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Just saw a twitter feed with this link to the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/arts/video-games/dungeons-dragons-remake- uses-players-input.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3 Looks to me like WotC is trying to catch the same lightning in a bottle Paizo pulled off with an open playtest of early versions of the 5e ruleset. At this point I wonder if it will work - seems like a lot of the folks who would have been interested in rolling up their sleeves and helping with a new edition did just that with Pathfinder. It also strikes me as a desperation move that Wizards is already talking about a full edition revamp this soon after the release of 4e.
This was an ebook I bought some time ago - I think having heard about it on these boards - but I have never had the opportunity to use it in a game. I just flipped through it again, and I really like some of the material in it. I think the basic concept is pretty sound, and it seems like it would be pretty easy to adapt/convert to PFRPG. I was just wondering if anyone else was using it. Does the standard 20 flaw point system suggested work or does it throw off the power level of a campaign? Did you keep the flaw point costs for skills the same, or did you adapt them with the new PFRPG skill system in mind? Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks.
This weekend we had a fantastic session - my players cleared out the Graul farmstead and their hatred for the clan was so palpable they ended the day burning the place to the ground. Looking ahead, Jakardros has already mentioned retaking the fort. However, the party sees their mission here as essentially complete. They came from Magnimar to discover the fate of the Black Arrows - this they have completed and they're thinking any attempt to clear out the ogres is potential suicide. Jakardros has already told them ogres are notoriously lazy and complacent, but I fear the PCs are going to completely balk at the idea of attacking a fortified position filled with ogres. There are a few ideas in the module like the fact it will take weeks or even months to reinforce the Black Arrows from Magnimar. If they insist on falling back to Turtle Back Ferry and waiting for more help, I thought I might throw in an ogre raid on the town - perhaps an ogre raid sweeping in at night would nudge them in the right direction. Does anyone else have ideas of how to encourage the players to attack Rannik without being too heavy handed?
Last session my group got thoroughly spanked by Xanesha resulting in a TPK. Seeing this as the likely outcome given how they approached I was ready for the eventuality and had the Lord Mayor pay for raise dead castings based on some advice I read in another thread on this board. Anyway, they are pushing into the Kreegwood now - they're about to assault the Graul's farmstead - and I am thinking we might make it as far as Fort Rannick next session. I definitely want Xanesha to show up again, and having her hanging out with her sister seemed quite logical. At this point I'm trying to figure out where I want to place here. I was thinking I might incorporate her into the force at Ft. Rannick, but I don't want to overwhelm the PCs again. The other option I was thinking was to have her toward the end of the adventure - already back with Barl. Of course, if I place her well in the Fort, there is a good chance she may escape using dimension door and fly. Xanesha is a great villan and my players HATE her - so I'm looking forward to teasing them with here a bit more. Any thoughts? Thanks!
I'm a big fan of everything Paizo is doing, and so far I love what I've seen of PFRPG. Basically I was ready for a new edition, but 4e was not to my taste - PFRPG was exactly what I have been looking for. Unfortunately my group is mired in the middle of two 3.5 campaigns. We started a Runelords campaign just before the finalized rules hit - I tried to "rip off the band-aid" and convert everyone over to PFRPG on that campaign, but I met some pretty heavy resistance (particularly from one player). Basically my group is comfortable with 3.5 and is unwilling to take the plunge to PFRPG. I don't want to stop playing with the group or make too many waves, but there is so much more I like about Pathfinder - I really feel it is a better rules set. If history is any indication there was a similar resistance to 3.5 when it released. The group allowed moderate changes over time, and after a while the group was playing (more or less) pure 3.5. Even though I'm much more of a short-and-sweet, let's-convert-and-be-done-with-it kind of guy, I'm thinking if I start incorporating some of the subsystems I might be able to get the group to come around. I'm trying to decide the "easiest" parts of PFRPG to drop into 3.5 - I really like the new Skill system, so that's sort of a no brainer. I was thinking maybe CMB and CMD. Part of me wants to give them the additional feats - Players do so love their Feats. Anyway - I'm wondering if there are any thoughts. Any unseen perils with this sort of thing? Does anyone have similar experiences transitioning a group? Thanks all!
In the game I am running I have run into a question, and I'm not sure the best way to rule. I have a character who uses Scorching Ray a lot, and now we're getting to the point where the PCs are encountering critters with Spell Resistance. The question is what happens when multiple rays are aimed at a single creature with spell resistance. Does the caster have to overcome SR for each ray, or just once? My player (who is also a DM from time to time) thinks it should be a one shot thing per creature. I don't fully agree, but given the argument that started brewing over it, I caved and let it go figuring sometimes he'd loose all of his rays in a single go. Rereading the description of SR and how it is likened unto Armor Class, I'm starting to think this is the wrong ruling and every attack should overcome the resistance, but I'd like to get other opinions on this.
We're currently in the middle of Skinsaw Murders. I have one player who is a Half-orc Paladin Hellknight (interesting pedigree, I know). The long and short of his history is he was an orphaned babe left after a contingent of the Order of the Nail dispatched an Orc horde outside of Korvosa. He was adopted and raised by the commander of the hellknights that carried out the raid. His father was a good man who believed in the propriety of civilization and took it upon himself to show that an accident of birth does not determine the course of a life. His father was also a member of a secret faction within the hellknight order - a Lawful Good group of adherents to Iomedae who felt the diabolic influences within the order were pulling the knights too far into the seductive evil of Hell. My player's character is also part of the faction. Shortly before the path started, my character's father sent his son out into the world to spread the influence of civilization. After the PC left, his father was arrested, charged with treason against the order, and executed by higher ups within the Hellknights. At this point, I haven't done much with this, but I think the order would be hunting down the PC as well. I'm thinking Magnimar would be a good place for them to catch up with the PC and I'd like to stage a confrontation. I'm planning to have a small force of Hellknights formally charge the PC and demand he submit to the law of the order. However, as well as the player has been role playing his character, he might just do it. I think this could be an interesting source of conflict and a real character defining moment for the player, but I don't want to derail the AP with a trip to Korvosa and a trial in a kangaroo court. Any thoughts out there?
My players are tearing through The Lightless Depths. Due to the party’s laser focus and the belief there are slaves to save, they opted to bypass the village of Baras and push on deeper into the caverns. They are on the verge of entering the temple, and they have no real knowledge of the history of the Cerulean Curtain or the war with the aboleths. This presents me with a spectacular opportunity to have the trapped aboleth present the story and completely control the message. I’m trying to decide the best strategy for the aboleth to take. They still have Irgzid the troglodyte showing them the way, but my feeling is the aboleth taking the form of a troglodyte priest won’t be the most convincing option. I’ve played up Irgzid being a bit insane, so any inconsistency between the aboleth’s story and what the Trog says can be explained away. I’m sort of thinking the Aboleth should take the form of an Olman and tell them the “true” history of the curtain – I’m just not sure what that should be exactly. I’m thinking that the story should revolve around hubris in some way. The ancient Olmans reached too far into mysteries better left alone and unleashed a horror on the world. The Tear was an attempt to seal the Evil that was unleashed, but somehow the backlash started the Pearl creation process. It’s a little weak, I know, but that’s why I’m here. What do you think – can we put enough heads together to come up with a suitable lie concocted by a nigh immortal genius telepathic fish. My game session is next Tuesday. Thanks for the help everyone!
