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That is what I think too. But, then why does the second line of the feat not say: "Enemies that provoke attacks of opportunity from your ally also provoke attacks of opportunity from you so long as you *BOTH* threaten them (even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity)."

The first line calls out *BOTH*, why not the second line, it makes it look like a different condition.

But, I am glad to hear my instincts were correct.

I am pretty sure I ran this correctly, but I thought I would check what the general consensus was:

I have a Roc Riding cavalier in my game armed with a lance. The cavalier and roc both posses the feat “paired opportunists”.

**

Paired Opportunists (Combat, Teamwork)
You know how to make an enemy pay for lax defenses.

Benefit: Whenever you are adjacent to an ally who also has this feat, you receive a +4 circumstance bonus on attacks of opportunity against creatures that you both threaten. Enemies that provoke attacks of opportunity from your ally also provoke attacks of opportunity from you so long as you threaten them (even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity). This does not allow you to take more than one attack of opportunity against a creature for a given action.

**

I have an enemy that moves adjacent to the roc mount from 10’ away (not a 5’ step) so he would draw an attack of opportunity from the lance wielding cavalier (he threatens 10’ away because of reach). The player was stating the roc also gets to take an attack of opportunity also, once the enemy moves adjacent since his partner also got to take an attack of opportunity. That totally seems wrong. The opportunity attack was triggered when the enemy attempted (it interrupts right?) to move out of the threatened square. The roc would need reach too to take an attack since the enemy is still 10’ away. Or is this one of those “even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity” situations covered by the feat. One of his arguments is that they both get to attack because the feat does not say they both need to threaten to gain an attack only that they gat a +4 if they both do. The feat already seems very powerful, I am not sure it works this way and grants reach to your partner.

Or is this not even a feat mechanics question and is his misunderstanding of the movement rules and when the attack of opportunity occurs.

I said that the Roc would need to threaten the square in order to trigger the opp, but he made the valid point that then the roc would be able to take the opp anyways. And what kind of situation would trigger the feat…..good point.

I have already told him that I will not allow the feat to work the way he wants, but I might soften my ruling if the rules support his position.

What say the masses….

ahhh I like that. That is how I will run it. Saves all around, but the guy with the ring may not care what the outcome is.

Ok, here is an interesting thought. Does a ring of Freedom of Movement prevent you from needing to save vs Paralysis? or do you auto succeed? This is important for creatures that have a "IF you succeed on the save you can't be effected for 24 hours" like power.

If it allows you to auto succeed, you could take the ring off and run over and put it on a friend...right?

I am confused as to why they 5' at all? Why didn't they just move again on thier second turn if no one was adjacent to draw an opp from (you said they needed to close distance?) On their second turn, I might have had them charge at that point (if distance was good).

No it is not common for creatures to 5' step each round to close distance. Usually they attack at range, or get right up in your face and then 5' step each round to get better positions and flanks.

Thats my experience.

Please don't ever stop the casual conversation about the game. Having some information delivered through non-traditional means, without the polish of a PR department can be valuable and exciting. I also like podcasts (waves to Azmyth).

That said. This effort got tangled and a bit messed up (imo). I was under the impression that this was official "campaign changing announcements being made", I never got the impression that this was a "sneak peek" to future announcements. You might have said so in the podcast (but my audio kept cutting out so I got 30 sec chunks on info with 30 sec breaks). I fully expected to wake up to a summary blog post that detailed these "campaign changing announcements" that were made yesterday. It is clear to me now that the PFS leadership intended this to be a "sneak peek", but the way it was announced and presented did not lead to that impression. And now the information does not seem clear, it is chaotic and spread across many threads and discussions.

Please do this again. But learn from this and please do it differently. Still do the informal "leak" style podcast, but follow it up (almost immediately) with your official announcement. Leaving the information hanging out there in unofficial bits helps no one. Why leave it hanging for future blog announcements (some which may be months out?) If the information was not ready to leak (officially or unofficially) it probably should not have been let out. If there are reasons that the information is still being worked on, let the community know that this is a "peek" into things that "may/will" be happening. I expected to come away excited with clear new exiting campaign changing information, instead I have a "wait for the blog post" attitude. It is not the same thing, but given the run up to the podcast, I don’t feel that my expectations were off.

As A GM who has a cavalier in his game, yes, you should sometimes target the mount, unless it makes more sense not too. I typically target the rider after the bad guys figure out that the mount is actually pretty hard to hit. And FYI, be prepared to have the cavalier destroy encounters outside where he can charge around on his mount (as he should!). Make sure to challenge him by making him dungeon explore sometimes to let the rest of the party shine too. Also hostling armor is an interesting twist, maybe don’t tell him about it and see if he finds it. Also, Archers and Swarms are a GMs friend, use em (just not too much). Also lance cavalier on a flying mount is even better at destroying outdoor encounters.

