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Escape from Old Korvosa ended up in a battle between Bahor and Vimanda (see the obituary thread if you want to know how it came out). I'm wondering though if I played out the battle between these two correctly.

Both are armed with weapons that can't get past the DR, right? They have spells, but can't get past SR. Vimanda has area attacks, but Bahor's evasion nerfs that.

They do have natural weapons. I seem to recall (but can't find) a rule where a creature's natural attacks bypass the DR of the same type? So the only way these two can hurt each other is to use the natural attacks?
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My players hated the battle as well. They were using power attack on the other R's to get past DR. But Bahor's AC is so high, that power attack can't hit him. And thus the damage is too low for the DR. His SR is too high for any spell, and evasion saves him from any area attack. He's next to impossible to damage.

Name of PC: Nils
Class/Level: Shoanti Fighter 8
Adventure: Escape from Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Betting on the Wrong Horse

Bahor convinces the group to head down to the Vivified Labyrinth. There they meet Vimanda posing as Orsini. They don't fall for that, so Vimanda changes to "Nudhalli, a rakshasa posing as a Arkona human". Vimanda, as Nudhalli, weaves a tale of Arkona deception and betrayal convincing the party that Bahor is the real evil-doer here, and that he should be dealt with first. The party falls for it.

Battle breaks out in the garden. A few rounds into that Bahor appears at the railing above. Nils, still under the effects of a Levitate, rises up to battle Bahor. Nils manages to shout out a "He has HOW MANY attacks?" before going down.

He's not dead though. The rest of the party rushes upstairs and tries to battle Bahor. Nils is healed, but Bahor quickly drops him again. He's not dead though! The party heals him again, Bahor quickly drops him again, this time killing him.

Darwin, the party bard, says as Nils dies, "Looks like we bet on the wrong horse."

Nils, the Shoanti power-attacker
Nils, walking death with that Earthbreaker
Nils, who single-handly defeated the wererats and the zombies at the Carowyn manor
Nils, no more

(The party paladin and rogue were dropped as well. The rest of the party fled at that point, leaving their companions behind.)

At the risk of being dense, I don't understand this discussion at all. I can go to the Paizo store and BUY the PDFs one by one, but somehow making it a SUBSCRIPTION is a problem? The end result is exactly the same.

A subscription just makes sure that I buy them all. Making me go to the Paizo store manually simply guarantees that I occasionally forget and you lose out on a sale.

Are you interested in helping to organize the material and get a PBwiki setup?

I've got a little bit of experience with pbwiki and could help with the setup if that's the direction we want to go.

A Pathfinder wiki already exists - http://pathfinderwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page. Don't know if this should just be part of that.

And, no offense and not saying you'd do this, but setting up a wiki on somebody's personal server - a somebody that could disappear and take everything with them - doesn't sound like the best route for a community project. A public wiki like pbwiki seems a better choice.

I don't see the Shoanti as powerful as Turin. Personally, I'd make them more marauding bandits. Korvosa is too hurt to take the fight to the Shoanti, but not so weak that the Shoanti can actually do much to the city.

So the Shoatni have destroyed the out-lying farms and have wiped out Theif's camp. They've gained control of most of the roads into/out of town.

I'd set up a couple encounters were the PCs have to sneak past Shoanti patrols. Maybe even encounter Kogun and his men assaulting a farmer and let the PCs decide what side to take. Perhaps a diplomatic mission where the encounter Thousand Bones and get him to move some troops away from the city.

My players were suspicious of here as well but grew out of it.

There is no map for the courtyard that know of.

I'm with tbug. They resolved Trinia themselves, let it go.

You might want to introduce the Vencarlo/Blackjack thing though. Blackjack saves somebody, they end up at Vencarlo, Vencarlo asks the PCs to smuggle the person out since, according to his contacts, they have some experience in that area already.

A fledgling DM doesn't need a pair of Evil characters. Tell them to try again.

I'm playing CotCT now and it's going well. There's been complaints that it leaves the city when the PCs really want to stay and that the ending adventures are a bit too much dungeon-crawling. I haven't gotten to those issues yet but don't see them as a problem.

SD is a very cool idea but reading through it I see some potential problems. In the first adventure, the PCs are expected to work for a guy who betrays them. There's a lot of betrayal throughout. There's seem pretty hard railroads to start the middle adventures. The reason for the PCs to do some of the missions seems weak. If you've got roleplay-heavy players, this AP will need tweaking.

Spoilers abound.