A post in another forum about Fantasy Grounds and MapTools in Pathfinder got me thinking again about incorporating a Virtual Table Top into my Real Life Table Top game. My group meets face to face regularly, but I can see a lot of potential in using a VTT to have an infinitely expandable map, deal with Fog of War, etc. Unfortunately I don’t have the space to set up a top-down projector or to set up a dedicated under-lit projector table as I have seen on some other DIY gamers set up. So, my question is what’s the best way to go about this? I’m already using a Mac Laptop (running Windows XP in a virtual machine) at the table. I’m assuming it would be best to have a second computer as the Player machine, but I’m trying to figure out the best way to work the logistics from there. One thought I had was setting up a large-ish monitor (21” or so) facing the players as an electronic DM screen of sorts, and have a wireless mouse connected to the computer driving the monitor that they could pass around the table on their turns. Seems a little inelegant, but it would keep the space used to a minimum, and could also be considered (semi)portable. I also thought about bringing the game into the living room and connecting to the big HDTV through an HDMI video card, but my wife doesn’t play, so she would be more than a bit irritated if we completely dominated the house on our 12+ hour game days. I also don’t like the idea of not having the table to sit around – I feel it helps focus. The other thought I had was a projector on the wall, but with that we run into the same problems of space and distance to throw the projection. Regardless of these ideas, there still the problem of controlling individual characters. I feel the wireless mouse might be our best option. Anyway, I’m mostly curious to see if anyone else has set up something similar and if there are any pitfalls I should be aware of. Thanks in advance for the input.
In our last game session, my group got well into The Skinsaw Murders. We picked up after Habe’s Sanatorium; I took them through the Hambly Farm and on to Foxglove Manor. The manor has to be some of the most fun I’ve ever had as a DM. The Haunts were great, and turned out to be a fantastic, involving way to tell the tragic story of the Foxgloves. Just from the clues gleaned in the house my group has quite the respectable comprehension of three generations of history associated with the place. Anyway, I have a quandary. One of my players has built a real undead killer – cleric of Sarenrae with the Disciple of the Sun feat from Complete Divine. The long and short of the feat is she burns two turning attempts and any undead normally turned by the attempt are destroyed instead. I don’t have a fundamental problem with the feat, but it makes fighting undead less than scary at times. The party is about to enter the subbasement section of the house. I was hoping they’d push on after running through the rest of the building, but spells were low, so they decided to sleep for the night. I doubled the carrionstorm in front of the house, but the cleric managed to dust them all in one go due to some pretty strong rolls on the turn check. Anyway, they’re camping outside the house and will be heading back in to face the caverns below in the next session. I’m afraid that without some bolstering of the undead hordes the whole fight with Aldern will be a real anticlimax. I am thinking off adding or advancing the ghouls, and possibly throwing some ghasts in as well. I want to eat up a few of the turning attempts, but I don’t want this to become a TPK (especially since they have Xanesha coming up). Does anyone have any thoughts about what I can do to make this challenging and memorable, but at the same time keeping it from spiraling into a TPK?
A couple of sessions ago my group arrived at Farshore at the start of Tides of Dread. With the pirate assault in full swing I switched away from our usual tactical map and instead worked toward a more cinematic "tell me your intention" sort of play. I thought it worked marvelously and the resulting battle inspired me to write it out as a piece of short fiction. It's mostly for my group, but I thought some of you in the community at large might also enjoy it. I have adapted the path to Eberron, so there are a few references to Eberron gods and whatnot in the text. Dramatis Personae
Spoiler:
Daneth - Aventi duskblade and moral compass of the party
Lylia - Half-elf cleric of The Whirling Fury {taking Keith Baker's suggestion making the church a cult worshiping an amalgamated form of Dol Arrah and The Fury} He - Male personality Warforged fighter/ranger moving toward the Leviathan Hunter prestige class Alasdair... the Amazing - Swashbuckler/rogue. Ex "preemptive oceanic salvage technician" and nattily dressed man about town Hej - Feral Aquatic lizardman fighter/barbarian; recent replacement character for the Drow rogue, Xyrx. Lorenda - DMPC halfling healer. An Arrival at Farshore
Spoiler:
Lorenda sat quietly in the center of the dugout canoe, the ocean breeze on her face a welcome change from the oppressive heat of the island’s interior. The terror and loss of the last several weeks were fading to memory, and the hope of finally reaching Farshore buoyed her spirits. “But just then her husband burst in.” Alasdair continued regaling Daneth with a story from his past. “I barely had time to grab my small clothes before jumping out the window. Thankfully there was a carriage passing underneath – the fact it’s occupant was a lovely lady only sweetened the deal.” Lylia smirked a bit in spite of her disapproving glare. Lorenda suspected the story was a bit embellished, but at this point she did not care. The jungle was behind them, and the promise of a real bed and regular hot meals lay before them. In the other canoe, He rowed methodically in time with their native guides. Looking more than a little out of place with his granite crown and silvery body, the only sound he made was the clattering of his various grisly trophies. Behind him, the Maelstrom’s newest companion sat stock still, eyes half closed behind scaly lids. With his snout pointed into the air and his neck outstretched the giant lizardman looked for all the world like a common garden reptile sunning itself on a rock. Lorenda had only known Hej for a little more than a week, and he had so far shown a strong noble streak despite his apparent ferocity. Still, the lizardman made Lorenda feel uneasy. There was something unnerving and unsettlingly ancient in his cold gaze. Lorenda shivered in spite of the tropical heat. Turning her head from the other canoe, Lorenda watched the shoreline of Temute roll by. “There is no way she was the Mayor’s daughter,” said Daneth “Hand to the Host,” Alasdair replied. “Fortunately for me she had a rebellious streak and apparently liked the cut of my jib.” Lylia shook her head, rolling her eyes as Lorenda looked back at her. “If you were half as charming as you think you are, Alasdair, I’d be afraid for the virtue of all the women of Khorvaire,” said Lylia. “And some of the men too,” added Daneth. “Can I help it if I’m irresistible as well as amazing?” “You seem pretty resistible to me, fleshbag.” Everyone’s head turned sharply toward He. It had been so long since He had spoken, it was easy to forget he was listening to the conversation from a few yards away. Daneth and Lylia burst into laughter. Stopping mid-row, He turned his head slowly gazing at the giggling pair with what Lorenda imagined to be puzzlement. Alasdair looked over his sholder toward Lylia. “It wasn’t that funny.” Lylia began laughing even harder. A smirk crept across Alasdir’s face. “Well, All right. Maybe it was that funny.” With a derisive grunt, He shook his head and went back to rowing. Lorenda eyes rolled heavenward. Host help her – if she ever saw the cardinal again, she must remember to have words with him about sadling her with this misfit group. Suddenly, Hej turned his head toward the island. His nostrils flared twice. Hej’s gravelly voice cut through the mirth. “Smoke.” The laughter stopped abruptly. Looking to the south and east, Lorenda saw a dark smear rising above the island. Daneth turned his head, looking back at Alasdair. “I think maybe you should tell them to row faster.” * * * Rounding