We're doing a lot of brainstorming here for new products coming down the road in the Player Companion series, and while we always get our say, I wanted to hear what you want.
One type of Player Companion I could see us doing really easily are some focused on particular environments. We're already dipping our toe into that water with People of the North, but that's even a horse of a different color than what I'm talking about here. I'm thinking something very focused on adventuring in a singular environment, something that would be the go-to source for your character when you GM runs a desert campaign, or takes you over the Crown of the World, or goes underwater. So, aside from turning this into great messageboard list of biomes we could potentially do player companions themed around, what are some environments would serve you particularly well in your games? And then, what rules elements do you think would serve such environment well?
So, instead of jungles or deserts, maybe like the Darklands, dungeons, the planes. And if we went those routes - or other awesome directions you have suggestions on - what would you want to see in such books to make them distinctive?
Thanks all, can't wait to see what you've got in mind!
I love the north, so it's a great start.
forests and jungles would be my next bet.
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I would like to see environmental books. The more the better and any environment you can think of I would be interested in.
The big things I would like to see would be below in no particular order.
1) typical hazards
2) survival rules
3) any special equipment or gear that would be common to that environment
4) perhaps even a few monsters
5) random weather charts for that type of terrain(maybe with notes on plus or minus to the rolls depending on actual lat)
6) common plants(preferably with some herbalism uses for some)/trees etc,
7) any possible common culture aspects(like most desert societies would share a few things due to their environmental conditions they live in)
8) random encounter tables(since these books would be for Golarion, it could focus on what is common there)
That's all I can think of at the moment. If I can think of more I will come back and add more things to my list.
A whole lot of environment-type problems are only problems at low levels (say 1-5, or maybe up to 9) -- once players can fly, teleport, and cast endure elements or water breathing a lot of environment ceases to be an issue. Give us some stuff that becomes a problem for players at mid-levels or even high levels.
Sea and ships are good. Flying at high altitude and cloud castles is good. Frost/cold/winter/mountains is maybe better than desert (because, honestly, between create water being a cantrip and endure elements being a first-level spell, sun and heat are not issues.) Forest and jungle might be interesting.
Something about the planes that explains how "plane shift to another plane" is a different type of adventure than "teleport to a far country". Because, honestly, it's hard for me to see it that differently. The natives are strange and speak another language and have different customs... what else is an issue? (I'm sure there are ways to do it. I just haven't seen it done.)
From a GM's perspective, what I want most is "how to design adventures in this environment? What can I do to make it memorable and interesting _without too much rules weight_?"
Decent examples for aerial and underwater combat would be very helpful.
Underwater and planar content please.
Both of these environments are at the moment considered to be niche topics, but we get an awful lot of monsters and even spells and magic items that pertain to them. Yet there seems to be something missing that makes designing and playing in that content an easy undertaking.
Taking it a step further, back before the Campaign Setting was in hardback (which made Worldwound and Numeria hot topics) there were requests for adventures underwater and in the planes and a common (and fair) response was "that's too much of a niche market topic and would take too much support."
If the support was there, they might seem less like niche topics.
No sarcasm or agenda intended, I mean this at face value.
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I've always liked the idea of underwater combat, but running it always gives me headaches.
Same with other sorts of 3D movement, so anything that can be done to make that easier to understand, follow, adjudicate, etc. would be nice.
Stuff that shows the dangers of traveling through the extreme environments would be good, stuff so I don't have to tell my players "You're going up into the arctic, aren't any of you going to get cold weather gear?".
This
First off, I'd like these to be GM materials as much or more than I'd like them to be player materials. After all, without support for the GM, there won't be adventures in these cool locations to begin with.
As for what I'd like to see, I'd like to see stuff along the lines of the following. Some is general, and some is specific.
1. Support for planar adventuring. Yeah, the GMG had some generic stuff, but it was still pretty thin. For example, there's no good rules for morphic planes (really, no rules at all).
