Fraust's page

I don't know if I would agree that most of it falls on the GM. I think the players need to be open to the theme of horror, which is quite a bit different state of mind than they are likely familiar with. They need to let them selves be terrified, let their guard down. As a player in a horror campaign, you have to trust the GM more than you do in other genres.

What's their site? I already paid, so likely I'll stick with pro, but I'd love to check out some of the other options.

Beckett...I'm thinking anyone who kills for money is an assassin. There doesn't need to be a prestige class to give you the title. I like the idea of the red mantis class, as that's what prestige classes were meant to be (way back in third, Monte Cook talked about it in Dungeon or Dragon). In the interest of being a hypocrite, I loved the assassin base class Green Ronin developed back in the day...which did get access to spells. But yeah, over all...if your a fighter and you get payed to start duels with other people with the intent of killing them...your an assassin, if you're a rogue and you get payed to sneak into the homes of people and slit their throat while they sleep, your an assassin, if your a wizard, and you get payed to summon some horrible nightmare from the abyss to track down and slay a specific individual, your an assassin. To me there is absolutely no more need for an assassin class than there is for any other profession.

Just wanted to add something about d20pro. It's 30 bucks for the full program, a judges license (what you use as a GM) and two players licenses. Every player after that is 10 bucks. So for you, your sister, and your girlfriend, it'd be ten apiece. Didn't want to give you the impression it would be 30 for each player and the GM.

I'm still trying to figure out why there is a generic assassin prestige class...

If you're talking Play By Post type online games, there is a subforum a little further down the list. If you're talking Virtual Table Top style games, there really isn't anything beyond the Gamer Connection subforum, which I don't know if I've seen more than one or two VTT games recruited there (granted, I don't spend much time looking...)

My favorite Pathfinder character I've played so far is my elvin magus. Think destitute wanna-be noble who dabbles in fencing and magecraft. There's not much to choose from though, as with Pathfinder I mostly GM the few opportunities I have to get involved with a game. Only played a rogue (Merisciel pregen) and a ranger...and the magus.

As far as all editions worth...I've always had a soft spot for thieves/rogues, though I do best with a bossy neutral evil wizard, and a bunch of manipulatable dupes to order around in combat.

I would say, to sorta go along with building a flawed character, build a character capable of growth. Not just in the power level department either. For example, I was playing in a PBP CC campaign, and I made a forlorn elf who wants very badly to be part of the aristocracy of Ustalav, but not only is he not human, he grew up rather poor. Though he has money now, and he can generally fake the talk, when upset he reverts back to being a guttermouthed blue colored adventurer. Also, he plays at acting like a pompous, arrogant, snobby prick...but he has a soft spot for the working class. If I get to continue playing this character, chances are this will eventually show through. He may complain about having to risk his life to save worthless commoners, but he's still in the front lines fighting back whatever evil is threatening them. Eventually I see him becoming completely disgusted with the ruling class, and abandoning his hopes of joining them. Not sure what he'll do then, or how long it'll take, but it's sure to happen eventually.

Carrion Crown
gunslinger/alchemist multiclass (played/playing a magus)

Rise of the Runelord
magus or wizard (played a ranger)

Been using a dry erase board for hit points and conditions, and note cards for initiative and other stats...but I recently picked up d20pro, and plan on using that the next time I can get time to play.

In second edition I played through Ruins of Undermountain more times than some people on this board have probably sat down to play period. So yeah, I can get behind replaying some adventures.

I've ran and played in Burnt Offerings, and fully intend on doing both again. I would truly love to GM all the way through RotRl and play through it as well. Same with just about all of the APs, though RotRl, AoW, and Carrion Crown are the highest on the list.

I think d20pro is sorta like driving a car...at first the prospect of learning all the fiddly bits are daunting, but once you get used to it you can't imagine living without it...unfortunately, I'm still very much in the learning how to drive camp...

With Ravenloft I think a lot of it is presentation. When I played we didn't deal much with the domain lords, and didn't ever venture into the stranger domains...and the DM (for the latest times I played anyways) was absolutely amazing as far as atmosphere and storytelling ability (he was a little less than impressive in the running combat department, but there wasn't that much anyways). As for my experiences with Planescape, often they were less than impressive, as we ran planescape in junior high...I've looked through the books though, and know there is a lot of potential.

