Drakli's page

I'm running a game of Carrion Crown that just got to Wake of the Watcher.

I've been sorting through my D&D Miniatures, weighing the options of using a Treant from Giants of Legend against a Beholder Ultimate Tyrant from Dangerous Delves to represent the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath. The Treant captures the tree-like aspects and has the thick trunky legs; and the Beholder has the body shape, and the the eye-stalks pass for tentacles.

But it wasn't quite gelling, so I went online and did a search.

Then I happened across Fantasy Flight's Arkham Horror Monster Miniatures and found they have a Dark Young figure.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with the figure line and could tell me how well the fig would work in a Pathfinder game. I read that it was the right size to be a huge creature for a 25mm game. I can't remember if the D&D and Pathfinder Battles minis are 25mm or 30mm scale... well... no, to be honest, I know nothing about Mini scales.

I was also considering grabbing a Gug and perhaps a Mi-go or two, but the bases look a bit big... at least for the mi-go it looks like it'd be large for a medium creature.

Anyone have experience with their figure line in general and their suitability for use in the Pathfinder RPG? Thoughts on the look of the figures would help too. Everyone has a different idea of how Mythos monsters look.

While we're on the topic, does anyone have suggestions on what I should use for minis for:

Hounds of Tindalos

Shantak

Moit of Shub-Niggurath

Gug

Dimensional Shambler

Mi-Go

Dark Young

Any other Mythos Monsters from Wake of the Watcher I forgot.

Wizards of the Coast miniatures are the ones I have the most of, and I'm toying with Fantasy Flight figures, but I could swing other ones in a pinch if they were good.

So, I'm reading an encounter in a module that involves a giant octopus.

The During Combat section says "The octopus stays in the water, attacking enemies on shore with its tentacles. It tries to grab as many victims as it can and then pull them into the water to bite and poison before it feeds on them."

How does it do this?

I assume that it makes a grab attempt on every character it hits, and if it hits more than one character, it may take a -20 penalty to its grapple checks so it can hold each character in a single tentacle instead of needing to focus all of its limbs on grappling one victim. (Hopefully this assumption is not wrong.)

If it succeeds at this, that's where things get fuzzy for me in terms of the octopus's subsequent actions.

A grapple check is a Standard Action. Does that mean that the Octopus can only pull one victim into the water at a time, and the rest just sort of dangle there from its tentacles? Or because it's taking a -20 to its grapple checks, can it use the move grapple option to move all of its grappled victims into the water at the same time with one Grapple Check? (or one for each victim?)

Assuming the octopus gets someone into the water, does it have to release them from the grapple to do a bite attack (since grappling is a standard action,) or to attack them with any tentacles that aren't currently holding victims; or can it just not elect to make grapple checks for additional constrict damage and whatnot? I know the rules pretty much state (with the grapple being a standard action,) they can't make the grapple checks and bite them at the same time.

Honestly, creatures with multiple attacks and grab are confusing and sometimes frustrating for a lot of reasons.

For one thing, with ones like octopuses and scorpions... grabbing prey and holding them tight while biting or stinging them is kind of what they do, but the rules aren't set up to parse that kind of behavior. For another, a giant monster with lots of tentacles, like a kraken, grabbing a bunch of people and waving them around and dragging them to their doom is rather iconic, but I don't know why any tentacled creature would try and grab more than one person and take the massive grapple check penalty if there's not really much they can do with multiple people in their tendrils all at once. And if they can't, well, there's an iconic fantasy/monster scene that flat out just doesn't work in Pathfinder.

My collegues, if you'll refer to the slides, I think you'll discover the size increase from huge in 3.5 to gargantuan in PF granted an unexpected benifit to the tyrannosaurus. According to the universal monster rules for swallow whole, "Unless otherwise noted, the opponent can be up to one size category Smaller than the swallowing creature." in the entry for the tyrannosaurus, there is no such noted limiter.

Gentlefolk, I trust you can all see what this means.

It can now swallow a triceratops whole. Or an ankylosaur. Or any hadrosaur.

Dear gods, what have we done?!

Our only hope is to equip every Parasaurolophus in Pathfinder with poisonous back spines to poison this monstrosity from the inside out, so we can curtail its swallowing rampage throughout all of the duckbilled dinosaurs and ankylosaurs of Golarion! (The triceratopses will be okay, their horns count as light piercing weapons.)

Or we could just say the Tyrannosaurus's swallow whole only works on creatures three times smaller than it (or maybe two.)

This may be a simple question. Might even be one that was asked before. If so, I apologize, as there are a lot of threads to wade through.

If a creature with grab; such as, say, a large-sized constrictor snake drops in on and successfully grabs another creature, say, a medium-sized human... can the constrictor snake attempt to pin the human, while still doing grab damage (and constrict damage, because it has that ability too?)

Or does the constrictor snake need to use the Damage Other grapple option to damage its opponent?

Intuitively, it seems like it should be able to pin and damage its opponent at the same time because that's what constrictor snakes /do./ They don't let their prey fight back, they pin them down immobile and squeeze the life out of them.