the promontory, a sheltered harbor came into view. Immediately Daneth could see the value of the harbor as a port. Well protected to the north and south by cliffs and a relatively deep approach into the harbor itself made this a perfect location to dock large trading ships. Unfortunately the Vanderborens had more of an eye for commerce and less of an eye for defense. The small town before them - not much more than a village really - was overrun. Even from this distance Daneth could see several figures running amok amidst the burning buildings. A large vessel bearing a red flag with a black silhouette of a shark’s jawbone sat anchored in the harbor at the end of the longest dock. One of the Olman guides spoke rapidly over his shoulder to Alasdair. “What did he say?” asked Daneth. “They are willing to take us to the northernmost dock – no further,” Alasdair replied. “Fair enough.” With the commotion on shore, no one seemed to notice the native built canoes gliding silently up to the dock near the shoreline. As the Maelstrom hit the beach, Daneth swept his gaze over the chaos. Choking, thick smoke filled the air. Colonists screamed as large, scimitar wielding men ran through town setting fires and looting at will. Near the docks, high pitched screams poured from a burning storage building. A bit to the south, an older man lay sprawled on the beach, broken glassware strewn about him. Deeper into town, a larger concentration of pirates worked with a makeshift ram to break down the doors to what appeared to be a chapel. Past the church a handful of young colonists with swords were doing their best to fight back a group of pirates, but even at this distance Daneth could clearly see they were outmatched. “I’ll help whomever is trapped in the building over there. Lorenda, do you think you can get the man on the beach on his feet?” “I think so.” “Good – get him out of there. The rest of you, help them in the plaza.” Before the canoe came to a halt, Daneth was on his feet and running toward the burning shed. From the corner of his eye he could see the rest of his companions running full tilt into the chaos. Daneth’s focus narrowed – someone was trapped and needed his help. More than enough innocents had died recently – he wasn’t going to let there be another one. Running at full speed, Daneth studied the building as he approached. The main door was shut and even at this distance he could see smoke curling around the edges. Looking to the side of the building he noticed a broken window some six feet off the ground. Without another thought Daneth lowered his head and pushed as much power into his stride as he could. Committing everything to his forward motion, Daneth leaped extending his arms over his head and willing his body as thin as he could make it. He felt a momentary flash of heat as he passed through the window, but as gravity completed his task, Daneth tucked into a graceful shoulder roll and felt a moment of elation realizing he had come through unscathed. Daneth’s momentum brought him to his feet. He stood, quickly surveying the scene. The dry, hot air baked his skin, and his gills opened and closed reflexively. A thick haze of smoke swirled about his head and assaulted his lungs. The acrid heat pressing past his throat started Daneth coughing. Blinking away a thick curtain of tears, Daneth saw only one occupant. A young woman overcome with a fit of coughing knelt near the back wall of the storage shed as far from the flames as she could move. Daneth looked to the woman and reached out a hand. “I’m here to rescue you. Trust me.” She looked at him, then to his outstretched hand. She nodded, and reached out, taking Daneth’s hand in hers. Saying a short string of precise arcane syllables, Daneth focused his will to moving this woman out the window he had come through. In the blink of an eye, she was no longer in front of him, and instead was outside the window, falling unceremoniously the six feet to the ground. His throat burning, Daneth took only a moment to scan the room for anyone or anything else to save. Fighting back another urge to cough, he once again recited the same precise syllables, this time focusing his attention inward and willing himself through the window. A momentary tingle sped through his body as the world around him wrenched in an odd swirl. As soon as it began, the sensation was over and Daneth was falling. Landing lightly on his feet and absorbing the shock with his knees, Daneth gazed across the burning town. A dastardly half-orc chased a pretty redhead between two buildings. Daneth narrowed his gaze and began to run. * * * Before Lylia could stand both Alasdair and Hej were already far onto shore – Alasdair with his casual, fluid grace and Hej exploding into motion like a taut spring. Gripping her Zulaat, ready for anything, Lylia muttered a quick prayer under her breath. “Mother of Righteous Wrath, grant me the strength to see this through.” The largest concentration of attackers seemed to be in the plaza before them. As she and her warforged companion hustled through the chaos, Lylia caught sight of Lorenda as she knelt beside an injured man bleeding on the beach. Even at this distance Lylia could see a pale nimbus grow around Lorenda’s hand as she touched the downed colonist. With a sputtering cough, he sat up. “Can you walk.” Lylia could just barely hear Lorenda’s words over the din. The man nodded. “Then move!” Lylia returned her attention to the fight before her. Alasdair and Hej had split. Alasdair was almost to the largest group of toughs while Hej was bearing down on the group assaulting the church. As she watched, Hej lowered his head, his clawed feet pumping hard against the packed earth of the plaza. Putting his entire body behind one fluid motion, Hej thrust with his greatspear catching one of the pirates just as the raider turned to face the threat. The broad point of the spear caught the invader just below the sternum, the point sinking deep and the force of the blow lifting him bodily off the ground. Hej dropped his spear and the now quite dead thug to the ground. Turning toward the next nearest foe, Hej let forth a mighty roar. Gauging distance quickly, Lylia adjusted towards the chapel just a bit more. Focusing a small sliver of her Mistress’s divine power, Lylia intoned a ritual recitation she had been taught from a young age. As she completed the invocation, she gestured subtly. Next to one of the pirates assaulting the church a translucent, double-bladed glaive coalesced – the very image of her own zulaat. The divinely conjured weapon swung at the nearest buccaneer, the ghostly blade harder than steel at it bit into flesh. Turning back toward the cluster of raiders at the north end of the plaza, Lylia took account of the situation. Eight ragged sailors with curved blades were slicing into the ranks of the Farshore defense. At the center of it stood a taller man thrusting with an elegant rapier as his primary weapon and a lashing out with a triangular punching dagger in his off hand. Thick twists of hemp rope wrapped up his arms; around his neck hung a raggedly cut noose accentuating a livid scar around his neck. With a cruel grin flashing yellowed teeth, the leader dropped another of the town’s defenders with a well placed thrust of his punching dagger. Alasdair was almost upon the rabble, yelling insults and challenges as he ran. Lylia knew Alasdair could handle himself in a fight, but he was woefully outnumbered. “I’m on it,” said He, as if reading her mind. His silvery body reflecting the morning sun as he charged across the intervening distance. Lylia turned her attention back to the church. Now weaponless, Hej made a quick adjustment to be closer to two of the remaining pirates. With one vicious swipe of his clawed hand, he ripped through the neck of the nearest pirate. A spray of arterial blood arced over the plaza as the gurgling assailant dropped his sword and clutched the crimson bloom at his throat. With one continued motion, Hej swung is second claw at another nearby pirate leaving a ragged gash across the blackguard’s chest. Shifting his weight slightly, Hej extended his head toward his opponent’s face, snapping down with powerful jaws, his bite missing by mere inches The remaining pirates blanched – the two not