Ansel Krulwich's page

Please cancel my Pathfinder Player Companion and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game subscriptions. Thank you.

I wouldn't have expected the second part of that updated ruling. Wow.

Well if it works that way, it would change the spell duration from instantaneous to 1 round. Could I later on down the line buy a metamagic rod of extend? Would it make it last for 2 rounds?

No. Lingering Spell does what it says and says what it does. It doesn't say that it changes the duration of the spell to 1 round. Because the spell still has a duration of "instantaneous," the Extend Spell metamagic will have no effect on burning hands.

Additional reference: Extend Metamagic on an Instantaneous Spell

If it's anything like real life, it'd be 25 pounds per dog if you want them to survive for a day's run at 8 mph and you'd have to take regular breaks throughout the day.

If you want them moving at full speed, they can't be encumbered so I'd just go with their light carrying capacity, Str 15 = 66 lbs. x 1.5 (quadruped) = 99 lbs. Make it an even 100 lbs. and it matches the chart for Mounts and Vehicles from the PRD exactly. The team would normally move at 4 mph or 32 mi. per day but you have to factor in terrain and snow cuts that in half so now you're down to 2 mph or 16 mi. per day.

For Reign of Winter, I calculated an overland trip at roughly 20 miles per day in order to make a specific timeline work. I used 6-dog teams carrying 400 lb. sleds as a sort of compromise between Golarion's super-strong-but-slow dogs versus real life.

The light spell is still missing the latest errata. From last year:

The "light" spell does not have the newest errata.

The lastest book printing says:
"This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch, shedding
normal light in a 20-foot radius from the point touched, and
increasing the light level for an additional 20 feet by one step, up..."

The PRD has:
"This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius, and increasing the light level for an additional 20 feet by one step, up to normal light (darkness becomes dim light, and dim light becomes normal light). In an area of normal or bright light, this spell has no effect. The effect is immobile, but it can be cast on a movable object."
----------------------------------
The bolded words are missing.

Ender, that's not what it says on the Paizo PRD, nor what it says in the books. The errata doesn't seem to have that either from what someone said -- hence part of the problem.

The PRD and the errata may not say it, but the book and the PDF certainly do. Here's what mine says (emphasis is mine), cut and pasted:

This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius from the point touched, and increasing the light level for an additional 20 feet by one step, up to normal light

The boon options include getting a lesser version of the dancing hut

The winter witch in my party will stop right there and take the hut. Forget the eternal winter and forget totalitarian rule from an evil, oppressive monarchy. The citizens of Irrisen can sod off. She'll take that hut and go jaunting around wherever it will take her.

I made extensive use of my forest flip mat for a lot of the small encounters. I'd drop it on the table and tell the players, "Choose. Choose the location of your ambush."

They'd set up their minis in a marching order somewhere on a trail and then something nasty would drop out of the trees (or would BE the trees).

I know people are matching the Golarion Calendar with the Gregorian Calendar but it is slightly different in the respect each month has 30 days. The difference in days is .4 so it is close but still a little different. I have seen people use the # of days like the Gregorian calendar but I did see a Paizo post on the # of days is 30 with the leap year being 31 for the month of Arodus.

The new Inner Sea World Guide changed it to more closely match the Gregorian calendar with the number of days per month. The only thing that doesn't exactly match are leap years and there's a quote somewhere from James Jacobs that that was an oversight.

Do throwing weapons generally count as ranged weapons? If so, I think you could use the Snap Shot chain to get flank.

Snap Shot allows you to threaten, but that does not mean you get to flank.

When making a melee attack, you get a +2 flanking bonus if your opponent is threatened by another enemy character or creature on its opposite border or opposite corner.

Since Snap Shot allows you to threaten, you can help provide a flank bonus to someone else, but you cannot flank from range because you can only flank when making a melee attack.

1) I've always used Moonday. I also resolve the moon phases on that day.
2) It's a Wealday.
3) That week is a third-quarter moon so you're starting to get a waning crescent by the 24th. The next week is a new moon, the week after that is a first-quarter moon, and the week after is a full moon.

