I'm a little tired today. I was up until about 1am last night working on my character. Time got a little away from me. Tomorrow I have to have my character done, he goes into action tomorrow. I still need a name for him. I know a bit about him though. He's an Elven Alchemist 9 (from the Final Playtest Doc from Paizo). Elves don't really make sense when it comes to alchemy. Dwarves and gnomes make much more sense, in my opinion. But the class revolves around Int and Dex, and elves give both. With my ability scores as low as they are (highest I rolled was a 15), I really should take something that makes mechanical sense over fluff sense.

We just finished up Escape from Old Korvosa in the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path. I'm going to introduce him as an alchemist in the service of the Queen that quit (aka escaped) when he found out that the Queen was behind the plague. They players will encounter him whereever the DM brings him in, hopefully on the road away from Korvosa.

The class was summed up nicely by Ryan Costello, Jr. at the Know Direction podcast (give it a listen, its good) by being "Dr Jekyll with grenades." Its a fun little class so far. I'm not wild about all the fluff. Basically the alchemist uses "magic" to help create his extracts (potion like substances that he can whip up in a minute). I'm not wild about that. This class would be a perfect healer for a low/no magic setting. At first I thought, well that fluff is easy enough to change (ignore). Then I read it to my girlfriend. She explained it as "not being science but rather a different form of magic. It relies on the same magic that arcane casters use. You are doing alchemy, studying the process of changing lead into gold and all that. Its just wielded in a different way." Ok, I can buy that.

The class naturally doesn't allow the user to share their alchemical mixes with others, but the Discovery: Infusion covers that part. I think this discovery is vital to making this class a real party member, instead of in it for themselves only. The next one I took was Frost Bomb, have to have the ability to change energy types if need be. Precise Bomb is also going to be helpful, allowing to remove spaces from the bomb's blast area. Lastly, Combine Extracts, allowing my character to take two different extracts at once. So I can take invisibility and expeditious retreat at the same time. Handy.

Extract choices: fly, absolutely. A cure extract will allow me to be a healer, We already have a Cleric, Paladin and Druid in the class, so I don't do more than light wounds. Reduce person and disguise self will come in handy in making myself look like a gnome, halfling, kobold or whatever to get in anywhere. Resist energy and heroism are next on the list. I'll have to come back to this later to choose the rest.

Feats are a little ... eh. There are no alchemist-dedicated feats. I could probably talk the DM into Extra Bombs in the same way that a bard has Extra Bardic Performance or a barbarian has Extra Rage. I'm not going to try that. I'm just going to stick to the main book for the time being. Bombs are his main attack with a crossbow as a backup. So Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Far Shot are pretty much a must. I get Brew Potion and Throw Anything as bonus feats. I'm probably going to take Improved Initiative, but I have no clue what I am going to do with my final feat.

Skills go quickly. 4 skill points+a +4 INT means 8 skills that can be fully funded. Craft (alchemy) (max), Fly (max). Spellcraft will allow me to make an alchemical equivalent of a wizard's spell, fully fund. We have no rogue and Disable Devise/Slight of Hand are class skills so fully fund the first and partly fund the second. I wouldn't have stolen much while working for the queen, so Slight of Hand would be "new." Same with survival, partly fund. Appraise, Knowledge (arcana), and perception round out the skills. I'll take a pair of skill points from the partly funded ones to have a few ranks in Profession (cook). Always good to have a different set of skills to fall back on.

I stopped working there. It was getting late. I'll finish it up before game. My impression so far is that I think I might like this character. Not a crazy wiley alchemist, but a curious, probing alchemist that has been thrown into circumstances larger than himself. I think this elf will fly.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about Book of the Faithful: The Worshiping Swords, our latest Pathfinder Compatible product.

dmccoy1693

When Pathfinder changed the way Turn Undead worked to Channel Energy, it caused positive energy to harm undead and heal living and negative energy to do the opposite. IIRC, the reasoning is is that undead are "powered" by negative energy and the channel of energy work either for or against that energy, depending on the energy type being channeled. That's all well and good, but the first thing I asked myself was, "So what kind of undead is powered by positive energy?" This sounds prime for a whole new class of monsters.

I've been struggling to figure out a basic type of positive undead. To give you an example of what I mean, normal undead have, IMHO, two basic types: ghosts and zombies. Everything else from there is a modification of either of these classic types of undead. Vampires are the soul reattached to the body, but require the life of another to stay attached. Wraiths are the id part of the spirit and are pissed off. But what should the basic type of a positive undead be? Reattaching the soul to a dead body and requiring it to feed on other that are alive is ... not a positive thing.

