Baron Galdur Vendikon

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Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 860 posts (869 including aliases). 1 review. 2 lists. No wishlists. 16 Organized Play characters.



The Exchange 4/5

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Here's the concept. Pick each level, pick 3 scenario's at that level, do this 11 times. In a world where you are GMing for bright-eyed new players, providing them (and you) with the most fun PC career.

For me in order: not counting specials :)

1st: Confirmation, City of Strangers part 1, City of Strangers part 2
2nd: Quest for perfection 1, 2 and 3.
3rd: Before the Dawn part 1, Before the Dawn part 2, My Enemy's Enemy
4th: Destiny of Sands 1, 2 and 3. (I know 2 aren't out, but I love part 1 and want the whole series!)
5th: Heresy of Man 1, 2, and 3
6th: Sewer Dragon's of Absalom, Day of the Demon, Traitor's Lodge
7th: Rats of round mountain 1, and 2, Where mammoths dare not tread
8th: Glories of the Past 1, 2, and 3.
9th: Hellknight's Feast, Port godless, Weapon in the Rift
10th: Portal of the Sacred Rune, Cultist's kiss, Feast of Sigils
11th: Refuge of time, Words of the Ancients, Waking Rune

it's not perfect... I love all these scenarios, but the timeline is... sub optimal maybe I'll mess with it some more. If you were bringing a brand new group from 1-12 what would you run them through! (Or want to play in, if one of your players was going to step up and run!)

The Exchange

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so as I see it there a few ways that it could go down.
1) it just beats cloudkill
2) You mark all the con damage you take round by round, and when delay wears off you take that damage once per round until it's all been applied.
3) you take all the con damage at once, and maybe die.

currently I'm leaning towards #2.
obviously MOST of the time 2 and 3 don't change much, since unless it's enough damage to reduce your con to 0 you're just fine.

related question:
Can you neutralize poison that's being delayed?
if yes, does it work on the delayed con damage of cloudkill?

The Exchange 4/5

1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

Can I apply a Race boon to a GM PC (that hasn't been played) with more than 3 xp?

IE: I GM 6 secnario's in June, and receive a Race boon at Gencon on August, can I use that on my amorphous blob?

The Exchange

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I’m looking for things to buy for my wizard. The last time I played a pure caster in the teens we were more on the “things the GM gives us” this time around; it’s a PFS character, with enough fame to buy basically anything (maybe literally anything).

Conjuration (Teleportation) Specialist – 14th level, stuffs.
I have just shy of 80k to spend.
The “easy” buy is a MM rod of quicken (1-6) for 75k, but I’m not sure that’s more powerful than a bunch of other good items.

here's a list of stuff I currently have.
Combat Gear:
Extend metamagic rod (3/day),
Extend metamagic rod (lesser) (3/day),
Pearl of power (1st level) (1/day),
Pearl of power (1st level) (1/day),
Reach metamagic rod (lesser) (3/day),
Ring of invisibility,
Scroll of Endure Elements, Spider Climb, Scroll of Fly, Darkvision, Communal, Scroll of Glitterdustx5,
Scroll of Suppress Charms and Compulsionsx5
Smelling salts; Other Gear
+1 Dueling Cestus, Aegis of recovery (1 uses),
Belt of mighty constitution +4,
Blessed book, Boots of the cat,
Cloak of resistance +5,
Eyes of the eagle, Gloves of reconnaissance (10 rounds/day),
Handy haversack (14 @ 60 lbs)
Headband of vast intelligence +6,
Ioun stone (clear spindle), Ioun stone (dusty rose prism, cracked),
Ioun stone (pale green prism (cracked, saves), Ioun torch,
Wayfinder (1 @ 0 lbs), Spell component pouch, Spell component pouch,
Thieves' tools, masterwork, Wrist sheath, spring loaded (empty), Wrist sheath, spring loaded (empty), pit spells component "tiny shovel",
79605 GP

The Exchange 4/5

Recently I've been looking for tools that help my GMing, or specific things that I felt either really helped pacing, or just overall made sessions more enjoyable.

