Fiendish Dire Weasel's page

I probably do need to look at the Animal Archive book, that might help. It's way too late for archetypes though, he's already got one (Urban ranger, which has been outstanding)

Very good ideas, thanks. Never thought about the invisibility/silence combo, quite sneaky. :)

Incidentally, my ranger is currently Lvl9, close to 10. I am enjoying him and hope he survives all the way to the end of the campaign, but of course there are no guarantees of that! =P

Don't ask for advice and opinions, then turn around and then get all mad at everyone when they give it to you.

I'll be honest - when I saw this thread entitled "Dealing with a paladin killing prisoners in game", I assumed it was being written by a DM figuring out how to adjudicate it. When I saw it was by a CN Ninja, I lol'd.

Nobody has anything? In the past I've been able to get tons of useful input from the community.

I will simply echo what others have said, after reading the whole thread up until now.

Your CN ninja has no reason to care about this situation or get involved. How he plays his paladin is between him, his DM, or his church. The fact that he's a paladin of Torag complicates this further, but in ANY event, your alignment should make it so that you would not care AT ALL about any of that.

Your choice to not aid the paladin in combat is not what a CN character would do - they would make use of allies as long as they're useful, because they would continue to help you. If you are working towards the same long term campaign goals, your character should be willing to help him achieve those goals.

Now, clearly, as soon as your character feels that the two of you are NOT working towards the same long term goals, he would have no reason to hesitate in going his own way, whether peacefully/amiably or not.

These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move on with the game.

I have an urban ranger, and despite playing D&D and PFRPG for years, I don't have a ton of experience using animal companions. It's just not a class feature I've had many characters with in the past.

Anyway, I have an elven urban ranger with a hawk companion. I'm playing in the Crimson Throne Adventure Path.

He's got plenty of tricks, but I find I hardly ever use him. I imagined him being very useful as a flying scout, but the opportunities for that seem to be limited. Either that, or I'm just not being creative enough in my application. I keep thinking he should have a telepathic bond so I can "see what he sees" in real time, ala the Crow or something, but of course he doesn't work that way.

I don't really want to use him in combat, as his ability to do damage is minimal, and he doesn't have a lot of hit points anyway. That was never his intended role, which again was mostly mobile airborne scouting.

I kept thinking as I leveled up I'd find more uses for him, but now I'm at lvl9 and still not seeing it. It's not like I forget he's there, I am always TRYING to come up with ways to use him, but I'm apparently not getting it.

The rest of the character is going beautifully. I love his back story, plenty of opportunity for great roleplay, and Urban Ranger was MADE for Crimson Throne so far. Favored enemy - human has been HUGE since that's the vast majority of my opponents. He uses an elven curve blade and does tons of damage with it.

Anyway, any advice on things I can do to get more use out of the hawk? I just feel like it's a part of my character that isn't developed as well as it should be, both tactically and from a storyline perspective. Thanks in advance!

I'm a fan of corny jokes and puns, anybody that knows me at all will tell you that. But all the pop culture references in your room names really ruin this for me. Others may see it differently, but this is superstar, not night at the improv.

I think this is a really neat encounter, and as others have said, the map is sweet. But I just don't see any possible way for 4 adventurers to accomplish all of this given their time limits. They'd almost have to know exactly where to go and what to do the moment they arrived, which is asking a lot.

I think you're setting up a party for certain failure, and that's never fun.

Another note - great idea to conserve word count by using the GMG NPC's and making necessary adjustments. "Remove disguise, add trapmaking" - that's frickin' brilliant.

Tulsa specifically has two great local game stores (Top Deck Games and Wizards Asylum) who sell Pathfinder products, and I was pleased to find fun and clever gamers in the Tulsa area after moving from one of gaming's great Meccas, Central Indiana.

