Asian Spell Compendium

Asian Spell Compendium
Published by Legendary Games
For Pathfinder
36 Full-Color Pages
$14.99

Over on Twitter, a discussion moved to products enjoyed for gaming, and one of my interactors mentioned Legendary Games did some solid Pathfinder compatible work.

Looking them over, I decided to pick up the Asian Spell Compendium from Amazon. With my Prime shipping, it arrived in no time.

So initial observations. It says it's 36 pages, but that's the PDF bit talking. It stops being numbered at 32 pages and includes a few white pages. Probably there for printing purposes as it's easier to print X number of pages than Y.

Next observation, is that it's a little "talky." The back cover gives a solid breakdown of what's in the book. I don't need another internal page dedicated to repeating the almost exact same information.

I also don't need the cover reproduced on the first page.

A full page for the credits.

Another page for the OGL.

A page talking about the idea of Adventure Path Plug-Ins. It's an interesting bit, take an adventure path and provide opportunities to expand upon it. I especially don't need to hear about the electronic bonus features that are obviously missing from the paper edition.

But it doesn't actually mention what Path this is for. Is it for the Jade Regent out some time ago or something else? Is it just an all-purpose book? If so, why waste a page on something that doesn't matter?

The breakdown by spell levels, spells by class, and spells by school, is necessary and useful.

The two pages of ads in the back? Perhaps not quite as useful or necessary.

So in a $14.99 '36' page book, you get from page 6 to page 30 of actual spells.

The aesthetics of the book?

Top notch.With the advances in graphics and design in terms of programs and access to talent with the web, not every company takes advantage of that. Legendary Games does. If you saw it on a shelf, while the pages aren't glossy, but are instead matte, the layout and design would stand right up there with Paizo and others.

Interior artists include William Hendershot, Michael Jaecks, James Krause, Matthew Manghi, Daniel  Robinett, and Steve Wood.  While you can go pages without seeing art, the art that is here is top notch. It's often very thematically appropriate to the book providing jade objects or characters that would have an 'Asian' theme to them in appearance.

The game mechanics? Like anything, including 'official' books, you've got some hits and misses. For example, Spirit Ward "This spell functions like protection from evil, but it wards against any of the following types of creatures. The protection of a spirit ward extends 5 feet in all directions from the target creature's space and moves with the target."

That's it. That's the spell. "wards against any of the following types of creatures... I know I'm dense sometimes but WHAT types of creatures exactly?

Many of the spells seem a bit underpowered in some instances, but the author attaches secondary effects which may either kick it up to the too powerful level or make it more paperwork than some appreciate.

For example, Lizard Scales. At first, you're like, "Oh man, a nifty first level spell that gives you a bonus to natural armor class. Up to +5 natural armor class at 12th level. Then the "Also" kicks in as the armor gives you spiny scales that inflict 1d3 points of slashing and piercing damage to anyone that grapples you... Not bad as it specifically calls out grapple as opposed to touch.

Another example would be Hail of Needles. Another first level spell, this one deals 1d4 per level, up to 5d4 to as many targets as you have dice, which cause bleed damage. This is one point per die for a number of rounds equal to your caster level. So a 5th level caster is going to cause up to 5 points of bleed damage to one target for 5 rounds so up to 25 points of damage, not counting the initial 5d4, with a 1st level spell?

Don't let what I'm saying throw you off, though. I get that everyone's game runs differently and that even the core spells have their winners and losers. With over one hundred spells, you may even find a favorite in there.

With top notch art and layout, I can see why Legendary Games has fans. I'll pick up a few more products before I make any final decisions about them, but the professional stylings definitely have my attention.

Kingmaker: Rivers Run Red Session Two

I am continuing to enjoy Kingmaker.

Rivers Run Red continues a bit of the wilderness exploration, continuing in the same region as the first book.

This allows the players a home base of operations and a sense of what the River Kingdoms are like. I've tended to play it more 'southern' and 'country' in that the folk tend to speak simple and direct and while most are honest to a fault, there are those whose enjoyment of solitude turns them away from the intruders that the players represent.

Several players have decided to dedicate some effort to the running of the kingdom but have still yet to decide how best to advance. That's okay as outside of 'kingdom management' there are still numerous areas to explore, quests to complete and monsters to slay.

In many ways, these first two books of Kingmaker cleave close to how I often ran in the past. Some encounters with various NPCs to learn the lay of the land, what news from which country, the creation of rivalries and ending of such.

In this case, that would be Akiros Ismort, formerly of the Stag Lord, who turned his efforts to procuring the character's patronage. He wished to be awarded rank and title general but was not awarded such so he continues to toss jibes at the current general and who knows what that former bandit leader does when the players are not there?


After such meetings though, the players sharpen blades and onto slaughter! Just hopefully not their own.

One of my friends joked it was a PC version of Spartacus. "Yeah, we get together, find out some stuff, party a bit in the town, and then unsheath blade and spell and let monster burn or bleed!"

It brings me to worry about what happens when the campaign elements in the background take more center tone. The 'strength' for me is that despite my appreciation of mega-dungeons and dungeon crawls in general, the open nature of exploration, the small locations, such as an outpost or a barrow mound, allow for the illusion of some type of crawl that are more like connected encounters as opposed to say, The World's Largest Dungeon or a standard Dungeon Crawl where whole sessions can pass in dark passages.

This allows me to change things up a bit more quickly and change tone or goal between expeditions whereas a full out dungeon crawl merely requires eager foot to step into waiting maw.

I also find myself doing a lot of on the fly conversions. While I've shared my attempts at bringing the troll hounds and hodag to life, there were many more that needed such a touch that I failed to do.

For example, the classic two headed troll or the not quite as classic, stone troll. Or a troll with a few fighter levels on him. I looked at the ettin and snagged its base damage and gave higher point point totals to it, while giving the stone troll higher armor class and hit points and no bite attack. The 'king' with the fighter levels i just increased his hit point total to reflect him being 'tough'.

This is a 'problem' with using older adventures on a system that has almost as many years of history as I've been alive. The sheer variety of opposition is enough to make head swim if plans are not taken far ahead of time or if you're not comfortable doing some conversion work on the fly.

What's worse is there is no 'easy' solution for this problem. While I haven't reviewed the Monster Manual in it's latest version, I have not found one of its weaknesses to be a lack of variety.  Again, it's the history of the game providing such richness and capturing so many classic monsters including modrons, that prevent every monster possible from being updated.

It may sound strange, but as I'm of firm mind that 5th edition is the last print edition of Dungeons and Dragons we'll see, I would hope that at some point they'll do an Encyclopedia of sorts of the monsters. When 2nd edition was long in tooth, there came compendiums of wizard spells, priest spells, and my favorite, magic items in faux leather. Great stuff that I still draw inspiration from today. Very handy.

If 5th edition is the last print edition, I'd dearly love to see such a collection of monsters. If WoTC intention is to provide tools and get out of the way, monsters are such tools that I would enjoy.

Failing that, some form of license? Some form of official conversion material to take older monsters from one edition to another?

But in terms of the adventure itself? It continues well. The players managed to overcome the trolls without retreat although they had used up almost every healing potion that they'd hoarded both from previous adventure and the Mines bit that I included. They also used up a Necklace of Fireballs that they had found earlier. I was pleased to see the item in use as it lends some firepower to the ground in short term form.

Giving characters such temporary ammunition tends to be one of the 'tricks' of allowing potential TPK's to hit as the party may feel cocksure enough to fight things that may be outside their ability.

Still, the group seemed to enjoy themselves so...

How are your own adventures going? Has your group experienced any TPK's? Any switches of character in mid stream to test out different character mechanics? Any weird magic items or monsters that you're Dungeon Master has thrown into the mix?

Pathfinder Comic: Dark Waters Rising

Jim Zub is a writer that handles fantasy with a touch of humor and timing. His work on Skullkickers is great.

