Lord Pel's page

+1 Agreed

Thus, a lot about them - including this - are left purposefully vague. It's more fun that way.

Not for the rules lawyers they aren't. :-D

I would say Yes.

From Disrupt Undead:

You direct a ray of positive energy. You must make a ranged touch attack to hit, and if the ray hits an undead creature, it deals 1d6 points of damage to it.

From the Dhampirs' Stat block:

Negative Energy Affinity: Dhampirs are alive, but react to positive and negative energy as if undead—positive energy harms it and negative energy heals it.

Since Disrupt generates a ray of positive energy, dhampirs' affinity kicks in and the little bugger is hurt.

As to your other question, unless is specifially says it damages by way of positive energy then I would say no.

Of course this means that 'hide from undead' will not work on a dhampir.

He or she should have an obvious means of knowing the party has the Scroll, like an artifact floating in the air pointing at whoever is carrying it.

Arcane Sight would work. Unless the scroll is encased in lead or something then it would light up like a Christmas tree to Detect Magic/Arcane Sight.

Been a busy week for me. First, I offer up the nightmare known as the Paragon Pugwampi, and now I offer up the Book 6 version of Undrella I made up to help (or hinder) my players:

She is statted out to be an efreeti killer what with her Frost Bombs. Since she flys,m I figured giving her protection from arrows would be a good defensive maneuver.

UNDRELLA THE ALCHEMIST -- CR 11
Female Harpy 7 / Alchemist 8
CE Medium monstrous humanoid
Init +4; Senses Perception +15

DEFENSE
AC 23, touch 16, flat-footed 18 (+4 Dex, +1 natural, +1 dodge, +1 deflection, +6 Studded Leather +3, )
hp 72 (7d10)+(8d8)-7
Fort +9, Ref +15, Will +8

OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft. Fly 80 ft. (Average)
Bombs: 15/day
Ranged Bombs +17/+12/+7 (4d6+3 fire)
Ranged Acid Bombs +17/+12/+7 (4d6+3 acid + 1d6 acid following round)
Ranged Sugar Frosted Bombs +17/+12/+7 (4d6+3 cold)+staggered
Melee dagger +1 (frost) +15/+10/+5 (1d4+2/19-20)
Ranged dagger +1 (frost/thrown) +18/+13/+8 (1d4+3/19-20), within 30 ft. +19/+14/+9 (1d4+3)
Melee talon (primary) +14/+14 (1d6+1)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks Acid Bomb*, Bomb, Captivating Song (DC 15), Fast Bombs, Frost Bomb*, Precise Bombs, Throw Anything,

Prepared Spells
Alchemist (CL 8th):
3rd - cure serious wounds, haste, protection from energy
2nd - bear's endurance, blur, cat's grace, protection from arrows, see invisibility
1st - ant haul, expeditious retreat, keen senses, shield (2)

STATISTICS
Str 12, Dex 18, Con 8, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 15
Base Atk +13; CMB +14; CMD 30
Feats Armor Proficiency, Light, Brew Potion, Dodge, Extra Bomb (2x), Far Shot, Great Fortitude, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Skill Focus (Bluff), Throw Anything
Skills Acrobatics +12, Acrobatics (Jump) +8, Appraise +3, Bluff +6, Climb +1, Craft (Alchemy) +17, Craft (Untrained) +3, Diplomacy +2, Disguise +2, Escape Artist +4, Fly +22, Heal +1, Intimidate +6, Knowledge (Local) +11, Perception +15, Perform (Sing) +4, Perform (Untrained) +2, Ride +4, Sense Motive +1, Spellcraft +15, Stealth +4, Survival +1, Swim +1,
Gear: bracers of archery, lesser; club; dagger +1 (frost); ring of protection +1; studded leather +3;

I'd say 'Pinning' is acceptable. RAW, the Pinned condition just says that the pinned creature is tightly bound. It just means that they are even more restricted in their movements than with a normal grapple. HOW this is accomplished is not relevant. Maybe the pinning creature has the pinned creature by the pinky and is painfully bending it back.

Ruth from the Bible is another one that could be leveraged. A strong girl who is willing to do anything to protect her family/ethnic heritage from destruction at the hands of another ethnic group.

There are a lot of good examples of strong women with compelling stories that you can use, though I suppose Ma Barker or Nancy Drew probably would not work well in this case.

I am sure that Undrella would be more than happy to step in!

The way I read Badra, I don't think she would want to be associated with a 'provincial'.

