LankyOgre's page

Looking at the 3.5 version of the module, she was 4HD; 2 levels of rogue and 2 HD for lycanthrope. 3.x also did not have the "none" entry on the detect evil table. I haven't actually noticed that before, just assumed it was the same as before. Those little changes always rear their ugly heads. Also, another change was the targeted detect evil from normal radar style. The same paladin in 3.5 could have used detect evil on anything or at anytime and happen to catch part of the girl, now you have to target them first.

Currently, she is wandering through Darkmoon Forest alone with the werewolf, so there aren't many NPCs nearby. I figure that as long as she isn't hungry, she won't have reason to eat my wife. I'd like to give her a few clues before the girl turns on her, so it doesn't seems like a complete surprise.
So I guess I'm asking, what kind of hints or clues can be dropped that don't look like up giving it away, but can continue to lead her towards, "something's not right."?

I am running my wife through Crown of the Kobold King alone. She is playing a Dwarven Paladin who left the Five Kingdoms because her father tried to restart the cult of Droskag. She has no idea what is coming. On to the advice part. She has just started and has met Jeva.

Jeva doesn't want most people knowing what she is, so she will hide it in general and will not be forthcoming. My wife doesn't want to be too suspicious, but has wondered how a little girl is able to survive for 2 or 3 months alone in werewolf infested and otherwise dangerous woods. She has picked up that the girl has been mistreated and has not been telling her the entire story, but she's not sure what she is missing.

Just recently, my wife encountered two bugbears dragging a dead lumberjack in the forest and was able to defeat one before the other knocked her out. She woke up with Jeva and a campfire. I think right now she assumes that I hand-waved the other bugbear wandering off. Jeva has made one reference to looting one of the bugbears. The human lumberjack's body is still around, but the two bugbear bodies are not. If she asks, Jeva will be evasive. This could lead to her finding out if she finds the other bugbear body.
If she doesn't find any clues from the bugbears, I will wait until the next time she camps and have Jeva wander off while she is sleeping. She will find remnants of a wolf's meal near the campsite. Things could get solved easily if she detect evil, but I don't know if she thinks she has a reason to and if I come out and suggest it, she will know something is up.
There is also the side that she will possibly try to redeem the little girl, which could be interesting. She is slightly starved for attention.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully I spoiler tagged the right things and all.

My in-laws computer is behaving oddly and it is very annoying. The mouse double clicks all the time on single click. Its extremely difficult to move windows around or use the mouse at all. I'm not sure everything they have set up, but does anybody have any suggestions for things to look at?

When I run goblins, as well as orcs, trolls, and ogres, are pretty close to vermin. I describe them as being pretty murderous, willing to eat intelligent creatures, and not that civilized. Essentially, I side with Tolkien. A not-evil goblin will usually be more likely to retreat away from goblins as well as the "good" races than anything else. It still is obsessed with fire, fears dogs, and will most likely kill and eat anybody who bothers it. He won't go raiding town and villages or stopping wagons on the road, but he's not Drizzt. That may not be for everyone, but that's the way I run things and that's how I try to present things to my players.
I think the worst thing to do, and I've learned this from experience, is switching expectations around on your players. If you expect them to treat goblins like people and go out of their way to save them, then present that in a positive light from the beginning and don't punish them for it. Give them easy ways to save the monsters and easy solutions afterward. As an example; I was running Council of Thieves a few years ago. My players fought a group of tieflings. After a few were unconscious, the cleric attempted to channel energy to heal everyone. A few of the tieflings popped up. When my players started coup-de-gracing and beheading every unconscious tiefling I got upset. In hindsight, I realize I trained them to do that.

Id love to write up a dwarf. I've been a huge fan of FR for 10 or so. I've got most of the 3.x stuff and some 2e resources. I'll look at some stuff tomorrow when I get home to narrow my choice down.

The package was shipped from your facility on the 17th which is 8 days ago, not 5. The package has been with the cusps for 6 days with no record. The other packages frequently take a day to arrive after they are delivered to the post office.

Apparently I hate the US postal service.
Tracking information shows that order #2207384 was handed off to the Post Office on the 19th, but my local Post Office has no record of the package. When I contact UPS they say its the sender or Post Office's responsibility, but when I contact USPS there is no postal id for them to find the package.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

The bigger reason I wanted to do something about it was because they are only on day 7 and I wanted them to still have things to do for the next 13 days. I may just handwave and say"you have settled into a routine of work and entertainment." They are getting pretty bored with the repetitiveness of the days. And they don't really want to steal anything else from the quartermaster out of fear of getting in trouble, despite the fact that Groom is friendly.