It seems to many predators' disadvantage to grapple someone and make CMB checks at them if their foe can make full attacks back at them while only taking a -2 to hit. Grant you, constrictor snakes only have one attack, and this would allow them to double their damage output, but for creatures like giant octopi or giant squid, it seems like there'd be a better use of their time... like making full attacks back.

Also, the grab rules don't state what a creature with grab must be doing with the grapple in order to deal damage, simply that "If the creature does not constrict, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold. Otherwise, it deals constriction damage as well ."

As far as I can tell by reading the rules, a creature with grab can pin (or do whatever it likes with a grapple) and deal grab and constrict damage at the same time.

Am I reading it wrong, or have I got the rules right?

So, I thought of a cool opponent for my players the other day; a Vegepygmy Witch, serving as the tribal fungi folks' witch doctor or shaman.  Kind of makes sense, considering what passes for their culture.  Then I ran into a problem; Vegepygmies have no spoken language.  They can't talk outside of rhythmic beats and some clicks.  I was intending a low level caster, so I'm thinking Silent Spell might not have enough oomph.  Anyone have any thoughts on how I can approach it.  Grant you, I can just change how Vegepygmies work, because this tribe is the only one my players are likely to meet, but this post is about brainstorming in the framework.

Grant you, again, I think the Witch uses intelligence and Vegepygmies aren't too intellectual, so Druid or Sorcerer might be better, but the muteness is still a potential issue; and Vegepygmy Witch just sounds cool!

I have a player in one of my games whose PC will be getting the Leadership feat and an NPC cohort soon. Now I presume that the cohorts are supposed to be built using the elite array like the section in the Creating NPCs chapter of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook outlines... but I wanted to pick peoples' brains on the matter.

For example, my roommate is against that idea. All the NPCs in his game have always gotten their stats the way his players' characters do, by rolling the dice and making the best of what life gives you.

I know in the pre-Pathfinder days, when my players started experimenting with the ability score arrays, I always built NPCs on the same array as the players (32, usually.) Only since Pathfinder have I started using the Elite array because that seemed to be what I was supposed to do.

So I'm wondering what you all do with your npcs? Elite array? Different arrays? Roll their stats? Whatever seems most fitting for the character?

Just recently in a game I'm running, the party ranger took a critical hit from a chupacabra. The result from the Critical Hit Deck was "Bone Masher: Normal Damage and 1d3 Str damage (arm.)" Essentially, it broke his arm or sprained it or something like. The part I'm uncertain of is that it says "Limb useless until healed." Is that until the ability damage is healed or until the hit point damage is healed?

Please cancel the pre-order I did (a while ago) for the case of Pathfinder Battle Miniatures.

I've replaced it with the subscription I placed for the Pathfinder Miniatures just tonight. Leave the pre-order I've done for the brick and the individual Beginner Box 4 Hero minis in place, please.

Essentially, I should only be getting one case plus the other stuff, not two cases.

Please let me know if I need to clarify anything.

What are the dragons of Tian like? Do they have a spell-casting progression? (I hope.)

I admit I've always been disappointed by the Oriental Dragons as presented by D&D, primarily because unlike the Chromatic and Metallic dragons, they lack a spell-casting progression. Seeing as the Eastern dragons are oft-to-usually portrayed as wise mystical spirits and potent embodiments of nature, I've always felt spell-casting is even more fitting for them than for Western style drakes like the classic D&D ones (except the Golds, which used to be Eastern-style dragons.)

It might be cool if they drew from the Druid or Cleric List more than the Wizard/Sorcerer.

I'm coming within breathing distance of paying off my car loan, but I need to figure out how to manage it. Reluctantly, I realize something's got to give. Unfortunately, that something has to start with ending my Map Pack and Pathfinder Module Subscriptions. I don't want to do it, but I've got to do it. Please assist.

Also, is it possible to skip an item in a subscription? I really don't need a Pathfinder Beginner's Box, but I don't want to miss the Bestiary 3 or Advanced Races Guide.

I'm running the Carrion Crown AP. My players just played through Hergstag, and I was looking for impressions from anyone else who's already gone through this part of Trial of the Beast.

Put simply, it drove my players to distraction. They found it to be a slog-fest. Doing 1-4 damage per round, 6 if they got lucky, was very frustrating for a team of 4th level characters with few ways to bypass half-damage-from-everything incorporeality. This was compounded by the fact that the wraith children could use terrain and obstacles to deny several party members the ability to attack in a round and that they were going to be fighting six such monsters in a row plus a super-version of them. It was so daunting that eventually, they just went, "We want to tear the houses down and kill the wraiths while it's still light out and they're helpless. Please just say we can do it."

I let them do it because they clearly weren't having fun anymore.

Ironically, Brother Swarm was easier for them because they felt they could afford to spend more resources annihiliating him.

My thoughts are that a lot of this could have been avoided by giving the children-wraith-spawn less hit points. I think if I had it to do over again, I probably would have used the stats for Shadows (giving them 19 hp as opposed to the 37 hp they have now,) but with the wraith-children damage output and made up the XP difference elsewhere if I needed.