currently engaged with the towering lizardman dropped the ram, turned from the fight and fled. Lylia continued moving toward Alasdair and the pirate captain. As she watched, Alasdair gracefully slid between two pirates with ease, moving with such speed and confidence he left the pair looking the wrong way as he ran up to their leader. With a flourish, Alasdair thrust his rapier at the pirate scum. The blow was true, and the pirate grimaced with pain. “Not quite as tough in a fair fight, are you – you motherless son of a sea urchin.” The pirate captain snarled “I’ll show you fair, you ponce! Slice ‘im up boys!” Lylia redoubled her effort to reach her friend. As Lylia moved, a red haired woman ran screaming past, pursued by a slavering half-orc. Lylia stopped short, turning to help the woman, but from the corner of her eye she saw Daneth running full tilt toward the woman’s assailant. As Lylia watched, Daneth gracefully drew his sword, then swung the slightly curved blade in a perfectly timed upward arc. Electricity danced from his hands and crackled up the blade. As he completed his sweeping motion, Daneth’s blade bit deep into the flesh above the half-orc’s hip. As the powerful sword blow struck true, the magic charged blade released the coruscating energy into the body of his opponent. A powerful burst of electricity ran through the pirate, charring the wound and leaving a smoking ruin as the corpse fell free from Daneth’s blade. Lylia turned back toward Alasdair, realizing his situation was most dire. Surrounded on all sides, he parried and dodged as furiously as he could, but it was only a matter of time before a misstep or lucky blow would leave him a corpse. In a few more steps she would be in range to cast. Just a few more steps. * * * Alasdair was beginning to think that this was perhaps not the best idea he’d ever conceived. He parried another blow with his sword, and moved his free arm up just in time to catch a slashing scimitar swinging in toward his face. The blow deflected harmlessly off the blackened steel destana he now wore. With a half-formed thought, he sent a bit of thanks to his comrade Xyrx, wherever he might be. Alasdair felt a sharp welling pain bloom in his lower back. The moment of distraction had proven just enough for the lead pirate to take the advantage. He snarled as he twisted the rapier in Alasdair’s back. Alasdair pulled away, freeing himself from the blade. The half step placed him dangerously close to another opponent – Alasdair bobbed his head to the right as a saber narrowly slashed by his ear. Looking past his nearest assailant, Alasdair could see two more pirates moving toward him. He set his jaw grimly – if today was his day, then he’d go out swinging. Just then a glint of sunlight caught Alasdair’s eye. From beyond the approaching brigands Alasdair saw He running toward the fray, his long strides eating up the distance as he crossed the plaza. Alasdair’s determined jaw softened as a grin spread across his face. The rearmost pirate turned just in time to see He bring his sword down in a gracefully powerful two-handed arc. The unprepared pirate dropped in a heap at the warforged’s feet. The new combatant entering the fray drew some of the unwanted attention away from Alasdair. Redoubling his efforts, Alasdair continued his deadly dance of flashing blades, subtly parrying and avoiding thrust and slash alike. A narrow miss by noose-neck’s punching dagger brought Alasdair up short. As he turned to once again face his primary assailant, a ghostly two-bladed glaive appeared next to the buccaneer slashing as soon as it materialized. Alasdair seized his moment, shifting his weight he committed to a low lunge. As the rope bedecked pirate brought his blade wide to parry, Alasdair deftly disengaged around the pirate’s blade, leaving his opponent off balance and open to attack. Shifting his momentum, Alasdair thrust his blade deep into the pirate’s chest. Dropping his blade, the incredulous pirate clutched futilely at the rapier embedded in his chest, a trickle of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. With a ghastly rattling cough, the bearded cur spat blood flecked foam into Alasdair’s face. His weight dropping, Alasdair let his blade pull free from the bandit. “The Keeper take you, you bastard.” Pivoting around, Alasdair watched as Lylia made short work of her opponent, the twin blades of her zulaat flashing in the morning light. Beside her, He dropped another invader, adjusting his swing to catch the final pirate as he fled back toward the sea. Alasdair looked south – one of the largest buildings in town was ablaze. Locals ran into and out of the inferno ferrying books and sheaves of paper to safety. Looking about, Alasdair could see the invading force had been turned aside; without another moments consideration Alasdair ran into the blaze to help. * * * Lorenda moved quickly through the plaza, stopping occasionally to check a colonist’s injuries - fortunately none were terribly severe. By this point, most of the fires were extinguished. The largest fire had been the Hall of Records, however the town’s bucket brigade had been able to quell the flames after Daneth and Lylia had cast a few well placed cold spells to halt the spread. Lorenda was no expert, but she was fairly certain without the assistance, the building would have been lost. She stopped beside a young man holding a limp arm at his side. “Let me see.” The young man silently moved his good hand as Lorenda examined the injured arm. He winced a bit as she probed, but otherwise he showed no emotion. Lorenda had seen the look before on the faces of the soldiers brought into Flamekeep from the front lines. She recited a familiar incantation and a blue glow emanated from the hand she had placed on the boy’s arm. His eyes widened a bit in wonder as he lifted his arm. “It might be a little weak for a day or two, but that will pass.” “Thank you.” She smiled wanly. It would appear their new home was to be no less exciting than anywhere else they had been over the past several months. “You’re welcome.”
Hello. First, I'd like to note I didn't purchase my copy of the book from Paizo directly, so I am not expecting recompense - more looking for advice. I've had my copy for all of three days. Last night I noticed that the fold where the front cover meets the first page was pulling a bit resulting in some tearing of the cover page. This morning I noticed similar damage along the back cover. Just now, as I set the book down, the entire bound page section pulled free at one end and it seems completely loose from top to bottom. Just for the record, the most stress I have put this copy under is carrying it back and forth to work. Obviously I should be able to return this copy for a replacement, but this is the one physical copy my group has. Considering the shortage of books out there, I'd hate to send it back and not have a replacement as I'm the GM and I'm sort of forcing the switch on my group :) So, to the point of this rambling message. 1) have you heard of similar issues from other customers? 2) do you have any advice for repairing this copy rather than returning it. Not ideal, but maybe better than waiting for the reprints to show up.
I’m converting over the group I’m currently running to Pathfinder – for the most part I don’t think the transition will be too difficult. However, this feat is a bit problematic. I have a player who has a character that he’s somewhat max-min’d around killing undead. As such, this feat is a no-brainer for him (as it is on the hairy edge of broken). Basically the feat allows a cleric to burn two turn attempts at once. By so doing, any undead turned by the attempt are destroyed instead. I don’t really want to take his concept away from him, and I feel like something cool can be done with the Channel rules. I’m thinking something like burning two uses of channel energy to harm undead results in a Maximized burst. Another option might be to Empower the burst increasing the damage dice by 1.5. Another possibility I was considering was increasing the radius of the burst (say to 40'), though that would probably be in conjunction with one of the other options. Any thoughts? I want the feat to be cool, but I’ve always thought it could be toned down a bit.
