I was recently chatting with some chums about characters and their backgrounds. In my Shattered Star campaign about half the players have created background for their characters while half have not.
Continue reading Player Advice: 3 Reasons to Have a Character Background
In March, Raging Swan Press started a Patreon campaign. The campaign has been wildly successful and I’m delighted with its progress.
Our patrons’ support has transformed how Raging Swan Press pays its freelance designers. I’m very proud of our enhanced pay rates. I love paying our freelancers a decent wage (and I suspect they also love getting it as well).
However, I’ve also noticed the Patreon campaign has had a couple of unexpected (positive) side effects for me.
Our freelancers are much keener to work with us. This is great as it means I have to spend less time chasing designers, begging them to fit us into their schedule and so on . Often when a freelancer finishes a job, they ask for another one. This is epic as it saves me time, hassle and stress.
For example, at time of writing (early November 2015) I have scheduled and contracted every Raging Swan Press product through to the end of April 2016. Previously, I was probably working—if I was lucky—three months ahead.
The turnovers I’m receiving are getting better and better. The text is tighter, more focused and they require less editing than before (in the main). This is great as it saves me time and increases the quality of our finished products.
I’m writing more. I suspect this is because I have more time. At the start of the year, I was struggling to spend any meaningful time writing. That sucked as the joy of creation was why I founded Raging Swan Press in the first place.
However, this year I’ve written:
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of these products released after our Patreon campaign started. In any event, my output is a huge improvement on last year. Looking ahead it seems next year will be even better. I can’t wait as I’m mad keen to get back to Gloamhold and the Duchy of Ashlar!
I’d be delighted if you wanted to learn more about Raging Swan’s Patreon campaign (and perhaps join up). Doing so means you get our books before they go on general release and you get them cheaper than normal as well! In return, your support enables us to pay our freelancers better than ever before.
And if you are a publisher, I highly recommend you set up your own Patreon–and if you do, leave a note below so I can come and check it out!
I’m pretty sure you know what a postmortem is and why they are carried out. Normally only carried out when something has gone wrong—perhaps someone dies unexpectedly, a project fails spectacularly or some device or another has a perceived design flaw. Post-mortems are reactive in nature; we only do them when something has already gone wrong.
Continue reading Publisher Advice: Why You Should Perform a Premortem on Your Projects
Rather marvellously, my Borderland of Adventure campaign has just hit a significant milestone – we’ve now been playing for two whole (real) years.
Continue reading Borderland of Adventure: Two Years on the Borderlands
Sometimes, the dice hate you. Sometimes, the dice love you. But, there is no worse time to suffer the capricious whims of the dice than during character generation. Believe me, I know.
Pathfinder is a complicated game. We rely on dice to determine many facets of the game, but for many of these situations situational modifiers and player skill can hugely affect the die roll.
However, this isn’t the case during character generation. In character generation, you are pretty much stuck with what you roll. Here player skill counts for naught.
If you don’t get great stats, it can be tempting to declare the character hopeless and re-roll. However, very few characters are truly hopeless. There is nothing wrong with playing a character with sub-optimal statistics. (Assuming you are not at a table where everyone is super-optimised). My first ever character had a Charisma 3. Admittedly, that’s not exactly a huge problem for a fighter, but it still defined a large part of his personality and backstory. For me, it made him more memorable. (It also made hiring henchmen and hirelings quite tricky later on, but I love a challange!)
Assuming you are going to stick with your stats, it doesn’t mean you (or your character) are necessarily doomed. Follow the notes below, to generate your character:
The better your stats the more options you have during character generation. Some classes—like monk—require several decent stats to shine.
However, you’ll noticed in the list below several character classes only really require one primary requisite. Of course, every character wants a high Constitution and Dexterity, but they don’t necessarily need them. Not having high numbers in these stats is not exactly a death knell (but it can make life tricky).
Looking at the list above it’s clear bards, druids, fighters, rogues, sorcerers and wizards all only really require one statistic to play to the class’s strength. Simply stick your highest statistic in that ability.
It’s also handy to put some of your best scores in Dexterity and Constitution as these boost your character’s defences. After that, assign your scores in the order that makes the most sense to you. Remember, though, Intelligence governs—to a large extent—how many skill points your character gets. Some characters—like rogues—need a decent range of skills while others can probably do without.
Remember, your character’s race modifies his statistics. You can enhance your original rolls by choosing a race that plays well to the prime requisite of your chosen class. For example:
So if you have bad stats, these combinations can be surprisingly effective:
Every character would like a high Constitution and/or a high Dexterity. Having more hit points or a better armour class is always desirable. However, for some concepts a low Constitution or Dexterity can be rapidly fatal.
For example, a melee fighter with a low Constitution score is a disaster waiting to happen, but an fighter specialising as an archer is in a far better position to survive a low Constitution. If you’ve got a low Constitution, choosing a character concept that involves a lot of melee is really asking for it! Depending on the nature of the foes you regularly face you might want to consider picking up Great Fortitude to boost your Fortitude saves. Toughness is always an excellent choice for more hit points.
Similarly, a low Dexterity affects (among other things) initiative rolls, armour class and Reflex saves. If you’ve got a low Dexterity, you don’t want to be at the front of the marching order. If you are at the front, you are far more likely to get attacked while flat-footed (potentially disastrous if you fight a lot of rogues). Choose a concept that puts you in the middle or the back of the party. Improved Initiative is a good choice for characters with a low Dexterity score as it helps you act quicker than normal. However (sadly) you character won’t qualify for Dodge to boost your AC so you’ll need to wear the best protections you can afford.
Is life too short? Should your GM let you re-roll your stats until you get he set you want or should you view bad stats as an opportuntity? Let me know, in the comments below.