It doesn't quite necessarily transfer over to Pathfinder though.

Dark Waters Rising collects volumes 1-6 of the Pathfinder monthly comic book. This includes a full arc as well as an individual piece that relates to that arc.

FIrst off, look at the cover. There are six characters there. In larger team books like Avengers and Justice League, often, although not always, there are some B and C list characters that are anchored to the team by a few A listers. When it's not like that, it's usually just all A listers.

In a new series, in a new publication, we cannot have any A listers. The problem with that is well, there are too many 'voices' to handle. No one gets enough screen time. This doesn't make the book weak mind you, but it does put it in a 'middling' area where one hopes that if it finds its audience, that it will continue to expand on the characters and showcase some more of them.

Mind you, the size of the cast doesn't stop Jim from giving us a few defining bits for each character. It's just for me at least, it wasn't necessarily enough.

More importantly, Jim does a great job with the verses of the goblins. If you've never played Pathfinder and seen it's take on the goblins, you're missing out. They are creepy, psychotic and rhyming. They are a fun race for players to face just to see what they'll say, but can be an annoyance for a GM to run unless he's got some notes prepared. Reading through Dark Waters Rising, break out that pen and copy those verses down!

The art is a little busy for me. Now that's strange if you look at the cover, but that cover is done by... some unattributed artist. Someone better at finding these things then me will be able to find it, but when I look at the cover and I check the interior to see who the artist is and the cover artist isn't listed? M'eh.

Outside of the story though, this is a hardcover collection so what else is present?

First, the book collects the covers. There are some great homage covers here ranging from Dark Knight Returns with a goblin taking the place of Batman, to Attack of the 50 foot Woman, amists others that tend to run towards cheesecake versions. As a comic collector, I've never been considered, impressed, or found the need to hunt down the variants. As an extra in a hardcover collection, it's a nice bit to have.

The covers done by Tyler Walpole for example? Great fantasy art and nice to see in paper. My own favorite thought, despite the skill Tyler brings to the genre, is by Lucio Parrillo. While it's a static shot of the group, it's good a feeling of weight to it.

The other thing the hardcover collection brings to the reader, is role playing information for Sandpoint and its surrounding environments. While I'm sure most of this material, including the art, is pulled from the role playing game, for those who've never played any role playing game, or who have fallen out of the hobby, it's a nice addition to get more details on the locations where the adventure takes palce.

As a comic fan, I wouldn't recommend Pathfinder. As a role playing fan, it's a fun bit.

Stag's Helm: Magic Item For 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons

One of the things that is terrible in running 5th edition is the lack of magic items. Well, that problem should be resolved somewhat by the publication of the Dungeon Master's Guide, which if you didn't go 'Black Friday' at your FLSG, you still don't have.

But that doesn't solve the problem of unique magic items, such as the Stag's Helm in the Pathfinder setting. It's an item that the Stag Lord has about him. But it's a relatively simple magic item so here's my take of it:

Description:
This striking helmet is crafted to resemble the skull of a mighty stag. Although made from bone, the antlers and helm are as strong as metal. When worn, the helm greatly enhances eyesight and hearing, granting a +2 bonus on Perception checks. In addition, once per day the helm may be called upon to enhance any ranged attack made by the wearer to make an insightful shot. Activating this ability is a free action, and once activated, your next ranged attack against a target within 30 feet is made with advantage. If you don't make a ranged attack within 1 round of activating this power, the insight fades and is wasted for that day.

A worshiper of Erastil who wears this helm may utilize the insightful shot ability up to 3 times per day.





The Perception check isn't a big deal as both games have Perception skill checks. The original item had a feat and I didn't want to break down the feat and go into all that detail when there was already a mechanic to represent gaining some advantage, in this case, having advantage on an attack roll.

The image is from the Kingmaker Game Master Item Cards. They're inexpensive clocking in at under $10 and can give you some visual cues to various things that don't necessarily just copy the art from the RPG products. The cards are a nice idea but it's rare that the bottom of the deck's stay together and even rarer when I can open the set without inflicting some damage to the box itself. Argh!

Anyone else rolling up new magic items or are people still waiting on the official book?

Kingmaker: Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Second Session

I continue my bastardization of running the Mines adventure that comes with the Dungeons and Dragons starter box set mixed in with the Kngmaker Pathfinder adventure path that takes place in the River Kingdoms.

This week's adventurers included:

Gerak: Thief halfling: The player is using an old prepaint from the Dungeons and Dragons miniature line.

Kantos: Dragonborn Fighter: The player is using an old prepaint from the D&D line. He's lucky that my friend, Tom, whose house we're playing at, has a ton of these. Tom was quite the collector back in the day.

Amun Ramas: Druid: Using a metal Reaper cleric with an Ankh staff to represent his Osiron (Egyptian) character. I painted this for him a few campaigns ago but thanks to the Army Painter dip I used, it's still in great shape. That stuff keeps a nice hard shell around the figure.

Erdan: Elf Monk. Using a prepainted figure from the batch, but that prepaint is not an elf. I just finished painting an actual elf monk from Stonehaven, but the gloss coat I threw on it to protect it hadn't dried yet so I'll bring that over next week. Note, there aren't a lot of figures that fit this race and class combination. I think that Reaper has one and that's about it. Too bad I'm personally not a fan of either sculp but you take what you can get.

Erik, who is playing the elf monk, was running late so the group decided to do a little exploring and to hunt down Tuskgutter, one of the side quests in the adventure. This would be one of the things that set the tone for the game in that monsters look like they have a lot of hit points but that tends to be countered with poor Armor Class values.

The group killed the giant boar and make their way back to the encampment as Eric had arrived at that time. With their elf monk in hand, they made their way down to the bandit hideout, which they knew its location from capturing a bandit in an attack against the outpost. On the way, the encampment leader, Olog, asked the party to check in on the hermit who provides the outpost with potions.

The party had an encounter with some wild hogs, rolled off the random encounter table, but after fighting Tuskgutter, I didn't want to fight out another combat with pigs so I ruled that the party made short work of them and that they continued on their way.

Meeting the eccentric potion maker, they did him a little favor, gathering some various berries, during which time I described a few of the local bits of fauna and flora to give the players more information on the River Kingdoms region. The eccentric old man offered them 25% off potions but hey, when they looked at information on Potions of Vitality, no actual prices. I ruled that if a potion of healing for 2d4+2 was 50 gold, that Vitality, which does a lot more, was 100 gold.

Looking real forward to that Dungeon Master's Guide. The current download also didn't have prices, not does the starter adventure.

A few set encounters on the way to the bandits included some kobolds that were resting in a field of radishes, and a huge trap door spider, both of which the party made relatively short work out of. One of the players got a little too enthusiastic in his cleaning of the trap door's spider lair by using his dragon breath on the lair and set aflame the webbing and some paperwork that was down there.

Ooops for him. It's like when players smash open a chest with potions. If you insist on doing things the violent way...

I had an NPC cleric join the party while they were fighting the bandits. I figured that they were short one character so it shouldn't be that big of an issue. The fight was run with generic bandits and a bandit captain and the players did fairly well although the dice sometimes turned against them.

The party returned to the outpost and encountered a few more travellers who'd either come here due to visions, a priest looking for an ancient temple, or because they were here to 'officially' fight bandits from the home kingdom.

I had the druid of the party have a vision of the White Elk, a herald of 'Old Deadeye', a farmer's god of battle so to say. The White Elk showed the druid where the ancient temple was and the party managed to clear out the cursed individual there who was a maddened Polar Bar (aka Cave Bar variant from the Monster Manual.)

The party made enough XP to get up to third level.

In terms of the original starter adventure, the I switched out the Forgotten Realms city for Pitax, a city of scum and corruption in the River Kingdoms, and the party will probably head there after fighting against the 'Stag Lord', the main antagonists of the first chapter of Kingmaker.