You don't have to have a crazy spreadsheet calculator calendar like I have (but it was a lot of fun to build). The easiest way to answer those questions is to simply look at a 2010 calendar and use those days of the week and moon phases. It'll work just fine. Feb 24, 2010 was also a Wednesday but the moon phase was a first-quarter moon that week. I forget why my spreadsheet has a different phase--it lines up with something from Paizo canon but I forget right now.

(EDIT: Nope... Just checked my code. I simply take a naive calculation based on the epoch divided by 7 and then modulo 4 to generate a moon phase. The first day of the calendar simply has a full moon because I indexed 0 to that particular phase. No reason other than that. There are 28 days to the lunar cycle in my calendar to make the math easy so my calendar will never be in phase with the real calendar. I eventually rewrote everything in Ruby and the code is much simpler to follow there compared to the crazy shenanigans I had to pull in the Google Docs spreadsheet. Gods, I should really rewrite this thing.)

4) None that I'm aware of. (Complete list from PathfinderWiki.com)

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

Necrovox wrote:

Now, are the ice spears cast at CL 5? (2 spears?) or am I understading the text wrong?

The icicle wand is a wondrous item with CL 5 so it would cast 1 spear since the ice spears spell effect is "1 ice spear/4 levels". This is further explained in the description text of the spell: "You may cause a number of ice spears equal to one spear for every 4 caster levels you possess...". It takes being CL 8 to get a second spear.

Well CL1 is level 1, so a CL 5 (which happens to be the same level required to cast it) would be 1/4 so wouldn't it go up at 1, 5, 9? Or do CL not start until your first time you are permitted to cast the spell?

Rule of thumb is you always round down when multiplying (or dividing). Technically, you have zero spears from 1-3rd levels and get your first at 4th level. But since you can't possibly cast it any earlier than 5th level, it's a moot point.

The winter witch in my group made the save to avoid eating the cookie, resealed it, asked Jairess to sign the envelope "From Jairess *kiss*" and sent it through the teleporter to the top floor.

You gotta love that kind of malicious ingenuity.

Sylgja ended up using the scroll to break the jenkins' curse on the cleric. They already threw away their putrified rations and still have to hunt to get by but at least he can now purify food and water again.

Don't forget, Sylgja also has the Manipulate Luck ability. It's probably not too far of a stretch to allow that luck bonus to apply to caster level checks if it'll help break a curse.

Ansel, you mentioned earlier that you were going to have the floors be slippery near the pool, how did that end up playing out?

It never did. The party snuck past the entire first floor skipping those festivities. The barracks eventually emptied out when Radosek ordered everyone to the second floor to defend the tower.

Eventually, the PCs went back downstairs and engaged the water elemental close to the front door. There was no other combat inside after that. They then engaged the troll (and used the elixir of fire breath to good effect) and eventually the two remaining guards near the gate (one had been sent away on patrol earlier). They were fumbling with the ranged attacks (I gave the guards cover from their positions) so I let them use pitons to climb up the chutes. The winter witch simply frostfooted it up the walls directly and tossed a rope down.

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

Keep in mind that said item is really only CL 10, not 15. That makes it a bit easier to remove (and detect).

Is it not the same caster level as the item it was intended to be?

Nope.

Removing Cursed Items: While some cursed items can simply be discarded, others force a compulsion upon the user to keep the item, no matter the costs. Others reappear even if discarded or are impossible to throw away. These items can only be discarded after the character or item is targeted by a remove curse spell or similar magic. the dc of the caster level check to undo the curse is equal to 10 + the cursed item's caster level.

Actually, identifying the cursed item is unclear if it uses the cursed item caster level or not... I would guess to prevent metagaming you'd use the intended item's caster level since the cursed item caster level is often completely different. What I said above in my previous post is partially incorrect.

Identifying Cursed Items: Cursed items are identified like any other magic item, with one exception: unless the check made to identify the item exceeds the DC by 10 or more, the curse is not detected. If the check is not made by 10 or more, but still succeeds, all that is revealed is the item crafter's original intent. If the item is known to be cursed, the nature of the curse can be determined using the standard DC to identify the item.