What about Haleen? Not knowing your take on her, could she be a candidate?

One thought that does comes to mind is an Esmerelda type of character. A seven-veil-dancer who follows the story line of Esmerelda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (not the Disney movie, the original from Victor Hugo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esmeralda_(The_Hunchback_of_Notre_Dame)

Just some slight adjustment to fit the Arabian Nights theme and you might have something to work with.

-Pel

One of the things that I did forget to calculate is the CMD:

CMD 33 (10 +0 BAB +4 STR +9 Dex -2 size +12 Luck)

Oh, and the CMB is wrong. It should be a 2(0 BAB +4 Str -2 size). I forgot the size modifier *blush*

So with a CMD of 33, this is the biggest whole in this things defense. Get a grapple or a trip in concert with the other characters using the 'Aid another' action to stack +2 on a single character's attack roll.

This means that to beat this thing, the party really needs to work together. And *THAT* I can groove on.

One of the things that I love about this version is that with haste, the bugger is moving around at 180' as a single move action!

I can envision the little demon running around drawing attacks of opportunity from all the players! And all it needs to take him out is a single critical hit from range. Simple, yes?

You forgot the most important part, the unluck aura ;D

Nope. It there in the header section. I just did not add the full text to the Special Abilities section because I am assuming that people who are reading this *KNOW* what the pugwampi does :-)

...He looks like an egg in armor...

I will not disagree there. But then, the original creation is meant to be more of an annoying menace than and actual direct threat (for anyone over level 3 at least).

In what context did you create the creature? Out of a whim?...

Mainly just as an exercise in 'What if'. I took the 3.5 statblock and simply added the Paragon Template from the d20srd. Nothing more. I am not sure that I would want to actually use him in an actual encounter. I am fairly confident that my players would not want to meet one...heck, they don't even want to meet any of the original CR 1/2 pugwampis and my players are level 13!

I agree with your points about wanting to see more abilities. With that in mind, notice that the stat block says that pugwampi's favourite class is the druid. So what if we add a few level of druid, give him some spells and a hyena animal companion/mount. Any other animal companion would suffer the effects of the unluck aura.

One of the things that I find...odd...about the final encounter is that it is listed as EL16. The previous APs all had ELs of 20/21. I am thinking about upping the EL a bit by adding a few targets in the manner of

3 Efreeti Janissaries (elite bodyguards)
9 Erinyes (harem)
8 Janni Captain (thugs)

That puts it more at a EL 20. But, this seems a bit much to me unless the party has quite a number of followers/NPCs with them.

Something a little more reasonable for smaller parties might be just to add 4 Fire Giants or 4 Noble Salamanders. This would up the EL to a 19.5 but would be appropriate for a smaller party of 4 I think. Especially since the party would be sure to have abilities geared to fighting Cold Vulnerable enemies.

I keep threatening my players to bring out one of these so I thought I would stat him up for the fun/exercise of it.

Paragon Pugwampi CR 14
Always NE Tiny fey
Init +13; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +13 (+9 listen)
Aura unluck (20-ft. radius)

DEFENSE
AC 40, touch 40, flat-footed 31(+9 dex, +2 size, +5 natural armour, +12 inherent, +12 luck)
hp 25 (1d6+19)
Fort +17, Ref +21, Will +19
DR 10/epic; SR 32
Fast Healing 20; Fire 10; Cold 10

OFFENSE
Spd 90 ft.
Melee dagger +28 (1d2+24)
Ranged shortbow +28 (1d3+20/×3)
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 16)
At will—prestidigitation, speak with animals
1/day—shatter (DC 17)
3/day—Greater Dispel Magic, Haste, See Invisibility

STATISTICS
Str 18, Dex 28, Con 25, Int 25, Wis 29, Cha 21
Base Atk +0; CMB: 4
Feats Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse
Skills Bluff +14, Craft (trapmaking) +11, Disable Device +13, Hide +26, Ride +9, Perception +13
Languages Gnoll, Terran
Gear dagger, shortbow with 20 arrows

I whole heartily agree. I ran my players through using the 'Director's Cut' and it made things run quite a bit smoother (especially considering the heavy-handed tactics I needed to use to get them through the previous book).

I especially loved how my players were caught in the moral dilemma of which faction to support.

Much thanks to Mr. Nelson for making this available!

Hyla wrote:

Note that coup de grace is a full round action.

And no, I do not think that you can power attack or vital strike on a coup de grace.

