Showing category "Paizo" (Show all posts)

One Year of Infinite Sales

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Friday, October 14, 2022, In : Paizo 
Today marks the 1-year anniversary of the launch of the Pathfinder Infinite and Starfinder Infinite platforms. Although I don't contribute to those any longer, I had some significant initial success with them. You much success? Let me break it down for you at the 1-year mark.

As a threshold matter, I have separate DriveThruRPG accounts for Run Amok Games (as a publisher) and as Ron Lundeen (as a content contributor). Everything for the Infinite program is under the latter, so that's what I'm t...
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Infinite Opportunity!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, September 21, 2021, In : Paizo 
A quick note about the newly-announced Pathfinder Infinite and Starfinder Infinite programs, which allow everyone to participate in Paizo's worlds. I'll have more to say about this soon, but information is available here.
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I Want to Help!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Friday, January 8, 2021, In : Paizo 
Aiding other characters in what they do is an important part of any roleplaying game--it's a team game, after all. The basic rule in Starfinder and Pathfinder First Edition is this: if you want to help someone do X, roll X as though you were doing it yourself, and if you succeed at a DC 10 (no matter what the actual difficulty is; 10 is the DC for the helper check), you give them a +2 to what they're doing. There's no risk to aiding. That lets the GM limit the potential bonus by limiting the ...
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Lost in the Maze...at Paizo.com!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Thursday, December 31, 2020, In : Paizo 
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my blog pace here has slowed a bit because I'm blogging for the "big leagues" by making weekly blog entries on Paizo's front page! This has been a lot of fun for me, because I have very focused assignments but a lot of flexibility in how I approach them. I've done mini-encounters, new alchemical items, NPC write-ups, new downtime activities, and more! There are a total of 12 of these blogs, and about 8 (maybe?) have already been released. Near the end of Januar...
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Where's the Blog?

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, November 24, 2020, In : Paizo 
So, I've been light on blogging here for the last few weeks, but that doesn't mean I'm not blogging! I've started a blog series on Paizo.com, about a dozen posts in all. They're all connected to the town of Otari, which is the setting for the Pathfinder Beginner Box (which I helped write), the Troubles in Otari adventure (which I helped write), and the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path (which I developed). Paizo is doing a lot of fiction set in and around Otari as well, called the Shroud of F...
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Number 14

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Wednesday, September 30, 2020, In : Paizo 
Well, after an exhausting push through this weekend and into this week, I've completed and turned in my Starfinder Adventure Path volume kicking off an as-yet-unannounced Adventure Path. I think it's among the best Starfinder AP volumes I've written; it had the potential for being really scattered and disjointed, but I had a few overall framing things and interconnections that I think tie it all together well. My developer will be the first judge of that, and the players will be the second.

I ...
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Things You Haven't Noticed About Pathfinder Second Edition

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Monday, August 19, 2019, In : Paizo 
This blog is probably Part 1 of multiple parts, as I'm still learning the new edition, but here are a few things that weren't immediately obvious to me:

1) Touch spells don't require an attack roll unless they say so. In First Edition, any spell with a Range of "touch" required you make a touch attack roll against your foe to hit it. That's not the case now. Now, plenty of spells have a Range of "touch" but don't require any attack roll. The spell text says if it does. For example, chill touch...
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How I Redeemed Lawyers

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Friday, August 9, 2019, In : Paizo 
Here's a quick story about my hand in the creation of Pathfinder Second Edition.

There are a lot of backgrounds in the book. Backgrounds give you, among other things, training in a skill and a specific skill feat. These skill feats map to the skills: you might get the Medicine skill and the Battle Medic feat, but the background shouldn't grant a mismatch between a skill and a skill feat. In reviewing the backgrounds, though, I noticed precisely one mismatch: the Barrister background gave you t...
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My PaizoCon 2019

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Wednesday, May 22, 2019, In : Paizo 
We're gearing up for another great PaizoCon, where the company plans to show off a lot of the Starfinder Beginner Box, the revised Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and (of course) Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Here's what I'll be doing:

Friday 5/24
8:15 am to 10:45 am: Helping with registration and handing out swag bags
11:00 am to 12 noon: Secrets of Golarion seminar (Cascade 13)
12 noon to 1 pm: Dungeon Dissection seminar (Cascade 13)
2 pm to 4 pm: Helping out at the Delve
4 pm to 5 pm: Solving Puzzles ...
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I Found a Secret Monster!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Monday, November 26, 2018, In : Paizo 
Here's a short update about a neat thing I just discovered. The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary has several monsters with variants listed. The stone giant, for example, has stone giant elders that are a bit more powerful and lead their people. Wights have brute wights (ones made from giants), cairn wights (powerful wights that guard crypts), and so on. These variants are called out with their own headers or boldface entries. They're also listed in a table at the back of the Bestiary for ease of refer...
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Masked Mollusks!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, October 16, 2018, In : Paizo 
The creepy mask-wearing Embri race were one of the handful of aliens I designed for the new Starfinder Alien Archive 2. There's a blog about the embri and much more here: https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sgbh?Alien-Archive-2-Eclectic-Boogaloo
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At the Forefront of Adventure