Somehow I missed that influence is limited to two steps, but in hindsight I may have been exaggerating for effect. The Dc for hostile is two for more than two steps and I don't think he even made it on unfriendly, once you get to indifferent and the Dc is low enough, there aren't more than two steps to go.

As a humorous side-note. They made Rosie friendly before they found out about her fiddle, so they got the fiddle and gave it to Conchabar to give to Rosie. Now they are both friends.

We started playing Skull and Shackles a few weeks ago and have so far played three sessions. We just finished up day 7 and my players have too many friends. At this point Grok, Fishguts, Owlbear, and all but 6 NPC crew members are friendly or helpful. The few NPCs that are still hostile are the 5 that started hostile and attacked the players. I am running with 6 people, but so far I've only had 4 or 5 at any one session. They haven't been doing a lot of gambling or exploring, primarily focusing on influencing so far. I also have two characters that are focused pretty strongly on charisma skills. I have a sorcerer, bard, rogue, barbarian, fighter, and oracle. The sorcerer, bard, and oracle all have high charisma and ranks in social skills and the rogue, fighter, and barbarian have ranks in intimidate as well. When they aid another, they can swing hostile to unfriendly or even indifferent, and a few times 2 or 3 steps on the chart. I'm not sure if I should have Plug try to influence them away, or just end with allowing influencing for the rest of the 20 days. How quickly have your players made friends on the ship.

And some of them did start by failing multiple checks against people that turned them hostile that the bard was able to recover from.

Once difference, and what you may need to keep in mind is that historically the captain wasn't a [spolier=]16th level rogue[/spoiler] that 30 crew men have zero chance of besting in a fight. Typically if 20 people pull guns on you (or swords) you do what they say. Captain Harrigan doesn't have to listen to anybody.

And that's why you guys are awesome. Thanks for the quick response.

My order arrived and I found that I mistakenly received a copy of Pathfinder Module D4: Hungry are the Dead instead of GameMastery Module TC1: Into the Haunted Forest. Everything else was fine in the order.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I'm struggling to deal with a minor situation one of my players threw at me. One of my players is playing an Ulfen ex-slave. Another player is playing a gnome from Mwangi and attempted to influence Shavikah. She rolled poorly and Shivakah's response was "Gnomes were too much trouble as slaves and are too much trouble on the ship." The ex-slave heard this and punched Shavikah. She then won initiative and got to act in the surprise round and first round before Shavikah and knocked Shavikah out. Since the fight was so quick, nobody else had time to respond or get involved. Cog, Sandara, Maheem, and the gnome were the only ones close enough to witness what happened. Sandara is already friendly, but Maheem and Cog are both unfriendly. I gave her a bonus to try to intimidate Cog, but she rolled pretty poorly. I'm not sure what response I should have. I'd like to continue the bonus to Cog for a day, but I'm wondering if having Shavikah join Narwhale and the anti-party is enough of a response.

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll show her what an oracle looks like and see what she says. Oracle of Bones seems like the easiest way to get both of what she wants.

I'm just starting the Skull and Shackles adventure path and I have almost all new players. I'm trying to help them with feat, class, and skillnchoices to get what they want. SRD is open, as is the Inner Sea Primer and Inner Sea World Guide. Those are the only books I own, so that's all I can suggest.
We played a session already, but I am allowing players pretty free reign right now to switch their character around since they are all new and many of them did not know what choices they were making. I've got a girl who started out as a half-elf witch with the darkness patron, a cat, the coulrdon hex, and the ward hex. She was talking to my wife and said she wants to be able to summon monsters and/or create undead.

What are the best ways to suggest she succeed at her goal? I don't really want to suggest Summoner, because they have so many caveats and exceptions. I am afraid that for someone who has never played before it could get confusing or overwhelming. I know there are ways to get animate dead or create undead on the witch or oracle spell list. Wizards and clerics also have the spells. Currently she is the only person in the party that has any healing.

Thanks for the help. I hope I gave enough information.

Never mind. It just showed up on the tracking this morning.

