Interesting Reddits

Showing posts with label PFRPG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PFRPG. Show all posts

Friday, July 18, 2014

Nirmathas, MTTC, PFRPG Chase mechanic

Here's the latest. I know the post is short, but somethings can't quite be said yet.

Nirmathas

The Open-ended Golarion game seems to be going well. They players are running about Nirmathas in search of a Bloodstone of Arazni. Several factions are also in play. I'd talk more but at least one player reads this blog (when entries are made). Feel free to follow along at the game's adventure log on obsidian portal.

MTTC

It seems I'm playing two characters now. The other is Yuuta, a Tokyo bike cop, who has no particular tie to any faction. He's not really a fan of the Cataclysm Division either, and is in a bit of a tight spot between the legal thing and the right thing. Shinyai is currently involved with a Mihoist, but how long that lasts depend on how much she sees.

PFRPG's Chase Mechanic

In The Gamemastery Guide there's a mechanic for chase scenes. I got to play with it in the above Nirmathas game. It's fun. I need to use it a few more times to really get it down, but it's definitely going into games when I can. I've purchased the two decks of chase cards paizo did for it, but I'm betting I'll make my own larger ones. The mechanic describes placing figures on the card to determine where they are in the chase, and the skill check needed to proceed are on the card. So they might be a bit small for use.

Other notes

My kickstarter rewards for Rise of the Drow are in, I'll pick those up soon. Selling printed copies of the character sheet is still restricted to the store in Abilene. I don't make enough off of it to pay the membership involved to sell physical product on paizo or rpgnow yet. My personal setting has finished migrating to a google hosted wiki, and some more development has happened. I might keep hoping to have something setting wise available. I think I'll be there soon.

Friday, May 16, 2014

RotR, Reapercon, GMing again, MTTC, moving closer to the rules


Rise of the Runelords

So that RotR game I was invited to way back that had the pixie incident. Yeah, it finally ended at 3am this past sunday morning. It's been a crazy ride, at the end Karzug killed one of us, and had several of us below 10 hit points multiple times. Some of the spells we had access to were late book spells, and may have skewed the power in our favor, but in the end it was the longest, toughest, craziest five rounds of combat I've ever seen.

Reapercon 2014

Yes, we went. It was a blast. My brother and I played several warlord games, and painted. I painted up a battletech warhammer that got a certificate of recognition. My brother's Mina won a silver. The new hotel for the event is really nice, and despite my fears, its still the close and friendly feel that reapercon 2013 was. We played some great custom R.A.G.E. games, including their dungeon crawl, and cowboys and gunslingers. C&G is probably the most fun I've had with the rage system yet. We found we were playing the tough rule in warlord way wrong, so we're rehashing our army builds and plan to actually play in the tournament next year. Ben and I have several paint project ideas in mind. Our goals are to both score better than this year with everything we enter. I'm also gonna push for two entries.

GMing again

Well, with Runelords over, and the other GMs I was playing under out of town for 4-6 months, its time to step behind the screen again. I'm looking at three games at the moment. One is online for the MTTC people I've been playing with. Several of them are new to Pathfinder, and one is new to Pen&Paper as a whole. The next is picking up the slot from the runelords GM since his schedule is wonky now, I'll also be adding a kiddo of the players. We'll start with the beginner's box and go from there. The third is continuing the game I was running for Ben and the parents. I've got good notes for that already, I just don't remember how far they got last session.

MTTC

Speaking of MegaTokyo:The Clans, that has indeed started up cleanly again. We're now playing at www.rpgclans.org bewarned though, mature content. Shinyai was just getting adapted to tokyo when things started getting crazy, and the government has put up devices that might as well be anti-magic fields. So even the average thug is an interesting fight. However, someone nasty is about to step out of the shadows and into the fray!

Getting back to the rules

For no good reason what-so-ever, I was stat-blocking Kenshin Himora from the anime Rurouni Kenshin this week. I've noticed a lot of things that have been in games I'm in are actually house rules (nat 1 meaning something bad on attacks, such high stats, CMD for feints). So far these haven't really been problems, but I think I'm going to move my games closer to the regular rules for a while. I think some of the house rules that can kick a player in the chin are actually to "balance" characters with really high stats. So I'd like to see what happens if things are closer to the book after all. It also means toning down my npcs, but hey that's fine, they were built powerful to deal with powerful characters.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Pirates and Council Continue, DMing for Thanksgiving, and other stuff

Oddly we're hitting book two of Skulls and Shackles and Council of Thieves at roughly the same time. In Skulls we survived the first month under the lash of Plug and Scourge until the wyrmwood's first prey came into view. Lysandros (the rogue) ended up leader of our small boarding team. Our team was also made part of the prize crew to send the ship back to Port Peril for sale. However, it wasn't long before we could tell that Plug and Scourge had other plans, which we wouldn't survive.

With support of a handful of NPCs we'd befriended along the way we mutinied and took control for ourselves, only to get swept away in a storm and beached for a few days while repairing the ship and rescuing two NPCs from the grindylows who attacked during that same horrid storm. Now with our new ship afloat, and our new captain (Lysandros, the rogue) in charge we head for the same port Plug was headed for, hoping to complete a crew and squib the ship.

In Council things are a little weirder. Our first few days involved dodging hellknights, killing shadow beasts at night, and goblins during the day. Then, a gang known as "The Bastards of Erebus" pushed too hard, and our little group of less that legitimate vigilantes asked us to do what the guard still refused to do.

After a successful raid of the Bastards hideout, and capture of their Asmodian cleric and leader, we've built a little bit of reputation with the populus. Now we've been approached by a member of the Pathfinder Society asking us to help get back into an old lodge in Westcrown. How? We get to be actors, in a murder play! If we do well, we get invited to drunken debauchery at the Lord Mayor's home, in which we'll get to dig through his home looking for info on how to get back into the lodge.

I'm also the DM for the family and most of these two groups for two thanksgiving dinner and oneshot games. If your not in one of those games and have suggestions, comment here or on G+!

