Tag Archives: Paizo

Reaver Character Updates

Our merry band of miscreants in my Reavers on the Seas of Fate campaign have all leveled, as well as accumulated various distinguishing scars and marks. Check them out!

All these characters now bear a strange glyph on their bodies, like a tattoo, which appeared when a glyph-covered plaque the evil serpent man was using to open the Cyphergate exploded, embedding fragments in all those present. They are not sure of the significance of this, though the glyphs burn painfully at certain times.

PCs

Sindawe is a Bonuwat Mwangi skilled in unarmed combat. He became the party leader early on and earned the epithet “Woman-killer” for his complete lack of hesitation when it comes to taking down female enemies. He got a new snake tattoo when he became the lover of voodoo loa Mama Watanna, and a set of orca bite scars when he cheated on her with Hatshepsut, an Osirian monk/priestess of Ydersius they pulled out of suspended animation in Viperwall. He’s also a very skilled cartographer and has been learning the ancient tongue Aklo. His favorite weapon is a pair of cold iron brass knuckles he bought second hand with the letters “ELFPU” and “NCHER” engraved on the knuckles. A life goal is to find enough treasure to go back to the Mwangi Expanse, wipe out the clan that killed his family, and restore his own clan. Sindawe Narr, Monk 5

Tommy Blacktoes was just a halfling rogue from Cheliax with a penchant for nipple torture. But since coming to Riddleport, he’s become smitten with the tiefling whore Lavender Lil, taken on the geas of the ghost of Black Dog the pirate, and accepted the profane gift of a succubus agent of Nocticula. Finally he became an assassin and popped his cherry on a crazy derro who was in the middle of an autopsy. His Disable Device, Escape Artist, and Stealth skills are at a legendary level. A life goal is to murder Clegg Zincher, free Lavender Lil, and become a feared pirate. Tommy Blacktoes, Rogue 4/Assassin 1

Serpent, real name Ref Jorenson, is an oddly colored Ulfen man of uncertain parentage from the Land of the Linnorm Kings. He has a gigantic pet python named Saluthra. Serpent became romantically involved with Samaritha Beldusk, a half-elf aspiring Cyphermage. When it turned out she was really a serpent person in disguise, he decided “Eh… Snakes are my thing anyway.” He recently discovered that he may be related to Cyphermage Fenella Bromathan, right before he burned her alive on a pyre in accordance with Ulfen tradition. He is extremely nimble and can’t settle on a single character class, though by all accounts he’s good in the wilderness. His prized possession is a single Boot of Striding and Springing liberated from the chieftain of the goblin “Junk-Kicker” tribe. A life goal is to find out who his mother was. Serpent Jorenson, Druid 2/Ranger 2/Barbarian 1

Wogan is a portly, bearded cleric of Gozreh from Cheliax. He is most notable for his love of guns, a newfangled kind of invention that makes the others nervous. His religious vow of chastity has kept him out of a lot of the trouble that dogs the other Reavers – so why do they look on him with pity whenever it’s mentioned? Between his thundering trident, his firearms, and call lightning, this is a guy you hear coming a long ways off. He’s also a very skilled fisherman. A life goal is to drink more than anyone else in any place at any time. Wogan, Cleric 5

NPCs

Samaritha Beldusk appears to be a chirpy half-elven woman who aspires to become a Cyphermage. Really, though, she is a serpentfolk wizard. Perhaps even more surprisingly, she appears to not be the evil world-dominating type, and is in love with Serpent. She is a transmuter, but is quite fond of her wand of magic missiles, which can solve many a problem given enough time. She knows many things, which is a nice counterpoint to the PCs, who never met a Knowledge skill they liked. Samaritha, Wizard 4

Hatshepsut is of Osirian descent and was the priestess of Ydersius in a large temple that is now the ruins of Viperwall. She was trapped in a magical mirror when her temple fell and kept in suspended animation for many centuries until the PCs let her out. They then tried to kill her, and then took her prisoner, but eventually they became fond of her vicious “serpent strike” punches that cause continual bleeding. She is very taciturn, and mostly only speaks Aklo, though has been working on learning Common. She is very standoffish and is known to unload on someone for violating whatever archaic system of etiquette she subscribes to. Sindawe befriended her and they fought side by side for a long time. Recently, after a violent bout of sparring, she and Sindawe had a violent bout of lovemaking. This annoyed his goddess lover and the fallout is still in progress. Hatshepsut, Monk 4/Cleric 4

Both Samaritha and Hatshepsut worship Ydersius, who they claim was a lawful deity before the Azlanti cut his head off. No one is sure of the truth behind this claim.