While using the 5th edition Monster Manual, not a fan of it in some instances. In many ways, 3rd edition brought animals into a meaner place with the various 'Dire' versions of things. There's no template for that in 5th edition that I saw but I was able to use various animals like the giant spider and polar bear to make up for most of the things I needed. Running kobolds and bandits also proved easy.

Another quirk of 5th edition? And it could be I'm missing it, no masterwork items. I could have introduced them to the game but m'eh. I'll live with those not being available.

The relatively low armor class of the characters, the highest being the dragonborn fighter with a shield and his armor, was 18. Everyone else tends to be in the 14-15 range.

Still haven't handed out any inspiration. Think I'm going to have to ask the players to write the various bits that they get inspiration for and use it for reference or something. The Dragonborn player described his handling of Tuskgutter well and I probably should have given him a point for that. But to be honest, I'm not feeling the love for this mechanic. It seems very limited, especially if you can't have more than one at a time.

Maybe I'll offer to give them a point if they write up campaign session recaps? Not sure. How's everyone else handling it?

In terms of props, I used the old map tile set Ancient Forest. Let me say that I'm thankful Paizo figured out a better way to store and keep those tile sets? The new one, Forest Trails for example, the new forest pack and it comes in its own holder and has a miniature version of itself on the back. This allows you to see which tiles go with which set and allows you to keep them together without having to rubber band the package? Fantastic work there! It's an actual evolution of a product.

Compared to the flip mats, the tiles are still a pain in the ass. The flip mats, you bust out the mat and slap it down. These you still have to assemble. Mind you, I like a little variety so I have both but in terms of easy of use? Yeah, the flip mats take the cake here. I have the old one by Gale Force 9, but as we're playing at a friend's house, I'm not carrying my whole library over there every week.

Note for those who might be interested in the Pathfinder setting in this region, Paizo offers for free, a Player's Guide that's supposed to allow players a bit of customization to fit in the region here: http://paizo.com/products/btpy8dqh?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-Kingmaker-Players-Guide

In terms of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition itself, I'm actually kind of disappointed and okay with it at the same time. The dearth of support coming from WoTC, especially in terms of content that would keep me interested in coming back to the site, is amazing in this digital day and age.

On the other hand, the game system, from a few plays so far, seems a lot easier to wing. It seems a lot more compatible with the material that's already available. Good for me, bad for WoTC. I wasn't impressed with their previous hardcover adventure Hoard of the Dragon Queen and am seriously thinking about cancelling my preorder for The Rise of Tiamat.  If I can run any of the hundreds of older bits I have, if not completely free range it, my need for actual new product drops pretty close to zero.

How's everyone else finding the system? My players haven't complained about the lack of fiddy bits like Prestige Classes or Feats, which is surprising in it's own one as one of the guys is a master of manipulating game systems. To see him 'cool' with the relatively limited amount of options in the Player's Handbook is interesting.

I still need to find my old make your own game master screen and put together a few of the rules on combat, although we didn't run into any show stoppers this session.

Next week I imagine that the players will take on the Stag Lord and then move back into the starter adventure so I'm curious to see how that goes. They may be a little more powerful but I doubt they'll be much higher.

I'm Back In The Saddle Again (5e Setup and Play Report)

What's that old group Aerosmith sing about? Something about being Back In The Saddle Again?

That would be how I feel in my return to being a Dungeon Master after many moons. For years I've been pulling in overtime that's crazy. Or at least crazy for me. The last year and a half has calmed down tremendously but then I happen to discover my love for alcohol and spreading my time into BYOB resteraunts and hanging with a different crowd.

In that instance it wasn't that I didn't play, I just was honest enough to admit that if a couple of the work amigos called up and said, "Tequila at Garcia's?", I was probably not going to be at the game.

The guys I play with though, are a stable group and didn't mind. The former Game Master who was running the Thousand Thrones campaign though, needed a break and I decided, "Well, most of the people I drink with have left the company or been fired so might as well take a swing at it."

This happened around the time 5th edition had just come out with the Player's Handbook. I won't harp too much on how disappointing it is in terms of the amount of gaming material save to wag a finger at #GaleForce9 for failing to have a Dungeon Master screen out and WoTC inability to have a FEW starting adventurers out.

The good news though? I don't think it's that difficult to do on the fly conversions. Mind you, if there is an 'official' monster, I go with it. If there is a 'CR' appropriate monster, I'll reskin it and throw it in there.

But what to run? I didn't like Hoard of the Dragon Queen. It felt very incomplete and very much an adventure for Game Masters that wanted to do a lot of customization., Pathfinder on the other hand, has a ton of adventurers. I had found Thornkeep at Half Priced books a while ago, and as a backer of the Emerald Spire, thought that I might just mix and match between the two and have a bit of a dungeon crawl.

But here's the thing, I had heard good things about the starter adventure in the basic set. When I ordered it for like $12, it was an afterthought and I didn't pay much attention to it. I broke it out again and reading it over, there was a lot of stuff in there that I did like.

The Emerald Spire and Thornkeep are both in the Paizo setting, in the portion of the world known as the River Kingdoms. I have the full adventure path as well as Guide to the River Kingdoms and the more recent People of the River. So I decided I'd mix a few parts of the starter adventure, some of the introduction bits from Stolen Land, and see where it went.

My group consist of the following:

Kontos: A dragonborn fighter. If I was in 'prick' Game Master mode, I would have shot down the dragonborn right away. Maybe I'm old but I just don't like them. They're also not native to the Pathfinder setting. On the other hand, a handful of dragonborn could be native to the setting and with all of the other strangeness in the campaign, shouldn't be a big deal. For this player though, the dragonborn hit the spot. He's one of those whose tired to death of the dwarf, elf, halfling, human dynamic and was happy to see something that catered to him.

Amun Ramas: A human druid. The player did a lot of research into the setting and this character hails from the Egyptian style of the setting.

Gerak: Halfling thief that serves Amun Ramas. Apparently in the Egyptian style kingdom, halflings are good luck. The players are good friends so I didn't see this being a problem.

Erden Nail: An elf monk. Good luck to this guy. While his armor class isn't that terrible, the hit points are bad and while I love the concept of an unarmed fighter kicking ass and taking names, it's been my experience that monks get the beat down with the short end of the stick.

Damaia: A tiefling warlock. Has an academic background but hasn't decided where she's from.

The guy playing Amun Ramas decided the whole Pathfinder society bit was a nice touch in terms of forming a group and even put together a charter. That saved me the hassle of trying to come up with a reason of adventurers to gather together and allowed the group to gel fairly quickly.

I decided I'd set the Lost Mine of Phandelver in the River Kingdoms. It's a pretty lawless region and all sorts of keeps, villages, and towns rise and fall so a lost mine fits right in. They were on the road heading to an outpost to meet up with a fellow Pathfinder member who had some information for them.

When I ran the goblin ambush, I decided to pull out the old map from Keep on the Shadowfell. While that was the first adventure for 4th edition, I've used that roadside map that also includes an ambush, although in that one by kobolds, over and over again. It's really paid for itself in that aspect.

One of the things I love about Pathfinder? It's depiction of the goblins. The difference in physical appearance, the comical, yet dangerous nature of the creatures. Their unique weapons and little chants and slogans.

Now I own numerous metal miniatures that first came out from Crocodile Games and later by Reaper but since I was transporting these, I figured that the recent goblins from the 'feed' pack that Paizo put out would suffice.

I also knew I would be having some bandits at some point. I was very disappointed by the types of bandits out there. After asking around, I decided to go with some Games Workshop Empire Freebooters or Empire Militia. Say where you will about the evil empire of gaming, but those Empire figures in plastic have a ton of configurability and customization and being lightly armored? They make perfect bandits for any fantasy setting, including one with guns as these can be configured with them.

I had an old spree for eight figures. I used +vallejocolors vallejo color primers, leather brown and plate mail metal and then a few washes and some basing and they were good to go. Bonus that since they were plastic, they were unlikely to be damaged and would reduce the amount of weight I was carrying.

