Crashed through a trial play through last night

 Oh boy....

We crashed through a beginner box game, using full rules, last night. So glad we did a trial game first(want to test the rules before we give it a go for the adventure path). I think we will do it again next week until I am fully comfortable with the party member rules. I know I can't know all the rules, but want to make sure the basics are there.

We messed up spells, spell saves, shooting into combat, and stabilizing. At least we now understand those rules.

The biggest take away.....I'm going to change to point buy and have everyone redo their stats. We have the super sorcerer that is better at melee than the melee player and the also better at spells and skills. It would be so lopsided if we moved forward. Good thing those players haven't actually played their characters yet.

Catch ya later.

Added New References to the Pathfinder Website page

I have added two links to the Pathfinder Website page. You would think these links would be the first links I would have added, but really I did not know about them.

The sites are

PFSRD and the Pathfinder Reference Document

What are these? Well-Pretty much all the rules for Pathfinder. There is a delay from when books are printed to when they are published to the sites, but other than that you can look up the rules. I believe there is not fluff in them so if you want the fluff...buy the books.

If you like the game...Buy the books.

Campaign- Rise of the Runelords

Everything seems to be coming together. There was definitely some down time, which is why I have not had posts for a little while. As we start up I'm sure I will have many many posts on the experiences as a new GM. I will start to put in tips and tricks, and things that befuddle me.

The latests befuddlement came during character creation. Such an easy thing one would think, but as we started assigning skill points, I found the explanation in the book to be ambiguous. I will get back into character creation in subsequent  posts.

Adventure Path:

Rise of the Runelords

Player Characters:

Draconic Sorcerer (Name)
Archer Paladin
Shield Champion
(unknown)

Thats the current line up and I will fill in information on each one as we get them fully outlined. We have base stats for the 3, but we need to review them to make sure we have done everything correctly pertaining to making the characters, which I know there are things that we have done incorrectly. As I review the characters with each player I will make notes and then discuss here on the site as missteps we have performed.

I am very excited to get going and have been engrossed in reading everyday. Not specifically the adventure path, but I do need to finish reading the adventure path. I have been through the first chapter Burnt Offerings twice. I am also trying to learn as much about the area of Varisia as possible before we get going.

We will be getting started in a 2 weeks. This week I'm hoping to crash through some beginner box scenarios with one of the players to make sure we understand the base mechanics. We will be using the full rules and not the beginner box rules.

Coming next.....Skill Clarity


Until next time....

Alignment Introduction

With a quick read over the rules and attempting to digest everything in the core rulebook, alignment was not even a topic I was thinking of. With the creation of a couple of characters I have used alignment, but have never really connected what the purpose of alignment was. So, as I was reading over the message boards on Paizo the other day I saw alignment come up several times. The thread I read about alignment progressed through a long debate about what alignment a person thought his character was, and why they thought the character was of a certain alignment. My next thought was, I must write about this, and here I am.

Here is the background about the character in question. The character had pledged himself to serve another because he wanted to repay for something the other character had done for his family. The pledge was for life and to do anything his new master commanded. He also stated his character wouldn't even flinch about being ordered to kill a child if ordered to do so.

This is what created all of the arguments in the thread. Some said that he was lawful evil and others claimed lawful neutral. The character described seemed like a robot to me, because the poster kept referring to this character will do whatever his "Lord" commands, but he never really delves into the emotions of his character and when asked, only goes back to "does anything he is commanded and would even kill a child," which makes me think he was probably trolling. This still created the thoughts that I need to understand this better, and through subsequent reading it became apparently obvious to me that the main thing people need to remember related to alignment is that it is meant to be a tool to help with your character development. This person totally misunderstands the use of alignment. He was trying to use it to run his character instead of developing the concept of his character. Maybe it's because his GM is trying to railroad him into things, or maybe like I stated before, he is a troll. Alignment can have influence later in the game, but please remember the main purpose is to help you develop, DEVELOP, your character. If you wonder where this concept of development comes from check out the third paragraph and first sentence in the additional rules chapter of the Core Rule Book.

