A Very Important Question
over 10 years ago – Wed, Aug 05, 2015 at 08:56:02 AM

In our last content update, we brought you a bunch of new races. We've made some changes based on feedback and will be unveiling them again soon, but right now we have a much more important issue to go over.

There are lot of mechanics in Pathfinder that can come into play when flying the skies. Vehicle rules can cover piloting the vehicle. Siege engine rules can apply to combat between ships. Mass combat rules can function for crew-based battles. Jade Regent caravan rules can be adapted to crew survival, consumption, and entertainment. Heck, Skulls and Shackles even has armada-combat rules.

The problem is, most of these rules are designed with the assumption that you, as a player, DO NOT enjoy them. They're designed to be quick, to get you from Point A to Point B with a minimum of hassle. 

As a Pathfinder supplement, Skybourne naturally builds off of the above systems, but with one small problem: Skybourne is build around the idea that you WANT to play a crew of adventurers doing everything they can to keep their ship in the air. While a GM could just wandwave it all away, The entire setting is built around the idea that players should have as much fun flying the skies as they do delving the dungeons.

As we've been reading books, trying out different rules, and generally getting everything ready for the Player's Guide, I keep coming back to rules that I just want to change; things that don't quite work with the game as we've been designing it, or things that aren't quite as fun as I wish they were. For example; the more I look as how siege weapons work, the more I want to change them, but the more I come up with alternatives the more it looks like a complete re-write.

Basically, there are three design philosophies that can be used as we try to transform the bits and pieces of Pathfinder's rules into a congruent airship whole:

The first is a minimalist approach: we make certain that people who learned the above Pathfinder rules don't need to re-learn anything. In this case, when presenting rules for piloting an airship, we'd use the sailing rules from Ultimate Combat as-written, with a few new rules to handle movement in 3d.

The second is a moderate approach: we try to make people relearn as few rules as possible, but streamline what we can. This is similar to Skulls and Shackle's approach to sea vehicles; they rewrote a couple of the vehicle rules, added a few new sea-based combat rules, but it was mostly the same as the vehicle rules written in Ultimate Combat.

The third is a Heavy approach. In this case, while we would use core Pathfinder as often as possible, we would readily sacrifice everything that doesn't fit with our vision of the rules. It means easier, more congruent rules in the book itself, but it also means everyone using Skybourne would need to re-learn all the rules we'd changed, and it could cause backward-compatibility problems if we're not careful.

A lot of this decision about philosophy comes down to how you, the backers, want to play the game. Please, take this very short survey and let us know what you think. Your feedback will help us make several key decisions and help make this project what it needs to be.

The Great Player's Guide Playtest!
over 10 years ago – Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 03:08:36 AM

To all of our American backers, Happy 4th of July! To our Canadian backers, happy belated Canada Day!

We apologize for not posting an update for a while, but we've been busy making this!

While the above is incomplete and subject to change, and certainly doesn't address all of the new mechanics that will be in the Player's Guide, (we're writing out the new sky-sailing rules next), the above race document contains a whole mess of information on the new races, multiple archetypes for the old races, one new Sphere, and a whole bunch of magic items, feats, etc.

The time has come to get your feedback! Take a look, leave a comment, and let us know what you think!

Gods and Alignment
over 10 years ago – Tue, Jul 07, 2015 at 11:10:50 AM

(Note: The first supplement for Spheres of Power just launched: Expanded Options, which just hit the top download from another company at Paizo this week! It can be found at Paizo.com and RPG Drivethru.)

Back during the campaign, I had a long-winded post discussing how alignment worked in Skybourne. I recently finished a write-up of the different religions present on Khrone (the planet of Skybourne), and I thought I'd share with you what you can expect from the divinities. 

Gen Con, Spheres of Power, and Ask Me Anything
almost 11 years ago – Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 06:48:43 AM

We've been hard at work developing the Player's Guide to a state where we can send it out to you for playtesting, and I hope to have that out to you by early July. Today, however, there are two pieces of information that I need to get out to you:

Spheres of Power Physical Books

For those of you who get physical copies of Spheres of Power as an add-on, the printer has assured us that we will be getting our books a couple weeks before Gen Con. However, while we plan to send those books out as soon as possible, shipping times and the pre-con rush we'll be in mean that if you plan to attend Gen Con this year, you'll probably get your books much faster if you pick them up from us in person. 

We'll be hosting the Legends game at 2 pm on Saturday in the Executive Boardroom of the Crowne Plaza. If you think you will be able to come to that event either at 2 when it begins or at 6 when it ends, let us know and we'll bring your book to the Con for you!

Ask Me Anything

As anyone who was a part of the Spheres of Power kickstarter can attest to, I have a tendency to disappear from the internet when I'm in the middle of a bit project. To help counteract this, there's an Ask Me Anything I've been hosting on the GITP forums, that I've made a promise to myself that I will check at least once every two days, preferably every day if I can. If there's anything you'd like to ask me about, be it about Spheres of Power, Skybourne, myself, or whathaveyou, leave a comment there and I'll be sure to answer it.

Spheres of Power PDFs
almost 11 years ago – Sat, May 16, 2015 at 11:09:13 AM

Backerkit has been locked down, and those who asked for the Spheres of Power PDF should have gotten an email from RPG Drivethru with directions on how to redeem your PDF. If you should have gotten one and haven't, let me know and we'll look into it.

I will admit my ignorance in regard to Backerkit; I was under the impression that locking down backers was something I could only do once, and therefore had to do when everyone had answered their surveys. It turns out that wasn't the case, so I apologize for the delay in getting the PDFs to you.