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Yesterday I made a post about this that got shunted into Suggestions/Homebrew/Whatever for some reason, never to see the light of day again, so this time I'll keep it short and sweet.

I need advice/ideas on how to challenge a low-level party that has to climb the tallest mountain(s) in the world (infested with rocs) and then travel through a forest full of über-dire wolves. I don't want to TPK them, but challenge them with these foes (and possibly some abberations) - preferably in a way that doesn't need to lead to combat. Puzzles of some sort would be nice, and ideas of how to make the trip fun and memorable.

Suggestions on aberrations to use are also welcome.

Some facts:

• The PCs will start at lvl.1 having to climb the mountain and go through the forest
  
• They will have no wizards, rogues or paladins, but possibly oracles or summoners.
  
• The PCs are flavored as Neanderthals, with Neanderthal equipment
  

In any case, I'd like to start my very first fully-homebrew game with an all-human Neanderthal Epic 6 story. I'm not doing anything mechanically to differentiate Neanderthals from regular humans; instead I plan to alter the Cro-Magnon a little. But that's a tangent, sorry.

I've been brainstorming all day, and I've come up with a story that seems okay, I think... but now comes the part where I have to translate it into actual scenarios with opponents and game mechanics. Yech. Which finally brings me to my point: is anyone interested in helping me come up with a fun scenario for the first adventure?

The gist of the first adventure is: The Bird of Thunder clan has seen something strange far to the north, where the frost never touches. Having journeyed to the top of the tallest Sky Mountain to see this for themselves, the party must go there through the forest of the Ur-Wolves.

I want the challenge to have something to do with the rocs that live on the Sky Mountains and of course the Ur-Wolves in their forest, but I'm drawing a blank as to a fun thing to do with them. I don't want it to be just some hackfest, but to maybe have a puzzle or something. Maybe the Ur-Wolves are semi-intelligent, and let the PCs pass if they save a pup in trouble, or something. Any ideas, anyone?

It says Spark can light unattended Fine objects... but it seems odd that it couldn't light a torch, which is meant to be lit, though it isn't Fine. In fact, it seems odd that it could only (potentially) light torches or lanterns that are unattended. Could someone clarify? Thanks!

I'm running a homebrew where one of the PCs is looking for her long-lost sister. I decided to make the sister one of the minor BBEGs in the campaign, which is about a fey invasion. The PC will have a chance to 'convert' the sister, or they'll have a showdown and (I expect) the sister will die, perhaps whispering a few clues for later and setting the PCs against the evil fey. In the meantime, I've set it up so that all the cannon fodder for the evil fey army (goblinoids mostly) are terrified of her, and due to how she's been talking up her sister the PC, they're afraid of the PC too.

The sister has been abducted by the fey to their realm for a while, where a lot of time has passed, allowing her to become more powerful than the PC(s). I've decided that this was because of her mixed human and fey blood making her a good go-between for minor villains used by the main BBEG. That's why I'm thinking she should be a feyblooded sorceror, circa level 10 (the PCs are currently level 6).

I could use some advice on her build - feats and spells, mostly. I want to emphasize how badass she is to scare the cannon fodder like that, preferably with fey-themed abilities (dreams, shadows, animals, phantasms, etc.). Or if someone has alternate class/prestige class ideas, I'd like to hear about them, too.

If anyone has any bright ideas about how I could extend the fey blood theme to the PC somehow, that'd be great too. I thought about offering her a bonus fey feat, but thought that'd be unfair to the other PCs. I also thought about making a special prestige class to offer her, but I have no experience doing that, so it'd probably end up unbalanced.

So... halp?

I'll say it up front: I suck at tactics.

The party has just cleared the thistle maze and more or less all resistance on the first level of Thistletop, capturing Ripnugget (they captured Gogmurt too, but let him go). They haven't yet discovered the dungeon levels, but when they do, I think they'll turn back to Sandpoint to restock and recover.

My question is: with the goblins wiped out, what would Nualia & Co.'s response be? Surely she wouldn't just keep on researching as though nothing had happened? How would they set up a defense of the fort without the goblins if they have a day or more to prepare?

Where would they set up to cause the most grief to trespassers? Any specific tactics they might use would be welcome.

