-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Naming's always a challenge. But I don't think mythic really fits, because really, it sort of sends the message that they're not as 'real' as other things.
Let's see...
Ancestor would Cover Humanoid and Monstrous Humanoid.
Beast would cover Animal and Vermin.
Wood covers Plants, and, of course, regular plants.
That leaves Aberrations, Dragons, Fey, Magical Beasts, Oozes, and Undead. Fey are different kinds of spirits, so they're out. Undead don't really have a presence on the spirit world, to my knowledge, so they're out. Oozes don't seem like they would have souls at first glance, but if normal plants have souls, so would they.
So, that leaves Aberrations, Dragons, Magical Beasts, and Oozes.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Admiral Squish
Naming's always a challenge. But I don't think mythic really fits, because really, it sort of sends the message that they're not as 'real' as other things.
Let's see...
Ancestor would Cover Humanoid and Monstrous Humanoid.
Beast would cover Animal and Vermin.
Wood covers Plants, and, of course, regular plants.
That leaves Aberrations, Dragons, Fey, Magical Beasts, Oozes, and Undead. Fey are different kinds of spirits, so they're out. Undead don't really have a presence on the spirit world, to my knowledge, so they're out. Oozes don't seem like they would have souls at first glance, but if normal plants have souls, so would they.
So, that leaves Aberrations, Dragons, Magical Beasts, and Oozes.
Aberrations, Oozes: Outer Ones. They're inherently outside most pantheon systems; they are the others either due to simply not being part of the natural order of the world at large; most spirits associated with anything off-earth, as it were, would be Outer Ones, after a fashion. Oozes are 'off' enough that they would fit here as well.
Magical Beasts, Dragons: Fantastic/Mythical Beast. I'm actually a fan of the latter, because the former doesn't sound right to me, really.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Ooh, interesting... I'm not sure about breaking them up into two groups, though. I like the three-groups-of-four thing we have at the moment, and an extra category of life spirits would throw off the lineup a bit. The names should probably be one word, too. They've sorta gotta fit into the theme we've got running. Like, they've gotta be suitable as a subtype (Outsider [Beast])
Perhaps something relating to magic? [Mystic] or [Arcane]?
Vague idea: What if aberrations are actually outside the normal cycle? Like, they have souls, and those souls leave the material plane when they die... but they never appear on the spirit world, and nobody can figure out where they go. No planar travel abilities seem to be able to follow them, nothing seems to be able to track their souls, and they're not about to talk about it.
Other vague idea: What if the spirit world, though it remains contiguous, is sort of... divided. Like, each cultural region has a semi-distinct region of the spirit world, with different themes, native spirits, and such, it'd be shaped by the culture's shared beliefs. It'd be possible to walk on the spirit world and move from one region to another, but it'd be difficult. Less difficult if the cultural regions had a more in common, I suppose... It would tie in nicely with why the Pompeii thing only touched the old world: As the new world and old world had no contact at the time, the barrier between old world regions and new world regions was insurmountable. This could even tie in with spirals.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Aand I posted what I've made so far for the chosen, swing over than check it out!
Chosen
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
So, I'm here because I decided I might as well pitch in and because the Admiral said that discussing details about the Priest was not the smart thing to do on the entry for another class.
Either way, I'm here to lend a hand or give ideas when needed.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Mostly, I just figured no point in getting off topic and distracting everybody with talk of a class that's not very far along yet.
Anyways, priest. Basically, taking cleric and druid and stripping them down. No armor proficiency. Prepared spells and a prayer book like an archivist (though it doesn't technically have to be written, it's more about mnemonics than actually transcribing the text). Mash together the cleric and druid spell lists, remove all the stuff that breaks the rules for magic in the setting.
The main thing for priest is gonna be the dogmas. These are sorta like philosophies that are commonly shared by many faiths. Like, the actual deity you worship won't matter so much as the emphasis you place on different teachings and morals. Like, a priest of Justice will be more concerned with punishing the wicked, rooting out evil, and such. A priest of Mercy will be more about helping the helpless, feeding the poor, healing the sick, and such. The dogma/s you pick might not actually determine the spells available to you, rather, it determines your class abilities. I'm not exactly sure if you're just gonna get one dogma, or get one main one and one or two secondary dogmas, or just a handful of dogmas, but there might be some mixing and matching going on. Ultimately, I'm looking for something that would fill the role of cleric and druid, but with considerably less CoDzilla and more like the historical role of priests.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Maybe calling them "Doctrines" sounds better?
