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Introduction
Gonzo was one of our biggest successes to date and brought a whole new realm of possibilities to Pathfinder. We want to vastly expand that with Gonzo 2 and, by the looks of the book, we have way more material than we could ever hope to publish in a short piece. To that end we will be doing a Kickstarter for the project. We’ve run 2 successful Kickstarter projects in the past and are very excited to bring you this one.
We are looking for a low initial goal of just $1,300 to produce the entire 200+ page book. It will include 16+ classes, an extensive feat section, and even some racial material. In addition to this we have some fantastic full-color artwork by Naiche Washburn lined up as well as 200+ pieces of new artwork by Corey "Thalzon" Hallberg!
What is Gonzo?
The Gonzo line of books focuses on expanding what is considered “acceptable source material” for inclusion in traditional fantasy RPG games. It’s about pushing boundaries both conceptually and mechanically. The previous edition of Gonzo brought you things like 80s metal music, countercultural punks, a living bomb, a pay-to-play greed based class, a mime, a “toon” class based on abstract philosophies, and a large game mastery section that highlighted new ways to reward adherence to a game’s theme.
We intend to continue that line of thought and expand into new and truly weird avenues with this book. Included in Gonzo 2:
What Sets Us Apart:
-We’ve had two successful Kickstarters thus far (Dragon Tiger Ox and Necropunk Campaign Setting) and want to continue that history of success. We are not some new company trying for a campaign setting with their first book.
-Our book is far along in development. Of our 19 section documents, 12 are in review status (undergoing playtesting/grammatical editing) and the remaining 7 are quite far along in their development cycles.
-We actually, legitimately, playtest our material and encourage you to join us. At the time of me writing this, we’ve held 3 playtest games (4th level) and plan on doing a heck of a lot more. We care about seeing this stuff in your game and encourage our backers to provide feedback every step of the way.
-Our budget is not padded. We keep our projects lean to ensure you get the product for as little as possible. At the moment, we have an Initial Expenses budget of $287.50 (including initial artwork and kickstarter video) and an estimated total expense of $607.50. Now, please keep in mind that this doesn’t take into account paying our writers/editors (and we want to offer fair wages to them for the 200+ pages of material).
The team that will be working on this is as follows:
Scott Gladstein is the head Goblin, writing a large chunk of this book’s content, doing the layout duties, and managing the business side of Little Red. While he has had a hand in every Little Red product produced, his select Pathfinder credits for Little Red include the Necropunk Campaign Setting, Dragon Tiger Ox, and Racial Guide 4: Non-Traditional Races. Outside of Little Red he’s worked as a behind the scenes layout artist for several companies and contributed to the Liber Influxus Communis as well as the Grand Temple of Jing. He’s also written for comics, audiobooks, and is currently working on his MBA.
We have long time Goblin Dayton Johnson on board for this project. He’s mostly responsible for the behind the scenes work regarding balance and mechanics, but he has written a fair deal of material for us in the past (including a large chunk of Dragon Tiger Ox).
Ian Sisson started as an editor with us and, while this is still his main focus, he has produced some awesome material in the past. He first wrote the tyrant prestige for Tome of Twisted Things before moving on to writing “Ancient Classes” as a solo book, and contributing the Haunted One base class to Alternate Paths: Magical Characters.
Christos Gurd originally joined us after we noticed some racial feats he wrote on the Paizo boards. While he started as a freelancer he has become as much a Goblin as the rest of us and has contributed in some capacity to just about every book since Racial Guide 2.
Naiche Washburn is a frequent artistic collaborator with Little Red and a Goblin at heart. He most recently did the artwork for Alternate Paths: Martial Characters. He will be responsible for a number of key pieces on this project.
Rahul Kanojia is an intern working with us. He’s a design student from the University of Advancing technology who will be helping out behind the scenes a bit on this book and contributing some material as well.
Kickstarter Launch Date: June 7th, 2015
Patreon backers, please check Patreon for updates on this.
Important question that I have. Will Gonzo 2 have a pledge level that I can support that will get me a print copy and pdf of Gonzo 2? I would love if there was a pledge level for print copies of Gonzo 1 & Gonzo 2 plus the pdfs.
That is a pretty good question.
In the past we have avoided giving physical backer rewards because we have seen the nightmares it has caused other publishers.I would LOVE to get a physical copy of this book out. The best way I can think of doing it, without incurring a lot of issues would something like a 100% off coupon for DriveThru's Print-On-Demand service be acceptable? It would be free save for shipping and they could print it and ship it to you. They are normally quick on their turn around times too.