Rather than run the four bad guys as the MM says, I did some customization based on their role/personality.

Played this last week, my two cents:

1) Stopping the chaos after a score didn't seem right. I just stayed in initiative and threw a pig out at the top of the next round.

2) Starting the pig in a specific place after a score didn't seem right - it was too easy either way. I flipped a coin. If I had it to do over, I'd have the pig come up in the middle of the field after a score.

You could have the Doctor refuse to talk to them - too busy. He's ultimate goal though is to join the RM. The PCs aren't going to talk him out of that.

The clues they find along the way should be pretty incriminating thus keeping the PCs on the Dr's case regardless.

More Blood Pig questions:

#1: Players start in C4D and their pit is C4F. That puts their area and the pit next to each other. If the pig comes up on that side, they get it and immediately toss it in the pit. I assume they are supposed to get the pig in the pit OPPOSITE where they start?

#2: Assuming the participants stay unarmed, not a lot of PCs have unarmed strike so they get no attacks of opportunity. The Shinglesnipes can get a pig and likely run right past all of the PCs to the pit since they have no AoO. PCs would have to Ready to try and stop someone. On top of that, all of the Shinglesnipes have Improved Unarmed so they DO get AoO. Sounds like that would really play out unbalanced. Should everyone be allowed to make AoOs during Blood Pig?

#3: The Shinglesnipes all have 2d6 Sneak Attack. You can Sneak Attack, with flank, with an unarmed strike can't you? Sounds like the PCs are going to get beat up quickly?

#4: Do the players go back to their starting position after scoring or is a new pig just immediately sent up?

#5: If my players refuse to play this cool game, am I justified in killing them all?

Linking it to Barvasi seems like a great idea. Maybe throw in Pilts Stillwell from Escape as well?

Hmmm, that seems tough. I don't see them welcoming an outsider into the group.

I'd let him heal. Have him set-up his own clinic. Put some patients under his care (I allowed 6 per day with the extended healing rules). Let me cast some spells. Involve the NPCs.

Then have the QP's show up and take a few of his patients for "extra special care". That'll give them good reason to be mad at the QPs.

A second possibility would be to have House Azrinae empty - they all left. Let the PCs assault the place, maybe running into the booby traps left behind. Once they realize the place is empty, they'll need to find out what happened. Investigating in the city will reveal the Vonnarcs' to be their main rival and thus perhaps the people who know what happened.

I use DM's Familiar. I love it, but I wrote it so I may be biased.

I use it for tracking combat: initiative, making all the dice rolls for the monsters, tracking HP. It's also got a very handy reference library where you can look up whatever you like - spells, feats, rules, etc.. You can also add your own information to that.

There's a 30 day demo in the Paizo store. You can also buy it there.

Lastly, a lot of the OGL content from the adventure paths has already been typed up and is available for import straight into DMF. It's on the downloads page of the website.

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In addition to that, I use the laptop to reference and update the campaign wiki during the game, klooge.werks because we play remotely, and Skpe for voice chat.

I don't see any major problem with that.

It seems that "under the stage" would have many exits for the father to use. Why doesn't he leave? You might want to put him somewhere more constrained.

Should the plague still be an issue for the PCs during Escape From Old Korvosa, or is the plague supposed to have been resolved by now?

Seems like the plague should still be going - if it's cured, why is Old Korvosa being cut-off? If the plague is still going though, it makes things a bit tough on the players - the cleric will be spending a couple spells a day just to do Remove Disease, Restoration to cure damage.

A spot check to see what you are shooting at is certainly fair......I think if you start the combat after the door opens (with the sound of the door opening starting the combat),

Requiring a Spot check is ridiculous. It's a surprise round, which is normal combat. Do you require a Spot check at the start of every combat to see who attack?

Yes, if the players want to open the door first and then check for surprise; that's certainly a RAW way to do it. Everyone in the room gets a Spot check to notice the door opening, which seems like a pretty low DC and thus gives a lot of the folks in the room a chance to act in the surprise round.

Starting the surprise round with the door closed requires a listen check, through a door at -10, against a Move Silent; much harder to do thus giving the party better chance at surprise.

Ugh, you guys are tough.

You can't ready outside of combat as noted - so it's not a readied action. The question is whether or not it's a surprise round.

If the guys on the other side of the door haven't perceived the party, then it's a surprise round. The entire party gets a surprise action, not just the rogue.

Now, I'd require someone to open the door as their surprise round action -- opening the door first would alert anyone in the room with a view of the door thus ruining a chance of surprise.