The barbarian is going to have some help (unfortunately they will not be able to kick him awake (they will be undead)). And my intent is not to make him immune to a character, I fully expect him to be misfortuned etc... I just want the fight to be exciting and not have him drop in the first round. It is mainly slumber I need to counter.

I will look into hex nails (cant find em), the beads are only for Polymorph. I will probably give him a +3 cloak of resistance (that will help a bit). But was mainly interested if there was an item that prevented magical sleep.

Hey folks,

I have a high level witch in my game with slumber hex and VERY high Hex save DCs (well I think a DC 24 will save is high). Most of the time I can sprinkle in critters that are immune to sleep to give her a challenge, but my BBEG for the game coming up is a human Barbarian. To prevent him dropping the first round, are there any magic items that give immunity to sleep magic or abilities?

Stating him out, strong will, Improved Strong Will, and Superstition do not seem to be enough.

Suggestions?

Depends on what your disparity is? Utility? Damage?

Utility? The casters are still out in front.

Damage? Well I have an archer in my game that is nigh unstoppable...and usually cranks out about 160 points of damage a round...mind you he does little else, and gods help the party if I can ever get him dominated. On the only slightly more modest side I also have a Roc riding Cavalier lancer who dive bombs targets and destroys things that don't run for cover. Granted those are two corner cases and they need situations for their combat monsterness to really shine. Ie...the cavalier is not as strong indoors or without his mount.

160 points of damage aside, all the hit points in the world won't save you if you fail your save vs, Phantasmal Killer, and if you don't have enough HP, a failed save VS Disintigrate or Slay Living could still ruin your day. So from my experience the disparity is still slightly there but is way better then the old 3.5 days, but then again I also played a lot of 4e (there is actually some stuff to like there) and one of my big take aways was that all the classes eventually felt too similar. The differences in classes and power levels is one of the things that attracted me back to Pathfinder.

Do not futz with the scenarios.

Agreed.

However, there are a few scenarios that require some DM clarification (ie minor futzing due to mistakes) in order to work. For example I am running 2-23 (Shadow’s Last Stand, Part I: At Shadow’s Door) this weekend, and I plan to add some doors, add 3 secret doors (that are missing) and subtract a very problematic secret door (that has the large possibility of derailing the entire scenario). I also have my own mental picture of how a certain entrance works as the one described in the mod can't possibly work (and is impossible to describe to the players anyways). I am not adding any encounters or monsters nor adding things that should not be there. But sometimes "as written" , needs to be "as written unless in editing something was missed and is an obvious mistake". In other words don't futz unless common sense requires you to, and even then don't change things that don't need changing.

So, sometimes the GM needs to futz a tiny bit to make it go (if there are mistakes in the mod).

hmmm....a 28% failure chance is not trivial to me.

Wow Brun, how do you get a trivial Handle Check by 5th leve1? (My druid would like to know)

If CHA is not a dump stat (lets say it is 12) we get a skill of +9 at 5th.
From link we get +4
From Training Harness we get +2
From Skill Focus we get +3.

For a total of +18 … the DC to push a trick is 25 (27 if they are wounded … which is likely in combat).

Which means you would need to roll at least a 7 and more likely a 9 to push. Am I missing something? What other things do players do to get their skill higher?

"That actually seems to be what is wanted rather than more tricks or a ruling on the GM controlling the character etc, some basic rules of how to run animals that the GM and the player can follow."

+1000!!!

I typed up a post (see below) but Digital Mages' comment it what I ment to say!!

I have given this a little thought as I have several players with ACs. I am of the opinion that ACs are a class feature under the control of the player. BUT and a BIG BUT, how that control interacts the world/game is up to the GM. A wizard has full control over his spellbook and which spells he casts that day, but the GM decides through arbitration and die rolls how those spells manifest. A fireball does not automatically work, there are reflex saves, die rolls, etc…An AC is no different. The player decides what he wants his animal to do, there are die rolls involved and the GM communicates the result. With the new book, I do see some problems with the level of granularity though. Some of the new tricks are too specific. (ie Watch/Guard, or Come/Heel are almost the same thing). And where the book should have made thing clearer, it makes things more complex (item slots, flank, etc…)

And on the subject of flank. A creature (like a wolf for example, knows how to flank, that is how wolves hunt…they flank). What a wolf does not know how to do is “Move into a flanking position with the parties rogue” when asked by its owner, unless it knows the trick. The attack command should also have a line about moving to the nearest square to make an attack, to clear up confusion with how flank trick works with animals. It of course “can” flank without the trick, the trick is a command to move into flank if is not already there (since I will running attack as “attack from closest square” for home games….and have NO clue how I am officially supposed to run it in PFS….expect table variation I guess.)