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Is the Davatti based on or similar to your Dimensional Knight? How is it different? And why can't I buy Tome of Spell and Sword on the Paizo Store?
Is the Davatti based on or similar to your Dimensional Knight? How is it different? And why can't I buy Tome of Spell and Sword on the Paizo Store?
That's an awesome question.
A davatti, a dimensional knight, and a gnostic (alt. path magic) could probably all understand how each other's abilities work. They all approach things from a very "multi-dimensional", "cosmic", and "mathematical" way- but apply that kind of power very differently. Think of their relationship as being similar to that of a wizard, a sorcerer, and a magus.
Davatti are an exotic, lawfully-aligned, mystic warrior caste/society (think "samurai") with the ability to fold space. They are d10, full BAB, martial characters who can literally fold space into weapons, step into pocket dimensions, compress space between them and their target, and have more to do with moving in the nth-dimensions.
Dimensional Knights are essentially magi who specialize in portals. They have arcane spellcasting, an arcane pool that stacks with magus, and have d8 HD with medium BAB. They are a specialized caster whose magic is strictly arcane.
Davatti can thematically be seen as a monk and dimensional knights are more bards or maybe magi. Davatti are more "martial" and dimensional knights are more "hybrid casters".
And Tome of Spell and Sword is up on Drive Thru RPG still. I'll see if we can get it back up on Paizo.com.
Is the Davatti based on or similar to your Dimensional Knight? How is it different? And why can't I buy Tome of Spell and Sword on the Paizo Store?And Tome of Spell and Sword is up on Drive Thru RPG still. I'll see if we can get it back up on Paizo.com.
Thank you, I had seen it on Drive Thru but didn't want to make an account just for one book, at least not while there is so much on my to buy queue.
My favorites from the decriptions are the davatti, the princess, the henshin hero, multiman and Matter Eater Lad.
Any plans for the Battle Buttler to have a Maid archetype with cleaning powers?
And where did you get the name davatti? I thought it was indian and some kind of dervish or fakhir, but Wikipedia doesn't know it and all Google has is a restaurant name...
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Dot. I like supporting publishers that treat their customers well and some of these classes and archetypes look awesome. The butler and tinkerbell I can't wait to see.
Is the Davatti based on or similar to your Dimensional Knight? How is it different? And why can't I buy Tome of Spell and Sword on the Paizo Store?And Tome of Spell and Sword is up on Drive Thru RPG still. I'll see if we can get it back up on Paizo.com.Thank you, I had seen it on Drive Thru but didn't want to make an account just for one book, at least not while there is so much on my to buy queue.
My favorites from the decriptions are the davatti, the princess, the henshin hero, multiman and Matter Eater Lad.
Any plans for the Battle Buttler to have a Maid archetype with cleaning powers?
And where did you get the name davatti? I thought it was indian and some kind of dervish or fakhir, but Wikipedia doesn't know it and all Google has is a restaurant name...
Ahh, yeah- you need an account because they save it to a library there.
We like to invent new material rather than re-tread old concepts quite often (see "Lover" from Alt. Path Magic). You have a good ear though. "Davatti" is a nonce word derived from "devata" which is a indeed Hindu term refering to deities I was listening to an audiobook of the Mahabharata at the time and it has a lot of vedic influences (you'll see that in the art).
So the battle butler is alternately named the "Battle Maid" if you are female (and want to use something more gender specific). The same goes for Sparkle Princess/Sparkle Prince and Magic Girl/Magic Boy.
Battle butlers have a unique core mechanic that deals with a mental conditioning aspect of them (they have a sliding scale that allows them to be more composed and accurate and become ever more feral as their "master" gets hurt). However, one of their MAIN other aspect is an every level talent (yes- every level!) that gives you a nice little flavorful ability that pertains to your domestic skills. From being able to smell wine and tell the year and location (as well as detect if a liquid is poisoned) to cleaning a 10x10 square to perfection in no time at all- they will not disappoint you.
When can we expect to see this kickstarter go live.
Kickstarter Launch Date: June 7th, 2015
This coming Saturday is the launch date and we are doing a 30 day run time. We have a very low initial goal ($1,300.00) to keep it as practical as possible.
That number comes from the fact that, in the wake of recent events, we want to make sure to offer our writers a fair wage for their contributions. We have an upfront cost of $287.50, a total recoup of $677.50, and kickstarter takes about $91.00. Our 3 contest winners are being paid $70 each and the remainder is divided among the 5 shares for people working on it (their wage is $106.30 if we hit our goal). We are paying our writers about $2.60 per page. This rate includes a LOT of playtesting, and editing so it's probably about half that for the actual contributed material.