For example: Boots of dancing are CL 16 whereas the boots of elvenkind are only CL 5. It'd be a Spellcraft DC 20 (CL 5 + 15) to identify the boots as their intended item, a Spellcraft DC 30 to identify the boots as being cursed (CL 5 + 15 + 10), and a DC 26 caster level check (CL 16 + 10) to remove them. If you know that the boots are cursed (say, you've put them on and you start dancing in combat) then it's a Spellcraft DC 31 (CL 16 + 15) to identify the nature of the curse.

Keep in mind that said item is really only CL 10, not 15. That makes it a bit easier to remove (and detect).

Edit: Actually, it doesn't make it easier to detect... See additional posts below.

The mirror sight spell is viewing only but where's the fun in that?

I guess they write messages on paper or on slate with chalk.

Yes, you're right about Meirul being Elvanna's agent, not Nazhena. Regardless, Meirul's dead in my campaign and her fate was sealed the moment she became winter-touched. I wouldn't question Queen Elvanna's actions if I were you. It is as her highness desires. :)

1. Regarding the teleporter keys, that was answered on page 1.

2. in my campaign, Meirul was subdued and locked in her bedroom. That night, she awoke, broke the window in her room, and climbed out. On her way back to Whitethrone, Nazhena learns of Radosek's death. Having no further need of the forlarren, she snaps the sliver of ice in Meirul's heart and she dies instantly on the frozen plains of Irrisen.

3. Spriggan's are nasty and I didn't have him hold back at all. His scare spell only affected one PC and he was soon to be wolf bait in a couple rounds.

4. Being able to impersonate a high noble in Taldan society? That motivation enough for a doppelganger. Impersonating the white witch's apprentice, however, is an interesting twist.

5. Irriseni mirror sight is detailed in the book's appendix and you should read it entirely. Nazhena can cast the spell with a known person as the intended target and be routed to the closest mirror within sight and Radosek can do the same in reverse.

This poses an interesting situation if Radosek is dead and replaced with a doppelganger. Nazhena's mirror sight spell would fail if she tried to cast looking for Radosek but would succeed if she cast on the known location of the summoning room. If doppelganger Radosek was in that room Nazhena would then know that she's talking to an imposter.

6. Jairess is there because it's a job and she gets to be close to her birds. With Radosek gone, she'll likely do what any other adventurer does and go hang out at the local tavern until the next job comes along.

The witch in my campaign is also a sylph so Jairess is, like, so totally stalking her now. They'll either be BFFs or frenemies but I haven't decided. She refused to give up any of her weapons, armor, or valuables to the PCs and nobody pressed the issue so there's no hard feelings but you never know with sylphs.

Now, are the ice spears cast at CL 5? (2 spears?) or am I understading the text wrong?

The icicle wand is a wondrous item with CL 5 so it would cast 1 spear since the ice spears spell effect is "1 ice spear/4 levels". This is further explained in the description text of the spell: "You may cause a number of ice spears equal to one spear for every 4 caster levels you possess...". It takes being CL 8 to get a second spear.

By RAW, the damage from cold weather is not cold damage. Its untyped damage. Cold resistance does absolutely nothing to prevent the damage.

Note that under the Heat Dangers section (just a little ways past the Cold Dangers section), the same thing applies to the damage that deals. There is only says "damage", while a bit later, under Extreme Heat, specifically says "fire damage". If it all was supposed to do fire damage, why leave that out in one part, but include it in the next?

The rules as written aren't 100% complete and requires the GM to infer intent where huge gaping holes have been left. Sometimes it's an assumption you must make. Sometimes, you can refer to other published material to help solidify that assumption of intent. For example, on page 6 of The Witchwar Legacy:

The extreme cold further requires a Fortitude save (DC 15, +1 per previous check) each minute, or it deals another 1d4 points of nonlethal damage and exposes the individual to frostbite and hypothermia (treat as fatigued). See page 442 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook for further details. A simple endure elements spell will negate these dangers, as will any amount of cold resistance.

(Emphasis mine.)