P.S. The great pics of the PCs are by Paul (Serpent), we use them on paper standups for the characters too.

XCrawl Is Coming… To Pathfinder

I just ran across this post on the Goodman Games forum – the new version of XCrawl will be powered by Pathfinder!

I ran my first game of XCrawl recently and found it to be a lot of fun.  Here’s the play report. It’s like a kinda modern day game where dungeon crawling is the most popular professional (blood)sport.

They considered using 4e, but WotC’s cunning plan to have their license say you can’t use a modern setting with real world place names makes it impossible.  As one forum poster said, “Oh well, Happy accident then.  suck it WOTC” [sic].

Terror Is Coming… To Pathfinder

Waiting for just that right time to get in on the Paizo Adventure Path subscriptions?  Well this might be it. They are about to begin their newest Adventure Path, called Carrion Crown, and it’s going to be a big ol’ Ravenloft-esque Gothic horror fest. Its blurb:

“The Cult of the Whispering Way weaves a wide-ranging conspiracy throughout the horror-tinged lands of Ustalav aimed at freeing the Lich King Tar-Baphon, better known as the Whispering Tyrant, from his eternal prison in the dungeon of Gallowspire. Their debased rites and malicious schemes set werewolf against vampire, ghost against terror from beyond time and space in a thrilling campaign that touches upon themes of classic horror and dark swords and sorcery!”

You can go download the free Player’s Guide and see what you’ll be getting into. Subscribe now and they’ll ship  you each installment as soon as it drops, you’ll get a 30% discount, and you’ll get the PDFs free.

The Two Ultimate Pathfinder Links

As a public service, I thought I’d reiterate the two links you need if you are playing Pathfinder (besides paizo.com and this blog of course!).  Apparently not everyone knows about them, and one has moved!

The Pathfinder SRD, which has all the OGL rules from Paizo (pretty much all of it) and a variety of third parties. If you need to look up a rule, here you go! It’s always kept super up to date, even new beta playtest stuff shows up here ASAP, as well as sometimes links to useful rulings from the Paizo boards, etc.

The Pathfinder Wiki, which has a primer on the entire setting of Golarion.  Beware – it moved without warning and the old site is still up! If you are using a wikia.com address, stop, switch to pathfinderwiki.com. Up until today even I have been misrouting people in my blogroll. I have tried to figure out how to contribute a couple times and have run away, tail between my legs – I couldn’t even figure out how to leave a forum post saying “set up a redirect or something guys” in their system.  But it’s a great place to search for that mostly-forgotten reference or link your players to in order to get them briefed on a country or something.

Oh, heck, here’s a third link.  No, not the Pathfinder Database, for fan created content, which I wish well and all but there’s just not a lot of quality content there so I don’t use it. But this is my #3 go to for Pathfinder…

Hero Lab, the best character builder tool for Pathfinder, many hands down.  I don’t build NPCs above 3rd level without it.  I’ve tried PCGen and RPGXplorer but IMO those weren’t any more helpful than doing it myself.  Now, it’s for pay, and they’ll charge you for each additional bit of rules they add from the various Paizo stuff, but they’re “official” so they do have it all. I wish all the NPCs from the APs were downloadable from somewhere, that would be a huge time saver. One of our players even uses it at the table to roll and apply conditions to his PC.

Paizo RPG Superstar 2011 Hits Final Eight

If you’re not following Paizo’s RPG Superstar 2011 contest  you should be, if only because you get loads of really high quality game content for free out of it. So far it’s 32 wondrous items, something less than 32 archtypes, 16 villains, and soon 8 Golarion locations and 4 adventure plots.

As always props to Paizo for their openness and customer engagement!

Free Downloads From Paizo

Did you know Paizo has a link to get to all the various free PDF products people have listed in their store?  Neither did I.  But here it is!  There’s some good stuff in there, for various game systems.

RPGNow has a similar link which is super easy to find, but Paizo’s store is a little more cryptic, so it’s my Gamer Tech Tip Of the Day!