2. Guidelines for creating an environment. You know ... something that makes this deep, dark forest, or desert, or cavern different from every other. Maybe this forest has a lot more rain, with a +4 to all Survival DCs and a -1 to the damage for all fire-based spells. Maybe that desert has extra-fine sand which causes a movement penalty and can give you a disease-like lung condition after a day or two. Maybe the caverns the party just wandered into are just a wee bit warm for most people's taste, making everyone dehydrated, irritable, and prone to distraction. Stuff like that.
This goes for creatures, too. Maybe the spiders in this forest have a particularly virulent poison. Maybe the berries growing in these hills are extra healthy and you heal just a little bit more when you eat them. Perhaps the inhabitants of the desert have extra-beneficial camouflage and all get a +4 environmental bonus on Stealth.
3. A good book on the elemental planes. There's got to be more to the Elemental Plane of Earth than an endless cave, and infinite spans of air and water are just boring. There needs to be something to give it life.
4. From a more mundane standpoint, stuff that makes outdoor locations interesting adventure sites in their own right. As of now, pretty much any time there's an outdoor adventure, it consists of "you wander around a lot until you get to location B2." That's fine, but think of how much more interesting it would be if the mountains were the actual challenge, or the swamp, or that dense forest that you can't see more than a few yards in.
5. General information grouping locations, challenges and sites based on appropriate level, plus what can be done to raise or lower the challenge of a locale. Typically, any form of travel-based challenge is gone by the time the PCs have teleport, wind walk, or the like, but if they have to, say, bring back several wagon loads of valuable ore, suddenly the terrain is once again a challenge.
6. The old WoTC books Frostburn, Sandstorm and Stormwrack were among my favorites - not that I'm looking for an explosion of prestige classes, spells and feats - but having that kind of environmental information and hazards available would be outstanding.
7. Weather. No, I don't want a simulationist weather prediction program, that's just a pain. But it would be nice to be able to say "Okay, it's raining when you wake up, and a little colder than yesterday" without just making it up. A little here would go a long way.
Anyways, that's a bit stream of consciousness, I guess, but it would be really cool to have something like an environment stat block (like the city stat blocks) that makes it easy for a GM to make locations feel unique.
STUFF
Excellent suggestions gbonehead! I'll add on muh two cp's worth:
Planar Adventuring: Without the usual "this is for hi level, uber characters" debate, why not create material for planes adventuring? It's really the "environment" that adds to the sense of adventuring, and IMHO shouldn't be a (high) level requirement.
Environment Table: This not only explains the type of environment, but also movement requirements/restrictions, atmospheric viability, flora/fauna (one can NOT live on "Lembas Bread" alone).
For Instance:
Gravity: Heavy = negatives to movement requires a CON check or be exhausted due to "extra weight";
Gravity: Light = positives to movement BUT requires a dexterity check to not loose control/balance.
Shadows: The area is in a constant state of shadows of light and dark where colors seem to vanish: negative to PER; Requires a CON check or be disoriented.
Ash Wastes: Needs special eye protection/respirator = CON check or will have respiratory and ocular irritation...uses up water to clean off!
Things like this.
ummmmm what else. For now that's what I got.
Ya just GOTTA love brainstorming! (Well at least I do ;p )
Rom001
Mm-hmm. Looks like the Campaign Setting line could use some threads like these, to relieve the repressed inspiration for GM-oriented books. I mean, someday I may GM again; but for now, I'd much rather have something more like the Field Guide section of the Pathfinder Society Field Guide. (Which, to be fair, was a Campaign Setting book that was really for players...)
ETA: Maybe pairing it with a Campaign Setting book would scratch both itches, so that GMs could get their new rules and tables and monsters and whatnot -- their new challenges -- and players could get their tips on how to survive those challenges.
OOOH! I juuust remembered an "environment"...well it maybe more like a situation, and they ARE asking for more than a list of biomes, so here it is anyway:
The Wall (inspired by Legends of the Five Rings before I read/saw Tolkien's The Two Towers version)
The PCs are at a great edifice that separates them from their enemies. Be you atop the battlements, waiting behind as reserves or for some reason between the Wall and the Enemy you JUST now found religion of one of the many Gods/Goddesses and ask for their help!