Amtgard has also hit a new state. Skywatch is no longer the infant shire, the new Shire of Nightglade has risen in mundane San Angelo, and along with Ninewillows (midland) we're helping them get on their feet. As one of my household's members said, it's odd being the veterans visiting the new field.

That's about it.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

No Kings made, Death's hands changed, off to the Seas, and down with the hellknights!

So here's this random-time-period's news.

First, the Kingmaker game with the sibling meets tomorrow for its last time. The campaign will continue with others, but the DMs schedule means we're out. I would've liked to give it another go, but I'm actually not all that torn up about it. Some other time I'll either run or play through it with another group. The sibling and I aren't without a game to play yet though, more on that below.

Second, the four horsemen game I was running is now finished. The party constantly changed and only settled down near the end. I didn't really finish Famine's arc but kinda needed to wrap up. So the final battle happened in Abaddon. When I had them cross a small section of Styx, they decided to use flight instead of a raft. This was fine, but instead of completing their move to cross they hovered over it and dropped spells on some daemons that attacked them. The daemons in question had dispel magic. The cleric and one sorcerer ended up in the river brain and soul wiped.

The remaining sorcerer and the cavalier ran for it. Came across a pair of boatmen, and went to pay them passage back to the regular world. After some conversation they discovered that Death had the boats and all but a few boatmen destroyed. They then convinced these two boatmen to help fight Death. So when they got to the machine Death and his preferred two boatmen assembled, (pretty much a giant soul blender that pumped energy into Death and his lackeys) it was two boatmen and two players vs two advanced boatmen and Death. (I didn't have a statblock for death, so it he was just a really advanced boatmen with some extra nasty abilities.)

The game ended with the cavalier shouting "I want your JOB!" while dealing the final damage to Death. Death dissipated and the cavalier sat on the throne, and restored things back to before the soul blender. As a final "favor" to the rest of the party he had the two in the river reincarnated and kicked back into the world with no memories and no stuff. The sorcerer he had booted back to the real world with all the other people's (except his own) gear. So now there's a well outfitted goblin dragon disciple somewhere in the world who death owes a favor, and the other sorcerer and cleric have started over at level 1 with no memory but their names in a Reign of Winter game run by the player of the surviving sorcerer.

My witch for Kingmaker got a new name, a little different history, and is now in a Skulls and Shackles game with my brother (run by the person who's cavalier became death, and is the Runelords DM). The party involves her, my brother's female inquisitor of besmara, a female half-orc barbarian played by one friend, and a male human pirate(rogue archetype) played by the dm of my the other game that's now on tuesdays Council of Thieves. She completes a completely gender-bending party, all by chance but her. It's fun.

As for her Council game. She's starting a blog as well. I think the two of us will try and keep consistent posts about that game here and there. You can visit Selvaron's blog here. I'm playing a chelaxian native human freehand fighter (archetype). He's a former member of the Dottari, who decided he'd be more useful to westcrown investigating things on his own.

I've gone from two APs that I'm playing in and one freeform game I was DMing, to four APs. I'm also considering starting Legacy of Fire. I'm pretty sure that this is one of the definitions of insanity, but that's fine by me.

Now for something a little different, the Shire of Skywatch is still doing okay. I'm not playing as hard as I was when it started, but I'm still enjoying the occasional visit. What's interesting is there's another startup field starting in November. So on the 10th I'll be going to San Angelo's Nightglade field's opening day.

Add to all this a free form RWBY game we hope to get off soon, and other madness, and I'm happily lost in too much stuff to do again!

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Not Dead Yet

Well, I've let this go quite a while. Not intentionally, lots of "I'll post Sunday, after all the things happening this weekend are done." Followed by forgetting.

So here's how it is:

Amtgard:
For a while there Skywatch was growing at 10-15 sign-ins a week. Now we seem to have settled at a stable  35-40 people without guests. Additionally, we had a day event in May, between the local presence and guests we had over 100 sign-ins! That's right, 50 of us, and 50 travelers for a single day event. It was insane, and great fun. Our first Coronation is July 6th, and it'll be a camping event. We're hoping for another 100+ attendance, that should be easier with a camping event, especially with Gathering of the Clans being a little off this year.

The group is really doing well. Also, Antininus is running for the first full-term Monarch position. I can only see this as a good thing, he's popular with most everybody and really knows how to make a field do well. I'm not running for GMR, because we've had a good collection of reeves and one particular who wanted GMR and I think can do a far better job than I can.

I've started a household (House Ralaar-Klhu) that will be an RP/field service household, compared to the field its a little behind on stability, but things are looking good.



RotR: Marcello is 12th, we've had a wild time, and a rough time. Since I last spoke we've defeated a Frost Wright (the dryad's dead lover), a Necromancer, and survived a raid on Sandpoint by stone giants and dire bears and a dragon. One of the Stone Giants was captured, and after some interrogation we learned that a much larger force planed to attack very soon. So off we went to see if we could stop it.

The next session (tonight or next saturday depending on a few people's attendance) will start with the epic fight against Mokmurian, the infamous Stone Giant wizard. It could very well be the end of us, but we'll give him a good fight. (I hope). The DM has also started a session in his homebrew world that'll run if for some reason we're short a player or two.



Other PFRPG: My Four Horseman game has hit famine, and I plan to wrap up pretty soon. We've had a lot of new characters and drops, so the party's kinda out of whack. It was never supposed to be a long campaign, so once I've got it wrapped up I'll see if this current party would like to continue.

The Kingmaker game I was invited to starts this coming Tuesday. I'm stoked to be on the same side of the table as my brother for a change. Also, Ultimate Campaign came out just in time. I'm going to loan it to the DM for looking over so that we can use the adjusted mass combat and kingdom rules. Also, a happy side effect, Brevory has a city built around an Observatory named Skywatch, so my household requirement of playing my persona in a P&P game just filled itself!

My brother's single player games where you take the leadership feat are wrapping up. He's also doing a game for several of us in the fall that will be based on the areas the leadership feat games developed. Should be fun.

