Erkenbard the Eyeful's page

I feel like that's really lethal, but I read it as that in the Bestiary. Is that right? And there is no actual regular hit points damage?

The adventurers were looking for a person who was being held captive in a dungeon below a building. The Witch Level 7 in the party has "Locate Creature" so she cast it and I could see no reason to not allow the spell to locate the missing person under the building (he was tied up in a dungeon within range of the spell). The whole idea of them "searching" the place to see if he was there was blown away. They knew he was there. I simply told them the boy was detected beneath the building. Simple question: Did I get the spell right? The adventurers had previously met and talked to the kidnapped boy. Also, I had decided that no nondetection/misleading spells were in effect. Secondly, running water blocks Locate Person, but the spell acts like Locate Object, which is blocked by a thin sheet of lead. So would lead also block Locate Creature?(not that the boy was in a lead-lined room).

In a fight if the vampire successfully dominates one of the heroes and tells them to go and wait in the next room, can it then in the next round try and dominate another hero and tell them to go and wait in the next room? So that if the vampire is strong enough eventually all party members could be in the next room for the next 1 day per level. Also IF one of the party members in that room then has Dispel Magic can they try and dispel the dominate effect as surely they know they are all dominated as they are not mindless and are fighting against it? Or can they discuss how to get rid of the domination?

A sleep spell causes a magical slumber to come upon 4HD of creatures. What happens if you cast the spell off a scroll only to find the creature has 5HD. I mean, the caster has no idea how many HD the enemy has usually. Is the scroll wasted or not? And can someone point out where this is in the rules (not just Sleep but other spells, what happens if a Disrupting Weapon Caster Level 9 scroll is used against a 10HD vampire? Is the scroll used up?) Thankyou.

I have integrated much of Curse of the Crimson Throne into my own campaign and the party are at the Blood Veil plague stage. A PC just asked me if dueling was legal in Korvosa. The PC is Tour Kegbelly, a CG dwarf fighter level 7 of some fame (he routed Barvasi and was awarded the Drake's Mark medal) from Janderhoff, and he has an ongoing dispute with Jukk the Juicemeister, an influential LE dwarf rogue/merchant from the same dwarven citadel who is in charge of the trading between the two cities and has very tough bodyguards. Both dwarves now live in Korvosa. I was doubting dueling would be allowed as arbiters/magistrates exist to settle disputes. In extremely lawful and supposedly more advanced cities dueling would unlikely be allowed, replaced by trials or rulings by said arbiters. When the dwarves clashed in Janderhoff earlier I had a trial by jury and Kegbelly was jailed for one week on trumped-up charges of impersonating Jukk (casually in a bar) and thus interfering with dwarven trade. Kegbelly now seeks revenge or to put an end to the feuding once and for all. Can someone tell me if anything has been published on dueling? Or give me their own ideas.

I run an intrigue-packed campaign and I want to dramatically curtail fights that last 2 or 3 hours so that we can get back to politics and role-playing. I have tried many things so I don't need obvious advice on how to quicken combat ... I just want to ask would there be any major problems if I made a house rule that a natural 20 is an auto crit and a natural 1 is a fumble (with result you get -2 AC for the rest of the combat or can only take one action, move or standard). Also after 5 rounds of combat everyone gets +2 to hit and -2 on their AC. The idea being the faster people hit eachother the more damage done and the faster the combat ends. What are the main drawbacks of such a radical house rule??? I'm sure I am missing some major potential problem. (Note: Currently the party level is 6-8)

I want a medium human barbarian to appear to be a kobold and infiltrate a town alone and stay in the kobold form indefinitely or for as long as possible. The barbarian will have to stay in the town for 2 or 3 years and pretend always to be a kobold. He would not have direct access to the spellcaster who polymorphed him in the first place as the town is very small and in the wilderness. That spellcaster could perhaps visit once every two or three months. It seems permanency does not work with this.

Your unconscious comrade is knocked out in the next square to you. If you bend over/reach across and lay on hands or heal or give a potion to this unconscious ally, do the foes within striking distance of the helpless comrade get an attack of opportunity on you? Or are you considered to still be in your own square for attacks of opportunity?
Or both? I mean, your hands and part of your body must be in the helpless ally's square in order to help them? Please point me in the right direction ...

The players in my group often try and eat monsters/creatures they have killed. This is not an issue with things such as wild boars or even owlbears, but last session they ran out of rations in the wilderness and chopped up a basilisk they had just killed. Fresh basilisk blood has certain unique properties such as returning a creature from stone to flesh if applied soon after the basilisk's death. Would it be edible? They also have xill eggs? Are xill eggs edible? Or would they get diarrhea? I usually use common sense as a DM but the basilisk steaks got me thinking.