Thanks for giving props to us Hoosiers. I hope you don't forget us when you hit the big time! :)

Like I've commented on the other archetypes that involve drowning, it's bad - it's simply REALLY hard to drown someone in Pathfinder, since they get their constitution in rounds before they start to drown, unless you teleport water into their lungs or something so they can't hold their breath. Even with powers that reduce this - 5 rounds instead of 10 for an average Con is still an enternity in combat, assuming they don't escape.

Suffocation is a 5th level witch spell - a Floodwalker would obviously choose that as one of their spells and use it all the time. This would mitigate most of your concerns.

I do love this item. As others have said, the imagery is definitely compelling.

My one minor issue with it is this: It's a 30,000gp cloak, so most people won't be able to afford it until fairly advanced in levels. By then, a DC 15 Reflex save is hardly what I'd call scary.

But that is, again, a minor issue. So proud of you for advancing, look forward to where you go next. :)

Excuse me for resurrecting an old thread but it seems easier all round.

Is this still the case?

Yes, subscribing to a relevant PF line gives you a free pdf.

If you sign up for an adventure path subscription, for instance, that adventure path will be given to you as pdf the day each issue ships.

This is a tough one, and like you, I think I would alter the story a bit. Make Aldern one of the victims and have the Skinsaw Man be his brother. Have them find Aldern dead somewhere in the manor, still clutching the keepsake he was given.

Name of PC: Aamon Vosh
Class/Level: Cleric 14 (Great Old Ones, Void and Chaos Domains)
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Rune Giant
Story: I Placed 2 Rune Giants at "The Teeth" to guard the entrance to the occlusion field and warn Karzoug when the party reached that level. It also kind of seemed to fit thematically as a nice welcome to that last major setting of the campaign.

Aamon was primarily staying out of reach and casting helpful spells, as clerics often do. However, he felt compelled to come to the aid of an unconscious comrade, and in so doing put himself into harm's way.

He was hit twice by a rune giant's longsword, including a critical hit, and also absorbed a shower of sparks. That put him at -13 hit points, and he has a 14 constitution. He therefore had ONE chance to stabilize before dying, needing a 20, which he failed. Svevenka had joined the party and arrived 1 action too late to revive him.

She was, however, able to reincarnate him after the battle, and in what I would call one of the greatest twists of irony so far in an adventure path full of them, Aamon's soul was returned to the Material Plane in the form of...

drum roll please...

a GOBLIN!

You know what's even better? Aamon still carried a +1 dogslicer the party had looted in the first chapter, in case he needed a slashing weapon! He's already started to see the Cavalier's horse in an all-new way.

Everyone raise a mug in memory of Aamon! (Even if he was a little creepy. Now he's just a little creep!)

There's a hellknight in the group I run, he started out as a cavalier. He's doing just fine in the campaign, we're currently lvl 14 and in Xin-Shalast.

He has reached the rank of Paralictor and has been given command of the outpost of Ft Rannick, and established it as an Order of the Nail bastion to bring law to the wilderness.

I make liberal use of this website to pathfinderize my RotRL game

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/fan-conversions/paizo-adventure-paths/pf-0 5-sins-of-the-saviors

It has a conversion of Kazaven's Necromantic Deathtrap in the Gluttony secion of Runeforge, however the only way to dispel it is keyed to the Turn Undead ability, which is now substantially less common than it used to be. You can see it here:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/traps-hazards-and-special-terrains/tr aps/necromantic-deathtrap-cr-13

Has anybody come up with a way to alter this so more groups would be able to suppress the ability? I'd be interested in any other ideas anyone else has had on that.

Soundtrack from master and commander might be useful. I used it to good effect in Savage Tide.

Would also love to have access to this.

direweaseltjw - at - gmail

Gracias!

Tome Of Horrors was updated to Pathfinder as Tome Of Horrors Complete - and its contents were added to d20pfsrd site: pathfinderized alu-demon.

That is awesome and good to know.

