Kalridian's page

You could try to tweak the rules for the coup de grace (scroll down to find it). That would involve some houseruling 'though, since a target normally needs to be helpless to receive a coup de grace.

Otherwise any kind of magical paralys and sleep works quite well.

I had such a moment in the last session of my warhammer 40k only war game.

My players were sent to find and investigate an enemy camp, find out everything about it and then report back to the main assault force that would arrive within 3 days, after they had reported the location of the enemy camp. While they were watching the camp and had found out that it contained about 120 enemy foot-soldiers and some elite troops (a lot more than anticipated by their commander), they managed to get caught by one of the outposts of said camp. They killed him, before he could get an alarm of, but of course they knew that with the next change of guard shifts in 6 hours (they knew the schedule by then) the element of surprise would be gone and then their attack team would have no chance to overtake the enemy, while they where alert.
At this point, i figured they would report back to their sergeant and have him call of the attack.

They did not. They decided, between the 6 of them, to attack the camp on their own. At first I thought they were crazy, but then the sniper/scout/demolitions guy of the crew did the most amazing chain of stealth and demolitions tests, to rig the whole enemy camp with explosives from their own storage. After that they managed to silently snipe the guards in the heavy gun emplacements on both ends of the camp, without ever alerting anybody to their presence (iz was night)
Once they had secured the heavy machine guns, they triggered all their explosives and in the most epic battle I have yet seen in any P&P round, managed to kill all enemy survivors, while loosing only one of their own. After that, i was sitting there, lookong at them and was like "You did't seriously just pull this off..."

If you take away all monster feats, you REALLY gimp the challenge of some. All flying enemys with flyby attack are being considerably nerfed for example, since they need to stay in range after their attack and probably eat a full attack from whatever they were attacking. Not a good idead Imho.
And what about hostile NPCs? Do they get to use their feats? If not, you can completely forget using them to any effect...

Taking all feats away from all monsters really takes away a lot from the game, since the monsers become way more similar to each other.

Monsters using feats does not really slow down the combat, it's just more prep work for the GM.

Simple rule at my table:

The monsters work the way I play them. I try to be as well prepared as possible, but of course I make mistakes from time to time. We just assume that the negative and positive mistakes cancel each other out on the long run.

As for Monster Feats the Summoner is trying to use, another rule on my table is: If you want to use any ability/feat/spell, you have to know exactly how it works and if you don't you check the details BEFORE your turn.

The diagonal rule is a little illogical in terms of distance traveled, but should not break the game in any way I am aware of.

EDIT: Tag on that bit about alignment restriction (whatever the character's is), and we can take out another 30%. I'm not sure which order you apply these in, but we could be looking at a price as low as 15120. That should be a lot more budget conscious.

I'm not certain if there is an official ruling on this, but i'm pretty sure that the price reduction via alignment or race restrictions is only meant to be applied to sale value, not to crafting price. It Uses the same "ingredients" after all, it's just less valuable on the free market because there are less potenital buyers.

I think the undead blooded necromancer gets an ability to be seen as one of their own by mindless undead, so giving it to PCs without that bloodline would at least require a major effort on their side. By RAW, i don't think there's anything that even keeps unintelligent undead from attacking each other...

Thanks guys, so i guess this will not be an option for them, if the first of them has to start holding his breath after 12 Minutes...
I'll just allow them to improvise, I guess. Just want to make the whole thing a challenge, without outright saying "You, sorcerer. You're dead."
I've been handwaving way to much overland travel lately and the players are getting careless about it. Last time no one of them even mentioned packing supplies...

Two things:
- Clarify "defeat". Does it mean "drop unconscious" or "drop unconscious and then kill by nonlethal damage becoming lethal" or "beat until they give up"
- Make it equal or higher that your CR. I know that's probably the intention anyway, but the way it's right now it's kind of weird.

Title says it. I want to confront my players with a greater duststorm in the middle of the desert and I want to know how many rounds they have to stay on their feet and not choke to death on the sand to have their tents up and be safe in them.