I am DMing for a group in which my wife is playing for the first time. She decided on a Druid, and I'm trying to help her play the best character she can. The big problem is, I'm not terribly familiar with Druids and how to optimize them. The group just broke 2nd level and they have a little cash to spend. Right now I have her in wood armor (A&EG), but with about 200 gold to spend I'm wondering if there is something better out there. We're working to keep her in the Light encumbrance catagory which is a bit difficult as she only has a 12 str. This seemed like a good balance of protection vs. weight for the time being, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't something clearly better out there. We're running Rise of the Runelords and I looked long and hard at the Hide Shirt from the Player's Guide. I think that is probably the best choice, but it's a bit too heavy right now. Maybe once we can afford some extra-dimensional storage and such we can make it work. Thoughts?
My wife is a first time player in a game that I am DMing. She decided on playing a Druid (with a single level of Ranger), and I have been helping her make choices on her character. So far I feel like we’re doing fairly well with her build, but the biggest problem we have is I am not terribly familiar with Druids. I know they can be pretty darned powerful with the right build, but I’m not sure which are the best feat choices, etc. She’s a human and we’re using flaws from UA, so we’ve got some feats to burn. The Ranger level opened up her weapon choices, and she’s wielding a bow – the idea is she will be ranged support and casting along with the Ranger tracking stuff. Right now we have picked Point Blank and Precise Shot. I’m not sure how much further she will go down that path, but I felt like she needed at least those two if she were going to be any help at all as an archer. I also have her with Spell Focus: Conjuration and Augment Summoning. These seemed like no-brainers with her spontaneous summon nature’s ally ability. What I am looking for now are other “must-have” feats for a Druid. Natural Spell seems a given as soon as she qualifies for it, but outside of that I’m not sure. We’ve got access to pretty much everything 3.5, so the feat choices are a bit overwhelming :-) What I am looking for specifically are feats that boost her summoning ability. I figure some of the metamagic feats might be useful, but can you apply those on the fly to spontaneous casting, or would she have to memorize summon nature’s ally with the metamagic applied to make it work? Any suggestions are most welcome. She is a bit on the fence about the game, but she loves me so she’s giving it the ol’ college try. I figure the least I can do is help her build as effective and cool a character as possible.
I'm considering buying the Book of Fiends from Green Ronin and was thinking about the whole Print on Demand idea they are offering through Lulu.com. Has anyone else bought any of Green Ronin's products this way? How's the print quality coming from Lulu? The other big question I have - do you get a corresponding electronic version of the book when you buy the Print on Demand version, or are you just sent the hardcopy? I poked around a bit on Lulu's site, but I didn't see anything one way or the other.
Hello all. I have a player in my current campaign playing a rogue. We're a bit short on casters, so he's thinking about multiclassing into bard. I thought it might be nice to give him the option of a feat akin to Daring Outlaw, Daring Warrior, and Swift Hunter from Complete Scoundrel to allow him to synergize his classes a bit more. I'm not thrilled with the current name, but let me know what you think of the mechanics:
Your music continues to inspire though you focus your attentions to other shady pursuits. Prerequisite: Bardic Music, Sneak Attack +1d6 Benefit: Your bard and rogue levels stack for the purpose of determining extra damage from sneak attack. For example, a 4th level rogue/2nd level bard would deal +3d6 extra damage when making a sneak attack as if he were a 6th level rogue. Your bard and rogue levels also stack for the purpose of determining your bardic music abilities. This includes both the number of times per day you may use bardic music and for which bardic music abilities you qualify. You must still meet all minimum Perform ranks requirements. For example the 4th level rogue/2nd level bard noted above would be able to use bardic music 6 times per day and would have access to the countersong, fascinate, inspire courage (+1), inspire competence, and suggestion bardic music abilities as if he were a 6th level bard.
I am a little bit confused on how to award XP for traps. I know the CR assigned to the trap determines the XP just like a monster combat encounter, but what constitutes "overcoming" the challenge of the trap? Obviously successfully disabling it would overcome the challenge, but what about setting it off, but successfully making the save to avoid the effect? How about merely surviving it? I am leaning toward mere survival being enough to award the XP figuring that the "I'll never do THAT again" factor would be pretty strong after setting off a particularly nasty trap. How do you handle awarding XP for traps in your campaign?
My wife will be joining my game group for the first time this Saturday. We’re starting a new campaign, and she actually asked to be a part of it. She is still a bit apprehensive, but she’s wanting to make a go of it. When we first started talking about what sort of character she wanted to play, all signs pointed to Druid (love of nature, wanting to cast spells, the desire for a pet – she wanted a mini-pony with wings to start, but with a little coaxing from me she finally settled on a wolf), so we worked it up. She is an elf and we’re close to finishing her build. In the last stages of character creation she was beginning to get a bit frustrated with some of the stuff her druid can’t do. When she said she wanted her druid to be more like a ninja, I realized perhaps we should have been building a Ranger after all. We talked about it some more, and Ranger doesn’t quite suit her either. She wants the spell casting and the animal companion at first level, but she wants some of a Ranger’s flavor as well. She has already decided on the Track feat (since the party doesn’t have a ranger already it seemed a prudent choice). It seems the only thing missing now is some of the quiet sneakiness of the Ranger. Other than the obvious solutions of taking cross class skills in Hide and Move Silently or multi-classing with Ranger can anyone think of how to make her druid more Rangery? I do give one of the “+2 Skill/+2 Skill” feats as a bonus at character creation, so she could take Stealthy which would help in the short term, however I’d like to figure out some way to open up those skills moving forward. I do want to keep it strictly inside the rules, but I also really want my wife’s first character to be something she really likes and wants to play. It was a huge thing for her to ask to play – I figure the least I can do is work as hard a possible to get her the character she’s wanting.
I got the backstory for the healer of my new campaign yesterday, and I felt the need to share some DM happys. She is a Shoanti battle-healer (sort of a tribal field medic) using the Healer class from the Miniatures Handbook. The best part is, I gave my player a copy of the Shoanti article from A History of Ashes, and he ran long with it. His character is dark skinned, she shaves her head, and he’s given her all sorts of Shoanti runic tattoos. The best part is, he took the brief parable “And So it Was” to heart and one of the tattoos is the Seven Pointed Star “Victory” which she has tattooed on the top of her head. I love it when players unwittingly play right into my hand – without any prompting from me, or from the adventure itself I have a player with the Sihedron Rune tattooed prominently on her body. I’m not planning to have it be anything other than a roleplaying hook – not a mystical connection to Karzoug or anything – it’s just likely to be darned inconvenient as the path progresses. I just can’t wait for the suspicion to start flying in Skinsaw :-D
One of my players in our upcoming RotRL campaign is wanting to play a psionic character, and is specifically interested in playing a Half-Giant. I like a lot of the psionic fluff that other members of the community have come up with (origins of the Elans in ancient Thassilon, Xephs coming from Xia Tian, etc), but I just don't see how half-giants fit into the world. Any thoughts on where they might be from?