A damage effect always tells you what kind of damage it does. If it doesn't say, then its untyped damage. Cold weather does untyped damage, by RAW. You can interpret it any way you want, but by RAW cold weather does not do cold damage.

And thus, by RAW, ice elementals would die of exposure in minutes being unprotected in extreme cold weather. But, in Reign of Winter...

By RAW, they do. Cold resistance offers no help against the untyped damage that exposure to cold weather deals. The same way red dragons can die from the heat in a desert. (As long as its below 140 degrees. At that point, the heat starts to do actual fire damage.) Red dragons can survive just fin in normal conditions, and inside a volcano. But in that band of temperatures between 90 and 140 degrees, its in danger of heat exposure.

Its wrong, but thats RAW. But as this is the Rules Questions forum, RAW is all that matters.

RAW says ice elementals and white dragons die of frostbite and hypothermia in their native environments and red dragons suffer from heat exposure in a desert unless they're standing inside a bonfire in the desert.

Common sense and RAI, however, would disagree and that energy resistance and immunities are clearly meant to protect against environmental damage to the point that even Paizo published material makes this inference.

For hilarity's sake, note that fire resistance 1 grants immunity to lava.

I don't see how that's possible.

Lava or magma deals 2d6 points of fire damage per round of exposure, except in the case of total immersion (such as when a character falls into the crater of an active volcano), which deals 20d6 points of fire damage per round.

If you ever drop your keys into a pit of lava don't go after them because man, they're gone.

Also, white dragons freeze to death.

That's impossible. Since they have the cold subtype they gain immunity to cold and vulnerability to fire.

Are Radosek's ice spears enhanced by the Pale tower as it is made of ice. I would assume yes...

That makes them very nasty. But I also assume they damage the elementals?

That's how I treated them. Yes, it does make them particularly nasty. They're pretty much guaranteed to trip their target.

The ice elementals would certainly be immune to the cold damage from the ice spears and they cannot be tripped. The conjured ice is magical so I guess the elementals can't ice glide through the spears so I guess they would take the piercing damage... I suppose.

An electrified spontaneous immolation caused an early end to Radosek's career so he only got to use the icicle wand once. :(

Now would a character with cold resistance be immune? i mean if even 1 point per round can be ignored this damage that takes 10 minutes should be nothing

Cold resist does mitigate the non-lethal cold damage from weather. Cold resist 5 is sufficient to be nearly immune (you'd only take 1 point of non-lethal damage if the GM rolls max damage on a d6). Anything more than that is effectively immune to cold weather.

That part is broke or perhaps someone could come up with extreme cold weather outfit that would provide an exception to the above. That would be in line with the real world, where what a person wears out to keep warm in subzero temps would leave you roasting if it's merely below freezing.

Reign of Winter has

[grumble] nobody tell the Inuit they've all been extinct for several centuries [/grumble]

Please re-read my last paragraph.

Also, Inuit likely have cold resist 5 in addition to whatever other bonuses they have to their Fortitude saves vs. cold weather.

Hi all! New to Pathfinder so please bear with me. I'm looking at the Balor stats, and notice he has sword attacks, whip attacks, and bash attacks.

For reference:

Melee +1 vorpal unholy longsword +31/+26/+21/+16 (2d6+13), +1 vorpal flaming whip +30/+25/+20 (1d4+7 plus 1d6 fire and entangle) or 2 slams +31 (1d10+12)

I realize on a standard action he can only choose either 1 attack with sword, OR 1 attack with whip OR 1 bash. (Is that correct?)

That is correct.

What confuses me is if he chooses a full round action to use his attacks. Does he get all his sword attacks AND all his whip attacks? His other choice would be his 2 bash attacks.

Correct. The Balor chooses one of the two following lines of attack:

Or...

2. If the Balor is somehow without its weapons, it could do two slams instead. It's probably better off casting implosion or fire storm.

On a side note I've always had a problem with the line, "Extreme cold (below –20° F) deals 1d6 points of lethal damage per minute (no save)." I've been on military training exercises for days at a time in conditions like that and as far as I know, I'm not dead.

You were assisted, most likely, with modern materials and sufficient technology, a.k.a.: magic. :) Modern cold weather gear is likely equivalent to a permanent endure elements coat.