What part of Serpent's Skull didn't you care for?

Ok, but I don't see how leaning against a wall with a Light spell hovering above his head doesn't count, unless you make wizards roll that huge concentration check every time they memorize at all. :p

The alternative being telling the player they can't prepare more spells in the middle of combat...

Fast Study is incredibly powerful. I'm not sure how many wizards will pass it up. Being able to leave spell slots open and pull out anything in just a minute is huge.

Edit: On second reflection, Multimorph is also potentially huge. If the other discoveries are going to be along these lines, I think the gap between wizards and sorcerers is about to get a lot, lot wider. As will the gap between wizards and, well, almost anyone.

Edit 2: The more I think about it the more I'm sure that I'd ban Fast Study and give hard thought at banning Multimorph. Hopefully this isn't a sign of more to come.

Unless I'm missing something a wizard without this ability can do what you're talking about in fifteen minutes...with the ability in one minute. I don't see that difference as huge, but bear in mind, as a GM I would rule that a wizard leaning up against the dungeon wall in the middle of combat to take a minute and study his spell book would very very likely be wasting his time (as in, make a concentration check, DC 20 plus double the spell level). Am I missing something?

If you go the route of Society modules, the Devil We Know series (four of them if I remember right) I can recommend, and there is one society module that takes place in Facoln's Hollow (same place Hollow's Last Hope takes place in).

As for d20pro...click

Serpent's Skull is definitely a path with good replay value. On that note, Carrion Crown would likely go well with your play style. When I played Ravenloft (an older horror setting, in case you're not familiar) we rarely ever used a combat mat. Course, combat was kinda rare to begin with, at least in the traditional sense...

Maybe I'm not understanding things...Carrion Crown has about four more months left, one adventure per month, first two are already out. If you mean how long it will take to play...well, then I fully understand. I'd like to say most APs take the same amount of time, but when we did RotRl the first book took four or five sessions (we play ALL day though, 8-12 hours), where the first book in CC could be done probably in one, maybe two of our sessions. As you said, you might play in them, so I won't give out any more spoilers than I already have, but I will say it's very easy to jump from the intro to the last dungeon in Haunting of Harrowstone.

As for running APs multiple times, I think it's a good idea. I convert everything, weather it needs updated or not...and a lot of the time when I'm redoing an NPC, I'll get two or three different ideas on how to make them. So, if I run the path different times I can use the different ideas.

If Skype and playing online is even a tentative option, I would look into d20pro.com. It's a program that sets up what's called a virtual table top. So you load a map, plop down markers for the PCs/NPCs/monsters, and can start playing. It costs money (30 bucks US), and takes some getting used to, but once you get a handle on it I think it will be well worth it. Plus there's the whole part where you can play with friends who don't live near by. If your interested I can blather on a little more about it, haven't used it to game yet, but I've been monkeying around with it for about a month and learned some stuff.

I'll second Hollow's Last Hope. Along with the rest of the Darkmoon Vale adventures. They have some edginess inherent in them, though it's easily watered down to taste.

Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with CoT or all of it's bad press to give much advice. I'm hoping to get the rest of it over this year, though it's not terribly high on the list of priorities...

Carrion Crown will be six adventures, as are all of the APs...though it not being finished is something I can see being an issue. I wouldn't personally run an AP until it was done, I'd read through the whole thing at least twice, and made a number of notes...though I'm something of a perfectionist as well, just in different avenues.

As for things being too "heavy", I can understand the reluctance. If I were DMing for my nephews (one's your sisters age, the other is a little younger), I would be pretty careful about what themes I used. Do remember though, that as GM, you are the filter she will see the world through. So no matter how graphic a given adventure might be, she only sees, hears, smells, experiences what you tell her she does. In my typical Age of Worms campaign the setting is as dark and horrible as I can make it, with everyone a drug addict, sexual deviant, or corrupt in some other way...but that's with a group of college kids as the players. If it were my nephews as the players, I would run the same campaign, same adventures, same NPCs, but with a much thicker filter.