Playtesting
We pride ourselves on our extensive playtesting and, since I mentioned it before, we just had our 4th playtest night for material. (multiple modules and encounters each). We think tight testing and mechanics really make the difference. Our initial rounds covered the guide, dynamancer, and ungermaw (first at 4th, then at 12th) and our more recent ones have moved onto the croupier, davatti, and multiman. Those three needed the most retooling. Because of that- we need to do some more playtesting for those three this coming week.
The davatti started with a bad exploit with an ability called "rayform" that allowed him WAY too many attacks per round against touch AC (think 4 armed gunslinger with revolvers...). It's been fixed as well as an issue with their nth-blade, which use to cost points from their pool to make and modify- but now lowers the maximum points they can hold at a time. We also realized that this weapon made of folded space apparently was not magical in anyway... at least according to RAW. We moved one of their abilities that could grant an enhancement bonus to it from a talent to a class feature tied to level.
The multiman's clones needed some adjustments to their action economy and a harder cap on the number they could maintain at once. You use to have a relatively low cap per day on how many TOTAL clones you could make, but now they have that AND a cap on the maximum number you can have out at once. This encourages you to modify your clones (costing extra uses of your class feature) to make them stronger and circumvents the "all my clones have 2 revolvers and I have 36 of them". We knew going into the 12th level playtest that this was a bad exploit and we addressed it. Also, initially your clones had to mimic your actions (to the best of their abilities to do so) but now they are free from that but have very restricted actions they can take. They also use to not share sense/memories but now they do (it was too clumsy from a role-playing standpoint).
Croupier have a natural miss chance, but it was effectively useless so it go converted into a much more interesting mechanic. It causes attacks to auto fail against them if the player rolls a ever increasing low number (at 1st an attack auto fails against them if the enemy rolls a nat 2 and this improves all the way up to a nat 6 at like 17th. +1 per 5).
Croupier also had a WAY too low damage output for a full bab class. They were outputting like... 39 with all attacks hitting with a full round ranged attack (and even some lucky things). For scale- if the level 12 iconic fighter (a 2 weapon fighter) hit with all his attacks while hasted his average damage output would be around... 102. The davatti (also hasted), with a crit, was outputting like 92, so that meant croupier was kinda in the dust. After the playtest last night we boosted their damage output to include a stat to damage due to a lack of it on 2 of his primary offensive class features.
The early version of the ungermaw was really boring at early levels- it didn't get anything REALLY iconic until later levels so we switched around some stuff and it plays a lot smoother now.
The guide is a very very different class to play. You feel a bit like a flying commoner with a bunch of wands. It's a lot of fun. One of our designers, Ian, LOVED playing support classes (he loves the Guardian from Alt. Path Magic too) and he fell in love with the guide. One of this issues we ran into though was that the guide's little heal thing was way to small to be useful at all so that got a big 'ol boost. They are surprisingly not a TERRIBLE damage dealer despite what we expected (they have basically a capless magic missile) so at least they were always hitting.
Dynamancer, once you wrap your head about the mechanics (and the absurdity) is just a party. We didn't have to change much- just a little wording on some of their compulsions and a little clarification on a few things. I want to slot them into another 12th level with the davatti to kinda compare notes on damage.
So last night’s playtest came in 2 parts. One was a low level test (4th) and one was a mid/high level test (12th). The point of these tests was to see if the extensive changes we made to the croupier were sufficient and to test out battle butler and henchling.
Croupier’s main issue, if you recall the last playtest post, was that it wasn’t up there in damage. I’m happy to say that the changes we made fixed most of those issues. At 12th a full attack at a bit of a range penalty was was still netting him 60+ damage. While not in line with our benchmark, which was around 120 (a hasted two-weapon iconic fighter hitting with all of its attacks), it wasn’t under ideal circumstances. One of the issues we have identified however is that even though we have the damage output aspect under control with the croupier- we are still not in love with the croupier’s total to-hit bonus with his cue balls and cards. They lack an enhancement bonus being conjured items. Now we could either bump those up by giving them an enhancement bonus based on level but they already do force damage and just using an enhancement bonus feels a bit ham fisted. What we will probably do is add Cha to hit because it’s already being added to damage.
