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This is the campaign journal thread for Rob McCreary's "Skull & Shackles" campaign, a game he started up here at the office. The game happens more or less every other Friday after work—we've got a session this evening, in fact! Several of us are keeping campaign journals, so you'll be able to see different viewpoints from the different characters.

And it should go without saying: ARRRH! THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD! Don't read this campaign journal if you want the contents of the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path to be a surprise!

The cast of characters:

Sasha Dracktus—female human rogue
Slivikin—male human cleric of Besmara
Madrid—female undine sorcerer
Klarg—male half-orc fighter

So... I just did the preliminary stats for the revised Xanesha for the Rise of the Runelords hardcover, updating this much-beloved NPC to the Pathfinder rules while toning her down quite a bit from her over-the-top incarnation in the original adventure. So I thought as a quick preview for folks... I'd throw her stats up on these boards!

Enjoy! Hope she's still mean, but not as mean as she used to be! (I'm thinking she MIGHT still be too powerful... but that there might be some new ways you can do things before in the adventure to prep yourself against her...)

Ahoy, ye land-lubbers and scallywags!

Just a quick heads up... we've settled on the final AP title for this outing:

"Skull and Shackles" Adventure Path!

Thanks to everyone for their feedback on the 99% (but not 100%) name for this pirate-filled AP, and I'm pleased that we've got a name for this AP that not only has no hits on Google for previous products, but ALSO has an obviously Golarion feel to it (since the flag for the Shackles is the skull and shackles, after all).

So! Folks can redirect their energy now from the name of the AP to furious predictions and requests for what kind of things they'd like to see us cover in the AP.

Woo hoo! It's me!

This thread's for you, Alexander! HAVE AT IT! :-)

Now that I've got your attention...

When we started Pathfinder several years ago, one thing that folks really really wanted us to do was to provide statistics for our various iconic characters. We've been doing that every month since the first Pathfinder module and the first Adventure Path as a result, using the last page of every module or pages 90–91 of every Pathfinder AP for that very reason.

What do folks think about us no longer doing this? Instead, the pages currently taken up by pregenerated iconics would be absorbed into the body of each book (likely adding a page or two of content to the adventure as a general rule). Stats for Merisiel and Sajan and Lini are already all over the place, and as we're gearing up for our EIGHTH adventure path, I'm starting to wonder if the usefulness of those pages has outstayed its welcome.

So... let me know! Would removing the pregenerated characters from our Adventure Paths and modules break your heart? Would replacing these pages with more precious words of adventure fill you with joy? Let us know!

This is the campaign journal thread for Rob McCreary's "Kingmaker: Iobaria" campaign, a game he started up here at the office. And since I'm overly excited about actually starting a new game as a player with a brand-new first level character for the first time since Erik's permanently-on-hiatus (sad!) Age of Worms campaign, I'll be (hopefully) posting lots of campaign journal entries as my Desna-worshiping, 9-fingered character, Echo Sidra!

The full cast of characters:

Bribri—elf witch
Derrith—human fighter
Echo Sidra—human cleric of Desna
Magda—elf rogue
Markus—half-orc monk
Natasya—human fighter
Z—halfling druid

Use this thread to ask questions about the mass combat rules presented in Pathfinder Adventure Path #35. I'll do my best to answer them in a timely manner.

To kick things off, let me clear up a little bit of confusion regarding "Combat Value" (mentioned in the hp rules on page 55) and "CR."

All mentions of "Combat Value" should actually refer to "CR." Combat Value was an early number we used to represent an army's power, and we decided to standardize that terminology to match "Challenge Rating (aka CR)" but missed making the change in the hp rules on page 55, alas.

Also, we're eating his peanut butter. Because he left it all unguarded and stuff.

So; as part of the revision work I'm doing on the Campaign Setting hardcover, I'm going to be including a list of sample names for coins in various nations in the Inner Sea—this is something that a lot of folks have asked about on these boards, and while it's something that we've traditionally shied away from, I'd like to include a little bit about it in the core book—because you demanded it! :-)

I have these strange proto-memories that we've already printed names for coins in some regions, but I'm having a hard time finding those citations in various Pathfinder Chronicles products. Which, of course, makes me suspect that we DID come up with some of these types of names but they just never got into print.

