Chris P's page

Does Unarmed Attack benefit from Weapon Finesse? It says that any natural weapon benefits so I would have to think that Unarmed Strike.

I would say yes. Granted it's a nasty feat in the hands of a Monk, whose damage increases as they level so the need for a high Strength is not as needed. So they could max their Dex increasing their already high AC and with the feat making it easier for them to hit.

I think at this point I do like the rubble idea. What I will do is have the stairs chocked with rubble from a portion of the wall that recently collapsed. That way it should all make sense. It will also make Greypelt a little more irriatable since his room is drafty.

It's a cursed item so here is my view of how it works. The person holding the bag of dust reaches in and throws out handfulls of the stuff to try and make things appear because they believe it is Dust of Appearance. But lo and behold its a bag of cursed foul dust that sucks your Constitution. Everyone caught in the cloud gets to makes the save for the Con damage. The person throwing the Dust (and only the person throwing the Dust) is studded for 5d4 rounds due to the fact of the high concentration levels on them from grabbing the handfulls of the stuff. Or maybe I'm just mean.

Once they got down the stairs and saw that the stairwell had been dug out from below, they were really curious. (I added a few details like piles of debris and some scattered mining tools and wooden braces). Finally, they encountered the kobolds and put everything together - realizing that the kobolds came up from deeper tunnels and opened a passage to the surface. They were pleased with themselves and eager to eliminate the kobolds from the area. I think they've become quite attached to Falcon's Hollow.

Maybe your right. That seems like a decent explaination.

When the players first discover the ruinsin D0, the stairs down are choked with rubble and dirt. Completely impassable without dozens of person hours of labor. The PC's are already under a time constraint anyway with the folks dropping dead back in the village, so I doubt that they will worry once the have what they came for.

I did see this in the other thread. My concern is the railroading feel this my have on my players when they find out they have to come back. I was thinking of making the stair covered by a secret door that was abrred from the underside so even if they find it they can't open it. But I think as a player to go back to town and then weeks later find out they have to go back through that door, would feel like a "Hey your weren't suppossed to go there yet, but now you are" which might be frustrating for some.

I'm just curious as to how many groups after finishing off the Worg went down the stairs and straight into the dungeons of D1. I'm not sure what my group will do and am just trying to be prepared if they keep going down. Is the Jeva plot really needed? The kids could have been kidnapped during the plague which would almost make sense because the town is so preoccupied with the plague. I could have one of the skeletons in area 14 of D0 have the song about Glitteraxe to make that encouter feel the same. In fact I could even put Jeva in the cells with silver shackles to keep that element if needed. Whatr do other think or what has your group done?

This issue is why they added Reserve feats in the Complete Mage. Sure the first few levels are still tough for spell casters, but by about 5th or 6th level more casters are able to get one of the five damage reserve feats. At that point you start giving the fighter a run for it's money.

I agree that the ooze would just continue to "digest" the bodies. Not knowing your group I can't really comment on how to recover from this.

I had posted a few months back about how difficult this encounter was. I have two aquatic PCs in my group so that helped a bit, but mainly the tides were turned by an effective use of a Wand of Grease and the Shadowcasters Umbral hand.

I usually give out xp after each encounter. If they level in the middle of a dungeon or something, they get hit points and any BaB or save increases right then and there. Spells and skill points come after a nights rest.

Mostly I thought that weapons were a bit too expensive and I wanted to encourage non-martial classes to invest in weapons and armour as well. I came out of Shackled City playing a dwarven fighter the whole way through who never had enough gold. I had a decent waraxe at level 9 (+4 total), but it wasn't until level 16 that I was finally able to enhance it to +5. By the final encounter, everyone else in the party had more than enough gold so the group chipped in and I was able to enhance it to +7 at level 20. Mind you, I was quite satisfied with my character and his items throughout 95% of the campaign, but this is when I began thinking that the prices in the DMG could use some tweaking. Now I'm running Age of Worms and the modifications I came up with seem fine so far, but it's a bit early to tell since my PC's are only level 4.

Wow talk about different experiences for the same campaign. I played in the Shackled City and even though we didn't do the last adventure we did everything else. I think my Barbarian/Bear Warrior had two +1 keen weapons at best by the end. We never seemed to havve the time or money to have someone craft us better weapons.

