I'm about to run a game of pathfinder for some friends, and I'm a bit rusty.
I've been putting together things I might need/want to make the session smoother.
Battlemat - Chesex Megamat
Wet Erase Markers
Pathfinder DM Screen
Gamemastery Initiative Board
Various tokens and markers.
Dice.
With this in mind, is there anything I'm clearly missing, or anything people can suggest?
I'm considering getting the condition cards, maybe a few other things. Any recommendations?
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How much time do you have to prep?
I usually write out the NPC/monster stats on an index card for quick reference during combat (I also track initiative that way, I have everyone put their stats on a card and place them in initiative order and cycle through them during the round). For my Kingmaker game, I wrote out the random encounter charts and traveling/exploration rates and placed them on my DM screen for a quick look-up with the party travels. When running from a module, I use Sticky-Note tabs to mark locations of crucial info in the module booklet. Also, see the lots of cool user-created handouts in the Kingmaker section of the forums. Wanted posters, maps of the trading post, and other goodies can be found and printed out for your players.
Also handy to have are:
Extra pencils
Extra dice
blank note cards
drinking water!
The condition cards aren't necessary for the first round of Kingmaker, but in higher levels they would become more helpful. Good luck!
Spare pens and pencils.
A bowl for chips and some plastic cups for drinks.
Comfy chairs.
Lightning is important. Not mood lighting, just "Hey, I can read my sheet" kind of lighting.
There's something called SORD which is a whole bunch of Pathfinder rules condensed onto a single page, so Grapple would have all it's rules laid out on a single page, a page willed with Attack Actions. It's basically a quick reference rules lookup.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=81817&affili ate_id=296418
Once the group is established, consider a communal tip jar. Everyone puts a little bit of money in each session, and then when you have enough money you buy things for the group, be it the above SORD thing, pizza delivery, Paizo books etc.
Paperweights for the edges of your battlemat? (mine always curls up, making the pieces slide)
I'm about to run a game of pathfinder for some friends, and I'm a bit rusty.
I've been putting together things I might need/want to make the session smoother.
Battlemat - Chesex Megamat
Wet Erase Markers
Pathfinder DM Screen
Gamemastery Initiative Board
Various tokens and markers.
Dice.With this in mind, is there anything I'm clearly missing, or anything people can suggest?
I'm considering getting the condition cards, maybe a few other things. Any recommendations?
Miniatures.
i HIGHLY recommend crayola washable markers for battle mats.
Pencils: mechanical pencils with large, expendable erasers are good.
Character sheets: make it MUCH easier to remember everything that goes on your character.
Index cards. billion and one uses.
I'm about to run a game of pathfinder for some friends, and I'm a bit rusty.
I've been putting together things I might need/want to make the session smoother.
Battlemat - Chesex Megamat
Wet Erase Markers
Pathfinder DM Screen
Gamemastery Initiative Board
Various tokens and markers.
Dice.With this in mind, is there anything I'm clearly missing, or anything people can suggest?
I'm considering getting the condition cards, maybe a few other things. Any recommendations?
A spray bottle of water and a roll of paper towels for cleaning the battlemat. Also useful for drink spills.
Make sure you have all your books at hand.If you game with a computer nearby it can be nice to have it powered up, webbrowser open, and bookmarked for reference pages if you need to look something up online.
If you order out for food, keeping all your menus in a folder can help speed up the process.
I've seen games slow down while all of the above were searched for/waited on. Sounds like you have the basics covered.
I'll try to recall what we use.
We have a chessex battlemat with erasable markers, and we keep some weights around so it doesn't curl up. In addition, I've personally been using Gaming Paper for complex maps, but storing it is kind of a pain. So far I've been using a postal shipping tube, but I need a bigger one.
Thankfully, we just got a very large pane of plexiglass, so if I wanted to I could start folding them into squares -- the plexiglass would flatten the creases.
Lessee. The DM also uses his GM screen every game, and tends to have his must-have books on the shelves (Core, Bestiary, Adventure path books). We keep plenty of extra dice and pencils around in case the players forget theirs, and the GM tends to get a photocopy of our character sheets every couple of levels because forgetting them and having to drive home is a huge pain, and so is trying to remake the character from memory.
For initiative, we use a deck of cards. The DM tells everybody to roll for initiative, then starts counting down from what he expects the maximum to be (somewhere in the upper 20s usually). People call out as their initative is called, and they are handed a playing card from Ace, to 2 on up, which is placed in front of them.
Usually, one or two players are sort-of secretaries of the group -- keeping track of the party's gained treasure, what day of the month is it (with notes on what happened when), and keeping track of player handouts. The DM likes to hand us portraits of NPCs with their names on it, holepunched, for this purpose and I really think it's helped us connect with the game.
