Warhorse Markers

What do you think of these Warhorse markers? http://www.litko.net/products/Warhorse%2C-Character-Mount-Marker-kit.html Is this something we might use? Would you find them easier than the horse minis I have used in the past?

I already ordered some door markers (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8rd3?Dungeon-Door-Markers), some portcullis (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8qmt?Dungeon-Door-Markers-Portcullis) and some square flight bases (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8e2c?Flying-Figure-Stands-1-Square) through Paizo. The horses do not appear to be available from Paizo so I would have to order directly from Litko.

New AFO Character Cheat Sheets

The latest All For One character creation cheat sheets have been posted to my AFO page, https://sites.google.com/site/zombiehomepage/Home/zombie-s-all-for-one-page. It includes information from every AFO suppliment including the last two Richeleiu's Guides which have yet to be released. 

Who plans to attend tomorrow?

Kara will not be there for sure and it looks like Kelly is out too for this week.

Danger 5

Check this out. http://www.sbs.com.au/danger5/videos.html

I looks right for all the wrong reasons.

I was able to watch the 5-part The Diamond Girls. Four full episodes just came out on DVD today but it was released in Australia. I am not sure that I am willing to commit to a $40 investment. Also I am not sure if my Blu-ray player will play it. Also not sure if they will post/re-post episodes on-line.

Looks like it is available from iTunes for $3 per episode. Maybe I can get it there.

PFS Scenario next week?

I think I would like to get in another scenario in for my monk to which I will be assigning credit for the Ruby Phoenix Tournament. That would get him to 3rd level and earn him more money for the module chronicle.

Since Kara will be gone next week, does anyone object to me running a tier 1-7 scenario next week? I have one from each of seasons 0-2 that I have yet to run. I expect that I can get it completed in a single session, especially if I run one of the early season scenarios.

Attacks of Opportunity....

...you don't get em if you're flat-footed.

I didn't stumble across this RAW, but caught it in the text of Combat Reflexes:

Benefit: You may make a number of additional attacks of opportunity per round equal to your Dexterity bonus. With this feat, you may also make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed.

Another reason to take Improved Initiative

PFS harder in Season 4

According to today's Paizo blog, PFS scenarios will be made more difficult starting with Season 4. The design assumption will be 6 players rather than four.

Thus, beginning in Season 4, all Pathfinder Society scenarios will be designed with six PCs in mind, effectively increasing the CR of all encounters to accommodate larger parties. Each adventure will provide specific changes to apply for parties of four PCs, maintaining consistency in how the scenarios are altered, but giving a bit more latitude to account for table variance. Because five- and seven-person tables are both reasonably equipped to handle a six-person challenge, tables of both sizes should be run without any changes.

I like the change and I think it will play well with our home game. where we commonly have 5-7 players. Season 0-3 scenarios will not be modified at this time.

Season 4 launches at Gen Con 2012. The full blog/forum post can be found at http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5ld8i?Six-Sells

AD&D reprints

Reprints of the original AD&D books will soon be available.

http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/w/wizardsOfTheCoast/byProductType/roleplayingGames/dungeonsDragons/aDAndD1/rulebooks

Flurry of Blow correction in the works

Check out these Paizo forum posts:

http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5dte?Sean-K-Reynolds-clarifies-Flurry-of-Blows#1

http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5drg&page=3?Attacking-with-a-weapon#144

It looks like the intention is that the monk needs to use multiple attack sources, at least two, when delivering a flurry. This would mean that some thing like the temple sword could be used as part of a flurry but not as the only source of the flurry.

Lots of debate still but it looks like Paizo is going to make an official errata/correction to the mechanic sometime soon.

Ruby Phoenix Tournament question..

What level 11 character class is everyone planning on playing?

PFS Milestone

We have hit a milestone for our home PFS game. Everyone in the group now has a character that is 5th level or higher.This now opens Tier 5-9 scenarios for our playing pleasure.We currently have 15 of them from seasons 0-3 waiting in the wings.

Mounts in Pathfinder

Nast night I was struggling with the differences between an animal companion and a mount. The animal companion rules are just the mechanics for creating the special animals that characters receive as part of their class abilities. What the animals can and will do is still based upon the tricks the animal knows and the character using his Handle Animal skill. If an animal is trained as a mount it is easier to ride (DC10 vs. DC25) and if it is trained for combat it is easier to control (DC10 and free action vs. DC20 and move action).

I did some reading on the subject and here are my conclusions.

If an animal is being used as a mount, companion or otherwise, it will act according to the mount rules. Without a rider to guide it, a mount avoids combat. Meaning, if you are out of the saddle and not actively commanding it, it will only participate in a fight to defend itself. The exception is if the animal is trained to Defend. In that case, it will stand its ground and also defend the fallen rider.