Today I stumbled upon an interesting definition of undead. "The undead are people who shouldn't be alive, but are still living through the use of excessive amounts of plastic surgery." Reference link. Well, that doesn't exactly apply, but with a bit of tweeking, you get my own definition: "The undead are people who shouldn't be alive but (roughly) appear so." That definition is a great starting point to come up with an opposite of undead. The one I am using is, "The 'positive undead' are people who should be alive but are not and refuse to move on." Not perfect mind you, but it is a starting point. As far as basic types go, I have a few ideas.

Pulled a spirit that left its body before the body died, but is now unable to return to the body.
Soulless a living body without a spirit inside it.

These are not even to the stage of working titles yet. This is more like spitballing at this point. Variations on these themes could be:

Hermit Crab a spirit that took up residence in a living body without a spirit.
Duel Spirited a unified body and spirit where a second spirit took up residence.
Reclaimed a living body that lost its spirit and it later came back (think lazerus).

Like I said, this is just spitballing at the moment. What do you think of this concept? Is this something you would be interested in your game?

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about our upcoming Pathfinder Compatible release: Book of the Faithful: The Worshiping Swords.

dmccoy1693

We played a different Pathfinder game for the past month or so. But now that we're going to jump back into the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path and I have to make a new character. Plan: Dwarven Monk. I roll up ability scores. ... Plan failed. My ability scores are low to low to do it well. 15, 14, 13, 11, 11, 9. Can I do it, yea. Can I do it well, no. Lower ability scores lends itself well to multiclassing. You don't need a 19+ Int if you're not going to be a 20th level wizard. If you're only going to make it to be a 5th level spell caster, you can get away with a 15 Int, and then focus your remaining ability scores on improving your Dex or whatever is strongest for your other class.

Multiclassing means half elf. No one does it better. You still keep your favored class bonus and you gain some nice skills bonuses. So what should I take. We're down a skills monkey. I could go ranger, but the group already has a front line fighter. We certainly could use another one. And it has been a while since I played a spellcaster. Possibility, but I'm just not feeling it. Rogue. Hmmm. Well if I multiclass Rogue and Sorcerer, they would be perfect con-artist combination. Plus the half elf have several nice skill bonuses that work great with the Rogue and they have low light. Great. I'm tired of not being the one who cannot see at night.

Looks over the rest of the races. Half orc ferocity would allow me to quaff a potion before falling unconscious if that should happen. Not bad. Gnome. Two sorely needed stat bumps and they have similar skills bonuses as the half elf. Not bad. Small size so they are harder to hit, defensive and offensive bonuses against certain creature types. Ok. And they can cast a few 0-level spells. Hmmm. With ghost sound and dancing lights alone, I have a perfect distraction to steal whatever I want. I don't exactly need the sorcerer part of the equation then. Yea, it would be helpful to have charm person, but having an extra +1 bonus to trap finding or more hp would be even more helpful in the long run.

Gnome Rogue 9th level. It is settled. Dex 15 (plus stat bump), Int 11 (plus other stat bump). Str 9. Those make sense. If I give my 14 to Wis, it'll have a +2 and my Cha can have the other 11 since it will get a racial bonus. And Con gets the 13. Final ability scores after all permanent modifiers: Str 7, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 13. They are not great ability scores, but they will do. I'm taking another bow again. Like my halfling, no need to have strength if you can get away without using it.

What does he like to collect? Copper coins is a little obvious. Cute, and funny when you upend your bag of holding onto a bad guy and a million copper coins comes out and crushes him. But to obvious. Swatches of clothing. He could be like Dobby the House Elf. Ehhh. Rotten fish. Now that would work well. Profession: Fisher. Imagine throwing a rotten fish at your enemies. Craft: Alchemist. Make stink bombs. ....

*Goes off and checks out Paizo's Playtest Classes* Hmmm. Ok, I have no clue what I am doing. I could multiclass Alchemist and Rogue, or I could do a straight Alchemist. I only need a 16 Int to be able to do all the Extracts for an Alchemist. And I can have that now. So I'd have to move my Int. Dex 14. ... Ummm. That's all I'd really need. Most everything this character would do are based off these two ability scores. Perception requires wisdom so that means 13 Wis, 11 Cha and Con and 9 Str again. If I take 2 levels of rogue, I'd have trapfinding and evasion and a whole mess more skill points. Alright that's the plan.