The party I GM for has been slowly buying the houses around the tavern they live in (which belongs to them by now, too) and turning the whole street block into their playground, with a climbing parcour, a sparring ground, stables and a pool that they fill with their decanter of endless water.

I don't see how this is overpowering. They spend the actions of two characters AND a certain amount of gold EVERY ROUND to achieve this. This has to get really pricey after a while... (+ the bard is standing right there in combat. Diesn't he even trigger an Aoo every time he casts the spell into the weapon? And since the paladin isn't doing the spellcasting himself and is busy all round waving around his weapon, I would probably include some kind of roll to see if the bard even manages to touch the sword to refill it, but that is houseruling of course.

Did this with the sorcerer in my game, no balance problems so far. The versatility of the prepared casters makes up for it in my eyes. Never underestimate the power of a wizard who knows what he'll be fighting...

@ Roberta: there is an equivalent to the pearls of power for sorcerers. It costs twice as much though. Cant remember the name at the moment.

No, actually it doesn't sound completely reasonable to me. Even if we assume that the druid weirdly oscillates all over his 5ft square, which we have to do for the sake of PF simplicity, while he is earth gliding, there CAN be something else where he is, namely earth and stone. (earth elementals don't displace the material they glide through) Since the earth and stone is also all over the square, an attacker can only hit the druid when he is at one specific end of the square, not all the time. How you want to represent that in your rules is up to you, but ignoring it is pretty weird I think.
I'd probably go as far as saying that the creature outside the wall doesn't get an attack at all, as long as the druid doesn't make a melee attack or maneuver that triggers an aoo. The way around it for the creature would be to ready an action for whenever the druid comes out of the wall to strike. Just my homerules of course.

Thanks, so I had it right. One of my players complained/asked last sessions, because he knew the entry for that specific monster and insisted that it could only use the Spells like a sorcerer.

Up until recently I was always sure on how to play this, but last session one of my players made me uncertain. If a creatures SLA-entry looks, for example like this:

At will: greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), light, major image (DC 20)

3/day: greater dispel magic, mirage arcana (DC 20), rainbow pattern (DC 22), spell turning, sunbeam, wall of force

1/day: scintillating pattern (DC 25), screen (DC 25), symbol of insanity (DC 25)

How many castings of any spell does it get?
One each of the 1/day spells or only one casting of ONE of them per day?
Same for the 3/day entry.

Edit: spelling.

Now I want to make an NPC waterelemental who collects shiny fishes inside himself... Bonus points if he has wizard levels and one of the fishes is his familiar. ^^

Kalridian wrote:

Note: This is only my interpretation of the RAW I know, with the gaps filled by houseruling.

If the Pc can make the acrobatics check for high jump do a 5ft cube from where he can legally grapple the creature, I would just let him roll CMB and if he beats the monsters CMD, they both become grappled.

As long, as the Char does not excede the Light load of the monster, they would remain flying, (would maybe houserule a malus to the grapplers CMB because he does not only have to maintain the grapple but also support his own weight)
I Would also not allow this, if the total weight of the character with gear is above his overhead lifting capacity, because he wouldn't be able to hold on to the creature. This is fairly improbable though, if he is not heavily encumbered.

If the weight of the grappler excedes the light load of the creature and thus makes it unable to fly, I would have it go down.
I'd probably rule that it glides down without harm to grappler or monster, as long as the grappler falls into medium encumberance, if he falls into heavy, they would crash down with appropriate falling damage for both.

While I would probably allow this as a houserule, raw it wouldn't work without spring attack.

Jumping is part of a move action. You can't take your standard action during a move action. You have to do it before or after and your movement would end on the ground. The feat Spring Attack would let you do it, but the feat is generally not good.

I know this is kind of a necro, but wouldn't only the jump up be movement, the grapple attempt at the end of the turn and the way back down just be passive falling?

