@JohnCraven I heard you were looking for players in a Seattle-based FATE game! I'd love to play if that comes together, albeit I'm only really available for any length of time on weekends these days...
Having written a post on 13th Age, I'm now considering writing another one... on a single monster in that system. The Peculiar Case of the Owlbear. Am I insane?.. It'd be a vehicle to explore monster design, of course, but still.
A thousand words (I can't seem to write less) on a single monster with a single ability: on a crit it tears off your limb and wanders off. That's it :D
@Magician And no one could ever accuse it of being irrelephant.
Owlbearlephant would have hind legs, trunk and tusks of an elephant, front body of a bear, and a beak of an owl. Needs more owl. Hm. Wings instead of ears, just to complete the image?
So, Wikipedia says "Inspired by a plastic toy made in Hong Kong, Gary Gygax created the owlbear..." and cites the Dragon Magazine 88 article "Ecology of the Rust Monster," republished in Dragon Magazine 346.
This sounds reasonable.
Except that although the account in Dragon Magazine 346 mentions the owlbear, it's clear that the plastic toy it's talking about is the inspiration for the rust monster. It's possible that the owlbear was inspired the same way, but it is not stated in that article.
So I went and looked up Dragon 88. The account isn't in that article at all.
And the Dragon 346 article doesn't actually say it's quoting from 88 anyway.
So this Wiki citation is wrong both about what its source says and where its source comes from originally, because of very sloppy reading of the source.
@BESW You know, I've gotta admit. An owlbear is basically just a big ol' bear, but I would think twice about attacking the sort of nightmare fuel that makes up an owlephant.
So, now to make a half-dragon version of it to provide it with wingslap and tailslap. Then cross-breed it with a bullette, and it will appear out of the ground.
The storm is slowing down, veering north, and getting more coherent.
The slower it gets the stronger it gets and the more likely it is to come back east over us. Even if it just slows down or stops to the west we'll get battered.
as I recall, the worst one we had (that we have recorded) didn't kill anyone
true
knocks out power and water often enough
floods
we have been due one for a while though
and overall, I think even though we have not had one in a while, the people who live here have gotten pretty good at damage control for these storms
I think it's "possible" though I admit not at all certain, that we have had the time it takes to get power and water back, to at least some places, cut down significantly by the sheer number of times it has happened
and I am pretty sure not many if any people die as a direct result, which is the most important thing
Our typhoon-related deaths are based on People Doing Dumb Things, like running the generator inside the house so it doesn't get wet, or going surfing in the eye of the storm.
The longest I ever had the power stay out was the most recent big storm--three months.
How to write a short story? [closed]
I and some friends are determined to try for this winter the following game format:
rotation of GM
single campaign per session
one session per week-end
moderate length sessions e.g. 6 hours not counting the breaks
try out different story styles i.e. from hi...
> @BrianBallsun-Stanton, reasons include to let other people try out GM-ing, try out different genres, to make the group size and composition flexible and to prevent story grind - wast winter our campaign started becoming more and more mundane as in "now do that quest that you gave your word on 15 years ago" or "you are STILL lost in the woods, no food, nop" – Vorac 14 mins ago
Basically, I want to know 1) can it work 2) how to structure the time, without this I fear we will never finish a story line and 3) how to efficiently generate characters
Are you expecting to use just one system for all the sessions?
Because most of your questions have very different answers based on the system you'll be using.
Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple is designed for single-session games.
D&D of any edition is not.
Fate Accelerated Editions is good for it, but not entirely ideal.
And the reason each of those systems is better or worse for single-session campaigns is a combination of (among other things) their character creation rules, and the kind of story and story arcs they're designed to support.
If you'll be using the Roll For Shoes system, a question about character creation becomes meaningless.
what I imagine the experience like is "Hey, lets gather, get some beer/coffee and tell a short story. The kind of story that one would read in a book of short stories or in a blog."
and am therefore leaning towards system-less
but ... maybe GURPS? or some * extremely simple * fully generic system
But the mechanics of the system are pretty cool and I think they could be genericized pretty easily.
At the very least, Do is a good thing to look at in terms of learning what is reasonable to expect out of a single-session story.
Single-session stories need to be very very simple.
Exactly how simple is going to depend a great deal on the group and the system.
A D&D session is usually two to four encounters. A Fate session could easily be twice that, and thus have at least half again as much complexity in its storyline.
Do has a good method of delineating the scope of a story at the outset of a session, and then providing a clear physical mechanic for limiting the amount of time the story takes to tell.
> If religion and faith are the causes of enmity and sedition, it is far better to be nonreligious, and the absence of religion would be preferable; for we desire religion to be the cause of amity and fellowship. If enmity and hatred exist, irreligion is preferable. (source)
So I have a pathfinder cleric I built for crafting. Using a spell I get due to a domain I get a + 25 on my craft at lvl 5 I also automatically get a + 2 (+7 using spell) on any craft I have.
How 'broken' is that considering I will be the crafter of the group? I am also taking all of the enchanting feats.
@Aaron Static bonus feat, can you name the feat and sourcebook for me?
And any restrictions the granting ability places on it?
[sighs, opens up Pathfinder PDFs purchased one time while drunk]
It would appear the Craft domain grants crafted items +4 hardness and +10 HP at level 5, as well as a +2 sacred bonus to Craft checks from Perfectionist (which probably doesn't stack with the +2 sacred bonus to Craft checks you can grant using Touch of the Craftsman).
Because you have to take it once for each Craft (subskill) you want to apply it to, as "Craft is actually a number of separate skills." (CRB 91, Craft description)
Making it Skill Focus (Craft (armor)) or what have you.