I've started a Second Darkness campaign, unfortunately the original day we picked has turned to mush. I'll pick it up again once schedules start making since.


Mt:tC, Marvel, & other:

TC seems to have died completely this time around. I'll keep Shinyai the Kitsune around for something. I really want to see that character played out. Marvel finished with us defeating Sauron and finding that the Shield base just outside the Savage Lands had been up to no good. I was going to get in on an Xmen game by the same DM as Kingmaker, but due to scheduling conflicts with another player we had to pick one game each.

Next weekend is FreeRPG day for lots of people. Our store didn't get in on it on time, but we're doing a rpgday/aarp birthday that weekend anyway. I'll be missing amtgard to help with it.

Friday, March 29, 2013

RotR; Horsemen; and Amtgard;

Rise of the Runelords Game:

Things are getting real. Two weeks ago we wrapped up the missing Black Arrow captain mystery. He'd been remade as a frost wight by a stone giant necromancer. Destroying the wight wasn't all that complicated, the necromancer on the other hand was not.

I jumped into this campaign just before the pixie incident. Therefore, I knew that in rescuing me they fought a villain who escaped them. What I didn't expect was for her to show up so quickly. She, and a former Black Arrow were working with the Necromancer. It was a tough fight, even with the assistance of a few hags, but we defeated them. Except our cleric got within range of a stonegiant's hammer. Two crits later we had cleric goo all over the place.

After a reincarnate spell, we now had a halfling cleric of torag. This doesn't bother the cleric or her player much.

We found a note about a planned attack on Sandpoint, so after a quick wrap-up with the nymph ghost we head back to warn them. We arrive just before Sandpoint is raided by stone giants, direbears, and a red dragon. We came out on top, but, once again, at a cost. This time druid's wolf, who has saved almost everybody in the party's skin more than once... didn't make it.

Worse, one of the stone giants was captured and interrogated. If seven stone giants and a red dragon are a scouting party. I don't want to think about a recon in force, or worse a proper invasion. Except that we've been promised exactly that, in less than a month.

We're on our way to Magnimar to gather up a few remaining extra diamonds for a resurrect spell. Then its off to see if we can thwart a powerful stone giant caster/clan leader.



Horsemen of The Apocalypse:

So, I'm now running a pickup Goloran campaign based on the horsemen making a move against the world. So far we have a Summoner, Cleric (of Desna), Dhamphir Rogue, Barbarian, and a Ninja.

It's interesting, first lesson it taught me though. Sickening the party with a truly disgusting dungeon sounds like a great idea for a pestilence themed area, and running lower CR monsters to make up for the sickened condition is ok, but pick something who's AC is low. A "trash mob", as the cleric calls them, of wererats with a couple extra levels in rogue didn't hurt them much, but were nearly impossible to hit. I cut a huge chunk of the dungeon out to keep players interested. I know now from conversations I probably could have left it in, but it wasn't my best session.

This game's every other sunday, so I have plenty of time to prep something cool for the transition from famine to the first stage of war.


Amtgard:

The Shire of Skywatch has risen in Abilene. I'm going to be at least the interim Guildmaster of Reeves (a whopping one reeve at the moment). The field keeps growing and growing. I'll probably have to make an attempt at abducting some players to reeve occasionally soon. Last week Lubbock's Irongate field sent visitors. We had a grate time. I might stick with it this time.


Everything Else:

I haven't even had time to keep up with RPGSuperstar. It's on its final leg. Go vote. Obsidian portal has a kickstarter to rebuild the site. I'm planning on getting into that. This month's rules demo in abilene was a bust, but I've rescheduled the same subject for next month. I've also started playing in a Marvel rpg. I'm playing Rogue... its caused me to dig for episodes of the old cartoon. It's cheezy, but still pretty good. I've found some issues with my NPC sheet at paizo.com. I'll be digging into those and updating shortly. I've done a few marauder II and panther customs and posted on the battletech board. I've painted a few battletech minis. This has been an amazing month, and with reapercon right around the corner I'm totally stoked!




Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Very Modern FIrearms for Pathfinder

Greg Christopher asked on google plus about simi-auto and automatic firearms in rpgs. His question was not system specific, but having thought about firearms for my gunslinger I had a D20/PFRPG option in mind. Here's what I suggested:

A real attempt to hit something (as oppose to close your eyes and squeeze) with a simi-auto in d20 is easy, pathfinder revolver rules with appropriate shots/round based on magazine.

Capacity: A firearm's capacity is the number of shots it can hold at one time. When making a full-attack action, you may fire a firearm as many times in a round as you have attacks, up to this limit, unless you can reload the weapon as a swift or free action while making a full-attack action. In the case of early firearms, capacity often indicates the number of barrels a firearm has. In the case of advanced firearms, it typically indicates the number of chambers [or magazine size] the weapon has. 
Quote: PSRD

Free-action to replace a magazine based on training is simply another example of the rapid reload feat.

For those who simply pull the trigger as fast as they can make a scatter attack, but at the -4 non-proficent penalty (even if they are proficient, because they're not using the weapon in a controlled manner, so a total penalty of -6) but only at the number of targets they have a bab for (so 1 if their bab is under 6, 2 if under 12, etc).

Automatic weapons are treated as above except they actually have the scatter ability so the penalty is only -2. An automatic weapon grants a proficient user the many-shot feat, even if the user doesn't meet the requirements. A user who has the many-shot feat already can fire 4 rounds as a single attack. (Another example of better training and control). Manyshot options are not restricted to the first attack with an automatic firearm.

This isn't a hyper-realistic option, but d20 isn't hyper-realistic, and shouldn't be. However, it covers controlled fire, and spray and pray, for both classifications of weapons discussed.

Feel free to tear it apart for me.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Abilene, A Gungslinger, RPG Superstar 2013, Paizo's 10 year ride

So, I've been a little quiet lately. Mostly because once again, I've changed cities. This time, back to Abilene. I've only been here a week though, and feel far better settled than other moves. I'm sure that's partially because I already know people, but really I think it'll work this time.

