The Other Side blog

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Skylla: Pathfinder Witch

I have been playing around more with Pathfinder and the witch class from the Advanced Player's Guide.
So the Pathfinder witch has come up here before,

Now I have some more hours playing a Pathfinder witch logged I feel like I am getting a better feel for her. So far I do like the class more than I initially did. But there still some things about it that are not particularly "witch-like" to me. For starters I don't like how covens are handled at all. And there is no ritual magic to speak of.

There is a lot of things I want to do with the Pathfinder witch. I think there is a lot of potential here. Some things I can live with, others I might need to re-write. Many things I can fix with a suitable skill choice, a feat here or there and some old-fashioned roleplaying. Case in point here is Skylla as a Pathfinder witch.

Skylla in Pathfinder
The Pathfinder Witch gives Skylla the chance to try out a different repertoire of spells. Since care was given to make sure there was not a lot of overlap in the Witch and Wizard spells in Pathfinder. Her Patron gives her access to some "divine" like spells which is a nice touch. Given her background I thought Deception would be nice, but I could have picked Wisdom as well.
I went with the Hero Lab version to focus on the materials that are just from the Pathfinder books.
Pathfinder also allows me to detail her skills a bit better and give her some background traits.

She stacks up nicely to her other counterparts, though more spells and powers.

Skylla

Female Human Witch 7
CE Medium humanoid (human)
Init +0; Senses Perception +3

Defense

AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 11 (+1 deflection)
hp 30 (7d6+1)
Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +6

Offense

Speed 30 ft.
Melee dagger -6 (1d4-1/19-20/×2) and
quarterstaff +2 (1d6-1/×2)
Special Attacks hexes (cackle, disguise [7 hours/day], misfortune [dc 15], slumber [dc 15])
Witch Spells Prepared (CL 7th; concentration +9):
4th (1/day)—scrying (DC 16)
3rd (2/day)—tongues, arcane sight
2nd (4/day)—invisibility, detect thoughts (DC 14), levitate, burning gaze
1st (5/day)—inflict light wounds (DC 13), hypnotism (DC 13), chill touch (DC 13), sleep (DC 13), charm person (DC 13)
0 (at will)—daze (DC 12), detect magic, light, read magic

Statistics

Str 9, Dex 11, Con 10, Int 15, Wis 12, Cha 11
Base Atk +3; CMB +2; CMD 13
Feats Arcane Strike, Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item, Deceitful, Spell Penetration
Traits magical talent, scholar of the great beyond
Skills Bluff +3, Diplomacy +1, Disguise +8, Fly +4, Heal +5, Intimidate +8, Knowledge (arcana) +12, Knowledge (nature) +7, Knowledge (planes) +8, Knowledge (religion) +4, Perception +3, Spellcraft +12, Stealth +2, Swim +0, Use Magic Device +4
Languages Abyssal, Common, Elven
SQ patron spells (deception)
Combat Gear Staff of charming; Other Gear Dagger, Quarterstaff, Ring of protection +1, 148 GP

Special Abilities

Arcane Strike As a swift action, add +1 damage, +1 per 5 caster levels and your weapons are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Cackle (Su) As a move action, extend the duration of other hexes by 1 rd.
Deliver Touch Spells Through Familiar (Su) Your familiar can deliver touch spells for you.
Disguise (7 hours/day) (Su) Can change own appearance, as disguise self but with longer duration.
Empathic Link with Familiar (Su) You have an empathic link with your Arcane Familiar.
Familiar Bonus: +3 to Appraise checks You gain the Alertness feat while your familiar is within arm's reach.
Magical Talent (Mage Hand) (1/day) (Sp) Choose one 0-level spell - it becomes a 1/day spell-like ability for you.
Misfortune (1 rd) (DC 15) (Su) Foe in 30 ft must take the lower of 2d20 for rolls (Will neg).
Share Spells with Familiar Can cast spells with a target of "You" on the familiar with a range of touch.
Slumber (7 rds) (DC 15) (Su) Foe in 30 ft falls asleep for duration, or until damaged or roused by ally (Will neg).
Speak with Animals (Ex) Your familiar can communicate with animals similar to itself.
Speak With Familiar (Ex) You can communicate verbally with your familiar.