I have a character with scent in my game.

His player kind of uses it as an excuse to say "Wait," anytime anything tries to ambush them, "Didn't I smell it? Scent specifically says "A creature with the scent ability can detect opponents by sense of smell, generally within 30 feet. If the opponent is upwind, the range is 60 feet. If it is downwind, the range is 15 feet.""

Theoretically, I could say this makes scent way too powerful as a PC ability, but frankly, every 1st level druid and 4th level ranger potentially gains scent as a bonus ability with a whole pet animal attached as a bonus.

What bugs me the most about this is that lots of animals hunt by stealth. It's what they do. Since all animals have scent, how do they even catch anything if everything worth catching knows they're there?

I suppose I should just remind him that lots of creatures instinctively stay downwind and intelligent hunters learn to do the same; but does anyone else have tips for keeping scent from overwhelming their games?

Also... what kinds of illusions and self-alteration spells does scent penetrate?

I picked Order 1732660 up at the post office yesterday, but found it was missing my map subscription item, "GameMastery Map Pack: Shrines Print Edition." In its place, was the Pathfinder novel, "Master of Devils," which I did not order. It looks like a cool novel, but I was really waiting for the map pack. Is there any chance I could still get it, please?

I just read the brief blurb about him in the lich article of Shadows of Gallowspire, (but I posted here because he's in Numeria, not Ustalav,) and was blown away.

I would like to know more about Allig Third, please, as he is clearly the coolest lich in all of Golarion... and maybe everywhere.

Two of the items in the list for order #1746246 read as Unavailable on my receipt.

D&D Miniatures - Lords of Madness: Elder Blue Dragon
D&D Miniatures - Lords of Madness: Rot Grub Swarm x 2

May I assume I got the last ones and the website was just tallying the total available to reflect the new totals?

I'm sorry, I know I've asked this kind of question before with a previous order. I just like to be sure, is all.

I guess I'm not sure there's much else that needs to be said.

I'd think you can only be damned once. I mean, once Asmodeus already has your Hell planned for you, what's the point of a second or third?

Assuming turning power over Cheliax to the devils was one; I'm curious what things Thrune did that meant it not only got in once, but thrice.

I guess it could (probably) be a figure of speech, but it's not as fun that way!

The Adventure Path says that he's a human, but looking at his portrait and reading his name, it seems pretty obvious to me that he's a gnome. Either an elderly one or a bleachling.

My co-GM (I'm running this with Hexcaliber,) was skeptical at first, thinking it might make players not take him seriously... but he trusted my instincts, and suddenly, Father Grimburrow's one of the most resonant characters in Ravengro for my players. He's also a character my co-GM decided he had to claim for himself. He does a great job with him, too, but then Hex is great at this kind of role.

There's just something about this grim little gnome with a stern and looming presence who doesn't take anyone's crap and doesn't hold with any adventurer fiddle-faddle that no-one can stay neutral about. Not that they like him ICly, (in fact, at least one of the characters really wishes very hard that the Father is secretly behind everything so she can kill him.) But he's super-memorable.

I'm just wondering if anyone else, like me looked at his portrait and his name and thought, "He's totally a gnome. The most awesomely grim, stern, no-nonsense gnome ever."

If so, how'd that work out for you?

This might be an odd question, but it seems like I've had one or two of my D&D minis sport a gray-green tinge to the paint job, with a haze of similar, sometimes blotchy discoloration on the base. When I apply a dry tissue to the base, this stuff wipes away cleanly like dust that's too translucent or light to show on the tissue, (except between the toes of barefoot sort, where the tissue can't quite reach.)

The minis seem dry, not damp, so I wouldn't think it's mildew or anything, and it (fortunately,) doesn't seem to spread to any of the other minis stored with them under the same conditions. So far, one of my Carnage Demon minis from Night Below and Verdant Reaver from the same set seem to exhibit this.

Is it a bad paint quality on the minis breaking down or... oh, frankly, I just don't know what to think it might be. I'd like to ask the advice of anyone with more expertise than I. I'm pretty sure it's not all in my head, but I hope it's something harmless. I also wouldn't mind hearing from people who've experienced the same thing.

Also the Kuo-toa Hunter, also from Night Below, come to think of it... so maybe it is a problem with that set.

The Daemons of Golarion have a very different groove going for them than the Daemons of the Book of Fiends.

This is especially true compared to Demons and Devils... who in D&D, are always rather clearly defined. You know where they stand and what they want with... souls, the universe, and everything. No one ever worries if their D&D demons are going to be unoriginal, because they're such a tradition.

Painting something Lawful or Chaotic might be a broad strokes thing, but it enables them to keep longstanding concepts with solid traction... the more untethered evil of Daemons seems to kind of make them like gnomes. Everyone who takes a stab at them seems to have to re-invent their Daemonic Thing.

