The Gaming Den

Yeah but James Jacobs is writing it and has already said they are cutting the guided property along with celestial plate. He has made it clear that he is going to rework it and I do not trust the Paizo work style he espouses.

To be clear I liked the old version of CotCT I am just not sure that it will be any good after it has been "clarified/updated/fixed".

Glad I'm not waiting for the hardcover, then. I'll have to see if I can get a print of Reynolds' cover art for it.

Prak wrote:SIX.

I meant six. My hands cooperate poorly when typing.

Okay, whew, I was about to say, "Man, Paizo just WANTS to be damn White Wolf and say 'fuck it' to all that stuff like rules consistency and thematic continuity' "

So can someone do a bit of a detailed analysis of Ultimate Intrigue. I have not even had enough curiosity to go crack open the book but with all this hate being thrown its way I'm starting to wonder what is even in it.

I would try but I do not have a copy of the book and as I said I refuse to pay Paizo for shitty product. Sorry, maybe after it hits the PRD.

It isn't out yet, so I'm going to assume most of the hate is towards the leaked Vigilante and archetypes.

With the Vigilante, it was always a terrible idea. The core concept is "1/2 normal class, 1/2 secret identity." Which, fundamentally, is a problem. "Secret Identity" isn't a problem solving tool, it is a defensive measure some people use if they might face reprisal for their actions. Which is already going to be useful in a small subset of campaigns. Even less when you consider the defenses don't generally apply to your allies, and so a situation where one person benefits from a secret identity and the others don't need one is very peculiar.

The tone deafness as to how to work this into a game is pervasive in the design. For example, you can use your Vigilante abilities in your "social identity" (in the playtest you couldn't even do that), but people might figure out you are "more than you appear." The thing is, this is a setting where a bunch of members of high society already are mid-level folks with a variety of powers. If you Vital Strike someone with an Attack of Opportunity nobody is going to gasp and declare "It's the Lavender Lorakeet!" They'd assume your parents were clever enough to get you levels in Fighter instead of Noble and it is some feat.

Now, entirely in theory, if the abilities were really useful it could still be passable. But of course, they are not. Many just add additional defenses to keep your identity secret, or let you change costumes faster. There are a bunch of things dealing with an "area of renown," but this comes down to a bonus to social skills in a tiny area. There is an upgrade chain that goes from disguising yourself as "anonymous hobo," to "named hobo" to "king"... at level 17. Yes, there is some divination fouling and stuff, but it is nowhere near enough. While there are abilities in the genre, nothing levels up to something appropriate like "world renowned billionaire with a tech company."

The archetypes are also worse than normal. Keeping with the "1/2 real class, 1/2 vigilante" thing you have half Barbarians, half Gunslingers, half Cavaliers, and so on. Many of these are completely crippled, like a "Magical Girl" archetype that gets a familiar instead of an eidiolon or the Brute that attacks your friends and destroys his equipment for the amazing power of "turning large."

Moving into the other archetypes isn't much better, as the ones I've seen often interact with bad subsystems like downtime, trade useful abilities for minor bonuses, or otherwise aren't terribly impressive. They aren't universally unplayable and horrible or anything, but on the average they are even more piddly minor changes, huge downgrades, and weak ideas than normal.

Of special note: The Gray Paladin, who can be NG or LN and gets a slightly more flexible code in exchange for big downgrades to their abilities including no Divine Grace. They do get a "Smite non-Good" ability for the cost of 2 smites, but that is far from worth it.

The new subsystems might be interesting to analyse (if not use), but otherwise I can't think there will be much more to say when it comes out. Unlike Occult Adventures or Unchained which had new (or at least rehashed) bad ideas, this seems to be a very standard book like Advanced Players Guide or Ultimate Combat with a focus on a really bad class.

Oh! One more thing. There is an advice chapter that claims "scry and fry" doesn't work because teleportation requires knowing the "location" and "layout," and scrying can only give you the "layout." Big fight on the Paizo boards about that one right now, I'm sure there will be more when people can read the whole thing.

Where Pathfinder finds their audience is the 'sheet player' crowd, where any backstory or kind of roleplaying on their behalf absolutely requires a blurb on the character sheet that says "yes you ARE a vigilante with a hidden identity!" and not just "OK you put some points in disguise".