The previous paragraphs include the phrase "an unprotected character" but this one doesn't, and should.

Agreed. A reasonable house rule would be to have protected characters only have to make saves once every 10 minutes similar to how you only have to make checks every hour (instead of 10 minutes) for severe cold conditions. Don't forget to add Survival checks--a DC 15 check gives you a +2 to your save vs. cold weather while moving. Every point above 15 grants that bonus to one additional person. Having a team of survivalists Aiding Another on those checks can be highly beneficial.

All of that along with stacking furs on top of cold weather gear would allow hardy individuals to rely on their hit points to weather extreme cold environments for hours at a time with only mundane equipment.

I love this site too much to not mention it: howjsay.com - erinyes

They even have iPhone and Android apps. Great for when everyone around the table is wondering how to pronounce "cuirass".

The interactive map of the Boarder Wood strikes me as a bit weird, in as much as whilst it is possible to toggle-off the encounter locations doing so also removes the names of the various parts of the wood, which PCs may possibly know whilst leaving the path they will follow marked on it. Can't help thinking that is the wrong way round.

Has anyone been able to produce a version of the map with the path and encounter locations removed, but the place names, Red Run Gorge etc., still there?

For something like that, I take two full screen screenshots, one with the labels on and another with the labels off. Then I take both screenshots into Pixelmator (Photoshop or Gimp will also work), put the no labels screenshot into a layer and then the labeled screenshot in a layer above that. Next, I get the eraser tool, select the top layer and just delete the unwanted labels exposing the unlabeled screenshot below. Finally, merge the layers, crop, resize, and you're done.

Now let's assume a round where you begin in mid-fall. Going first is now a BAD thing. Your wizard can't save you before you splat.

Well, since feather fall is an immediate action, they can regardless of anyone's initiative.

It's one thing to say a high initiative lets you leap to attack or whip out a weapon or fire off a spell before anyone else. It's another to say it lets the poison spread through your body faster or that you hurtle towards the ground quicker, or that you have an opportunity to do nothing (hold person) faster.

I wouldn't say that having a higher initiative lets a poison spread through your body faster.

I would, however, say that if your friend has a lower initiative that they won't react fast enough to cast delay poison in time.

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

A person under the effect of a hold person spell isn't in their right frame of mind.

Being aware suggests this is not the case. The spell doesn't say they have limited awareness, or partial awareness.

Oh, they most certainly are aware of what's going on. But they're compelled to take no actions. Quoting from the PRD:

Compulsion is a different matter altogether. A compulsion overrides the subject's free will in some way or simply changes the way the subject's mind works. A charm makes the subject a friend of the caster; a compulsion makes the subject obey the caster.

Hold person says, "Hold right there. Don't move. Don't... Do... Anything." The target has no choice but to obey. Their turn comes up in initiative and the held player (or the GM controlling the held NPC) says, "I do nothing," and you move on to the next person in initiative.

I'd insist the held person make a frowny face and seethe heavily. Just like you'd imagine in a movie or TV show or something. Save or suck doesn't mean you can't have some fun with it. :)

I think most people are forgetting one very important thing about hold person:

HOLD PERSON

School enchantment (compulsion) [mind-affecting]

Compulsion: A compulsion spell forces the subject to act in some manner or changes the way its mind works. Some compulsion spells determine the subject's actions or the effects on the subject, others allow you to determine the subject's actions when you cast the spell, and still others give you ongoing control over the subject.

A person under the effect of a hold person spell isn't in their right frame of mind. I would say they don't get to make the decision to delay. They may know that a dispel magic is one turn away but they are compelled to not take any actions regardless.

I love flavorful Aid Another checks and I'll have to remember a few of those, Mark.

That's why you can't take 20 on disabling a lock, because it'll jam it on the first go.

Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes 20 times as long as making a single check would take (usually 2 minutes for a skill that takes 1 round or less to perform).

Since taking 20 assumes that your character will fail many times before succeeding, your character would automatically incur any penalties for failure before he or she could complete the task (hence why it is generally not allowed with skills that carry such penalties). Common “take 20” skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps).