Sorry to be a bother. I checked the shipping data just now and it is still not showing anything. I would just like to stay abreast of the status of the shipment. Thank you for your time and consideration.

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Maxx- I refer back to a thread on this forum where people are discussing the problems with the creation of a staff that should cost 50k gold but in fact costs less than 3k due to a flaw in the staff magus archtype when combined with flaws in the item creation rules.

If custom items are "off the charts," why is there an official Paizo "chart" for estimating the value of "new" (IE. custom) magic items?

Emphasis mine. You state right there. Its an estimation. It is then up to the GM to compare the item to other completed items and adjust the price accordingly.

How about goblins? Can we add goblins? My wife found out about Lets Be Goblins and now wants to play a goblin cleric that pokes people with a cure light wounds wand in their injuries to facilitate healing. She would also like to be the party scout and tell them how scary the horses on docks are.

Sorry. No good kobold stories. I did have a dwarf ranger that attempted to roast them.

Hrothgar, have you looked at Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? The real game before Fantasy Flight turned it into a 4 player boxed set game? You rolled randomly for class, many classed were things like servant or beggar. Stats were completely random. Spellcasting was extremely rare. A character's goal in life might just be 'open a tavern.' Might fit better than shoe-horning Pathfinder into something it wasn't designed for.

Just my quick thoughts. While I don't think there is only one true way to play, there are other systems out there that may give you thee feel and experience you are looking for. The fate system and Dresden in particular have a lot of social interaction and rp rewards and involvement. Savage worlds is lighter on the rules and combat options so there is a lot of room to just handwave extra skills. Shadowrun has bonus non-combat skills that have to be spent on knowledge 80's punk rock bands and craft ancient tea ceromany and the like.

Its been three days since my order was shipped and tracking data is still unavailable. UPS-MI says check with the shipper after three days if data is not available. I'm not really concerned when it gets here, I know it will get here when it does. I just may be going out of town for a few days and would like to know if it is close, if I need to have somebody else pick it up for me, etc.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

For those who watched Firefly, how would comparing Harrigan to Adelei Niska? The ruthless torture, getting what he wants, very concerned with reputation. I could see it.

Thanks for the responses. I will probably give most NPCs the +4 for working diligently and just no bonus if they help a PC. I figure helping a PC is about as much as influencing an NPC, so they both come with no modifier. I also will limit influencing and helping to in the same area. So if the cook's mate is on deck fishing, she can get help. If she is in the galley, then it may be shirking to help her.

Another question. Sandara told Grok her things were cursed to get them back. Rosie is still trying to get her fiddle. Cog has stolen or found enough stuff to probably trade Grok for his stuff. Why/how does Conchobar still have his stuff?

How do you all run the climbing tasks for riggers. A lot of them start with "Climb x feet, and then..." Do you let them make an infinite number of climb checks? Do you allow them to make enough to reach that height without failing? Some number in between? It just seems most of the tasks are one or two rolls that represent a days worth of work, but climbing is a little more specific.

Rob, thanks for the response. I will make sure to keep Kipper around and describe the explosion nice and loud.

I just was quickly flipping through The Price of Infamy to glance at Harrigan's stats and some of the other Wormwood Crew and noticed areas D5 and D6 in Harrigan's Fortress.

By this point I guess the PCs are already out to kill Harrigan, but I imagine this will just push some players over the edge, especially those that befriended Grok.

This changes some things in Wormwood Mutiny though. Glad I have the first 5 before I start running, it will make some things easier.

Herolab is not exactly in my budget right now. I'm also not a huge fan of Lone Wolf in general, but that's just a personal preference.

In regards to the link Bob provided, that still doesn't answer the, "what to put on them" question. They provide room for AC, HP, Stats, and then blank lines.

Does anybody have suggestions for 5 or 6 stats/skills/abilities that come up so often they might be nice to have pulled out already?

I had a GM recently tell me that a rogue cannot sneak attack as an AoO. I can't remember this being true in 3.x and I wasn't able to find it quickly when perusing the core book. The rogue in question was flanking when the monster moved out of the threatened square and the monster was not otherwise immune to sneak attacks.

This seems to be more a problem with the specific player and not with powergaming in general. Creating rules to limit this player's power will just turn into an arms race. Every time the GM bans something, the player will get huffy and go find another broken build to turn loose on the GM and other players. Honestly, the two best options are 1) talk to the player and/or 2) stop inviting them.