I hoped that the guy's house we were playing at would have whatever else we needed. While I don't have to have miniatures out on the field, I find that it helps things.

One of the things I hope to have ready for next week is a Dire Wolf I put together from Avatars of War. It's a fantastic looking figure but fits together terribly so I'll be throwing a lot of green stuff at it. The druid shape changes into it.

Combat was a little different for me. There were a few cases of flipping through the rules to look up things like disengage. We've all been playing for years so we're used to the last two editions of the five foot step rule but that appears gone. We were also looking for rules on a charge, but those werent' there. I also didn't take into account the advantage rule for the goblins who had surprise on most of the characters.

I went with the predetermined damage. Even so, when a gobo hits for five points a crack it's a telling blow. Especially since most of the characters have hit points ranging from 12-9.

The fight put a bit of a hurt on the group but they decided to follow the trail of the goblins back to their lair. More fighting and the characters got a hefty beat down and won because I ruled that some wolves that the party befriended earlier turned on the goblins who treated them poorly.

The characters then made their way to Oleg's Trading Post, from the Stolen Land Kingmaker adventure. Here they were asked for their help in dealing with the bandits.

I had wanted to pull out the Bandit Outpost, which is what the trading post looks like, but out of all the flip mats I have from Paizo, that was not one of them. I hand drew it out on a standard Cheesex map and the old wet erase markers.

Here's where I got to sit back for about a half hour. The players went into vast elaborate methods that they might use to get the drop on the bandits and different tactics they could engage in and different ways they could maximize their battle.

Way overkill on the players part, but that's part of the fun for them but then they didn't quite make it as easy as they could have as they changed some of the standard setup and this slightly tipped the bandits off but I allowed the players surprise anyway and they quickly killed three of the four and captured the last one who spilled his guts to the group.

And that's where we left it. The group is currently at second level, about half way to third, which I imagine they'll make pretty easily next week. I honestly don't see why WoTC didn't just default to 4th level with how easy they made it to bounce up in levels in those first few levels.

Overall it ran pretty well.

I gave the goblins a lot of the 'Pathfinder' charm. When I first introduced them, I didn't even call them goblins just described their oversized skulls and wide grinning maws filled with yellow stained curved teeth sitting below maddened red eyes and their rags and remanents of clothing as they carried weapons that appeared to be made from cast offs of other weapons and discarded bits of iron.

For the bandits, I described them as hard men, some old, with various problems ranging from missing teeth or a patch over an eye, to weathered skin and dirt covering everything. Not a glamorous life by far.

There were a few areas I could have handled things quicker. I hate looking in the rule book during game play but for somethings I'm just too used to the way the system used to work.

I also didn't hand out any Inspiration. I knew off the top of the game that would be a problem because I knew there was no way I was going to remember what to award it for. The players shrugged it off as none of them were sure what the best way to point out when they'd done something was either but I'm going to think about it this week and see what strikes.

For other Dungeon Master's out there, what do you do? Do you have a sheet with each character's traits that can award inspiration and then give them a point according to that?

I'm still looking for my blank Game Master Screen so I can put some notes in it. Maybe when the official one is supposed to come out the company which is reknown for being late will have it out on time. Maybe the properties of weapons and some other things that came up in combat a few times.

The players have a ton of options ahead of them. Their friend, I'm using the dwarf Gundren Rockseeker as a member of the Pathfinder society, hasn't been found yet, but the players will discover clues to where he's at.

They also have a lot of bandits they can kill. One of the things I like about the Kingmaker adventure path is that it's very open and there are several 'quests' that the players can take at Oleg's Trading post. I'll also throw a few hints that they can do the adventure path if they want to or after finding Gundren and clearing out the bandits, move on to the Emerald Spire region proper.

For other people playing, how much do you customize the adventure? Do you pull a lot of sources or with the dearth of official material, just wing it? Using older adventuers? I think that with the low scaling of skills and armor class, that it'd actually be fairly easy to run older adventuers in this edition.

For maps and miniatures, is anyone using them or going back to the abstract? I use minis and maps for a few reasons. One is I like them on the table. Two is that occassionally you get the problem scenario where its not clear where things and people are. Three is you get people who think that they can teleport from one area to another and having an actual map prevents that miscommunication from happening. Mind you, it can be difficult to do maps if you don't have the funds to buy them or the skill to draw them and it can potentially ruin the 'wonder' of a scene but I find I'd rather have them then not have them.

Anyone run into any snags in running or playing so far?

Deep Magic by Kobold Press: Round 1: Fight!

Deep Magic is a lengthy PDF that I've recently acquired. It's way too long and detailed to do it any sort of justice in one review unless the review itself was product length and that would just bore the crap out of any readers and me writing that review.

The PDF weights in at a mighty 378 pages. Mind you that does count the cover, rear cover, several pages of thanks from the Kickstarter, and other 'standard' things like table of contents. The art is full color and there is a lot of solid art in it. I've heard good things about the print version having full color, which is great because another book I own by Kobold Press physically looks to have had full color art that was turned black and white for the print version and to be honest, it was done poorly and took value away from the print product.

Anyway...

For me, magic is always a fun thing. Well, not always. There can be TOO much supplement suffering. But when I see something like this and read the background of it, funded from a Kickstarter by Kobold Press, it reminds me of 'the good times'.

I remember reading the original Tome of Magic and the Complete Wizard's Handbook and thinking they were filled with awesome options. I remember before that, Ed Greenwood's always excellent Pages From The Magics, and the old FR4 The Magister, magic items and spells and all sorts of other awesome things.

This product brings a lot of those good feelings back.

It's firmly a Pathfinder book mind you. I'm sure that someone with more time and effort could easily point out what might need to be dropped and changed for say, 3.5 or even 3.0, and some will yank some of the back ground text out for any campaign that uses magic but that will not be me! At least not today.

In terms of 'Appendix N' style inspiration, things that make me want to use it right away or steal it for another game, I didn't have to look past Chapter 1: New Magic Options. These are various schools, sub-schools and other options for magic using characters that often include spell books which lists out several new spells, which are in turn detailed in Chapter 2.

Of the ones that really perked my interested though? Fool's Summoining. From the book, "This little-known but horribly dangerous subschool of conjuration and transmutation magic draws upon a group of creatures called the Listeners. These creatures infest ordinary summoned creatures with a template that makes them more powerful. In essence, these Listeners pervert summoned creatures’ biology. Sometimes, affected summoned creatures go insane."

There are more details and information on how there are game mechanic and descriptive changes to various spells. This reminded me heavily of an old Dragon article detailing basic Dungeons and Dragons magic of all things. I believe that old example used an elf whose magic missiles were actual like green arrows to represent the nature bond that the elf had. It was well done then, and it's a fantastic example of seeing some of the professionals of the industry say, "Yeah, change the mechanics in minor ways to make things cool and interesting and intriguing again."

Another one I liked? Living Spellbooks. Sure, we have Stormbringer, and the homage Black Razor as intelligent blades, and intelligent magic items in general are not unknown, but the authors do a nice job of bringing out why Living Spellbooks are cool and why you should include them.

The last thing that really popped out to me? Vril Magic. If your familiar with old school Rolemaster, one of the first companions introduced 'Arcane Magic'. I know that sounds stupid to someone whose only played Dungeons and Dragons, but wait, hear me out!

Rolemaster magic was broken into three types: Channelling (from the gods), Essence (from the weaves of magic), and Mentalism (from the self). Arcane magic was more 'raw' and more powerful but almost more difficult to control and was very popular.

In various Hellboy and B.R.P.D. books, Vril is that ancient power that the prehumans used to fight against those ancient and terrible evils that currently infest the world. It's also used as power for a suit of armor during World War 2 in the Sledgehammer comic. Fantastic stuff in the setting Mike Mignola.