For example, my brother moved here a while back, and found a large chunk of the pathfinder players I kept looking for. Also, a promising game store has opened. I've been by three times now. Nice space, plenty of tables, and a great stock for a startup. They also opened a few months before their original plan. I think despite some challenges it presented them, it's actually a good thing.

I haven't even moved into my own place yet, and I've watched an organized play session, and had a one on one session with the brother. This one in a fantastic race infused western setting. I'm playing a gunslinger. Wow they're powerful, even without the insta-death gunshots lots of people I've conversed with over firearms in RPGs. I didn't walk the floor that night by any means, but I held my own in a situation that should have been bad for a solo character.

That said the character's gonna be a blast (pun only partially intended). I expect to completely enjoy this game. Session reports upon permission.

On a different note, the 2013 RPG Superstar 32 were announced this week. I haven't looked over the whole list yet, but what I've seen so far seems promising. I think this'll be a interesting year, despite no currently twisted tasks.

This year's RPGsuperstar, the mmo, Gamemastery's name change, Rasputin, lots of interesting things coming from Paizo this year. Not surprising considering the truly impressive ten years they've had so far.

Lisa Stevens, Paizo's CEO, spent some time last year talking about that. If you haven't read her 10th anniversary retrospective series. Do so. They really show just how wild their ride has been. Below are links to each entry:

Year 0 2002, Year 1 2003, Year 2 2004, Year 3 2005, Year 4 2006, Year 5 2007, Year 6 2008, Year 7 2009, Year 8 2010, Year 9 2011 Year 10 2012

I've only really followed Paizo since late 2008, but that four and a half years was wild just to watch. I know some are talking about how some of their 2013 products seem like they've jumped the shark. I know some think D&D next is supposed to bring WOtC back to the top. Yet everything (except the MMO) I've heard of Paizo's future releases sounds just as awesome as my first read through the PFRPG beta download. So congrats, good luck, and here's hoping we see ten more years of Paizo and Pathfinder!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Mask finished, RPG Superstar,

So the campaign my brother was running for me and the family is at an "endpoint". His first two plot-lines are done, and now we the characters are at a "anything could happen" stage. We're now official heads for a island colony belonging to the realm we adventured in.

Here's a (very) short description of the last session:

We started the session on the galley Magic Carpet headed for a island a professor from the school the wizard attended wished to return to for study. We did not however, make it to the island.

Our ship was attacked by slaver/pirates. We assisted the crew in defeating the pirates, and captured their ship in the process. We didn't really have enough survivors for a stable prize crew, and interrogation of a captured pirate survivor revealed that they were specifically looking for an immigration ship commissioned by the king. We were only a few days from the port the ship was expected to sail from, so we turned back at the professor's order.

On our return, we discovered the immigration/colony ship hadn't even been announced yet. This, along with an assassination attempt on the king (which we thwarted) provided the king with enough evidence to accuse the person behind these deeds.

At this point, the truth of the immigration/colony ship is revealed. It's commissioned to provide a group of catfolk who the king had been helping defend with a new home. So instead of a single ship, three ships made the trip.

It wasn't quite over once we arrived. The professor's familiar scouted the docks for us and provided back images of the ruined docks and undead. The ruined docks were expected, this colony attempt is actually the second, what wasn't was the undead.

So, the party is shuffled into one of the lifeboats so we can row out, clear the undead, and prep the area for docking ships. After a small skirmish with a combo of gouls, zombies, skeletons, and other midrange undead. The ships land and we go further in to explore.

The previous colony settled the cavern network close to the docks. Exploration discovered evidence that the colony came into conflict with a tribe of lizardmen, and moved deeper for safety. As more of the fate of the previous colony unfolded before us, we discover a temple haunted by the ghost of a catfolk priestess. We're not welcome, but before we can get more info or decide to leave, the ghost re-inhabits its body and attacks. (I'll save why it does this instead of simply attacking for the actual module publication its too good to spoil).

The fight brings out one other very nasty enemy, the truth behind the ghost's presence, and why some of the party's been having some really creepy nightmares. I'll only say that before the party can actually defeat all the presences, they inadvertently provide the ghost with what it needs to rest peacefully. The mask the whole game is named after comes to play as well, but I won't spoil how.

The next session is actually supposed to skip a year in time, and allow the characters and npcs to settle into the new village. We're supposed to switch to me GMing and my brother playing... and I'm not sure I want to skip quite the entire time before the next session... There's all sorts of things a new colony can be exposed to that I think the party would enjoy.

Now, on to other things... next up: It's that time again...

Yep, Paizo's doing RPG Superstar! 2013. I don't have much time to get my wondrous item ready, but after the confirmation last year that I'm still eligible, I'm gonna take another shot at it.

As a quick previous post I also linked to the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter last week. I'll follow this a little as it goes.

There's also a new android app for GMs and Players alike. Pathfinder Toolkit so far looks to be a really nice android 4+ app. I'll mess with it a little more and provide a serious review soon, right now I only have access to one device that supports it, but that should change. If someone who has a 4+ device wants to do a review and send to me, then I'll happily post it here.

I've got a few other ideas to work on for NSNGaming, but right now they're on the back burner, I'm trying to figure out how far I'll actually be moving in January, and what changes to my budget that will make.

Until later...

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Size and Populations

Okay so I've used this article many times to try and set up the population of nations in my Krenna setting. Every time I've done this the populations were huge, and I was wondering if I was doing something wrong. Yet I'd talk to other GMs, compare to real world countries, and even have people double check my math everything looked right.

Then it clicked, non of my forgotten realm books, or my pathfinder books provide acreage for realms.

I'd always seen the scale on the maps, so I had a feel for how long it would take someone to get from one town to the next, but never bothered to consider just how small a lot of the FR and Golarion realms were.

Most of my realms were larger than modern day germany, most FR and G realms are lots smaller than that.