It should specify in the basilisk's Special Ability info whether you need to make a Fortitude saving throw to return (alive and ok) from stone to flesh using the basilisk's blood. I saw an old thread here and no answer was given. Recently, is there an official answer? I might have missed it somewhere. It happened right at the end of my game last Saturday. I didn't ask for a saving throw at the time, although now I am thinking it probably (common sense) is required. Basilisk creature (no mention of save): "A creature petrified ... that is then coated ... with fresh basilisk blood ... is instantly restored to flesh." Stone to Flesh Spell: "This spell restores a petrified creature to its normal state, restoring life and goods. The creature must make a DC 15 Fortitude save to survive the process."

Example: If the atoning spell-less cleric PC runs out of cure potions after battling some dungeon beasts while on the quest is he allowed to travel 2 days to the nearest town to re-stock (and 2 days back to the dungeon) or would this be seen as NOT obeying the geas/quest and thus incurring the stat penalties. Or what happens if the PC decides a levitation potion would help, is he then allowed to go back and get one? Or if he encounters a strange monster may he return home and do research on the monster through an NPC or library, thus delaying achieving the goal of the quest by 2-4 days etc etc??? It seems like it's up to the DM. Background: As DM, I have warned the party ahead of the quest including the quested individual that they are going into the wilderness and may be there for at least a week to complete the quest.

One of my players, an elf, can be defeatist in attitude. His ally, a human, will probably be killed next session (don't ask why; it is a plot thing) and I am concerned the elf will just give up and return to the town. However, a Raise Dead device is located a little further on in the dungeon. If the elf does not give up he may be able to discover it. (And Raise Dead is unavailable in the town) What kind of hints should I drop about there still being hope without outright telling him that there is a raise dead device there? How do I phrase it? I've written this lengthy scenario and finally my wellspring of creativity has run dry so any ideas would be welcome. Finally, if nothing works and he walks away, would you say he only has himself to blame? or should I be to blame for not directing him more.

If you decapitate in some way or do a coup de grace on an unintelligent undead or construct such as a skeleton or wood golem, for example, are they destroyed? I can't seem to find an answer in the rules. Also if you pin someone can an ally then do a coup de grace on the pinned foe. I think "no" as the person is not "helpless" but would like opinions or confirmation. It seems kind of possible to do a coup de grace on a person pinned in real life, not that I've ever done it, of course.

The Shield spell says the shield "hovers in front of you," but as there are no "facing" directions in the rulebook, it is counted as always covering one in combat. However, sometimes you are flanked or clearly attacked from behind ... when you suffer a surprise sneak attack (i.e. backstabbed). So does the Shield apply in these circumstances?

As DM I am about to rule that as animals are so dumb (i.e. Intelligence of 1 or 2) they will automatically through instinctive natural defence mechanisms attempt to resist any spell, even if it is cast by someone they are on "friendly" terms with, i.e. the master (so they would save against Cure Light Wounds, Anthromorphic Animal, Animal Growth). A spell would mess with their mind, wouldn't it? It would rattle them and they would instinctively react against it. Or am I wrong? I admit I am a little unsure.

A Xill has laid eggs inside an adventurer and an NPC tries to cut them out using heal skill. It says each surgical attempt, successful or not, causes 1d4 damage. It seems fair to assume that the 1d4 damage here is damage to Con and not to hit points, because it says if the Xilldren eat their way out then the damage is 1 Con each hour. Surely it is the same kind of damage, to internal organs. Thus Con damage rather than simple hit points.
This leads on to ... from such internal Con damage how would you recover the the Con, both naturally and magically?
I assume Cure Wound spells just affect hit points, which are mainly in reality kind of fatigue points. Also a restoration spell, for example, dispels magical effects from monsters that drain ability scores. So I assume that would not heal the internal Con damage.
I would think that only a powerful spell like Heal would work to restore damage to Con done by botched operations, or broken limbs, or fractured skulls. Am I correct? Where are the rules?

Some of the adventurers annoyed a very powerful group and this group has naturally hired a powerful assassin to kill them in revenge. The thing is, I think as GM I might feel guilty if the assassin just sneaks up and kills one of the PCs. I was thinking of making it so as the assassin just has one attack and then runs off. He would have to score a critical hit on his sneak attack to kill one of them (about a 4% chance, I reckon) OR use poison and do a coup d-etat if they failed an easy DC14 Fort save and went unconscious (although other adventurers would undoubtedly rush to the aid of their fallen comrade). Does this seem fair? Of course I don't want a PC to die, but I do want to terrify them.