1) At Gencon I played at Nathan King's table. Someone asked a very specific question about the region, and Nathan promptly grabbed his tablet and found the page(s) on that region and gave us what info there was. I thought this was really cool and helped with immersion.

Recently I was running Quest for Perfection again, and I printed out the map of tian xia, and the pages on the wall of heaven and Goka. Mostly because I thought it was cool to explain more about Golarion :D.

2) At Gamehole Con I played with Kyle Baird, there I learned I need d6's that average 4.5 :D.
Seriously though, Initiative cards. Up until recently I thought an imitative board was enough, but when combats get truly complex i really feel like cards are needed. The added benefit of not having to ask for AC so it's harder for people to metagame atk bonus is a nice little side benefit :D.

What have you experienced in your travels that you found really cool or really useful?

The Exchange 4/5

truenames/bindings

Possible? GM signs off after a sessions and leaves a note? or just "Nope, can't do it?"

The Exchange 4/5

Planar Binding in PFS. A few questions all in your opinion, I'd like to get an idea for how we run this "'round here".

1.) Would you rather people simply didn't do it?
2.) Diplomacy and a bound outsider. Yes/no?
2a) Starting attitude?
2b) If made friendly, or helpful "request aid" via diplomacy rules or using planar binding?
2c) If the PC succeeds in the "request aid" would you replace the planar binding check, or give the PC a bonus of 0-6 and still roll the binding check?
3) If the PC doesn't try to do anything funky, and just crushes the outsider on a cha check, do you let the PC control the outsider and step in if they do something crazy? or do you run the outsider for them?

I did bind an angel (Monavic Deva) for Feast of sigils, my GM let me use diplomacy to ask it for aid, since we think it would want to stop a runelord from rising, then someone ate a [redacted] and it was like "uuuhhh you're not my type of folks and left". I think that was reasonable, but it got me thinkin' Is this spell just bad form? Does diplomacy even work? So I thought i'd get some more opinions, and or stories.

If you have run planar binding (in pfs or not), how did it go? How did the PC handle the outsider, how did you and the PC handle the "binding process"

What are you honest thoughts on it from a GM perspective. It's certainly not required for parties to succeed, but calling a bunch of lantern archons to be personal lights/cast aid on allies could be cool :)

The Exchange 4/5

So Living Grayhawk had Time Units, those are cool. PFS doesn't have time units, and I'm not really advocating that it does, however the idea of PP=Time for retraining gave me an idea. I do think 1pp/day is a bit expensive.

I would like to see something like.
"You may spend 2 PP to take a short vacation from pathfinding, this costs you some favors but can offer you time to complete other exploits.
For each 2pp you spend, you gain 5 days of downtime, these days can be spent on retraining, running a business, or crafting non-magical items"

You must have a GM observe any die-rolls and initial each action.

I think it would be cool to allow crafting into PFS, and bring in the downtime rules for UC (which I think are pretty cool, honestly).

this is also a suggestion to reduce the PP cost of retraining, but I'm fully aware that The PFS Campaign staff want to keep the cost high at the beginning to avoid potential backlash.

Many things in PF take time, being able to spend PP to buy time, is a really cool idea, I'm just hoping to expand on it :)

The Exchange

Alright folks, i'm looking for something fun to play, it's PFS so i'm not super worried about rocking the power level (though Optimization will still occur :) )

Here's what I've got right now, and I'm starting to run low on ideas.
Summoner,
Magus,
Cleric (glory/conversion, battler),
Oracle (heavans color-spray master),
Grappler Monk,
Sorc1/admixture (rest) blaster wizard,
Teleportation Conjuruer (yay academe grad)
Zen Archer
Witch

Looking for something different-y anyone have anything cool that they have thought up? I'm sort of drawing a blank (well other than make 5 more wizard builds lol)

The Exchange 4/5

Rings, Necklaces, ect nonmagical stuff.

For the purposes of selling it back. It feels like it should be since it's still just gems and precious metals, but I figured it was worth checking here.