Depends on the point buy you used (if any) or the stats your players rolled. If they rolled for stats, use this point buy claculator to find out what point buy equivalent they are.) CR assumes a party of 4 with 15 point buy. So if you have one additional player and probably a higher point buy (since most people seem to do that), you should adjust the APL by +1 and treat them as if the APL was 6.
A challenging CR is APL+1, so your CR should be either 6 if you have a low point buy or 7 if it's high.
Also remember to use multiple enemys most of the time, since with 5 full round actions (+ any eventual familliars, mounts and companions)
the party would probably overwhelm a single opponent. Or said single opponent would surprise-kill one or two players with good rolls.

RotRL = Rise of the Rune Lords

Not necessarily. Full casters are more powerful if they can nova every fight and the get to rest, but if you force them to stretch their resources, the whack-stuff-with-a-pointy-stick-guy suddenly becomes the hero of the day.

@ Icyshadow:

I always have trouble imagining how you actually manage to play a satisfying, peaceful game of Pathfinder that your gm also enjoys and that is not "we do everything icyshadow wants, because otherwise he'll start ranting about how I'm an incompetent gm for investing the huge amount of prep time in a way that also incorporates MY view of how things should be"...

As far as I know, Paizo adventure paths and NPCs are made based on medium exp progression. If you use fast progression then yes, you will have to add some loot.

Just pay double to make the items slotless, problem solved. If you have a crafter on your team, you still pay only market price.

Edit: Or pay 150% to add the blinkback-option to your normal belt-of-whatever.

I am the GM and my Sylvan Elemental(Air)Sorcerer asked if he could learn control winds even though it is not normaly on his spell list. Since it fits very well thematically, I will probably allow it.
I just want to be ready to make a ruling, when he comes up with the alter + control combination sooner or later.
It seems rather situational, since he would need a strong wind to do it and quite a long time, therefore I am torn if I shlould allow it or not. Control winds wil definitely NOT stack with itself at my table, having an all-obliterating tornado at your command as a tenth level character for the cost of two level 5 slots is way too much.
Control weather and control winds in combination are fine because of the higher level and the onset period for control weather.

And I am aware that alter winds says that it doesn't work on magical winds, but if one were to cast alter winds first on a natural wind and THEN control that wind via control winds, which does not state that the controlled wind has to be non-magical, by RAW a compelling argument could be made for it to work. I just wanted a few opinions on the matter before I have to make my ruling. The player will accept any ruling I make, I just want to avoid being unfair to him.

Alter winds says, it only affects natural winds, but control winds has no such limitation. So if a 10th level druid were to cast alter winds, to increase a strong wind (which shouldn't be too uncommon) to severe wind, could he then use this severe wind as a basis to reach a tornado force wind under his control via control winds? If yes, this seems a pretty powerful combination.

I meant to write "its", but hey, assume away. This is the internets. EVERYTHING can be futa...

If it's an NPC, why not use ye olde GM-plotmagic? Maybe he had a reduce person cast on him in a place that strongly resonates with transmutaion magic or in a wild magic zone or was cursed/blessed by a fey or whatever. Might even make for a nice plothook to help him find a cure.

As far as i've seen it handled, yes. The Succubus can sit comfortably in his underworldly home and suggest the hell out of you.

If a malus to hit is of no concern for you, you could make your weapon large for bigger damage dice.

The new char joining should probably be explained in their backstory. It often helps if the players are willing to start playing existing NPCs that are not crucial to the plot but have a motivation to help as PCs.

If they go off to do other things, stuff keeps happening. All things that are not specifically triggered by the PCs presence WILL happen, no matter if the PCs are there or not. I don't know the storyline for RotRl, but if they decide to go do other stuff, the original events should probably just keep happening and maybe they hear about them via a messenger asking for help or something and have to deal with the consequences. It's a living, breathing world.

I would probably allow the player to just use the stats for short swords and change the damagetype to slashing. I would allow them as a martial weapon with just the short sword stats. If the player wants the extra properties (monk, distracting) he/she would have to spend the feat on the exotic prificency. 2 weapon special properties for a feat seems fair if not underpowered to me. If you're really generous, you could go with a trait, since the player will most probabls need all available feats for the two weapon fighting line.
I hate it, when a player is forced to decide between flavour and gaming power.