Anway, Vril in this incarnation, is 'raw' and more 'primitive' or 'primal' magic. There are feats and other things that make the caster more distinct and unique and it does a good job of it and I can easily see using it for players looking for methods to fight 'that damn ancient evil' because despite how overplayed and sometimes boring that can be, the quest to bring to light old magics in and of itself can be fun.

I hope to get back to this book soon but I still have a ton of other things I'd like to ramble about. The one thing I won't be throwing my two cents in, at least on the blog here, is the whole 'controversy' on the new 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. I've seen two major bones of contention and well, others have gone over them in depth and in detail and at the end of the day, it's not my thing.

It brings to mind an old saying by Conan. Something like "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.." Yup in a nutshell.

Deep Magic is available from DrivethruRPG.com for $24.99 in PDF format.

And a Fifth Horseman Shall Appear and his name shall be Next

I'm going to admit it right up front, I haven't been paying much attention to what's going on with Dungeons and Dragons. When they dropped 4th edition and dropped Dungeon and dropped Dragon, neither of which I'd been subscribing to for a while, I pretty much lost interest.

But lo and behold, the internets are ablaze with the new information about 5th edition. The obvious news? It'll be at Gen Con, or at least, one of the books will. That strikes me as odd since AFAIK, the books are not printed in the United States and any changes that need to be made aren't going to get incorporated into the later books anyway. Live by the China, die by the China.

In addition, the price point for the core set is too high. Mind you, let me be clear, that's my opinion. I also don't think it will hurt initial sales at all. I think that there is every possibility of a sell through at Gen Con. Right now Amazon has the Player's Handbook for just under $30 bones. That's $10 more, at Amazon, than 4th edition.



For those that find that too expensive, there's even a starter box set that's under $13 right now. There are supposed to be some online rules to complement that which allow some further play than just the boxed set itself.



Let me be clear. It's not that I think these are bad values mind you. For $150, if you're only getting the core three books, you can probably get many moons of game play from.

But well, that $150 can buy a tablet. It can buy a few board games. It can buy dozens of supplements for free rule sets of the OSR that are readily available right now.

Mind you, some will point out that Amazon discount brings that down to $90 if you get them all at a heavy discount. But that's now. What happens if Amazon tells Hasbro they want more money like Amazon has done with a different publisher and cuts their deep discounts out? Companies need to stop pricing their books to account for the Amazon discount if they don't want to be beholden to Amazon's pricing.

Anyway...

It's not that it's a bad price, I just think it's a bad price for the core books for Dungeons and Dragons. Pathfinder has a core book that is the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide combined. If $100 for two books is great value, what does that put the Pathfinder system at? Awesome value?

In addition, there is some weirdness going on. Let's look at the adventurers. For many people, the adventurers of a system are what a system lives and dies by. People talk about great campaigns for decades after the games have been run. It doesn't matter what system either. Talk about Warhammer and people will instantly pipe up with The Enemy Within and their favorite parts of that, or even smaller adventurers like The Three Feathers. Others will mention things like the Orient Express for Call of Cthulhu.

Both third and fourth edition didn't necessarily have a lot of great adventures in that vein. Wizards of the Coast has a real weakness when it comes to doing adventure paths. When they lost Paizo, the former caretakers of the print magazines Dungeon and Dragon, they lost the ability to do well regarded adventure paths, which for better or worse, are a standard for Dungeons and Dragons or D&D like games these days.

But the new edition has some starting adventures. In this instance, done by Kobold Press, a company that has supported Pathfinder, 3rd edition and even 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. The first I believe is Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but that strange Amazon pricing comes through as this book is over $25 dollars and only has an 11% discount. Are you going to pay almost as much for a single adventure as you are a core book, with discount?

Strangely enough, despite being done by a third party and published by Wizards of the Coast, indications seem to be that any OGL will not be immediate.

That makes me wonder why then they picked Kobold Press. Let me be clear. It's not that Kobold Press is a bad publisher. They have a wide range of products and a wide range of materials ranging across different editions.

But not everything has gone smoothly.

Take their recent book Deep Magic for example, is a weighty tome available in hardcover and PDF. But right after it came out, there was an addendium. That's not a good sign.

Or how about some of the material that's currently late for their Kickstarter projects? For example, if you backed their adventure anthology, Midgard Tales,  you've been waiting for Freeing Nethus for over a year.

If you backed the kickstarter for the miniatures for the Midgard setting, those were due either a year ago, or just under a year ago.

And Wizards of the Coast chooses them?

I'm sure that they'll pull through and that the various issues that Kobold Press is having with those different aspects are aberrants and of course, not standard practice, but if you've been waiting for either of those and you see their name associated with the new D&D that may not give you the warm fuzzies.

I think that not supporting an OGL right off the bat is potentially disastrous for Wizards of the Coast in terms of longevity of Dungeons and Dragons. Mind you, if they have their character creation software so heavily integrated, it might not matter anyway as that more than the limited third party support 4th edition received, keep players I know from buying material that wasn't in the software.

Why buy Goodman Games or other material that you would have to manually tally when everything else was so fairly well done within the system itself?

If you're a new player and you see Dungeons and Dragons and limited support only through Wizards of the Coast, and you see Paizo and Pathfinder and you see dozens of publishers being actively supported by Paizo, on the companies home page and receiving high praise from many of the people who make Paizo the community it currently is, which company are you going to buy from?

Mind you, there are some people who dropped buying things from Wizards of the Coast when WoTC stopped printing physical copies of Dungeons and Dragons magazines. There are some that stopped when WoTC pulled down the PDF's. There are some who stopped when WoTC dumped 4e and went with Essentials editions. There are some who stopped when WoTC took their character generation from a downloaded software to an online only software.

Here's the thing. Many of those players are NEVER coming back. Either they've fond something that met their fantasy need, ranging from Pathfinder or 13th Age for 'new school' players, or any one of the many OSR products already out and fairly compatible with the hundreds of 1st and 2nd edition products already out in the wild.

Me? I've got the boxed set and Player's Handbook preordered. I'm not a 'D&D' player do or die or anything like that. Those reading the blog on a regular basis know I'm a player in a Warhammer 2nd edition fantasy campaign. And if you look at that, an old system that's not supported and was replaced by Fantasy Flight Games with weird dice and an expensive core book, you might see some potential futures for a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons that doesn't' take into account that not only are they not the only fish in the pond in terms of what people can spend their money, and more importantly, their time on, their not the only Dungeons and Dragons game that people can spend their money and time on.

Parsantium city at the crossroads Richard Green

Parsantium: city at the crossroads is written by +Richard Green for the Pathfinder system. The PDF runs $11.99, the print book, in black and white, runs $19.99, and the combo pack of PDF and print runs for $22.99 The book weighs in at a meaty 178 pages in PDF terms.

The cover boasts an excellent look at the city in the background while in the foreground various inhabitants from different parts of the world look out on the dock ward. In terms of book break down, we then get a blank page, followed by a title page, followed by a credits page, which even lists what is product id and what is closed content.

Much of the book is devoted to the city and its background. All of the art and proper names are closed off and in terms of game mechanics, the book comes up a short which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it.

After the credits, we get a single page table of contents that does an excellent job of breaking down the book into broad chapters. Of more use to those who want pinpoint accuracy on where anything is, after the meat of the book, is an eight page index. It's a fantastic resource if you have the physical copy and does a better job of pointing out where things are then the electronic bookmarks.

The two page introduction does a nice job of bringing the reasons how Parsantium came to be from a homegrown city in a campaign of the author to a full rpg product. It's a nice break down and more information can be found on the Parsantium blog.

The full color map of the city by Johnathan Roberts, maps featured several times on +Fantastic Maps,  is two pages of awesome. I would love to have a larger fold out of the map. Something along the lines of one of the old Waterdeep maps from back in the day. The colors are nice and crisp and show a city divided by it's waterway and an island in the middle of said river. Bad thing? The map is cut in half of course, and part of that is the text and the island in the middle. It's not a huge problem or anything but it is another reason I'd like a separate big ass map.

