But don't mounts have to be one size category larger than the rider? So a small goblin could not ride a boar at first level, because the boar is listed as small under the animal companion rules. So they can only ride wolves at first level then?
Quick question: I might be just missing something, but it says members of the scarlet boar order can choose a boar as their mount at first level, but boars are listed as small under the druid's animal companion rules. Did I fail my perception check?
So we're about halfway done with this module, and my players are having a blast. One thing that popped up during the last session was that they found the
Spoiler:
alchemical golem, Artephius. They deciphered from the schematics what would be needed to rebuild it, and when it came to the part of the brain, the bard piped up and said he might put his own brain in it. I think I'm going to use the old 'yes,but...' strategy and require will saves so that his brain can overpower the golem's programming/spirit/whatever.
So 1) is this feasible? And 2) what happens if he succeeds? I can see a few ways of handling this. Use Artephius's stat block as a base and give him bard levels (can alchemical golems even cast magic?). Or create a new race using the race builder for constructs and alter his race. Or create a template and slap it on him. Advice would be greatly appreciated.
For a little while, I had a similar situation. My backup plan was to use the Kaidan adventures if they decided to go by sea. But they eventually figured it wasn't worth the headache. Some people just need the illusion of freedom.
After reading through the books, I think I'm in the "likely never to run this" camp. The reason for me is that it feels like there is a disconnect between the aims and philosophies underlying the AP. A big part of the life of a pirate is freedom, which conflicts with the claustrophobic nature of a dungeon crawl, and the overall tone of paizo's writers leans heavily toward the dungeon more than anything else. I'm not saying they're necessarily bad, or that no one else could possibly have fun with this AP. Just that for me to run it would mean heavily modifying it to the point that I might as well write my own.
Spartacus is one of my favorite shows; I love to watch how the fortunes of the characters rise and fall in relation to one another, because they're tied so heavily together.
I think a gladiatorial campaign would need a cohesiveness to it throughout the adventures so it doesn't become this string of empty bouts. It's one of the things I like best about WotW. I wrote an outline for the first adventure for this kind of campaign, but I haven't gotten back to it. If anyone can write the heck out of it, it'd be Gary.
I think I stared at my computer, dumbstruck, for at least a minute upon seeing this. It's exactly what I was looking for. You, sir, are an extremely talented artist.
Hey, just stumbled onto this thread and I've got to say, the art here is pretty amazing.
I'd like to get your take on a character I'll be running in Skull & Shackles in the next few weeks. His name is Vaidan Cross, the Seaflame. He is a human Pyromancer, and wears a porcelain mask over a burn-scarred face, with scraggly raven hair, a black coat jangling with pirate jewelry, and a slight hunch in his back. Kind of like a fire-obsessed Joker.
I've seen Swords and Wizardry as well, and think it has the feel you are looking for. Although it is inspired by the Dragon Age games, the AGE system actually seemed pretty old school (at least the first box).
Personally, I'd like a "PF Lite" too. I love Paizo's module/AP based business model and like Golarian as a developed world. However, for me the game mechanics themselves are more complex than I need to enjoy a good RPG. As player I can basically enjoy it as-is, but I have really disliked DM'ing due to all the complexity and the games tendency to encourage stats-focused power-gaming. A simpler rule set would be much more inviting.
All that said, I doubt we will ever see PF Lite (other than the Beginner's Box) as a lot of people would disagree with me about the rules complexity and like PF just like it is. For the games designers, they probably feel the need to stick to one system as well. The other challenge with outside designers "rules-lite" systems is module support. Paizo really spoils us with all those good AP's and modules!
I hear Green Ronin will be coming out with its own fantasy setting for the AGE system in 2013, one not tied to the Dragon Age setting.
This is a very cool idea and one that could really work.
Obviously the evil group is going through Way of the Wicked as written. The good group...
** spoiler omitted **...
I was thinking of something quite similar:
Spoiler:
Godsmouth Heresy looks like a great intro, and easy to place too. I won't be running Way of the Wicked until the summer so that should give me plenty of time to plan. The mansion and cults are great ideas. I'll probably shine the mansion in a kind of Resident Evil light for the good guys (maybe one of the nascent monsters has grown bold in Thorn's absence and decided to become king of the manor, ordering the rest of his/her motley assortment around!).
The bugbear war also has some great opportunities for heroics. I'm guessing there are thorps and hamlets in harms way after Balentyne burns? A high ranking cleric in the Holy Order of Saint Macarius has relatives there, perhaps, and cannot go himself to save them? Show off the horrors of war and such, and I can take advantage of the power that sparks from that narrative movement as evil rises and good falls, with the characters at the epicenter.