Definitely want a healer in there. I've heard archer paladins work out well. A druid can do alright too, as the druid themselves uses her spells to heal, while her companion can go on a rampage and act as front line fighter. If you have access to the Advanced Player's Guide the summoner class can do this as well, though it's a little tricky, but I think would be more effective after you got a handle on it.

LOL...Nice. I think you handled that exceptionally well. It's funny thinking about it possibly happening in my campaign...I changed Ironbriar around a little, very much emphasizing the creepy serial killer aspect. I'm thinking having a deranged murderer fall hopelessly in love with you might not be such a good thing down the line..."Yes my dear, I've brought you to this ritual murder for two reasons. First, so that we might share in the taking of a life together, and further entwine our souls upon the path Father Skinsaw has set for us. Second, to remove these three distracting influences who have tried not only to come between us, but stop us from furthering the path. Now, watch as I prove my love for you with this razor..."

I don't think any of the paths "aren't any good", I think it's a matter of which appeals to whom. Council of Thieves and Second Darkness both get a lot of bad press, but from what I've seen (I own all of SD and the first few adventures of CoT) they're just quirky...where Kingmaker is one of the crowd favorites, and I'm right there with you in that it looks very uninteresting.

A lot of conversion work can be found online, especially for the first half of Rise of the Runelord. It does involve hunting it all down, and figuring out which version you want to use. I'm an insomniac, so at night while I can't sleep I go through and do my own conversions, which works, cuz I don't have a stable group, so there's no time limit.

Any of the paths is probably going to need a little work, as there's likely something you'll see that you think could be better, or could be tweaked to work out smoother with your group. That's a lot of the fun of being the GM, at least in my opinion.

Serpent's Skull seems like a good possibility, what are your thoughts on Carrion Crown?

Thod...things are a little less hectic, and our computer issues should be done and over. Would Nym be welcome back?

Arachne...one player and a couple NPCs should be fine for most published adventures. Part of it will be what class and build everyone is, as well as how you plan on doing attributes.

Another idea, instead of her running a single player, what about her playing a whole adventuring party?

Over the years a lot of RPG stuff has bounced back and forth between using she or he exclusively. There is nothing against making male witches, just as there is nothing against making male fighters (classically speaking...)

For the longest time we did individual, then during RotRl I decided to level people up at appropriate times. When I ran AoW I gave everyone the same experience.

I think for me as a DM I liked the "level when appropriate" the most, as it takes away some of the "this has to be a combat encounter, otherwise we don't get any XP...look, a dog, KILL IT FOR THE XP!" issues that crop up from time to time. As a player I think it would bug me though, being that I spent so many years playing second ed, with individual awards, and class awards, and all that...

Incantatrix? This sounds familiar...what book was it in?

Erik Mona wrote:

if Nick Logue wants to brave his creditors

???

Do a search for his name and Sinister Adventures, read the last few pages. It's kinda a long story, and definitely a sad one.

As for the real topic...I own Shore to Sea and Godsmouth Heresy, both are very good in my opinion, with a lot of flavor. I can kinda see Godsmouth being labeled dungeon crawl...but at the same time, you can reduce any story, no matter how interesting, to one of seven (or three) plots...

Levity always being so well accepted on the net...I have something to share...

A few years ago, me and a friend are working on characters for a new campaign, he making an aasathi cleric of Mormo (race and god from WW's d20 setting). About half way through he stopped and looked up absolutely distraught...and asks me "if I worship Mormo, does that mean I have to be a mormon?"

The only method I've seen is the DM had plenty of dwarven forge terrain and miniatures, and would set everything up then take pics and post them on some sort of online album. I'm sure there's better ways, but it's what I've seen...

I can't really blame you for nixing the idea...though I think it could make for something interesting, depending on how much you trust the player in question. Something along the lines of an offshoot of the faction, or maybe the group of Whispering Way members mentioned in the AP are lead by someone who has enemies within the organization...so one of those enemies sends his own agent (the PC) to infiltrate a group of adventurers and play havoc with the other group's plans...

hmmm...*off to go scrible this stuff down in the notes for the fan fic I'm writing for CC*

Adult skulls grow (in a manner) until age 70 something...Obviously not as much as a childs, but things are still "fluid".