The city is designed to allow a variety of cultures by having a feel similar to say, Byzantium. It's also an old fantasy city so it has a wide range of races that fit into its borders, outside of the different human ethnicities. We have the following major ethnicities:

Bathuran: Roman/Greek influence.
Sampurans: Heavily influenced by India.
Aqhrani: Heavily influenced by the Middle East and bravely goes with a pantheon of one god.
Tiangaons: Heavily influenced by China including it's own 'Silk Road'


In terms of other cities like it in fantasy games? Maybe the old GURPS book Tredroy, which is available for a laughable $2.99 from Steve Jackson Games Warehouse 23 website. The only bad thing is it's been decades since I've run Tredroy, the City of Three Laws, so there will be no comparison outside of this mention.

Despite its length, the book has some weaknesses. The biggest of these would be lack of art. There are so many different cultures and characters referenced in this weighty text, that illustrations of the various characters, sigils, symbols, and say, house icons, would only benefit the material.

The good news is that the two column layout doesn't suffer from that lack of break up because the author doesn't ram every inch of space with text. There are also no annoying back ground images behind the text. Things that look awesome and premium in print products like some of the Forgotten Realms products look horrific in electronic medium. The author avoids that problem here by keeping it clean and simple with a nice border on the top of the page and chapter identification and page number at the bottom.

The other potential problem is game mechanics. An order of wizards, the Esoteric Order of the Blue Lotus, is noted as being founded so that the magics of all these different cultures can be studied and collated so that knowledge isn't lost. Having so many different opportunities to bring unique magics to the Pathfinder system, which easily supports numerous alternative classes, should have allowed many bits of crunch to shine through.

Nope. Not happening. Most of the 'game' mechanics fall into noting the class and level of the NPCs. For example, among the members of the evil Brotherhood of Spite, Posy is described in game mechanic terms thusly: (CE female gnome rogue 5/assassin 2).

So in a city of multiple cultures with some places designed specifically to catalog those, we get nothing. No prestige classes, no magic items, no spells, no monsters, no templates or other crunchy bits. Heck, I think the deepest crunch we get are the various character backgrounds, which are extremely light on crunch, being more like Kits from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition, where there's a small bonus, often to a specific set of skills, and role playing and background information.

On one hand, that's great for people who have a heavily customized mod of the Pathfinder or d20 system going and want to create their own game mechanics. It's also great for people who don't actually play Pathfinder and instead play say, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition or some other variant or OSR game. While the multi-class bit isn't going to transfer over seamlessly, the lack of game mechanics means more information on the city and its inhabitants is in the material.

The naming conventions are a little off to me. For example, in honor of the old Byzantium history, we have the 'Axe Bearing Guard', a group of elite warriors who protect the emperor. If these guys aren't based directly on the Varangian Guard I'd be shocked. So why not just call them that? Is Varangian so entwined with gaming that people who instantly know them? But not too far after them we have Janissaries, who were another historical fighting force and they're called, yeah, Janissaries. Either fake names for everyone or no one! Nah, it's not that serious, just struck me as odd to go all generic with one and kept that very specific name for the other.

The eleven wards of the city cover a lot of ground. We have not only the standards of the dock ward and poor ward, but also a 'floating' ward and a 'hidden ward' that allow for a bit of variety that can be missing from some cities. The variety of wards allow for clustering of different cultures and ethnicities so you can find things like gnolls and half orcs with no difficult in the city.

In terms of playability, for Game Master's willing to roll up their sleeves, the book has you covered. There are numerous factions in the modern city. The history of the city lends itself to numerous adventurers in and of itself. For example, the city was only recently controlled by hobgoblins. There are ideas for routing growing bands of various humanoids or for retrieving treasures taken from the city during those looting days. This doesn't count the gnolls of centaurs that are raiders either.

The city is built atop numerous old ruins which are built atop numerous old caverns. The ruins are perfect for those who want the standard dungeon crawl.

There are hidden cults and evil gods with deceptions within deceptions. This includes nods to the old favorite, the serpent people if you want to get some of that 'Mythos' flavor up in there.

In terms of the past, many who are exiled are maimed when they are forced out, such as by being blinded. Those who survive and thrive in exile? They might wait a long time before coming to take revenge on the city and do so with some magical peepers after all that time.

Now note, I said Game Master's willing to roll up their sleeves right? While there are all sorts of adventure seeds and ideas strewn about the book, actual gaming material is again, scarce. Some of the material might have been better off being cut to provide a brief adventure or something along those lines to get players immediately into the game. Being that it's a Pathfinder book though, any adventure with maps and game mechanics would eat up a lot of room due to the difference in size between an OSR and a 3.5 stat block.

Having said that, there are numerous random encounters tables and some locations, that would be better with maps, that easily lend themselves out to adventure with a minimum of effort. For example, there are teams of gladiators that fight in a large arena. There are were rats in the sewers. There is a fallen guild of paladins that did not thrive in the city and so raid and attack boats. The adventure seeds are then but will require the Game Master to fully stat out everything if he's using the numerous NPCs from the book.

Those going a 'softer' route and wanting to just grab their Monster Manual still have a lot of options. In terms of low level foes we have the standard goblins, hobgoblins and those can be worked up to gnolls, centaurs and minotaurs. At different spectrums, due to the different grave sites, there are undead and possibly wild summoned creatures from the various spellcasters about. There is also a large body of water that the city utilizes so all manner of creatures can be found within those murky depths.

Parsantium needs some polish. While it has massive potential, the dearth of art and game mechanics make it more of a fixed upper than run straight out of the box. If we ever see a 'deluxe' edition I'd love to see more art, maps and closer illustrations of the city with the locations called out in the various ward descriptions.

For those already running it, what resources are you using for game mechanics? Have you busted out some standards in Pathfinder or switched over to a favorite OSR book? Due to the wealth of political opportunities here, I can easily see this being a solid fit for the Adventurer Conqueror King System but given how many game stats I have for things like gnolls via 4th edition and it's many monster entries for the same monster, I can see myself using that and it's 'quest' awards for XP to make characters rise in level fairly standard while exploring ruins, guarding caravans, and fighting epic rakashas.

For those reading this review, I haven't hit a 'regular' game review in a while. Are there some things you'd like me to hit more in the future if I do more? Hit less? Provide more examples of material from the book? More links to outside material like the Varangian for example?

If you think anyone else would want to read, please +1 and share along the old circles.

Heroes of the Jade Oath (Pathfinder version) arrives!

I mentioned ordering Heroes of the Jade Oath for Pathfinder the other day from +DriveThruRPG  by +Andrew Betts Rite Publishing. I immediately received the PDF, which while I've downloaded, I haven't done more than page through.

Today the physical hardcopy has arrived. That's some damn fast service. Faster than I get from some normal game stores.

Physical copy has non-glossy pages. Construction seems pretty solid. Cover is nice with that great art by Wayne Reynolds.

Heroes of the Jade Oath is still on sale for 30% off on both the physical copy, which gets you the PDF, and just the PDF copy.

Hopefully I'll have time to do more than just keep it on the shelf.

Has anyone been using it in their campaign? Are there any huge differences between this and the Arcana Evolved version? I picked it up to mine for ideas. While I enjoy the core of Dungeons and Dragons, and Pathfinder, I also enjoy seeing alternative takes on things.

If you have any stores, resource links, or other cool bits for Heroes of the Jade Oath, lay 'em on me.

Ultimate Combat

This is just me poking some fun at Ultimate Combat. Recently in a Shackled City game which my friend Tom is running, my barbarian King was killed by a trap. Part of the actual problem was the bonuses when raged and when using a two handed weapon. My math skills were not putting all of the bonuses to their highest numbers.

Eeek!

So after King died and our NPC expert trapfinder died, one of my friends who is a maestro of making characters crafted for me a ninja. But no trapfinding skills. Still, it did inspire me to flip through Ultimate Combat myself.