If it helps, the party has just hit 3rd level. One of them is a paladin of Sarenrae who used to know Nualia. I imagine a chance for her to redeem Nualia if she plays her cards right.

Anyone who enjoys writing interested in joining an ongoing Rise of the Runelords pbem played on Yahoo Groups? We're still early in the first adventure. Only core classes and races, though.

A barbarian in my game is trying to use a Knockback bull rush against the mount of a mounted opponent with the Mounted Combat feat. Since you can negate a hit on your mount with this feat, does it function against combat maneuvers?

If a Handy Haversack is sized for a Small character (we don't use magical item resizing), is the capacity smaller, or does the fact that it's a magic item overrule that?

I've joined a campaign that has gotten to 16th level, which is by FAR the highest level I've ever played. At first I built a camel-riding paladin, but the setting and general uselessness of the paladin (can't even convert anyone, that's taken care of by the cleric) has convinced me to switch characters.

Now I'd like to try an elven rogue in the hope of actually being useful for a change. Elven due to campaign concerns, rogue because we already have a fighter and a ranger and I'm nervous about remembering all the options at this level for other classes. But I've never really run a high-level character besides the fiasco that was the paladin, so I could really use some advice on an awesome build, from stats to feats to magical equipment. OR an alternate class build if the rogue turns out to be a bad choice.

Can anyone help me out? Most splatbooks are acceptable I think, assuming either I or our gaming club have them (which is likely). The new adventure starts on Monday. Piles of internet cookies for everyone who helps! :)

We've lost the player of our dwarf ranger, and we need a replacement. I'd prefer that someone just take over the dwarf ranger, but I'll consider interesting new concepts, too.

The group is currently assaulting Thistletop, so any new character will be found there, probably as a captive of the goblins. Everyone is lvl.2, core classes and races only. Concepts please, not stats.

If you'd like to take over the existing dwarf ranger (yay!), here's some info on him:

• He came to the town of Sandpoint during the Swallowtail Festival specifically to find a half-elf (one of the PCs) that he's infatuated with (whom he knew would be attending), but she's recently changed into a terse killer and his affection is unrequited.
  
• He lost his father's battleaxe under Sandpoint (shattered) and now uses a fancy handaxe he found on a mutated goblin-thing.
  
• His name contains the rare-in-Dwarven "th" sound.
  
• He doesn't believe in bathing, but believes his 'natural scent' hides him from predators.
  
• His favored enemies are goblins.
  
• Anything else you want to know about him, ask.
  

The rest of the party consists of:

• A half-orc evoker
  
• A human paladin of Sarenrae
  
• A gnome cleric of Desna
  
• A half-elf, half-Shoanti Shadde-Quah barbarian
  
• A half-elf rogue (the dwarf's interest)
  

I'll wait a week or so for volunteers before choosing. Cheers!

Our RotR pbem game stagnated due to lack of posting, and now we're looking for people committed to frequent posting and entertaining writing. You can take over one of the old characters (a Shoanti druid, gnome frost sorceror or halfling rogue) or make a new character that has a reason to go adventuring with the Heroes of Sandpoint.

The party is 1st level and has just defeated a goblin raid on the town of Sandpoint the day before yesterday. Now they're investigating a goblin lair, where they might find the new party member(s). 25-pt buy, no evil characters, core material only for class and race (though I'll usually accept archetypes). The current party includes an Ulfen ranger, a Shoanti monk and a cleric of Shelyn; we could use a rogue or arcane caster. I'd like to see some basic concepts here before you go to the work of statting out a character.

Our group on Yahoo Groups is rotrdk, with a link to our website on it.

Can anyone recommend a 1st-lvl adventure where there's little combat and mostly roleplaying? It can also be 3.5 and even something from Dungeon; I'm planning on running a pbem game for total RPG newbies, and I find it best to restrict combat severely. However, I feel too shaky as a DM to design an adventure myself, so any recommendations are really, really welcome.

The pregen characters at the back of WBG includes an alchemist, but I'm a little uncertain about the extracts he has. Specifically their number. As far as I can tell, he should only have 4 at lvl.1(2+2 for Int), but he has 6. What have I overlooked? Could someone please explain this discrepancy to me?