I am aware that it is a full round action. At 10 feet I should be able to take a 5 foot step and be in range. Or would readying the action mean that I would need to wait another round after casting (effectively giving him two saves)?

Yes. You would need to wait for the next round before issuing the coup de grace. But, if you have a friend nearby, *THEY* could deliver the blow on their turn.

So the question becomes: What to do with Memrach?

He's deadly, but is he psychopathic? Why would he fight the party if they give him no reason to? I'm thinking of Memrach as an intelligence test: if you have it, you will speak pretty words and back away swiftly.

Memrach will probably question the party about what they know about getting out of Bayt al-Bazan. He might threaten to kill them if they lie to him, but beyond that, why have him attack?

I am using him to abuse, stalk, harass, and threaten the players until they are in the upper levels for the book. At that point he will do something that *I* know will cheese off the players but is fitting for who and what Memrach is. It will probably lead to his death since the players are more level appropriate.

Unfortunately, my plans will not come to fruition until next year since two of the players are off an a round-the-world honeymoon.

The Efreeti-bound template says "scorching ray (one ray)." (emphasis added) On that basis, and the likelihood of fire resistance, I think your party is safe from TPK, although actually killing the esteemed Master is another story. Just like Zayifid from HotB - you have to play him as suicidal or stupid if your players (or my players, at any rate) are going to have a chance.

Yeah, Matajinn was something of a non-entity in my game. The players had Invisibility Purge up so no hiding for him. That and a failed fort save for Baleful Polymorph and Matajinn was Turtle Soup. No seriously, the damned druid turned him into a desert turtle!

Lord Pel wrote:

eirip wrote:

DMFTodd wrote:

Does a Sepid Div take damage from his own Rain of Debris? He's got some DR but that's still going to hurt him pretty good.

I know this is an old post but did you ever get an answer to this?

I vote no.

That is what I was leading towards but from a rules stand point I do not see a reason why he wouldn't.

You are the GM, you don't need a reason!! =)

DMFTodd wrote:

Does a Sepid Div take damage from his own Rain of Debris? He's got some DR but that's still going to hurt him pretty good.

I know this is an old post but did you ever get an answer to this?

I vote no.

Is this AP any good?

Also, how much of the AP involves no "Ye old magic shops"

Since almost all of the AP involves exploration of ruins, it does not really have too much in the way of access to the vast catalogues of magic that some players may be used to. There is provision however for having supplies brought in and so players *could* order up items and have them delivered later.

From a GM's perspective, this AP's execution definitely feels like the weakest AP that Paizo has produced. BUT...I have heard that with the right GM, it can be a blast to play.

Just like any AP, it is what you make of it. This one however, you might have to work just a little bit harder than usual.

Hey, it's the 100th post! Since it's well known that 1 post = 10 wishes, that means I get to unleash Xotani!

Brilliant work on these! Thanks so much for doing these conversions!

Your Xotani almost makes me want to make sure my players fail in stopping Jhavhul! But then, I am evil that way.

Name: Roksaneh, Druid 12
Volume: 5, The Impossible Eye
Where: The Bursar's Room
Catalyst: 2 Critical hits in 2 rounds and a misplaced animal companion.

Roksaneh and her Animal Companion were engaged with The Bursar while the other characters attacked from range in order to try staying out of range of The Bursar's longspear. After receiving a critical hit while power attacking from the longspear, Roksaneh 5-foot stepped out of reach range so she pull out a wand of cure serious to heal a little bit. She positioned her animal companion in a way to try and prevent The Bursar from five-footing back into range of Roksaneh. Unfortunately, the animal companion did not close off a five foot diagonal step. On the Bursar's next turn he took that five-foot step and gave Roksaneh a second critical which took her down to below negative con.

I should mention that did not roll a single '1' when determining damage done. Both damage rolls were moderately above average.

There is something about a barbarian wearing flip-flops that screams of complete wrongness to me.

The Pugwampi unluck-aura is negated every time you are affected by anything that gives you a luck bonus. I would say, that Perfect Strike is just lucky enough to qualify.

I would argue however that nowhere in the text of Perfect Strike does it even suggest that the feat is a result of luck. Rather, it reads more like it is based on practice and skill rather than luck. If the OP can convince the GM that it is luck then fine. But this interpretation definitely would not fly at my table.