Erm... this may have been a long way around in asking, but since the Daemons of Golarion differ so much from the Daemons of the Book of Fiends, to what degree do the Daemons of the Book of Fiends have a place in Golarion... and if so, how have they changed?

I've already seen a Glomeray in one of the APs, but there wasn't much time spent on what his place in the oblivion-factory of Abaddon. I'm curious since I've been just been working on reading Book of Fiends lately, (I got through the Demon section a while back, but stuff got in my way before I got to Gehenna,) and I've been wondering if and hoping we'll see more of some of the delightfully horrible things from that book. There are some precious gems in there.

...A Bag of Rats!

Seriously, though, would a swarm of rats... or better, a colony of ants; suffice to feed a Color Out of Space into adulthood as well as stalking more complex and larger, but less numerous organisms, like farmhouses of humans?

Is there a minimum... I don't know, life force required from a creature to fuel an actual growth point?

And... do the Star Spawn of Cthulhu really lack damage reduction?

But other than those odd questions, I love seeing Lovecraft-ian monsters in Pathfinder. Speculating how The Color Out of Space might work has taken up a lot of my time in the past.

I've already snagged the Haunted Mansion & Graveyard map packs, they seem like cinches for this kind of thing. I kind of wish the Dungeon Sites one was still around, that looked like a good one for

chambers. Anyone else have any thoughts on good packs or flips?

Another thing I've been wondering about... how do you'all as GMs try and spruce up the battle maps when the dungeon in a module or AP volume has a clear layout that isn't laid out like any flip-maps you own? I know the whole sell point of the Paizo maps is not using a bland dry erase grid-board... but whotcha gonna do if what you got doesn't match the layout of what's in the AP?

I have a player in my new Serpent's Skull campaign (though the path isn't important to this discussion,) playing a young half-elven ranger who fought a war in a nation heavily covered in wilderness. He's boarding the ship to try and escape his painful memories.

Now, understanding that I don't keep up well with Golarion Geography that hasn't appeared in an adventure path (unless it's super awesome like Numeria,) I decided with him that he probably came from the River Kingdoms, since there's a lot of nations that want a piece of the place...

It's still early in the campaign though (3 sessions in,) so there's still time to amend things... so, does anyone have better ideas for war-torn wildlands for him to escape? Or should I be good, running with the River Kingdoms?

When I went to snag the black dragon with a sorceress rider, it let me. When I placed it in my side-cart for the next subscription shipment, it immediately went "unavailable."

Was I actually lucky enough to snag the last one, or was it already gone and the system hadn't updated? Am I a winner? Or too little, too late?

Wait. What?

Gnomes of Golarion came out May and Orcs of Golarion came out in August, both of 2010. Neither of them have been out for one full year and they're already out of print and almost "out of stock for good?"

I thought I wasn't supposed to think of Paizo products as if they were magazines anymore. I thought there were second printings and stuff.

So... I'm running a Pathfinder game and I have a player who wants to play a man cursed by being transformed into an intelligent gorilla. I love the concept and the idea... it's in the fine tradition of comic books, action cartoons, and pulpy stories everywhere. Smart apes and monkeys make everything cooler.

My problem is trying to figure out how to make it work. There really aren't any playable races that support the concept in PF and the play-as-monsters-rules are very wan.

I looked through a bunch of my D20 books, and found the Weren in D20 future, but they aren't really attuned to the PF standard races. (And they seem a mite bit stronger than something only EL+1 would be.) So far, we've been tinkering with that race and planning on using a modded version of that.

I've also toyed with the notion of the fact that the Druid get to be a class and have an animal at the same time. If there's a way to play a druid who doesn't have an animal companion (extracting the animal and giving domains, for example,) why can't we work the other side... extracting the druid from the animal companion and letting the player just play the companion?

I was hoping someone might have other suggestions or input on the thoughts above. Mostly the guy is looking to play with the Big, Frightfully Strong, yet civil and intelligent aspect of the smart ape thing...

An ancient Red Dragon at a CR of 19 has an AC of 38, but to a gunslinger within 30 feet (or 60 with the right grit,) that's an AC of 5.

I know that's at the extreme end of the meter, there... but monsters at certain CRs are supposed to have certain ACs (plus or minus based on their type & role,) and if we're mostly discounting the natural armor bonuses for them, are they the CR they're supposed to be?

Part of the reason I'm asking this is that I'm running a steampunk game and three of my players opted to take just one level in gunslinger because of the 'free guns.' Sooner or later, there are going to be big monsters with high natural armor bonuses... which won't do much good against a solid percentage of my party.

P.S. I know there's a thread on whether or not guns are a Tarrasque's nightmare, but that seems to mostly be a discussion on whether or not guns automatically bypass DR, and that seems to have mostly resolved at 'no.'

Seriously, it's always one of my peeves about the D20 system that:

1) The divide between Aberrations as opposed to Magical Beasts and Monstrous Humanoids is so arbitrary and ill-defined and yet...

2) It's often used as world-building excuse for choosing "Sides" in a way that're often neither consistant or sensible if...