I think it was called extraordinary spell aim Cadv pg 109.

Yeah extraordinary spell aim lets you exclude one allie from an area effect spell, but has a pretty steep requirement like Spellcraft of 12 ranks or something. I also think that with the Sculpt Spell metamagic feat you could turn it into four 10' squares that you could place to avoid your ally.

I just picked up this book used the other day. Partly to add to collection and curiosity about shadow magic. I have read it once and I was wondering if anyone has had experience with running a shadow mage and if the class is just flavor or if it can be really nasty to put on a BBEG. Thanks!

My wife plays one in my STAP game and she just made level 12. As a PC class they are an ok wizard replacement (which is what she is) with a lot of flavor. She actually makes a decent scout for the group as well. I have never used one as a BBEG but my guess is that since they typically can do well with a narrow focus class you could defiantely make a deadly BBEG out of a Shadowcaster. My wife caster was finally able to slip into the balster wizard role once she picked up the Shadow Reflections path (I think thats what its called) and the Shadow Evocation mysteries (which I believe are a touch more powerful then their arcane equivalents). She just took Path focus and new level she'll get Favored Mystery (Greater Shodow Evocation) which will then allow her to cast any Evocation spell of 6th level or lower at +1 CL, +1 DC and as a Supernatural ability. It will get pretty nasty.

It appears that we did send you a copy of D1 on 7/6/07 via USPS Standard mail. This should have long since arrived by now. As you already have a copy ( :) ), rather than sending a replacement I will just credit the charge back to you. I apologize for the mix-up!

Thanks,
cos

Sounds great to me.

Thanks

I'm not sure where I see why you would make the prices for magic weapons and armor so different based on type. I would probably do something along the line of the same xp cost for construction no matter the weapon or armor type (it is the same spells after all) and maybe some slight variation is material costs at construction (but not a significant amount) and then base the market value more based on supply and demand. I mean how many people want Scale mail? If a mitral breast plate is a very popular armor then it should cost more than full plate. Sur eyou have to tweak Item creation a bit since it is based on market value, but I would almost use the current values in the DMG for creation (or maybe cut them in half) and then the sell values based on populaity of the item of maybe region.

Bump

Still confused. ;)

When I first decided to subscribe to the Modules my subscription said that my first issue would be WI. So I ordered D1 with some other stuff that I needed from Paiso (order#745062). The day after I place that order I got a notice for order #758209 that was my module subscription for D1. I though oh well I like Paizo and want to supprt it so I'm fine with two copies of D1, maybe I'll give one as a gift. I received order #745062 and even had module W1 show up on my order list (order#768912). Well I received my W1 module yesterday, but as of yet still haven't received order #758209. Did it actually ship? If it hasn't then can I cancel it since I don't need a second copy of D1? Should I just assume that our great postal service has lost it? Any light you can shed on this would be great.

I have a player who is a Barbarian/Champion of Gwenlyth(sp?) from the book of Exalted Deeds. There is also a PrC from Dragon in one of their Savage Tidings articles that is a totem hunter of Demons.

My group is about a third of the way into Lightless Depths. Although we are discussing cutting the campaign short at like level 15 or 16.

This allows him to engage targets without actually having to attack them himself (11 attacks other than his two ^ ^)

Are you saying that the rod and armor attack on their own like an animated weapon? If that's the case then your only getting you sneak attack/death attack with your normal two attacks, right? Do they quote need to see, because if they do then Deper Darkness might not be that useful and obsuring mist would give both you and you target cover if your more than 5' apart.

How easy will it be to use the alternate classes from the various splatbooks? As my group draws to a close on STAP I am starting to look to RotRL as the next campaign. The group is kinda over the standard classes and are looking more at the alternate ones. I assume that as long as we still have a melee combatant, a sneaky type, an arcane and a divine type we should be ok. With all the new classes you can cover all the main bases even without the core classes.

This short coming is why before I start any of the moduels I list out all the magic items and swap out some of the items with equivalent value items that cater more to the group. But yeah, the Magic Item Compendium cyrstal thing may be your best bet. Other options include maybe an Ancestral Weapon feat sort thing which is in the Exalted Deeds book.