Anyways, I get that that's a good idea. I can imagine Charisma being an important stat as much as Wisdom and intelligence for normal Clerics.
Is "Ritual" going to be a thing for them? I know there's a Medicine Man on the list, but Priest might overlap with it.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Naming's always hard.
You know, I'm not actually sure which stat would be the casting stat for Priest. Wisdom is the traditional option. But a lot of priests had authority due to their charisma and their intelligence, being educated and popular. Perhaps it could vary depending on the Dogma/Doctrine? Like, Reason would focus on intelligence, Purity on Wisdom, Mercy on Charisma...
Ritual magic is a separate thing I'm working on, independent of class. I think we were just talking about it a page or two back. Basically, any spellcaster with CL=spell level can run a ritual version of a spell. Rituals can be arcane or divine, depending on the ritual leader. A ritual requires mana=spell level squared. Normal people provide one mana, spellcasters of the appropriate magic type provide mana=caster level. The casting takes longer, obviously, but it's a way for higher-level magic to be somewhat more available, though obviously only in very limited quantities.
Oh, and yes, Priest is going to be suitable for any sort of religion, so Medicine Man and Druid are both going to be subsumed into it.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
While I like the idea of making different doctrines require different stats. The fact remains that doing that without say giving each choice lots of different variances such as skills and the like could be a potential problem.
Anyways. Is rune magic still going to be separate as well? Since you're folding priest and druid. I guess runic can fold into arcane
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
I don't think it would be all too hard. There might need to be some bonus class skills or similar, but it probably wouldn't need a whole new chassis.
Well, priest is probably gonna be next after I finish chosen, so we'll see how it works out.
Rune magic's its own system, with its own casting rules and stuff, it's not close enough to arcane that I could just fold it in. But runecaster's on hold until we get further along, anyways.
Oh, that reminds!
Cultures
Anybody made any progress on research for the super-cultures?
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
I'm taking a break from it at the moment due to classes and other things, but I will be taking another shot at the Arctic Over culture.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Well, take your time. I've still got all these classes to do, so you've got plenty of time.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Admiral Squish
Cultures
Anybody made any progress on research for the super-cultures?
Haven't started research yet, first i'm going to finish my work on Tobago now that everything is still fresh in my memory.
But before i do that i first need to get rid of this nasty flu. Last week it was two of my kids and my wife, this week it's me and my third kid, so work is going really slow. :smallsmile:
If the headaches will just leave me be for a while i think i can have the whole thing ready to post in a few days.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Super cultures?
I got... time, I guess. No idea what this is about.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
It's the Overcultures to various regions, of which multiple people are a part of. It lists the various things that are important across all cultures, with a sub-culture getting into more specifics. A more modern example could be U.S.A. has an overall culture, with individual States having their own cultures with similarities to the over culture.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
If you ever want any work done on Tawantinsuyu, I've done quite a bit of work on that and could try my hand at it.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
I'm definitely looking forward to Tobago, it sounds like a really cool addition to the setting! I hope you feel better soon!
Sorry, super-cultures, or over-cultures, refers to broad categories that cover a number of smaller, related cultural groups. Like, European cultures, or Arctic cultures. It's basically a sort of generalization of a broad class of cultures, describing the common traits across the various groups, or the way of life of the average individual of a culture. After they're done we go into more detail on specific groups, like English, French, and Spanish, or Inuit, Tuniit, and Vinlandr. IT allows each specific group to reference the larger culture so we don't have to restate the same things over and over, and it makes it so, even if we don't give a specific culture for a smaller group in a given area, it's still possible to play them using the over-culture. If you really wanted to play a Germanic character, that would be possible using the European culture, and we wouldn't have to make a different specific culture entry for each smaller group.
If you'd like to lend a hand, there's a list of the over-cultures a page or two back that indicates who's doing what.
Tawantinsuyu, really now, that would be excellent! I'd love to hear your take on them. They're not as time-sensitive as the other groups, since we're not planning to cover them in a book until after north america's out there, but still, if you're volunteering, I'm certainly not gonna turn it down. You might wanna look back through the thread to see the stuff we discussed about them earlier and the stuff we changed, like adding the reed motherships and such.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
So, i'm including the Batey game in my writeup for Tobago but i'm having trouble figuring out how to do this mechanically.