PFRD wrote:

Unluck (Su) A creature in this area must roll 2d20 whenever a

situation calls for a d20 roll (such as an attack roll, a skill check,
or a saving throw) and must use the lowest of the two results
generated.

vs

Perfect Strike; You can roll your attack roll twice and take the higher result.

How exactly do these 2 abilities interact? Is there a FAQ or a thread somewhere around? I looked around and failed my Searchfu roll, must be a Pugwapi around.

Since the attack roll is a d20, the individual would roll 2d20, noting the lower of the two as per the unluck aura. This is one attack roll.

Since Perfect Strike allows making an attack roll twice, you would repeat the above application and select the higher of the two.

So if you are mathematically inclined it would look something like this:
maximum( minimum(d20,d20), minimum(d20,d20) ).

A quick way to do this would be to roll four d20, two in each hand. Select the lowest die from the left hand's roll, and the lowest die from the right hand's roll. The final attack roll would be the higher of the two selected die.

Hello All,

Spoiler alert, some questions might not be suited for players of this adventure path, hence the actual questions being in a spoiler tab.

I got a few small questions about the Pactmasters of Katapesh that play a role in the Legacy of Fire adventure path. For information, I am starting this adventure path next week with a group of five players all of them experienced roleplayers.

** spoiler omitted **

My take on it is...

Yummy!

Nekyia wrote:

Suppose I have two ebon wayfinders (Seekers of Secrets) on my person, one of which is slotted with two ioun stones (thereby suppressing its darkvision and darkness abilities), while the other is empty. Does the empty wayfinder still give me darkvision and darkness as normal?

IIRC earlier in the description on using wayfinders, it indicates that you can only have one wayfinder at a time. If you have multiple wayfinders they interfere with each other and neither one works.

+1

Least favorite: the all-too-common "combat is the solution to everything" approach to the game.

Would it be fair to say therefore that this is a very much Hack-And-Slash AP?

For me, this AP has a completely story driven architecture. If you have a play group that is more into the hack-and-slash-how-much-XP-did-I-get mentality then this AP is probably not the best for that group. But if you get a group that can get into the whole story and are willing to really *PLAY* in the story then this is the best AP that I have read.

That said, I do have a few 'issues':

Ranged combat already has a big edge over melee combat in that full attacks are always possible, it would be better for the melee guys to get some tricks the rangers don't get equivalency for.

+1 Agreed.

This is the random table(*) that was used:

01-07 Cat, Big (Tiger)
08-14 Camel
15-21 Monitor Lizard
22-28 Bat, Dire
29-35 Roc
36-42 DM's Choice
43-49 Cat, Big (Lion)
50-56 Hyena
57-65 Roll Again, Apply Fire Template
66-72 Cat, Small (Leopard)
73-79 Cat, Small (Cheetah)
80-86 Ram
87-93 Rat, Dire
94-100 Snake, Viper

The player rolled twice on the table, and I rolled once. The player was then given the choice from among the 3 results. In this way I hoped to keep it fun for the player by giving them some choice in the matter so they were not forced to have an animal companion that they truly did not want. The player rolled a Monitor Lizard and the cheetah with the fire template, while my result was a repeat of the monitor lizard.

The player also had the choice of expending a hero point to change the result of their roll by d6 in a chosen direction (without knowing the table in advance).

(*)The table was created by collecting all the animal companions that came from temperate/hot climates, filtering out ones that did not make sense from an AP theme perspective (ie dinosaurs), and randomizing the positions on the table.

No brains for me?! *POUT*

It's because I'm not actually able to go to PaizoCon isn't it?

Please, sir, I want some more...

And to Lord Pel:
;)

*Whistles innocently*

The druid has eschew materials. Could she use, say, diamond and gem dust for the same amount to substitute for the oils?

Also, *I* want it to be a nice damage dealer. The druid just wants her specific companion back, in any form that she can bond with.

I would say no. But if your GM is not *too* much of a jerk, they might make the oils available as loot at some point in the next session or two.

Using the Animal Companions found in the core rulebook only, I came up with the following chart:

01-05...Ape
06-11...Badger (Wolverine)
12-17...Bear
18-19...Bird (Eagle)
20-21...Bird (Hawk)
22-23...Bird (Owl)
24-29...Boar
30-34...Camel
35-37...Cat, Big (Lion)
38-40...Cat, Big (Tiger)
41-43...Cat, Small (Cheetah)
44-46...Cat, Small (Leopard)
47-52...Crocodile (Alligator)
53-58...Deinonychus (Velociraptor)
59-64...Dog
65-69...Horse
70-75...Pony
76-81...Shark
82-87...Snake, Constrictor
88-93...Snake, Viper
94-99...Wolf
100.....Dm's Choice

edit: Slight tweak to the numbers to even out the odds a little.