Personally I think Wayne Reynolds is one of the better artists we have in the industry but this cover is terrible.

The samurai on the right facing his enemies, the yeti or what have you on the left semi-facing their enemies and the core fighter thinks that this is an episode of You Think You Can Dance just standing there in the middle of the page making the action too dense and adding nothing of value to it. Who is he looking at? His blades aren't in position to actual strike anything. Worse still, he has the flailing arms thing going on.

We all appreciated Wayne making Orcus have short stubby arms. I mean sure he was the demon prince of the undead but not only was he in the first 4e Monster Manual and therefore a punk, he also had short fat arms.

Fire giants also have this horrible genetic curse. Terrible. It's why their always so pissed off. Imagine never being able to wipe your backside with your stubby little arms? Anger management isn't going to do the trick.

Seriously man. Wayne needs to take one of those little sticky pads, write no backwards flailing arms on it, and then move on.

I also challenge Paizo, if you ever reprint Ultimate Combat, take the fighter out of the center of the picture. You'll have a stronger illustration with a moment of tense potential conflict instead of some moron busting his movies in between two warring forces.

Freeport Versus Kickstarter

Green Ronin has been around for over a decade at this point. Their initial module setting, Freeport, was one of the first adventurers for the SRD back in the day. Now they're working on a massive update to the book on Kickstarter.

One might think that with their longevity in the game and their plethora of products, that funding would have been easily hit and made right? Apparently not. I'm not saying that it won't fund. There is still time. But let's look at some reasons why they might be having difficulty.

1. No Pathfinder brand loyalty. This may sound like heresy as Green Ronin, as I mentioned, was one of the first companies to get on the SRD bandwagon in a HUGE way. They made settings, class books, race books, and a ton of other goods including cross promotions with Paradigm Press and others. But when 3.5 died, they didn't jump on the Pathfinder band wagon. They had something like d20 age or d20 forever branding so that they wouldn't have to update their catalog. Sounds a lot like Necromancer Games before they came around ala Frog God Games. Having said that, you have no build in Pathfinder base.

Oh sure, we can get into the whole, "It's all the same!" arguments that happened with 3.0 and 3.5 and with 3.5 to Pathfinder, but if you didn't go and do the branding, getting the Pathfinder crowd to automatically leap into the frey isn't something that's going to happen easily or overnight. Am I saying that Green Ronin has zero Pathfinder products? Don't know to be honest. When I think of Green Ronin, d20 gaming isn't what I think of. Instead, we have Game of Thrones, Dragon Age, Mutants and Masterminds, and the DC comic game.

2. Goal is Too High. For a company that hasn't been backing Pathfinder since the start, and isn't using one of its licensed settings, the minimal goal here seems high. I'm not saying it's not needed for what they want to do. But when you're setting a higher bar than one of the most popular OSR projects, Dwimmermount, managed to achieve at the start of the Kickstarter craze, you might be overstepping realistic expectations.

3. Eastern Front Miniatures. This one is just a casual observation. Eastern Front as a few successful Kickstarters under their belt. But those projects are late and some of the backers are vocal about it. This may not have been the best partner for Green Ronin.

4. Pirates are played out. Well, can pirates ever really be played out? Probably not. However, there hasn't been a really popular pirate movie like the old pirates of a certain Caribbean for a while AND more importantly, people just shelled out a lot of cash for a Frog God Games pirate, in part, based project. That one had trouble funding too. Also for a similar sized product. Also for premium product. And that was by a company that has been doing Pathfinder fans right for a while now.

5. Kickstarter Sucks. Well, not really. But a lot of people are getting weary of the continued lateness of Kickstarter projects and are taking their money to actual stores and buying things. Or just downloading illegal PDFs. You know those damn kids today and their internets. When I do my next Kickstarter update, I'll actually have a few that have fallen off the list but most will not. As Kickstarter continues to evolve, people will continue to decide where their money goes in a manner that reflects not only companies, but product types as well.

I hope Green Ronin is able to pull this one off not necessarily for Freeport, but I would love to see them do compilations of their various Races, Classes, and other material that never got compiled thanks to the d20 meltdown, into hardcovers for Pathfinder.

Random Observations on 4e

Over on RPG.net, there's some talk about Paizo Pathfinder and WoTC 4e.
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?670531-Comparing-the-D-amp-D-and-Pathfinder-Product-Lines-to-Discern-Why-4E-Failed

Here's what I posted there and my take on it.

Why 4e 'failed'? Well, it failed WoTC that's for sure. For anyone else it would probably have been like Nirvana but here's my 'gamer' theories.

1. Reputation. Firings every X-Mas. Taking down the DDI and claiming about 6 different reasons why but boiling it down to "thieves in the temple!", calling your consumers thieves on the PDF front and taking your toys and going home with them. Minor things but...

2. PDF Consumption. While we can say that the DDI takes the place of PDF that's not quite true. After WoTC sold out of PHB2 they claimed to have suffered damages by PDF files that were released into the wild that were legally bought and cancelled that line of revenue NEVER to replace it directly.

3. Adventure Support. There was one print adventure path and it was not viewed well. There was Dungeon online and it's one adventure path... also not viewed well. In print adventurers, especially towards the tail end?

4. OGL. While Paizo is the big dog, they've done a lot of enhance the OGL and have been very friendly towards 3rd party publishers. This includes putting their products on the front page of their own web site and talking them up. WoTC took interest in the GLS out back and shot it in the face. When Necromancer Games goes, "I will support 4e or nothing at all" and it turns out to be nothing at all? You know WoTC done fucked up.

5. Setting Support: That solution they had of fire and forget wasn't going to make a lot of people happy.

6. Setting Support 2: Trashing the Forgotten Realms YET AGAIN did nothing to help convince older players that may be coming back that this is what was needed.

7. Rule Mastery Failure. The first printings of the first few books are compatible with later books but there are a ton of errata's and updates and the monster math changed greatly from the original MM to MM2 to MM3. People felt robbed. It's been a while but I also believe there was some flubbing with the new introductory boxed set with the Larry Elmore cover of classic days.

8. Essentials or "Which way am I walking?" Initially announced the changing of product lines to smaller books that lasted for about ten seconds.

9. Release Schedule Panic: People like some steady releases and like to know when they're coming out. Cancelling books left and right and reshuffling them looks like something a small third party company would do, not the leader of the pack.

10. Novel/Tie in Support. The comics weren't bad but not huge sellers. Their book selection has bounced a bit and while there were a few series set after the Spellplauge, it was nothing like it was when it was at its peak.

11. Dungeon and Dragon Utility = m'eh: When they took the DDI off the download, I still had like two months on it. I was NOT impressed with it as it lost a lot of utility it used to have. I understand that came back but in the meanwhile, for a while Dragon and Dungeon were simply put, not good values in and of themselves. The adventurers were okay, the format kept changing, the focus keept changing, the magazines had articles late, and hey by the way, for "your convenience" we've gotten rid of the compiled issue and you have to download articles individual one by one. I think they've back pedaled on that one too.

12. DDI Misses: I went to an interview with the guys doing the DDI before 4e launched. You can read about it on EN World from back in the day. But there were a ton of things that were supposed to be there at ground zero that I think are only NOW starting to pop up like the VTT.

13. Miniature Mishaps: Hey, we're going to introduce two brand new races to the game and make almost all the miniatures for at least one of them super hard to get. Sure, you can sub for them but really, is that what the consumer wants to do? What? They don't want to pay inflated prices for repaints? What? They're not happy with the massive drop in quality that accompanied several price increases? They want to know why the adventurers never have miniatures to go with them and that those miniatures come out months or years later? Foolish mortals! It's hard keeping communication lines open in a big company. We have no idea what games are being written or what core races are in the book.