Battle butler, overall, played just fine. It played uniquely- boosting it’s declared master’s AC, having it’s to hit/damage adjusted throughout the battles via his service meter, and he was a little bit of a crit monkey (like he should be). The one sticking point we really have is these things called “tricks of the trade” (still hate that name). Currently you get one every level and they are not SUPER useful. They are meant to be these little flavorful out of combat abilities that have a rare use in battle and a rare few could potentially can be used quite effectively in battle if you REALLY pushed yourself to do the right set up. The issue is 1 every level is a pain in the butt. We are probably switching it to a lump sum upfront (possibly something based on Int modifier) and maybe a few down the road (maybe via a feat?).
Lastly, we have the henchling. It’s gone through some odd transitions since I first wrote it. ORIGINALLY it was a “hoardling” which was based on the “hoarder dragon” which was essentially a dead dragon whose spirit has animated its horde of treasure. The hoardling was going to be a class consumed with greed and could literally put/store items inside its own body. It would have eventually gained DR and could do things like vomit a torrent of items as a breath weapon. Weird, I know. However, as we were writing it, the “henchmen” angle that we had baked into its lore kind of took center stage more and more until it really overshadowed the rest and it was changed to be called “henchling”. It was effectively re-written and I might use the old lore/mechanics for a monster some time.
The next big change came when Ian was building a henchling for the first time before this playtest. It turns out that it played... a lot like a fighter. It was really boring. Yeah, it had some out of combat stuff that was fun and some weird weapon stuff- but at it’s core it was very vanilla. With that insight, and a few hours due to a dropped playtest due to circumstances beyond our control, we retooled it. What was produced was effectively an AOE melee character. A henchling’s main weapon has always been these massive “loot sacks” and improvised weapons. So, we made it so these massive (sometimes hundreds of pounds) sacks could hit adjacent squares. Initially it started as whirlwind attack at lower levels but moved to dealing splash damage to adjacent squares at mid (8th). Finally, at like 13th we took a page out of Paizo’s stat block for Cthulhu and each attack targets a 10 foot square.
Despite these changes we found last night that they were essentially... fighters at low levels. It was kinds depressing to see all this work we put into it changing it not come to fruition. The later level playtest, however, showed us something that gave me hope. I was actually playing the henchling, violating a “if you designed it, you shouldn't playtest it” rule we have (but I didn’t build it- Ian had to jump out for the 2nd playtest and I just got on), so I got to see first hand how it played. The adjacent damage thing was a lot of fun (it was 12th level and the “hit all creatures in a 10 foot square” thing comes at 13th) and very unique. I could dish out damage on par with a fighter but the adjacent damage was kinda piddly. That being said, we are considering dropping the whirlwind attack thing at lower levels and shifting the two improvements down in level. This would mean they would get the “splash damage” thing to adjacent creatures at a low level (like 3 or 4) and the “target a 10 foot square” thing at mid (like 8th?).
I also got to take advantage of their “fast fingers” (basically a better quick draw) and improvised weapon mastery to good (and comical) effect during the game. I was bit and grappled by a spinosaurus so I free action retrieved an arrow, full rounded it in the face and took no penalty due to my improvised weapon mastery (other than the grappling penalty obviously). Next turn I was swallowed whole and, for the final kill of the night, my dwarf burst out covered in spinosaurus guts because it’s AC was lower on the inside.
Overall:
Croupier needs to hit with his ranged attacks modified.
Battle butler needs to have his tricks of the trade modified.
Henchling needs its hefting strike adjusted.
Playtest Notes:
~Link~
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...and that's how you give feedback. Nice posts Scott.
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Battle butler, overall, played just fine. It played uniquely- boosting it’s declared master’s AC, having it’s to hit/damage adjusted throughout the battles via his service meter, and he was a little bit of a crit monkey (like he should be). The one sticking point we really have is these things called “tricks of the trade” (still hate that name). Currently you get one every level and they are not SUPER useful. They are meant to be these little flavorful out of combat abilities that have a rare use in battle and a rare few could potentially can be used quite effectively in battle if you REALLY pushed yourself to do the right set up. The issue is 1 every level is a pain in the butt. We are probably switching it to a lump sum upfront (possibly something based on Int modifier) and maybe a few down the road (maybe via a feat?).
Whhy is it a pain the butt? Because he gains too many of them across his career and you'd need some fifty different ones, at least? Or because they are little abilities and gaining a small thing every level is not all that satisfiyng?
Maybe gain a bunch at first level and them a smaller bunch at other levels? 3+Int at first level and +3 at 4th and every 4 levels?Hard to comment on names without knowing the names of other class abilities, but if you go with gaining multiple ablities at a time how about Household Management and individual abilities be Homemaking Tricks or Housekeeping Chores?
