And in other HERO LAB news

The new Pathfinder Beginner Box came out a few months back.

The Pathfinder Beginner Box @ Piazo: this is a quick 'out of the box' version of the Pathfinder game. Up to fifth level. It comes with a 'New Gamer' style guide for the players (the Hero's Handbook) and another for the GM (Gamemaster's Guide), a full set of dice, several sheets of heavy stock figures for use, several pregen characters to play with right out of the box.

If you got someone who is interested in starting off, it's sorta like the old classic D&D 'Red' book from back in the day, without the need to color the dice with a crayon.

Well the grand folks at Lone Wolf Productions added their two bits to the mix as well. For those who want to try out Hero Lab Beginner's Box edition. It has limited options, naturally, but you can make characters up to 5th level with the Beginner's box options. Not a LOT of stuff, but still it's a good way to test the waters on seeing if you like the Hero Lab program. And it's FREE!!

A new year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Let's see.. the day before christmas Blizzard did give to me.... a BETA Invite to Diablo III!!!!

Talk about a black hole where time simply disappears into. I'm split between the Demon Hunter (the female model looks nice) and the Barbarian (Male version gives me a Ron Pearlman vibe) with his lovely nasty poison dot-ing axe o' axe.

Then on New Years.. the lovely folks at Lone Wolf Development gave me..

AN INVITE to the Hero Lab for the Mac BETA!!!!

A small hassle getting the secondary license to work, but it was pretty good feedback from the grand folks at Lone Wolf Development. (Happy New Year to you folks). Plug in the secondary license and BAM.. all my stuff works on the Mac beta!

iPad Gaming Fun (redux)

Okay, I'm going to come clean. I'm stumped on what I want to do with the bartenders idea, so I'm working them before I post them.

However, I realized last night that I have a LOT of stuff RPG-wise on my iPad. I was looking over it and realized just HOW useful a tool for players and GMs it can be.

Let's see... Here is my iPad's RPG tool menu/folder. We can start off with some of the stuff I haven't discussed before. Battle Maps has been talked about before, so we'll skip it.

Starting off with OFFICIAL goodies from Paizo (one of my favorite publishers as you can tell by now, and  an example I think MORE game publishers should look into)

The Critical Hit/Fumble Decks are 10.99 each (currently they are 'as found' since Paizo hasn't reprinted the run I think). The iCrit and iFailure apps are the SAME things and set up by the publisher themselves. You (or the GM) can simply pick out the category, tap the app and get instant results.  Another plus.. they are like 1.99 each.



Then there is the PF Reference App. It's sort of an indexed version of the Pathfinder Reference Document you can get online. The advantages are that you got a bookmarked, indexed and searchable version that doesn't require online access. It's updatable by in App purchases, and while cheap, some folks might not be too interested in putting the money aside for something you can get for free. If you have web access (and who doesn't have wi-fi these days?), you can do the same right from the website without paying a penny.







Then there is all those PDFs you can get from folks like Drivethrurpg (my drug fix of choice online) but Paizo is another good PDF source. You can put all your game manuals, sourcebooks, maps, and other PDFs in iBooks and even organize them.

Starting off, it's fairly each to load. You just open your folder, click and drag into iTunes and synch to your iPad (or iPhone/iPod if you like to squint).

After you synch, it's easy enough to organize the PDFs (and even epubs) by collection as you can see from the example that I put up from my own.

Pluses: I can click on things at a touch, sort by category and carry  LOTS of books with a small lightweight tablet.

Cons: Well for one, not all PDFs are created equal. Some won't work properly in iBooks, mostly personally created PDFs from various websites. Almost ALL commercial pdfs work right and those that don't are typically updated quickly. As of right now I have ONE adventures path map pack that will NOT display on the iPad, but it has some fairly rare options that aren't typically used. (Like the ability to switch between GM and Player maps with a click) and I expect that as iBooks get the occasional update it will eventually be able to display them.

Other grouses include not being able to use the table of contents (when available), search, and highlight PDFs. You can bookmark it though, so that is something. In BIG books, I typically bookmark each chapter start.

All in all, iBooks tends to be the best of the PDF viewing options that I have seen on the iPad among the PDF viewers that I've seen/used. The fact that is the most STABLE of them is another factor. A lot of the others tend to be unstable, crash prone or outright SLOW. Ungodly slow in some cases.

