I do know my perception of graph paper changed drastically after I mapped my first dungeon for the game; from that day on graph paper was a tool for mapping dungeons and nothing else. I hoard graph paper.

The Pathfinder Role Playing Game Beginner Box is cool and here is a quick comparison between the old and the new; I am sure the other flavors of Dungeons and Dragons over the years had beginner box sets, but none spoke to me from the shelf the way this one did, that, and it was Christmas, and my son was ripe to try something more advanced than Shoots and Ladders, or Settlers of Catan. We are also trying to get him away from his DS. Who let him get that?

My son wants to play the fighter; Borg wins again, though Valeros is way cooler than Borg from the ODD Basic rules.

He read what a fighter can do and said, “That’s me I want to be a fighter”.

The character sheets are very well designed; there are also “pregen” characters to start right away, that come with hints and notes in their booklets, yes booklets, on what to do and when to do them, to really make the game easy to start off. There are also paper cutout PCs and monsters, printed on some seriously thick paper to place in plastic bases. Most importantly, the box set came with a decent set of dice that are now my son’s, so starts his hoard of game dice.

I just wonder what my son will get from this new shiny game? I hope years of adventure and cool trouble shooting skills.

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• NetHack for iPad and iPhone

My first memories of the game are playing when it was just ASCII format, then later in graphic tilled mode, then another time as “Falcons Eye” which was kinda 3D or isometric display of the dungeon. I never completed the game and enjoyed reading the summary of my character’s life in the Dungeon of Doom. Anyway, I started a new job and travel a lot, which is kinda why I have not been blogging much lately, so having something to do at the airport beside what the crowd does makes NetHack fun.

The game actually played well just tapping around on my iPad2 I was able to find stuff, and search, and kick in doors. The game is extremely low tech, but is still just as fun as it was when it was even more low tech, like in ASCII mode. Oh, and it is free at the App Store and pretty much everywhere else on the net.

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The group knew the GM was not out to kill the party, and the party was having fun in the game and enjoyed the GMs game method, so with everyone dead, they decided to try the game again with different characters. The group noticed a theme to the game that they did not pickup on until later and maybe if they had better fit the party to the theme their success would be assured or that they would have more fun interacting in the world now that each player knew the other better and a new party build would take advantage of the TPK to adjust party roles so everyone was synced to each other better.

Starting over after a TPK can be fun in a home game especially when a new book has come out and a new character class is out there to try that you would have had to wait for a whole new game to try.

In my home game after a TPK, I allow the players to bring in a new character at two levels lower than the party average level, I do this for the very reasons above, as a GM I know the party will be biased toward cheese after a TPK and since I let them have wealth equal to Table 12-4 in the PF Core Rulebook. A quick link to the D20 Pathfinder SRD for character wealth is here. I know from experience the party will buy items they need to succeed for their second try, it’s just in their nature so two negative levels is how I balance the game out; they get those lost levels back quick. Another fun thing I have seen players do is get attached to a NPC they met before tragedy befell the group, I will let my players be the torch bearer or stable boy who somehow was actually a 6th level paladin or samurai; why not it’s the least I could do since the luck of the dice did the party in, not my wicked trap in the room next to the medusa… evil GM laugh.

So if the GM was good and the dice combined with a couple bad decisions, doom the party to a TPK, don’t fret, just regroup, reorganize and try again (GM permitting). Remember it is just a game and the dice keep you honest.

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I run games with players who try things outside their class abilities all the time, as the Game Master, I have to make rulings on whether these impromptu tactics will work and proceed from there. I encourage players to think “outside the box” and will reward them when they come up with something really cool. If a game requires the players to kill someone, then for that game, they are all assassins as a group, the need for the “death attack” in a game group is silly, since the players all want a chance to “get em”, so the assassin class is one that I consistently passed over, since oh, 2000, as a neat idea but not as a really playable in my games. Come to think of it, no one at my table in the past 10 years has ever asked to be an assassin, a kobold once, but never an assassin.

When you present the assassin up as a player challenge, say as a monster or a NPC, I tend to use the rules for ranger, with favored enemy humans, or whatever the target race is, and a rogue combination with poison use. Also, I have a cool magic item called the coin of the dead that the assassins in Alidor have access to.

Coin of the dead
Placing the coin in the mouth of a recently dead person will cause the victim to rise as a mindless zombie undead, 1d4 rounds later. Only resurrection can return a victim to life, raise dead and reincarnate will not work. The coins work on a one coin, one use basis.

Zombie copper coin; Aura Moderate necromancy; CL 10 Slot –; Price 11,000; Weight –
Plague Zombie silver; Aura strong necromancy; CL 15 Slot –; Price 92,000; Weight –

The coins added flavor to the game, and I think they work better than the “death attack” ability in 3.5, and are more fun than “true death” in Pathfinder. I had a game where an assassin killed a noble and the party was left fighting the zombie. At the end of the battle they found the coin, and through some clever “role play” followed the leads back to the necromancer that made the coin and convinced him to hand over his client book, which lead to the assassin right before she killed another victim, breaking the party into two groups. One spent the game hoping to get the assassin before the victim was killed, and the other group made plans to stop the assassin before she dropped the coin into the victim. It ended up being a fun team effort, and a great game session.

I also played in a game once, with an assassin NPC and a particularly evil GM, who killed a player with a death attack and the table broke down to arguments and chaos, because no one believed the assassin had three rounds to study.

In Advanced Dungeons and Dragons of the 80s the assassin was a subclass of the thief. All my friends played them, because they got better weapons and armor than a normal thief and you could spy with them and on a good sneak attack could kill a victim in one stroke, I think it was a 50 percent chance of a perfect kill or something. These days, with Pathfinder and party team work, and like a zillion feat combos to choose from, I think the assassin as a player character class is finally dead.

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Exploring the caves reminded me how miserable the environment below ground is something I over look in most of my games. Seriously it was cold and now that my blood has thinned the cold felt evenmore real to me. Bring a sweater if you go, even if it 90 degrees outside; I was a quarter mile into the cave wishing I had brought mine.

What am I going to do with the maps I am going to run a home game using them. There is actually an area labeled the River Styx, what gamer would pass up that reference? When you run a home game any kind of inspiration that gets a game going is a good one.

Using the map, I would most likely hand the party the Bishop map as a quick reference, since it is the least complete, but has all the cool names like Star Chamber, Purgatory and Dismal Hallow to spark their adventuring interests. I can build up an encounters for any areas the players want to explore. I should get about two months good play out of my gift shop maps.

From walking into the Historic Entrance of the Mammoth Cave, I can say with good confidence the cave entrance there is big enough for a colossal dragon or a jabberwock to pass through. Oh, and there were no mammoths in the “real cave”, but maybe my dungeon will have some (my son wanted me to point that out to you).

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