Raven
Female Raven
CE Tiny magical beast (animal)
Init +2; Senses low-light vision; Perception +10

Defense

AC 18, touch 14, flat-footed 16 (+2 Dex, +2 size, +4 natural)
hp 15 (1d8-1)
Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +7

Offense

Speed 10 ft., fly 40 ft. (average)
Melee bite +7 (1d3-4/×2)
Space 2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.

Statistics

Str 2, Dex 15, Con 8, Int 9, Wis 15, Cha 7
Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 9
Feats Skill Focus (Perception), Weapon Finesse
Skills Bluff -1, Diplomacy -1, Disguise +4, Fly +10, Heal +3, Intimidate +3, Perception +10, Spellcraft +6, Stealth +15, Swim +6, Use Magic Device -1
Languages Abyssal
SQ improved evasion

Special Abilities

Flight (40 feet, Average) You can fly!
Improved Evasion (Ex) No damage on successful reflex save; half on failed save.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.

Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com Pathfinder® and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC®, and are used under license.

The Hexes are nice, I like how they work not just on paper but in game play too.
This version also forced me to think more about her skills than previous versions.

One thing for sure I am going to need to try out some more Pathfinder witches to get a proper feel of them.

Other Skylla writeups

The Odyssey

No. Not Homer's epic exactly. Well. there is an epic here. But let me get to that.

This Odyssey is an epic through the generations of video gaming consoles.
You can read more about over the Trollish Delver blog (also home of Trollish Delver Games).

In Odyssey you travel through the history of the gaming consoles, so each level is the next generation. The graphics get better and better and more difficult.

I played it a bit this morning instead of getting my Pathfinder post ready. It is fun and addictive.
But what I really liked was it's sense of history. Like old RPGs I also like old technology. One of my side projects is to get this older computer I am calling Son of Frankencomputer up an running and putting on a bunch of old computer and console emulators.

Odyssey is really a bit like a retro-clone. It emulates earlier modes of play, it just does it one step better than the OSR crowd by progressively getting better/more detailed. Though one could argue that while computer and console software has demonstrably gotten better over the years, RPGs maybe not as much. D&D Next for example might become the biggest "retro-clone" on the market.

In any case Odyssey captures the same spirit of the Old-School movement and for me that is enough.
It also happens to be fun. Which is important to me at least. It is epic in the sense that you have to pass through all the levels of video game generations to get to your goal.

Terrible time though for me to find a new video game. I need to be ready for Spring term by the end of this week!

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

New Poll

I have set up a new poll, the first of a few. I want to get a better idea what games everyone is playing.

This first pool is a simple D&D Editions one. Your choices are:

*D&D (B, 1, 2) or Retro-Clone (Original up to 2nd Ed, all clones fit here.)
D&D 3.x/Pathfinder
D&D 4
D&D 5/Next

You may choose multiple choices. Even that gives me some information.
You can expand on your choices here if you like. I am not interested at the moment in what you are *not* playing, but what you are playing.

The *D&D/Retro-Clone category is huge. Yes. But I am going to split that one out later.

So have it! Tell me what you are playing.

White Dwarf Wednesday #91

Daleks in Sombreros. oops sorry. Getting ahead of myself. I'll get back to this.

Headed into the deep summer of 1987 with White Dwarf #91. I can honestly say this is the first time I have ever flipped through this issue. This was not one of the ones I had in my collection I bought a few years back and had to later get. Not really sure if this was money well spent or not. I guess it completes my collection.

White Dwarf 91 does look different than its predecessors. Not just the "10" on the cover, but on the interior as well. I recall that Dragon was due to make some similar changes here around 1988-89 just prior to AD&D 2 being released. Here it is the herald of the "Warhammer Magazine".

This month's cover is Blood Royle by Chris Achilleos again. The date on it is 1986, but it doesn't seem quite up to his normal quality.

Mike Brunton is still our editor and he gives us another insight on how the magazine is made. Didn't we just do that?