Is Gnome the right race anymore? Half Orc would be fun. "You kill me? I think not!" Bomb explodes! Elf has a bonus to Int and Dex, the two vital stats for this build. I'll have to work on this more later, but I think I've settled on an Elf Alchemist 7 Rogue 2.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about our upcoming Pathfinder Compatible release: Book of the Faithful: The Worshiping Swords. We at Jon Brazer Enterprises would like to thank everyone that took part in the Gamers Help Haiti Relief Effort. At the time of writing this, we gamers have contributed a total of $146,340.00. May Iomedae smile on us all.

dmccoy1693

As you may or may not know, the disaster in Haiti is unimaginable. The death toll increases by the day, and relief supplies are at a bare minimum. Doctors Without Borders has been there from the start to help these people and could use all the relief supplies they can get. DriveThruRPG/RPGNow has been collecting donations for this organization. With the help of many of you, they have collected (at the time of this writing) over $5000 from gamers to help the people of Haiti in their hour of greatest need. This is commendable, but OneBookShelf (the parent company of DriveThruRPG and RPGNow) and many publishers desire to help even more.

To this end, we publishers are giving away over $1000 of gaming material in a special bundle sold through OneBookShelf sites for a $20 donation, many of which are either Pathfinder or Traveller Compatible and many more are easily usable in the respective games. All proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders to help the people of Haiti.

We publishers would like to thank everyone in advance of their generous donation.

“Traveller” and the Traveller logo are Trademarks owned by Far Future Enterprises, Inc. and are used with permission. The Traveller Main Rulebook is available from Mongoose Publishing.

Pathfinder and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and are used under license. See paizo.com/pathfinderRPG for more information on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Edit: I can't edit the title, but I hope you figured out that I meant Haiti and not Haiit.

dmccoy1693

Mechs make fun toys. No matter what setting they're in, I love mechs. DragonMech, Exalted's warstriders, BattleTech, Mech Warrior and many others. There's just something about piloting a giant robot that can punch down a building that appeals to me. Maybe its the way they make the ground shake as you approach. Maybe its the giant guns. Or maybe I really just want to be a dinosaur and this is the easiest way to do it. I don't know. But they're fun nonetheless.

So for my first major print product for Traveller, I had to do a Mech book. My company was the first to publish a Mech for the current edition of the game and soon we'll be the first to publish a supplement devoted to these monster trucks on legs. Not much I can talk about at this point in time, but I can show you the cover.

I can also let you in on a bit of the design philosophy that I am using. Let me state right off the bat that I am not using the Vehicle Design Rules from the Civilian/Military Vehicles books published by Mongoose Publishing. Why? Two simple reasons. 1) They are not OGL. As of the date I stated writing up my own Gundam, the rules were not available for other publishers to use. So I am doing what I can with the Traveller Main Rulebook, High Guard, and Mercenary (yes I am using all 3). And 2) using the book goes against my commitment to require as few books as possible. My own experience with writing for D&D 3.5 tells me that you can never make the assumption that anyone has any book beyond the core rule book (unless you're doing a psionic supplement, but that's about it). With that in mind, I am using High Guard, but I am making sure that High Guard is not required to get full use out of this book.

The only part of Mercenary that is required are the Mass Combat rules. In my experience, a great way for a game to feel larger than yourself is to have mass scale combats. When you command 100 souls and know that your actions determine their fates, you cannot help but feel apart of that world and to know your place in it. So far, I have not seen any mass combats be encourages in supplements, so I am going to help that along by including stats for a armies and mercenary companies or simple defense groups this and future supplements. If nothing else, it will be a fun experiment to see what people think of such stats included in the book.

Until Next Time, Have Fun.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about Book of the Faithful: The Power of Prayer, our first Pathfinder Compatible product.

“Traveller” and the Traveller logo are Trademarks owned by Far Future Enterprises, Inc. and are used with permission. The Traveller Main Rulebook is available from Mongoose Publishing.

dmccoy1693

Fynkirk Greenhill died about a week and a half ago (out of game time). He died in a proud way for all Bardic Halflings to die: at -140(ish) hitpoints turning into a pink mist that got splattered onto his mates underneath the surface, setting off a trap for everyone else so the rest of the group knows where it is at. He lived a good life for a halfling bard. He was useful from time to time, he gave the group a +2 quite frequently to all their hit/damage rolls. Heck he even used the dirge of doom and affected a bad guy when no one else could. And he annoyed the elf to no end. Truth be told, he was a good character.