Edit: Or Weapons of Legacy sort of thing which personally I like.

Well at this point since I rarely get to play it's hard to pickw. I would have to say that even though I have never played one, the Beguiler looks really interesting to me. A close second would be a binder which is another class that I have not had a chance to play.

With all these thread about different character builds it just makes me want to play more characters. I typically play in one game and assuming no permanent character deaths I have a character for about 1 - 2 years. With all the avaliable book plus all the talks on the boards about different character concepts it keeps my head swirling with character ideas. That's not really a bad thing per se, but man I have a lot of characters I want to try now.

Warshaper is in the Complete Warrior. It's worth a look.

Warshaper is awesome for the first two levels, then gets kinda weird after that. But two level to become immune to criticals and stun while wild shaped and the extra +4 to Str and Con is very nice.

Was this changed? And where is the reference, if you please.

It's talked about in the Complete Arcane. I think it is in the paragraphes that start the chapter with prestige classes. It talks about what their caster level is for PrC requirements and how they advance when a PrC adds caster levels.

As to familiar's ability to speak: remember all familiars can speak with their master by about 5th level, and then with others of it’s kind by 7th, I’m not sure a familiar would need to speak common to activate spells. I've never found any information on this strangely

My assumption is that the familar needs to be able to speak the words that the wand was crafted with. Certain animals can not reproduce certain sounds. Now if you crafted the wand specifically for the familar then its not an issue. Some familars can speak a language, such as the raven, so they can make the equivalent sounds.

Tristan has UMD thanks to her academy trained feat but she hasn't put serious ranks into it (I'm planning on getting my UMD skill high enough to allow my familiar to use wands).

I so would have never thought about that. I always forget that a familar uses the master's skill ranks if its better than their own. Granted you need a familar that can hold a wand and speak to make it work.

He needs to move at least half his fly speed. So if he has a fly speed of 30, he needs to move at least 15 feet per round of flight. (Note that if he double moves, he can go 60, but that doesn't effect his minimum forward speed).

So I assume you are saying that if he uses Haste to improve his movement to 60ft, he still only needs to move 15ft minimum.

One of my players in my STAP game is playing a kobold with the Wings and Improved Wings feats from Race of Dragons. He just reached level 12 which allows him to fly as much as he wants. As we were looking at feats to get I realized I was not doing his fly correctly. He has Average manuverability which means he can not Hover. So that means he needs to move every round and can not stay stationary, right? How much movement does he need to take? I suggested taking the Hover feat but he doesn't see why he needs it since I forgot that he couldn't hover before. He is a Spelltheif that uses a lot of ranged touch spells to sneak attack and steal spells. I would think that having to move every round would be problematic for trying to stay within the short range that most of those spells are. I know there are spells like Wings of Air that improve his manuverability, but those are only for as often as you can cast them. Plus are there spells that inprove your flight speed? I assume that Haste does, but Expedicious Retreat say it improve your base land speed so that doesn't, right? Thanks for any clarifications you can provide.

the one i remember offhand is keepign a summon natures ally (possibly monster too) handy lets you summon an elemental of varying size based on spell level for spell level in rounds. you can only have one around at a time, but this would mean your 5th level summon spell can summon 1 creature every round for them to deal with and try to dispel/dismiss without ever using your summon spell up. when you actually want to summon your monster, then you'd go down to the 4th level one in reserve, and hopefully have exhausted their ability to poof your summoned friends.

I don't think it needs to be Summon Nture's Ally it can be any Cojuration (Summoning) spell of at least 4th level or higher to some an elemental. Granted that narrows it down to mostly Summon Nature's Ally and Summon Monster but hey. It summons a small elemental at first then if powered by a 6th level spell it's a medium elemental and I think finally with an 8th level spell it does a large elemental (do this from memory). If I remember correctly you basically need to reserve a Summon Monster spell of one level higher than the level needed to summon the appropriate sized elemental.

I don't think there is any issue with them getting to Farshore and then incorporating the elements of HTBM into the tasks they need to do before the Crimson Fleet shows up. Maybe to win the Phanaton(sp?) cheif over they need to recover one of their members from Fogmire. Or maybe one of the Olman tribes want them to cover the bones of one of their warriors who went to the dark mountain pass and never returned before they help defend Farshore. You could even have a T-rex as one of the first random encounters before they even get to the tar pits. It can all be worked in there if needed.