Alignment Chart

There are two sets that combine to make 9 different categorizations of alignment.You have good versus evil and law versus Chaos. Each of these have neutral in between them. For Good versus Evil there is Good, Neutral, and Evil. For Law versus Chaos there is Law, Neutral, and Chaos. Combining these two sets gives you Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil. There are the 9 categories. Each of these are meant to be a broad guide.

I will break down each of these in subsequent posts and my last post will wrap it up with my "ULTIMATE" summary and wrap up of alignment.

Just wanted to give a quick update

I am going to tackle alignment next. Alignment is something I don't fully understand, and it seems to be a fairly frequent topic on the message boards on Paizo. So I am taking some extra time to digest it and come up with a nice overview!!

I will update tomorrow evening

Web Based Free Spell Card Generator

Image 2, Spell Cards with
Runed Parchment Background

While starting out a month ago searching for resources on the net, it seemed like there was not much out there, but with a lot of searching I have found that there are some amazing resources out there, if you can find them. While perusing the Paizo message boards I stumbled across this little gem www.thegm.org. It is by one of the guys that is on Know Direction podcast. He has created a web based Spell Card Generator.

The Spell Card Generator allows you to select your Class, Spell Level, and Spell Sources(Books). The spell sources include Core Rulebook, Advanced Players Guide, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, and the Advanced Race Guide.

He also gives you the capability of changing the background on the cards for a little bit of flavor, color of the spells with an option for auto color by school, and

Options when you print are: Card Size(Image 1), color by card school, and three choices for Card Background. The background choices are none, Runed Parchment(Image 2) and Arcane Background(Image 3).

Image 3, Spell Cards with
Arcane Background

I have not attempted to print yet, but he does give specific instructions on how to set print margins. He designed it to be set at 0.25 inch margins on US Letter sized paper or .75 cm margins on a size A4 paper.

If you think that you can only print cards from the books I listed previously, I have misled you. You can make custom cards, although you do have to do a little more lifting which having to input Spell Name, School, Subschool, Descriptor, Class & Spell Level, Casting Time, checkbox spots(for Verbal, Somatic, Material, Costly Components, and Divine Focus), Range, Area, Effects, Targets, Duration, Saving Throws, Spell resistances, and a Description box. And....all of the card printing customizations as there is with the other cards.

Image 4, Spell Cards from Spellbook 2 Alpha

This is definitely something I will be using in the future, and would recommend to my friends. He has a version 2 in alpha testing right now that prints out to pdf. It has a new layout(Image 4), but you do not have any options for the background at this time. Improved layout of text, with a large font option coming in the future. Do you want to print your spells out in a list instead of on cards, well it is coming.  For the GM's he is working on random spellbooks. He will be giving the alpha version a facelift and improving the controls before officially launching it, but you can use the alpha version now if you would like. Additionally it adds 10 Pathfinder Player Companion sources, 10 Pathfinder Campaign Setting sources, and 20 Pathfinder Adventure Paths as sources. If you are using these sources, this would probably be the better way to go because filling in the custom cards will take quite a while.

Amazing Resource! If you have a caster class, you should check this one out!!

Extra Downloads Available on Paizo for Beginner's Box

I just wanted to highlight the different resources that Paizo is providing for extension of the beginner box. These are free downloads available on Paizo @ Beginner Box and Resources.

Original Beginners Box(Not the Items for Download)

The Different free downloads are:

Beginner Box Player Pack

• Has a new class, the barbarian and the layout is just like the beginner box.
• Expansion of class options from the beginner box: Cleric Options, Fighter Options, Rogue Options, Wizard Options, additional feats, and more gear.

GM Kit

• New Adventure
• New Monsters
• Magic Items
• Some explanation on using published adventures

Transition Guide

• If you get a new beginner box this was already included. You can download it for free though

Beginner Box Bash Demos

• Very short 2 page scenarios for 1st level characters meant to be demos
• 4 included scenarios

Character Sheet

• PDF copy of the character sheets from the beginner box

Pregenerated Characters

• 1st level copies of the included pregeneraged characters from the Beginners Box

Everything else on the page costs money...

These are all additional resources to expand on the Beginners Box. How can one complain about free products.