So what to do? Dividing up some realms makes since, and its definitely a tempting thing to do, but it would be one more aspect of how my setting was like every other setting. Some of my incomplete realms could easily be broken into complete realms and incomplete neighbours. It wouldn't reduce the amount of work that needs to be done, but it would mean some of it was ready for a stage I wasn't thinking about quite yet. However, one or two realms are far enough along that breaking them up would make more work.

My current choice? Break some up, keep some intact, but cheat just a little. I've been doing these huge realms as one realm for the math in the article, but I was already breaking several of those realms into duchies or counties, after the math. I think in at least one realm that's been bugging me I'll turn around and do the splitup before doing the math, just to see what I get.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

1 year, more stuff

So I missed this two weeks ago, but I haven't forgotten.

First up. Yes I'm running everything half of for the month of October at paizo.com. It's been a year (and a month) since I started this, and I've enjoyed it so far. Turning the character sheet and realm worksheet into finished "products" has helped with lots of other gaming projects. It's encouraged me to do a few other things as well.

So far it looks like no one's taken advantage of the sale. It only goes for another couple of weeks. Also, as soon as paizo approves it, an NPC focused worksheet will also be available. It's a different take and honestly a little bit of an experiment. If it does well I'll consider making changes to other products based on new ideas in the NPC sheet.

I have two other bigger game aids in mind. The realm booklet is near the front again, and a campaign management workbook is in the works as well. I've got an idea for keeping physical copies customizable as well. I don't know how soon they'll be ready, but the realm booklet is being tested out (and helping me continue Krenna work).

My MTTC character hasn't done much lately, and I still don't have a local game, but tabletop forge is making progress on the developer version. So I may be looking into trying online gaming again soon.

Oh, and I'm slowly working my way into helping out at http://www.d20pfsrd.com/. I don't know much help I'll be but we'll see.

That's all for now.

Friday, September 14, 2012

RPG Now, Snakes Among Us Playtesting, MTTC

First the progress, because of an unexpected time off period from my day job I got to gather some people for playtesting parts of Snakes Among Us... The result is I have more major encounters for throughout the story, but some reworking is definitely needed. Everybody had fun though, and getting away from the day job was a good thing. Also, Spirit Naga's out of the Bestiary are a definitely not something a APL 8 party should go at without some serious planning and tactics. Just a warning for all those that play.

Looks like a plot idea I had for MTTC has been "approved" so I'll be working on that some this weekend. The player list is still kinda small right now. So any forum roleplayers that enjoy the megatokyo comic, stop by the forums (largo's corner, forum rpgs) and look for the mttc threads.

I considered going to EPCON this year. Why not, I'm in El Paso, and could afford the tickets, but I'm really not seeing anything on the list of events or guests that intrigues me. I think I'll save my money for next years Reapercon and Paizocon. Hopefully I can go to Paizo next year, I have a feeling it'll really be worth it.

Finally, as you'll see at the top of the page, all of my products are now on sale at RPG Now. So far they haven't sold even a quarter as well as they are still selling on paizo. I'm not sure what to do about that at the moment, but there it is.

Anywho, that's all for now until something interesting develops in mttc or the games. My brother's game will probably have another session soon, so be watching for that.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Megatokyo The Clans Character: Shinyai

First of my MT:TC characters: Shinyai the Kitsune, the concept here is that she was an actual pathfinder rpg character suddenly plopped down in MT. Here character is build at the point right before the sudden change. (The xp column is her xp total, not what you'd earn by defeating her.) Remember she's still built for Megatokyo, so while a urban barbarian might not make a whole lot of sense in Golaron, it's going to be hilarious in MT:TC. Also, I did use Ultimate Equipment for gear, just to see how sick it could get.

Shinyai                                                                                                 Mugi-ite
XP: 105,000
Female Kitsune Urban Barbarian 11
NG Medium Humanoid (Shapechanger)
Init: +3, Senses: Perception +15, Low-Light Vision

Defences

AC: 25 (28), Touch: 13 (16), Flat-Footed 21 (21) (+6 +1 mithral kikko of moderate fortification, +4 (5) Dex, + 1(2) Dodge, +2 ring of protection, +2 amulet of natural Armor (Raging and or Guarded stance)) +2 to all vs one opponent (ring of foe focus)
Damage Reduction 2/-
HP: 130 (11d12+55) (141)
Fort: +12, Refl: +7 (8), Will: +5 +2 to all vs one opponent (ring of foe focus)

Offence

Speed: 30ft;
Melee: +1 keen katana +14/+9/+4 (15/10/5) (1d8+5(7) 15-20x2), bite +14(15) (1d4 x2) (kitsune form only), (improved unarmed strike) + 14/+9/+4  (1d3+3 x2) (raging)
Ranged: masterwork amentum javelins (3) +15(16) (1d6+3(4) x2)
Special Attacks: Body Bludgeon +14 (1d6 to both target and wielded), improved trip, improved grapple
Spell-Like Abilities: (CL 11)
   3/day- dancing lights

Statistics

STR: 14(16), DEX: 19(21), CON: 20(22), INT: 16, WIS: 14, CHA: 16
BAB: +11, CMB: +13 (14 raging) (15(16) trip or grapple), CMD: 26 (28 raging)
Feats: catch off guard, dodge, intimidating prowess, improved grapple, improved trip, fox shape
Skills:  Acrobatics +19(20), Climb +16(17), Craft (jewlery) +17, Diplomacy +17, Intimidate +19(20), Perception +15, Knowledge (local) +17, Knowledge (nobility) +17
Languages: Common*,  Sylvan, Tien, Hwan, Dtang, Hon-la, Minatan, Minkaian, Senzar, Vudrani, Taldane, Auran, Elven, Abyssal, Tengu, Samsaran
SQ: Kitsune Magic, Agile, Natural Weapons, Controlled Rage, Crowd Control, Brawler, Uncanny Dodge, Trapsense +3, Damage Reduction 2/-, Guarded Stance, Improved Uncanny Dodge,  Intimidating Glare, No Escape, Body Bludgeon, Greater Rage
Combat Gear: 3 potions cure moderate wounds, 1 potion invisibility
Other Gear: +2 ring of protection, ring of foe focus, +2 amulet of natural armor, +1 mithral kikko of moderate fortification, +2 belt of physical might (dex and con), corset of the vishkanya, cloak of resistance +2, longarm bracers, bag of holding IV, backpack, belt pouch, flint & steel, iron pot, soap, sunrod, trail rations (5 days), waterskin, compass, mess kit, silk rope 100ft, healers kit, 2 explorers outfits, 2057 gold pieces

Special Abilities

Later

History
Character's point of view:
Shinyai's family was proud and well treated until she was an adolecent, at which point her family's true nature was discovered. As such their status in society fell, and Shinyai grew used to being alone and treated with suspicion. She grew up fighting her way through the day. Eventually she moved on to adventuring, hoping to bring in money and glory back to her family.