Download them, read them, use them – and if you like them, review them on the site.  Publishers give freebies so people can see the quality of their work; if you use a freebie that’s good, say so!  It encourages people to buy their stuff and then encourages more freebie giving to you.

Pathfinder Sweeps the ENnies!

Well, it’s gratifying to see most of you voted like you were told.    Paizo is liveblogging the awards and they are winning and winning and winning.

  • d20pfsrd – silver for Best Website.
  • Kobold Quarterly – gold for Best Blog.  (They’re half Pathfinder!)
  • Pathfinder Bestiary – gold for Best Cover Art.
  • Pathfinder Core Rulebook – gold for Best Interior Art.
  • Pathfinder Chronicles City Map Folio – gold for Best Cartography.
  • Pathfinder Core Rulebook – gold for Best Production Values.
  • Pathfinder APG Playtest – gold for Best Free Product.
  • Great City Players Guide – gold for Best Electronic Book, it’s for Pathfinder by 0one Games.
  • PFS #29, The Devil We Know – silver for Best Electronic Book.
  • Pathfinder GM Screen – gold for Best Aid or Accessory.
  • Pathfinder 31 – gold for Best Adventure.
  • Pathfinder Bestiary – gold for Best Monster/Adversary.
  • Classic Monsters Revisited – silver for Best Monster/Adversary!
  • Pathfinder RPG – gold for Best Game!
  • Pathfinder RPG – gold for Product of the Year!
  • Paizo – gold for Best Publisher!

For those keeping track, they won gold or silver (or both) every category they were nominated in.

And it’s well deserved.  I do kinda hate to see anyone win it all, but if there’s a single game company that deserves it, both in a cosmic sense and because of the unflagging high quality and volume of product, and customer support – it’s Paizo and Pathfinder.  It really is great, among the very top handful of RPGs ever.  D&D 3.0 itself was the only previous game that hit my gaming groups with anything near this amount of excitement.  It’s a game meant to be played, supported by the best adventures since 1e AD&D.

And it’s great that other companies publishing for Pathfinder won too; yay third party ecosystem!

If you haven’t tried Pathfinder yet, you owe it to yourself to give it a try.  It really is great.

Here’s the full list of winners, now that it’s available!  Congrats to all of them.

Pathfinder iPhone Apps?

I was just listening to a big ol long video of Erik Mona speaking on “Pen & Paper Gaming in the 21st Century” that Louis Porter Jr, had posted on his blog, and he mentions that Paizo has three iPhone apps in the works.  Watch starting around 26 minutes in.

Specifically he describes the “Live Character Sheet” for Pathfinder – add all your stats and stuff there.  One person casts Bless – you can see the other iPhones on the local network and select what characters get Blessed – and then it takes care of counting down rounds for you.”  Nice! Suck it, Digital Initiative.

He talks about other technology stuff like Surface and ARGs, PDF publishing, POD, etc.  Check it out!

Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide In Final Playtest

Paizo, in their traditionally open and fan-friendly way, have been offering the six new PC classes from the upcoming Advanced Player’s Guide for public playtest!  They have taken the feedback into account and have released a final playtest version, freely downloadable from paizo.com.  Comments are still open till Feb 15, when they’ll bake ’em and print ’em!

Boy, there’s a lot of great Pathfinder news this week.

RPG Superstar 2010 Moves Into Round Three

Every year, Paizo Publishing holds a RPG design competition, open to all who care to enter, called RPG Superstar.  They have a set of prominent RPG designers judge the entries and winnow the crowd down to a smaller and smaller set of contestants.  It’s like fantasy Survivor!

Anyway, one of the best parts is that the stuff the contestants create is there for the using on the Web site.  Round One got us a mess of wondrous items, and rounds Two and Three will get us some cool monsters.  In the end, the winner gets a gig writing an adventure for Paizo!

It’s a great way to generate interest, promote innovation in your customer base, and in general demonstrate that they are the anti-…  Well, I was going to say WotC, but really about half the RPG companies out there seem to actively disdain their fans.

Anyway, it’s too late to enter this year, but those of you that harbor dreams of fame can plan ahead.  And raid the excellent content – not just from this year but from RPG Superstar 2009 and RPG Superstar 2008 as well!  Innovative!  Fan-friendly!  Consistent!  Have we entered a second golden age of gaming, or what?