In the pbp game I'm in, when I post as my alias Patch Cullen, I get the message that I can only post 10 times before the name becomes permanent, which I never got with my other aliases. The only other time I've seen it is when I first posted on the boards. Is there something weird going on here, or does that message show for all aliases now? I'd rather not change my original alias to Patch Cullen!

I've got a non-optimized 15th level desert paladin (complete with divine warcamel mount) that has proven to be far too squishy, mainly because I didn't outfit her very well. Now I've been encouraged to cheese her up equipmentwise (within the means of a 15th level character), and I need some advice.

Due to her desert background she's leery of metal armor, so she has bracers of armor and some homebrew "spidersilk" armor that stacks with them, but her AC still sucks. I'd like a non-plate armor method of beefing up her AC. Losing the spidersilk is not a problem.

She's specialized in using a glaive or, at closer quarters, a falchion. However, the ones she has aren't magical and basically suck. She deals something like an eighth of the damage of the other combat characters in her party. Somehow I don't think her god is impressed with her nearly dying every fight she's in.

I can probably argue for anything found in an official 3.5 splatbook, and possibly even non-official splatbooks, but I've never played such a high-level character before and just don't know HOW to cheese her up. Any advice is appreciated!

Hi there,

I'm doing a bachelor project on gaming (game literacy and social ties that bridge the digital divide), and it would really help me out if as many online roleplayers as possible would answer a few questions for me within the next few days. I've made a short questionnaire with just 10 questions here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FF8WYHB

If you have any questions, post them here and I'll do my best to answer. Thanks in advance for your help! :D

Has anyone converted the domains from the Forgotten Realms to Pathfinder? The closest thing my search turned up was this.

If not, I'd appreciate suggestions for the Hatred, Tyranny, Pestilence, Suffering, Undeath and Retribution domain powers (and spells, if you're feeling generous). I'd like them to be dissimilar to existing domain powers while remaining balanced - balance is my big Achilles' heel.

Of course, if FR isn't your thing, feel free to post conversions of other domains in this thread, too! :)

I'm playing an AP with two groups of 6 PCs who aren't particularly optimized. I've nearly wiped them out by adding extra opponents due to the extra PCs, so now I'm just maxing the hps of the opponents already mentioned in the AP. My question is, should I increase the CR of the hp-maxed opponents (for XP purposes)? Should I just rule that they get the same amount of XP each as they would have as a party of 4? Or is there a better solution I haven't thought of?

I'd rather not have to run too many side quests to keep them where they ought to be XP-wise in the AP, as I'm pretty wobbly on designing appropriate foes.

I'm running a Rise of the Runelords pbem game that, due to some players having trouble with logging into Yahoo Groups, has had a slow start. The Yahoo problems have been fixed, but we seem to have lost a player, and I'm looking for a replacement.

Our posting rate isn't expected to be too hectic, as the players are busy people - maybe twice a week, or more according to how much time people have.

Our Yahoo group is called rotrdk, and on the front page there's a link to our homepage with the character generation rules. If you're interested, please post a short character concept here, and within a week or so I'll pick the one that seems to fit in best.

For the curious, our party consists of:
A female human cleric of Shelyn
A male human Shoanti (Sklar-quah) monk
A male human Shoanti (Shundar-quah) druid
A male human Ulfen ranger
A female gnome frost sorceror

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

I'm going to be running Rise of the Runelords as a pbem on Yahoo Groups, a Pathfinder Core game (no APG) that will probably have a fairly easy posting rate. So far I have a Shoanti druid, a Varisian bard and a frost sorceror gnome. I'd like to see some warrior or cleric types as well, from players who haven't read/gone through the AP before. I'd like three more players - good concepts, so it's not first come, first served.

For those who don't know: The adventure takes place in Varisia, a frontier setting. We'll begin in a little town called Sandpoint, where the Swallowtail Festival is about to take place.

1) I'd like the characters to know one another at the start of the game to avoid, "Hello total stranger, let me entrust my life to you" syndrome. Tell me your background and I'll see how to work it in with the others'.

2) Lone wolf characters bad, teamwork good.

3) No evil alignments.

Just quick concepts please, nothing statted up. If you can keep it in third person, past tense, I will be extra happy.

(Sorry if this gets posted twice - the board appears to have eaten my first attempt.)