During a particularly nasty fight with a daemon servant of the Horseman, she was knocked unconcious, instead of dying or waking in saftey with her latest party of delvers, she woke in Tokyo after the demon invasion.

World's Point of View:
Shinyai is a bit meta, she's on of the D&D characters out of Noble's old gaming notebook. After the demon invasion, something blanked the sheet, and Shinyai manifested in the MT world.

Monday, August 27, 2012

A Cold, The friendly visit, and MT:TC

So I've been neglecting this again, but I haven't had a lot of time even think about whether I had something to say.

Today's send home and Dr. visit changed that.

Weekend before last some college friends came up, I ran them through the first two phases of the first part of Rise of the Runelords using the anniversary edition. At first I thought things were missing, but no. The format is a little different, and in the end I liked it, now that I've seen it running again will be straight forward and enjoyable. Just a warning to people who ran it from the original prints, read through and find everything first.

Other than that, something possessed me to catch up on megatokyo this weekend, and now I'm looking into rejoining the MT:TC forum rpg. There's a lot fewer people now, but perhaps some new people will come along (or I won't be the only returnee).

I'm hoping this round will improve my story telling as much as the last one did. MTTC is what got me from gaming to trying to create my own world (thanks again Aree, wherever you are).

That's about it for now. I'll probably do some character describing here on my new TC character. (I've decided new characters are the way to go, fresh start and all.) So watch for that.

L8RZ.
|\|0750|\|08L3

Friday, July 27, 2012







My brother's campaign is going quite well. The second session (which I forgot to post about) was about 30 hours of stopping only for food and sleep. Our first attempt at patrolling the area as a member of the guard involved stumbling over the home of a Nymph. However the ranger is uncomfortable around fey, so we didn't stick around to meet the resident. We escorted a small caravan that had been raided back to town, and picked up a npc paladin as a companion.

This is when things got interesting. We went back out to patrol the next day. Our first encounter was a woman trying to fix a broken wagon. The closer we got the more it seemed like a trap. The ranger and wizard stopped approaching to watch as me and the Paladin continued forward (failing at hiding our suspicion). Then the Green Crows struck.

The ambush was well set, but this group hadn't dealt with prepared fighters before, we took on six thugs, four went down, two got away. After a little investigating we found a camp just off the road. The ambush point was obviously an outpost, but not the main location of the crows.

Another trip back to town with bodies and evidence provided us with more answers (the priestess in town isn't quite as squeamish about using necromancy to interrogate the dead) and rumours of a missing caravan that should have come from the south.

Off we went the next morning, after a days travel we ran up against a second ambush site, this time a centaur camp. This almost got us, but everyone survived long enough for the final centaur to run. A day of healing (magical and mundane) allowed us to continue.

Two more days travel brought us to what should have been an abandoned hamlet. Instead we found a well guarded camp in the remaining ruins of a temple and tavern. After some scouting we came up with a plan and attacked that night.

Under the cover of thick overgrowth and night, we made it back into site of the camp. My character prayed for a blanket of silence on what we expected to be the tent of the gang leader, blessing for battle, and various protective spells. The tent was up against the overgrowth, so we were able to sneak up to it and cut in the back.

Unfortunately what we found was a large carriage with markings for the school of our wizard, an inspection showed a lack of occupants, and left us with the trouble of covering open ground to the temple.

The ranger went first, unfortunately, said ranger tripped on and squeaked. This stirred the only guard that was looking about inside the camp (the other four were in lookout towers but looking away from camp). A quick casting of hold person and a well placed arrow allowed us to continue without alarming anyone.

We were at the temple door, there was light spilling out of a window and the hushed notes of conversation, and a very recently dead man in a cage hanging next to the door. If this wasn't the place, it was still bad enough to investigate. It was time for stealthiness to end. We opened the doors.

Where one would expect an alter there was instead a desk, where one would expect pews for worshippers there were piles of boxes and loot, most notably, where one would expect a priest speaking, there was a man in all green, and a cap with died crows feathers. Snarky comments were made, and then combat started.

A Paladin, Cleric, Evoker, and Ranger are sort of outnumbered against 6 rogues and a fighter on their won turf, spells and arrows went back and forth, and it wasn't long before I was out of channel energy uses, but we were down to just the leader and his senior minion. Then it hit.

Dad's Evoker was having spell issues all night. He was down to his last two spells, a true strike and a scorching ray. He cast true strike and then waited for his round to come again. A few arrows and a mace dispatched the minion, but the boss was still standing, and had dug a potion out of his belt pouch at the end of his turn. Dad then rolled for scorching ray.

20 on the die, 18 on the die. 18 + 5 + 20 is a confirmed crit on a ranged touch spell.
3d6 + 2 (dad's a level 3 evoker at this point, yay for intense spells). 6+6+3+2 x2 = 30 points. The dm described it as the spell burning a whole clean through the chest of the boss.

On the same initiative as dad, a few of the guard from outside finally heard the commotion and came in to check. They saw their boss roasted alive, and decided to run. Some exploring of the area found a basement to the temple, and two captives. Turns out they were from the school dad's wizard studied at, and were supposed to deliver magically enhanced farm equipment to the town to help grow food to ship north for the war effort.