My final conclusions on the bard: still not the class for me. He is a spellcaster but is far to limited for my own tastes. He has a wide variety of weapons to select from but not enough ability points to be a melee combatant properly. The problem still remains for me that he is not wholy one thing or another. He is a great jack of all trades, but a master of none. I simply do not have a proper mentality to play a bard.

Having said that, I must say that Paizo did a wonderful job in making the bard far more useful. Now that he can sing in one round and caste haste in the next and then start with illusions, the bard can do much more than before. Every round he does have something to contribute. His contributions are best aimed at buffing the party and diplomacizing/swindling your way into what you want from NPCs. The bard is still without a doubt the face of the party.

Now the only question is what should I make next. When I made the bard, I knew that the basic concept was not optimized for my personality. I felt that such a vantage point would help me to evaluate the class. With such experience, I do not feel I will exactly the same thing again. I was highly considering a Fighter/Rogue, since all the members of the group have the magical angles will covered. What we lack is someone that can break AC with little effort. The only problem is that I am not sure that a Fighter would be much better for me than a Bard. I always felt that the Fighter was far to limited in its options.

The Pathfinder Fighter still revolves around feats. If I made a human Fighter 6/Rogue 2/Something Else 1, I would have a total of 10 feats. I'm going to have to read over the fighter-based feats more thoroughly before settling on a class.

Until Next Time, Enjoy the New Year.

dmccoy1693

My girlfriend and I are almost finished watching the final season of Babylon 5 together. I'm pretty sure I am suppose to never ask her to watch it with me again after we finish this season. I've watched the show many, many times since it's initial release. Everytime I watch it, I learn something different. This time: I have rose colored glasses on when it comes to Babylon 5. Do not get me wrong, I love the show, but it is not the "Greatest TV show ever created" that I remember.

One thing though, my girlfriend informed me that if we ever play a Babylon 5 rpg, she wants to play a Pak'mir'a. So she doesn't hate the show.

But that brings my thoughts to gaming. I hold up Toon and Robotech and (of course) 1E AD&D as the gold standards of gaming in my mind. Were these really the greatest games ever created, probably not. Yet I find myself going back and comparing current games to these and others form my early days of gaming. Even Exalted 1E remains as one of the untouchables in my mind. Frankly though, if I want back and played any of them, I probably would see them without the shades I currently wear. I would probably see games like Traveller and Pathfinder are far superior because of having all those years of experience to build on that those early games did not have the benefit of.

But I do think I want to give my girlfriend the chance to play a Pak'mir'a Ranger.

dmccoy1693

When you're a father, boyfriend, writer, small business owner, gamer and holder of a day job, pleasure reading isn't something that happens frequently. But one thing I have been doing for quite some time now is reading bed time stories. Initially it was just to my daughter, but then my girlfriend wanted in on that action. Apparently my voice is really soothing and can put someone to sleep. (I'm not entirely sure if that is a compliment or not, but I'll worry about that later.)

My girlfriend, who is also a gamer, enjoys fantasy as much as I do, if not more. Until recently I've been reading her short stories. The biggest problems with short fiction, you have to constantly look for new stories. We recently decided to switch to novels with short chapters (10 pages or less) and so far that is working out well for us. After a few false starts, we've settled on the first of Fred Saberhagen's Books of the Swords. I never had gotten around to reading these before and so far they are alot of fun. I highly recommend giving them a read. Plus it is also pleasure reading.

So far, the story is detailing the swords in short bursts when appropriate. I like that. I am not a fan of stories that dump alot of exposition on the reader and it takes 50 or so pages before you even meet the main character. But what I am reading is giving me alot of ideas for weapons. As I look around at the 3rd party Pathfinder products offered so far, I am seeing alot of classes, races, feats. I am however seeing little in the way of legendary weaponry, artifacts, and curses. Come to think of it, I do not remember much of that in 3.5 either (some, sure, but not much). One book I always enjoyed reading was Weapons of Legacy. I enjoyed the legends behind the weapons and always wanted to use them. However I never really cared for the mechanics of the book. I always felt that either a PrC (as presented in Unearthed Arcana) or a chain of feats (that did not require a series of events, giving up skill points or whatnot, and were not useless should you be separated from your weapon) were most appropriate.