(emphasis mine)

Locks don't jam if you roll a 1 (unless the GM has a house rule). A PC that has spent the skill points in Disable Device should be rewarded for that effort and be able to bypass locked doors and chests and traps—that's what skill-monkey characters are designed to do.

If you want to make it difficult for them, you can always use Good or Superior quality locks (DC 30 and 40) or use spells like arcane lock. Or make it a hidden, secret door. Or don't use a door at all.

Misfires: I would have hoped that misfires or at least "jams" were MORE common, not less common for automatic weapons. I'm surprised they didn't have it that the machine gun would bind-up and need to be "cleared" as a move action or gain the broken condition if you "misfire" on one of those attacks? Even if it let you resolved the rest of the line effect's attacks (though I'd personally want to say that if on the third of five possible targets you roll a misfire, then the remaining two possible targets are safe because the gun jammed and the line effect ended).

Modern weaponry is really quite reliable. Here's a video of a guy firing the Madsen LMG, squeezing off several bursts at a time for several minutes.

If it only took one misfire to cause the Madsen to jam, you'd have to clear it once every two bursts, on average. That's simply so unreliable that the weapon would have never made it out of R&D and into production, much less onto the battlefield.

I added three boars that attacked Waldsby, you can find details of that event in the GM thread for the Snows of Summer. I'll probably put the PCs through a snowstorm or something on the way back to Waldsby from the Pale Tower, they set up camp to wait it out, find the animal corpse, then BAM! Yeti time!

I'm giving my owlbear a bandoleer.

Best. Boon. Ever.

I draw squares on my character sheet or if I'm the GM, I have the boxes on the NPC's index card. I put a '/' through a box if I fire an arrow and it misses indicating that the arrow is recoverable. If I hit I put an 'X' in the box indicating the arrow is destroyed. After combat, I roll d%'s and then either erase the slash or turn them into Xs depending on the result of the dice roll.

Put a smaller steel chest inside a larger steel chest, insulate the space between the two with sawdust or cattle hair, top the entire thing with crushed ice and salt. That's pretty close to how we refrigerated goods for long distance travel until the advent of mechanical refrigeration. Only problem is the ice requires replacing which could prove difficult.

If you want a more fantastical method, replace the ice with alchemical liquid ice (40 gp per vial). One vial per day might do it depending on what your GM thinks. It would be expensive and reserved for only the most demanding and affluent clients but if they want their fresh, organic, uncured meats and are willing to pay the price, more power to them.

Actually scratch that. The rich have enough power as it is.

Pound of salt: 5 gp. I'm just sayin'.

One thing to keep in mind that it's often easier and cheaper to use more mundane methods instead of magic. It's cheaper to spend a couple copper to pay someone to fan you all day instead of using a spell to keep cool. It's easier to ferment milk (now it gets you drunk) or just simply make cheese since it keeps better that way and it tastes better to boot. Preserving meat is as simple as just salting and curing it or drying it out. A pound of salt is 5 gp and will preserve more food than paying 5 gp for a 1st level wizard to cast a cantrip. It's also 400 times cheaper than a handy haversack.

It does say, "range increment of the throw" and not "range increment of the weapon". That would indicate it lands 5 squares away if you're throwing it 50'.

What about Cleave for that matter

I ask as Im playing a barbarian and it was suggested I get cleave for fairly obvious reasons but mostly what I do is charging in to attack. Can you charge and Cleave at the end?

No. Charge is a full-round action and Cleave is a standard action so you cannot take both actions in a single round.

You can Charge and perform a swift and/or free action but not another move or standard.

My players just snuck through the entire first floor dressed as Pale Tower guards. They were immediately identified by Meirul on the second floor as they came up. I've also got Radosek sweeping the tower with mirror sight and one PC managed to make the Perception check to detect the scrying so now everyone's smashing every single mirror.

I'm pretty sure this means that Radosek is going to send the guards from the first floor on up to deal with the intrusion and now I'm pretty worried for the group.

That's an awfully narrow reading. Any explanation as to why it works on destroyed magic items but not destroyed mundane (e.g. masterwork) items?