I'm with Mary on this one. I love the idea of Endless Night but the execution doesn't work.

1) There's no reason for the PCs to go to Vonnarc. Even if they do go, they're expected to just hang out there cleaning stables until summoned by the wizard who then tells them where to go. PCs are sure to explore and they're sure to explore Azrinae.

2) Once they get the information on Allevrah, there is no reason to go to Kyonin. I think this is easily changed, have the drow wizard say tell the PCs that if if they want to learn about Allevrah, they should seek out the Winter Council. That at least brings the adventures in line. They can learn about the Blood-thingy at the Winter Council compound (they've been trying to figure out what happened to Allevrah themselves).

#1 looks a bit harder to deal with. Turning Vonnarc into House Azrinae would be one idea. Perhaps Allevrah was a wizard as well rather than head of the house.

>> It comes down to the consumable items problem.

That's an interesting point. I've got Hero Points in the game as well - mainly they are the only way to come back from death. A couple players have careless spent those, some have hoarded. Everybody those fails to use the Harrows. Just interesting.

Have Field Marshall Kroft explain that everyone who went to the Gray Maidens has never been heard from again.

This is the Paizo board right? Why so little mention of Paizo stuff?

When Paizo was doing Dungeon magazine, they did three complete adventure paths: Shackled City, Age of Worms, and The Savage Tide. Buy back issues here in the store.

When Dungeon died, Paizo started doing adventure path books. Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne are complete. Second Darkness is completing this month or so. Age of Fire (something like that) starts next month. You can buy the books in the Paizo store or PDFs. All good stuff but the adventure does end around level 16 or so.

We've completed two adventures and my players have yet to use a Harrow point. I even remind them - "last encounter for this adventure, good time to use your harrow points" - and they don't do it. Anybody else? Maybe I'm not threatening them enough.

An NPC, but it's my only kill through the first two adventures:

Name: Majenko
Class/Level: Pseudodragon
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave
Catalyst: PCs can't deal with a flyer

Story: When Lady Andaisin takes to the air, the PCs once again realize that they have no way to deal with a flyer (the flying Duergar in Rolth's lair having demonstrated that to them earlier). With no other options available, Majenko - who has been hugely beneficial to the party in scouting out invisible opponents and handling communication with his telepathy - is sent up for the Hail-Mary-try-to-put-her-to-sleep. He misses. The Lady crits with her scythe and Majenko is killed.

I wasn't very clear: Say A & B are held, C is fascinated, and D is free to act. Does D know that the assasin is fascinating C and can go shake him out of it? Or does he just see three unmoving companions?

As for moving in for the final blow, yes you can single move and still concentrate.

I don't see why not. Sounds like a cool fight: character rushing around trying to snap the rest of the party out of it, other Mantis' trying to keep him away.

That does bring up an interesting question for me: If Characters A, B, and C are held; the Red Mantis is approaching; does Character D know who the Mantis is focusing on?

I am at a point in my campaign (near the end of Seven Days to the Grave) where I'd like to (need to actually) insert a relatively significant side plot. The PCs have run through everything in the adventure and are still 5th level. I want to get them to 6th

Ding! Your PCs find a couple extra thousand XP and are now 6th level. Don't fret over XP.

As for me, the Grey Maidens came from the Sable Company and the Korvosan Guard - thus weakening both of them. It's also why the leader of the Sable Company is so PO'd - one of them was his sister (introduced briefly at Trinia's beheading). And the Queen has brought some of them from home. Seems to have sastified my players.

I didn't care for the treatment of the Hell Knights in the campaign so never introduced them.

If their plans are decent, I'd let the players succeed.

The only drawback is that you somehow have to convince them to leave down later on. If the Red Mantis is not after them, then that may be a bit hard to do.

Of course, the PCs are doomed to meet the Mantis at Vencarlo's. I'd try and make sure the players understand that the Mantis was not there for them - just wrong place at the wrong time.

It played out pretty well. They followed up on the people that made the priests sick first and got a bit frustrated that all of those lead to dead bodies. The cleric never thought of Speak with Dead for some reason but the wizard eventually thought of Locate Object which lead to the diary and the direct evidence against the doctor.

Only made it 50 pages before giving up. While reading a 900 page book that is cryptic beyond reason might be fun in the effort taken to figure it out, it's just not for me. Whomever is next in line at the library will be happy to get it back early from me.