I am on the whole disappointed with the book (especially with how it interfaces with PFS)…it basically changes a class feature (or should I say clarifies the feature to such an extent that it works differently that it has for years).

And I am no closer to rules to govern my witches familiar. Is it even an animal anymore? It has an INT of 10 and teaches me magic! It can talk to me…should I have PC level control over it? Does it even know tricks? Do I need to know Handle Animal for it?

I recived an "extra Trait" boon from a convention. Am I correct in assuming that I can apply it to an existing character (say for example level 3) and pick an extra trait? Someone told me that since you pick traits at character creation it has to be applied to a new 1st level character. But there is no such language on the boon. I figured I should ask, before I make a mistake.

That was amazing. My own Armag anecdote is laughable (literally) in comparison. I introduced the info on Armag last game (you bet I will be stealing this poem for our next game), and a conversation about witches and their barbarian king took place. Something like this:

Player 1: What do witches want with a barbarian king?
Player 2: Well a barbarian king would enforce a barbarian lifestyle.
Player 1: Yeah?
Player 2: So most people will be living in tents.
Player 1: Yeah, so?
Player 2: So you’re less likely to be killed if someone drops a tent on you instead of a house.

I was on the floor.

Interesting. I tend to play Osirion (as do several of my PFS friends) so I never considered that being one that could be on the block (They always seemed pretty popular). I was trying to steer these new folks to whatever faction seemed intesting to them (but also seeing if we could get a variety of factions...so we are not ALL Osirion for example (which is currently the case before our fist game next week), since we are pretty much only ever going to play together. It would be more fun if we had different missions.) Thanks for the blog post link...that actually helps quite a bit.

Also thanks everyone for the input.

Yes of course they will pick what they want. But the current situation is: "What faction are you? Osirion? Ok we will be that one." These are new players to both pathfinder and to organized play, I was trying to reduce barriers to entry that could arise from their faction disappearing. But if there is no info (other than Blog) about which faction might be in the less than column. No probs. We will just play along with everyone else.

I am helping guide some new players to PFS. These are VERY new players with no knowledge of the world or even RPG experience in general. The concept of picking a faction and doing missions for them is new and exciting, but they don't come with a lot of heavy character concepts outside of "I am a druid!" or "I am a fighter!". I do realize that if they don't like their faction anymore that there are mechanisims to change it later, but I don't want to dampen their enthusiam because the faction they pick gets killed off. Because I know that they will spend a great deal of time carefully reading each group and then picking their favorite.

So I am curious if I heard wrong. That some of the less popular factions are going to go away (maybe this year). I honestly do not play enough PFS to know which Factions are popular (unless other players make a big deal of it at the table I sometimes don't even know which ones I am playing with).

Any suggestions? What factions should I help guide them toward or away from? Or is this something that is no longer happening?

+ 1 for Grigori also. My players hate him.

Hmmm, that seems weird that they want to stay in Restov. Do they not want to live in their Kingdom? They should be able to buy supplies and magic items there too. Do they realize they are autonomous? The only connection they really have to Restov is that Restov gave them a charter to explore and map the greenbelt (and clear out any bandits). And then once that was complete a charter to rule said lands as they (the PCs) see fit. Restov should be keeping them at arms length to avoid the Brevic Crown's attention.

** Spoilers **

What the PCs may not realize, is that Restov is anticipating a civil war with Brevoy proper (ie House Surtova) and they are underhandedly supporting a client nation to their south hoping they will have an ally when said war breaks out.

Which brings you smack into the BIG problem with The Kingmaker Path (IMO). And that is that the story for the path has nothing to do with Brevoy and it's civil problems (because everything makes it seem like it should). I really suggest you read (even if you skim) the rest of the books, because you as the DM have a fair amount of work to seed the actual plot into the story as much as possible, otherwise you will have A LOT of puzzled looks from the table when you reveal the Big Bad. My players are all excited to find out what happened to House Rogarvia, what is really up with Skywatch, and just what is Noleski actually up to. Guess what. I get to make all that up, because the Path is not about any of that stuff. Which is what is awesome about The Kingmaker Path. It gives you the room to do that (in fact starting with book 4 you almost have to...if the PCs only do Book encounters they will be under leveled for book 5).