We returned to town, heroes. It looked like the Green Crows were beaten beyond retaliation, and now the roads were safe.


Now for the session from last weekend.

This time I went to Lubbock, so we were joined by one of my high school buddies and a member of the star trek club my parents are still in. The party added a ninja, and a druid.

The squire asked us to take on a personal quest, not for the town, but for him.

I won't tell the whole story in detail, but this was mom and dad's exposure to a basic dungeon delve. We were after a diamond needed for a resurrection spell, not much role play, lots of combat, and at the end of it all, a CHIMERA! Whats worse, the chimera dropped my cleric in turn 1 of combat. (-1, but stabilized)

Our advantages:

First, the passage to the nest was low and narrow (but not so much as to squeeze the chimera) and had a sharp bend.

Second: The chimera had 3 eggs very near hatching. Chasing someone out of the nest wasn't enough, she had to come down from the air and fight us on the ground in the passage.

So the ninja and ranger continued to fight while the evoker tried to get at things, when the ninja getting low he yanked me out from under the chimera and shoved a potion down my throat. I woke up channelled, and buffed the ninja.

Now that I was awake, the evoker was having trouble getting spells off again. A second channel and I was back in the chimera's face with the mace, dad rolls a 1 on his last scorching ray... well crap. Then he's reminded about the re-use of a spell from his bonded item. So final true strike, reuse slot, and max damage (no crit).

We returned with the diamond, it was used, and next up we head out with the wizard from dads school on a archaeology expedition.

We had lots of fun. The party is complete, and now starts the story the sibling wants to tell. I'm looking forward to the next session.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

More Kickstarters, Blog splitting consideration


A note about this post. I do not own and am not in anyway related to any of these projects or the images used for links to the Kickstarter pages. No infringement is intended.


First, A few Kickstarters that interest me. Here's Catalyst Game Lab's The Duke. CGL is why Battletech is still a live. So just about any thing they do interests me at least a little.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/450703636/the-duke


Next is a kickstarter for a portable gaming table. I'd been looking at designing something like this myself just last year. I hope this one turns out. The goal is pretty high though.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/132http://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/162842/photo-full.jpg?13358452667678769/the-future-of-table-top-role-playing-games



For those that want a darker setting for their pathfinder games. The Bleeding Hollow looks to be an interesting option. I'll be getting the pdf and will probably do a review later.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/939904996/the-bleeding-hollow-a-pathfinder-rpg-horror-mega-a


Now for three a little different. These are computer game Kickstarters, all RPG related and mention looking to release on linux.

First is a classic 8-bit style RPG called Crystal Catacombs. It's met its primary funding but its first stretch goal is a map editor, which should be fun.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crystalcatacombs/the-crystal-catacombs



Finally we come to a "point and click" rpg called Hexit. This one's current charm is graphics/eye candy, but promises a real world. A hi quality graphics game on linux can only be a good thing. This one also has a pretty high funding goal, but more than 20 days to go.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/935411564/hexit-point-and-click-sci-fi-adventure-game

That's no where near all of the Kickstarters that I've looked at this week. There are lots of projects coming even just to the RPG (P&P or Video) genres. Originally I was posting a kickstarter that interested me because a) it interested me, and b) I didn't have anything else to talk about.

Now (as you can see above) there's enough traffic on kickstarter to turn my ranting into a KS spam fest. I don't want that. I do want to pass on projects I'm interested in in a timely fashion though. This means something like "only one kickstarter post/month" won't work. Once a week is letting projects slip by as it is, and filling my G+ or facebook or twitter pages with KS links doesn't really work either.

Then there's the fact that NSNGaming exists finally, and my personal gaming and other rants really should be separate. So I'm thinking about some kind of split of my blog, twitter, and or creating G+/Facebook pages for NSNGaming and such.

I haven't made any hard decisions yet, but when I do. I'll post them here, as always.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

RPG Superstar Final Round




That's right, the voting for the final round is here.

Here are links to the final four entries.

Rescue Under the Steaming Sea

The Unsheathed Revolution

Doom Comes to Dustpawn

The Scarlet God

Read, contemplate, vote. Good luck to all four!


Wednesday, March 7, 2012

RGPSuperstar Top 8, Android Picks, Flashbacks

So I playtested Tom Phillips Eightfinger's Tomb with my brother, parents, and a friend this weekend. It was fun, I won't go into much detail here, but here's a link to my review. http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5azv&page=2?Eightfingers-Tomb#51. I've also voted already. If you haven't, voting is open.

Also, in more work towards a functional tablet, I've been playing with the following android apps:

Pathfinder Spell Compendium and Pathfinder Feat/Talent Compendium by Sven-Erik Jonsson
Very handy free spellbook app. Good on both Cyanogen7 for nook and phones. Feat/Talent app is also handy but new and not as polished.

Pathfinder NPC Gallery by Shaking Earth
Handy little reference to the NPCs in the back of the Gamemaster's Guide, has some issues on the Cyanogennook.

Pathfinder RPG Manager
Simple, incomplete in my opinion, but a nice init tracker

Dice Caddy
Handy, dice widgets on the home screen, otherwise pretty basic.

D&D Dice by b.freq
This one's kinda nice. Does math and has a good log. 

DM Assist
This one is much more complete than Pathfinder RPG manager, but looks horrid on a tablet. Hopefully that'll improve.

Found my old 3.5 sheet (and even the sheet it was based on) on the old family website. Getting ready to re-write parts of that story... Re-integrating some of those characters should save a little trouble with filling holes in some locations. It's also reminded me of two of the stories this setting was created to tell.

1. Simply because its different doesn't mean it's evil.

2. Simply because they're the leaders doesn't mean they're the good guys.

I think those stories are becoming important to tell again.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Well, at the moment of writing this, I have to say my expectations for the character sheet and realm sheet sales were low. I said I'd be happy if I sold enough for paizo to pay me once a year, I'm one sale (of either sheet) from that minimum. They've been available less than two weeks.

I don't know if the sales will keep that pace, but the closer they come to keeping it, the better chances I can turn that income back into more sheets and other projects I've had in mind for a while now.