A bit of research teaches me that team sports were mostly unknown in the Old World and that the conept was introduced to the whole world by the various team sports Native Americans played. And strangely this never comes up anywhere if you research the history of sports,....
I'm trying to find a way to fit this into the game, and i've got a few ideas for this. But as you all know i'm crap with mechanics and i need help.
What i'm trying to represent:
- Natives are good at team sports
- Europeans are good at solo sports (they have a history of jousting, athletics, wrestling,....)
- Chinese, don't know any of their games. Good at martial arts maybe? Or was this never considered a game?
- Tuniit, what kind of games would they have?
Anyway, is there a system that represents the playing of games or sports in Pathfinder or from a 3rd party source? And if there isn't, could we (not me) figure something out?
Because at this point the only thing i can come up with is adding a new skill that allows you to play the sports of your culture very well. And let's you play the sports of another culture reasonably. You have the techniques and agility of a sports player, but you haven't been raised playing that kind of sports so you're not as good as those born into it.
But something like this leaves us with a simpe throwing of two dice to see who wins a game. Is that interesting enough to represent the playing of a sport?
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
I don't think it would be a skill, rather, I think it would be a collection of skills and rolls in all likelihood. I've seen a couple well-made spots in D&D, and most of them treat the game as an encounter, with different kinds of rolls and stuffs.
I know there's Goatball or whatever you call it in the RoS book. I remember somebody made an interesting team sport that centered around hitting a hovering ball into the other team's tower to knock it down, but I don't remember what it was called.
Basically, it'd be not super-complicated, but it might be a lil' complicated. If it's anything like what I'm thinking based on that description, it'd probably involve making unarmed strikes (maybe at penalty due to not being allowed to use your hands) against the ball to hit it into the air, or maybe combat maneuver checks. Maybe the mechanic of moving to catch the airborne ball would be about attacks of opportunity and readied actions to move to be in position to hit it. It really depends on the actual rules, I suppose.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
The problem with a system like that is that every single sport is interchangeable.
A European wrestler could have roughly the same skillset as a Native Batey player, so theoretically that wrestler could just walk into a team of Batey players and be the star of the team. And that doesn't make much sense because it's a completely different thing.
I know i'm not the person to ask about mechanics, but this just seems a bit strange to me.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Well, not quite. It's about the game and what it calls for.
If you're a wrestler, and to play in a wrestling match, you make opposed strength checks and combat maneuver checks to pin the opponent, you're going to put your resources into boosting those rolls. Now, if said wrestler walks into an arm-wrestling match, he'll probably be pretty good at that, since it's a related skill and the resources he put into boosting strength checks will pay off. If he were to walk into a game of volleyball, (which seems like the closest analogue I can find with hard-and-fast rules I can look up) he'd probably be not-that-great, since there's no combat maneuver checks or opposed strength checks. He might be passable if he had a good base attack bonus, but he'd probably not be as good as people who put their resources into being good at the game.
I'll take a second and really try to come up with some actual rules for how it's played.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Wrestling was probably a bad example. Atheletics maybe? But i see what you mean and you're probably right.
Anyway, i've just posted everything i have for Kaya Salina.
It's not quite done yet, i know there's some stuff i need to add but i just can't put my finger on what's missing. I think it's it a case of sickness-induced writer's block....
I'd love to see some comments on what can be improved or added so head over and let me know what you think.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Okay, to play Batey, you need two teams of 10+ players, a round, heavy rubber ball, and a playing field. Sources disagree on the size and shape of the court, but most images I see are circular, perhaps 20 ft. in diameter, and ringed by stone. Maybe bigger courts were around in antiquity, though, 'cause it seems like it would get pretty cramped in there...