I would LOVE to have the folks at Abode to put together their own app but I think they are on strike or something. I am sure the folks who created the PDF format would be the best at making an app that could most easily use all the features of the format.

And lastly for the moment.

The Black Library app is put out by the folks at Black Libary, who do a LOT of books set in the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K settings. This covers a HUGE variety of games from RPGs like Warhammer Fantasy RP, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch and the upcoming Black Crusade. The other side is the world famous tabletop Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k tactical games.

Black Libary does fiction that ties into ANY of these. I've seen all sorts of things in the app's store and while their 'samples' section isn't too broad, they have LOTS of books on hand. I'd personally love to be able to download old White Dwarf Mags but this is a nice thing anyway since it lets you get fiction set in the genre and setting. (Fun note: The Warhammer fiction on Amazon's Kindle store seems to be mostly plagarized fiction stolen from fan sites. Be warned.)

I would like to see stuff like this come up. The Kindle (and other book vendors like B&N and Nook Apps) recently lost the ability to shop within the App. While not a big issue, this sort of thing would be nice to see.


One of the perks of the iPad is the relatively cheap cost of the apps (most expensive app I've seen in the store is something on the order of 200 bucks, but it was a medical app.) There are lots of 'sheet aps' to hold characters, and a few of them look interesting but I haven't bought them because they don't tie to a system out there that I use a lot. The big trick is to learn how to do your 'search-fu' in the App store since they can be located under a variety of options. Games, Productivity, Books and so on.  'RPG' and such doesn't lead them and you can get a LOT of stuff that doesn't apply.

Apologies.

Sorry about the delays. School has introduced me to my nemesis, Accounting 204. This is without a doubt the worse course I've had to date. I spend a day on Networking 230, save the discussion posts, and the rest of the week on six problems assigned for the accounting class.

I am coming up on the final week of the class and hopefully my drive and vigor for the blog will return then. :D

Bear with me folks. I'm trying to think of some interesting things to put up.

We BE Goblins!!!

Paizo has a serious Goblin fixation. There is a goblin on each of the bestiary covers so far, and they are big into the whole look of them. I like it.

So, this month they put out a free module for Free RPG Day coming up. Check it out. It's a quick one shot adventure that is both fun, silly and interesting. It comes with 4 pregenerated Goblin PCs.

Wayfinder by Paizo Fans United

Just a quick post and hotlink.

Paizo Fans United: The fans who got together and made up Wayfinder, the fanzine that Paizo lets you download for free! It's amazing that fans do this on their own, for free! Check it out, it's the best fracking value for your dollar. Oh wait! You don't GIVE THEM YOUR DOLLAR!

See? It's already a good value!

Gamer's Rant: New Editons that shouldn't have been

Warning: The following are the opinions of the person running this blog (me) and no one else. If you disagree, good.. you're entitled to your opinion and I've got a right to mine. I sorry if I offend some folks.. but this is a rant.. fueled by several coronas and someone I know using 'logic' to tell me why I'm 'wrong' about several game systems.

1. Cyberpunk 203X: Sorry Mike Pondsmith, but you totally jumped the shark on this one. You had gamers waiting waiting YEARS for a game that was not anything like it's predecessors. Rache Bartmoss destroys the NET? No one knows what year it is? There is NOTHING reliable about any part of history? Everything everywhere has been changed and without books to backstop things, everything is in question in history. Sorry.. I bought the PDF when it came out, spent six hours reading it..and almost cried.

2. D&D 4e: The bad signs, to me, were the way the core book mangled multiclassing, alignments and went straight to the 'MMORP' outlook. (Tank, Healer, Blaster roles; 'enchanting dust' and such). Then the roll back in alignments and the total elimination of the old spell system, which was flawed I will agree, with a 'daily/combat use' talent set up. ("Oh no..shouldn't have used that fireball earlier.. it's only 1/day now")

Granted, I know that as an old school player dating back to the late 70s, I'm not one of the 'core demographics' that Wizards/Hasbro were aiming for. The total destruction of the 'official' DnD content that came before it and the death of Dragon/Dungeon Magazines as a dead tree publication has a lot to do with my ire as well. Almost every other game system that has been updated in the last few years still sells PDFs of their old content. Good luck trying to do that LEGALLY with Dungeon and Dragons Pre-4e. It's all gone.