Any chance there's a source somewhere with the Submissive class from the Plot & Poison too? :)

I'm running Runelords in the Pathfinder RPG, and am having a great time with it. The

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/fan-conversions/paizo-adventure-paths

site has been super helpful in handling most of the conversions and saving me a ton of grunt work. I tweak them when I feel like it, but often run them right out of that when possible.

The problem is that nobody has created one for the 4 lovely ladies that accompany Delvahine in the Iron Cages of Lust - her alu-demon daughters Eryalla, Lelyrin, Voivod, and Zevashala. Now normally, that's not the end of the world, as I'm capable of making up my own, but in this case those chicks come from 2 listed sourcebooks (Tome of Horrors and Plot and Poison) that I don't own. Now, I know I NEED to get Tome of Horrors, but that's a paycheck or two away still, and we're running this room tomorrow night. So I have no idea how to convert these chicks while still being as true as possible to the concept of the source. I don't know what they get from where.

I could always just run them from the module as written, switching grapple for CMB/CMD and all that, but if somebody has something else that's a more effective use of the source books and captures these lovely ladies better, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks! :)

Wow, I was almost ready to type up a rebuttal to VoodooMike and then I noticed that conversation took place last October. Damn stealth necro...

Sorry, I don't post that often, and I don't remember to look at the dates of previous posts all the time.

Plus, most of the topics on this playtest are several months old, so if you contribute anything it's going to be to an old topic, unless you start your own.

I think the 14 point version is fine, when you consider the roleplaying-based issue with drow that causes them significant social issues in most campaigns.

About the only setting where it's not a problem is one where it's all drow, in which case the problem is solved because the balance is maintained within the party.

The problem that manifested for us was that in reality, any given creature should have multiple ECL's depending on what class they were planning on being.

A creature getting high str/con and going into a wizard route would need a lower ECL than that same creature going into a fighter or barbarian simply because of the stat synergy.

This made it nearly impossible for a player to plan out anything without having the DM right there the whole time to put the check or x on any given combination- by judging what ECL that creature would have to have to make any given class work appropriately with it.

Take the Minotaur as an extreme example. A wizard minotaur and a barbarian minotaur were the same ECL but clearly not in the same playing field.

The same would be true of a pixie sorceror or a pixie barbarian.

(3.5 pixie was -2 str, +8 dex, +4 int, + 4 wis, +6 cha)
(3.5 minotaur was +8 str +4 con -4 int -2 cha)

ECL was fine and well until you actually tried to use it for some of the monstrous baddies.
At least, for us.

-S

Half orcs in 3.5 made better barbarians than they did sorcerers. Did you give level adjustments for that, too? I think you're micromanaging. The ECL was meant to keep you from breaking the system, if you made a combo that was intentionally weaker than that (like a pixie barbarian), well that's your choice.

By the way, before you totally write off pixies as fighter types, you should read this:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871070/The_Pixie_Handbo ok?pg=1

I thought I knocked this thread out and James followed with a Coup de Grace.

Where's that dern necromancer?

trying to keep threads dead is like herding cats, bro. i just dl'd the arg and wanted to add my 2c :)

Drow are not really that bad. Drow nobles are a different story. The issue is also that some powers that are really good at low level fall by the wayside later on, which in turn means the the player with the special race falls behind. Then you add in campaign specifics, and you end up having to much to account for.

Right, I played drow in 3.5 and their level adjustment made for a very weak character in my opinion, compared to the rest of the party. I still had a great time with her, but she wasn't equal to the rest of the group and pretty much everyone at the table agreed. But that's not my primary motivation for playing, I tend to be more of a backstory kind of guy.

I agree with you - the ability to cast darkness, faerie fire, and dancing lights was largely irrelevant. Most days they went completely unused. I burned a feat on "Daylight Adaptation" from the Forgotten Realms campaign guide so she could travel on the surface, so with that and the level adjustment she was essentially 2 feats behind most of the time. Most of her best abilities came from her domains (she was a cleric of Sehanine Moonbow, so she had Travel and Elf, great domains).

