn't a ghost or a golem.

[Mothman]

Here's a prbem; Beldan has a well deserved reputation of being somewhat oblivious (or Deaf and Blind as Gittik puts it), but he has good attention to fine detail (+13 to search).

No that search is grouped with spot and listen under percpetion, he's suddenly going to have a mega boost to his senses when I max out search...

In-game explainations anyone?

[dungeonmaster heathy]

EUREKA!

for Mothy only; he can share it or "play it out in game" as he likes, IF he likes the idea.

Spoiler:

Beldan, up to this point, has been freezing under pressure; he's an excitable boy when he sees or hears a lurking threat the adrenaline kicks in and he freezes up, experiences a moment of catatonia crossed with hysterical blindness, his hearing drowned out by his heart welling up in his throat and pounding in his ears. The net effect is he misses a lot of spot or listen checks due to a massive adrenaline rush. He gets over it by round one and shakes free of the catatonia, but the initial fright overwhelms him for an instant as long as a surprise round.
Up until now, oftentimes when he's seen or heard something, in all actuality his mind's been shutting it out for an instant.
Searching, though it can be dangerous, doesn't cause the same reaction, because there isn't the stimulus: threat of armed conflict involved.
With the advent of the new rules set, he's finally gotten over it.
Sound plausible?

[Mothman]

dungeonmaster heathy wrote:

EUREKA!

for Mothy only; he can share it or "play it out in game" as he likes, IF he likes the idea.

** spoiler omitted **

Works for me mate. Good solution.

[dungeonmaster heathy]

mothy spoiler:

Spoiler:

sweeeet. whoda thunk a lifetime of neurosis would actually pay off?

[Mothman]

Interesting fact: Boots of Elvenkind now give you a bonus to Acrobatics (so jump, tumble, balance) rather than Stealth (Cloak of Elvenkind still gives you a stealth bonus). I quite like that change, even if it is simply necessitated by the skill changes.

[Aubrey the Malformed]

On another note, I will be heading to the US for two weeks from Saturday. Not sure what level of internet access I will have while I'm there.

[Heathansson]

If you have a laptop, even most of the scuzzier dives have wifi.

[Aubrey the Malformed]

Unfortunately, my IT is so unbelievably s%%~ I suspect I can't use it remotely. But most hotels have some sort of facility.

[Heathansson]

(lol) free moment at work on call while some blood tags....
just curious; anybody still need to pathfinderize their characters?
No hurry; I'm on call this week so I'll be working or comatose; just curious.

[Beldan Vale]

Heathansson wrote:

(lol) free moment at work on call while some blood tags....

just curious; anybody still need to pathfinderize their characters?
No hurry; I'm on call this week so I'll be working or comatose; just curious.

Just updated Beldan's profile, if you want to check it out.

[Ragadolf]

Again, I don't think it affects me much.
I WILL probably get a couple of extra feats, they seem to be more prolific in PF, otherwise, unless they changed the spell progression for Druids???

I'll look at it when I get a chance,... eventually,... ;P

[Vattnisse]

Beldan Vale wrote:

Just updated Beldan's profile, if you want to check it out.

Nice. Beldan's lethal now, with the fast stealth and bleeding wounds perks, 5d6 sneak attack and ridiculous Acrobatics and Stealth modifiers. And he's no longer deaf and blind!

[dungeonmaster heathy]

Wow.....that's cool.
scaredofthepeeceesscaredofthepeecees!!!heeheehee!!!heh!
damn!

[Patrick Curtin]

Still gotta work on the midget, will try to today

[French Wolf]

Probably this week. Rogues rool.

[Mothman]

Vattnisse wrote:

Beldan Vale wrote:

Just updated Beldan's profile, if you want to check it out.

Nice. Beldan's lethal now, with the fast stealth and bleeding wounds perks, 5d6 sneak attack and ridiculous Acrobatics and Stealth modifiers. And he's no longer deaf and blind!

He found his mojo.

[French Wolf]

Oso is PF done. He won on the healing and combat front but not having selective healing may prove interesting. I guess I'll be buying a boost to my charisma asap.

You don't me healing up the bad guys in a fight, do you? Kelanen is very even handed...obviously.

[dungeonmaster heathy]

Sweeeet...

[Patrick Curtin]

Pip is Pathfinderized. Lotta changes with the bard, its a rd by rd thing now. No daily powers, just a bardic power pool.

[dungeonmaster heathy]

(lol) I just noticed the duster jacket and cowboy boots.
Maybe Alan Ladd was a hobbit.

[Patrick Curtin]

Yeah and I bought a box of cigarillos and forgot to smoke 'em. LOL