Mad Brew Labs

Because of their default structure, blogs are not very well suited for allowing users to find older or related content. Wordpress tries to mitigate this fact with elements like categories and tags and there are quite a few plug-ins available that guess at what might be related material, but I think it benefits both the blog and its readers, especially new ones, to occasionally revisit the best posts.

Instead of reposting the original content, I will be creating a few synopsis posts that gather together a bunch of relevant topics that link to the original content. I will probably end up making a dedicated page(s) to collect these posts to make it easier for readers to find more of what they are looking for.

Online Resources

The Online Resource category is probably the most visited category of Mad Brew Labs. In the last year and half that the Labs has been operating, I have occasionally gathered together massive lists of resources of various themes to make it easier for readers to find the stuff they need for their games.

• General RPG Resources: a list of general RPG resources including networks & forums, game design, worldbuilding, and cartography.
• Virtual Tabletop Software: a list of software that facilitate playing RPGs between friends online.
• Terrain, Cardstock, & Tutorials: a list of resources to help outfit your tabletop with the best imagery and environment available.
• Non-Heroic Scale Minis DB: a database of manufacturers of non-heroic scale miniatures.
• Heroic Scale Minis DB: a database of manufacturers of heroic scale (25mm-28mm) miniatures.
• Level-up Your Mini Hobby Skills: a database of sites that offer tutorials to improve your miniature hobby skills.
• D&D Inspired Webcomics: a list of humorous (and not so humorous) web comic strips.
• Pathfinder RPG Resources: a list of custom content, documents, and software.
• D&D 4e Resources: a list of publishers, custom content, character generators, character sheets, power cards, and combat managers.

Look for me to begin converting all the resources that are not available in a database format (currently, any non miniature resource) into sortable databases.

Listening to: Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe 2 – Mars Needs Women

There are multitudes of scales for miniatures. There are micro scale (1:1200, 1:2400, etc.) that allow wargamers to play out large naval or space battles on the dining room table. 15mm is a common size for historical and fantasy battles of epic proportions. And sometimes you may not really care about scale you just want an impressively detailed 90mm resin model to paint and display.

In this installment of Miniatures & Terrain Series, I provide a simple database of manufacturers of miniatures of what I’m calling non-heroic scales (everything but the D&D 25mm-28mm standard). But don’t let the name deceive you, there are some very heroic minis available within these scales.

Non-Heroic Minis Database

Scroll right to see more.

Miniatures & Terrain Article Series

If you’re having trouble finding that [near] perfect mini (or terrain to put it on), visit a few of the manufacturers I have cataloged in Google Spreadsheets in one of these articles:

• Heroic Sized Minis Database (25mm-28mm)
• Terrain, Cardstock, & Tutorials (not Googlized yet, but soon)
• Level-Up Your Miniature Hobby Skills (painting and modeling resources)

Listening to: Testament – The Gathering – Eyes of Wrath

From Cool Mini or Not

So you purchased the perfect mini for your character, but it is currently just a heap of white metal in a plastic blister pack. Oh, and it uses a scimitar instead of that awesome two-handed falchion your character likes to use to split enemies in twain, but it is close enough to perfect… and you can literally picture what it will look like painted and finished in your head.

However, a day and a few paint pots later, your miniature figurine doesn’t even come close to what you wanted. This is probably a familiar scenario for many roleplayers who try their hand at trying to find and paint the perfect miniature. Well today, as part of my series of miniature resources, I am presenting a database of websites that offer tutorials to level up your miniature hobby skills.

The following collection of sites has been tagged with what types of help they offer. Typical examples include painting tips & tricks (like how to paint non-metallic metal), basing (make your mini look like it’s standing on terrain), photography (how to grab an awesome pic of your finished masterpiece), sculpting & conversion (make your own mini or modify an existing one), casting (mass produce a custom mini), and terrain (creature awesome environments to use your mini with).

Miniature Hobby Resources

Scroll right to see the URLs.

Miniatures & Terrain Article Series

If you’re having trouble finding that [near] perfect mini (or terrain to put it on), visit a few of the manufacturers I have cataloged in Google Spreadsheets in one of these articles:

• Heroic Sized Minis Database (25mm-28mm)
• Non-Heroic Scale Minis Database
• Terrain, Cardstock, & Tutorials (not Googlized yet, but soon)

Listening to: Soilwork – Figure Number Five – Rejection Role

Lich Lord Asphyxious by Privateer Press

Besides dice, miniatures are probably the next most recognizable roleplaying accouterments found at the gaming table. Minis, a vestige of RPGs wargaming roots, are often more than just a physical means for representing characters. For many, the collecting and painting of minis are a hobby within the hobby. For the past month, I have scoured the internet for as many miniature resources that I could, and this week I will be publishing the results of my hard work. I have cataloged and sorted miniature manufacturers by scale and genre. Today, I present what is most likely the scale most used for roleplaying games, the heroic 25mm scale (25mm-28mm). For those unfamiliar with miniature scale, when it is represented in millimeters (which truly isn’t a scale), it expresses what the “toe to eye” measurement of a miniature that represented a 6′ tall man. A 28mm mini uses a 1:60 scale. This is rather convenient for D&D influenced games that use 1″ grids to represent 5′. But there are a ton of scales in use, and one company’s 28mm might be another’s 32mm, sculpting is an art not (usually) an exact science. This means that you might be able to find minis of compatible size for you games from the 30mm-34mm range (which can be found in my next post). You’ll notice that I have included cardstock (or flats) minis. They are definitely worth a look as most of them are free. The website for each manufacturer can be seen if you scroll right.