4. Shadowrun 4e: Mostly I like the history update. The whole 'wireless revolution' is cool but the downgrade of skills and the addition of more attributes is a bit harsh in my opinion. Other than that it's still the rush of the mystic and tech, runaway culture shock and all the crunchy bits of cyberpunk gaming I like.

5. World of Darkness: Okay.. the Old World of Darkness had it's warts, I will be the first to admit it. Crossovers between systems? Not too good. (Vampire: "Die Were!" Were: "Blargh! I Rage, eat aggravated damage and this VW bus.") But on their own, each was good, especially when you had a GM who set the rules, made the calls on what you could and couldn't play, and knew how to play the Xanatos Gambit on the players. I still miss Mage and Vampire Games.

New WoD not so much fun. (Again.. my opinion.. lots of my buds love them, have fun guys, I'm waiting for the 20th anniversary edition of Vamp:Masquerade and pray that it leads to a Mage anniversary editon down the line)

Coming later on when I calm down and think things through a bit..

Games that were unfairly killed by the license owners.

My Sources

It just occurred to me that my resources for Pathfinder are a bit more extensive than some GMs might have. (I got probably something like 80%+ of the campaign setting books.

I currently use:

1.Pathfinder Core

2. Bestiary 1 & 2, as well as the bonus bestiary from the Paizo site

3. Advanced Player's Guide

4. Ultimate Magic

5. Player's Guides for: Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Council of Theives, Kingmaker, Serpent's Skull, Carrion Crown (All free btw)

6. Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to the River Kingdoms, Cities of Golarion, City of Strangers, Classic Treasures Revisited, Faction Guide, NPC Guide, Seekers of Secrets, Gazetteer, Guide to Korvosa, Classic Monsters Revisited

7. Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea World Guide, Lost Cities of Golarion, Rule of Fear

8. Pathfinder Companion: Adventurer's Armory, Andoran: Spirit of Liberty, Cheliax: Empire of Devils, Dwarves of Golarion, Gnomes of Golarion, Qadira, Halflings of Golarion, Inner Sea Primer, Orcs of Golarion, Faiths of Purity.

This doesn't include things like the Iconic downloads or any of the various beta tests they put on their site. Or the Pathfinder SRD or Golarion Wiki.

'The Bartender is a what?' Part 2: Haladen 'Hal' Laroe

Balding with a bit of a paunch, Hal looks like your typical barman. He looks to be nearly 10 years younger than his actual age(60). Of note, he walks with a limp and favors his right leg.

Location: Small village in Ustalav where he grew up before heading out to adventure. After losing his left leg below the knee in a fight in with a trio of lycantropes. Healed by his party cleric, Hal was given a metal leg and enough funds to set up his inn (The Orge's Head) and quietly retired and became a preist of Cayden Cailean.

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HALADEN 'HAL' LAROE CR 7

Male Human (Varisian) Cleric 7 Fighter 1

CG Medium Humanoid (Human)

Init +1; Senses Perception +12

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DEFENSE

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AC 15, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (+4 armor, +1 Dex)

hp 46 (1d10+7d8+8)

Fort +8, Ref +3, Will +9

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OFFENSE

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Spd 20 ft.

Melee +1 Consecrated, Holy Rapier +8/+3 (1d6+2/18-20/x2) and

+1 Mace, Light +8/+3 (1d6+2/20/x2) and

Unarmed Strike +7/+2 (1d3+1/20/x2)

Spell-Like Abilities Strength Surge (7/day), Touch of Good (7/day)

Cleric Spells Known (CL 7, 7 melee touch, 7 ranged touch):

4 (2/day) Spell Immunity, Holy Smite (DC 18), Neutralize Poison

3 (3/day) Magic Vestment, Magic Circle against Evil, Create Food and Water, Daylight

2 (4/day) Bull's Strength (DC 16), Hold Person (DC 16), Hold Person (DC 16), Suppress Charms and Compulsions, Zone of Truth (DC 16)

1 (5/day) Bless Water (DC 15), Bless, Command (DC 15), Sanctuary (DC 15), Pick Your Poison, Sun Metal (DC 15)

0 (at will) Purify Food and Drink (DC 14), Detect Poison, Stabilize, Light

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TACTICS

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Before Combat He can cast Bless, Bull's Strength and Magical Vestments if he has time to prepare for a fight

During Combat He uses Holy Smite, Sun Metal and Channeling Positive energy to help allies or disrupt undead that he typically has to deal with.