The Exchange

So here's the thoughts.

20 point buy
17+2(increase at 4)
14
13 (increase at 8)
8
14
7

Race - Half Elf.
Alternate Racial Traits
Arcane Training (use spell trigger/completion as a lvl 1 wizard) lose favored class.
Elven weapon training (Guisarm, reach+trip) had to be martial >_>
Character:
Trait: Heirloom weapon +2 CMB trips, Guisarm.
Trait: Fist of the Society (+1 Ki point) (could be anything..)

Feats:
1. Toughness
M1 Imp Grapple
M2 Imp trip
3. Crane Style
5. Crane Wing
M6 Greater Grapple
7. ???????? fury's fall, combat reflexes, and power attack are my current thoughts
9. Rapid Grappler
M10 Tripping strike
11. ???? greater trip IF i took combat reflexes.

items: Wayfinder + Dusty rose.
Probably ghost touch amulet of mighty fists.
Ring of protection, headband of wisdom, belt of physical perfection YAY MAD...
Wands: Mage armor, Shield, Infernal healing. then a plethora of options hehe.

a couple minor rules questions, Crane style and wing work while grappling correct? (one hand free, "fighting defensively" penalty on CMBs).

I considered human and "dangerously curious" but I like the no failure. Losing 1 hp/level is annoying though.

if the crane's don't work, I'll switch to dragon's for extra grappling damage, or just pick up combat reflexes and fury's fall sooner.

The overall goal, is to be an effective battlefield controller, OR anti-mage if needed. sometimes I'll just have to live with high AC and a deflection, flurry-ing for trip attempts to reduce monster actions :D

The Exchange

If you maintain a grapple to do damage equal to your unarmed strike, do you do 1.5x strength damage because of dragon style?

I think it works, because CMB checks are attacks, and it's damage resulting from an attack, but I wanted to double check :D

The Exchange 4/5

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PFS WBL spreadsheet

I put in how much gold you get at each tier, and I based the acquired wealth on always playing within your sub-tier, but at the bottom end of it. originally I was just trying to figure out what kind of impact day jobs had.

Then I wanted to see what the WBL assumtions probably were. Eventually I decided I'd list the maximum gold earned. I was trying to figure out how to calculate "playing up" and discovered modules represent playing up 2/3rds of the time if you're the minimum level for the module.

So I made two separate tables, one for a GM always applying "optimal credit" which I think a character can reasonably attain with a combination of playing up and playing down, and a max GMing gold by incorporating modules. It's off by a few hundred gold (low) because some 1-2 scenarios award more than 500 gold, but it's still very close.

I decided to make this public because it helps players plan out their items, and figure out what their character can realistically expect to be buying and when.

It's a pretty crude spreadsheet, but the information's there (I'm turrible at excel lol)

The Exchange 4/5

Here's the idea. He's not very bright, and is completely faithful to the paracountess, He believes in always going good for good reasons he just happens to be a bit brainwashed to believe that anything the Paracountess tells him is gospel.. and supercedes any laws or

I haven't played a Chelish PC yet, what is the likely hood that I will be able to complete the majority of faction missions without breaking code?

I think this guy would be a lot of fun to play, but I'm not sure it would work out :-p

The Exchange 4/5

Here's the faction mission.

"Retrieve a jeweled ring from a Noble of place".

So there's a fellow walking with a retinue, who seems pretty decked out in jewelry. now, I'm a trade prince and blow my knowledge nobles check. My plan is "well I take his jewelry and I'll bring it all to my Faction leader and see if this is what he's looking for".

so I botched the dice roll, and didn't earn my PP. I'm not upset or anything, I just saw the link to the previous rewarding creativity thread (hopefully this one remains civil!)

I wanted to see how people would rule on something like that. More to see if it's reasonable for me to reward that type of play, or if I should really stick more to what the faction mission says (note: Season 2 scenario, not season 4).