3) an Aberration, to quote the Bestiary 2, is so simply defined as something that "has a bizarre anatomy, strange abilities, an alien mindset, or any combination of the three," without there being an overarching origin for them.

For example, the Lovecraftian-esque nightmares with bodies like tentacled stalagmites and warped alien mindsets known as Ropers that are Magical Beasts (at least originally in D20) because... well... as near as I can guess, because they're combat monsters and need the D10 HD and full attack bonus to do their jobs. Meanwhile, a snake with a human head (Naga) or a dark elf with a spider abdomen (Drider) is an Aberration. On the other hand, a horse with a fish-butt (Hippocampus, Magical Beast) or human with the same (Merfolk, Monstrous Humanoid) is not.

Targetting Aberrations for whatever in D&D just doesn't make sense when Aberrations don't give off a consistant thematic vibe that sets them apart from all the other weird-crap-creatures-that-don't-make-sense-outside-of-bending-the-rules-of- nature in D20.

What brought this all up fresh in my brain was reading about the First World being hostile to aberrations in the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing entry of Misfit Monsters. What is an aberration? Stuff that's weird? Baby, the whole First World is weird. Is a

that much less alien than a monster that looks like a tree-stump and puppets its kills?

I have no problem with the idea of xenophobic characters, organizations, gods, or even places, in D&D or Pathfinder. But a Mothman is at least as weird or weirder than a Guardian Naga, and it shouldn't get a free pass from slayers of aberrant life for being a Monstrous Humanoid.

One thing I've been wondering, ever since I noticed Aboleth seemed to get renamed as things like Devil-Fish or something more Lovecraftian when they get turned into minis... and I assumed it's because Aboleth technically belong to WotC... is whether there's any problem with anyone using things like... say... Tieflings, Aasimar, Dark Creepers, Owlbears, etc in novels instead of adventures and game supplements.

Obviously, you've got something sorted out, but what's the deal? Is it a non-issue, or do all the tiefs get renamed devil-bloods and the drow as dark elves or surt-alfar or something?

You know, 4E really either needs to start giving descriptive text to their monsters, illustrate each behemoth, or just give them their dinosaur names back.

I'm pretty sure the skull-thumping Bone Crown Behemoth is a Pachycephalosaur, but I wish I could be sure whether or not that's what I'm supposed to imagine.

Yes, I know, Monster Manual 3 is not a palentology primer, but blah, I'm a long-time dino-geek. Some things bug me. Knowing what a primeval beast I'm picturing is supposed to look like is one of them.

So... Everyone in Blackcove is turning into a Gillman, on the way to becoming Skum.

Now... the PF Bestiary says Skum are all males, and that's why they have to have the sex with human females.

Since there are gill-tainted women, (some of which are rather far along, like Sara Vanderholt) ... does this mean the women are all becoming (fish)Men?

Reading through Stolen Land, I noticed something weird with one of the NPCs. Despite having all her levels in a PC class and the elite stat array, she didn't get full hit points for her first hit die.

She had 17 hit points from (2d10+6.) That's 5.5x2+6. She should have 21 hit points. At first, I thought it was a typo, but then, I referenced other PC class NPCs in the game, and all the ones I checked (like 6 of them,) were set up the same way.

So I was like, "Huh, maybe that's just the way Pathfinder works and I missed the memo on it. I don't like it at all, but maybe that's a line somewhere in the new RAW."

So I picked up The Bastards of Erebus, number one of the other adventure path from the PF ruleset, and you know what? It doesn't look like the NPCs are set up that way there at all? The Elite Array PC class NPCs I checked all have full hit points for their first hit die.

So.... this an experiment in doing hit points differently, or just a thing that happens because writers get to choose how hit points work in their volume?

Am I confused over something which isn't really anything?

Reading the newest Adventure Path volume, I noticed Lini the iconic druid, has a strength of 6. With her strength penalty, it seems like she'll be hard put to use Wildshape in battle effectively.

Poisonous creatures would work, I imagine, but it seems like Wildshape tilts fairly heavily towards druids who already have a good strength score.

Please clue me in, Paizo gurus!

There must a framework for designing animal companion species and establishing stats they should have at a level 4 or 7 advancement.

My only problem is, I don't know what it is.

Let's say that I want a hippo companion. I have the stats for a hippo from the Tome of Horrors. But until it actually exists in a Bestiary, I'd have to eyeball it based on another species.

Or if the bear animal companion doesn't match up with what I want in a bear. (I know this is an old road, but I still want a bear I don't have to be a halfling to ride. Lion and Tiger fanciers get large animal companions and they get stuff like rake and pounce too.)

Or if I want to use Vermin Heart and have a vermin companion... mind you, this isn't just a PC problem. If I want a villain or NPC like

I need to know how to make an animal companion to know how to make a vermin one.

... so yeah, part of this is wondering how animal companions are built the way they are so I can make one, and part of it is because I wonder why some animal companions are designed the way they are.

I would love for some future book, or web PDF or whatnot that tells me... here is how to design x animal into an animal companion. That would be extremely useful for people like me who get a little nervous with the idea of eyeballing it. Or at least, for someone to say "here is how we estimate it," please.