Dunno. It was specifically reworded that way from how it used to be worded in 3.5e so it's likely intentional.

Make whole gets a huge boost in PFRPG and can restore magical qualities to magic items if you're high enough level. A good rule of thumb would be that damaged or broken is like being hurt or injured to an item and mending is like cure light wounds. Destroyed is like death for an item and make whole is resurrection, at least for magic items. Funny enough, even make whole won't fix a destroyed mundane item although most GMs would rule that it does work.

The mending spell is not as powerful as you'd like to think:

Damaged Objects: A damaged object remains functional with the broken condition until the item's hit points are reduced to 0, at which point it is destroyed.

Damaged (but not destroyed) objects can be repaired with the Craft skill and a number of spells.

This spell repairs damaged objects, restoring 1d4 hit points to the object. If the object has the broken condition, this condition is removed if the object is restored to at least half its original hit points. All of the pieces of an object must be present for this spell to function. Magic items can be repaired by this spell, but you must have a caster level equal to or higher than that of the object. Magic items that are destroyed (at 0 hit points or less) can be repaired with this spell, but this spell does not restore their magic abilities. This spell does not affect creatures (including constructs). This spell has no effect on objects that have been warped or otherwise transmuted, but it can still repair damage done to such items.

If a non-magical object is destroyed, mending can no longer repair it. I had to deliver this bad news to my players who attempted to collect their used arrows and try to mend them back into usefulness.

Since moving to WA, what do you miss most from Austin?

WINNERS DON'T DO DRUGS

I added an extra encounter in Waldsby that takes place a day after the run-in with the Goltiaeva's but before the Pale Tower guards arrive. It only works if Nadya is told of Thora's fate during the trip to Waldsby from the Portal. Here are some quick notes with some extra commentary:

This event takes place mid-day while Nadya is in the early stages of preparing dinner. Orm shows off a wooden soldier he's carved from a piece of scrap lumber to one of the PCs. If they guess his name wrong, he responds in an exasperated tone, "No, I'm Orm. He's Mjoli." He walks away to his room while Mjoli approaches and asks, "Are you gonna help mama help get Thora back?" (You should have seen the look of panic on my player's face. "I don't think I'm ready to answer that question," she said.)

Nadya pauses and takes a breath before turning to the PCs. "Could... You go get two day's worth of firewood from town? I need a... I need some time." As the PCs head out, they hear Nadya calling for her boys to come sit down. (The players also asked if Nadya needed anything else and she asked for a pound of flour/meal. This turned out to make things a bit more interesting so you may want to have Nadya ask for it at the last minute as the PCs are leaving the house.)

The PCs can further explore town, perhaps checking the sawmill or Verana's Sundries for firewood. If they go to the sawmill, Garthur refuses to sell a day's worth of firewood for less than 5 sp to the PCs in an obvious attempt to gouge them. The general store sells it at the normal price of 1 cp. Verana herself is ill today so her daughter, Milivsa, is running the store. She struggles to find anything in the place but eventually produces whatever it is that the PCs ask for. They don't normally have firewood but Milivsa sells whatever they need from their personal store of wood, angered at Garthur's attitude. All the while, she asks them various probing questions about where they come from, what life is like far to the south, how they got here, and the like. (My players split up with two headed to the sawmill and the other three going to the store. One that went to the sawmill was a native to Heldren and got to interact with Arbagazor and learned that the gnomes are identical twins. My players haggled Garthur down a couple silver and took his inflated price.)

While they're shopping, screams are heard from outside as a trio of boars from the winter portal roar into town and attack the villagers. During the first round of combat, Iziamir, armed with a longspear and not much else, draws the attention of one who charges him. (Boars, especially wire-haired ones with black, gray, or brown fur, aren't native to Irrisen [at least not my Irrisen] so they're pretty fearsome to the villagers. They did a number on Iziamir and the three PCs until more help arrived. I let the two PCs at the sawmill join the fight in 1d3+1 rounds.)

When the PCs arrive back at Nadya's, the boys are quietly sobbing in their bedroom and the rest of the day passes painfully slowly and uneventfully. That night, the dishes aren't cleaned nor are the clothes put away as Hatch grieves for Thora as well.

