I can help with that. Now that I think about it if I have time maybe I can put together a tutorial on how to use Maptools & Paint.NET

It takes a little bit of time to set up the maps initially but after that it's super easy to use.

The basic setup is this:

1. Use Maptools to load your underlying map as a background image
   
2. Resize background map & maptools grid to align as close as possible
   
3. Load the NPCs and PCs as tokens into the map, snap to grid.
   
4. Do your map stuff...
   
5. Take a screenshot of the map
   
6. Paste into Paint.NET (or your photo editing tool of choice
   
7. Crop it, add any enhancements like arrows or text or what not
   
8. Upload to rPoL as a map

And...you're done.

Links to both MapTools and Paint.NET are in the useful links section. I can go into more detail if needed.

Thanks, praguepride! On another note, I'm sort of bummed at the lack of non-Gestalt high-level games out there. Every game I've come across that has a character creation past level 5 is gestalt and does weird other things like not allow prestige classes until stupid later levels. I've only just gotten into reading some of the prestige classes and am getting hella interested in a lot more that the game has to offer. I thought Archetypes were a lot... Boy, was I wrong.

I've always found prestige classes in Pathfinder to be a bit lackluster. I feel like they swung too hard opposite D&D. In D&D character optimization usually involved dipping into several prestige classes because the base classes were lackluster, but now that the base classes have such amazing abilities that come into play through upper levels and most classes have pretty amazing capstone abilities that prestige classes have lost a lot of their luster, imo.

I'm more into prestige classes for fluff then mechanics as I've found that many of the prestige classes seem to be ill planned or relics from the initial 3.5 import.

I have just applied for a a high level of game that you don't need to be a gestalt, though there are other things going on. Ascension PF is the name if you are interested.

I honestly don't even use anything but the fluff. "I'm a hellknight." "But you're a level three bloodra-" "Nope, hellknight." They really wanted to discourage multiclassing and reward favoring a particular class, and they succeeded, but then they print the most lackluster prestige classes and it's like, why? Why waste the pagecount on this? You could just not have printed ANY and no one would have cared.

Anyways...

I am a classical Paladin player, so if your game needs a man of high honor and character, send me a PM.

In reply to Sleeping Darkness (msg # 13):

I'm fond of filing off the serial numbers and re-using fluff myself.

Fairy Familiar at first level?  Use stats as a raven and claim it's shaped like Tinkerbell.

The only prestige classes I take any real interest in, come from the Psionic area. Bodysnatcher and Metamorph in particular as really unique additions. Although the mash up prestige classes Dreamscarred added with the Path of War definitely would be something I'd like to fiddle with. (Not near as much as a Kaigunner archetype Marksman in a high tech game though)

Moo, everyone!
:=8D

Cow's it going?
;=8)

Things are picking up on a dairy basis :P

Path of War: Expanded has a bunch of firearms archetypes, including for the warlord, stalker, and incoming class the mystic. The mystic in particular is pretty close to the Kaigun in theme. There's also a new ranged discipline, Tempest Gale, focused on ranged combat maneuvers and sniping (though it is much better at the former than the latter, IMHO).

Well obviously 3rd party publishers closed that gap. I meant in the paizo publications prestige classes were lackluster.

Yeah. The only thing I can imagine is that prestige classes were done by a small team who had no access to any other team's work - you have all these classes with great scaling features and mix-and-max options, and then prestige classes that typically want you to sacrifice all of that for extremely niche features. It gets even worse when you consider archetypes - because archetypes basically do what prestige classes used to, provide you different advancement options to suit a particular concept and optimize your character.

Also, in general, may I recommend more people NOT start at first level?

It's done to death, and resubmitting the same guy to a hundred games that die before I hit level 2 gets old.

I like starting games at 4 myself. You should have gotten a small number of class abilities or spells, and you're on the verge of prestige for those occasions where you want it, not to mention 5 is typically a power stepping stone with many classes gaining a powerful ability like Wild shape or their third tier of spells for full casters.

Also 4th level ability score boosts.

The main problem with pbp games and level 1, is nearly always you are going to spend a week doing IC story talking while doing nothing to progress your level. You have none of the cool abilities that could allow you to take shortcuts so you just drown in the Beginning of story dead zone.

The games that drop you into action immediately with say fighting a night raid that lets you level up and by the time story settles to a calm point where you get to look back at everything you are likely level 2, possibly 3 if there was a decent boss.

My point is, calm zones that are used to set up story are the bane of lvl 1 characters for the simple reason of having nothing else to do and no way to speed it up.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:53, Thu 16 July 2015.

I have always started my games at 1st level but over time I'm starting to see the appeal of 3rd or 4th. At 1st level everything is starting to feel same-y. The wizard casts sleep, the barbarian just hits things with a big stick and the rest of the party kind of muddles along mostly failing skill checks and attack rolls.