The Exchange 4/5

if I want to apply GM credit from a 5-9 adventure to a level 7 guy, what do?

can I hold it till he hits 8? Can I apply the 8-9? I'd rather not apply credit down

I know this has been answered but my search fu is failing me

The Exchange

mostly started thinking about this in regards to Kingmaker

Hireling House Rules
1 Month = 30 days in game time.
If no time frame is given each "Part Break" is one month
Any time an adventure assumes time for PCs to craft items ect, assume it's one month.

Paid monthly - Up Front
10gp/month = NPC Untrained (porter, ect)
30gp/month = NPC Basic Array - NPC Class (NPC BASIC)
60gp/month = NPC Heroic Array - NPC Class (NPC HEROIC)
90gp/month = NPC Heroic Array - PC Class (PC Heroic)

Beyond First Level Hirelings;
10% of WBL Table/month = (PC Heroic/NPC Basic/NPC Heroic)
This is Paid in addition to the above chart.

Spellcasting Classes - You may not hire spellcasters.
Building Hirelings, Sure thing. They have 150 Starting Gold
The hireling May not start with any consumable items.
PCs may buy, and give consumables to Hirelings.

Advancing Hirelings
Maximum Hireling hit dice = your Character level -2 (min 1)

these costs are more designed for people hired on adventuring missions, which is why the costs are a bit higher.

Looking for opinions it's basically a giant gray area in the rules, so I'm hoping to fill it in a bit :D

The Exchange

So I have a play who wants to run some solo adventures (well technically, wants to run through an adventure path, as the lone PC)

Not sure if this should be in advice, rules, or houserules. I'll try rules and not be offended if it gets moved.

Now this brings up some questions on hirelings.

First, what do we pay these courageous fellows? Jade Regent Caravan Guards suggests 100gp a month. not unreasonable, I also assume healing, potions, repairing armor/weapons, replacing the horse if it dies. Are all on the PC to pay for. in addition to lodging/food.

I assume stated out, This is just the caravan guard merc, from the DMG.

Additional pay for adventuring days? (Seeking out danger is different than trying to avoid fights but being willing to fight). cut of profits? or flat rate?

Experience, here's a big one. It looks like, by raw, Hirelings don't eat into the experience pool. At least that is how I read it.

Hiring higher level dudes, like say the Sellsword (lets assume straight out of the DMG here). Dude is a level 8 fighter. obviously 3gp/day isn't keeping that fellow around.

Here are some ideas I have.
Monthly Stipend = 10% of character wealth by level (based on Classes/stat array)
Example:
Fighter 2 (Heroic Array) 100gp/month
Warrior 2 (Heroic Array) 78gp /month
Warrior 2 (Basic Array) 39gp/month
Possible option: This is on top of the 1/2/3 GP/day suggested in UE for hireling cost (as that would cover first level dudes) on the same scaling.
probably no experience, but allow the hireling to level up assuming additional pay. Does that seem fair?

I think I'm going to say no spell casters, unless they want to pay by the spell :-p

The Exchange

can you prepare a fireball as a Rime Spell, and admixture it to cold when you cast it to make it work?

I'm mostly wondering for PFS play. I can see arguments for both the sides of
"It's not a cold spell, you can prepare it with the metamagic"
and
"You can prepare it with the metamagic, but the spell doesn't entangle unless you deal cold damage"

Secondary note: If you cannot prepare it, could you reasonably apply a metamagic rod?

"I cast fireball, admixture it to cold, and use my Rod of Rime spell on it"

This last one I would expect to work reasonably well, the first one is certainly a grey area. The feat says it only effects spells with the cold descriptor, but to me that would mean that if you prepared the slot for rime and couldn't make it cold, you either couldn't cast it at all, or simply gained no benefit from the metamagic feat.