The subject pretty much sums it up. We're about to start a Runelords campaign, and the halfling rogue has decided to spend money on maps, but no ranks in Geography. He's just fascinated with maps. The player has already given me license by saying I can just give him a list of maps the character has picked up - they can be a useful or not for the campaign as I want them to be. I thought I'd throw this out to the community and see what everyone thinks I should give him. Ideally I'd like to find some actual maps to print out and give him, but I'm not a cartographer, and I don't really have time to learn the skills between now and when we start. But even if I don't have actual handouts, I'd like to come up with some interesting places in Golarion that he might have maps of. I was already thinking of some of the more exotic locations (ie Vudra, Minkai, etc) possibly of questionable veracity. I also thought it would be very cool to possibly drop something in at the start of the campaign that only becomes obviously useful much further down the road. I'm sure I can come up with something to satisfy my player, but I would really like it to be as interesting as possible. Any thoughts?
I want to start by saying I think Paizo is a marvelous company. I have placed several orders with you guys over the past couple of years, and I have always been pleased at the responsiveness and general ease with which all communication is handled. I also greatly appreciate the obvious care with which my purchases are treated by your warehouse staff before they are shipped - everything has always been well packed and arrived safely. However, the only complaint I have are the styrofoam peanuts you guys use for packing material. Having never worked in a shipping and receiving type job, I don't really know much about packing costs, but is there anything else you could use to fill up empty space that has less of an environmental impact - some sort of recyclable paper product perhaps? Now that I have had my say, I will let it go and continue to spend money on your fantastic products. That is all.
I have a player interested in playing a Paladin Hellknight in our upcoming campaign. I think paladins in the Hellknight orders are mentioned in the Player’s Guide, but I’m just wondering how the heck a paladin can be part of such an order and maintain his paladinhood. I mean even if the order is technically Lawful Neutral he would be associating with Lawful Evil folks on such a regular basis, and potentially being ordered around by LE superiors. How does that jive with the requirement on Paladins to avoid associations with Evil beings? My player is very excited about the idea and the RP potential, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the particulars.
RE: The opposition of Schools of Magic laid out in the History of Thassilon in RotRL #1 sidebar. Do you take this to be an immutable fact of nature in Golarion – sort of a magical law of physics, or is this based on deep seated tradition unique to ancient Thassilon? I’m trying to decide how I want to set this up for my campaign and if I want to limit specialist wizards to the specific opposition schools laid out in the article. Part of me loves the flavor and feeling of balance and symmetry, but I’m not one to say “no” to my players without good reason. Has anyone else followed this line of thought for their Golarion Campaigns? What did your players think?
It looks like I’m about to start a group through the Rise of the Runelords campaign, and I couldn’t be more excited! I’ve been wanting to run this campaign since I started receiving the installments on my subscription almost two years ago - w00t! Taking a quick look around I’m jazzed about all the community support/advice on the boards – my Savage Tide campaign has been so much richer for the help on the boards. Before I get started, are there any must-have Paizo supplements I should look at getting before we get started on this? I haven’t been following the Chronicles materials, or really anything else Pathfinder outside of the Aps (Didn’t seem prudent as I wasn’t running anything in Golarion). Any and all advice is more than welcome. Thanks!
Stupid Post Monster - Grrr... I've taken my group through about half of Here There Be Monsters, but I'm looking ahead to the next module. I have a situation that requires a small rewrite. My party absolutely refused to take any of the NPCs with them on their trek across the island. They felt the civilians were safer holed up in the wreck of the Wyvern than marching the length of the island, and I can't say I blamed their decision. At this point I'm trying to figure out what to do about the Kopru Druid who has taken up residence in the wreck. Clearly the Kopru could wipe the floor with the colonists, but I don't want to have the PCs come back to a ship full of dead folks. I'm thinking that the kopru would observe from a distance. After a short time, he uses his Dominate ability to take control of one of the colonists. I'm thinking he compels the thrall to kill the other colonists. The enslaved colonist is subdued or killed by the other members of the crew. After that, the Kopru attacks in earnest. I'm thinking that perhaps the survivors make a run for it and are now scraping by in the edge of the jungle and the Kopru has a new lair. When the PCs show up they have the fun of killing the Druid, and ALSO the satisfaction of saving the castaways (though I'm still trying to decide what sort of welcome they would receive after all of that). Any thoughts to flesh this out or take it in a new direction are most welcome. At this point I'm still brainstorming.
I've got friends coming in from out of town, and we're planning a one night D&D game. Obviously we're more interested in fun characters and less in optimization, but my friend's character concept is too great not to try and make work (at least somewhat) from a mechanical point of view. He's wanting one of his character's primary means of fighting to be literally throwing whatever is at hand at his enemies. I'm trying to find some feats that will allow him to do this without incurring massive negatives on regular basis. I found Throw Anything from Complete Warrior, but that feat should be called Throw Melee Weapon as one of the stipulations is you must be proficient with the weapon you throw. That got me thinking and I could swear I remember a feat that gives you proficiency with Improvised Weapons, but it could be wishful thinking. Any ideas? The only stipulation is it has to be from a full on 3.5 WotC book - no 3.0, no third party. Thanks for the input!
I'm running HTBM. The PCs have just started encountering Orlangru and they just defeated the first wave of gargoyles. As a bit of background, I created a Healer (Minis Handbook) as a DMPC to act strictly as a box of band aids. She is a complete non-combatant and really all she can do is heal. My intention with this was to allow the players to pick what they wanted and not have to worry about someone being a healer. We do have a cleric, but she is a very martial type with the Spontaneous Domain casting alternate feature from PHB2. My question for the group - should Orlangru abduct the healer (in place of Urol in the shrine). I'm not intending to kill her outright, but I think the PCs would be way more motivated to save the box of band aids rather than the somewhat flighty, pedantic gnome. Would that be unreasonably mean of me? Will they all die horrible deaths? What are your thoughts, oh paizonians?
My group hasn't yet met up with Orlangru and crew, but they will be encountering them very soon. I'm tossing around the idea of upping their size to Large. It just seems they'll be much scarier with the additional size. I know I'll need to adjust some stats, and I should probably increase their CRs by 1 to compensate for the added toughness. Is there anything else I should take into consideration? I looked at the temple map, and it seems they'll be able to move around well enough (just a couple of bottlenecks at some doorways). Am I off base here? Will this make them too tough to handle? ANy thoughts will be appreciated.
I try very hard to maintain a sense of realism in the game I am running, but one of my biggest failings as a DM is keeping track of time (and weather for that matter). I'm already using a laptop to help run my game - is there a program out there that will help me keep track of the day in the campaign calendar? Typical calendar applications won't really work since they are set around our actual calendar and most campaign worlds have a slightly different (generally more regular) calendar than we do. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw the question out there. Thanks in advance
I'm trying to add some speed and immersion into my games by using the maps in Dungeon/Pathfinder PDFs to create full scale battlemaps. I'm good with the scaling up - I've gotten them to .tiff files with the 5' squares at 1". The problem I'm having is printing the (now very large) images on my standard color laser printer. Does anyone have a good (preferably free) solution for tiling large images over several sheets of paper while maintaining scale? Elsewhere on these boards someone suggested importing into Excel, but that seemed to deform the image a bit - it made the squares wider than they were tall. I've also been looking into .PDF solutions - I can easily output the files to .PDF, but I can't find a reliable way of tiling the print. I have looked into the Gamer Print shop, and though they are quite reasonably priced, I think they're still too expensive for regular "everyday" maps. Perhaps for a major setpiece or some such. Any suggestions welcome.