An example from page 35: Kefedokhles: A fid from the Halls of Orithena who survived the eruption of Ecba to become one of the Forty Lesser Peregrines.

Fid? Halls of Orithena? Ecba? Lesser Peregrines? The book explains none of what those are. If you're intrigued by that and want to puzzle out what all those things are, this is a book for you.

CR 5 creatures usually have around a 22 AC

Glancing through Seven Days to the Grave, only the highest AC enemies are a 22 with many of them being quite a bit less. And I'm finding that Cleave more than makes up for the occasional miss due to the Power Attack.

Fifth level fighter, two handed weapon:
STR 20: +10
Power Attack 5: +10
Bull Strength: +4
+1 Weapon

So he starts damage at +25.

Anybody else having issues with the Earthbreaker? My STR 20 fighter, always power attacking, catching a Bull STR from the cleric - is doing 30 some points a round at 5th level. Makes the Paladin's 6 from a sword seem pretty worthless.

fascinate as he quoted is a condition, not an ability

I stand corrected.

Shouldn't "fascinate" be in italics though to denote the condition?

Which part of my direct quote do you disagree with? :-)

The part where you start using the rules for a Bard's Fascinate ability to decide how this works. While Prayer Attack uses the word "fascinate", that doesn't mean it works like the Fascinate ability.

The victim gets a new save each time a threat approaches (other than the red mantis) the victim. I wouldn't call someone attacking the mantis as "approaching" the victim.

DC to maintain Concentration when attacked is 10 + Damage Dealt.

No, the PC is helpless so can't make an opportunity attack.

Yes, it's a very deadly ability: If the mantis catches a PC alone. If the PCs are in a group, then the mantis probably can't maintain concentration while the rest of the party beats on him. Or, the fascination automatically ends if a PC takes an action to slap the victim out of the trance.

The victim gets only one save. If a danger other than the Mantis approaches, they get another save.

There is no Concentration check needed for the Mantis unless they take damage, are being violently jostled, or the other conditions listed under Concentration.

Yes, the Coup attempt is then Fort save of DC10 + damage done in the attack. The Coup is an automatic critical.

Hmmm, Hasbro going with some insulting marketing.... where have I seen that before?

"turn your brain off" AND "clever"? Those would seem to be exclusive.

The clips on the NBC website didn't catch my interest. NBC's "you must first watch a commercial before watching the commercial for our TV show" didn't help.

Discussion of the fishery map: here.

Back to the OP:

Darwin, same player as above, decided before the first die was rolled that he was going to be Blackjack. As a bard, he disappears each evening, dons the Blackjack disguise, and goes to inns speaking out on the evils of the Queen.

The other players, who don't know Darwin's secret, have decided that they want to meet this Blackjack fellow and join forces. Darwin, for some perverse reason, doesn't want to be found out.

So all the players, including Darwin, get together and map out which inn they want to stake out to meet Blackjack. Blackjack, armed with that information, avoids all of those inns.

Growing increasingly frustrated at not being able to find Blackjack, Hugh - the party cleric - suggests they set a trap. Darwin should dress up as Blackjack and start giving speeches around town to draw out the "real" Blackjack. Darwin incredulously refuses - "You want me to dress up as the guy all of the Queen's guards are trying to kill? NO WAY!".

On the other hand (having done some more reading), a hundred Grey Maidens aren't going to be able to enforce martial law as described at the end of Escape from Old Korvosa.

I still can't envision thousands of Grey Maidens for some reason. I think the Maidens will be the elite guards. Remnants of the Sable Company and Korvosa guard will be the bulk of forces.

I don't think the adventures give any firm number. Thousands or even hundreds strains credibility in my mind (where did the Queen find thousands of able-bodied female fighters?).

IMC, the Queen started with only Sabina. Using Kazovan, she converted over a handful in the castle guards. Sabina then recruited the female students of Orsini for conversion. By the time we get to Trinia's execution in EoA, the PCs have seen a dozen or so of them.

Next, the Queen starts taking women from the Guard and from the Sable Company. Croft and Endren start complaining of this in Seven Days.

By the time we reach the blockade in Escape, I'll have a hundred or so Grey Maidens and the PCs will have seen that force accumulate.

If they miss out on any of the clues, then I can always fall back on the adventure as written - an NPC arrives and tells them to go to one of the locations.

With the changes above, there's no reason for the PCs to go straight to the Direption. They wouldn't know about the DHC yet, so they couldn't track down Yvicca even if they went there. I'll find out tonight if that works or not.