OK so The Two Towers had rain. (easy) interms of "environment"...what about:
The Thick of It: Due to a breach of The Wall or you "just fell" from the battlements you're now in the middle of the chaos: Perception checks are made with negatives, failure means you hit an ally!
If that's too much of a stretch for an "environment" how about:
The Silence Once you step into the area you notice right away that something is amiss. Your group then realizes the lack of ambient sounds. Soon you notice that the "physical sounds" you make (speech, breathing, walking etc.), go no further than a few inches from you person! And even then it all sounds "muffled"
Prolonged exposure to the area requires a Will save or be confused until the PC leaves the "silenced" area.
Hmmm...after typing all of this up not listing "biomes" and brainstorming "environments" seems to be harder than I thought. MAYBE change the word environment to atmosphere? Surroundings?
Rom001
EDIT: The examples that I'm giving...are these what you're looking/asking for Mr. Schneider????
I sense the "yeah, it's a player book, but it's for GM's really" problem which drove me nuts with some Paizo books.
Something to be careful about, I agree.
Without censoring or even knowing exactly how it'd fill out/fit into thirty two pages, I'd like to see:
people of the ocean (thematically but not geographically linked cultures)
people of the darklands (from Aboleth slave culture to drow to mongrelmen)
people of the east (vudran player guide - with rules on different castes maybe?)
City life (characters from larger cities)
Scarzni player guide
A mercenary's life (if there are large and stable enough mercenary companies on golarion to have developed a subculture)
Druma player guide - with rules for running businesses/mercantile based characters
Oh, I fully 'get' that this is a Player Companion thread. I just think that (for example) lots of cool player options for underwater adventuring when there's no equivalent cool GM information for underwater adventuring is putting the cart before the horse.
I sense the "yeah, it's a player book, but it's for GM's really" problem which drove me nuts with some Paizo books.
Don't worry. I'm on EXACTLY that.
And keep the ideas coming folks, I'm totally reading.
So say we did the big book of Tundra Adventuring. What would you like to see in that which we could use again in the big book of Coral Reef Adventuring? I'd love to have pieces (sub-series) that we could use down the line to create connections and make these feel like they're of a kind.
It may well be a minority view, but that isn't a great feature for me. Even if each is relatively standalone, when I see references to another book I feel compelled to go look at that too. That doesn't make it easy to generate ideas/inspiration when I'm out of the house where my collection is.
(although, in a probably irrational and contradictory way, I do like to see crossovers between the different product lines. I liked the fact sargava and heart of the jungle released at the same time, for example - it made me see value in multiple subscriptions).
My choice would be something on another planet in Golarion's solar system; 1/2 standard gravity,......zero gravity......
maybe......rulesbooks for varying the campaign's tech levels (i.e. "straight medieval/magic" which is what I'm calling Pathfinder now generally speaking a.o.t. steampunk/maybe low or different magic)....
different rules for different black powder advancements.....that sort of stuff.
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The environmental books that WotC released were some of my favorite; crunch and fluff on Dungeons, Cities, Deserts, Arctic Regions, The Seas. All very good, and I still reference them.
In any environmental book that Paizo puts out, I'd like to see:
-Specialized Gear
-Survival / Navigation Tips & Tricks
-Hazards
-Indigenous Peoples, including maybe some traits and feats for characters native to the region, or that spent a lot of time there
-Spells tied to the environment
-Maybe a few native creatures or templates / variants of existing critters
-Sweet, sweet art.
Well, that's my little bit of input for now. I'll definitely keep my eyes on this thread. I've been waiting for Paizo to look at this topic.
I'm thinking that rulebooks are better without adventuring pieces in them. Examples, yes, but not adventures.