In my campaign an archenemy knocked the level 4 witch unconscious and kidnapped her compsognathus familiar. The thief fled to a small town (1,200 population) and was hiding with the familiar (sealed in a box) in a warehouse when the PCs arrived at the town in hot pursuit.
When the witch was a mile from the town I told her that she had regained the empathic link with the familiar and that it was in the town.
BUT would the witch be able to know exactly which building the familiar is being kept captive in by using empathic link? (remember the familiar has been locked in a box and has no idea where it is since being kidnapped)
I've been looking in the books and online but cannot find an answer.
(In the game I had to make an instant decision as GM, so I allowed the witch to home in on the precise warehouse, but I think I may have made a mistake. I need to know for future reference.)

Bad timing, I guess, for me. The new adventure path is set in Nirmathas, but as there was already a bunch of stuff set in the area for the last 18 months I have been running my own adventure path set in the nation, and it's about to end. I started with the adventurers at Level 1 and used the "Crypt of the Everflame" and "Masks of the Living God" scenarios, a bunch of my own little scenarios based on the adventure ideas suggested in "Fangwood Keep" (which fits perfectly). So the adventurers were on a twin path of defeating the cult of Razmir AND finding out what was causing the Darkblight (this helped me and I hope them not get bored) ... the blight was a plot hatched by Treerazer and spread by his followers, here a coven of hags (Green, Annis and Sea, aided by a swaither demon and some ogres). Sigurx the troll collected the "poisonous black tar" for the witches after milking it from the "portal" in the latter scenario. The hags then spread it in the Fangwood using a Forest Drake creature as a crop duster ... the drake a pet of the green hag and leader Hilda whose base was in the Dark Grove in the hollowed-out tree of the dryad queen Arlantia, who had been falsely accused of spreading the blight when she was in fact a captive being tortured by the hags ... Treerazer believed Fangwood an easier area to destroy over the elven Kyonin and was thinking of relocating there. Why am i saying this? I don't know. Just chatting. I guess I'm a little disappointed that the next adventure path is dealing with this kind of thing when I've already kind of done it myself. Never mind, I'm about to run Curse of the Crimson Throne, so I shouldn't grumble!

Or can an earth elemental be summoned in the air and then have levitate cast on it by the summoner so it could float up and down and hit people?
Also, could it be summoned on the branch of a tree 50' above the earth?
The same could go for can water elementals be summoned on land? And can air or fire elementals be summoned inside earth if the summoner has been burrowing?
I feel they can but cannot find any ruling and it's an issue in our game as one cleric wants t focus on summoning.
Advice appreciated. Thanks.

If a wizard 1/rogue 2 multiclass character casts the Vanish spell in round 1 and then moves invisibly into position in round 1, can he then get a sneak attack in round 2 (due to invisibility)? Remember the spell lasts for just one round per level and he is level 1. Could he delay his initiative turn in Round 1 to cast it at the end of Round 1, and then revert to his regular initiative turn higher up the order at the start of round 2 to sneak attack before the spell ends at the end of round 2? If that makes sense ... it's doing my head in!

I run a group of five 3rd/4th level adventurers and am thinking of running the first three segments of Giantslayer followed by the first three of Hell's Rebels (on surface they seem to fit into my campaign plan; north to Hold of Belkzen and then West to the ocean). I am happy to put the effort in to change the challenge ratings. What I am mainly looking for are good storylines. I would hope the party might rise to 8th level after playing all 6 of these (in my campaign, progression is slow-to-medium). Any advice before I purchase the books???

Should I punished the adventurers or always allow them to get away with abusing/insulting powerful NPCs? A dwarf adventurer (level 3) has just hurled some sustained abuse at a powerful NPC centaur leader in front of his tribe of 80 centaurs on their holy ground during one of their annual rituals. The dwarf was part of a group (average Level 2-3) that had rescued one of the centaurs (cousin of centaur leader) as he was about to be eaten by a troll. But upon rescuing and returning with the centaur to the tribe, the dwarf was unhappy that he was not given a lot of money (hence the insults). Already the scenario notes warn that the centaur leader, Neutral in alignment, is easily angered. Also the centaurs are not fond of outsiders. (This is one in a series of abuses at NPCS from the dwarves in the party who I think they believe are acting in character; I feel it is time to teach them a lesson).