Whhy is it a pain the butt? Because he gains too many of them across his career and you'd need some fifty different ones, at least? Or because they are little abilities and gaining a small thing every level is not all that satisfiyng?
Maybe gain a bunch at first level and them a smaller bunch at other levels? 3+Int at first level and +3 at 4th and every 4 levels?
Hard to comment on names without knowing the names of other class abilities, but if you go with gaining multiple ablities at a time how about Household Management and individual abilities be Homemaking Tricks or Housekeeping Chores?
Think of them as being kinda akin to like 0th level spells. A lot of them are cosmetic. So picking one EACH level feels a little redundant or superfluous according to the feedback we got.
We are thinking about doing something like that. A lump sum like Int mod or Int + 3 at 1st level. We were thinking that rather than give them incrementally, just give them a feat that allows them to get like 5 or something (they have some bonus feats).
And we are still playing with the name but those are actually pretty good ones. There are things like cleaning a large square in like 1 min and being able to full round clean a few squares of things like a grease spell or sovereign's glue. Now ALWAYS useful, but sometimes very useful. I actually really like "chores" or "duties" or something.
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It's live! We are proud to bring you the "Gonzo 2" Kickstarter! Making pathfinder a little weirder one class at a time.
So is the multi-man class play like phantom lancer from dota? Cause I would love something like that
So is the multi-man class play like phantom lancer from dota? Cause I would love something like that
I'm not a huge dota guy but yeah- something like that. What he makes aren't "illusions" per say, but don't have much staying power.
It was actually discussed in our playtest last night with a revised version of the class. We had one of our designers (Rahul, our intern) running a two-weapon build on a L12 multiman against 5 dire bears and he was teamed up with a croupier, henchling, and the iconic fighter who also uses two weapons. He kept trying to swarm attack things by stacking them up against the bears. The issue is the multiman is a much better harrier with his clones than a "beat them down" (the multiman himself can do that better). After some discussion after the game we decided in the next one we are going to try more of a reach weapon + vital strike build with them because that seems to be a better tactic.
The issue we fear with the multiman is that people are going to try to play it with that barbarian or fighter mindset of "run up and hit stuff" when it really need to be played more like a wizard or rogue. It's about area denial, flanking, soaking damage, etc.
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Oh, and here is a link to last night's playtest (sorry it was only 1 encounter- KS launch cut into playtest time).
Hey guys, we had a backer-only post go out last night (~Link~) which gave backers access to the working documents of the Davatti, Croupier, Multiman, and Henchling but it had a section that might be good to post here. What sort of things would you guys like to see as some of our stretch goals? We have things laid out- but want your feedback. Do you want more classes? An expanded item section? More artwork? Better quality hardcopies? Archetypes?
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Hey guys, we had a backer-only post go out last night (~Link~) which gave backers access to the working documents of the Davatti, Croupier, Multiman, and Henchling but it had a section that might be good to post here. What sort of things would you guys like to see as some of our stretch goals? We have things laid out- but want your feedback. Do you want more classes? An expanded item section? More artwork? Better quality hardcopies? Archetypes?
I vote for more classes and archetypes.
found a little typo for the multiman document:
>At 1st level he may only have 1 clone out at a time and he may have 1 additional clone out at the same time at 6th level and one.
I think you forgot some words there :P
My vote is for more classes/archetypes.
Also can't wait for the battle butler preview! I have an NPC it feels like it was made for.
found a little typo for the multiman document:
>At 1st level he may only have 1 clone out at a time and he may have 1 additional clone out at the same time at 6th level and one.
I think you forgot some words there :P
We haven't even TOUCHED editing beyond a draft edit on these docs since they are being altered during playtest so often. I'll go fix that. Thanks for the heads up :-)
My vote is for more classes/archetypes.
Also can't wait for the battle butler preview! I have an NPC it feels like it was made for.
It looks like a lot of folks want archetypes and classes. That's kind of where we were looking to go so it works out well. We are kinda debating between doing at least one archetype for each new base class or doing a gonzo archetype for each of the CORE base classes. We are probably going to bring the architect (the tower defense style class) back into the book if we hit a high enough mark.
Battle Butler is kinda in the second group of playtest material. I feel like those ones we shared are really the ones that are in a very close to final state. BB has only got a few playtests so I didn't include it yet- but I think that's probably going to be in the next batch.
Sounds great. The ones shared so far look very good too! Will definitely be looking forward to it.
I was thinking, you might want to consider opening a new thread that states the kickstarter is actually launched. Know I've missed a few kickstarters I wanted in on because they kept using the announcement thread for updates (which I generally browse over unless I'm already actively involved in it).