FIXED LINK

Looks interesting, I'll probably read over it tomorrow. Would you care to explain the new spell descriptors you have added?

Great gods of gaming... Is that the first campaign this guy is GMing? It could be partly due to your shortened way of telling things, but this sounds like insane amounts of deus-ex-railroad going on...

Do you have any way to NOT follow the quest? By for example saying "I'd like to try and find a way to lift my vampire-curse" or are you on a convenient just-enough-time-to-do-what-the-gm-wants-deadline?

Turning one character into a special snowflake and ignoring the others without agreeing on this with the players beforehand is just bad style in my eyes.

If you allow custom items, a slotless +1 to 1 skill item costs only 200gp bought, 100gp crafted. My players carry a lot of these, I flavour them as little gold coins with runes engraved in them.

If you really want to make a difference between the two colonies, make them Andoran and cheliaxan. Lots of mutual hatred there. Depending on your PCs, they would pretty wuickly decide on one colony being their friend and the other one being their enemy though, so if you plan on having the pcs work for both sides, don't do this.
If you don't have acleric on the team, I've always found the rahadoumians with their total defiance of all gods very interesting and they have conflict potential with very much every other group.

You could put it into the inner sea, between the two nations you want to have on the island. This location would give you a good reason to have many trading ships stop by on their way across the inner sea and you could bring in NPCs and cultural influences from both sides.

Maybe more on the other questions later.

If you are able/allowed to bring a laptop to the table, you could generate your char in this very helpful program and let it do most of the rolling for you. You can generate different sets of weapons and add different buffs.

This wonderful little tool allows you to even implement advanced and giant 3 times each and I've been using it to great effect and without problems. Of course you need to use a little bit of common sense with what you're doing with it, but advanced x2 works just fine. It's just a template, after all. Nobody is going to run around in the world and say "hey, that is an advanced ogre". They are going to say "damn, this ogre is tough!"
And if they meet one that is bigger and a LOT tougher(advanced 2 giant 1), where is the problem?
Works just fine.

Just stay away from incorporeals and the young template. That's a TPK-machine.

Edit: Just realised that you don't seem to be the GM, so if you want to be really cheesy-powerful, make a spellcaster advanced 3 young 1. That nets you a CR+2 that is just beyond powerful ^^

Thanks to you all for your input and special thanks to Ikonoclast, this spell is nearly exactly what i'm searching for.

what spell level would you put a spell on that did the same as the item?

Well, you have to do something that makes sense with the inability to concentrate. I haven't come up with anything outside of "Hulk smash" that fits the mechanical limitations yet, but I'm open to ideas. ;)

I have a player who flavours his barbarian rage as channeling the powers of his tribes ancestors. He sometimes talks in weird voices and has a hard time focusing on the here and now, because fragments of their memorys and personalities are messing with his head. Works pretty well and makes for a very different concept from RAAAH SMASH!

As long as you haven't cut the belly open, you definately have full concealment AND full cover, so no line of sight and no line of effect. If somebody tries to cast a spell on you that requires neither, they should probably be fine.

I searched for a while, but I couldn't find anything. Is there a spell in PF that increases the weight of an Item? It's not uncommon in all kinds of storys and it would be cool to have as a flavourful debuff. Something that you could maybe use on a weapon to give it penalties to hit and on an armor to possibly make it heavy enough to get the wearer encumbered. The only spells I could find that change weight were the various enlarge and shrink spells, but I don't want the size change part, only the weight.

If something like this exists, would somebody please kindly point me to it?

And if it doesn't, how would you go about building it? I have an npc sorcerer whom I would love to have something like this, but I want a properly balanced Spell in case my players want to research it too.

Note: This is only my interpretation of the RAW I know, with the gaps filled by houseruling.