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STATISTICS

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Str 13, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 17

Base Atk +6; CMB +7; CMD 18

Feats Catch Off-Guard, Combat Casting, Extra Channel, Improved Channel, Improved Unarmed Strike, Quick Channel

Skills Diplomacy +11, Heal +9, Knowledge: Local +11, Knowledge: Religion +14, Perception +12, Profession: Barkeep +13, Profession: Innkeeper +13, Sense Motive +13, Spellcraft +12

Languages Common, Dwarven, Orc, Skald, Varisian

SQ Aura (Ex), Channel Positive Energy 4d6 (8/day) (DC 18) (Su), Cleric Domain: Good, Cleric Domain: Resolve, Spontaneous Casting, Tankard of the Drunken Hero

Combat Gear +1 Consecrated, Holy Rapier, +1 Mace, Light, +2 Leather; Other Gear Acolyte Ale (5), Blue Priest (5), Tankard of the Drunken Hero

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SPECIAL ABILITIES

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Aura (Ex) The Cleric has an aura corresponding to his deity's alignment.

Catch Off-Guard Proficient with improvised melee weapons. Unarmed opponents are flat-footed against your improvised weapons.

Channel Positive Energy 4d6 (8/day) (DC 18) (Su) A good cleric can channel positive energy to heal the living and injure the undead; an evil cleric can channel negative energy to injure the living and heal the undead.

Cleric Domain: Good Granted Powers: You have pledged your life and soul to goodness and purity.

Cleric Domain: Resolve Associated Domain: Strength

Combat Casting +4 to Concentration checks to cast while on the defensive.

Improved Unarmed Strike Unarmed strikes don't cause attacks of opportunity, and can be lethal.

Quick Channel Channel energy faster by expending more uses

Spontaneous Casting The Cleric can convert stored spells into Cure or Inflict spells.

Strength Surge (7/day) (Sp) Grant +3 to a melee atack or strength check.

Tankard of the Drunken Hero This simple battered tankard is usually made of copper or tin. Its handle is slightly open at the bottom to let you slip it through a belt for easy carrying. You gain a +1 resistance bonus on Fortitude and Will saves. Once per day you may fill it with wine, ale, or some other alcohol and drink from it to gain the benefits of a remove fear spell.

If Cayden Cailean is your patron, the tankard counts as a holy symbol. Once per day, you may drink an alcoholic beverage from the tankard to gain the benefits of a heroism spell. Once per day, the tankard automatically unties ropes that bind you or unlocks locks that hinder you (including loosening manacles attached to said locks). This typically occurs about 5 minutes after the tying or unlocking and only affects bindings that are directly on your person (for example, it won't unlock a door to your prison cell but will unlock your manacles). This power is subtle enough that it is unnoticeable unless someone checks the bindings to make sure they are secure - ropes loosen but still appear to be tightly bound, manacles unlock and loosen but do not automatically fall off. The tankard can only untie or unlock things with a DC of 25 or lower, though more powerful tankards may exist.

Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, animate rope, heroism, knock, remove fear, resistance; Cost 2,650 gp

Touch of Good (7/day) (Sp) Grant +3 to skill checks, ability checks and saving throws for 1r.

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BASIC DETAILS

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Motivations & Goals To spread cheer and instill hope in the folk of his village and the surrounding area. He listens to rumors and stories, and discretely slips folks coin to investigate things for him.

Schemes, Plots & Adventure Hooks -Recover his stolen leg

-Investigate a tomb in the local swamp.

Boon Free healing to those who are willing to give him a helpful hand.

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.

Battlemap App!

Battlemap: This is a map I literally drew in like 15 minutes using Battlemap on my iPad. You can do all sorts of things with this app. Output the map to a TV/Monitor using the iPad video connector, set it up so the players see/move on a 'cloud of war' style map. A built in dice roller. Adding (and scaling) custom markers from other sources. (very helpful since it's not got a large library)

Still trying to figure out how to export the raw map to a computer and not just keep it to the app.