As for killing them...there's a couple different ways to raise the dead in this particular game...

The point of human lifespan is a good one...so I believe an elf child is in order.

I do like the idea of a something placed in the person instead...though I have a hard time coming up with a way for it to be nonremovable without using the "I'm the DM" excuse. Which at the end of the day is perfectly fine, I would just rather be able to say "after checking it out, you realize the spell XXX was cast on the item...so no matter what you do to remove it the hosts soul is instantly and irrevocably devoured." Though I guess, in truth the idea isn't to make a completely invulnerable lich...it's to make an interesting villian for the party to interact with.

I wish I had some experience to share on hero points, but the one campaign I've had a chance to use them in no one showed the sleightest interest in them (no one read through the rules, and only one or two of the players even knew we were using some form of hero point, even after I spelled it all out in the primer before we started) until one character nearly died. Harrow points look very cool, but haven't had a chance to play sense they came out.

You'll probably be fine using both, especialy as it's my understanding harrow points aren't a guarentied resource.

As for factions, there is an organization called the Esotric Order of the Palatine Eye (or something like that) that you could write up faction rules for. Other than that...there is the Whispering Way...

I think adding elements from Skinsaw would work well, though it does travel away from Foxglove mannor. The rest could probably be incorporated if you don't mind a bit of work with the logic conversion.

What I've been thinking about doing (or rather having a lich do...) is open up a small child, and use their skull as the phylactery...so in order to destroy it, you need to destroy the child. That's assuming someone even figures it out in the first place.

Just got my copy a minute ago, so I'll just go through and read it myself. Guess what I meant was how much time is spent with the PCs in a court room. I'm definately cool with some fantasy CSI action...I'm just thinking a whole adventure of playing Jack McCoy could get a little old a little quick. Thanks for the answers though.

To those who have their copy *grumble grumble, sick of seeing the word "pending"* how much of a role does the trial play? Is it a manditory part or is it presented as an optional encounter?

I think the way you explain necrophillia to a ten year old is thus...
"It's a form of sexual deviance where someone performs a sex act with a corpse. It's pretty universally considered taboo (or against the rules) by all cultures, and most people would consider someone who does it to be very crazy."

I don't understand the issue people have. Would you censor a dictionary?

Not passing any judgement here...this just got me thinking, my child is going to grow up very different than others. The idea of editing words like necrophilia out of her potential vocabulary never occurred to me...

Two dozen isn't enough for you? hmm...what do you feel is missing?

Also, doesn't EWP require a BAB of +1?

We don't usually list specific dates for when APs occur, so that GMs don't have their own campaign canon overwritten by "official" canon.

That being said, there is a default assumption that real-world years match years in Golarion, and that canon (including APs) progresses at the same rate. So since Carrion Crown was published in 2011, the "default date" for the AP is 4711, making the burning of Harrowstone Prison 50 years ago.

Again, however, those are default assumptions—in your campaign, these dates and times can be changed as you see fit.

Killer, thank you. I was very much thinking about having one of the characters (likely an elf or dwarf with the number of years we're talking) be a former inmate in Harrowstone. Not sure if I would have them know anything about the fire though...just kinda depend on how the player bit at the background bait I offered up with this.

Voomer...I would keep things as noncombat oriented as possible with this idea. For one, it enforces the fact that the PCs are the ones who need to take care of this when there isn't some scary NPC with a group of goons willing to whallop them if they turn wrong. Two, I think things such as shunning and the evil eye are much more in keeping with Ravengro's theme than a mob of pitchfork armed peasantry, one particular encounter notwithstanding. If it comes to it, then yeah, they'll hop up and light the torches...I just think it will take a lot to get them to that point.

Arazni might be a dame, but after a few millenia, who can really tell the difference?

Those with the Lichloved feat from Book of Vile Darkness...that or a physical anthropologist, bone structure and all...

As for a big scary eldritch knight lich...hmmm...this bears thinking about.

So if the question is "Are there any character concepts that can not be done with existing classes and archetypes" and your definition of character concept is "playable character concepts" I hope you see the problem.