Points are earned when the opposing team fails to return the ball after a legal play, either by allowing the ball to come to a stop (momentum 0 at the end of a player's turn), or by hitting the ball out of the court. Play continues until somebody reaches a set number of points. So, the players have to try to keep the ball in play. The ball is a tiny object with a base AC of 12, plus it's current momentum, if any. In order to put the ball in play, a player has to hit the ball with an unarmed strike (taking a -2 penalty due to the lack of hands) to give it momentum. The ball gains momentum equal to the damage it takes, and moves in a straight line in the direction indicated by the attacker. Each square of movement reduces its momentum by one, and provokes attacks of opportunity as normal. To redirect a ball that's got momentum, an attacker has to hit the ball with an unarmed strike. If they hit, they reduce the ball's current momentum by the damage dealt. If this does not reduce the ball's momentum to 0, the ball deals nonlethal damage equal to the initial momentum to the attacker, and continues on it's current path with its new momentum. If it exceeds the current momentum, the attacker grants the ball new momentum equal to the difference, and chooses a new direction, the ball beginning to move at the start of the next player in the initiative order's turn. If the ball would enter a player's square, the movement provokes an attack of opportunity as normal, but if this fails to stop the ball, it strikes the player, dealing nonlethal damage equal to 1d6 + its current momentum. After striking a player, its momentum is reduced to 0, and it provokes an attack of opportunity from the player.
I'm thinking there might have to be some sort of staggering of turns to allow players to move around, or it would just be like a game of ping-pong with nobody moving... but that might be getting a little too complicated. Well. MORE too complicated.
Maybe the stone protective gear grants DR against the nonlethal damage, but imposes small penalties to unarmed strikes, or to speed?
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Admiral Squish
I'm making a new year's resolution to get this game playable, and we have a lot to talk about if we're gonna make that happen. We've gotta figure out exactly what we need to have done, what needs to be redone, and the time frame available for doing so. I plan to celebrate the third anniversary of this project with a fully-fledged game, and in order to make that happen, I'm going to need support from all of you.
It's been a while since I've looked in here, and I'm wondering how the Skype conversation went, and what the overall plan is for publication.
Is this still nominally a Pathfinder project? And are you folks still looking to bring out a physical book at some point?
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
For the moment, yes, it's still being handled as a pathfinder project. We've still not managed to make meaningful contact with paizo regarding the use of the label or the legal shenanigans involved therein. I'm still planning for a physical book of some sort, even if it ends up being only for personal enjoyment, but I'd definitely like to get this published in some capacity. Whether it's through paizo themselves, through a third-party publisher, or though me making making my own publishing thingie.
Overall, the plan is for me to do the three big core classes at a rate of one per month while people in the thread help me research the information needed for the broad-strokes cultures. Then I step in on the cultures and get them up to a usable level, which is probably going to take a while. After that, I'll solidify the still-vague stuff about the setting as a whole, like the planes and spirals, make necessary edits, and finalize the existing material into something we can play-test properly.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Okay, thanks. Glad you're still pursuing publication with this.
How much have you done on Columbia? I may have some comments and ideas on that front.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Let 'er rip! I'm still on classes for the moment, more discussion's always welcome.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Is the default year still 1750? In the first page of this thread it says "c. 1750," but a lot of things were happening right around that time, and it would help to know what year is current for the setting.
Also, do you still have the overview map of North America? I thought I remembered it from the OP of the first thread, but can't find it now.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
The default year does indeed remain 1750. A couple years before the French and Indian war.
There is a vague map, but it's a little old. I'll see what I can do about an update.
-
Re: Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.
Taino Culture
I wanted to bring this up in the main thread.
In the Skype call we discussed the large culture groups and decided not to make Caribbean a culture because there's so little of them left. In fact, i was the one that brought this up.
But now i think we should change this. The way i've written up Kaya Salina we're looking at a population of 80000-90000 in Wawa Serra, the capital and basically the only city they have. And then there's probably 10000-20000 more Taino spread over the rest of the iland and on Kaya Colibri. So there's roughly 100000 people of the Caribbean cultures left (Taino people, Carib people, mixed ancestry people). So that may be enough for an actual culture group.
However, these people have been living under European rule for roughly 200 years spread over various islands. They've been force converted to Christianity. Their nation has only been created because the Europeans couldn't agree on who else to put in charge of the link site.
Basically, their culture will have been influenced very significantly by Europeans.
So what i'm thinking is that maybe we should list Taino culture under the European superculture. Make them into something similar like we're planning with the Han-Californian culture that we also discussed in the Skype call.
They will fall under European, but just have some native touches. Their cuisine, architecture, city building,... is all European. Their language has been influenced by Latin. Their religion is European.
What do you guys think about this?