I get that some races just don't carry over to PC classes no matter what you do. I can't really imagine any scenario where an aboleth, beholder, dragon, or roc, is going to be fair.

But at the same time, I refuse to believe there's not some reasonable way to accommodate drow PCs into a party of other normal characters. Or even something like a centaur. I played a centaur barbarian/frenzied berzerker (once he got epic) in 3.5, and while the system wasn't perfect, it was still a great time. I think Paizo has a really great chance to (as they have in EVERY other case so far) wow me by blowing 3.5 out of the water and making a good system exponentially better.

Now I'm annoyed that our gaming group has already done RotRL. These are SWEET!

I think making skills and knowledge about what your fighting an important part of a combat is highly important. It gives smart fighters an advantage and makes those knowledge skills worthwhile.

As others have said, in my games I have my players roll. A DC 15 will give them basic info, 20 will tell some more like DR or SR or whatever, and for every 5 over that, they get to ask me questions about it ("Does it have any specialized attacks?" or "can they cast spells/spell like abilities?", etc)

I hope Centaur gets a 2 page writeup...

Yes I'd love it muchly.

direweaseltjw (at) gmail

Thank you!

Name of PC: Constantinos Tsirtsirkis
Class/Level: Human Cavalier 7
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Jaagrath Kreeg

Story: Constantinos was the leader of the group, always suggesting tactics and ways to make the party more effective. An excellent fighter in his own right, on excursion from his homeland of Cheliax, he was well on his way to becoming a feared Hellknight.

After sneaking into Fort Rannick behind the waterfall and into the keep's dungeon basement, and handling Lucrecia without too much trouble (a lucky blindness/deafness where she failed her save and SR was beaten was key there), they were able to make favorable use of the narrow hallways to handle the ogres on the first floor without too much trouble. They posted 2 of the NPC rangers at the entrance of the keep to prevent themselves being surrounded without warning, and headed up the stairs. I was starting to feel that maybe I hadn't increased the challenge of the keep sufficiently (there are 7PCs).

That all changed when they got upstairs. Upon opening the door, the party immediately recognized Jaagrath as the obvious leader of the ogres, given his immense size and stature. Constantinos charged him and issued a brave challenge, dealing significant damage against Jaagrath's weak AC. But then it was Jaagrath's turn. Jaagrath Power attacked and hit Constantinos twice, dealing enough damage on two hits to drive Constantinos from full hit points to negative 22. His Constitution was 14. The Human bane made the difference - the 4d6 from the Human bane on Jaagrath's weapon between the 2 hits was 18 points, I rolled well. =P

Constantinos died as he lived - leading from the front against the biggest threat to the well being of his compatriots. Jaagrath would never admit it, but he was intimidated by Constantinos as well. A death worthy of any hero!

Let's all raise a mug to Constantinos Tsirtirkis!!

I've just downloaded this and it looks absolutely fabulous. Probably the most customizable and all-inclusive char sheet I've ever seen for any game system ever. And I really love how active you've been in listening to feedback and adjusting accordingly.

However...it's all a little overwhelming to be quite honest. I almost feel like I could use a small text file or word doc or something explaining how all the parts work...when do I use the "front solitary" and when do I use the "front summary" and what parts work with which and so on.

I don't generally consider myself unintelligent, but I feel like I could use some guidance. I doubt I'm the only one.

I'd be interested in an epic book for PF.