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, September 25, 2018, In : Paizo 
I don't think I mentioned this, but with the departure of the fantastic Crystal Frasier from Paizo about two months ago, I've stepped into her work. Instead of handling the backmatter for adventure path adventures, I'm handing the adventure path adventures themselves! It's a very different style of work--a series of single month-long projects instead of rapid-fire multiple-things-in-a-week projects, but I like being able to really dig in to these adventures.

I did the development on Cradle of ...
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Starships You Fly Around In

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Friday, September 21, 2018, In : Paizo 
I've been doing a lot of writing for Starfinder, and that means a lot of designing starships. I've become pretty comfortable with the rules for this, which are different from (but overlap in some interesting ways with) the design of monsters. This is particularly noteworthy because I've been designing quite a few monsters that are so big they fly around in space and function just like enemy starships.

Starship-sized monsters are super interesting, but they pose a design challenge: they've got ...
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An Interview about Against the Aeon Throne!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, September 4, 2018, In : Paizo 
Apologies for the long vacancy--working at Paizo is as fantastic as it is busy!

I was recently interviewed for my adventure "The Reach of Empire," the first adventure in Starfinder's Against the Aeon Throne adventure path. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I get to talk a bit about the adventure and a lot about working for Paizo in the hour-long interview here: 

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Starfinder!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Thursday, March 29, 2018, In : Paizo 
Here at Paizo (for more than 3 months now! Yeep!), I've been primarily developing the articles in the back of the adventure paths, including both the War for the Crown Adventure Path and the upcoming Return of the Runelords Adventure Path (as well as a little bit for the As Yet Unannounced One After That). But I'm now picking up some development of Starfinder work, and that's pretty exciting! Currently, I'm not actually playing any Pathfinder games; I'm playing Starfinder, and some Pathfinder...
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A New Edition of Pathfinder!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Friday, March 16, 2018, In : Paizo 
Now, the news is very public that Paizo is producing a new version of Pathfinder. That doesn't come out until August 2019; in the meantime, Paizo is undertaking a very large public playtest of the new rules. The playtest rules come out on August 2018. Of course, being here in the office, I've gotten a chance to take the rules for a spin several times, and weigh in on my thoughts. 

Most of my play has been with a 9th-level gnome bard (in honor of my friend Ken, who shuns any fantasy RPG that do...
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A Month In

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, January 30, 2018, In : Paizo 
Well, I've been working at Paizo for just over a month now, and it's fantastic. It's just as much detailed-oriented work as I've done as a third-party publisher, but with vastly superior resources and coworkers that are friendly and helpful. I suppose it's like going from a garage band to the big time; you're still making music, but with better equipment, better support, and a wider audience. At the same time, I've been able to be involved in world-building as well--not a lot yet, but a littl...
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Another AP Chapter is Away!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Monday, August 28, 2017, In : Paizo 
I ended up smooshing four different vacations together recently: two family reunions out west, a weekend trip (and exhausting bike ride) up in Wisconsin, and GenCon. Somewhere in there was my final turnover date for my chapter of the War for the Crown adventure path, Pathfinder #129 The Twilight Child. I had to spend a few vacation days working--and neglecting this blog a bit--but I finished that up and sent it out.

I came home from those peregrinations and immediately realized that another tw...
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Blog about Blood of the Sea

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Wednesday, July 12, 2017, In : Paizo 
A few weeks ago, Paizo let me write their daily blog about a project I developed called Adventurer's Armory 2. They've done it again, letting me blog about the development task I had after that--a product called Blood of the Sea. That blog is here.

Adventurer's Armory 2 was packed with crunch--so many tables, items, and rules that I felt I had to make sure there was some world flavor around the edges, so to speak. Blood of the Sea was very different. The author, veteran Amber Scott, had includ...
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Blog about Adventurer's Armory 2!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, In : Paizo 
This isn't the only place I occasionally blog; I've written for Paizo's blog a couple of times--including today, where i mentioned two of my favorite bits about developing Adventurer's Armory 2. You can see it here!
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Another PaizoCon for the Books!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, May 30, 2017, In : Paizo 
I'm freshly back from PaizoCon and, as always, it was a great weekend of gaming. Lots of the buzz was about the upcoming Starfinder game, and I'm doing a lot of writing for that, so it was good to get that energy.

This year, more so than most, I spent a lot of time running games. Thanks much to my great table for the author-run Pathfinder Society game, my crazy table of bumbling trolls trying to get revenge, and both of my Torg Eternity demo tables. I had a blast at each.