I'm going to be running Rise of the Runelords for my Danish friends, but we're at least one player short. I'll be running it in English, but since the byplay will probably be in Danish, I'm hoping there are some Danes on this board who are interested. (However, if it comes to crunch time and I still need players, I'll consider any non-Danes, too.)

It will be a pbem based in Yahoo Groups, probably not too fast a posting rate (though of course I hope for posts every day). We're doing it with Pathfinder Core rules only. It will probably be another few weeks before I get fully fledged character concepts from the players I have, but what we're looking at so far is:

An elven druid,
A gnome illusionist (wizard),
A rogue or bard, race unknown.

So I'm looking for at least one more player, at most three more, who either haven't played/read RotR or who are good at separating IC/OOC knowledge. I'm not just taking the first concept I get - you have a nice long while to submit something interesting.

For those who don't know: The adventure takes place in Varisia, a frontier setting. We'll begin in a little town called Sandpoint, where the Swallowtail Festival is about to take place.

Three caveats:
1) I'd like the characters to know one another at the start of the game to avoid, "Hello total stranger, let me entrust my life to you" syndrome.

2) My personal peeve is people who refuse to use correct spelling/punctuation/capitalization, so if that kind of stuff bores you, please don't submit a concept.

3) Lone wolf characters bad, teamwork good. Ugh.

If all of this hasn't scared you off, I'd love to see some quick unstatted fluffy concepts. Jeg håber i vil være med! :)

Is it possible for an evoker to use his force missile ability to attempt a ranged disarm? Or is that too unbalancing?

Is there a rule somewhere for antidotes to poisons? What do they cost? I hope I've just overlooked it somehow, but I can't seem to find anything about it. :(

I have two questions:

1) If you use the Agile Feet domain power, can your character ignore an area with caltrops?

2) If a monster has two attacks that are poisonous (for example, claw/claw/bite with poisonous claws), do you roll for poison damage for each attack that hits, or just once for that round? What about when saving against its secondary effects - if it hit and poisoned with both attacks, do you have to roll two separate saves to avoid the secondary effects?

Hi,

Sorry for the newb question, but does anyone know what CL the wand of shocking grasp that the party finds in Erylium's meditation chamber has? Is it always the minimum possible (so 1d6 damage, I'd assume), or do you just pick whatever CL you feel like, or what?

Thanks!

I have a barbarian in my game who took a rank of Craft: traps. Unfortunately, I'm very fuzzy on how to make and use traps. For instance, she wanted to make a snare trap out of a rope on the fly to catch a boar. Or she might want to make a pit trap. I don't think those things would take a whole week...? Or cost even as much as 250gp? I'm very confused. How do you deal with Craft: traps? What should they cost if their CR is less than one?

Take the snare trap. What should it cost, and how long would it take to make? How do you determine the DC of a Reflex save to avoid it?

I hope this is the right forum for this. If not, sorry!

Our group (4 lvl.13 characters: a shapeshifting sorceror, a paladin, an elven cleric and a fighter) is about to go into battle together with about 400 NPCs (a large number of which are a hastily drummed up militia of farmers) under our command, against a force of orcs on giant boar mounts, ogres and trolls (and some siege machinery) that's about two or three times our size. We have a little hill to defend, with a stream running behind it to the west, a forest beyond that, and some broken terrain/bog to the south (the enemy is approaching from the east). Our own forces are magic-shy, so we have to try doing this without any flashy magic, and the enemy forces have sneaky troops that are good at infiltration.

We could really use some help coming up with tricks or tactics that would help confuse, demoralize or outright kill the enemy so that we don't get slaughtered. So far we've come up with:

- casting Control Weather and turning the ground they have to approach on to mud so (hopefully) their machines get mired

- planting sharpened stakes along the eastern half of the hill (all we have time for)

- putting up lots of extra standards so it looks like our forces are larger than they are

- overturning our supply wagons to use as cover for our ca.70 archers

- trying to create a funnel with an open space in the stakes to encourage them to attack where our forces are strongest (veterans)

- possibly leaving some barrels of beer in their path in the hope that some of them will get too drunk to fight

Any and all suggestions appreciated. The fight is on for Monday! :)

Under the Spellcraft skill entry it gives you the DC to identify magic items using detect magic. Is it possible to identify items without casting detect magic? I'm thinking of an alchemist being able to identify potions, or a sage/shopkeeper able to identify items. If you don't need to cast detect magic, what might identifying an item cost?