With the Books of the Swords influence and my imagination, you can expect to see some weapon based writing from me in the future.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about Book of the Faithful: The Power of Prayer, our first Pathfinder Compatible product.

dmccoy1693

Here I am at the airport about to pick up my daughter up. With the American Thanksgiving upon us I was thinking about what I was thankful for. Then, as a gamer I was wondering what I was thankful for. The list really is quite long. Allow me to try to write the whole thing down.

As a gamer, I am thankful for:
- Gary and Dave for creating the whole thing in the first place.
- The maker of the first d20 so we don't have to use chits anymore.
- All the later designers that saw D&D and thought how would it work with sci-fi, superheroes, steampunk, cartoons and many others.
- My next door neighbor that introduced me to D&D so long ago as a kid.
- The group at college that showed me a world beyong D&D.
- Wizards of the Coast for giving the game new life and releasing the system free for everyone to do with as they saw fit.
- All the third party companied that took the game in a different direction, blazing a whole new trail in the gaming world.
- Steve Jackson. (everything he's done is worth being thankful for)
- Paizo taking an extraordinary chance on their future and the loyalty of their fan base and then releasing a new compatability license for others to use freely.
- Living in this great country where I can start up a a company without much trouble and create my own material.
- The community of gamers at ENWorld. You guys and gals really are great.
- And last but certainly not least, my wonderful girlfriend who enjoys gaming with me. Life is much happier with her.

While this list is no where near exhaustive, I have to end it here.
Happy Holidays everyone.

dmccoy1693

After a conversation with Jenn from Trapcast (I highly recommend listening to this podcast if you currently are not), I finally have my Role Playing School of Thought written down.

Role Playing School of Thought? What are you talking about? Take a look at Dungeons and Dragons and by extension Pathfinder. Its a combat game some minor support for Role Playing. The school of thought is more 'Freeform.' Your ability to convince a non-hostile NPC to join up with you without paying them is largely dependent upon your own abilities as a player rather than anything your character can do. The downside of this is that you really can go sessions or even whole campaigns without any role playing beyond the basic "you look like a trusting person, join us," (as exemplified in the original The Gamers movie).

Compare that to indy RPGs (or story games, as they prefer to refer to themselves), they tend to build in mechanics that empower their players to directly alter the way the story flows. They also tend to possess more complex social combat systems. This is a more codified school of thought. The downside to this is that it forces you to role play. This reminds me of an old girlfriend of mine that went to visit one of her friends and dragged me along. When I got there, I met my girlfriend's friend and boyfriend. After a quick introduction, we were told that we both liked football and then then left in the same room while the girls went and talked. My conversation with that gentlemen was just as forced and non-enjoyable as a forced session of role playing.

So where do my thoughts lie? To sum it up, I would have to describe it as "Inspirational." In my gaming career I have known only a handful of players that got into the culture of elves to fully get into the role of an elf and buckets full more that treated elves as humans with long lives and pointy ears. I do not find elves or dwarves or many of the other standard fantasy races ... inspiring. My favorite role from the 3.5 era, the Hellbred. A race of people that was so incredibly evil but is given one more chance to alter their eternal destination, is it possible to not get into that character every single session and have it drip with inspiration? Hardly.

So why rebuild role playing from the ground up when you can work with the existing role playing structure, modifying when necessary, to achieve a more balanced end. Sure the rules could support better role playing, but you could work with the existing rules to achieve the desired outcome.

How would you define your own school of thought on role playing?

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about Book of the Faithful: The Power of Prayer, our first Pathfinder Compatible product.

dmccoy1693

Last night was an exciting conclusion to the 2nd module in the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP and the halfling bard Fynkirk Greenhill played comic relief for the evening. More than a few references to his kender heritage were made. Without a doubt, his favorite spell is Open/Close because it can open any door (some distance way, just incase it sets off a trap). Fortunately that has not caused any trouble ... yet.

My character woke up after a night's rest and a few heal checks (thank you fellow party members) with a 2 wisdom. Well, atleast I was conscious. One lesser restoration later I'm up to a 5. Better. I ask if anything happened while I was out and I get briefed on the battle that continued after I was out. After getting told about something vampiric creature that visited (but did not attack) while I was out cold, made a decent knowledge local check and was able to tell that the guy was old. Very old. After prompting the group to ask my character about the Red Mantis Assassins and a rather high knowledge check later, we got the 411 on the guys contracted to give out the current disease plaguing the city. Go Bardic Knowledge.