Hmmm...Now you've got me thinking seriously about it. It's madness I tell you! But it could work...
Thanks for the suggestions Gary, and keep up the great work. This should be an interesting summer, regardless.
Paladin should be fine on this specific instance. He had no intention of killing defenseless children. He also sounds like a pretty mature player if he's willing to have his character get stripped of his powers for a trigger happy summoner. Kudos to that guy.
The summoner, however, (if I'm reading these posts correctly, piecing together what happened) should be detected as evil now. He/she knowingly cast a spell to extinguish innocent life. Good protects life, evil destroys it.
Impossible situations in the player's eyes are usually because they're missing something/haven't thought things through. If you're using hero points, remember they can spend a point to get a hint from you, the GM, about what to do next.
The retcon probably wasn't a great idea, but hey, we have days, weeks, months to pick apart a decision whereas you probably only had a minute or two. Mistakes happen. Go too hard on them and they cry "D-bag DM", go too easy and they rampage across the campaign world without any fear of retribution. It's a delicate balance, and you're never going to strike it perfectly.
Hmmm... I wonder how cool it would be to have two groups playing this campaign at the same time--one evil, one good--and interweave their stories together as Mitra and Asmodeus vie for Talingarde through their champions.
My group is through the first module and on the last part of the second one, "Night of Frozen Shadows". I'll spoiler this just in case:
Spoiler:
In "The Brinewall Legacy" my players had a great time with the goblins and Brinestump Marsh in general. We did some caravan encounters, where they got to know the NPCs (this was a good time to do this, since they were going to be along for the ride for the whole campaign), and they had fun exploring the ruined town of Brinewall. The biggest lull came when they hit Brinewall Castle, since most all of the encounters resulted in a combat slugfest. Since a lot of the residents speak in only aklo or draconic, or outright attack intruders on site, there was not a lot of talking, only fighting.
The last part for "Night of Frozen Shadows" is looking like it will be similar, but there are some roleplaying opportunities with the prisoner and the trolls and the spymaster, Wodes that I intend to draw out as much as I can.
Ah, thanks a lot Fox1212 and Ice Titan. I knew I must have been missing something somewhere. For some reason, in the visions in
Spoiler:
"The Brinewall Legacy", I just figured Soto drank a potion of enlarge person or something. But them being the same person and then split into two during editing does account for some of the disconnect between the volumes...
I was reading ahead and came across this, in the last book of the Jade Regent AP, which confused me, and I'm wondering if I'm failing a perception check somewhere along the way:
Spoiler:
From The Empty Throne, pg. 55 wrote:
If the PCs learn of the Jade Regent’s origin in “Forest of Spirits” (and especially the manner of his mother’s death
This is located in Soto Takahiro's stat block in "The Empty Throne". I checked back to "The Forest of Spirits" for the information that the PCs are to discover in Munasukaru's Penance, but this was all I could find:
From The Forest of Spirits, pg. 31 wrote:
Beyond relying on hired mortal agents, Anamurumon was also obsessed with siring half-human progeny. He needed the “perfect” grandchild—a tiefling who would not only be unquestioningly loyal to Anamurumon, but could also pass as human. Such a child would be the perfect agent to infiltrate the imperial families of Minkai, but all of Anamurumon’s descendants were deemed “unsuitable” and killed by the oni.
I know that Anamurumon is Takahiro's grandfather, so he must have had at least one child survive. But I don't see anything about Takahiro or his mother. Am I failing my perception check?
A character can take more than one archetype and garner additional alternate class features, but none of the alternate class features can replace or alter the same class feature from the core class as another alternate class feature.
Thus one can be both Wildblooded and Crossblooded. No reason the two arcana shouldn't stack - it's certainly not an overpowering combination, just a decent one, given the penalties of Crossblooded and the general uses of blasting.
Yeah I was looking at this for a possible level dip before going straight magus for the bonus damage on shocking grasp.
I tried searching for this but didn't see an answer. Say a cross-blooded, wildblooded sorcerer casts shocking grasp with bloodlines that matched his element, would he gain +2 damage per dice?
While successfully mining for information using diplomacy with a guild factor, the alchemist had his centipede tumor familiar sneaking about on reconnaissance and found Uksahkka in the guest room. After they learned the bit about Ravenscraeg, and concluded their business, they were led out, but the gunslinger said he forgot one of his weapons back in the room. He was escorted by a pair of guards back to the meeting room where he turned and fired on one of them, the sound of the shot waking the off-duty guards upstairs, and alerting the rest of the guards around the building.