Never been a Psionics fan myself, it doesn't fit my view of a fantasy setting, but I have no issues with those who feel differently. As long as they were done well I'd be fine with it, but I wouldn't buy it. I'd leave that to someone else in my gaming group. :)

As for the original Q, no it would not lessen my opinion of Paizo either way. I'm a fan of their work, that won't change based on these two releases (or non-releases as the case may be)

I downloaded some Hungarian and Romanian Gypsy music that I put together into a playlist, but I am about to get into the Meat of the Hook Mountain Massacre, so the Deliverance soundtrack is getting a download for use during that particular chapter. :)

If anyone is interested in following the Gypsy theme, here are the ones I downloaded and recommend:

Zoltan and his Gypsy Ensemble - "Gypsy Music from Hungary and Romania" (especially check out the single track "Two Guitars", I always start the evening with that one and then randomize the rest)

Ferenc Santa and his Gypsy Band - "Csardas : Hungarian Gypsy Music"

Andras Farcas and Ensemble - "Best of Hungarian Gypsy Tunes"

Name of PC: Dagrora Alekin
Class/Level: Fighter 3
Adventure: Thistletop
Catalyst: Malfeshnikor

Story: Slightly wounded but still ready for battle, our party had fought its way through the 2nd level of Thistletop and had ingeniously figured out how to get through the gold coin pillar. They heard noises coming through the door through which Malfeshnikor waited, and got ready. He heard them as well and was waiting opposite the door too.

Upon opening the door, the beast rolled a 19 on his initiative check, allowing him to go first, and he used that to full attack the flat footed dwarven fighter standing right in front of him. Even if he hadn't been flat footed, he would have been hit all 3 times, and the damage inflicted was more than sufficient to kill him instantly.

The entire town of Sandpoint will be most aggrieved to hear of his passing, because he was a brewmaster at the Two Knights Brewery, and his ales and beers had been very well received by both locals and newcomers at the Swallowtail Festival.

Everyone raise a mug to Dagrora!

We finally started RotRL this Tuesday (3/8/11) and are converting it to the Pathfinder RPG rules. We are all veterans of 3.5, but this is our first foray into Pathfinder and we are excited about the prospects. Here is our starting cast of characters:

Aamon Vosh - Human Cleric of the Old Ones (Void and Chaos Domains)
Korisel Spireson - Shoanti (Human) Monk
Constantinos Tsirtsirkis - Cheliaxian (Human) Cavalier - Order of the Cockatrice
Adolphus "Matt" Trymantis - Elf Wizard
Wilhelm Trueblood - Half Elf Bard (going to multiclass w/rogue)
Anisa Iraclido - Human Witch
Dagrora Alekin - Dwarf Fighter

Should be a good group. I worry just a little about their ability to heal since their Cleric is a negative channeler, but the Witch took the heal hex so that will help some, at least early on. The rest of the bases seem to be covered, as you would expect in a large part. :)

What follows is intended to be a chronicle of their adventures and they attempt to make their way in the world. I hope anyone reading this enjoys it. I'm going to start with a post for each of the character's backstories, as well as the character bonuses I presented to each to represent their additional training as a backstory reward.

We finally started Runelords on Tuesday (3/8) using Pathfinder RPG rules. We have a party of 7 PCs and so far so good.

Aamon Vosh - Human Cleric of the Old Ones (Void and Chaos Domains)
Korisel Spireson - Shoanti (Human) Monk
Constantinos Tsirtsirkis - Cheliaxian (Human) Cavalier - Cockatrice
Adolphus "Matt" Trymantis - Elf Wizard
Wilhelm Trueblood - Half Elf Bard (going to multiclass w/rogue)
Anisa Iraclido - Human Witch
Dagrora Alekin - Dwarf Fighter

Should be a good group. I worry just a little about their ability to heal since their Cleric is a negative channeler, but the Witch took the heal hex so that will help some, at least early on. The rest of the bases seem to be covered, as you would expect in a large part. :)

If you're still around Cainus, I'd be thrilled to see what you've done. We're only on Burnt Offerings at present, so no huge rush. When I get closer to the end I'll try to do my part to fill in gaps as well.

Almost forgot email address. direweaseltjw - at - gmail.