So the 5 wisdom halfling hears about a door that hasn't been opened yet in the main area. What does he do? Runs off to open it. The group runs after him to stop him (and the cleric gives him a lesser restoration he was holding onto just incase we had more ability damage today). So the now 8 wisdom halfling decides this is fun and runs to open other doors. As he does so, he passes through a room with reanimated corpses behind glass. Unfortunately because his wisdom is still down, he blows a Perception check to see his "Great Aunt Mayvil" (the whole reason he met the party to begin with, "she must be out there, somewhere").

The next two doors he opens reveal broom closets. Next door revealed two "tanks". Ummmm ... ok. He goes and investigates. He sees a total of 4 tanks (one of which has something moving in it) and two priesty guys tending to it. Run Away and cast Close!

"What's behind that door?" the party asks.

"Oh nothing. Just one mean looking daemon and a two more guys that we fought before. I don't think they heard me." So the party ready to rush the door and take the baddies. The party dispenses with one of the baddie pretty fast and the other smashes the glass on the tank, unleashing the daemon which kills him for doing so (thank you!). Fight ensues. The bard's first action: Minor Illusion to make a Celestial Lion. A roar isn't understandable speech and the spell's wording says that everyone believes it until they interact with it (and even then it's a save). So the DM allows the +2 flanking bonus because of it. Go Bard. The daemon does something that sickens the group. Everyone's at a -2 penalty. Tough call now. Concentrating means I can continue the flanking bonus or singing means I can give everyone a +2 bonus. I go with the singing since the illusion will last 2 more rounds.

The group is taking down the daemon's hit points with their sharp pointy metal objects. The sorcerer is having trouble thanks to the creature's SR. The halfling wants something to help: Charm person? No. Hold Person? No. Grease? Maybe. Invisibility? YES! He disappears, run far away from the group, incase he does his sickening thing again and fires off an arrow a round later. With a +2 bonus to hitting and damage from the singing, he hits and does 6 points of damage (max for a small short bow). The daemon doesn't even notice it. DANG! Not wanting to use up any more spells on this battle, he just continues to sing.

Eventually the thing dies of heavy metal poisoning. Open the next door and the halfling is the first into the next room, ontop of the druid morphed Tiger. I've got a mount! The high priest of a death god (forget the name) welcomes us and invites us to drink of one of the poisons around the room. Yeah. Like that's going to happen. So the group begins attacking. Bard ... sings. Hey everyone gets a +2. Next round he just holds his bow and readies an action incase the high priest tries casting. Of course she does and his arrow makes "Slay Living" fail. Go Bard. Several more rounds ensue and the bard keeps up the same action, but she stays away from spells. So the bard spends a few rounds of just singing. She dies but shortly thereafter transforms into something worse. The god is mad that the high priest dies. Oops. Who knew. The battle lasts several more rounds. The bard starts singing right away then cast Glitterdust, fires an arrow and several more actions. All together, the only real help the bard is the +2 to everyone for singing. All other spells are useless against flying undead (or it has to high a save to matter).

All in all, the bard was fun to play this session, but it felt like it fell prey to the same problems the Beguiler from the PHBII had: all its spells were useful against living creatures. While the PFRPG Bard has a wider spell list than the PHBII class, the differences are not major. Still he was always able to give a +2 to everyone, but I am not totally thrilled with the prospect of just being a +2 bot. We'll see how next session goes.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about Book of the Faithful: The Power of Prayer, our first Pathfinder Compatible product.

dmccoy1693

Looking over my collection of art I have created myself, purchased or can easily purchase, I'm noticing alot of monster pictures. This works fine since I enjoy creating monsters, and the Pathfinder Bestiary has some quality rules for creating and balancing monsters. So it looks like there will be some type of monster book in the future.

First I have to go through the collection and figure out if I can create a monster from the picture. Can I make some kind of unique attack or ability from the picture that will make it something other than a simple hit point bot.

Take this image for example. A rather pretty picture, but its ... a lizard. Maybe it should spit lightning? But that's a thunder lizard, been done. Its obviously not celestial, demonic, undead or an aberration. Lets pull out the Bestiary. Of all the types of monsters, the ones that best fit are animal, dragon, magical beast and possibly vermin, but that is a stretch (so that is eliminated). Animals tend to be hit point bots so that's eliminated. Looking at the picture, I see a wingless dragon that is pissed off because he has no wings or hind legs. Hmmm could work. But no spitting elements. So what can it do? Well, dragons are suppose to be amazing sorcerers, but they really are not. Their HD do not stack up with sorcerer classes and it takes a very very long time for them to be able to cast any decent spells. Therein is a possibility. I could see some balance issues there, but the the basic idea has merit.