The Exchange

First off I'm basically trying to optimize the least effective use of spell slots so I can roll a lot of dice. I think i can keep the damage in a solid place

As the title implies this is PFS.
The basiscs:
Elf
Alternate Racials - +2 concentration, 5 fire resist.
Wizard 11(FC) - Admixture Evoker, Arcane bond = Ring (free movement for 20k at ~level 8). opposition schools, Divination, Necromancy
Sorc (1) Cross-blooded (Orc/Dragon - Fire), tattooed, Evocation.
Str 7
Dex 16
Con 12
int 20
wiz 7
cha 11
Pretty sure every favored class bonus is just bonus HP.

the plan.
Traits: Magical Lineage (Burning arc or fireball)
Skill and +1 in disable device. No expecting to disable every trap in the game, but +10 at level 1 with MW tools is totally reasonable for basic stuff.

1. Wiz 1 - (bonus)Spell focus (Evocation), 1st Spell Specialization (Magic missile)
2. Sorc 1 - Familiar tattoo gets burned (can't have 2 bonds), Varisian tattoo (Evocation).
3. Wiz 2 - Probably switch my spell spec to Ear-Piercing scream, since the damage from MM isn't likely to one shot things now. pick up toughness or improved initiative. We'll see how standing in the back is working :D.
4. wiz 3 - Flaming sphere is the main damage here, until I can switch my spell spec to burning arc at 5.
5. Wiz 4 - Switch spell spec to burning arc, whatever I didn't take at 3
6. wiz 5 - Bonus metamagic. "shrug?" Disruptive, still, or intensified. basically something to throw on my magical lineage for free (more on that later)
7. wiz 6 - dazing spell or Spell Penetration. Dazing if I choose magical lineage for burning arc, spell pen if I choose fireball.
8. wiz 7 - Dazing burning arcs or do other stuff.
9. Wiz 8 - This is where I grab Dazing spell or Spell pen (whichever I don't have)
10. Wiz 9 - nothing cool here/
11. Wiz 10 - probably quicken spell, and greater spell pen or greater spell spec. Quickened ear-piercing screams or quickened burning arcs (with lineage) are both very strong
This is where the career ends in the normal society, so this is as far as I'm planning.

Here's a bit of backround info, everyone is going to hate me for not casting haste, but oh well. Also lots of people have haste these days. (also I will probably prep it once anyway, because sometimes there is no substitute for speed.

Familiar, not for this dude. He's a loner and I want to spend money on his stuff instead of the (imo) more powerful wands+improved familiar power multiplier. Metamagic rods/headband of int, belt of con, cloak of resist being the big ones. For now, lets leave the backstory reasoning out of it.

First thing I'm undecided on. Magical Lineage: I'm leaning towards Burning Arc for 3 reasons. 1 It won't hit my allies, 2 I'll be able to make it daze people sooner, 3 I'll be able to quicken it before retirement arc.

The reasons for fireball (or anything else I might have missed, suggestions welcome!) larger area, overall better spell, but delay's the power effects on it by an entire extra level. I the theory is using burning arc through preparation and using the dazing Rod on fireball.

It is possible that I just take empower instead and make my 3rd level slots do big numbers (since +1 metamagic rods are cheap enough anyway).

The 2nd and easily the hardest choice. What do I take for my first level sorc spell. Right now I'm leaning towards burning hands, just not sure on this one

TL;DR - Fireball or burning arc for magical lineage? What spell for my lone level 1 sorc spell?

The Exchange

2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

So this is a gray area; purely by Raw splash weapons do 1(.5) damage to swarms, since swarms are fairly common in PFS scenarios, I would like to get a ruling on it.

This only matters for diminutive swarms, tiny swarms are damageable by weapons so the "thrown weapon" would be able to harm them normally.

By Raw - You cannot do single target damage to a swarm of diminutive creatures, meaning the alchemist's fire would only do one point of damage (1.5 rounded down) OR one damage to every creature in the swarm (300+) which basically auto-wins vs swarms.

by raw, you cannot target the square the swarm is in.

Raw, you do ~1500 damage to most diminutive swarms with a splash weapon (each creature, swarms are made up of 300-5000ish creatures).

the rules say that it "acts" as a single creature, but it certainly is hundreds of creatures, all of which would take a damage from being within 5 feet.

How most GMs treat it, (according to previous threads on the topic) and how I think it should probably work is.