One of those projects that has recently cropped into my head, is a Faction Sheet. I don't know everything about where this will go, but I expect it'll be in the 4-6 page range, and might have an additional 2-4 pages on suggestions about creating factions/secret societies/gangs/etc.

You all know about the Realm booklet. Well, I've got a 2 page + map "sheet" almost ready to put up at paizo, and then I've still got a lot of time on the "booklet". The booklet will be set kinda on the back burner, because I'm hoping to have enough income from the new worksheets to afford printed copies of the booklet.

Region 3 Game Day on its way. I've still got to finish a little work for it, but I know now that I will not be majorly involved in putting next years game day together. I have no idea if the USS Diamondback will host next year's yet. Even if they do, though, I'll at most be a minor assistant.

I've payed for the few pieces of art I've had commissioned for the Krenna setting, and purchased two more that Aabh had done for someone else who disappeared. I'll have to double my sales of sheets to make that money back compared to now. So here's hoping the sales don't fall too quickly (or better yet, pick up!).

But that's what it boils down to. After October, I should have a little more money, and a little more time, to devote to my gaming projects.

Two weeks from now will be right on top of Game Day... so I'll just post images of my brother's paint jobs on all the minis he's done for me. Two weeks after that will be a final report on Game Day.

Monday, September 19, 2011

A look back, before making a stronger attempt to go forward

So, looking back at somethings I've posted, I suppose it's time I should re-visit several of them.

I'm gonna touch each subject based on its current progression, my changes in attitude towards things, and at least note if I intend to talk further about any of them in more detail in a later post.

So here we go:
The Realm Sheet: This, believe it or not, is still progressing. It's been on the back burner for a while but I'm picking it back up for two reasons. 1, its split into two projects. A Realm "Sheet" which will look much like my The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Settlement Sheet, and a "Booklet" which'll look a lot more like the later per-release versions I've posted.

I'll definitely be covering this more.

Adobe and Scribus:
I still use scribus, and I'm still mad at Adobe for their heavy handedness, however, a legal copy of Acrobat Pro 9 is now in my possession, therefore I have used it to finish pdf forms. I still start in something else though (scribus or libreoffice). This will get more coverage, but only as updates (or better software choices) come up.

Pen & Paper Games, Obsidian Portal, and the like:
Well, these have still been very useful websites. I pay for OP now, and even have one "campaign" there that's just templates for certain pages.P&PG hasn't been as useful lately, but by no fault of their own.

This'll get more coverage as I finish new templates, and interesting things come my way.

Gimp:
They're still on 2.7 (2.6 if you want the stable release) and the dev release has very little pull in the windows users. There's been a little pace pickup in the last few months, but if that continues, who knows. Still great software, and once 2.8 hits I'll definitely be talking about it.

Maptool:
Wow, they were hopping b60 would be the release. Turned out to be b84, and its still being "patched" which is kinda keeping 1.4 work suppressed. Trevor's kinda stepped down, and Azhrei has picked it up. So it still progresses, but like Gimp, is kinda behind what I expected by this time...


I'll probably talk about this more once 1.4 has an alpha to play with, until then its all bugfixes anyway.


Kaidan:
Well, Gameprinter got some good luck and got everything he needed to continue on this project back. Now his first three modules released through Rite Publishing. I have all three but still have yet to play them... I'm probably gonna have to retire before I can get all the gaming I'd like in. Sigh...


If he produces more, I'll post about it.


Kubuntu:
Driving me nuts with some KDE issues that I don't see in other distros. But I'm 95% linux now at home! 4% is a pfsense firewall (technically freeBSD) and 1% is a XP virtual machine on my linux box, one of its tasks I'll be moving over to linux soon, so it's sole use will be to run Adobe Acrobat Pro, and only as long as I need it.


I don't know which distro I'll try next, but when I pick one, I'll post about it.


Forgotten Realms Drow Game:


This has halted due to some WICKED drama. It will not continue, sadly. The only bright side is it no longer cuts from time I can spend in the Pathfinder universe, or my own.


Pathfinder Fiction (Now Pathfinder Tales)


This has gone a long way. I'm liking some authors, and not liking others. I need to set down and set time to read and especially review all the stuff I've purchased. So eventually you'll see more of this.


David Weber's Universes:
The Mad Wizard Weber's had some real crummy luck in trying to write a new Bahazell book, and he's side stepped the honorverse for a time. I'm past the withdraw phase and into the "silently watching" phase.


If he finishes anything... I'll post about it.


Region 3 Game Day:
This is now less than a month away... it's gonna eat all my spare time until its done. Then, if we're asked to do next year's we'll probably be a lot better prepared.


I'll say how it went in after it happens.


Krenna:
Snakes Among Us continues, slowly, and I now have another story idea to go with it. Some of you have even been given a extremely vague hint.


This is related to most of my projects. It will get a lot of attention here.


Abilene:
Still sucks, but not nearly as badly. I have a few things to keep me entertained here, but if one of them goes the way I expect... I won't really have all that much to keep me here. December will tell more.


Sintel:
Someone wanna send me a EUR 40 present this christmas. The movie was cool, and I still wanna play with blender myself.... but life gets in the way a lot.


If they do another one, I WILL post about it...


And that brings us to 2011 which is almost over. I've taken over the PFRPG Bleach stuff... there's an Obsidian Portal Campaign called Bleaching the Path. The 7 player game died, drama + rl schedule interference. I plan on doing more and better OP templates, and Paizo sent me paperwork which I have now filled out, that once they process means I can upload my settlement sheet, and my character sheet, for sale!!!! They won't cost much, and probably won't make me much, but if they make enough for me to pay for one or two things for some krenna stuff, then some of that will be ready to put up for sale... then that'll pay for more stuff, and you get the idea.


Well, that's about it. 2012 isn't here yet, but if the rest of 11 moves at half the pace it has so far, it'll be over in no time, and 2012 looks to be a good year, a year where I can do some of the things I've really wanted to do.