So, if anyone out there on the boards knows about a place where we've definitively listed names for coins in anywhere in Golarion, here's your chance to help! Post the names and what product they're from (and where that info appears in the product) and help me put the Trade and Commerce pages of the revised book to bed! :-)

SO!

In the pursuit of publishing an Adventure Path that goes from 1st to about 18th level, we were going pretty well. In parts 1 through 4 of Kingmaker, your PCs are pretty likely to earn 3 levels each.

But that's dropping to 2 levels in part 5's "War of the River Kings." Why's that? Because the mass combat rules not only took up about 5 pages of content, but also because mass combat elements ended up not being as high XP rewards as standard play. This was a conscious decision, because while I wanted there to be an element of mass combat in Kingmaker, I didn't want it to be the focus, since the mass combat rules are super simple and fast but they're not really all that robust like the core game's rules for combat. And because mass combat kind of puts the PCs on the sidelines. It's better for adventure paths to focus on the PCs, after all... so XP gained from mass combat is a bit low.

What does this mean?

Not much, for fans of high level play, fortunately. While it does mean that the last adventure, "Sound of a Thousand Screams," will assume PCs start at 15th level, I still expect this last adventure to bring PCs up 3 levels. Your PCs will probably be 17th level by the end of the AP (I'll know for sure late this evening or sometime tomorrow, depending on when I finish developing the adventure), which is still pretty high-level.

Just keeping everyone up-to-date, since I know level ranges are important to lots of GMs.

I apologize in advance for the AC 48 monster I just put into "Sound of a Thousand Screams."

The treasure's worth it though.

And yes, I'm a little punchy. It's after midnight at Paizo. I think that's when the blood-drinking ghosts come out of the windows.

Okay! Let's use this thread to ask questions and get rulings for building kingdoms and cities using the rules in Pathfinder Adventure Path #32. These rules could impact more than just "Rivers Run Red," so it deserves its own sticky thread.

I'm addicted. It took several years, but this show is awesome. I'm just glad it's not on opposite "Lost" or I'd have to do something CRAZY.

I'm curious!

What's your FAVORITE prestige class that we've published in a Pathfinder product for Golarion. The prestige classes in the Core Rulebook don't count! And you can only pick one!

In the upcoming Kingmaker Adventure Path, the PCs get put in charge of a kingdom. But there can be only one King, and there's usually 4 to 6 players in a group. As a result, Pathfinder Adventure Path volume #32 will present a dozen or so roles for player characters to assume to help rule the nation. One of those roles will be King/Queen. The others? I've got 11 more picked out, hopefully so that they'll give ANY PC a couple of attractive options to take up the role of.

But I might be forgetting some.

So! Use this thread to let me know what your favorite character's DREAM JOB would be if he were part of the leadership of a kingdom!

I thought I'd create this thread to find out what everyone's favorite level to play and adventure are at! Please drop in a post here and answer the following questions if you're interested:

1) What's your favorite experience level?

2) Why is that your favorite experience level?

3) What's your favorite adventure, and what level was it for? Why is it your favorite adventure?

Hi there, all!

So in several of our products, we mention weird new monsters that don't yet have stat blocks. In some cases, like the linnorms from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, these monsters might have stats from closed-content d20 sources, while in others, like the d'ziriaks of the Shadow Plane in "The Great Beyond" have no stats at all yet.

I want to eventually make sure that all of these monsters have stat blocks in some place... but before I start to address that, I need to collect them all up.

SO! If there's a statless monster from ANY Pathfinder product you'd like to see stats for, post it here! When you do, please post the monster's name, the book it is mentioned in, and the page number it appears on in that book.

Thanks for the help, all!

So check this out.

I just finished statting up the big bad end boss of "Legacy of Fire." As I did, I realized that this stat block (a CR 17 wish-fueled menace) is very likely to be the LAST 3.5 stat block I ever have to build/develop. It's all PF RPG statblocks from here on out.

Made me a little teary-eyed, it did.

So, after several false starts, I finally got my first Pathfinder RPG game off the ground earlier this evening after work... the one I mentioned back in my foreword in Pathfinder #18, for those who first heard of it there. This campaign is, in theory, going to serve two purposes: it gets us in the Editorial Pit at Paizo playing our game and learning our rules, and it lets me get to talk in a funny goblin voice now and then.