I'm thinking of having a sliding progression scale. So Fast progression from 1-3, Medium from 4-12, and then Slow for 12+ so the game doesn't run out of challenges too quick (although there is always the legendary Tucker's Kobolds:
http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/
This message was last updated by the player at 18:16, Wed 22 July 2015.

Well, the first prestige classes were just the 3.5 DMG ones retooled for Pathfinder, and I agree, they were lackluster, even compared to the straight, no archetype basic classes in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. And they had all the same problems of their 3.5 parents too: the assassin's special attack is way too easy to resist, getting into mystic theurge or arcane trickster means multiclassing in a way that leaves you behind the curve for 10 levels, and so on... still, some of them are okay.

But after that, if you really look, the prestige classes come from region books or theme books for the Golarion setting. So Osirion, Land of Pharaoh has a thematic prestige class thrown in, and Pirates of the Inner Sea has another, and so on... of course those are extremely thematic, niche prestige classes. The very book they come in pretty much require it. Excellent fluff, a niche mechanic... but if you step outside of that niche, the mechanic can't make up for all you lose. Unless you're playing a pirate, and the campaign takes place on a pirate ship, the Inner Sea Pirate (or Deep Sea Pirate on d20pfsrd.com ) just isn't attractive at all. There's no 'Ultimate Prestige Classes' or even 'Complete Adventurer' in Pathfinder, just a lot of setting books with a prestige class or two each.

Which, in fact, pretty much proves your point. Each prestige class was done by a team who, at least at the time, was only doing one prestige class; and was doing it in the context of a setting book, for fluff, not as part of a complete set meant to stand on its own.



I like playing spellcasters; sorcerers mostly. But a level 1 sorcerer, or wizard for that matter (it's worse for wizard), suffers terribly from one problem: they just don't have enough spells per day. Well, they have cantrips, but time and again in combat you find yourself falling back on your crossbow, or quarterstaff, or dagger... not to mention that half the spells in the book, even the level 1 spells, are in fact useless at level 1: a 1 round buff isn't really worth casting, most of the time. Or a 1 round summon...

It's okay on tabletop. You play one session, combat goes by quickly, the fighter wins the day, and then everyone advances to level 2 and soon enough the sorcerer or wizard is actually doing magical stuff most of the time. But in PbP, it will take months in real time to get there - if you ever do, and for most of that time the spellcaster will play as a very inferior fighter because he's either hoarding his few spells for when he really needs them, or doesn't have any that apply to the situation or has already cast them and is waiting impatiently to get them back.

Personally, in PbP, I recommend skipping xp altogether and just having the GM hand out new levels when he's ready. And preferably very early for level 1 characters.

I like that "level at the speed of plot" idea but it requires a lot of trust all around that the GM will be fair and appropriate with it.

I've played in games here that were like that, no XP was explicitly given or tracked and I would feel (as a player) that I would have to beg for levels because I had no idea if the GM had any idea of when I should level up.

Another part of me wants to run a no-level up game. You ARE your level permanently and while you can upgrade your equipment, you don't grow at all. Imagine like a level 8 game where you *knew* that you would end at level 8 as well. I think it would be neat just from a character build point of view because you no longer worry about multi-classing might make you miss this capstone or that band of spells, you know what your endgame character will be and can build it right from the start.

I never start a game at anything lower than 3 -- my current game here on RPOL is now at a starting level of 6, with XP that is halfway to 7. This let's new players have a chance at being able to contribute with the existing PCs, and a chance of leveling up with the very next XP award.

I give out XP every two months, based on frequency of posting, wholly subjective quality of role-playing, standard "combat" (which includes overcoming obstacles through something other than killing it and taking all its stuff), and responding to "tell the GM" feedback surveys.  Completing major story arcs -- or setting plot-points -- gets an added substantial bonus.

For lower levels, this means that most PCs -- assuming active participation by the players -- will level up every four months in real life.  Once past 9th level, things are a lot slower (though I did just have a PC go from 11th to 12th in one two-month period thanks to (a) surviving a tough boss fight and (b) completing a significant campaign plot).

In reply to praguepride (msg # 27):

Wouldn't bother me to have no leveling at all.  Actually I tend to presume that's going to be the case, given that around 90% of games I've been in didn't survive to another level anyway.

I can argue both for and against the storyline style of leveling honestly. Most people can because like anything it is good here, bad there.

Personally I like tracking my xp, gives me just a bit more pride in whatever I did to earn that xp.

I think in all my games at medium progression I've had people level up only a handful of times. It is definitely a rare event...

I know the feeling which is rather sad. It does make it extremely satisfying when you finally get that puny little wimp you started playing at lvl 3 all the way up to a true force to be reckoned with at lvl 17 or so.

Still, it being so hard to reach that kind of level without starting there...

I don't know about the majority of you, but I tend to have 90% of my character planned before they even hit the table as-it-were. To know what your character Could but will never accomplish.....
Sigh

This is exactly why I make it a point to never plan a characters progression out until after it's actually gotten 2-3 levels :)

I do like planning characters that start at level 18 though :(