A supplement you'll probably see in the future is "MATURE BACKSTORIES FOR DEEP ADULT THINKING" where you can get +1 to resisting fear because you were molested as a child and +1 to intimidate because you watched your parents get shot outside of a theater with the flaw of -2 to personal relationships because these wounds will not heal which can be removed with taking the feat "true love sexual healing" where you learn to love again but if your partner dies the feat changes to "CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES" and you can never love again but get an additional +2 to intimidate.

I dislike the sheet player crowd. I tend to make up backstory as I go along (I'd rather show, not tell) and it's annoying when the MC won't let me be relatively well-traveled without blowing a feat or trait on it.

I just want players to come to the table with a personality and some kind of backstory for their character that I can try to hook into. I personally don't require the expenditure of feats and such on it, but it can be helpful, I've found in my own character creation, for explaining some choices. More like the reverse, I guess- instead of spending a feat to buy backstory, I spend backstory lines to explain why I have a feat.

Anyone remember Cancer Mage in 3.5, giving permanent Str bonuses.

Well, Pathfinder makes it easier.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/a ... /bloodpyre

Permanent Str bonuses (+6 max) for only 1000 gold.

That's pretty poorly written... I can't imagine a MC that would let that fly but they really should have done a less shitty job editing that.

Slade wrote:Anyone remember Cancer Mage in 3.5, giving permanent Str bonuses.

Well, Pathfinder makes it easier.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/a ... /bloodpyre

Permanent Str bonuses (+6 max) for only 1000 gold.

A little fire resistance, or just a heal every round, enjoy the hulk muscles.

I can't even tell what they intended that poison to do, in terms of how long the Strength bonus should last. Until the 6 rounds are over seems pretty pointless, and doesn't fit with anyone 'enhancing' their own troops that way.

Until the ability damage heals, or for one day, is another option, which seems like the most reasonable, but I don't see any support for that.

And "forever", as it implies by omission, is simple enough - it's just crazy cheap for what it does in that case.

I imagine that it's some sort of house-ruled item that some DM gave to some guards in his home campaign. So the intended duration was probably "until mook #44, who just drank the poison, dies."

MisterDee wrote:I imagine that it's some sort of house-ruled item that some DM gave to some guards in his home campaign. So the intended duration was probably "until mook #44, who just drank the poison, dies."

That just raises further questions!

What kind of DM would give mooks a potion that will likely kill them before they can reap its full benefits? And anyway, it's not like combat is even going to last that long in most cases.

This is mindfuckingly stupid.

I'm not sure I understand. Does this poison deal negative strength damage ? How does this work ?

GâtFromKI wrote:I'm not sure I understand. Does this poison deal negative strength damage ? How does this work ?

If you click the link, it grants an alchemical stacking Strenth bonus based on times you've failed vs the poison save. This stacks up to +6.

So yes, negative Strength damage. For a 1000 gold pieces.

A steal/deal.

Now, this is drow originally (or at least they are known for it) so to get it above ground could feasible be through black market deals thus double cost, but even at 2000 gold it is an amazing thing. And there is a trait that lowers blackmarket cost by 10% as an aside.

Flavor wise, it sounds like the duration of bonus last a while. It can't be a short time because it wouldn't make strong warriors (they wouldn't be strong if strength bonus wore off).

Now limiting it till all ability damage makes sense, but then again any duration is a houserule because it lists none. So RAW leans toward forever.

Slade wrote:

GâtFromKI wrote:I'm not sure I understand. Does this poison deal negative strength damage ? How does this work ?

If you click the link, it grants an alchemical stacking Strenth bonus based on times you've failed vs the poison save. This stacks up to +6.

That's what I understand from the link. But there's no duration indicated for the bonus, and it would be stupid if the duration was "while the poison is active, so less than 36 seconds". "And now and for the following 36 seconds, you'll fear my almighty berserk drow army !"

So... Either it's permanent, and it's stupid (even without any help, the ability damages are healed after 6 days). Either the poison actually deals negative Strength damage, which is also stupid in its own unique way. Since Paizo is always inventing new unique ways of being stupid, I went for the second solution; but you're right, RAW the bonus is permanent.

Covent wrote:The blatant apologists on some other forums do not help. There are quite a few posters that insist that the scrying/teleport advice was always the way things worked and Paizo is flawless and wonderful for giving us this and other holy "clarifications".