I'm curious... I know the payload of the alchemist bomb is "traditionally" delivered via throwing arm, but is there anything keeping an alchemist from using a sling?

The Nabasu has long been one of my favorite D&D/D20/PF demons, its only rivals being Babau and Succubi (particularly Succubi with class levels. Seriously, give a succubi class levels, and I'm in love.)

However, I'm a little concerned or puzzled by the way Nabasu work in Pathfinder now, as far as their devouring goes.

One one level, it's very simple and straightforward nowadays. I like that. All you need to do is figure out the beast's growth points, consult how many bonuses that gives him, and whether or not he's a grown up. From there, you're good.

Easy peasy!

However, the downside is that because they advance by gaining bonuses but not actual hit dice, they never get new feats or choose new skills (though existing bonuses go up.)

Because their ability scores don't increase until they're all grown up, neither does their damage per attack or the save DCs vs their abilities, which limits some application against higher level characters with good saves.

That leaves my question of when/if/how Nabasu can gain new hit dice, or increase by class levels. Can they? In older editions, they could advance normally or by level once they were adults. Is that still how it works? I know I can always do as I please in home games, which is good because I enjoy custom monsters, but I'd like to know if it's kosher, so to speak.

Stop me if you've heard this one...

Just this past Wednesday, my gaming group started play-testing a high-level party consisting entirely of the new Advanced Players' Guide base classes. All six characters are 14th level.

Welcome to my stress! ;p

There's a character for each class. In fact, we're actually doubled up on Witches, with a (sometimes) 7th player. More on that later. The players are only allowed to use the play-test classes, and the races, spells, and items from the Pathfinder rule-book (Interestingly, everyone's human, save the Summoner, a half-elf.) As soon as we get everyone's characters digitized, we (or I) will post them here. For the nonce, I'll share the first playing session's events.

Prep Time

The Cavalier's player was concerned that there's no item specifically for increasing Will saves. We eventually resolved with him getting a cloak of resistance +4, but he wonders if such an item might be in the offing.

One of the Witch players had her heart set on a Fox familiar. We improvised with a slightly tweaked dog from the Bestiary.

The Alchemist player is frustrated by the crafting system. Even with the +14 for level and a highly boosted intelligence, crafting the better poisons takes a great deal of IC downtime not inherent in most games we play.

When Dire Animals Attack, AKA Taking the Rukh Approach. (EL 14, XP 38,400)

Creatures:

Rukh advanced to CR 12 at 19 HD (19,200) (AP #21 Bestiary)

3 Mastodons CR 9 Each (19,200) (PF Bestiary)

The Fight

Called to the City of Brass with word that legendary heroes are needed, the party barely has time to greet the efreet diplomat before encountering a stampede of escaped, exotic, menagerie animals! Rampaging through the courtyards, three mastodons send azer scattering and trample any in their way, while an immense and terrible rukh chases and harasses them.

The Cavalier wins initiative and charges the lead elephant. Riding on a warhorse mount, wielding a lance, he deals good damage, but is completely upstaged by the Summoner's eidolon.

A centipede-thing, it makes use of charging and Pounce to roll eleven d20s for ten claws and a bite! The mastodon drops like hamburger. The Summoner casts Haste, unfortunately unable to get the Cavalier in the effect.

Everyone else primarily moves into position, the Oracle, Alchemist and Inquisitor rushing the stampede. Even with haste, no-one else can really get to the mastodons and attack.

The rukh swoops in at last and tries to snap up the Cavalier, fortunately missing, while kicking up a dust cloud with its hover feat.

A Mastodon gores the eidolon, but the other attacks the deaf, stone-focus Oracle and misses a lot (the oracle has the Heavy Armor Prof feat, a hammer of defending, and my rolls have bad luck.) Note, the hovering placement of the rukh kept the mastodons from trampling through the PCs.

In the rounds that follow, things continue much at this same pace. The eidolon seems unstoppable. It gnaws through a second mastodon in round two, and in round three, with fly cast on it by the Summoner, it charges the rukh... only to be foiled by a beak-bite AoO that grabs and interrupts the charge.

The Oracle and Alchemist focus on the last mastodon. It's a fairly standard fight, though much of the damage is dealt by the alchemist's high-focused fire-bombs from behind the oracle-tank.

Everyone else unloads on the rukh. The Witch slams it with a Hex of retribution, but due to terrible attack rolls on my part, the Hex spends most of its time not working. With a shield of flight and an AC of 39, the Cavalier flies up to the rukh while avoiding AoO and, one round later, shows it what a filled out Two-Weapon Fighting tree, combined with Improved Shield Bash, and a 5D6 per-hit challenge can do.

A lightning bolt from the Witch and a couple solid shots from the Inquisitor using the destruction judgement and the greater bane ability take their toll, but what really finishes off the rukh is when it takes a full attack against the grabbed eidolon and does enough damage to kill itself when the retribution hex pays off, (though it drops the super-summon to 1 hp.)