The guards demanded to be let through (as the rest of the PCs were crowding the doorway), and then eventually the other PCs got involved in the brawl. One of the guards was killed off the bat, and then two more went down, but reinforements arrived from upstairs, and the situation started to look grim. The alchemist used the distraction to slip, invisible, into Uksahkka's room and hide beneath the bed. The witch flew out of one window, and the cleric and gunslinger jumped through two others to run away, leaving only the fighter and the druid (Aurelia) left. Aurelia was second to last to leave as the fighter covered her escape, holding off the mass of guards in the hallway while she jumped out of a window, and then he rushed into a meeting room and barred and braced the door behind him. Some of the guards broke off to chase Aurelia down the street, swearing blood vengeance, and caught her and finished her and her animal companion, Nabih, off for good.
I think it says in the adventure that Uksahkka tells them she overheard the guards talking about transferring her to Ravenscraeg soon, and she hears that's where Ulf is.
My players ended up going with the daylight assault option and almost got TPK'ed...
I've been DMing a game of Jade Reget since September and we are nearly at the end of the second book. I haven't used Ameiko, or any of the other NPCs in combat yet (although that might be because it is a 6 person party), and I usually have them getting supplies or following leads or having Ameiko practice her Tien diction or whatever while the group goes off and makes stuff happen.
I don't think the modules place any expectation on them being involved too much in the encounters, except...
If any of my players show interest in taking this archetype in the JR campaign I'm running, I'll probably allow for iaijutsu strike to modify the attack action instead of a full-round action, therefore allowing it to be paired with vital strike. It's not that powerful of an ability, honestly, and can only be used on the subject of a challenge once per day. You give up a lot for situational precision damage and a couple debuffs.
Design protip : don't make iaijutsu modify the attack action.
Make the vital strike feats usable as part of the attack made during the full-round action instead.
Wouldn't they both serve the same end? Modifying the attack action just allows a PC a move action before the iaijutsu strike.
If any of my players show interest in taking this archetype in the JR campaign I'm running, I'll probably allow for iaijutsu strike to modify the attack action instead of a full-round action, therefore allowing it to be paired with vital strike. It's not that powerful of an ability, honestly, and can only be used on the subject of a challenge once per day. You give up a lot for situational precision damage and a couple debuffs.
The Knight of the Sepulcher is an archetype for the Antipaladin, so it's not the first. I, personally, would rule it as a typo, that it replaces mounted archery, and you get it at 4th level.
But it does raise interesting questions to the relationship between alternate classes, their base classes, and the archetypes. I think one of the developers would have to give an answer to that.
Running a Freeport game, my little brother was an evil half-orc with a hatred for drug-dealers. The party was chasing an NPC and came to his apartment building, and the owner offered to sell the party the NPC's belongings, which contained stashed drugs in it.
The half-orc looks into the bag then looks back up at the owner.
"You sold me this bag. It has drugs in it. You, sir, are a drug dealer."
He then proceeds to burn the apartment district down.
Gloves of Steadfast Aim Aura faint transmutation; CL 7th
Slot hands; Price 15,000 gp; Weight 6 lbs.
Description
This set of finely crafted archer's gloves is stitched with sylph hair and glows a faint, pure light when worn. Wind coursing between the gloves' reinforced fingers always carries a slight melody away. When a delay or ready action is taken, the wearer gains a +1 competence bonus on his next ranged attack for every creature that goes before him in the round in the intervening time between the start of the action and the attack (maximum +5). Additionally, if the wearer is damaged at any time before he makes his attack, the competence bonus applies to damage as well as attack. The wearer's next action must be an attack or else the bonus is forfeited. Only attacks with a ranged weapon or throwing weapon may gain this bonus. Bonuses do not persist into subsequent rounds.
Construction Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, True Strike, Retribution or Retribution Hex class feature; Cost 7,500 gp
I'm male, 27, and I've never served. I started playing about four years back with shadowrun, and then 3.5 and M&M, Star Wars Saga, and PF. I'm fairly new to roleplaying, and most of my experience is as DM, but I sell short stories on the side so I guess it was a smoother transition for me than most.
I downloaded the free preview and I've got to say...this looks really good. My players are always resisting the urge to maim and pillage anyway. Time to take the gloves off and see how black their hearts really are.
I'll be buying this once I recover from the holidays. Keep up the good work, guys.
Unless they can build the ship and crew it themselves, I doubt going around the north pole would work (as no ship captain would risk their ship and their crew).
Playing in an adventure path means signing on to a specific story, relinquishing a bit of freedom in order to experience that story. There's still wiggle room, choices for them to make, but the overall trajectory is set. If your players are vehemently opposed to this style, then maybe a more sandboxy AP is necessary, like the Kingmaker adventure path.