When a monster like, say, the sinspawn in RotR is listed as having 2 claw attacks and a bite attack, does it get all three attacks in a full-round action, or is there a limit of two attacks at that low a BAB? If it only had a standard attack, would it only get one claw attack? Did I misunderstand the 2 claws=2 attacks thing completely? I'd like to be 100% sure.

I'm running my players through Elfwhisper in Dungeon #90, and it calls for the villain to be stuck in a sinkhole and need rescuing. Now, I figure that's a bit of a letdown after chasing him for two adventures already, so I want to replace it with a big fight scene. The thing is, I'm unsure about whether the challenge is too much for the party. Any advice, guys?

The party is composed of:
2 lvl.7 characters, a diviner and a ranger
5 lvl.6 characters, a bard, a fighter, a sorceror (shadow bloodline), a rogue and a fighter/paladin
1 lvl.5 cleric

The foes I'm considering are:
1 lvl.8 fighter - the villain
1 lvl.7 rogue - 2nd in command
2 lvl.5 fighters
1 lvl.4 rogue

The group will be in a boggy area, and I'm thinking the villain will try to ambush them when they've made camp for the night (and are mostly unarmored/asleep). The boggy area is rife with sinkholes (CR5 trap), so wandering around too much will result in characters falling in and needing help not to be sucked under. I figure the attack will start with attempted mounted bull rushing the sentries into said sinkholes, then irate fighters in the party's midst, with supporting crossbow fire from the darkness.

So, is this a survivable challenge for a group like this? Alternate tactics are also welcome.

I looked in the Bestiary Preview and the Bonus Bestiary, and I couldn't spot any LA entry for the intelligent critters. Is the idea of playing monsters being dropped completely?

I was sad in 3.5 because there was no LA for older dragons. So much for an all-dragon campaign? ;P

In the Bestiary preview, it says heavy horses gain the advanced simple template. The advanced simple template says if you want to rebuild the creature, you should add +4 to all its abilities.

Is that a typo? Or is a heavy horse really that much more intelligent, wise and charismatic than a light horse? Am I reading this wrong?

On the page for the Pathfinder Core book, when I hit "show all reviews" the page just reloads, and when I hit "edit review" it does the same. Is this happening for anybody else?

Sorry for the newbie question, but I'm unsure how to add the bab to the CMB and CMD once the bab splits; if a bab is +6/+1, for example, do you end up with a CMB that reads (+6/+1)+Str 0+Size 0= +6/+1 (thereby gaining multiple maneuvers) or do you just add them so CMB = +7?

My laptop has been stolen, and it had my downloads from paizo on it. What can I do to keep from getting into trouble if the thief decides to fileshare them? Can I re-initialize them or something?

Sorry if this is too noob a question, but if a druid takes the animal domain as his nature bond, and gets Summon Companion that stays until dismissed, does that mean the druid essentially can have an animal companion picked from the Summon Nature's Ally list that's "permanent" until dismissed? Or does it only stay for the duration of that spell OR is dismissed?

The other way seems like it makes getting a normal animal companion pointless, since with Summon Companion you can "upgrade" your choice all the time and still have your animal around with you all the time. Am I making sense?

I'm a little confused about converting skill points for animals. It says they have 2 points + their Int mod, which is negative, leaving them just one point per HD? Is that correct? So if I was converting a raven, it would have just Perception +1 + its Wis mod + the +3 class skill bonus, giving it Perception +6?

I'm thinking of running Rise of the Runelords with the Alpha 3 rules as a pbem, but I know it was written for 3.5. Is there anything I should pay special attention to/worry about? Any suggestions for how to deal with pertinent changes?

Hi,

I'm not an experienced DM and I could use some help scaling Elfwhisper from Dungeon #90 for my party. The party consists of 4 lvl.5 PCs, 3 lvl.6 PCs and a lvl.7 PC. As a side note, they have very limited access to healing magic (one cleric), if that makes a difference. I'd really appreciate some help!

Thanks!