Thoughts Thus Far

I feel like the Oracle and Alchemist underperformed compared to the Eidolon. The Oracle in particular, didn't show off her class abilities, though she served as an anti-elephant meat shield because of her Heavy Armor Feat and Defending weapon.

It took the two of them three solid rounds of actions to reach and take down a CR 9 brute boy with hammer and fire-bomb, and the Eidolon ate two Mastodons in a deuce of rounds. Quadruped Form+Pounce+10 Evolutions of Limb & Claws=Oh My *Censored!*

The only thing that shut down the Eidolon was 15' reach and grab.

The Witch was an interesting case. Mostly she hung back and cast a hex, and took simple pot shots while she waited for the hex to take effect. When it did, it really paid off in a big way, but she spent most of the time hanging back and waiting.

Still... effective. Dunno about how exciting for her.

The Inquisitor's judgements are mean, when they lever into play after a few rounds of waiting, but I don't really feel like I've gotten a chance to see him really show off yet.

With his fleshed out Two-Weapon Fighting tree, the Cavalier hit like a freight train, but even with his equine charger, it took him a while to deal that kind of bloody havoc... partly because he knew he needed to choose the right foe. This is a mitigating factor to be sure. His player pointed out that a Rogue properly tricked out for TWF can be just as brutal or more-so.

At any rate, this is just the first fight. More will come later.

Okay... stick with me on this.

I'm not talking about a fiend who's half fiend, half another fiend.

I'm talking about applying the Half-Fiend template to an existing fiend to represent that it is more densely connected to abyssal, hellish, abbadonic(?) energies than its compatriots.

Think about using it instead of the Advanced Creature Template to create a demon who's a leader of men(demons.) You'll gain ability score bonuses (not as many as Advanced Creature, but enough to enhance the creature the way you need it) but also enhanced mobility through flight, and additionial spell-like abilities with which to play. There's bound to be some overlap, particularly with defenses, so don't be afraid to adjust the plus to CR. As an added bonus, increasing the creature's racial HD or giving it class levels may net additional spell-like abilities!

What do you think, sirs?

Is it just me, or is the Gentle Repose initial domain power kind of scary, from a GM's perspective?

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems like kind of a... 2 round kill for my major, big, bad villains unless they're immune to sleep effects.

Round 1, "Hi, big bad guy," touch attack, no save, staggered.

Round 2, "Goodbye, big bad guy," touch attack, no save, sleep, "Can we get a coup de grace over here please?"

I've got a large-ish collection of plastic, prepainted, WotC, D&D minis.

They're light, relatively inexpensive per-mini, and pretty durable. And they look cool without me needing to know how to paint figures.

However, minis have to be moved if they are to be used. I've been using a large fishing tackle-box (with the removeable shelf-trays and compartments,) to carry them to game-night and it's worked fine so far, but... I've wondered if it's bad for my plastic minis in the long run, shifting and bumping against each other, possibly scraping the paint or figures?

I've seen a lot of mini-boxes on sale at Paizo, the ones with padded individual mini compartments, but the carrying capacities are never as big as I'd like (I can carry just about my whole non-huge+ category collection in the deluxe tacklebox, making it easy to be a resource to the DM without him asking for specifics ahead of time.)

Does anyone here have experience with the WotC minis and transporting them? Am I worrying too much about giving mine travel scars? Or should I get a proper set of mini-boxes to preserve them?

So...

By applying the Giant creature template to a medium creature, I increase the size to large, and thus adjust all the ability scores accordingly +8 Str & –2 Dex & +4 Con (and +2 nat armor)... and then, on top of that, give it a +4 Str & Con & -2 Dex?

A +12 Str -4 Dex and +8 Con is... scary, especially if it's a brute already! Are we sure that's just +1 CR?

Or am I supposed to do this as an either or...

Either I add the template, giving the Medium creature a size of Large and +4 Str & Con, -2 Dex.

Or I advance it by hit dice and increase the size when applicable, giving it a +8 Str +8 Str & –2 Dex & +4 Con (and +2 nat armor)?

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Or is applying the Giant Template how I increase the size, when I decide the creature's got enough HD to be larger? Jeez, I'm sure I'm making this more complicated than I need to do.

I know Orv is crawling with them, and there are Lost Valleys here and there in the north where volcanic vents and springs pull a lost world... but to what degree is the world aware of dinosaurs?

Are they like sasquatch and the loch ness monster, scoffed at by many, deeply believed in by a few, and searched for by many, or just exotic animals like the giraffe and the elephant? Do sages and more scholarly druids engage in long treitises about mysterious survivals? Do they even know dinosaurs used to be the big thing?

Am I missing any Golarion dinosaur habitats? How crazy is it to have a stegosaurus animal companion in most parts of the world (like Adventure Path territory?)

So... Cheliax. I have a friend who bought the huge Golarion campaign setting book (at least partly on my advice.) He likes it, but there's one place that bothers him that I expected he'd love, (since he loves Devils as villains,) and that's Cheliax. It disrupts his suspension of disbelief, that a large country would openly worship Asmodeus and that devils would work their ways visibly instead of staying hidden and unknown to all but their conspirators.