Utgardloki...any chance you'd be willing to throw what you wrote up? I'm strongly considering adding in the akashic from Arcana Evolved. Might add the man-at-arms from Iron Heroes too.

Problem is suboptimal is highly subjective. For example, I was reading on the GiantInThePlayground site a campaign journal for Red Hand of Doom. It was ran by someone who was pretty convinced of the thought that blaster wizards are suboptimal. Well, of course the party wizard decides to go blaster. As the campaign progresses, the DM noticed the wizard was the MVP in most encounters. That particular campaign has lots of cannon fodder bad guys, so all those area effect spells were coming in pretty handy.

Not really saying Improved Familiar is all that great, but there might be a campaign out there it could work for.

Dragonchess Player...I think PC classes are more effective than NPC classes...not just combat effective. What I'm looking for is so very close to the rogue it's frustrating. Rogue tallents are good and cover a lot of the ground I want covered, and the high skill points/specific class skills work well too...then there's this class feature that sticks out like a sore thumb, having nothing to do with anything but combat. Maybe I'll just have to write up my own archtype and sell the PDF to explain what I want...

As far as commandos go...I can see where you're coming from northbrb. I think in my mind "commando" is more vague, where to you there are specific abilities that need to be there. Maybe I'll try and write that up too...hmmm...

I think if he wanted to come across as sincere he wouldn't have throw in a few jabs at Nick in an apology for making a complete arse out of himself...

Luckily I just caught all this about twenty minutes ago. I can't even imagine how pissed I'd be if I'd actually thought this was going to happen. At this point, I'm not so much angry, as just completely blown away by the level of stupidity...it's like watching someone point a loaded gun at their foot, take the safety off, pull the triger...and then put a youtube video up about "I just can't believe this turned into what it did."

I don't know, maybe he was trying to take some of the heat off Nick...give everyone someone else to hate...

This is a topic that comes up a lot, so if you get some snarky replies, don't take it personal.

I don't recall the exact responce that is generally given from the powers that be...but I think it's something along the lines of "we're more concerned with producing new content than revisiting older stuff, though we are giving it serious thought." In other words, maybe some day, but you might not want to hold your breath.

There have been a number of good conversions online, both here and other sites. But yeah, if you want to run the rest of the AP, you're pretty much stuck buying the PDFs, or paying collector type prices on ebay.

I think a unified lynch mob might be a little much, but a small group of towns folk who vocally protest the party going to Harrowstone ("Don't be goin' out and fidlin' with our history"..."you'll just be stirin' up more trouble if you go stumblin' around in there") Something akin to Gibs and his band of loosers in the Restlands. Possibly set things up so there is the village proper who are coming to trust the PCs, and then there is a small group of rable whipped up by Gibbs who don't like the newcomers.

mmm...educational...don't read this thread when I need to go pee and/or there is a sleeping baby within two feet of me...

Out of curiosity, what type of commando are you trying to make? I would think ranger, ranger/fighter, ranger/rogue would work for most of what I would want out of a commando...

What irks me the most is sneak attack being a rogue's main class feature...In my mind the rogue as presented is the assassin core class, and the thief was dropped.

Perhaps I'm dence, but I can't seem to find out how long ago the prison burned. I saw the year it burned, but I don't have a clue what the current year is, and was actually under the impression that was very up to the DM to decide...

I get that this is likely going to result in someone telling me there is no set "when it happened", but the way it's presented I'm unsure enough to go ahead and ask.

If it turns out that it's completely up in the air...what are people thinking? Five years? Ten? A generation?

For the most part I think things are well covered, either through archtypes or multiclassing (though sometimes multiclassing produces some very subpar results). I would like to see an inventor type character who isn't magic based...though problems with this have more to do with the system as a whole rather than just a lack of it being out there as a class.

An archtype I would like to see would be a rogue variant that removes sneak attack all together in favor of a skill based mechanic. Something very noncombative. It irks me that if I design some scheming politician NPC he almost always either ends up as a bard or a rogue...neither of which actually fits (yes, I know what the expert and aristocrat classes are, and if I were making someone who warranted NPC classes I would use those).