With this path more than most, I cant stess enough that you should read all the books and plan your approach to Nyrissa as a plot. She does have threads throughout the books but you need to (carefully) make them mean something or else the tacked on plot will really seem tacked on. Of course you could ignore the plot from the path and do your own. But one of the reasons you are probably playing a Path in the first place is so that you don't need to make it all up (like me? I just don't have the time). Kingmaker succedes in my opinion as a sandbox/adventure playgound (lots of hooks), but needs a lot more work than most paths to create a coherent narrative out of what is presented.

So the mount does not charge? It moves instead and the cavalier gets the benefit of a charge? If the mount is chargeing it gets an attack (that is what the charge attack action does - right?)

Ride-by-attack clearly states that the mount has to charge. (The cavaleir is not charging just getting the benefits). If the mount does not get to attack at the end how is that a charge and not just a move?

and if ride-by-attack ONLY allow the cavalier to move after the attack (without the mount...wheeee!) The feat does nothing. Unless, you mean that the rules imply (and boy is it tangled) that the mount charges, cavalier gets the benefit of the charge (and uses lance attack), but the mount chooses to not attack as part of its charge (instead converting it into a move action?) and then cavalier uses ride-by to move away?

So there are two types of charges (one with attack and one without?)
so...confused.

Hmmm, I have a cavalier in my home game and things are getting fuzzier, now with flying stuff. Clear this up for me.

1. Flying mount (a roc), cavalier has ride by attack and wheeling charge.
2. Cavalier wants to charge a target and effectively dive bomb target (can use wheeling charge to pull up during his charge - because normally you can only charge in a straight line, which from above would take him into the ground - right?).
3. Guided by the cavalier the roc initiates a charge attack.
4. when the cavalier is in melee range he gets the benefit of his mounts charge and intiates his lance attack.
5. the mount finishes his charge by performing the charge attack action (for the roc probably a talon attack)
6. now beacuse of ride by attack, if there is movement left over, the cavalier and mount can move away without drawing an opportunity attack.

Do I have that correct?

Bonus questions:
7. since it's talon attack comes with a free grab can the roc grab a target and fly away with it? (the description implys that this is a common roc tactic?)
8. where in the rules can I find forced movement into a hazzardous space (like the air)?

*** SPOILERS OF COURSE ***
From what I recall the fight kind of went like this:

1. Tank wearing the ring of free movement moved next to V.
2. The Archer started firing (Already buffed with Gravity Bow and Eye of the hunter.)
3. Some other Characters moved into position.
4. V opened with Waves of Fatigue (the AoO missed) One PC fails a save.
5. PCs continue their Attack
6. On Subsequent turns V tries Dominate (on the archer) and Phantasmal Killer and loses Both to AoO from the tank.
7. The PCs could have ended the fight here, but they opt for Flaming Sphere instead of dimensional anchor.
8. V's next turn he dimension doors away (and heals up over the next few rounds.)
9. The PCs are pretty sure something is up and position and re-buff as necessary.
10. V comes back and starts with the melee attacks, he nailed the Wizard (now paralyzed).
11. Pc's assault continues (pretty much the only ones doing any damage are the tank and archer).
12. V goes after the tank with melee and is surprised when the Paralysis has no effect (stupid ring)
13. More arrows of death....
14. V tired of being a pincushion, starts to move toward the archer
15. Never makes it.

Now there was a bit more to the fight than that, the PCs were definitely worried about him (and Oh my god, the whining when V teleported away and healed up). But with all kinds of buffs in effect and other shenanigans (the dice were just not in my favor that night). If V had gotten off the dominate early on = different fight. Also I played up V's overconfidence as a disadvantage. If he was not drawing AoO when he cast that would have changed things also. V really expected his powerful spells to take care of these meddling PCs. When they proved ineffectual he switched to melee...of course he underestimated them. One might make the argument (per his tactics) that he is supposed to.

Fun fight though.
FYI the Piscodaemon was tougher for them as they were caught unawares.

In keeping with the design of the dungeon and so that the iris doors in the cieling were not "obviously" out of place. I made the iris' carved bas relief eyes on the cieling (it was the "iris" of the 16 eyes that opened to let in the river). The party spotted the portculis holes so they knew something was up. But they were more concerned with the statues coming to life and a room with 16 large carved eyes looking down on them. It was suitably creepy.