I also played a lot of...
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Fangs of War is Coming!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, In : Paizo 
As an author, I sometimes get advance copies of Paizo products (in pdf) before they're generally available. I just received the first two issues of the Ironfang Invasion adventure path, including my adventure, Fangs of War. It looks fantastic! I love the layout of this AP--the page borders remind me a lot of Warhammer Fantasy volumes, and in a good way. The text of my adventure was tweaked in ways that make for a better overall experience (particularly in making some of the NPCs less static, ...
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A Glowing Review

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Wednesday, February 22, 2017, In : Paizo 
I just saw one of my most delightfully positive reviews ever, for PFS7-27 Beyond Azlant Ridge. Here are some quotes from it:

"Events towards the end of the mission are incredibly cinematic, to the point that I would close my eyes and smile imagining what the GM described like when I was a kid. It was a thrill to the imagination that all scenarios should aspire to. Magnificent.

[...]

This scenario also does something with encounters that is as vital a design element as it is rare: each encounter ...


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Dreams of Treasure

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Monday, December 12, 2016, In : Paizo 

One of the most exciting parts of my just-released Dreams of the Yellow King is the treasure. More than half of the adventure takes place in the Dreamlands, where the PCs come and go psychically. Although the PCs can bring psychic echoes of their normal equipment with them, this transfer doesn’t work the other direction; more specifically, the equipment they gather in the Dreamlands doesn’t return with them to the waking world.

This allowed me to seed the Dreamlands with ridiculously pow...


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Where Do You Dream?

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Thursday, December 8, 2016, In : Paizo 

My Dreams of the Yellow King is finally out, and it’s one of my assignments that I’ve liked the most. I had to do a lot of research into H.P. Lovecraft’s works to give it the right tone, and a fan of Lovecraft will see lots of sections that hit the same tones. I wanted to touch on some of these, but…

 

….there be spoilers ahead!

 

Much of the adventure takes place in the Dreamlands, a section of the Dimension of Dreams with some consistent geography, much of which is taken from ...


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A Visit to Paizo

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Monday, October 24, 2016, In : Paizo 
I recently returned from a visit to Seattle, where I was able to meet at the Paizo offices for several hours with many fine folks there (particularly Owen KC Stephens, Amanda Hamon Kunz, and Jessica Price) about development opportunities and further work. It was a great experience, and I filled several notebook pages with thoughts, advice, and next steps. Thanks particularly to Adam Daigle, who gave me a tour of the offices. It was great to see where all the magic happens! 
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All Kitted Out

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Wednesday, October 19, 2016, In : Paizo 
I'm working on a Players Companion product for Paizo, and I suggested adding new kits, or groupings of equipment to buy all at once. I should have checked first--Pathfinder already has a ton of kits that seem to cover every environment, character class, theme, career, and foe you might need. Let me show you what I mean; here is a list of the kits I could find that already exist in the game so far:

Alchemist's kit, Alchemy crafting kit, Animal disguise kit, Antidote kit, Arcanist's kit, Arctic ...
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A Delay? Now?!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, October 4, 2016, In : Paizo 
I'm very excited to see my Dreams of the Yellow King see print. It's always exciting to see what of my text has changed, what art was added, and so on. It should be released any day now! Unfortunately...there was a delay in the printing that is pushing this back a month. So I've got to wait a whole other month before I get to hold this in my hands! 

Although that's one month closer to seeing my Fangs of War and Tower of the Drowned Dead in print, I suppose.
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Another AP Away!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Friday, September 2, 2016, In : Paizo 
Whew! After a pretty grueling week, and several very late nights, I just finished up my turnover of Pathfinder #125 Tower of the Drowned Dead. Woo hoo! The only thing I have left to turn in for it is my map set. I have those drawn out on graph paper, but those are my annotated reference copies, and I need to pretty them up quite a bit, to make it easier for whichever cartographer gets those. I've got some plans with my family this afternoon, but I'm expecting to turn in very early tonight and...
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Another Paizo Project Down!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, August 30, 2016, In : Paizo 
While doing my larger work on the adventure Tower of the Drowned Dead for the Ruins of Azlant adventure path, I've had another couple of projects keeping me busy as well. One of those is now off my plate as of this evening--Heroes of the High Court. I was given the great opportunity to develop the outline for this entire project, and then pick as much of it as I wanted to write. Knowing that I'd be juggling this with the Ruins of Azlant adventure, I only assigned myself half of the book--but ...
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About Me


I'm Ron Lundeen, game designer for Wizards of the Coast. Before that, I worked as a development manager for Paizo, Inc. and as an RPG freelancer. I've recently had products in print for Paizo, Wizards of the Coast, Petersen Games, and Ulisses Spiele. My opinions here are my own and do not reflect those of Wizards of the Coast.

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