He says, in a world where evil is a recognizable force of the cosmos, a nation which sides with cosmic manifestations of Law and Evil and is obvious about it, is just jumping up and down, waving a big flag reading, "Oy! High-level, Good-aligned Heroes! We consort with the forces of Darkness! Come destroy us! Free our repressed peasants!"

Of course, in his opinion, if players' characters can go from 1-16th level over the course of one or two years of in-game time (see the adventure paths,) there should be NPCs who do the same; and any D&D world that doesn't take 15-20th level heroes into account when describing the status quo of nations breaks down for him.

I like Cheliax. I like the idea of a tyrannical country as a story setting in a fantasy setting, and one that gets its power from devillish compacts out in the open, is an interesting texture. I've tried to argue the case to my friend, but, pointing out that most of Golarion tends more toward neutral than good is the only justification he's bought (begrudgingly,) so far.

Anyone else have any good arguements why devils & diabolists can get away with not hiding their affiliation in a world where Scry and Slay exists? Why staying on the down-low isn't the smarter option for the master manipulators of Hell?

According to the entry on Flurry of Blows, you count your monk levels instead of your actual base attack when flurrying.

Does that mean if you have, say, a +4 base attack from fighter levels, and 4 monk levels, when Flurrying you have a +2/+2, since the fighter levels are discounted entirely?

I love those little throttlers.

The problem is, I don't always know if I'm running them right.

Quite beyond the occassional miscounting of actions, I'm not sure I'm running them right in terms of the following... which means I'd likely be running all creatures with Imp Grab wrong:

1) Can they constrict in the same free action grapple granted them by the improved grab? IE, if they succeed in the first attack, then the grapple check, would they do 1d3+3 for the hit, then 1d3+3 for the constrict right away?

2) Let's say that a choker starts a round with someone in a grapple. Does it get 1 grapple attempt to constrict, then another grapple attempt with its extra standard? Or does it get 2 grapples because of its 2 tentacle attacks, then a 3rd because of its extra action?

3) If a choker Imp Grabs someone in its first attack of its first standard action, does it still get to attack with its second tentacle?

4) I really should know the answer to this question, and I think I do, but I'm looking down the barrel of a player revolt everytime I suggest it does work that way. Looking at Constrict and Improved Grab in the SRD, it seems to say that a monster with constrict deals damage from the initial hit on every successful grapple check in addition to the constrict damage. So a choker who hit for, say, 5 points of damage initially, does 1d3+8 damage for each successive grapple check. My players look at me in horror and say 'No, there's no way it works that way. That's too brutal.' I think they're imagining the horror of being grabbed by otyughs and giant octopi. But if they're wrong, I have to decide whether to wave the SRD at them, or to just consider it a houserule that it doesn't work that way in my games.

So...

Dark Markets of Katepesh is a Chronicles product about a Golarion region; while Osiron, Land of the Pharaohs is a Companion product about a Golarion region.

What's the difference? As far as I can tell, the Chronicles are bigger and more in depth, where the Companions only get 32 pages. Does one or the other tend to be more rules-ish? How do you decide whether a region "deserves" one or the other?

I admit, I feel like the Egyptian-esque region deserves more exploration than it got.

I'm talkin' aboot the prepainted (mostly) plastic D&D minis put out by WotC

Let's suppose a few things:

Let's pretend I have access to whatever set I want to buy. I may or may not... my purchase range is in flux, but we need a base for discussion

I don't want minis for collector's value as an investment or to play the tactical minis game. I want to use them in my D&D games.

I want them because I love cool monsters and nifty characters (Especially monsterses!) And I like toys!

I collect minis with my DM's hat on... rather than my player's. Honestly, I probably wouldn't still be buying them during a stint where I wasn't running a game, because most of my favorite pieces are ones a player can't use. (It's hard enough getting a DM to let you play a gnoll, let alone an ettercap.)

I can get fairly picky about quality in pieces. I want attention to detail, artistic design, aesthetic cleverness, and quality control. Sloppy work and bland designs annoy me.

I -tend- to prefer the 3.5 creature designs over the 4.0 ones where a lot has changed in the monster between editions (for example, the new ettercap looks like an alien ant-man, not an aberrant mutant with spider blood,) but have no problems with mixed sets with new monsters, (the Earth Titan in Against the Giants is a big rocky chunk of awesome! It's good for huge Earth Elementals, Golems, Statues, etc.) It's also worth noting that I primarily run a 3.5/Pathfinder game, so monsters that changed sizes in moving to 4th edition aren't likely to have dedicated 4E minis that work for my context (3.5 Aboleth are huge, so a large mini is only good for a juvenile or some other fish monster.)

So, with that understanding, which booster sets would you recommend someone picky, yet compulsive, like me to collect?

Is anyone else as giddy about 9 as I am?

Check the trailer... it's like Sack-Boys Vs. the Apocalypse.