I like the idea of creating a table based on the available animal companions to where the party is. Since the OP indicated that they were on the Plane of Fire, I *might* even be tempted to apply the Elemental-Infused Creature (fire) template from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary. That is, provided that the druid in question could find a suitable place to do their ceremony/meditation/et cetera. And since they are on Plane of Fire, I think I would *NOT* include dolphins.

Of course, I would not do this without talking to the player in question first.

Toadkiller Dog wrote:

20d6 is 70 dmg on average. It will either reduce the damage of Protection from Fire by 70 or deal 40 dmg to those with Resist Energy. It's good both ways.

Except the rules for Lava states "immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma".

I personally feel that has to be a typo, and resistance would serve as a resistance rather than as an immunity, but those are the printed rules.

It is a consensus that that is a typo...or rather that some text got left out: "immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity OR RESISTANCE to lava or magma"

At least at the table I play at immunity to fire gives immunity to lava while resistance to fire gives resistance to lava. It only makes sense that way.

I got it printed just fine last night with no issue. (Win 7 with an Epson 1400 printer and the most recent acrobat).

I think some delay is necessary, otherwise what happens in the case of a wizard who dies, but is brought back a few days later via raise dead? Does he come back to be reintroduced to a now-unintelligent familiar? Does the familiar 'snap out of it', and revert back to its higher Int once the master is revived? Or does the wizard have to renew the spiritual connection ritual?

Something along the lines of one day (or week) per Master's HD? That seems pretty reasonable to me.

I'm not so much taking a poll, as interesting as that may be, as asking, Is there a correct pronunciation of Coeurl? If van Vogt never gave a pronunciation, was there a consensus of how staff said it in-house?

Guidance here will remove a little pebble that has been wearing in the shoe of mind for some time. Why did I wait so long to ask?

This is how I approach it:

The 'oe' sounds like the 'eu' the French word neuf. If you know french this makes sense. If not, then try pronouncing like coo-earl but mash it up into one syllable not two.

Heck, your player's won't know if you are pronouncing it right either so no worries! *wink*

The elemental cause a normal fire with the Burn ability.

As the fire can then be put out by rolling on the ground (to smother the flames), I would think you could also smother the flames with water.

+1

Putting out fires created by a fire elemental with Create Water will work. At the minimum it should allow a new reflex save.

Putting out a fire elemental would require something more along the lines of Quench.

You know, I completely skipped over that paragraph that describes that weapon. That is how underwhelmed I was with it! Heh.

It gets me to thinking...what if there was an Oil of Formula X? You could apply it to a weapon and turn it into a fire outsider bane frost weapon.

Oh, one thing I would definitely change:

In Book 4 the PCs get a chance to find a special weapon to use to battle the final enemy, however, Zayifid in Book 2 uses the same exact weapon, so if they defeat him and get that weapon in Book 2, it's not quite as exciting to get another one in Book 4.

I'd suggest making Zayifid's weapon less and also making the weapon in Book 4 a little better than listed (it's a special named weapon after all)

I believe the special weapon that is being mentioned in book 4 is the...

...at least that is how I read it. I know that my players were VERY excited at being able to obtains some of that Formula X.

Ice Titan wrote:

Neato torpedo.

After hearing this will be "more story oriented" I'm much more interested in this AP again. The write up makes it look cool!

There's a good chance this AP will be the MOST story oriented AP we've done yet, in fact. We'll see!

Story oriented? I am SO there!

Lord Pel wrote:

A pugwampi cleric of good luck

That might lead to physical violence, considering the group got "pugwampied" severely in the first couple of books.

Hey, you asked for weird builds ;-)

And I can imagine much hilarity ensuing with a pugwampi cleric of (good) luck.

Ooh, speaking of which, how about bringing in a kender?! It would be about on the same level as a pugwampi cleric in that it could lead to physical violence.

A pugwampi cleric of good luck

Lovely bit of art, but who's the cute gnoll and where can I find her (er, in the books, I mean)?

That is Ratsheek, and she can be found as a character in the 'Pathfinder Journal' sections of the Legacy of Fire AP.

When Qilzar reforms in the palace, does he get his Discord ability back if he's already used it?

I say NAY.