14. Holding back material to boost further sales. In the 3.5 era, the PHB2 was a massive seller. MM2 and others... not quite so much. In order to boost sales of future core books, Gnomes, barbarians, frost giants, and a host of other material was deliberately split from the 'normal' core material and put into future volumes. Nothing like forcing people to pay for a few monsters more eh? Anyone remember the old 1st edition Monster Manual where you had Orcus and Asmoedus? Dispather and Demogorgon? Stop holding back the goodies dudes.


WoTC as a company has been handicapped in competitng in what is a niche industry. Their main benefits are useless when the main competition has access to all the same resources as you. Wayne Reynods? Monte Cook? Other fan favorites? Being the people who saved D&D only gets you so far when you showcase that hey, you're not a niche industry provider, you're a corporate entity that must met X, Y, and Z goals and your lengths gone to to protect your IP are hurting you among the people in the niche fandom. You know, the very same people you're trying to sell to? Yeah, them!

But again, those are gut shots from a fan, nothing more.

To The Edge of the World by Wolfgang Baur

One of my friends has been running the Shackled City with no break for many moons and done so through several essential TPKs. I told him that I saw an adventure that I could get for review purposes but I wanted to actually play it. I’ve already read it a few times and I like the idea that “To the Edge of the World” is high in scope in terms of not killing rats and other low level vermin that players have to traditionally slough through.  Should have played it last week but work was beating me down mightily with overtime and with all the Kickstarters I’ve been supporting, I had no space to say no.

However, with the days of Turkey Slaughter upon us, I’ve managed to reread the adventure. One  “To The Edge of the World” by Wolfgang Baur.

Railroad.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. I already told the players to expect a one shot with some second levels characters to give Tom a break. They were okay with that although they were a little disappointed in the level as we’ve already got past that in Tom’s Shackled City.

In terms of layout and appearance, the book is great looking. This is bad for a PDF. Great looking full color cover, full bleed yellow background pages. Anyone want to print this out for me for reference? No? Okay, I’ll keep using my Toshiba Thrive Tablet to read it but man, it isn’t easy. The tablet is great for some reference work but not necessarily for reading full on. One reason I was hoping that 13” Excite Tablet was coming out….

So fancy borders, full color interior art, full color interior maps… yeah, it’s a fantastic looking piece.  In terms of PDF, it has a nice section in its bookmarks and is easy to navigate around. Great art, solid maps, and if this was a print product, it would earn some oohs and ahhs for its appearance. As a PDF that I’d like to print out? Not so much.

While that’s an annoying problem that I can overcome, what’s no quite so easy to do are the numerous references to other works.  We hit page four for example, and get a reference to Midgard Campaign Setting and then another one for Journeys to the West. Neither one of those is vital mind you and this is a campaign specific adventure so I can see those being included.

Looking at a potential encounter on page five though, we have seaweed leshy with like three monster stats and a reference to Bestiary 3 and right above that, a reference to Bestiary 2. These stats, in my opinion, are not enough to run the encounters. In addition, there aren't even full descriptions of the monsters.

That might be okay for something like a goblin or an orc. For a reefclaw? No. If you cannot run the adventure without outside references you are doing it wrong. That’s my opinion. In a PDF especially, there is no need to reduce the amount of pages if it would’ve taken extra room for it. Some might go, “What about the file size?” To which I’d point out the elaborate graphics and full color illustrations. There’s also a reference to the Midgard Bestiary. So… something like five extra books to get all the references here? Disappointing.

I’m still going to run it but will have to make sure to have all those game stats printed out or haul around several big books and well, as I don’t even own the Midgard Campaign, Journeys to the West or Midgard Bestiary,  that would be even more problematic.

I’ll post a playtest report. With my group and their foreknowledge that it’s just a one off, I suspect that it’ll be a fun romp. Someone may say, "Man, you just spent all that time talking about the problems and think its going to be fun to run?" For me, I know my friends. These are all people I've gamed with for years. Not having the full stats and descriptions is annoying but since i have most of the material thanks to the recent Paizo sale and have it the Bestiaries in hardcover anyway, I'm just thinking of how muc MORE annoying it would be for other people who don't have that material.

Anyone else read this one yet? Playtest reports?

 

The Harsh Lessons of DMing: Level Balance

My friend Tom Wright is running several of my friends and I through the Shackled City using Pathfinder as the rule engine. He's got some rules and notes and is fairly consistent in the way he runs. It's one of his greatest strengths.

However, he had a vision about how the game was going to work this time. He was going to incorporate various ends and odd bits of our characters backgrounds into the game. To accomplish this and still run the campaign, he decided to use the slow advancement table.

One of the great things about roleplaying games is the ability to modify things so that they work the way you want. However, if you are going to do that in a manner that keeps the pace with a prewritten adventure, you need to verify that your doing the right thing.

At the end of the first adventure, we were too low level to handle the big bad who wiped out a few members of the party and the rest of us managed to retreat. How did that happen? No side quests. When the xp goal was changed without bringing in additional xp, the end result has to be characters that are lower level.

After that, he decided he was going to use the medium or normal level of advancement. He's very good about listening to player feedback in terms of it not being 'his' game but 'our' game. But he also decided that new characters would start a level lower than the standard characters. Does anyone see any potential problems here?

So when we got to the big bad in the next adventure... yeah, essentially another TPK.

Take the time to read through the adventurers. Take the time to review the character sheets. Review not only their abilities that are level based, but also their choice of 'fiddy' bits like feats and spells. Make sure that if there are encounters coming up that rely on magic items or silver items or something of that nature, that if the party doesn't already own them, they can own them. Make some routes of escape.

Mind you, in a freestyle campaign where you let the first level party know, "Over here are rumored to be dragons and giants" and they go there anyway, well, I'm old school enough to say kill away. But if you're running an adventure and it says, "Party should be level X when they reach area Y" and they get blitzed by the baddies? Well, was party level X? Did party have level X equipment?

In some games, its easier to tell when players are min-maxed then others. Try to keep onto of it and don't wait till the last minute to find out that the party didn't have a wand of cure light wounds and that the party didn't have a method of deciphering that ancient script. DMing can be a great thing but it also often requires some homework. Do that homework!

Death's Heretic by James Sutter

Death's Heretic as a novel, would make a great Gumshoe adopted Lorefinder Adventure. It's a tale about a man who comes from a nation of atheists that serves the god of death.

Note that here, the setting is using this country of atheists not as not believing in deities. They know that these entities exist. They know that the outer planes are real. They know that they have souls. However, they do not believe in giving themselves over in worship or accepting that aid in return.

That's just a touch of background on the main character. Before I move onto some of the other elements, I'm going to put the big flashing warning notice on. If you wish to avoid spoilers, read no further.

The main thrust of the book is Salim Ghadafar's quest to discover what happened to a missing soul. There are several red herrings and much exploration of the planes in the setting. There are several characters that come under investigation that interplay with Salim.

In looking at a more investigative style adventure, it's important to have a wide selection of non-player characters in your library. By having these NPCs build up before hand, you can use them as a buffer in terms not only of time, but in setting up future adventure seeds. These individuals may be offended by the manner in which they are questioned. They may see the players as potential future allies, henchemen or catspawns to be used at a later date. By providing some interesting encounters for the characters to navigate through that don't necessarily rely on combat, the Dungeon Master is setting the stage for future use if he ever needs it.

In terms of exploration,most fantasy game settings have some type of belief system that physically exist. There is often a real heaven and a real hell. These places might be able to provide a quick shot of exploration and investigation. It allows the Dungeon Master to showcase some of the unique beings and inhabitants of the setting. In this case, Salim's quest takes him to a Limbo state where he meets the pure chaotic inhabitants that run that particular aslyum. This is in addition to his association with a Marut, an agent of law, and his middle man, the black angel on the cover. These elements bring the setting to light.

One of the better written books in the Pathfinder series, Death's Heretic manages to be done in one and provides some interesting ideas for how a soul could be yanked in the first place and how someone would go about finding it again.