Attacks of Opportunity

If you ever had a problem with figuring out Attacks of Opportunity, watch the following highly educational video to expand your intellectual aptitude.. or something.

Feat Taxes in Pathfinder

I was browsing r/Pathfinder_RPG and I ran across this interesting article about Feat Taxes in Pathfinder.

It is something really interesting and I never really considered it. I did not know it was something that has gained enough attention to get the label "Feat Taxes". Anyway, I have always disliked taking feats I don't want to unlock feats I do want. I understand the need for balance purposes and such, but many games, like WoW, try to streamline the leveling/levels to make everything enjoyable and wanted. In WoW, they removed the filler talents and make them just part of the class. Now not everyone is happy with the WoW talent change, but the developers are trying to improve the process.

In the article the author, Radiostorm, lists house rules for revising or even eliminating/merging some feats. I really liked a lot of the suggestions. It can be a slippery slope though. It can unintentionally cause imbalance and over simplify if the players and GM are not careful.

Harold Ramis

As many of you probably know, Harold Ramis passed away Monday. A lot of people, especially in my generation, grew up with Ghostbusters as part of mainstream culture; we had two movies and a cartoon series as well as a wealth of toys and other marketing ploys. My brother and I had most of the toys, the station house, vehicles and so on. 

Anyway, I wanted to share this neat piece of art I found. 

Age of Worms

We are currently running the Age of Worms campaign set in the world of Pathfinder. In our last gaming session we just arrived in the city of Absalom. This is taking place in a steampunk style era, so things are crazy. Guns are a fairly common occurrence in the setting.

For our party, we have a human Gun-Tank that wants to play like Tony Stark (Iron Man). We have our Drunken Master dwarf Monk. The very odd and clumsy human Cleric of Iomedae (more on that below). The half-elf Rogue Scout. The mix class Dhampir Gunslinger/Inquisitor. Lastly, my character, a homebrew Artificer. The Artificier is a class our GM made and I am testing out for him. It works like an Alchemist except with engineering and crafting equipment/constructs rather than brew potion. They also do not have the mutagen feature.

On to the odd and clumsy Cleric of Iomedae. Note: This might be spoilers for Age of Worms, I don't know, so be careful before reading!

So during one gaming session we were all at Diamond Lake. Our Cleric was doing something and requested some garrison troops to bring a wagon to the cemetery. She ended up stumbling upon an Owl Bear in the graveyard (I think). She didn't want to hurt it because of her vows so she put it to sleep. Then she noticed the baby Owl Bear. She took it and after getting scratched a couple of times, decided it was best to temporarily incapacitate it... by dealing subdual damage it to until it was  unconscious. The players at the table were a little shocked, but ok.. sure. Then she proceeds to try to find the rest of the party. She is running around Diamond Lake, smacking the poor thing everytime it wakes up. She finally catches up with some of us and we all head to the cemetery.. only to find one dead guard, a severely injured guard and a dead mother Owl Bear. She had forgot about the guards with the wagon coming to meet her. It was a mess.

There are plenty of other examples but those will have to wait until another time.

Virtual Tabletops

So while I gather my goblins to get everything together for the blog, I wanted to talk about virtual tabletops.

Currently all of our players meet at the DM's house. That will probably not change. We do use a virtual tabletop program mainly to help with combat. We currently are using d20Pro to achieve this. It is a great program, however, the development seems very slow and there doesn't seem to be much feedback from the developers. It is meeting our needs, but I ran across Roll20 and I really like it. However there are some things I wish they both had. I really enjoy the online aspect of Roll20 and it not being a local install.

I am one of the only two techie type people in the group. So I bought d20Pro and I use it on my laptop which is connected to a TV. I run the DM side on the laptop and the player side on the TV. I edit and adjust the maps and NPCs for the campaign, which is difficult since I am not the DM and I see all the maps and NPCs before hand. With Roll20 the DM could log into the campaign and do all that himself. That being said, I have found d20Pro a little easier to use (maybe because I have used it longer) and I am not a fan of the subscription of Roll20. It isn't expensive at all, I just don't like the idea of having to sub to keep features.

I plan on bringing up Roll20 to my fellow dungeon spelunkers and get their input. Myself, I am leaning toward Roll20. They seem way more active in their development and I like most of what they offer. The d20Pro features I like are not deal breaking. I just have to redo all the campaign maps and NPCs in Roll20... Unless the DM wants to help.

This be a first post, ye land lubber!

Starting a blog that will hopefully highlight the experiences my friends and I have during our weekly gaming sessions. We normally play Pathfinder but we also play board games like Settlers of Catan and Zombiecide. On the list is also Magic: The Gathering and Cards Against Humanity.

I will be doing more over the next few days, so if you managed to stumble upon this site in the mean time be sure to check back.