We had our Vordakai fight last night. He was quite tough for everyone but one character. The archer just destroyed him. The tank had a freedom of movement ring so he did a pretty good job of keeping V occupied and resolved attacks of opportunity due to V's overconfidence. V never got two of his heavy spells off (dominate & phantasmal killer.) If the archer was not destroying him, the fight might have been a TPK. So it was suitably epic and exciting. Things got a bit tense when a tactical error happened (the party wizard opted to put a flaming sphere out instead of dimensional anchor.)He had no way to know that V would dimension door away, heal up and return to finish the fight.

some things that really helped the party out:
1. The archer was out of range of the waves of fatigue.
2. Clustered shots to overcome V's DR
3. Hunter's Eye to counteract V's Displacement
4. Gravity Bow, Manyshot, Rapid Shot, a haste buff from the party wizard, combinded with the aforementioned Clustered Shots....V never stood a chance.

At 8th level you should be letting quite a few arrows fly. You have 2 attacks one at +8 and one at +3. You might have Manyshot so the +8 attack could be 2 arrows at once (with 1 attack roll). Or you might have Rapid shot for one additional attack (but give you a -2 to all attacks for the round). Do you have a wizard to throw Haste on ya? I have a ranger in my game (with both manyshot and rapid shot) and he destroys encounters….now you are using a small weapon and have a hit to strength that maybe effecting if you can pull your composite bow without penalty, but if your DM has houseruled that you can put keen on the bow…with 3 attack rolls (4 if hasted) and one of those being 2 arrows (from manyshot) you should be keeping pace if not beating the heavy hitters (3 to 4 chances to crit each round). Look at your feats and maybe take rapid and manyshot if you can. Also the ranger spell Gravity Bow will help overcome the small bow size.

Why I think this game will fail:

Most people I know play D&D (aka Pathfinder) to play a character through an epic fantasy story. I realize that people play RPGs for a variety of reasons, so am not trying to point out "bad-wrong-fun", but I am generalizing. Most of the game revolves around leveling and storytelling. NONE of the game revolves around PvP...it is not remotely a part of Pathfinder's structure or language. How much of PO revolves around PvP? Nearly all of it?

Now the fantasy PvP element will surely appeal to some (but now you are subdividing the people who would be intersted in a "Pathfinder game" at all even further - A fraction of a fraction). I was very excited when I heard about PO until I heard about the player pvp driven sandbox elements and my interest dropped to zero. I will never play a pvp focused game. They tend to be havens for jerk-griefers. So far what I have heard about PO has zero in common with the Pathfinder game that I play outside of wrapping the game in a "Golarion skin".

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe things will change. Maybe I need to do more reseach on the current state of PO. Maybe when I see the PvP elements in place it will all "work". But I am beyond skeptical. Definately in the CONCERNED catagory.

I hope I am wrong, because an awesome Pathfinder game would be just that....awesome.

Thanks for the feeback people. Game was last night and we did encounters with the Bulette, and the Soul Eater. Both were very satisfying and fun for me and the players. However there is a new issue that seems to be popping up more and more as the game progresses. And it seems to be a problem with the Pathfinder rules more than my specific group makeup. So I thought I would ask other DMs about it.

The issue is: How do you make a challenging ecounter with a larger number of lesser CR monsters? Maybe there is some tactic I am not seeing but the rules (and Kingmaker specificaly) seem to build several encounters by adding addional numbers of low CR mobs to make the encounter a "challenge appropriate for the party". How is this playing out in your games?

Specifically:

1) Trapdoor spiders. Advanced giant spiders (I dont care how many, are not a challenge for level 8-9 characters. The spiders have 22 hP and a to hit of +4. They would need to roll a 20 to bite any melee guy and cant bite the caster (as he will probably be invisible and flying at this level). This whole encounter seems to be a waste of space. What am I missing?

2) Ettercaps - again....the book even describes them as lame....the "trap" is obvious, and they are not remotely a challenge...I am not following the logic of "if one enemy that can't hurt them is not a challenge, then six enemys that can't hurt them must be a challenge." There are more than a few of these in Kingmaker...like:

3) The Mudmen - Seriously? 12 Monsters with 19 HP.....and a +4 (again) to attack. I "might" be able to have them last 2 rounds (simply because of the number) but 2 well placed fireballs should mop them up. I doubt they will damage a single member of my party with a melee attack. The ranged touch attack might catch a few...but certainly not a challenge.

So my real question I guess is: Are these supposed to be challenging? They give XP some of them a lot. The Mudmen are listed as a CR 9 encounter....the soul eater a 7. Something seems wrong. Are you DMs that have run Kingmaker having the same issues? I know there should not be a Roc or Bulette around every corner, and that some encounters that make the PCs seem powerful is fun....but it getting to the point where some of my players are saying "spiders....do we even need to run this?" I do add my own stuff...but tend to run the AP encounters with little modification outside of Advanced Template (or occasional extra HD). When people are running Kingmaker are you DMs seriously tweaking the encounters...or are running them mostly as written?