We like to use character tokens too. The DM has a repository of various miniatures, but he recently bought 4e's Monster Vault tokens and they really are top-notch. Still, it's possible to fire up Photoshop and make our own tokens for special NPCs or monsters we don't have tokens for.
Also, he's used Photoshop to whip up our most frequent buffs, and 'Bloody' from 4e, and given them to the players as cards. Now when the mage gives everybody Haste, or we are reduced below half our hit points, we can put a card in front of us to remind ourselves what we're affected by (Haste, Bull's Strength, Bless) or others (Bloody) as appropriate. I know Paizo just recently made condition cards like this, and it would be neat to have a deck for stuff like Grappled, Fatigued and the like.
I'm about to run a game of pathfinder for some friends, and I'm a bit rusty.
I've been putting together things I might need/want to make the session smoother.
Battlemat - Chesex Megamat
Wet Erase Markers
Pathfinder DM Screen
Gamemastery Initiative Board
Various tokens and markers.
Dice.With this in mind, is there anything I'm clearly missing, or anything people can suggest?
I'm considering getting the condition cards, maybe a few other things. Any recommendations?
I find spell radius template are also helpful.
I'll try to recall what we use.
We have a chessex battlemat with erasable markers, and we keep some weights around so it doesn't curl up. In addition, I've personally been using Gaming Paper for complex maps, but storing it is kind of a pain. So far I've been using a postal shipping tube, but I need a bigger one.
+1 for Gaming Paper rolls or something similar. There's a lot to be said for having store-able maps. I do a fair amount of map-prep for my games and not having to re-draw maps all the time is a huge time saver. Nebelwerfer clued me in on Alvin Ice Tubes for map transport.
I used to use "initiative cards", but, for me, I found that they were more hassle than they're worth. I now use the GameMastery Combat Pad. It is simple and it's easy for everyone to see if needed.
I also use a Netbook. It's nice to have a quick look up of information if you have access to the web. I also keep all my campaign information online for easy access.
My players use index cards and dice as "continuous effects" markers. So there's usually a village of paper tents with effects written on them that surround the battle mat. Extra dice and generic tokens are always nice to have, too.
Sounds like everyone has given you what you need
As a DM make sure you are rested up and know the material
My new group is amazed at how organized I am about things Magic Item Cards Hero Labs running
Minis that are close to matching as I can get now
Dry Erase battle mat
Elevation Markers
They just stare and say how it will be hard to game with anyone else after gaming with me
I will reiterate pencils.
For tokens, these 1 inch squares are my favorite things ever. They are 1 inch and I use them to note differences in terrain, mark out spell effect areas, represent creatures I don't have minis for, or to create a giant base or elevation for a smaller mini. You can get them in this 100 piece bucket for $6 or a 400 piece bucket for just under $20 (5 cents a tile which is cheaper than similar craft tiles).
Legos, candy, and coins also make good tokens. (This is of course assuming you're not getting a bunch of miniatures, which can be cost intensive.)
The GameMastery card sets are cool but not necessary--but if you already have them, by all means use them. The condition cards would certainly be useful. I like the Crit Hit and Fumble decks, but while they add cool flavor, they are not needed.
If you have a laptop, it can come in handy. It's best if you can get online, because I find using the online PRD WAY easier than the .pdfs, which aren't very screen-use friendly in my experience. Load up your favorite generation software such as PC Gen or HeroLab. I also play music while we play, entirely optional of course. However, sometimes folks find laptops distracting so it's really up to you.
I will reiterate pencils.
For tokens, these 1 inch squares are my favorite things ever. They are 1 inch and I use them to note differences in terrain, mark out spell effect areas, represent creatures I don't have minis for, or to create a giant base or elevation for a smaller mini. You can get them in this 100 piece bucket for $6 or a 400 piece bucket for just under $20 (5 cents a tile which is cheaper than similar craft tiles).
Legos, candy, and coins also make good tokens. (This is of course assuming you're not getting a bunch of miniatures, which can be cost intensive.)
The GameMastery card sets are cool but not necessary--but if you already have them, by all means use them. The condition cards would certainly be useful. I like the Crit Hit and Fumble decks, but while they add cool flavor, they are not needed.
If you have a laptop, it can come in handy. It's best if you can get online, because I find using the online PRD WAY easier than the .pdfs, which aren't very screen-use friendly in my experience. Load up your favorite generation software such as PC Gen or HeroLab. I also play music while we play, entirely optional of course. However, sometimes folks find laptops distracting so it's really up to you.
that reminds me, i get a ton of use of my ipad. The great thing about the beastiary is that you can zoom the pdf on the screen and say "you see 6 things that look like this"