If you talk to the player and they are completely incapable of realizing that they are causing everybody else to not have fun then there is no real answer. They will always create characters that put their fun above that of others. If it isn't melee monsters, they will play summoners or necromancers and control action economy, or rogues and just steal everything, etc.

Even if you are in an area with few players, are you honestly having more fun with this one powergamer than without them? Two or Three person campaigns can be fun. If you already only have two or three players, then maybe the PG should be catered to more. If dropping him will leave you with more than 2 or 3, then you are already golden.

I guess the other "option" is in PFS. If you are running a public game and don't have the ability to screen players. Then you still need to take the PG aside and talk to them.

Another option could be, stack the deck against the PG, kill him quickly and then allow the rest of the encounter to be balanced for the others. After sitting out 90% of every session creating a new character until you "find a place" for him might cool him down.

I will be running this shortly and have been looking through some of the comments and have a couple of questions/concerns/comments.

1) I plan on pre-rolling tasks for the NPCs (and PCs) and therefore being able to more fluidly present to the PCs what is going on day-to-day on the ship. This also allows me to tell the players who is working with them at any given task. It also allows me to avoid rolling the cook's mate "special occasion" three or four times in a row.

....a) I will also preroll pass/fail for many of the NPCs, so that a few of them get lashings as well. I want the PCs singled out, but not too much. I keep in mind that if the PCs befriend the NPCs daily tasks may change.

....b) I was also thinking, as per a previous thread, of creating small "encounters" for the lookout pirate to spot. If he fails, somebody else spots it, but too late to respond appropriately.

2) I was going to have the NPCs "work diligently" most days, unless the PCs do something to alter that. In the evening, I was going to pre-select many of the NPCs nightly activities, varying between entertain, gamble, and influence. I will start with Tam and the four that jump the PCs, and allow some of them to take "influence actions" to poison a few of the NPCs against the PCs. I will describe the PCs seeing Tam talking to NPCs for Scourge and Plugg.

3) I was thinking of having the grog be "special new pirate grog." After a pirate has earned it, i.e. been through a combat with the ship, they get the real stuff. This provides an explanation for why everybody isn't dead.

....a) It also means that the PCs can try to influence Grok into giving them the real stuff early.

4) I am most likely going to have 6 or 7 players. Many encounters are already set up to be single character encounters. The reefclaws, The Man's Promise attack, and the dire rats are easy enough to add an extra opponent or two. Everybody says that Bonewrack Island is hard enough as is, so I will probably leave it. My major question is the ambush on day two. I will probably try to single out a few of the PCs, since 4 vs 7 isn't in the pirates best interest. I also think adding to the ambush will turn it into more of a brawl than it is supposed to be.

I also need to modify the xp a little, since xp will be divided a little more. I'll add an extra encounter here and there if needed.

I'm also stating that there are ladders down into the hold during most times. During a storm, the main hold trapdoors are closed and pirates do have to go through the officer's cabin. Otherwise the map doesn't quite work.

What is the point/effect of Kipper setting off the alchemist's fire during the attack on the Man's Promise? It seems to be pointlessly destructive and not have any noticeable effect.

Any thing I missed?

Hopefully this goes here. If not, hopefully it gets moved where it belongs.

I have not had a chance to DM in awhile and I'm getting back in with the Skull and Shackles AP. Back when I DMed, I used note cards with PC and NPC info during combat as a short reference for myself. I kept them in initiative order and just flipped the cards. It also allowed me to write hp, current effects, etc on the card. Finally, I could use them for spot/listen (as an example of how long ago) checks, will saves for illusions, and some other checks that I didn't necessarily want players knowing how well they rolled. I seem to have lost any examples of these cards and I'm struggling to remember what I put on them. I don't want to include entire NPC stat-blocks, because then it isn't quite as useful.

Has anybody done anything similar to these, and what do you put on them. I just want the most common stuff as a quick reference. For a lot of in-detail info, I can always refer to character sheets or NPC stat-blocks.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try to look for the Sharpe books and Master and Commander. I'll keep the others in mind. I'm not necessarily looking for anything too deep or Literature-like.

I mostly read on my Kindle, so that affects some of what I can find.