Thanks :)

Fraust wrote:

This may or may not be helpful...but I'm only willing to put forth so much effort for someone I don't know. On the giant in the playground site (google it) there is a poster who has something like 3.5/Pathfinder Handbook as a link in her signature. If the forums there have a search function, you should be able to find it. Good luck, and hopefully that helps a little. The handbook is very opinionated, and I think was writen very soon after the PFRPG was reliesed...so there's little wierdness like "rogues are the shizzat" (p.s., they're not according to most folk) but largely it's well thought out from what I've seen.

Found it.

That is actually super-useful, and pretty close to what I was looking for. Thanks much! :)

Things you might have missed. Filled with a lot of good tips for minor changes you may not notice, but also includes changes from the Alpha and Beta playtest to the final core book. Very good read, in my opinion.

Yeah I've read the conversion guide but it's been a while. While that explains how to make a 3.5 char into a pf char, it doesn't really get into what I'm trying to get at, at least not that I can remember.

We are playing the Rise of the Runelords, so all of my players have read that, but again, that doesn't really explain the differences between 3.5 and pathfinder.

What I was hoping for was a single document with a rundown of the changes. Like for example "The new 'Perception' skill includes Listen, Spot, and Search"; "The new 'Stealth' skill includes Move Silently and Hide."; "Cleave has changed - you no longer have to kill the target to get another free attack - see the new feat for details." Stuff like that. I'm getting the impression that no such document exists, which is cool. We'll get through it - it's not THAT much different honestly.

Why worry about INA... Just convince your GM to allow the Spell "Greater Mighty Wallop".

I __AM__ the GM - trying to decide if I'm going to allow this or not. It's looking like it's certainly not going to break the monk if I do, so I'm leaning towards allowing it.

We are starting a pathfinder game in a week or so, and all of my players have vast previous experience with 3.5 but none with Pathfinder. Is there a website or a pdf or something that summarizes all the differences? Mostly we're talking about skills, feats, CMB/CMD, and so on. Mechanical stuff.

Anybody that has access to anything like that and could share it would be appreciated. Thanks! :)

That calendar attached to that link you gave was great Dom. Much appreciated, as well as to the rest who contributed here. Many thanks.

The Improved Natural Attack feat from the Bestiary increases the size of your natural attack by one step, just like in 3.5. It has an additional line that it can't be applied to an unarmed strike.

The monk's improved unarmed strike says that it counts as a manufactured weapon or a natural weapon. So feats/spells that normally can only go on manufactured weapons or natural weapons can be used with their unarmed strike.

My understanding is that the generic unarmed strike every humanoid possesses does not qualify for the feat. My question is whether the monk improved unarmed strike overrides it being a generic unarmed strike.

Thanks for getting my REM reference. :)
-Lisa

Glad you liked it. I'm here to please. :)

Now, start making "Shiny Happy People" references, and I might have to run through Paizo HQ with a large semiautomatic weapon. :)

I'm with Denis Leary on that one - "Hey hey hey - Pull that bus over to the side of the pretentiousness turnpike! I want the shiny people over here, and the happy people over here. I represent angry, gun-toting, meat-eating $*#ing people. Sit down and shut up, Michael!"

Guillaume Godbout wrote:

OOOOhhhh! Me want! Even though it doesn't fit on my gaming table !!!!

Clearly Paizo needs to add "extra large gaming table" to whichever subscription line includes all these big maps. :)

I have a 5' x 10' gaming table that would certainly hold it, but it's not going to. Mine is going on the WALL! :)

Don't worry, it's all the in the basement, the wife won't disown me. At least not for that... =P

There's also a liberal amount of wilderness travel, so druids and rangers will have ample opportunity to use their skills as well.

... and I feel fine!

(come on, somebody had to do it!) :)

Very much looking forward to my copy.

Just wanted to say that I loved your summaries of your game sessions, in case you needed encouragement to keep going.

We'll be starting Runelords as soon as our current Age of Worms campaign is over (few weeks or so), so perhaps I'll do something similar.

Thanks for the inspiration :)