** SPOILERS ** Bard, sorry for the length as this is more than you asked for, but includes my own observations from running this AP (we are just starting VV). Kingmaker tends to be a bit swingy in terms of encounters. Some are VERY tough and others your players will blow through. The difficulty also depends on party make up….a sleepy witch, archer, and cavalier will all do very well in this Adventure Path (AP). So the biggest question is what level is the party currently. I would imagine that they are at least 2-3rd it hard to tell by your description since they made a beeline for the Stag Lord. My players found the encounter with the Stag Lord pretty tough at 3rd. Your mileage will of course vary.

So lets talk about the AP in general. This AP is fairly unique in that it is very non-linear. It is a Giant Sandbox for you and your players to play in. If they took out the Stag Lord early you need to draw them into the other encounters…..instead of Starting RRR (especially if they are sub 4th level) maybe “revise” the charter that they would normally get at the end of the adventure…reinforce Brevoy’s desire to have the region mapped before they let the players settle and form a kingdom (maybe pull back the curtain a bit let the players know that each hex they explore is worth XP). The big encounters that they missed are:
1. The Thorn River Camp…..maybe beef up Kressle and she hears that the Stag Lord is dead and decides she should take over as the lead bandit in the area
2. The Kobod caves and the mite caves (works better if they encounter mites first…but really does not matter)
3. The should meet Bokken, Also play up Erastil worship in the area and introduce Jhod, also Kesten Garess should have showed up with troops.
4. Now there are a few other encounters they should hit…and this is a weak point in the pacing of the AP in general….AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN, you need to play up fey activity in the area. Make sure they encounter Tig-Titter-Tut and Pervalish, and also happen across the dead unicorn. Read ahead in the AP to get the feel for the BBEG ,but make sure you don’t show your hand too soon. The PCs should have an eye for fey activity in the area without knowing anything about “her” for a while. But when you reveal the BBEG you don’t want it to come out of left field.

Now when you are ready to have them building their city things to look out for in Book 2.

1. This book (RRR) is even more sandboxy than the first chapter. Things to play up keep the story moving is Troll activity to the south. Also the town stories are important to develop (werewolf, Grigori, and the Gyrona Cult). In my game my PCs heard about Grigori several games before he was a problem…they had actually named the Pub after him…they were caught off guard when he started to try and turn the people against the PCs.
2. PROBLEM SPOTS: The big encounters to watch out for….
a. The Forgotten Keep! This should be a HARD encounter…read up on the Dancing Lady. If you don’t want to TPK your party I recommend having her stop dancing when she initiates a grapple (I had her still be able to dance when she used her other abilities), at least this will give fresh saves when she dances again (and remember if someone makes a save they are immune for 24 hours)….imo this turns the fight into a challenge rather than a likely TPK.
b. The Lizard King….Play up the worship of the Wisps on Candlemere Island. Also try and have the party encounter a wisp before they get here…as when they hit that last hut and encounter super wisp….they should be scared. It is easy to miss but note that the wisp is advanced (and would have an AC of 30!).
c. I don’t have much to say about the trolls or Owlbear as my party was 6-7th level and used good tactics on them. The toughest fight was actually against the Ettercaps and spiders (the PCs got bottlenecked in terrain) but honestly I don’t see them being a problem for most groups…I think it was bad luck.
d. Moving into Book 3 you might need to do some work introducing Varn and his company (Caspar, Willas, and Cephal…etc..) I played Varn as a self-obsessed egotistical boob. He did name his town and company after himself. Come up with your own reason why his kingdom is so small and sucky compared to the PC’s kingdom…play up that problems with the centaurs have severely hampered growth.

More than any other AP Kingmaker is what you make it…and you could even say that the AP is designed for you to do your own thing. Given that, the PCs are almost supposed to de-rail the path….my players checked out the roc nest at level 5 (from VV)…I scared the crap out of them but they ran away and decided that the cavalier really needs a baby roc mount someday. PCs in Kingmaker can get in WAY over their head. I say let them. If they are clearly underpowered go for shock and awe (but from my experience be careful, as some groups simply will never run away). If they can handle the challenge let them try…this is a dice game after all. If you are “linear” minded script out how the encounters will lay out (you don’t have to use hexploration, or even the kindom rules if you don’t want)...It sounds like your players are linear also, you gave them a lead and they went for it right away. So if your players are not the wandering sort, come up with a plan for leads through the story…fluff it out with your own stuff.