Wayfinder Issue 2 Released!

Wayfinder is a free, fan created, high-quality pdf e-zine for players of the Pathfinder RPG.  Issue 1 was really good, and they’re not stopping there.  Issue 2 is now out!   Download it from paizo.com for free!

It’s a real miscellany; fiction, humor, monsters, NPCs, adventures, races, recipes, fluff, crunch – it’s all here!

Paizo APG Playtest Continues

In true open gaming form, Paizo has put out all six new classes that are going into their Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player’s Guide for comment.  You can download them for free:

In my opinion, Paizo has knocked another one out of the park.  I was prepared to be underwhelmed – most new non-core classes in D&D 3.5e were clearly just there to be weird collections of rules and not represent meaningful iconic archetypes.  “Ooo ooo, I’ve always wanted to be a Hulking Hurler!”  “And I always wanted to be a Master of the Unseen Hand!  Or maybe a Spellwarp Sniper!”  It feels like you may as well just say “DURRRR” out loud after announcing your chosen class.

The Cavalier is the prototypical knight.  He belongs to a specific knightly order, takes oaths, challenges enemies, and has a mighty mount.  Trap avoided: making the class *too* dependent on mounted combat. Remaining weak point: the oaths are kinda lame in implementation and the knightly orders fall into that weird “made kinda generic but still hard to fit into your campaign world” area.

The Oracle is filled with divine force, but less from a specific deity and more of a powerful archetype.  Besides clerical spells, the oracle gets powers appropriate to their divine focus, and suffer from a curse like being haunted, blind, or lame – but the curse turns into powers of its own with level!  Trap avoided: when I read the class name I thought, “Ah, a lame diviner class suitable for NPCs.”  Remaining weak point: the curses are the main thing that seems different about the Oracle and her foci from a normal cleric and her domains; a focus feels just kinda like a “double strength domain.”

The Summoner is what we call a “pet class.”  He has a persistent customizable critter called an eidolon; plus he can summon monsters pretty well and toss other conjurations and enchantments off a custom spell list.  It’s the first time D&D has really been able to do the “Pokemon Master” or “WoW Warlock” thing effectively.  Trap avoided: this class already got nerfed from the playtest doc where he could cast a large number of 1 minute/level Summon Monster SLAs and could easily boost his eidolon’s AC to the 50s without breaking a sweat.  Remaining weak point: The eidolon rules are complicated and probably open to a lot of exploits.  And why the hell does he have d8 HD and decent BAB?

The Witch is the most witchy witch class in the history of D&D witch classes.  It’s brilliant.  It can cast hexes, have a cauldron, join a coven, cackle, lay the evil eye on you…  And she learns spells (off a custom spell list that has enchants, conjures, and even heals)  from her familiar.   Trap avoided: being lame.  Remaining weak point: the covens are weak and should be more interesting, but that’s a minor nit in an otherwise very nicely designed class.

The Alchemist makes potion-like extracts made from formulae, bombs, and self-transforming mutagens.  Very flavorful – taking some of the alchemist schtick (like the bomb throwing) from WoW and other computer games.  They had to cop out a little to explain the limited number of uses in a day – the concoctions are powered by the alchemist’s “magical aura,” so if you’re looking for the scientific angle here you’re out of luck.  Trap avoided: being godawful complicated like the Artificer from Eberron.  Remaining weak point: They don’t get many bombs per day and their extracts and mutagens are pretty weak otherwise – I think they’ll have trouble being useful over the adventuring day.  The mutagens do physical boosts, but it’s not going to sufficiently make up for the BAB/HD discrepancy and turn them into a useful fighter even for the limited duration.

The Inquisitor brings to mind Warhammer 40k, but upon reading it…  This class is an odd mishmash.  It has a cleric’s HD and BAB and invokes judgements upon the naughty; it has a little ranger to it in the “vampire hunter” kind of vein.  But then it gets tactical/teamwork feats.  I’m not really sure what it is trying to be – a paladin of any alignment?  A Buffy?  A marshal?  Mostly a Buffy I think.  Trap avoided:  none.  Remaining weak point: falling too close to what other classes are or can do.  I’d think you could build something like this as a cleric/ranger or pally/ranger.

Anyway, I think they’ve done a great job of taking truly iconic mythical archetypes and making them solid playable classes.  Check them out yourself!