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Hi folks. I'm running the Kingmker AP in Monte Cook's "Ptolus: City by the Spire" setting instead of Golarion. I've dropped Brevoy and the Stolen Lands into an area of that setting called Cherubar without too many setting-related issues that need to be resolved. (Technically, I've also included the River Kingdoms, but the campaign hasn't had any interaction with that area, yet.)

The only major change is that instead of the two nations that now make up Brevoy being conqured by Choral the Conqueror, Brevoy was formed under similar circumstances by the setting's Tarsisian Empire.

One of the major inhabitants of the Cherubar region are a race of winged elves named the Cherubim. They are reserved, timid, slightly arrogant, and live in small groups high in the mountains. I'm thinking of having the Cherubim more prominent in the AP, perhaps even replacing one of the races or cultures that the PCs interact with. This is especially appealing because I have a player who is a half-elf with a Cherubim father.

So, I'm looking for suggestions on races, cultures, or even events that can be replaced by or redesigned using the Cherubim. The Cherubim can be used in place of a relatively benign race or culture or a moderately antagonistic one. I think an outright combative or violently aggressive culture would limit the roleplay value of encountering the Cherubim, but it could be possible.

This is a slow-moving play-by-post game, so I've been taking my time reading the later AP volumes. I'm wondering if Pitax would be a good candidate or possibly the Tiger Lords, but I haven't read enough of the AP to determine that, yet. I suppose I could also replace one of the fey encounters and increase its significance.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Hi, I have a question about the Gunslinger's Mysterious Stranger archetype. To start, I'm going to paste this archetype's Deeds section:

Deeds: A mysterious stranger swaps a pair of deeds for the following.

Focused Aim (Ex): At 1st level, as a swift action, the mysterious stranger can spend 1 grit point to gain a bonus on all firearm damage rolls equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 1) with all firearm attacks she makes until the end of her turn. At 7th level, when she uses the dead shot deed, she multiplies this bonus by the number of hits she made while rolling the Dead Shot attack. This deed replaces the quick clear deed.

Clipping Shot (Ex): At 11th level, when the mysterious stranger misses with a firearm attack, she can spend 1 grit point to deal half the damage that attack would have dealt if it were a hit (roll damage normally). She can decide to use this deed and spend the grit point after making the attack. This deed has no effect if the attack used the dead shot deed. The cost of using this deed cannot be reduced with the Signature Deed feat, the true grit class feature, or any similar effect.

Here's my question, what deed does the Clipping Shot replace?

The quote above clearly states that the Focused Aim deed replaces the base Gunslinger's Quick Clear deed, but there isn't a similar statement for Clipping Shot. There are three deeds made available to the base Gunslinger at 11th level--Bleeding Wound, Expert Loading, and Lightning Reload--so it stands to reason that it's one of those, but that's as far as I feel confident guessing at.

Is there an obvious answer that I'm missing?

Hi folks, I'm running a KM campaign online, but I'm out of town amd didn't bring everything I need with me. My players are at Thorn Camp. Would somebody mind letting me know what the bandits' perceptions scores, Kressle's perception score, and Kressle's hit points? That's all I need.

If this breaks the forum rules, I sincerely apologize.

I am going to be starting a PbP thread for some friends, and one of the types of campaigns we are considering is a dungeon crawl campaign. Rather than just informally agreeing with the players that their characters are going to spend most of their time traveling from dungeon to dungeon for loose change, I'd like to offer more of a motivation for the characters to justify the dungeoneering, but not have it be so binding that the campaign can't have a few other types of adventures thrown in.

So, here's my idea, and any criticism or suggestions to help develop it would be appreciated:

About 15 to 20 years ago, the Empire sent a large regiment of soldiers into hostile lands to deal with a barbarian threat. The soldiers were efficient and ruthless, destroying villages and communities in their pursuit of the enemy, specifically a popular shaman leader, named ToBeDetermined. :)

A small detachment of the regiment's leadership finally cornered the shaman leader and his retinue deep underground in some ancient barrows that the barbarians considered holy. The shaman leader knew that he was cornered, and spent the remaining few hours of his life performing a ritual that would curse the invading soldiers and their descendents.

The Curse of ToBeDetermined affects every living member of said regiment and their descendents. Since ToBeDetermined (and most of the barbarian hordes) viewed the empire as greedy and decadent, the curse is designed to force the soldiers to find an enormous amount of money, and "spend" it in a ritual to try and wear away the curse. When enough money is given to pay off the curse, the curse will be lifted for all of the soldiers and all of their descendents, whether living or dead. It's sort of like punishing a glutton by forcing him to overeat. Since the regiment destroyed whole families and tribes, the curse is extended to the soldiers' families.

The immediate consequences of the curse are ill-defined at this point, but the lasting consequence is that the souls of those affected aren't sent to an afterlife. They're not undead, but they are enslaved in a sort of limbo ruled by ToBeDetermined. So, the PCs will be those soldiers or their descendents going into dungeons to get cash to work off the curse. I envision that at the end of every dungeon, the PCs will perform the ritual and then head out to possibly another dungeon. All over the world, others also affected by the curse are attempting to do the same. This provides an easy entry for new PCs to come into the party in case of player death or if more of our friends want to play.

