Closing Out the Year With a Win

So, it's December 31. Tomorrow, it shall be 2012, and I just found out that the story I submitted to Wayfinder Magazine was selected! I'm officially a published Author!

Link here.

So, I guess I get to close this year with a win.

Yay, me!

Design Day: Prestige Archetypes - The Duelist

A while ago, I presented the first of my series of "Prestige Archetypes". Essentially, they're prestige classes translated into archetypes. I started with the Arcane Archer (a magus archetype, link), and today I'm presenting the Duelist. It's an archetype for the Fighter.

Design Day: The Artificial

Last week on Design Day, I presented a new, shadowy race known as the Shadowkin. This week, I'm still on a races kick, so I decided to throw something else together...well, not exactly that. I'm actually updating an old race I designed: The Gearman.

Except these guys got a pretty major face-lift. They've been re-designed from the bottom-up, right down to the name. In addition, they have some new flavor that I hope you'll enjoy. I've been meaning to adjust them for a while now, since they're one of the player races in my home campaign setting. So here it is:

Flavor Friday: Muira the Monk

Well, as you can all tell by now, I haven’t really been “on the ball” when it comes to the Flavor Fridays. Sometimes they’re there, and sometimes they’re not. And I’ve come to the decision that I’m going to keep it that way. I’m planning to, from now on, try to put out a Flavor Friday every 2 weeks or so. And, in the spirit of that, I’ll begin today by presenting one of the iconic characters from my personal campaign setting: Esperim.

And, since I just rebuilt the monk, I figure I should put forth my iconic monk: Muira.

Design Day: The Shadowkin

I HAVE NO EXCUSE FOR THE LACK OF A FLAVOR FRIDAY AND A DESIGN DAY ON TUESDAY.

So the Bestiary 3 is coming out soon, and Paizo has been doing for the last month or so, posting monster stat blocks and previewing pictures of the monsters in the book. I actually collect Paizo art every time something cool comes up on their blog, so I’ve been snatching all of these pictures up as they came. And, well…there was one that inspired me to make something.

Design Day: Anatia, the Witch Queen

Today, we’ll be taking a break from rebuilding the monk, and we’re going to move into the realm of the dark arts… In honor of Carrion Crown, I thought I’d try my hands at building a haunt. But just building a haunt wouldn’t be enough for you guys, would it? Nah, you deserve more than that. So…instead, I present…

Anatia, the Witch Queen!

Design Day: Rebuilding the Monk, Part 4

For the last week, I’ve been working on a near-total monk rebuild. This isn’t just a few fixes (like I did with my house rules), it’s a whole new version of the class. Last Tuesday, I went over the problems with the class, then on Thursday  I talked about how I planned to fix it. Then, on Flavor Friday, I talked about the new Paths I’m introducing.

And now I’m bringing it all together. That’s right. Without any further ado, I present the New Monk.

Flavor Friday: Rebuilding the Monk, Part 3

And Flavor Friday is back! This week, we’re continuing with our rebuild of the monk. Wait, what’s that? We’re doing design work on a flavor Friday? Blasphemy! Nah. I’m just kidding. This is part of the monk’s rebuild, but, in fact, I will include (next to) no design work today.

One of the things I ran into while I was working on the new monk was that I was going to have to accommodate all (or most) of its archetypes. And, instead of completely rewriting the archetypes to fit with the new system, I thought I’d create a system within the class itself that would accommodate switching out all of these abilities. To find inspiration, I looked to other classes that had similar systems. Classes like the sorcerer and its bloodlines, or the wizard and its schools, or the cavalier and its orders.

And so I came up with the idea of Paths. At level 1, the monk selects a path—a set of beliefs and practices by which the monk lives his life. He then gains set abilities at set levels based on that path. Remember yesterday, when I said that the Still Mind, Purity of Body, Diamond Body and Timeless Body abilities would all be rolled into one thing? That would be the…

Design Day: Rebuilding the Monk, Part 2

Hey there, everybody! Well, last time, we took a look at the monk, and some of the problems with its current design. Today, we’re going to take those problems and start a-fixin’ em! Keep in mind that this is all in preparation for a brand new monk build (which is almost complete, but I though I’d go through the whole process). That said, some of the “fixes” I’m about to propose wouldn’t really fit in with the standard monk. I’ll note the changes that work and the changes that don’t as they come. Just keep in mind that each of these will be incorporated into the final monk next week.

Let’s start with the basics, just like we did before.