Counting them all up, I currently have 21 pieces of artwork that are ready to go right now and probably others that can be ready with a little work. Good start. Lets see if I can compose my own book of monsters.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about our upcoming Pathfinder Compatable product: Book of the Faithful: The Power of Prayer.

dmccoy1693

So I quickly finished up my character. Fynkirk Greenhill is the little halfling's name. Arrived (didn't get lost!) on time. Met the guys (good group of guys by the way). And started playing. It should not have been an auspicious sign that someone made the reference "Hide behind the mound of dead bards," early on. ... *dun dun duuuuuun*

First encounter, the druid and I were alone and ran across two baddies. After a failed bluff attempt, combat ensued. The druid: wild shape into a bear. The halfling bard whipped out ... bardic performance. One was fascinated. Alright, the bard earns his keep. The rest of the party shows up, wonders where the druid is and why this bear that is only attacking those opposed to the group. No one asks my character so I didn't volunteer. It was much more fun to just watch what happens. The two baddies die quickly and now ones show up from two different directions. The bard casts charm person on the first one coming from one direction and I tell him to just not let anyone else in here. So the bard again controls the battlefield by keeping enemies at bay from one direction.

Again the bard casts hold person and hideous laughter. Despite not having access to 3rd level spells like the druid and cleric in the group, the bard holds its own. Later Fynkirk fires off an arrow. He would not have hit if it were not for the +2 from inspiring courage he was singing. So far the bard is performing exceptionally well.

We make our way downstairs where we're in a "lovely room of death" as ace ventura would put it. We open a door and spring a trap that releases poison gas into the air. Everyone saves, except the bard. Drat! Loses 3 wisdom. Ouch. He keeps failing his saves until losing all his wisdom. That's right, a 0 wisdom! Finally made the save to keep from going negatives. Mind you, full hit points, but out cold. Fortunately, I can get a lesser restoration, but for the next 24 hours, I'm going to be worthless. The group decides to do 1 more rooms, with me tied to the back of the bear (who is wearing a mask they found). The room is teaming with baddies, but a single fireball (and a whole mess of failed saves) take out all but two. The group finishes them off from there and call it a night.

Overall, the bard performed exceptionally well. Staying in the back helped significantly. The only thing I have that is within melee range to do is use a dagger and with a -2 strength penalty, I'm not going to rush in. He fell prey to a classic weakness of the class, but he will recover with the aid of the group. So far, the bard is a wonderful asset to a group and is alot of fun to play.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about our upcoming Pathfinder Compatable product: Book of the Faithful: The Power of Prayer.

dmccoy1693

With ability scores needing to be rolled, I can't set certain things about my character in stone just yet. Others, however, are independent of anything to be rolled. I'm at 5th level so I have a bit of flexibility in my character creation.

Skill points are the first thing to come to mind. While I don't know what my Int score is yet, I do know that I get 6 skill points per level if I have a 10 Int or an 8 Int with all my favored class bonus put into skill points. So it seems reasonable to lay out the skills with that assumption. I can add more rather quickly should I have a 12 or higher. Unless someone in the group put their points in skill not favored by their class, the sorcerer might be good at bluffing and the paladin might be good at diplomacy. But I want my character to basicly be a con artist (a GOOD con artist) so I'll fully fund bluff and put a little in diplomacy. We're playing in Korvosa so either Knowledge (nobility) or Knowledge (local) would be good. With a bonus of 1/2 my character level to all knowledge checks and being able to make all untrained, I don't have to divide up my skills among a ton of skills. I can instead be an expert in one have just heard a smattering of everything else. I'll settle on that later. Fully fund perform. I want to perform while using my bow so singing is the type I'm going for. Also fully fund Perception, Sense Motive, and Slight of Hand. Hmmm running out of skill points. I'm dividing the rest between Spellcraft and Stealth. I'm not thrilled about this. I normally prefer to fully fund Spellcraft, but I am not going to be a primary Spellcaster since the entire rest of the group can cast spells. And I would much rather have Stealth fully funded, but I'll just have to hope for a high Int.

Next, Feats. Extra performance for sure. I'm taking a bow so having Point Blank Shot will allow me to get Precise Shot eventually. What else? I flip back to the bard section. Distraction and Countersong both require a Perform roll. So cracking out perform might be a good idea. Skill Focus (Perform) is what I eventually settle on. So without my ability score modifier, I currently have a +11 to my singing ability to Countersong and +0 for Distraction. That's not good. Do I REALLY need 2 skill points in diplomacy? Na. 1 skill point in diplomacy and 1 in another type of performance that works with distraction. I'll figure it out later, but just put it there for the moment. So with 1 skill point, that +0 jumps to a +7. Much better. Do I need to specify the speciality for the Perform skill? I'll ask the GM later.