Open Box covers Mayfair's DC Heroes' take on Watchmen. Sad as this is to admit, but I learned of Watchmen from this book. Hey, we had no comic book stores where I grew up, but I did have access to RPGs. It was an interesting take on the Moore's classic to say the least. Ah. Now I get the cover. It is the cover of the Blood Royal board game from GW. If you are one of those Grognards that believe all the ills that happened to AD&D can be blamed on Dragonlance then the review of the "Tales from the Last Inn" is for you. It confirms all your preconceived notions and fears; well at least for this book anyway. My recollection of this book is there is almost no game material in it and it instead focuses on Dragonlance^TM.
Book of Lairs II gets a mostly positive review. Interestingly there is a picture for the Egg of the Phoenix (one of the last pre-packaged modules I ever went through) but I can't find the review. I am sure I am not missing any pages.

Critical Mass is next with the list of what was hot in the summer of 1987. This is the sign of my turning away from Sci-fi and Fantasy; that is I have not read a single book mentioned. Each installment of Critical Mass had at least one book I had read, this one doesn't. I was sticking with Piers Anothony's Incarnations of Immortality out of some blind sense of duty or loyalty, but otherwise I was done with SciFi/Fantasy at this point. No my muse had become Lovecraft and Poe and soon Clark Ashton Smith.

As if on cue, "Ghosties & Ghoulies & ... Squid?" talks about the mythos behind the Cthulhu Mythos and the Call of Cthulhu game. In truth this article is much more needed now than it was then. A lot of so called "mythos" games are a thin pastiche of what Lovecraft wrote about. You can put tentacles on some horror and say it is Lovecraftian. It also takes the shine off of Lovecraft. I enjoyed his stories, but lets be honest here, he wasn't great. He has had lasting effect mostly I think because his stuff was so novel and struck a chord in people. It did with me. I think this article, or ones like it, need to be required reading for anyone attempting to play any game inspired by the Mythos or has Lovecraft's themes in it.

Moving on we get fumbles in Warhammer Fantasy. Reading it over it could be adapted to any game really.

David Langford gives us "Quotes for a Newer Testament" which is part story, part fluff and part post-apoc RPG background.

A Matter of Pride is a short D&D adventure for 6-8 characters 3rd to 5th level. It is actually a longer one and involves some NPCs, a goblin lair and an evil (chaotic actually) elf. And yes it is for D&D and not AD&D. While it reads like most other D&D adventures of the time it does seem to have a few new twists here and there. Might give this one a try. Since I am going to xerox the Lovecraft pages, might as well do these too.

Little Lost Warbot is a Paranoia adventure featuring the aforementioned Daleks in Sombreros. Let those words sink in a little. Or better yet look.

It is a really long adventure about finding a lost warbot, but honestly it looks like an excuse to blow up PCs and make silly Dalek jokes. Maybe I am old and bitter but I just don't get Paranoia anymore.

Nobelese covers Nobility and Royalty in Warhammer Fantasy. Mostly rules free, but certainly very much in the Warhammer world. It could be paired with some of the Nobility articles from the last few issues.

A Hard Act To Follow is a nice little guide to Law and Order in CoC games based in Great Britain.

Of interest is an ad for the Manual of the Planes. The art is a little different than what we got later on.
Of course we would have to wait till Planescape to get stats for that Astral Dreadnought.

'Eavy Metal gets 4 full color, bright pages. I can say this for sure the quality of printing is getting better since #89.

Moving on to a few ads I could not help but notice some art plagiarism in a Creations Unlimited ad.

These are things I notice. Sure they are not exactly the same to the point of tracing, but very close.
Goes to show how long this sort of thing has been going on (and yes even Gygax did it on the cover of the original D&D boxed set).

Blood in the Snow is a Warhammer Fantasy adventure for 2-4 players. 8 pages, so a decent size to be honest.

End with Letters, ads, classifieds and full page ads.