I assume that combat mounts have the General Purpose of Combat Training. This means that the mount knows the following 6 tricks requiring a DC 10 Handle Animal check (DC 12 if the animal is injured) to execute :

• Attack - The animal attacks apparent enemies. You may point to a particular creature that you wish the animal to attack, and it will comply if able. Normally, an animal will attack only humanoids, monstrous humanoids, or other animals. Teaching an animal to attack all creatures (including such unnatural creatures as undead and aberrations) counts as two tricks. (This can be purchased with an animal companion’s extra tricks.)
• Come -The animal comes to you, even if it normally would not do so.
• Defend - The animal defends you (or is ready to defend you if no threat is present), even without any command being given. Alternatively, you can command the animal to defend another specific character.
• Down - The animal breaks off from combat or otherwise backs down. An animal that doesn’t know this trick continues to fight until it must flee (due to injury, afear effect, or the like) or its opponent is defeated.
• Guard - The animal stays in place and prevents others from approaching.
• Heel - The animal follows you closely, even to places where it normally wouldn’t go.

According to the Ride skill, some checks are required to ride a mount in combat.  

• Guide with Knees: You can guide your mount with your knees so you can use both hands in combat. Make your Ride check at the start of your turn. If you fail, you can use only one hand this round because you need to use the other to control your mount. This does not take an action. DC 5
• Fight with a Combat-Trained Mount: If you direct your wartrained mount to attack in battle, you can still make your own attack or attacks normally. This usage is a free action. DC 10

To fight from the back of a combat trained mount with a two-handed weapon, expecting both you and the mount to attack, requires a DC 5 Ride check (Knees), a DC 10 Handle Animal check (command mount to attack) and a DC 10 Ride check (mount and you both able to attack) each round.

Mounted combat things to remember: 

• When you attack a creature smaller than your mount that is on foot, you get the +1 bonus on melee attacks for being on higher ground.
• If your mount moves more than 5 feet, you can only make a single melee attack.
• If your mount charges, you also take the AC penalty associated with a charge. If you make an attack at the end of the charge, you receive the bonus gained from the charge.
• You can use ranged weapons while your mount is taking a double move, but at a –4 penalty on the attack roll. You can use ranged weapons while your mount is running (quadruple speed) at a –8 penalty. You can make a full attack with a ranged weapon while your mount is moving.

We can debate the topic further if necessary but I would prefer to do so here rather than during the game session.

New AFO page

I am making preparation for the start of our All For One campaign. I created a new web site to keep track of the campaign particulars. It can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/zombiehomepage/Home/zombie-s-all-for-one-page.

Not much here yet but I will fill it in as we get characters and lackeys created. I can post origins and other character related materials like we have done with our HEX games.

Tomorrow

I appear to have recovered and will be running tomorrow. he plan is to complete the PFS scenario we started a few weeks ago, The Quest for Perfection—Part II: On Hostile Waters.

If we finish and time permits, we will start The Quest for Perfection—Part III: Defenders of Nesting Swallow.

New AFO Character Creation Cheat Sheets

I have posted updated versions of the All For One character creation cheat sheets on my Hex site. This is up to date as of the last supplement release from last week.

You can find them in the attachments section at the bottom of the page: https://sites.google.com/site/zombiehomepage/Home/zombie-s-hex-page

Our Piggy Bank is Empty

With the purchase today of the latest two PFS scenarios, our pool of money for Gaming supplies is currently empty.

We had a fund of $40. Dave and David each donated $20 each. We used that to purchase plastic forks and 9 PFS scenarios. I also purchased an ink cartrage for the printer out of my pocket. It sounds like Dave has done so again.

I just wanted to bring this to the attention of the group. I am not saying that you need to kick in money or, if you do, how much, but I wanted to let you know that the fund is now empty.

AFO Question - Answer according to Nestor

Bruce asked the other night what the difference was between a thrust and slash attack for Fencing Style modifiers. I did not have an answer other than I expected that the type of weapon might factor in.

I decided to ask a rules expert, Nestor, and here was his response:

That's a very common question. The quickest answer I can give you is that it's the same difference as between a punch and a kick. :-)


In other words, there is no strict mechanical difference; both do the same amount of damage. The difference is mainly circumstantial and stylistic. There are situations where a slash would be difficult to do (small enclosed space), for instance.

In actual play, there is nothing to prevent a player from describing all his attacks as thrusts to use the advantage of his Fencing Style (after all, that's what he'd do "in real life"). Of course, I'd look askance at an attempt to do a Sweep maneuver with a thrust. ;-)

Hero Labs tablet support report..

(from Hero Labs website)

Tablet Support


As you know from our previous postings, we had hoped to make significant progress on creating products for tablets by this point. Unfortunately, our development work on the Mac versions took much longer than we expected, which stymied our plans in 2011. Tablet versions of our products are still an important part of our product roadmap, and we expect to get fully underway this year.

After the release of Army Builder for the Mac, we’ll be working on the first of our tablet projects. Our first tablet product will be a version of Hero Lab designed for use during play as an electronic character sheet. From there, we'll expand into more complete versions of our products. Our target is to have an early version by Gen Con 2012 that we can show off.

As we’ve shared in the past, our strategy for the tablet market is to pick one platform for the initial releases. Since each platform has profound differences from the others when it comes to software development, major portions of the code written for one platform will need to be completely rewritten for the other platforms. This limitation is the primary reason we’ll be starting with one platform and then addressing others. We simply don’t have the resources to address all the platforms at the same time.

We're closely monitoring the market to see what's being released and how well each new product is received, and we have not yet chosen which platform we'll embrace first. We expect to make our choice in the upcoming months. Once we make our initial selection, we'll be sure to let everyone know, so stay tuned for future announcements and feel free to lobby for your favorite platform on our support forums.