Spells. My spells known are fixed so I might as well choose them all. Must haves: Prestidigitation (yes, an absolute must have), Dancing Lights, Lullaby, Message, Ghost Sound, Open/Close (those last two are great for distracting guards), Grease, Hideous Laughter, and Tongues. Since we're already 5th level, Sleep might not be as readily useful, but having the -5 to perception would be useful nonetheless. Tongues means I don't have to put any ranks in Linguistics. Maybe I should just buy a scroll or two of that instead. We've got 3 people in the group that can cast cure spells so I shouldn't need to take that. Invisibility and Minor Image are also a good choices. Enthrall is tempting. Very tempting. I'll leave the rest for later.

Onto class features. Bardic Performance. Check. Bardic Knowledge. Check. Versatile Performance. Check. WAIT! WAIT! Uncheck that last one. Let me see if I got this straight, I can use my Perform skill with all bonuses in place of other skills?!? AWESOME! What can I use Perform (sing) for. ... *blink* Nothing??? Checks the Pathfinder Reference Document. Bluff and Sense Motive. DOUBLE AWESOME SAUCE!!! Defund Bluff and Sense Motive entirely. I now have 10 more skill points to spend elsewhere. Stealth, max funding. I'll have to figure out the rest later. What should I choose at 6th level, that's 1 level away, I can defund another skill mostly. Percussion is nice. I don't have anything in either Intimidate or Handle Animals so I'll be ok with that. But ... seriously try finding a halfling scary. Wind has Diplomacy and Handle Animals. But then I don't have a Perform skill in something that uses Distraction. Act, Oratory, and Comedy overlap with Singing in some way. Dance is the only one left but it also grants Fly. Well, you never know when I might be flying. A dancing, singing halfling. Am I circus act or the opening of a bad joke? No matter what, it'll be fun.

I'll have to look at equipment later. I've got to get going. Until then, have fun.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about our upcoming Pathfinder Compatable product: Book of the Faithful: The Power of Prayer.

dmccoy1693

After a long break, I'm joining up with a new RPG group (trial basis for the time being). I'll be joining an existing group in the middle of an existing Pathfinder AP using PFRPG rules. After talking with the GM, we came up with the basic concept of me playing a bard. He commented that he was excited about seeing how the new bard worked. I was interested as well; my last bard (3.0) flopped pretty hard. And I figured there were others out there interested in seeing how the new bard played. So ... here I am, sharing my experience.

The AP is Curse of the Crimson Throne. So if you haven't played it yet, there might be spoilers in here. I'm going to try to focus mostly on the bard and how it played, but I can't guarantee that some roll I make might reveal some important info and I report on it.

I don't have info on ability score generation/starting gp, but there are some things I have pretty much decided on. 1) Feat: Extra Performance. It gives 6 extra round of Bardic Music per day. Compared to the other group member, I have two real areas of differentiation: skill points and bardic music. So I should play these areas up. 2) race: halfling. I've played humans before. the new half orc is actually golden for a bard but I don't want to push things that much when I'm new to a group, elves and gnomes would also be good choices (elves for the magic penetration and dex bonuses, gnomes for the cha/con bonuses) but I feel I tend to play a character that can more universally get along with everyone as a halfling so I am going that route. 3) short bow: after a few quick calculations I figured out that a bard really needs to be good at every ability. Cha for bardic music/deceiving, Wis to notice when they're being deceived, Int for lots of skill points (so they can deceive better), Con to survive the hit form someone I failed to deceive, Dex to get away from those figured out I deceived them, and Strength to do damage. Well, of those, I can tank Strength if I only fight with a short bow. So that saves me some ability points right there. Con, sad to say, is probably going to be a 10, if not lower. Besides, the party has a paladin, druid and a cleric (and a sorcerer, but that's not helping nor hurting this point) and they tend to be short range/melee attackers. So Str tank. And give me that short bow, the one where I don't need a Str bonus to use.

I'll give a full description of the character with reasons for the choice once I've gotten that far. Until then, have fun.

Dale McCoy is President of Jon Brazer Enterprises. Visit our website to find out about our upcoming Pathfinder Compatable product: Book of the Faithful: The Power of Prayer.

dmccoy1693