The heroes find out about the kid disapearing when one or more of the parents, includinga very wealthy lumber baron show up at their inn asking "what do you brave adventurers intend to do about it?" Clearly, they won't have much of a choice.

I like this. Consider it stolen. ;)

Is there a prestige class that combines full casting with full eldritch blast and invocations, kind of like a mystic theurge?

Fizz

The Complete Mage has three new PrC for Warlock/xxx hybrids. They all start with Eldrich in the title and I believe there is one that does exactly what you want. Eldrich Thuerge maybe?

The OP was asking if it would cripple the players later on in the game if he took the spells out. Looking at the posts it looks like there is a fair split with maybe a couple more on the side of yes it would cripple them. IMHO it's probably more work to adjust the later levels to make it not crippling then to adjust the spells slightly to make them "grittier".

As far as the though of it crippling one class vs the other, which I agree with, really isn't what he was asking. They have all agreed to the decision so you kinda have to go from there. It's really about how much adjustment he will have to make in the later adventures, which I think is a lot. To me it looks like they designed the adventure with those spells in mind. Which means they instill the "I'm in the middle of no where" or "I'm trapped in the Ilse of Dread" before those spells become avaliable or feasable. The mood of the AP changes after that point so for me it's not an issue. You end up delving into the history of the island and the dark forces behind it at that point which those spells really aren't changing that aspect. For me by the time those spells become useful, you're pretty much past the trapped island feel.

Also as many have pointed out Teleport is dangerous. To sight your previous example:

Bilbo: "Hey Gandalf! Check out my ring!"
Gandalf: "Let me see.. hm..." [Identify, Legend Lore.] This is no ordinary ring! It is The One Ring!"
Bilbo: "That's bad, right? How do we destroy it?"
Gandalf: [Divination] "We need to take it Mt. Doom." [Scry] "Looks like the coast is clear." [Teleport].
Bilbo: "Gandalf, why are we in the middle of a 1,000 orcs?"
Gandalf: "uh, I must have missed with my spell."
The end of our heroes and the end of our story.

Wingbind, but it's 4th level.

I remember that one too, but I really thought there was another on with Earth in it's name that was a lower level.

About flying monsters. Swap the fly spell for a spell called ground, which strips opponents of the ability to fly unless they make a will save. That way, instead of wasting four third levels spells getting the party airborne as an equaliser, you can balance things that way instead.

I believe there is a spell in the compendium that does exactly that called Earthbinding or something like that. I think it's 2nd level.

Are those metal dice really all that heavy and damaging?

Yes they are very heavy compared to normal dice and can do damage to a soft wooden table. On the other hand they are great dice and you really feel confident when you use them for some reason. Maybe it's just me. I have the huge steel d20 and man is that thing deadly. It makes the whole table shake when you roll it and I swear you could kill someone with it.

I usually use whatever dice strike my fancy for the character I'm using them with. The Chessex dice are nice and the Drawven Stones are are real nice (I have a couple). The Q-workshop one are ok, but they feel way too light to me and the faces are a bit cluttered as well.

I'm not sure how this really imparts a grittier feel per se. The magic Wal-mart thing I can understand, but then just don't put one in that has nothing to do with the spells. The teleporting away from danger I have rarily seen in my game, if ever, but then I would just change the casting time of Teleport to 1 full round or more to make it less of flee combat thing.

Using teleport to get somewhere is kinda what what the spells for. There has already been a thread on the virtues of being able to teleport in this adventure path that you may want to check out. What's really the issue with it? Is it that the players miss out on some fun? Do they miss someting really important to your game by teleporting around it? Do they feel like they are missing something? If they feel like they are missing something then they can just opt to not use it.

Fly is just a great spell and IMHO a iconic spell for D&D. Yeah it can get you out of a jam sometimes really easily. If you want people to think outside of the box then that's fine. Just keep in mind that some people like to play in certain boxes and that's whats fun for them. Sure you can give them magic items to replace it but then your taking away other magic items that can add additional flavor to the game or their characters in exchange for a spell that they would normally had access to.