The primary thing I'd like to see in an environment book/series is a serious focus on the environment itself -- its general ecology, hazards, terrain effects (tactical as well as overland movement), special mundane equipment adventurers may find useful -- and little to no coverage of feats, prestige classes, and spells peculiar to the biome.
Some previous efforts, by more than one company, have felt like the treatment of the environment/cultural setting/nation was not much more than a skin for yet another big batch o' prestigious spellfeats.
Gamelords, Ltd. did a series of environment books (desert, mountain and undersea) for Traveller back in the mid 80's that was short and to the point.
In keeping with the above, +1 to Dark_Mistress, Stockvillian (except perhaps for the spells) and gbonehead.
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Well, I am an addict when it comes to spells. Makes my wizard-gland twitch with excitement. I sometimes curl up at night cuddling my precious Spell Compendium, whispering sweet nothings to its pages . . .
Me too, but instead of seeing spells in stuff like this. i would rather see books about varies magic schools with spells common to those schools or groups of people type books. Like spells of the Irrisen witches or what not.
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3. A good book on the elemental planes. There's got to be more to the Elemental Plane of Earth than an endless cave, and infinite spans of air and water are just boring. There needs to be something to give it life.
The surge of interest in the City of Brass back in the day made for some excellent source material on stuff going on in the plane of fire, but the planes of air, earth and water have always felt like poor cousins (and the para and quasi elemental planes, which no longer exist, also could be folded into the elemental planes as 'border regions' or something).
As other cultures consider wood, metal and / or void to be 'elements,' it's also possible that other elemental planes than the western four, could exist...
4. From a more mundane standpoint, stuff that makes outdoor locations interesting adventure sites in their own right. As of now, pretty much any time there's an outdoor adventure, it consists of "you wander around a lot until you get to location B2." That's fine, but think of how much more interesting it would be if the mountains were the actual challenge,...
Difficult terrain, weather, etc. as challenges, with challenge ratings, does make sense. Sort of a natural version of a trap or haunt.
Decent examples for aerial and underwater combat would be very helpful.
This.
Add in (some of) the elemental planes (water and air would obviously been covered by the two above).The rest seems pretty dull to me. My first direction was "Oh, here come the splat-books". Except it's not PrCs but environment.
Most of the difficulties encountered outdoors are already described in the CRB.
To have even more of them (mechanics-wise) at hand would slow down game play, taking away more time from the actual story and development of the players' PCs while you're leafing through the new book to hunt down rule XYZ.
I also see a bit of a cut&paste-problem, since as has been mentioned before there are already many of these books out there (which is maybe part of my indifferent reaction, since such a series doesn't have the original Golarion feel).
Ruyan.
Couldn't sleep so I decided to read some threads. I ended up in the middle of this thread:
THE BONEYARD, ABADDON AND THE LIFECYCLE OF SOULS
How about you folks at Paizo create the environment known as The Boneyard!
I mean think about it...If a PC's character dies then why not "go on an adventure" to reclaim that character's soul? This could be an AP inside of an AP! What say ye if I'll coin the phrase "Tangent Adventure Path or TAP for short???
Are there not works of literature and "moving talkies" (IN color no less) <aka movies> regarding protagonist/heroes/heroines going to the underworld to:
- find/save someone/something
- gain knowledge/favor from
- prove oneself worthy to go to heaven/hell/wherever
etc.
At any rate, this Player's Companion book, The Boneyard Primer (the equivalent to the Inner Sea Primer), could be the introduction to the series of all the other Planes. (Why should visiting the other planes be an "uber level only" adventure????)
The GM should get a follow up Campaign Setting book, The Boneyard Plane Guide: The Realm of Waiting and Judgement (the equivalent to the Inner Sea World Guide), to give GMs (oh all right and PCs too ;p) hooks, places and people of interest (other than Pharasma) so they can run an adventure/campaign on this Plane.
(These books being released on/near the same date is plausible. Come on now! Pharasma's realm is not as big as the Inner Sea...is it????) ;p
To make things interesting (as per the GMG: Planar Traits; pg 185; 2nd col.; 1st paragraph) The Boneyard realm has the trait: Flowing Time. To further the example, the passage of time would be:
I hope you get my meaning. (WHEW! Who knew a bit o' insomnia can help get the creative juices flowing?!?!?!?)