The mechanics are where this idea has issues, and I'm especially open to suggestions. As we all know, 3.5 and PF rely on the PCs getting more and more wealth, and telling them that they have to give that wealth away is contradictory. While it could provide for an interesting decision over how much to give vs. keep, having to make the same decision every dungeon (and the extra bookkeeping) would grow tiresome. The option that I'm considering is stating that the details of the curse only allow for 10% of the wealth gained to be spent towards the curse (to make the curse harder, maybe?), and then just give 10% more wealth to the PCs.

The campaign will be set in Praemal, which is the name of the world for Monte Cook's "Ptolus: City by the Spire" campaign setting, but this campaign doesn't necessarily have to be strongly tied to that. The empire obviously has to be the Tarsisian Empire, and the curse could have taken place during the invasion by the Eastern Hordes.

I'd really appreciate any comments!

Hi folks,

I'm trying to put a character on a sort of vision quest, and before I pull a plot device completely out of thin air, I'm hoping that a spell or other game mechanic already exists that I might use. The weirder the better, as more inspiration is always welcome. Ideally, I'm hoping to find something that will send the character's awareness into another plane of existence or into some dream world, but leave his body alone.

The character in question is a dragon-themed cleric. That's not really important, but if that helps choose something thematically appropriate, so much the better.

Any ideas or inspiration would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi, folks!

I'm hoping that somebody can recommend a fantasy author and/or series. I am looking to get my wife a complete fantasy series in paperback for her birthday. (It doesn't necessarily have to be a complete series if you were to count supplements, spin-offs, short stories, etc., but I don't want to give her two-thirds of a trilogy or start her on a series where the last available book ends on a cliffhanger.) So, based on that criteria, this very well could be an older author or series. That's fine!

She likes your standard George R.R. Martin or Steven Erikson, but she loves Katharine Kerr's Deverry novels and Elizabeth Haydon's Rhapsody trilogy. Honestly, I'm not sure if she likes the fact that they are female writers or if they just wrote stories that really spoke to her.

Anyway, I hope that this is enough information for some recommendations. Thanks in advance!

Have there been any fan-based attempts to Pathfinderize the d20 Modern rules? Especially the Urbana Arcana stuff?

Actually, a good question to ask first is would d20 Modern benefit from a Paizo wash? I never played it in the higher levels. Does it have the same scaling issues that 3.5 does?

Actually actually, the most important question: Isn't there a better word out there than "Pathfinderize" that means the same thing? I mean, seriously. That's a pretty big oversight, if there isn't.

How do you come up with fantasy-sounding names for people, places, and nations? Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Personally, my favorite way to come up with a name is to scan a particular area in an atlas until I see a name that I like or that inspires a name I like. However, sometimes I feel like I'm running out of names I can use or that inspire other names. I'm hoping people can use this thread to share how they come up with names.

Hi, folks!

I've been asked to run an adventure or two for my play-by-post group to introduce them to Pathfinder, and while I love the idea of doing this, I was hoping to save myself a lot of time by running a pre-published adventure. Plus, I feel that a Paizo-quality adventure will give PF what it deserves in terms of quality.

Asking around, someone recommended Tower of the Last Baron (LB1). Reading through it, it looks like a fun, fast-moving adventure with a lot of variety... until the party enters the castle. The castle is full of rooms with guards, guards, guards, and more guards. Some are regular guards, some are guard sargeants, and some are Chelaxian Elite guards. If the party stealths their way to the more interesting parts of the castle, that's fine. But if they don't bother with stealth or in the likely event that they'll be detected before they reach the end, then they're in for a slog of repetitive fights.

Maybe I'm just not recognizing that a 5th-level party will mow right through all of those fights, but fights take a lot longer in a PBP, so I don't want the players getting bored and having that affect their first impression of PF.

Now, I'm more than prepared to beef up the guards and lower their numbers, but I also want to explore my options. What other adventures out there would do well in a PBP style of play and would also serve as a good intro to PF? Some of the guidelines I think apply are:

Someone help me out, please.

The online SRD for the Spellcraft skill reads, "If you fail to learn a spell from a spellbook or scroll, you must wait at least 1 week before you can try again."

However, the magic section of the SRD has a section titled "Adding Spells to a Wizard's Spellbook," which states that the wizard needs to make a particular Spellcraft check, and then "If the check fails, the wizard cannot understand or copy the spell. He cannot attempt to learn or copy that spell again until he gains another rank in Spellcraft."

Now, I've re-read those entries numerous times, and I feel confident that they are both referring to learning a spell, not visually identifying a spell being cast or just preparing a spell from an unfamiliar spellbook. The only difference is that the magic section is talking about learning a spell with the intention of adding it to your spellbook, while the Spellcraft section just talks about learning the spell.

Is there a reason to learn a spell and not add it to your spellbook, or am I completely missing something? Are the two bits I've quoted talking about the same thing?