"When using a splash weapon against a swarm, you may target the swarm, if you hit, that swarm takes damage equal to the damage of the splash weapon (+50%)."

It's fairly arguable if it's supposed to do that anyway, this just seems FAQ worthy to me.

The Exchange 4/5

The treasure map boon says that when you would make a day job, check off a box, when you check 3 boxes. You find treasure totaling 150xlevel gp.

If you mark the 3rd box on the treasure map at the same time you earn enough experience to level, would it use your current level, or your new level?

I'm currently leaning towards current because you don't level up before day-job checks and it seems like it should happen at the same time.

I'm 5 and 2/3rds right now, with 2 treasure map boxes, waiting one extra session is worth it, but if I don't have to might as well not do it :D

The Exchange 4/5

Mostly asking GMs who ran this, our GM made it seem like the only possible way to get people to step out of the auction was to use intimidate. Were there other social skill options?

For instance I offered to Finks. "Back out of the auction, and the society will make sure you have an opportunity to pay back your debts without fear of murderous reprisal."

I said this believing it to be diplomacy. I had to roll intimidate. I'm not a thug, I don't want to intimidate thugs into running I want them to make a deal that benefits me more than it benefits them.

I'm a trade prince of Qadira, I try to make fair deals, but when I have the guy over a barrel, why wouldn't I make a favorable deal? I'm not threatening his

There were a couple others that were similar, I'm just wondering if it was written in a way that allowed for only one skill, or if I just simply didn't say it diplomatically enough to make it a diplomacy check, and he felt threatened so the GM ruled intimidate.

I am by no means complaining about my GM, he was awesome and fun to play with. I'm just curious about the module; it seemed very weighted to a couple of very specific skills.

The Exchange 4/5

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The goal of the handbook. Give new players a better idea (mechanically) what they will be called on to do for the various factions.

My home group is getting into PFS, a lot of them like some of the ideas of the factions, but aren't really sure what they'll be called on to do, and they want to pick that faction that will ask them to do things that are in line with their actions.

I get that it's not supposed to be mechanically pointed so you can just max a few specific skills a "roll play" your way through faction missions.

So help me out community, what faction are you and what have you had to do for faction missions? Skills, clever ideas, just stories of fun times. It's all for research :D

Andoran:
Cheliax:
Grand Lodge:
Lantern Lodge:
Osirion: Tomes of knowledge about various things, knowledge checks (all kinds)
Qadira: Take a look at some inventory, transcribe a ritual, find businesses that would be interested in contracts
Sczarni:
Shadow Lodge:
Silver Crusade:
Taldor:

The Exchange 4/5

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Is there any reason that i can't make a dayjob check off my Eidolon's skill? Replacing my own, specifically. Obviously 2 checks wouldn't be allowed.

My character is pretty against any sort of labor, I don't even carry a weapon, I make contracts, or summon creatures to do my bidding. I summon unseen servants to clean my room, Mount's to haul things if the Eidolon isn't able to, Working smacks of effort...however running a shop where my Eidolon works the trade seems... less problematic.

I presume you can't simply because it states that you character must make the day job check, but the Eidolon is a class feature, it's permanent, and could easily be used in this capacity.

I want my Eidolon to be a sailor, sometimes you need to make private ship routes, and I have no interest in holding lines or swinging booms.

If it's covered somewhere and I'm just blind I apologize :)

The Exchange 4/5

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I'm specifically looking for Qadira, but I figure it wouldn't hurt for people, attempting to further their faction, to know what others have encountered as useful skills in faction missions; I'm attempting to compile a list.

I'm relatively new to the society so any assistance in being prepared would be awesome :D

What I've got so far.
Qadira - Diplomacy, and Knowledge local (it seemed odd that gathering information wouldn't help me find merchants to establish ties with, but that is how the mission was written apparently)

The Exchange 4/5

If a player uses a potion, wand charges, scroll(s) ect should those be listed under items sold on the chronicle sheet? with a notation for "used"

Or do we track them on chronicle sheets at all?