---

After successfully fighting off the boars, the townspeople start to warm up to the travelers just a bit. Iziamar is certainly thankful to still be alive (assuming he lives).

The next day, the Pale Tower guards visit Nadya's house the encounter plays out as normal. The PCs took most of the guards hostage and tied them up (only two guards were killed in battle). While they argued about what to do with them (I give them 10 to 15 minutes), they hear screaming and yelling from the center of town. There, the sergeant addresses the village and announces a new edict: The banning of all fire magic and any fire weaponry (my PCs have been heavily spied upon by both the soulbound guardian as well as Teb's mirror). The first to stand accused of running afoul of the new law is Iziamir who is being set up as bait to draw out the PCs. The guards have stripped him down of armor and his shirt and have him bound at the statue of the lady and produce the three vials of alchemist's fire that they "found" in his shop. All the townspeople have to do is turn over the suspicious travelers or give them the information about the Black Rider that they are searching for. The town's spirit is broken but no one comes forward. Iziamir says nothing. Tula, his wife, pleads, "Please, he's going to freeze to death out here. You can't do this!"

"You heard the woman," the sergeant says. "Warm him up." (If you've seen Darkman, channel your inner Durant.)

The guards lift the vials of alchemist's fire and prepare to throw them.

---

Iziamir Polovar CR 2
XP 600
Male human (Ulfen) commoner 1 expert 3
LN Medium humanoid (human)
Init +0; Senses Perception +0
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Defense
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AC 12, touch 10, flat-footed 12 (+2 armor)
hp 25 (3d8+1d6+8)
Fort +2, Ref +1, Will +3
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee mwk longspear +5 (1d8+3/x3)
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Statistics
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Str 15, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 8
Base Atk +2; CMB +4; CMD 14
Feats Field Repair, Skill Focus (Craft [weapons]), Toughness
Skills Appraise +4, Craft (armor) +7, Craft (blacksmith) +7, Craft (bows) +7, Craft (weapons) +10, Knowledge (local) +4, Perform (sing) +3, Profession (merchant) +7, Sense Motive +4, Survival +4
Languages Common, Skald
Other Gear mwk leather armor, mwk longspear

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

Question about the Pale Tower... I presume the floors are made of ice just like everything else? Are they slippery or textured in some way?

As with the rest of the Pale Tower, the floors are also made out of ice. Slippery floors would make day-to-day life in the tower pretty hazardous, though, so they're likely textured in some way to provide traction. Also, there are probably rugs in many places, especially high-traffic areas or living quarters (those floors would be cold on bare feet!)

I figured it was something like that. The bit about the straw mattress bunks on raised blocks of ice had me wondering if the Pale Tower was even a comfortable place to stay.

The ice floors are going to make the fight against Radosek's elementals a lot of fun. Thanks!

I'd recommend clearing the ground of snow or difficult terrain for certain monster encounters like the tatzlwyrm or the frost firs.

Learn the cold environment rules. Learn them six ways to Sunday.

If PCs get snowshoes, have the players calculate their snowshoe speed: 1.5 squares per square traveled means 20 ft move speed for PCs with a normal move speed of 30 ft and 13.33 ft move speed for PCs with a normal move speed of 20 ft.

I forgot the normal rules for snowshoes and mistakenly ruled them as completely negating penalties to movement in snow and halving the penalty in deep snow (2 squares per square traveled) which accidentally made things a bit easier for my players. I resolved it by creating masterwork snowshoes (55 gp) that provide the same benefit, selling them in Waldsby and having the crudely crafted snowshoes that the PCs made fall apart every few hours but easily fixed with mending. The players were happy to have an extra cantrip freed up and snapped up a pair for everyone. You might also want to make masterwork snowshoes available in Irrisen since it makes the movement speed math a lot easier.

Don't allow 5-foot steps or charging even with fancy snowshoes. If your players are as tactical as mine, they'll love having to rethink combat movement without the trusty 5-foot step.

Check the GM thread for the Snows of Summer for a good source of suggestions, tips, and clarifications.