Skill Focus also adds a +3 bonus, not a +2 bonus, and the bonus increases to +6 at 10 ranks in the skill.
Touch of the Craftsman grants a +L/2 sacred bonus, and Perfectionist grants a +L/2 sacred bonus, and as a general rule bonuses of the same type don't stack. You could grant your bonus to other creatures 3 + WIS times per day, but applying it to yourself is futile.
So you have a total of +19 to Craft (weapons), increasing to +24 with the casting of crafter's fortune... And you have a +6 modifier to any Craft skill you have no ranks in, plus +4 to +8 with ranks, leading to a total of +10 at one rank or +14 at five ranks, before crafter's fortune.
Oh, but conditional modifiers! "All crafts require artisan’s tools to give the best chance of success. If improvised tools are used, the check is made with a –2 penalty. On the other hand, masterwork artisan’s tools provide a +2 circumstance bonus on the check."
> Check: You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning half your check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work (13+(1d20/2) gp/week if you make swords and flails, 6.5+(1d20/2) gp/week if you're selling these fine leather jackets). You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the craft’s daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and how to handle common problems.
@Aaron Either way, you're only making as much as your skill allows, plus what luck dictates.
Due to the nature of crafting, you can only create a certain amount of product over a certain span of time, and it would seem that you make as much profit from selling affordable bog-standard items as you do charging a bundle for the finest, perhaps because lower selling price mean higher volume of sales.
@Metool Hmm. I need to look more into crafting. I was under the impression that the higher the roll the faster you crafted thus. Under that assumption I was either going to mass produce cheap items or try to quickly make expensive items. I will read the craft more in depth though.
Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week’s worth of work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. **If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in one-half or onethird of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.** If the result × the DC doesn’t equal the price, then it represents the progress
It didn't work that time
This is what I was trying to point out @Metool If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in one-half or onethird of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.
100 gp of materials, plus let's say 2 gp for the base materials for a handaxe, for total 102 gp worth of material components for a product that goes on the market for 151 gp, meaning 49 gp of profit per unit.
For the masterwork component, each week, roll Craft (weapons) (let's say 26+10.5 for an average of 36.5), DC 20 (can't fail this one), then multiply your check result by the DC (average 730). Repeat each week until you have a total of 3000 (4.1 weeks, or about a month).
@Metool The real kick in the balls about daily vs weekly is the daily you use copper instead of silver meaning the goal is x10 but your average is only x7
You make checks as per week, but divide the result of that day's check by the number of days in a week.
Anyway, you can add +10 to the DC to increase masterworking speed by 50% but introduce a 15% chance of no progress for that interval.
You may freely rush the basic handaxe (DC 15+10 for a total of 25, can't fail that if you have basic artisan's tools or better), 25*36.5 for 912.5 sp of progress per week on a 60 sp item, or in a 7-day week 130.4 sp per day, meaning about two handaxes per day.
You can quickly make an average of 15 basic handaxes a week, spending 30 gp on materials and selling them for 45 gp, for an average of 15 gp profit per week.
Or you can make 51 gp in four weeks, which is not as much.
Either way, you're not doing any better than the average of 18 gp, 2 sp, 5 cp making simple Craft checks each week.
> Skilled Work: If you have ranks in a useful skill, you can spend 1 day working in a settlement to earn capital. Note that this method includes both legal and illegal means of earning capital—for example, a day spent using Sleight of Hand to earn money could be a day spent performing as a street magician or a day spent pickpocketing.
Choose either one type of capital (Goods, Influence, Labor, or Magic) or gp, and attempt a skill check. You can take 10 on this check (for 36).
If you chose gp, divide the result of your check by 10 to determine how many gp you earn that day. For example, if your check result is a 36, dividing it by 10 earns you 3 gp and 6 sp that day (round to the nearest silver).
If you chose Goods, Influence, Labor, or Magic, by paying 10, 15, 10 or 50 gp (respectively) for every 10 points in your check, gain 1 of that kind of capital. You should be using an appropriate skill for the kind of capital (craft weapons being Goods).
15% chance for buying up to 2 Goods in a day, 50% chance for buying up to 3 Goods that day, 35% chance of buying 4 Goods that day, for 10 gp each.
Goods (as capital) are an abstraction so that you don't need to keep track of gathering things like stones for a building's foundation, timber for the walls, ingredients for the menu, and so on.
Although you can't sell a Goods unit, you can use it as 20 gp of payment toward any applicable downtime activity that requires you to spend gp.
But key is "At the GM's discretion, you may affect any activity you have in the settlement (downtime or otherwise) by spending capital. In general, every 1 point of capital spent allows you to add a +1 bonus on one skill check (maximum +5). The capital spent must reasonably affect that kind of check."
I'm gonna go make a deposit now. Best of luck in your artificing antics, @Aaron.
@Zachiel btw thanks again for pointing me towards the .it play by forum, so far so good, although not joined anything, early days and awaiting replies
hhmmm...oh yea @Aaron wanted to say, have you checked out psyren? I can tell you that the manga is the best I've ever read, hopefully the anime is good too.
And I strongly advise tengen toppa: gurren lagan! If you like robots and ridonculous things, you shall enjoy
evening @C.Ross
I feel rather rude, but I only broke in to post a line or two, and shall have to abandon after having ransacked and looted all. Ta ta!
How to write a short story? [closed]
I and some friends are determined to try for this winter the following game format:
rotation of GM
single campaign per session
one session per week-end
moderate length sessions e.g. 6 hours not counting the breaks
try out different story styles i.e. from hi...