Anywho, Mr. Schneider, is this what you're looking for in terms of creative (and public) topic brainstorming?
Too sleepy regarding 2 cents worth,
Rom001
Couldn't sleep so I decided to read some threads.
Lots of cool ideas there, thanks Rom001 and everyone whose been posting!
Okay, lets take things from a different angle. Are there any environments you think are over done? I mean, does anyone want more tricks and details on how to get along in the forest? Or lets say something even more pervasive: dungeons. Do you think these settings still have depths to be plumbed? And if so, prove it! What have you seen that you love, or what haven't you seen before that you always wanted?
Okay, lets take things from a different angle. Are there any environments you think are over done? Or lets say something even more pervasive: dungeons.
I'm sure I'm in a tiny minority here, but I always have trouble thinking of "dungeon" as an environment. Thirty-plus years of liberally defining the term can't easily be set aside, but "secret underground complex" =/= "ruins" =/= "natural cave system."
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Okay, lets take things from a different angle. Are there any environments you think are over done? I mean, does anyone want more tricks and details on how to get along in the forest? Or lets say something even more pervasive: dungeons. Do you think these settings still have depths to be plumbed? And if so, prove it! What have you seen that you love, or what haven't you seen before that you always wanted?
That depends are you considering doing stuff like listing common plants and how they could be used in herbalism or natural objects to be used in alchemy etc? If yes then no there is none I think is over done.
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It may not be everyone's thing, but I'd love to know what kind of flora and fauna live in each region to better paint a picture in my head, especially for more fantastic environments like the Cinderlands(the article for that place did go into those details, which really helped bring it to life for the players, especially those with Shoanti PCs). Knowing what game you're hunting or fruits you're picking is just one of those immersive things many players love to have.
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It may not be everyone's thing, but I'd love to know what kind of flora and fauna live in each region to better paint a picture in my head, especially for more fantastic environments like the Cinderlands(the article for that place did go into those details, which really helped bring it to life for the players, especially those with Shoanti PCs). Knowing what game you're hunting or fruits you're picking is just one of those immersive things many players love to have.
I am someone who enjoyed Elminster's Ecologies. and I approve this message.
Okay, lets take things from a different angle. Are there any environments you think are over done? I mean, does anyone want more tricks and details on how to get along in the forest? Or lets say something even more pervasive: dungeons. Do you think these settings still have depths to be plumbed? And if so, prove it! What have you seen that you love, or what haven't you seen before that you always wanted?
Recalling this is meant to be from a Companion perspective, I'm thinking that stuff specific to a single race is probably closest to what's been overdone. We probably also don't need any more archetypes specific to environments, locations, or creatures.
On the other hand, given the vast quantity of stuff that is out there, rather than adding even more new rules, perhaps guidelines on how to use existing rules (which are scattered across a half-dozen hardcovers and dozens of Adventure Paths and other softcovers) would be a welcome addition to the Player Companion line.
Yeah, I know it would be "repeating material," but darn, if all the spells, feats, traits and archetypes that are extra useful for forest, or underwater, or alpine adventuring were listed together, that would be an awesome player resource, and given the relatively low-cost of the Player Companion line, it would be a welcome addition to my bookshelf; plus I really doubt that every environment would need its own sourcebook. I could see something like the "Player's Guide to the Wilds" and the "Player's Guide to the Elemental Realms" or something like that probably covering all the bases.
Not to say that there shouldn't be any new material, but that way, with it all gathered together, it should be pretty darn obvious what the new material should be, rather than having someone go "hey, I know, we need a spell that entombs someone in ice!" not realizing that icy prison already exists in Ultimate Magic.
On the other hand, given the vast quantity of stuff that is out there, rather than adding even more new rules, perhaps guidelines on how to use existing rules (which are scattered across a half-dozen hardcovers and dozens of Adventure Paths and other softcovers) would be a welcome addition to the Player Companion line.