All we've done so far is create characters; the players are Erik Mona, Sean Reynolds, James Sutter, Wes Schneider, Chris Carey, and Jason Bulmahn. Of course, Jason didn't show up for this first game, because he apparently had some BETTER game to go to tonight, but he only missed out on character creation so he's not behind in XP.

Yet.

Anyway, I'm creating this thread to give the players somewhere to post journals, record funny quotes, and so forth and so on. I'll post more about the game now and then as well... but so far, there's nothing to report on yet...

...except that a pretty interesting group of heretics, cryptozoologists, violent crusaders, undying thugs, and creepy woodsfolk just walked into Sandpoint 3 years after the big goblin raid at the Swallowtail Festival.

Wonder what sort of trouble they'll stir up?

So, let us assume that there will be dinosaurs in the Pathfinder Bestiary. A relatively safe assumption, since every edition of the game's core monster book has had them since 1st edition, yes?

So, working on that assumption, I would love to hear folks answer the following questions:

1) How many dinosaurs is the right amount to do a good show of it?

2) What four dinosaurs would you hope to see in the book more than any other?

3) How important is it to maintain all five dinosaurs from the MM? Can we get away with just one dromaeosaurid (probably the deinonychus), with the assumption that one can make a megaraptor by simply advancing the deinonychus?

4) If #3 above is true, would it better to replace the deinonychus with the velociraptor? Velociraptor is more well-known these days, and it's easy enough to say that a velociraptor advanced up one size category is a deinonychus.

5) Dinosaurs don't have to be boring. They don't have to simply be hit points and a bite attack. Currently living animals have a wide range of biodiversity, with special attacks like poison, constriction, electricity generation, stunning attacks, ranged attacks (like tarantulas flicking poison hairs, archerfish spitting balls of water, or cobras spitting poison), and the like. Would it be too strange to give some dinosaurs a bit more flavor by giving them attacks that aren't necessarily supported by the fossil record?

6) Is there anything in particular with how dinosaurs have been stattud up in the game before that rubs you the wrong way that you'd like to see changed?

So, over the next couple of days, I'll be finishing off the writing and development for Into the Darklands. The book is mostly written, but there's still some stuff left to go in there. I'm trying to hit all of the deep underground tropes in there, not just drow and Lovecraft stuff and Journey to the Center of the Earth stuff and morlock stuff. I'm pretty sure that I've got most of the major bases covered, but as the time to turn it over to art for layout nears, I'm getting paranoid that I'm leaving something out.

SO! Is there anything that you think absolutely has to be in a book that talks about what's going on in the deep underground world in a fantasy setting? (Keep in mind that kuo-toa, mind flayers, and umber hulks are all closed content that we can't use...)

SO!

We're in the home stretch here with the Pathfinder Campaign Setting hardcover. I'm currently working on the pronunciation guide that's going into the appendix, and there's one word in particular that is a little vexing to me...

Kostchtchie.

I know how I say it. But I'm having a hell of a time, for some reason, finding a pronunciation online.

But what about everyone else?

SO! By now, folk have seen the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide and the Curse of the Crimson Throne Player's Guide. Here at Paizo, we're gearing up to start work on the Second Darkness Player's Guide (which is, in fact, the first Pathfinder Companion). We've got more room in this one than the previous two...

Which brings me to this question. Is there anything that you feel was missing in the first two Adventure Path Player's Guides we've done so far? Anything we did include that you felt we gave the short-shift to and should expand upon? Anything you think we did include that we SHOULDN'T have included?

Ran another installment of Savage Tide for my D&D group today. They're in the middle of "Serpents of Scuttlecove," and the party's barbarian/druid who has the Destructive Rage feat single handedly tore down and knocked over the Birdcage, taking out a city block in the process and having to spend a Hero Card to avoid being crushed by the collapsing building (which wouldn't have killed her, but it WOULD have broken her gargoyle crown).

It was terribly amusing.

The concept of a fungus that turns a living creature into a sloppy fungus-like monster is nothing new for the game... things like vegepygmies and yellow musk creeper zombies come to mind (even though a yellow musk creeper isn't technically a fungus...)...