Granted if your player don't care then all is good and I'm just blowing smoke. ;) I do think that in the later adventures there will definately be times where the players will wish they had them.

I use the combat pad from Gamemastery and in the area where you mark the hit points of the creatures I usually put the initials of the player attacking the creature. That helps me keep track of who's who since their minis are usually right next to each other or are fairly obvious who there attacking.

It looks to me like the Warrior in general get the short end of the stick. The race already has a -2 Str and -2 Wis which makes a fighter hit less and do less damage, plus with their already low Will save the -2 Wis is gonna hurt. Then when they channel their warrior ancester they basically get a +2 Str which offsets their racial -2, but take another hit to Wis which makes their Will saves even worse. Granted if you are trying to give the flavor of warriors being uncommon then I think you have it. Maybe I'm just not reading it right.

EDIT: Also why does the Priest ancester give a Charisma penalty? It gives them two abilities that are linked to Charisma, but them makes those abilities weaker at the same time.

I think that is a good assessment. ToB works fairly well from my experience, but only when all the nuances (e.g. if you used an Immediate Action before your current turn, then it counts as your Swift Action for the turn, etc.) and you don't allow silliness that optimizes certain loopholes (you can do nasty things with Jump checks and the right maneuvers).

This is good advice. I think the book as a whole isn't to bad but really relies on you understanding the rules especially the rules of immediate and swift actions. I have a Warblade in my current game and even though they are first level I can already see that the class is balance by the fact that you can only do so much in a round. If you don't understand immediate and swift actions then they can end up doing more in a round then intended and become unbalanced.

Sadly the order still shows pending.

Also when it charges me for one of my month-by-month subscriptions is that when they send it. They notified me of the charge almost three weeks ago for module D1 and I still don't have it. I know your using a different shipping method, does it take that much longer.

Have you looked at just using the Prestige Paldin from Unearthed Arcana? I know it's not the exact answer to your question, but it might fit what you player is going for and make it easy to figure turns per day.

I think they should have the same restriction as Clerics if not even more so. The Favorer Soul is in closer contact with their deity than a Cleric, hense the fact that they gain the favored weapon and gain abilities similar to the gods. I would say that since the god is CE is would not grant any spell with the Good descriptor. Granted you could always make an evil version of the spell. ;p

It appears that your order is ready to ship and you should be receiving your shipping confirmation email today or tomorrow.

Thanks!
cos

Thank you very much. The service at Paizo is beyond excellent.

So are you guys having a problem getting the Wall of Smokes? The order has now been pending for over 2 weeks. I'm not trying to be a pest, but the Walls are a gift for a friend.

Thanks

For some reason, I'm thinking living things die inside a bag of holding, maybe that's 2nd ed.

Fizz

I have always looked at it the same as other extradimentional spaces like Rope Trick or Mordekainen's Mansion. The only difference with the bag is since it is not meant for living creatures it does not have a renewable air source. Granted who knows what trama it would be mentally for the person sitting in the "void" of a bag of holding.

Check the WotC site in their articles about game mechanics. I'm pretty sure they did a four part series about carrying stuff and talk a bit about a person getting into a bag of holding. If I recall correctly yes you can climb in and once it is closed you only have an amount of air equal to the remaining space in the bag. I think a Medium creature had several hours of air and thats it.

My group will probably finish up D0 this Friday as written, plague and all. I now have D1 and was wondering how other groups (as in the players) made the transition. As best as I can tell the stairs down into the dungeins of D1 are in Greypelts room. Did most groups decide that since they had all the ingredients for the plague cure that they had to head back to town and ignor the dungeon? Did groups figure they would only need an hour or two in the dungeon and pushed on (although I don't know how they would have leveled then)? Am I just totally missing an obsticle that keeps them from entering the dungeon before returning to town?

I seem to recall a seeing a feat somewhere that either lessens or entirely removes the -4 penalty for doing non-lethal damage. Am I crazy? It would be greatly appreciated if someone could tell me if this is in fact a feat and if so where I could find it.

Without my books in front of me, my first guess would be that it's in the Book of Exalted Deeds, Complete Divine and Complete Warrior (I that order or where I would think it is).