There's something in Player Companion: Varisia I'm going to want you to see and I'm going to want a lot of peoples' opinions on.
On the other hand, given the vast quantity of stuff that is out there, rather than adding even more new rules, perhaps guidelines on how to use existing rules (which are scattered across a half-dozen hardcovers and dozens of Adventure Paths and other softcovers) would be a welcome addition to the Player Companion line.There's something in Player Companion: Varisia I'm going to want you to see and I'm going to want a lot of peoples' opinions on.
I guess it's a good thing I'm a superscriber then :)
On the other hand, given the vast quantity of stuff that is out there, rather than adding even more new rules, perhaps guidelines on how to use existing rules (which are scattered across a half-dozen hardcovers and dozens of Adventure Paths and other softcovers) would be a welcome addition to the Player Companion line.There's something in Player Companion: Varisia I'm going to want you to see and I'm going to want a lot of peoples' opinions on.
Sort of like how Skull and Shackles added notes for how spells interacted with ships?
Hey All,
I've been meaning to post more regarding this topic...but you know...Life got in the way ;p
ANYWHO...how I was taught how to "brainstorm" was to just list everything in order to get the creative process going. No idea is a bad idea. In a lot of cases "tangent" thoughts inspire other thoughts which lead to some great ideas.
Sooooo, how about a book that caters to problem solving? Specifically "puzzles" like in video games or a few scenes from TV/anime shows.
Now I know solving puzzles are limited to the group's problem solving capabilities, but video games and TV/anime shows most likely have helped the thinking process.
Putting this aside (again just to get the creative juices flowing) I envision this book to be a bunch of tables to "create puzzles". This format will keep the elements of the puzzles "modular".
(Imagine the die rolls resulting with these outcomes)
EXAMPLE A:
Step on this (item),
that sets up these (objects),
where the PCs must move an/these (items),
that needs to be placed (on a specific area and/or sequential order),
EXAMPLE B: (Think Skyrim's Dragon Claw "keys")
This (Macguffin) is really a key/clue to
open this door which on the (macguffin)
shows the "sequence" to open the door.
Now since it's easier to solve problems visually this "book" can have oodles of tiles (cut outs or photocopied) and then laid out in front of the PCs in which they can move said tiles (on a map grid) to solve the puzzle problem.
That's it for now.
[Insert catch phrase here]
Rom
A couple of things. Space, or high altitude, both make nice environments to describe.
But please don't make single spells that negate all the penalties of a specific environment, whats the point of having fun rules for environment X if they can just be negates by a single spell. Make players.do some work to proof themselves against the environment.
E.g., water breathing deals with one of the problems of being underwater, but not all of them.... Endure elements ditto.
Probably a bit too specific to warrant its own book, but I'd love to see something for the Mana Wastes.
Maybe magical wastelands, or magically altered terrain?
Oh, and how about the First World?
That would be awesome.
Otherwise: I've never really seen a tropics book that I've really thought tackled everything as well as it could. There are a lot of books that tackle some jungle stuff (such as Sargava and Heart of the Jungle), but I don't know that they cover the entire wide range of terrain of tropical climates.
Planar adventuring would be another one that I could go for.
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Something that WotC did on their website was a feature about different "biotopes" and was done in three sections. The name title of all of the first sections escapes me but the second section was "Monsters of the <enter biotope here>" and "Magic of the <enter biotope here>" (which included both spells and magic items). Something like that would be cool in a way but it might be better (as suggested previously) that a Player's Companion and a Campaign Guide come out to coincide with each other about the particular environment in question.
Perhaps some rule expansions to add to what is already in the Core Rule Book could be in here.For example, no rules...that I know of...have been brought out about hygiene and the problems of not taking care of it or any bonuses for going “above and beyond” in taking care of it. That is the only example that I can come up with right now. As soon as the caffeine takes effect, I will give more ideas.