I think there is a difference between showing up for a game at your friend's house and showing up for PFS at your FLGS. At your friend"s house, you know the rules. Your friends will probably give you a hard time if you smell too bad or get drunk too quick. Otoh, if you are showing op somewhere that you aren't as familiar with, put on clean clothes, make sure you take a shower, etc. Tim over at ctrlaltdel usually has a post around convention season with a few of the basic rules. Despite thinking these are common sense, there are a few people I can't game with because of the stench or personal habits.

In addition, bring what you are supposed to. If you are supposed to bring food, bring it. If you are supposed to have dice, rulebooks, minis, etc, bring them. The corollary to this, if you aren't supposed to bring it, don't. Don't bring your brand new copy of that cool new board game, don't bring your new favorite cd, don't bring a movie to watch. Talk to your group and bring what needs to be brought.

Be aware of what you are playing. Doesn't necessarily mean, know the rules, some people are still learning. Just know what you are playing. If you are learning to play Shadowrun, be aware that it is cyberpunk and there are certain expectations. If you are playing pathfinder, accept that magic exists and move on. Don't try to play gun-toting, troll hackers in pathfinder and don't play a, well, there isn't much that can't fit in Shadowrun. :)

I use rolling; 4d6, drop the lowest, seven times, drop the lowest. I've found that it provides a pretty decent variety of characters without punishing a horrible roll. Now if you get two horrible rolls, you have to play one of them. :)
I also find that rolling is a lot easier for new players, since its just roll the dice and order them by importance. I am teaching my wife to play and trying to explain the formula for point-buy and prioritization just makes her eyes glaze over. She is extremely intelligent and engaged in roleplaying, but the number crunching isn't fun for her.
In addition, I have seen so many 16, 14, 14, 10, 10, 10 style characters that its not that exciting. I like having that extra 12 or 14 that I can randomly make a strong wizard or wise barbarian. I also like the opportunity to figure out, how does a 7 or 8 impact my character (or even a 5.)
Finally, in regards to point-buy, I always feel a little dirty when I drop stats below 10. Even if I don't care about wisdom or strength with my wizard, dropping to 7 and getting 8 extra points is always looked at as almost cheating.

Reading the Skull and Shackles AP and watching Pirates of the Caribbean has given me a bit of a reading itch that I'd like to scratch. Does anybody know any good books that revolve around the British colonies post US Revolution? Anything set in Colonial India or the Caribbean, with or without pirates. I've looked on the Kindle a bit, but frequently what pops up appears to be mostly romance. I'm looking more for adventure style books, a la Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, or National Treasure. Its summer and I'm out of school for a few months, I'd like to read some things that aren't professional development or job related.

Thanks for your time.

In addition, if the PCs are attacking too many other pirates without getting the blessing of a Free Captain, the Free Captains may send a few ships after the PCs. Even if the PCs can manage to attack a ships on their own, they can't stand against any of the fleets of the Free Captains.

If you don't want to outright kill your PCs, you can have somebody at Rickety Squibs mention that they might be attracting notice, or Kroop or Sandara.

Just my 2 c.p.

I'm not that much of a musician, but these are pretty awesome. I'm surprised nobody has posted "What Will We Do With a Drunken Sailor," but I'm not sure it needs much modification.

Does anybody have any suggestions for good bands or singers that I could play during the game?

I live an hour or so the other side of Springfield in Waynseville. I travel to Branson fairly often if there is a group nearby that does Pathfinder Society I would be interested in looking into it. Other than that, I'm looking into trying to run the Skull and Shackles AP, but I realize Branson to Waynesville is a little far for that.

I am wanting to make sure that my players aren't the only ones getting lashed during the bloody hour, so I am prepping by rolling tasks for the NPCs and skill checks. That way I know if they will succeed or fail without taking up too much in game time. As the adventure continues, some of the tasks may get modified based on PC actions, but overall I want to have an idea of who is doing what on the ship. For most of the tasks, failure is pretty obvious; dinner isn't that good, the rigging isn't fixed, you tripped running errands, etc. For Lookout though, failure may be less obvious. How does anybody know you didn't spot something unless there was something there to spot. Therefore, I am trying to think of some excuses and encounters to run when a perception check is failed. Here are a few ideas I have:

1) Jack Scrimshaw is carving scrimshaw. Either Mr. Plugg is watching or somebody tattles on him.

2) Ship sails too far away to catch. If the lookout had spotted them earlier, the Wormwood would have been able to give chase.