Our group has really enjoyed the AP, but I will confirm it is a very different sort of adventure. Again make sure the PC’s know they are supposed to Map the area…that might inspire them to wander around. Good luck.

Now that we are knee deep in the mod I am finding the challenges to be much tougher for the PCs. Honestly I think the sudden burst of power when the archer got iterative attacks, combined with his feats and Gravity Bow, just caught me off guard. They just finished the town and with advancing the crab and beefing up Agai they were quite the challenge. I can also say that my players hate swarms. They did them in the right order too (mwah!) they found the rats and burned all their resources, then went across the street and got eaten by crows! They actually had to lick their wounds for a few days and heal eye damage. What I have been doing is running the 6 player forum conversion with key enemies with MAX hp and occasional use of the Advanced template. This seems to be working so far. Also I am doing some battle field manipulation to give some mobs cover to hide behind. The party is now level 8 and is heading south in search of missing villagers.

+1 to another sandbox as well. BUT....

New options for Hexploration, Level 10 characters doing hex by hex exploration does not make sense.

Also WAY tighter story. I want the sandbox, but I also want more through lines to the overall story.

My group has enjoyed Kingmaker so far, but the two weakest points (other than super swingy encounters..either too easy or too hard), are that the BBEG is non-existant until the very end unless the DM makes a huge effort to shoehorn it in. And that the hexploration is a bit repetitive. Also the Kingdom building * cough * I mean magic item factory rules, need an overhall. They do the trick of making a backdrop for the Kingdom, but as an engaging part of the AP they become tiresome and cumbersome after 1 chapter of use.

Or is it only the other way around (Wizards share spells with their familar.) This will come into play with a witch in my game who now has a Fairy Dragon Familiar. The Fairy Dragon can cast Shield (not on the witch's spell list). Can the Familiar share it with the witch? Rules as written I would say no. As the description for for "Share Spells" only mentions the wizard as the caster, not the familiar (granted most familiars do not cast spells). What is the consensus?

BONUS QUESTION: when we added the Familiar (witch is level 8 with improved familiar) in Hero Labs, the Fairy Dragon ended up with an INT of 23? This seems wrong. By all accounts it looks like it should be 16. Did we make a mistake adding it, or did Hero Labs reveal some bonus to INT that we missed (which happens some times).

I like telling players "Yes! that is awesome", so before I tell the player that his Dragon can't cast shield on him and actually has an INT of 16...I thought I would double check.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. I did some deep reading this weekend and planned out some changes. Since it now sounds like we will have 5-6 players (adding a paldin and rogue) I think I will be running the 6 player conversions...that will bump things up a bit. Also adding the Ghouladon (encounter workshop Linnorm Graveyard) from the Chronicles Podcast. And I think I will give Agai a casting buddy.

Because they stomped the end of RRR I was concerned after reading some of the wimpy opening encounters in VV (Spriggins, Mudmen, etc..)But there are a few save or die moments in the mod (Xills, river trap, soul eaters, and Vord is pretty nasty) and with the undead encounters and most things beefed to max HP and adjusted for 6 players I will let you guys know how it goes.

NOTE: MY PLAYERS STAY OUT!

I am a new DM to pathfinder, but have been DMing other games for years.

Just coming out of book 2, and my seem PC’s extraordinarily powerful. I think I have done a pretty good job keeping them challenged up to level 6, but the last few games (level 6 to level 7, and now part way to 8) they are just seem to be combat monsters. I have been relatively careful with money and items, they are not dripping with powerful items (only the ones in mod plus they have each scrounged up enough gold to buy either a specialized weapon or Stat bonus item.)

The party consists of a mounted combat focused cavalier, an archer ranger, a witch, and alternating sometimes a cleric or wizard. The cavalier off his horse is just ok and is quite manageable (as one would expect) on his horse he destroys things. He does not get to use his horse all the time so I feel like he does not dominate every encounter. My real problems are the witch and ranger.

The witch makes liberal use of sleep magic (sleep for low HDs and deep slumber for higher) and also has slumber hex. Looking ahead in book 3 (I see some undead and some spell resistance which helps with the spells) but a lot of the encounters are going to fall to her (non spell resistance) DC 19 will save at-will slumber hex (will be DC 20 by the time they are dungeoning). Even swaping feats and adding Iron Will is not going to help things very much. Now granted the end of the mod will be tough for her, but…

…if the witch doesn’t sleep them the ranger is just destroying encounters with gobs of damage. I have checked to make sure we are running it correctly (I think we are but it just seems crazy) but if he full rounds with the wizards Haste on him he is getting the equivalent of 5 attacks (Iterative for (2), Manyshot for an extra (1), Rapid for (1) and Haste for (1). Not all those are full bonus but still a lot of attacks. Against the trolls there were a few rounds where he crit and was doing well over 100 points of damage. I had a few mobs advanced template and they were all max HP. Still, they were not much of a challenge.