I stumbled on this interesting looking site today and was wondering if anyone out in Paizo-land has had the opportunity to use it. The basic user account is free, so I'm planning on signing up just to poke around, however if anyone has used the site, I'd love to hear what you think. I've been looking for an online resource to aggregate campaign thoughts and materials, and this looks like it might be a good choice.
Hello all, My group and I are firmly entrenched in 3.5, and not planning on moving to 4e. At this point I have almost all of the 3.5 WotC books that I could ever want, and recently have turned my attention to Third Party materials published under the OGL. What are the great must-have gems out there? I have the Advanced line from Green Ronin which I like a lot. I also picked up a couple of Penumbra titles I really like on the cheap ("Dynasties and Demagogues" and "Crime and Punishment" specifically). I am intrigued by the Book of Templates (or something like that - not sure of the publisher). Anyway, keeping in mind that we run mostly in Eberron, what products would you suggest I take a look at. Thanks everyone!
My players have just crashed on the northern shore of the Isle of Dread (many thanks to Peruhain of Brithondy for the excellent advice on running the second storm in Fiendish Dire Weasel's post here). At this point they have literally just grounded the boat - we're picking up with salvage operations and whatnot next session. My problem is I have very smart, very thoughtful players. They decked out the Wyvern with all sorts of smart choices - not the least of which is a Sending Stone (magic item that allows Sending spell to be sent to another mated stone once per day) which has kept them in communication with Lavinia the entire time. At this point they are wanting to contact Farshore and have them swing around and pick them up. It makes perfect sense, and I don't want to take away the PC's thunder in a fit of DM pique, however HTBM is one of my favorite adventures in the path, and I'm jazzed about them playing it. I want to urge them into the interior of the island without taking away the smart idea of having the communication in the first place. My first thought is to have tougher and tougher challenges hit them from the isle - probably culminating in an attack by the dragon turtle (I forget his name) from Lightless Depths. I'm hoping that will get them moving. The other idea is to have Olrangu eventually show up on the north shore before help arrives - maybe he can wreak enough havoc to draw them into the interior of the island. I'm sort of stuck here - did anyone else run into a similar problem? Any other ideas on how this can be "fixed?" Thanks in advance!
I just started the encounter with the flotsam ooze in my game session last night. We got through one round with the beasty, and it seems awfully deadly to me to be a side encounter. Our monk was hit in the first round of combat by the thing's slam and it knocked her to essentially half her hit points. Now she's stuck to it with no real way to get unstuck, and by the rules it gets a free slam every round until the ooze is dead. That will equal a dead monk and a very pouty player. I think I'm going to add a strength check to break free of the adhesive - seems reasonable since you can pull stuck objects free. Did anyone else have a problem with this encounter being too deadly? Any suggestions on balancing it?
I’m thinking about instituting a new house rule dealing with XP and Level Loss in my D&D campaign. I have never liked the Die and Lose a Level mechanic. This isn’t because I feel it is unfair – I like there to be a sizable consequence for dying. Actually, my beef with losing a level comes from the fact that down-leveling is a royal pain in the toochus. Conversely, I really like the Negative Level mechanic. I think the application of a set number of penalties is (relatively) easy to do on the fly, it’s standard across the board, and it’s reflexive of the end result of “losing a level.” In the Advanced Gamemaster’s Guide, one of the optional rules presented is the concept of “Experience Debt” whereby when XP would be lost (either voluntarily through spell casting or item creation or involuntarily through level loss) the XP isn’t actually taken from the character’s existing pool. Instead the character incurs a debt equal to the XP they should have lost. The rule as written says the character splits all future XP in half – half goes toward the debt and half goes into their actual “leveling pool” – until the debt is repaid. I personally like the idea, but feel it should be a bit harsher. If, for instance, a character gained a negative level while fighting a wight and then missed his second Fortitude save in 24 hours, he wouldn’t lose a level – he’d just incur the XP debt and spend the next half level or so paying it off. Here’s my melding compromise. We keep the concept of XP debt, but in cases where a character would lose a level, they would gain a semi-permanent negative level instead until their XP debt is paid off. I’m debating about voluntarily adding to the debt for item creation and whatnot – I think for the sake of bookkeeping that should be paid for free and clear from the actual XP pool. The only logistical issue I foresee as being a problem is keeping track of when which negative level “wears off.” I suppose I could be hardline about it and say all negative levels are restored when the whole debt is paid, though that seems unfair if a player accrued multiple negative levels from more than one encounter. Perhaps paying them off in “batches” on a per encounter basis. Also, I’m not sure if I want to stick with the half-and-half model, or if I want to force the player to put all XP towards removing the debt until it is gone. The former model has the benefit of the character continuing to build (albeit slowly), while the latter feels more like the RAW (in that you have to build back up to being where you were before you can continue). I am actually leaning toward the former of the two because as the character won’t actually lose a level, he also won’t gain the one benefit of being behind the power curve of the party – increased XP for the same encounters. With the split XP, there is a definite slowdown in leveling, but it might be possible to get that new feat or class ability while still recovering from the drain. I’d like to hear some feedback on this. Is the idea balanced? Does it seem like it’s causing more problems than it solves? Has anyone else tried anything like this, and if so, what did you find to be the result? All feedback is appreciated.
After picking up Kobold Quarterly #3 and reading Jonathan Drain's article on optimizing Power Attack, the total nerd in me decided to take the math given and build a spreadsheet to do the leg work for me (and I don't even have a character with Power Attack). At this point, version 1.0 is not perfect - it doesn't take into account iterative attacks or critical hits. Perhaps I will add this functionality into it in a later revision, but it would take a bit of a rework in calculation and presentation. Anyway, seems a shame to have done the work and not share this with the community at large. I'd like to offer it up, but I don't have hosting space, and emailing it to everyone who wants it might get cumbersome. First, is there an interest amongst people for the calculator itself? It is an Excel spreadsheet, so one would need that program (or possibly Open Office - haven't tried the program in that environment). Second, is there anyone who would like to host this as a free download (Lillith, I'm looking at you here)? Worst case I can email it to folks, but if there is a genuine interest, I'm afraid I won't be able to keep up with the demand. What does everyone think?