I fought the good fight for lack of anything better to do. But some people are just stupid.

TOZ wrote:

Covent wrote:The blatant apologists on some other forums do not help. There are quite a few posters that insist that the scrying/teleport advice was always the way things worked and Paizo is flawless and wonderful for giving us this and other holy "clarifications".

I fought the good fight for lack of anything better to do. But some people are just stupid.

I saw and applauded your efforts there. I could only put myself in long enough for a single post before it was too much for me.

TOZ wrote:

Covent wrote:The blatant apologists on some other forums do not help. There are quite a few posters that insist that the scrying/teleport advice was always the way things worked and Paizo is flawless and wonderful for giving us this and other holy "clarifications".

I fought the good fight for lack of anything better to do. But some people are just stupid.

Yeah thanks TOZ, I just could not argue with them as I would not have held my temper at the abject stupidity, obstinacy, and deliberate bad logic.

My queermate is going to run Rise of the Runelords, so I'm looking at playing a brawler, because it sounds like fun. I know I'm not going to be making the universe my bitch or anything, but as long I'm having fun, I'm going to try to stop caring about whether I get my cocaine tower and succubines.

We're starting at level one, and I know I want to be a half orc brawler. I'm looking at dipping a level of Bloodrager around level 3 because brawler kind of begs for a rage ability and there strangely isn't a raging archetype, and because if I use Bloodrager instead of Barbarian I get a bloodline. I'm looking at Deep Earth for the Tremor thing, which I can then quicken with Quicken Spell-like to hit someone with a -4 ac before I hit them with my fists. Well, that or I take Eldritch Heritage to get a bloodline that uses my character level-2 instead of class level. But one way or the other, I'm looking at picking up rage in level 2 or 3 with a dip, and the Deepearth Bloodline followed by Quicken Spell-like.

For Brawler, I'm kind of thinking about Mutagen Mauler or Shield Champion (because... it's cool? And my queermate is a Captain America fangirl).

Advice? Thoughts?

Edit: I'm reading Orcs of Golarion for fluff on orc culture. It feels like what you'd get from some "Great White Hunter" type who decided to write about "The Dark Continent" because he was bored.

Prak wrote:My queermate is going to run Rise of the Runelords, so I'm looking at playing a brawler, because it sounds like fun. I know I'm not going to be making the universe my bitch or anything, but as long I'm having fun, I'm going to try to stop caring about whether I get my cocaine tower and succubines.

We're starting at level one, and I know I want to be a half orc brawler. I'm looking at dipping a level of Bloodrager around level 3 because brawler kind of begs for a rage ability and there strangely isn't a raging archetype, and because if I use Bloodrager instead of Barbarian I get a bloodline. I'm looking at Deep Earth for the Tremor thing, which I can then quicken with Quicken Spell-like to hit someone with a -4 ac before I hit them with my fists. Well, that or I take Eldritch Heritage to get a bloodline that uses my character level-2 instead of class level. But one way or the other, I'm looking at picking up rage in level 2 or 3 with a dip, and the Deepearth Bloodline followed by Quicken Spell-like.

For Brawler, I'm kind of thinking about Mutagen Mauler or Shield Champion (because... it's cool? And my queermate is a Captain America fangirl).

Advice? Thoughts?

Edit: I'm reading Orcs of Golarion for fluff on orc culture. It feels like what you'd get from some "Great White Hunter" type who decided to write about "The Dark Continent" because he was bored.

You can get an additional Minor Bloodrage because at 1st level you have a Bloodline.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-f ... ging-blood

This way you can get 2 Bloodlines with Bloodrager.

Did anyone here read or play the Hell's Vengeance AP? It says it's 'Paizo's first Adventure Path designed for evil characters' on the tin...

And that's how I learned that Bloodrager uses different bloodline writeups from Sorcerer. Thanks. The wording of the prereqs, however, makes it seem like it won't count the Bloodrager bloodlines for qualifying ("Sorcerer Bloodline Class Feature" as opposed to "must have a bloodline"). But still potentially usable. And the Bloodrager bloodlines are way better for a martial character anyway. Especially Elemental or Infernal with their free fire damage when paired with Blessing of the Fire God from Orcs of Golarion (which heals you when you do fire damage to an opponent).