So like I said, just finished RRR, The lady was a challenging encounter, but the trolls and the epic owlbear for my climax were a joke (and I had expected them to be tough). Hargulka got to flick one bead and then was down before the second round. For Nagrundi (I foolishly followed the given tactics and had him intimidate….he never got an attack off, as he rolled a 2 on his check). Regen doesn’t do much when the PCs can get you to zero before your second turn.

I plan to add my own sandboxy things in part 3. But anyone have any suggestions or will book 3 be challenging enough as written that I should not worry.

They are not ranged attacks. There is no attack roll needed. They are also both area of effect spells. There is also a reflex save that can be made to take reduced damage (not avoid unless you have other special sauce).

Even through an arrow slit there is no attack roll. Also because you just need line of sight to the grid intersection (depending on where you put it) you could possibly get targets behind a wall or around a corner, or that are hidden (or invisible) in your area.

And lets not forget the "Main" point of the charter is to grant the PCs the right of "exploration and travel" in the "Greenbelt" with the understanding that they are producing A MAP. The swordlords want to settle the Greenbelt and hopefully the PCs are savvy enough to try and prove themselves by making said map and clearing out the aforementioned bandits.

darkblue wrote:

Thanks to the quick help I got last time, I thought I might ask one more question in this thread.

1. If an attack on a monster says for example (1d6 plus grab) or (1d6 plus trip) does that mean if my attack with the monster hits the player it will automaticly grapple/trip the target as well? or will I need to make a CMB vs CMD check as well?

(1d6 plus grab) = deals damage & free combat maneuver check (CMB vs CMD) against the target. Your monsters are going to hate freedom of movement later on.

Also note that monsters with (plus grab or trip) do so without generating an attack of opportunity (which grab or trip usually do.

We are a group that is new to Pathfinder, and this is a question that came up in our last game. Since you can be helpless without being prone (knocked out in saddle, tied to a post, etc..) we were pretty sure they stacked (also as people have mentioned they are different penalties and they are from different sources - one from prone - one from helpless). But when trying to find the ruling in the core book or online, things got a bit fuzzy. Since this is a situation that probably occurs in every combat (so far it has happened in everyone of ours) I figured the rules would be pretty clear. I think that for our home game I am going to go with "they stack". But I am still unsure what the offical rule should be. I plan to dabble in PFS so I am curious for that angle too.

Yes. If they are helpless and prone, do they stack?

Trying to figure out if prone stacks with helpless. I am guessing that it does.

1. A melee attack on a helpless target is + 4 to attack. Target is - 4 to AC (prone) and an additional - 5 to AC (zero DEX) for a total -9 to AC. Coup de grace available.

2. A range attack on a helpless target is +0 to attack. Target is + 4 to AC (prone) and - 5 to AC (zero DEX) for a net -1 to AC. Coup de grace available if adjacent and using bow or crossbow.

Do I have this correct?

I seem to be missing a treasure generation table somewhere. Where are the directions on how to place “magic items” from the generation charts.

I see how to roll randomly for item availability in towns (so many minor items, so many medium etc...) but if I am rolling a random encounter (where I haven’t picked everything out ahead of time)…how exactly am I supposed to use the item generation charts?

For example:
If a medium advancement CR 6 (or hard encounter for APL 4) awards 2000 gp in treasure what do I do from there? What is the trigger to roll for a magic items? When do I use the minor table? When do I use the Medium? When I do roll, I see that some people subtract the item value from the reward (and the online generators seem to use this method)? But I also see other rules that I am supposed to “purchase” a roll? If I assume that a minor item has an approx 1000 value (per the charts) that would purchase 2 rolls for my 2000 gp reward? Would that mean that I don’t use the medium reward until I have a CR 13 encounter or am able to purchase a roll at 10,000 gp?

I am very aware that I can hand place equipment and have the PCs find it when I want (and use the core rules chart on page 399 as a guide). But how do the rules say I am supposed to use all these awesome random charts for encounter loot?

I see that there are quite a few random loot generators online. They must have a trigger, where are they finding the rules for what they automate. Surely such a key aspect of the game is explained somewhere?

So many questions.