3) Locathah traders climb onto the ship without being noticed.

4) Triton guards warning the Wormwood away from somewhere.

5) Adaros attack.

6) driftwood or a raft floating in the water. May have zombies onboard.

Anybody have any other ideas. I was also trying to think of things that somebody else on the ship might see, but too late to respond to.

I have a kindle fire and would love pathfinder related apps for it.

The charm spells are not dominate. They just move the affected to friendly status. This means that the charmed individual would not do anything outside of their normal alignment and actions.

Just because one best friend tells you to tie up the other doesn't mean you would. Without a really high Charisma check.

In my opinion, the second casting wouldn't necessarily be required.

Edit: Ninja'd

We have just started the Skull and Shackles AP. If anybody is interested in joining up, we would love to have you.

I think that a very helpful part of the Players Guide is a reference to what animal companions, favored enemies, and favored terrains are appropriate. You could run a pirate campaign and stay on a ship the entire time, or stay in established ports, or deserted islands. Each of those lends itself towards different character choices. Since the GM cannot cater the campaign to the players as well, it is nice to have a little non-spoiler preview of the types of terrains, skills, and enemeies that may be faced.

And knowing it is pirate-themed, doesn't necessarily tell the player enough. A group of paladins could be tasked as Andoran privateers and still feel very pirate-themed. That isn't what this adventure is though.

Thank you for such quick responses.

Sorry to continue being a bother, but the Pathfinder Adventure Path #56 still hasn't shipped. Is there something I need to do to deal with it? It looks like I will receive issue #57 before I even have access to the #56 PDF. I'm new to the subscription and just trying to figure it out. Thanks.

Thank you

I think that I accidently got my second issue of Skull & Shackles delayed by putting the RotR hardcover on the same order. Is there any way to get the hardcover put on an order in early July so it doesn't delay any more subscription issues?

We are starting the Skull and Shackles ap soon and I was thinking of the peg-legged trait. My idea is a dwarven peg-legged Ahab style character. My father was a shipwright and as a child I "stole" a smallish boat from him to sail for a day. While out the boat was capsized and I was attacked by a shark. The shark bit off part of my leg, but I wounded it too. Since then I have becomme obsessed with finding the shark and killing it. I was thinking ranger, but I'm not sure if any of the archtyoes or prcs fit. Any advice?

And the biggest advice for not being a dick to your teammates and DM is "talk to your teammates and DM."

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I'm sorry that you find my post not relevant. I feel that we can give you the best advice in the world, with pages and pages of ideas, but if the other players don't respond well, it will not work out. If you have already talked to the other players and they can enjoy this idea, then go for it.

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Honestly, talk to the other players. This idea seems similar in play to Dragonlance Kender. They were hilariously fun for the player, but quickly became tedious for the party. If you keep your "pranks" to nonharmful and merely inconveniencing it might go over a little better, especially if its only once or twice a session. Also, if you can make it advance the story, even better. Trying to negotiate with a lord, give the half-orc barbarian pink hair and send him in to negotiate. He might not like it, but it will sure get some people's attention.

You as a player need to create a barrier between the player and the character. It is okay for the character to have this quirk, but not for the player. Try to use your player knowledge to modify when the character does actions.

For example, maybe you see another character trying to talk past a guard and flub his roll. Your character could just happen to use that moment to move some sticks behind him to spell a crude word, or slightly life a bucket that shouldn't be moving.

Just my thoughts, hope they make sense.

I would say, the best idea is to sit down with your DM. Pick a few illusion spells you want to use and list some ideas. Talk to you DM about what their thoughts are. See if you could use some skill rolls to add to or help the illusions. Want to make an illusion of a herd of buffalo, knowledge(nature) check. Want to make an illusion of an avatar of Asmodeus, knowledge (religion) check would help. Make the ceiling lower or higher, maybe use knowledge (engineering).

But my biggest advice is, discuss it with the DM. Sometimes DMs have the hardest time when something is sprung on them and they have to make a quick reaction. DMs also frequently have some pride issues, and if your answer completely invalidates an encounter they worked hard on, some DMs struggle with that.

In regards to changing expectations with the same GM, I'd say, jot down notes of what you did that worked or didn't. If the GM seems to be changing things, then after a session talk to them. Ask why things changed. You GM is really the only one who can answer some of your questions.