SO! What about other, more obscure monsters from d20 sources who are fungus monsters? What's your favorite?

The rusalka's a water-based fey, and I find myself in need of one. For Pathfinder, not in real life. I know of the version that appeared in Frostburn, the version that appeared in Polyhedron, and the version that appeared in Dragon, but all of these, unfortunately, aren't open content.

I'd rather not develop a brand-new d20 version of them for the adventure (since this volume of Pathfinder's already WAY FULL UP on new monsters). I suppose I could use the tome of horrors' nereid, or throw a template onto a nymph, but I kind of need something that's also immune to cold since this critter's showing up in a high-mountain lake.

So... does anyone know of any other open d20 incarnation of this elusive water-based fey?

Golarion's dragons do indeed follow the standard dragon alignments. Pathfinder 4 has a large chapter all about Golarion's dragons, in fact. But yeah; the five chromatics and the five metallics function in Golarion the same way the do in most campaigns.

Ok then. We'll be running a big index of all the Dungeon adventures (and campaign workbooks, and maps of mystery, and critical threats, etc. etc.) in Dungeon #150. Now... I know how I'd like to see the index look, but it's not just for me. SO!

What would you want a Dungeon Index to look like? Do you want the index sorted by edition? Do you want to have seperate headers for specific campaign settings? Do you want to have all the Willie Walsh adventures grouped in one place?

Make your voice heard!

And here's part two! What's the most interesting and exciting and memorable Dungeon location ever?

So then! Here's your chance to stand up for your favorite bad guy! Who is your favorite villian from Dungeon? Stand up and be heard!

SO! You may remember my call for people to list out their favorite Dungeon magazine adventure sites a while back. I called that "STAGE ONE" of my secret project. This is STAGE TWO.

Who/what are your favorite villians who've appeared in Dungeon magazine?

Hi everyone! Just wanted to step in and welcome you to these shiny new messageboards. I’ll be reading through here pretty regularly (usually when I'm burnt out on hammering out stat blocks for the latest Adventure Path installment), so if anyone has any questions about Pathfinder, feel free to post away. Fair Warning: Today’s a pretty crazy busy day here at Paizo, so I might not have a chance to post much beyond this message here for a bit, but once things calm down I’ll be around. Until then, I'll just be watching. And listening. Like some sort of ghost haunting the internets.

Anyway, until then, check out Pathfinder’s new homepage here at paizo.com for more details.

So you’d think that building Adventure Paths would get easier in time, but no, as it turns out, it doesn’t. Fortunately, it doesn’t get any less fun! As with Age of Worms and Savage Tide, I’ve taken all that I learned in the crafting of previous Paizo Adventure Paths and applied them to the new campaign. For example; I’ll make sure that rogues have something to do in the final battle this time around (Kyuss was indeed a bit unfair to them, I suppose). And as awesome as demon lords are, the main bad guy in Rise of the Runelords is a completely home-grown (as in Material Plane native) menace. And no major NPCs whose motivations are unclear and who take 3 Adventure Paths before we get her statted up (AKA: Celeste WILL have a full stat block before Savage Tide is over!).

There’ll still probably be an animated statue in the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path somewhere along the way, though. Those guys are hard to quit cold turkey.

I've been an avid reader of Dungeon since issue #1, and there are certain locations that have stuck in my mind over the years as more memorable than others. The city of Cauldron, the Elephant Graveyard, and Granite Mountain Prison all jump immediately to my mind. What about you? What is your favorite adventure site that's appeared in an adventure in Dungeon? I'd like to come up with as large a list of cool adventure sites as possible, so let's hear your nominations!

AKA: Gwoemul

Just got back from seeing The Host and let me just say this: it's not only one of the best monster movies I've seen in a long time, it's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. SO: Anyone out there who liked Jaws or Tremors, stay on the lookout for this one. It's in limited release right now here in the USA; hopefully it'll be expanding to a wider release so more folk can check it out.

Hey everyone!

We're building up issue #139 right now, which includes setting up a letters page. And BEHOLD! Our letters folder is tragically empty! So here's your big chance... what about issue #136 did you really like. Or alternately, what did you hate? Got any questions about the Savage Tide Adventure Path (which begins in this issue!)? Do you have any questions about Dungeon in general? Ask away!