Quality is up as is page count, but I am finding less that hold my interest here. Crimony I am focusing stupid Daleks and art theft from 30 years ago.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Cancer Fundraiser for RetroRoleplaying

I have long been of the frame of mind that gamers, in general, are some of best people when it comes to helping others. Is it because our hobby is one of pure social interaction? Is it because we learn the value of helping each other out in the game very early one? Not sure why, I can only say I have seen it work.

One only needs to look no further than the fundraisers at DriveThruRPG for various disasters or even the Bad Myrmidon fundraiser. I have raised a little money myself for various charities.

So I wanted to let you know about another one that I think is worthy and not really getting the attention it deserves.

Randall over at RetroRoleplaying is raising some money to help treat his wife's cancer.
He is asking for donations, but he is giving away an absolute trove of treasures from the early days of gaming. It's insane the stuff he is parting with, but I would do the exact same thing.

So please. Go to his site. Donate what you can. It's Christmas after all.
How about this. Instead of that large coffee you get before work today or while doing your last minute Christmas shopping, you donate $5 to Randall's wife. Make her life a little better, and hopefully a little longer. Not trying to sound overly maudlin here, but this community has given so much for lesser reasons (myself included and especially) that maybe this also something we should do.

If everyone that reads this blog here, via Facebook or even Twitter gave something, well that would be great.

Start here:
http://blog.retroroleplaying.com/2013/11/holiday-2013-cancer-fund-drive-with.html
http://www.retroroleplaying.com/content/retroroleplaying-cancer-fund-special-downloads
http://blog.retroroleplaying.com/2013/12/holiday-cancer-fund-drive-17-away-from.html

I can't promote this one enough.

Monday, December 16, 2013

To Stranger Skies

I have been watching, but not participating in (yet, see below) Bruce Heard's World of Calidar Kickstarter.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ambreville/world-of-calidar

I will be honest, it looks fantastic and it should be a lot of fun. But I was going to wait for the PDF since I never feared that he would get to his goals. Plus I am trying to cut back on my Kickstarter addiction.

Bruce is a great guy and I have been a fan of his work since the Glantri Gazetteer first came out. So I know this is going to be a good one. Thorfinn Tait is doing the maps. If you don't know Thorf, well he has been doing maps for Mystara's fan community for decades; going all the way back to the MYSTARA-L list on MPGN.net.

I changed my mind this past weekend. I was going through a stack of old notes and sheets for a different project that I found my old Spelljammer characters. I say Spelljammer, but we never quite got that far. The idea was loosly based on Star Trek and they characters all started on ship that would eventually get to the stars. All the characters were officers so even the 1st level wizard began as a 3rd level fighter. It was going to be something very, very different than what I had done in the past. But the realities of college life got in the way and we never got all that far with it. I have no idea if my DM at the time even did anything else with it. I think he did. The game was going to be predominantly on the shared Mystoerth world my DM and I had.

There had been games that have arisen in the past that made me think back to that old game, but this is the first that has made want to try it out again.

World of Calidar is set up to be "edition neutral" so really I could use anything with it.
So I am going to support this one. I'll look for a good edition to try it with too. I'll admit I am tempted to do this with 2nd Ed AD&D or Adventures Dark & Deep.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Saw the Hobbit

I saw the Hobbit yesterday and I enjoyed it. I was not expecting the book, but I do think some of the changes were a bit too much.

I consider myself a huge Tolkien fan. I have read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings 12-14 times over the last 30 years. I have read the Silmarillion a couple of times and I loved it. Really. I have read many of the lost tales, the Tolkien Reader and tons of his works. So I am approaching this as a fan.

Spoilers follow.

I liked the bits with Gandalf at Dol Guldur, that was all in the Lord of the Rings and expanded tales, so I am 100% fine with that.
The CGI didn't bother me. In fact Smaug looked fantastic.
I liked the addition of Tauriel. Yeah she was not in the books, but I don't care.

But the movie was too long and some of the things added to the movie had no real benefit.
In many ways the movie was exactly like the giant golden dwarf statue in the movie. Large, overwrought, a monument to excess and ultimately ineffective.

So in the end I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted, but it was still a lot of fun.