Heroic Minis Database

If you know any manufacturers of “heroic” sized miniatures or flats that I have overlooked, do not hesitate to link to them in the comments.

Miniatures & Terrain Article Series

If you want minis in other scales, resources to improve your miniature hobby skills (like painting or basing), or looking for some interesting terrain to use your minis on, check out my other articles:

• Non-Heroic Scale Minis Database
• Level-up Your Miniature Hobby Skills
• Terrain, Cardstock, & Tutorials

Listening to: Velvet Revolver – Contraband – Slither

Pathfinder RPG

Well, Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG will have been out a month by the beginning of next week and I want to get a head start on compiling a PFRPG Resource. Of course, many people were waiting until the final rules were published before creating anything specifically for Pathfinder. That being said I think any Pathfinder aficionados will find the following resources useful

Official Paizo Resources

Pathfinder RPG Resource Page
Here you will find errata, policies & licensing, character sheets, the character traits PDF, the free Bestiary Preview PDF, a 3.5 Conversion Guide that shows where all the changes were made, and the Council of Thieves Player’s Guide.

Official Pathfinder Reference Document (PRD)
This is an online version of nearly everything released under the Open Game License. The PRD makes quick work of looking up rules and can serve as a supplementary resource at game tables (providing you have a computer with internet access).

Pathfinder Society Organized Play
Join the organized play arm of Pathfinder and be able to participate in official games run at conventions, hobby shops, and in homes across the globe. Of particularly worthwhile note is the link to the PFS Guide which includes faction traits for use with PFRPG.

Unofficial Resources

d20 PFSRD
This unofficial online Pathfinder System Reference Document includes some details the official PRD (mentioned above) does not have. These details include Character Traits and Bestiary monsters. It is also organized a little differently and you can quickly find such things as conditions, special abilities, and traps using their navigation menu. Oh, and they have an instance of Azhrei’s Digital Index Lookup which allows you to search a digital version of the PFRPG index. By the way, they also have download of the full site for offline use, how handy is that? Highly recommended!

Mad Brew Labs’ Mystic Market
I have my own collection of Pathfinder compatible material dealing with magical items. Check out the Mystic Market for new magical item for your Pathfinder game.

Pathfinder DB
I’ll let this excerpt from the About page describe the site:
The Pathfinder Database seeks to fill the role that countless of sources and message boards across the Internet have provided for fan-created gaming content. This site exists specifically for the purpose of providing a collection of fan-created content for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The types of content available could change over time, and the menus above will change to reflect that.

Pathfinder Chronicler
The Chronicler is dedicated to fiction set in the Pathfinder universe. The site does reviews and reports Paizo news, but the main focus is to develop fiction. If you want to participate, you must first become and editor. While I haven’t applied for the process myself, due to my primary focus of Nevermet Press, it appears that the process is about helping each other write better, which gets two thumbs up from me.

Pathfinder Open Game Content
This site also houses an online SRD, but it looks like it is keeping the Beta stuff. However, it does have some PFS authorized Character Traits sourced from the Pathfinder Companion: Cheliax, Empire of Devils.

Pathfinder Wiki
This wiki serves as a repository for official Pathfinder and Golarion canon obtained from the various Pathfinder sourcebooks such as the Gazetteer, Campaign Setting, Adventure Paths, and the various Companion and Chronicles supplements. It has been instrumental in assisting my Co-GM and I develop a massive multi-GM campaign. Highly recommended!

The Book of Arcane Magic – Reborn Soul Sorcerer Bloodline
This is a free PDF from 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming that is a web enhancement for sorcerers. Can’t beat a free PDF of character options!

Pathfinder RPG Character Generators

Hero Lab
This commercial software developed by Lone Wolf Development works with many game systems and costs $29.95. The price includes the material for one system of your choice with the option of expanding the product with other systems at $20 a pop. I stopped at their booth during GenCon and was looking at all the nifty systems it worked with and I really want to try it. They have a demo version of it available for download and I think I might take it for a spin.

PCGen
PCGen has been around a loooooong time. I used it way back with D&D 3.0 I believe. It is a heavily developed and maintained software package that I believe is heading into version 6! I just noticed on their Yahoo Group that they are releasing a Pathfinder data set. Oh, did I mention it’s free?

RPG Engine
This site also has two free utilities for Pathfinder RPG. sCoreGen is a character generator based on the Pathfinder Beta rules, but an upgrade to the final released rule set is in the works. The other utility, adVance, is a spell list manager also based upon the Pathfinder Beta rules. Both utilities are based upon Excel spreadsheets and VB script macros.

Pathfinder RPG Character Sheets & Game Documents

LPJ Design’s Basic Character Sheet
The Basic Character Sheet for use with The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a 2 page PDF Character Sheet resource that players can use to record all the their characters information on. This basic version is free, but Louis Porter, Jr. also has an Expanded Character Sheet on sale for $0.79.

LPJ Design’s Initiative Cards
LPJ also has a free set of initiative cards to help ease the burden of GMing.

Neceros PFRPG Character & Extra Spells Sheets
Alternate character sheet and spell sheet available as PDFs.

Help Mad Brew Grow this List!

It’s nigh impossible for one man to keep abreast of all the new and existing resources available for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, so if you know of one I missed, feel free to leave me a comment with a link to the item. Shameless plugs welcome!