If the Pc can make the acrobatics check for high jump do a 5ft cube from where he can legally grapple the creature, I would just let him roll CMB and if he beats the monsters CMD, they both become grappled.

As long, as the Char does not excede the Light load of the monster, they would remain flying, (would maybe houserule a malus to the grapplers CMB because he does not only have to maintain the grapple but also support his own weight)
I Would also not allow this, if the total weight of the character with gear is above his overhead lifting capacity, because he wouldn't be able to hold on to the creature. This is fairly improbable though, if he is not heavily encumbered.

If the weight of the grappler excedes the light load of the creature and thus makes it unable to fly, I would have it go down.
I'd probably rule that it glides down without harm to grappler or monster, as long as the grappler falls into medium encumberance, if he falls into heavy, they would crash down with appropriate falling damage for both.

Nice Idea. I wouldn't just give it to the players, though. What do you think would be an appropriate survival DC for skinning the corpse in a way that preserves the hide?

Edit: Yea, good thought on the size issue. How about price /4 for diminutive and fine, /2 for tiny and small, unmodified for medium and large, *2 for huge and colossal and *3 for gargantuan?

For the slice of death, I'm more on the 3rd level side, since there is no way to avoid taking damage from it every round after being hit, as far as I understand it. Taking damage means concentration checks for casters etc, so it is pretty damn effective at making 1 round casting spells look like a very bad idea. This thing could ruin the day for anybody who likes to summon, for example. The concentration DC will not be very high, but every additional check you force an enemy to make is an additional opportunity for him to fail.
Also, nothing says you can't stack multiple of those on one enemy to make him roll multiple checks per round. Especially since it targets fort saves, which most casters will suck at, the damage will not be halved most of the time.

If you look at acid arrow, it does a little more damage than your spell (average 5 vs average 3,5 on a failed save per round, if I'm not mistaken), but the duration is a lot shorter, which makes quite a difference at lower levels. Also, acid arrow requires an attack roll, which your spell doesn't.
If you want to put it to level 2, either put in a touch attack or put in an initial will save for no effect.

@ Aelryinth: Barkskin is 10Min/level, not 1hr/level.

A Wand of Barkskin could be an Option. The 10Min/Level duration makes it pretty worthwile. 4500 GP will hurt your budget quite a lot though, since I guess you can't buy partial wands in PFS.

Edit: Very much ninja'd. Thats what you get for opening 10+ interesting threads in browser tabs and not refreshing before typing an answer...

Wait, they are both female?

I wonder if this changes things. I should do some more research on my Internet. I wonder if they have any instructional videos on the subject...

EDIT: Oh my goodness! There are millions! How many scientists are there?

For some unknown reason I read this post in the voice of Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. Made it even funnier :-D

Edit: Up until now I was completely unaware of the very interesting and artistically pleasing things that turn up when you simply google the anmes of the female pathfinder iconics with safe search turned off...

I was really only trying to find out which of the names belongs to which character. At first.

Concerning all your "when would you..." questions: You give it to them at the point where you can reasonably "save" enough treasure awards from fights/traps/other encounters to get the money together. Given double wealth and slow progression as you stated, the portable hole would be ok as a reward for overcoming 3 CR 10 challenges for example, since each of them awards 3650gp on slow progression (x2 for high magic, x3 for 3 encounters = 21900 gp).

I remember seeing the item you asked for in the first question too, can't remember the name 'though.

You should be able to find it here I guess.

Edit: The 3 encounters are my basic rule if I really want to give something to my PCs, because if you save for mor then those 3, you might end up giving out stuff that is to powerful. I Would only do that for utility items by the way, a weapon or armor worth 3X appropriate CR would probably end up being very powerful.

Way more interestingly, how are your players going to cast any level 1 or higher spells with M components if they don't have a spell component pouch or eschew materials?

The part about not throwing may be RAI, but RAW doesn't prohibit it, afaik. The save DC would suck like with all those other spells, but silence in a spellstooring thrown weapon can be pretty handy.