I'm pretty sure I saw a thread here at some point about the relative merits of scaling or not scaling for a larger party, but I can't seem to find it easily, and I'm tired and need to go to bed. So I'll take the lazy way out and just ask again :-) Here's my situation. I started out a Savage Tide campaign with three PCs. I built a non-combatant Healer (Miniatures Handbook) as a DMPC to shore up that party role. I took the original group through a 1st level side adventure as an introduction and as an opportunity to get them a little ahead of the curve for the beginning of the campaign. Long story short, we have since had three other players join. No one has been interested in playing a healer type, so we still have the DMPC. We're about to go into the Bullywug Gambit and I have 3, 4th level characters and 3, 3rd level characters plus the 2nd level Healer. I originally thought this adventure was going to be tough - possibly fatal. Now I'm thinking that it's going to be a walk in the park. I'm trying to decide if I want to scale it up at all. I feel that with the elastic nature of 3.5 XP, if I start scaling this thing now I will be scaling every adventure through the whole campaign. Part of me is thinking that it might be best to let this be a little easy, and then eventually the players might be a bit behind the curve level wise, but their increased numbers might even things a bit. They're also a very choppity-choppity, hackity-hackity party with what amounts to 5 (of 6) combat oriented characters. I'm afraid that might come back to bite them in the butt, but that's a different post.
I'm up too late reading my Burnt Offerings .pdf when I should be going to bed, and I just ran across this little gem in the "Goblin Weapons" side bar:
Goblins should really carry spare dogslicers, but they don’t think that far ahead, and occasionally end up standing in front of a hero without a weapon. Stupid little freaks. Maybe it's the exhaustion talking, but damn. That really made me laugh. I mean, made me laugh to the point of tears. Woo. Funny. Tee hee.
I have a quick question regarding the Ninja (Complete Adventurer) ability Ghost Step. According to the book, a ninja can expend one of his daily ki power slots as a swift action to become invisible for a round. My question is, should this be treated like greater invisibility for the duration of the round (ie attacks do not dispell the invisibility). I am leaning toward yes - from the time the power is engaged until the ninja's next turn he should remain invisible. My thought is since the spell invisibility isn't actually referenced then it shouldn't be treated as such. Also, the fact is only lasts a round makes it fairly balanced as it is. Any thoughts? Counter arguments?
I'm looking at purchasing some mapping software, but I'm not sure what my best option is. I know that there have been several threads on this subject already, and in fact, I have read through most of them. However, I'm still not sure what my best option is. I know that Campaign Cartographer is aimed at large scale maps, and Dundjinni is geared more toward small scale maps. The problem is I'm sort of in the middle. I'm currently running an Eberron Campaign, and as such have little need for much world or regional maps. I do, however, have plans to detail several of the cities that haven't yet been outlined in any of the books. I would also like the option of producing attractive battlemaps to layout for my players. One very attractive function of Campaign Cartographer is the ability to link maps to locations on other maps. Even though I'm not looking to create a world map, I can see a great deal of functionality for this dealing with locations within a city. Ultimately, I think I'd be happier with CC 3 just because I tend to be a power user, however I'm not sure it's really worth the extra money for the add-ons. I think I can boil it down to a couple of questions: How easily/well can Dundjinni handle street level city maps? Can I expect to make decent city and/or dungeon maps in CC 3 without buying the City Designer and Dungeon Designer add-ons? If I do go with CC 3, and I create city maps, is it possible to link those city maps back to a large world map at some later date if I ever get up the gumption to create a CC 3 map of Khorvaire? Is there a fan created CC 3 map of Khorvaire? I realize that's probably skating legalities, but thought I'd throw it out there anyway. Thanks for your input.
I'm currently running a STAP campaign, and I have a new player joining. She's running a Darfalen Barbarian who wields a harpoon (both race and weapon from Stormwrack). Now, she's put a lot of thought into her back story and really likes the concept of the weapon/race combo. A harpoon is an exotic weapon, so she will be taking a feat to use it. However, it seems that the RAW on the weapon have it only as a ranged weapon. The basic mechanic is when you hit an opponent with the harpoon the barbs lodge the spear into the target, effectively tethering them to the 30' length of rope attached. By taking an action (full round or standard - I don't remember of the top of my head) the target can pull the harpoon free, but they deal the same damage removing it that was incurred by the hit. I have no problem with any of that. My debate comes with using the harpoon in melee. I have no problem with using the weapon in melee - it's essentially a spear. No reach, two handed, done. What I can't decide on is the secondary property. When in melee, does a successful hit lead to a monster on a stick? I am thinking that I will houserule that a proficient harpoon wielder can use it as a melee weapon with the option of "anchoring" an opponent (which would act somewhat like a mancatcher mechanically), or dealing normal damage while keeping the spear free. This would have to be declared before the attack roll is made. Does this seem reasonable? I don't want to make the weapon too versatile, but I also don't want to stick the front line fighter with a weapon that effectively negates multiple attacks at higher levels. She's very excited about the idea of a harpoon toting whale-man (feeds into her sense of irony), and my inclination as a DM is to roll with it. Does this ruling seem reasonable? Thanks for the opinions.
OK, so I know that is an amazingly obvious statement. However, I just took my group under Parrot Island last night, and boy howdy - was it ever fun! Ravenous zombies are awesome. The Huecuva had them all kinds of scared. My favorite part was when they went stomping into the crab pool without looking first thinking it would be a treasure trove and got locked into another combat unexpectedly. Anyway, my point is just this - thanks to all the great folks at Paizo and all the authors who have worked so hard to provide us all with so much fun. Both myself and my players are super psyched about the rest of the path. Oh, and a shout out to the cartographers. I play with a couple of carpenters and they were dutifully impressed with the fact Parrot Island had actual, logical structural support for the ceilings. Just another mark of the quality and attention to detail provided by the good folks at Paizo.
I've got a bit of a pickle on my hands with There Is No Honor. My players managed to take care of the Blue Nixie encounter fairly easily, and even managed to take out most of the thugs without killing them all. My problem comes from advancing the timeline - to keep the pressure on my players I had it set up so they ended up making the attack as Vark and his thugs were preparing to make sail to sell the cargo. They interrogated Vark, and now they want to use the remaining thugs to crew the ship and make the sale. I'm trying to figure out a way to discourage this or even make it impossible without railroading - or at least giving the impression that I'm not railroading. I know that the module says if the characters try this tactic the Scarlet Brotherhood hears about the attack and they don't show. I feel like my pushing the timeline has made that tactic a bit illogical. The players realize this is going off the written adventure, and I really don't have a problem with it (though if they pull it off they will have "extra" loot). One thought I had is the Rhagodessa is dead. Obviously that was an important part of the cargo. Perhaps Vark suggests it's best to not arrive for the sale without that particular beast. Did anyone else have a similar issue in their campaign?
I am very seriously looking at buying a laptop computer in the next month or so. One of the main reasons for the purchase is as a DM aide. I already use E-Tools for character generation, and I have some good note taking/organizational software. What I’m wondering is what software do other computer-at-the-table DMs use. At this point I think projecting battle maps are a bit out of the question – I am never playing at my apartment, and trying to set that up is both too expensive and too cumbersome for the time being. I’m looking at DM Familiar and Tablesmith – both seem to be good programs for speeding and streamlining DM duties, though I haven’t tried the demos yet. Any other “must have” DM helpers out there? Anything that would help either prep or game time would be most appreciated. Oh, I am a windows user, for what it’s worth. Thanks in advance for the input.
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