Matt Haddix's page

Awesome, I'm getting to run this soon on Roll20 and it'll save me some time. Maps look great!

It has nothing to do with what the Bestiary lists, it has to do with what's listed in the Additional Resources.

Matt Haddix wrote:

Honestly, I'd get rid of ability scores entirely and have all your statistics derived from your class and level. Ability scores lead to characters being too similar, ironically - every fighter ends up being strong and dumb, every wizard ends up being smart and weak, etc.

That is more about how you determine scores than the actual workings of it and not all are the same, just the optimized builds on the boards here.

Sure, obviously there are small variations. But if you want to play, say, a lightly armored, finesse-based fighter, you have to pay feat taxes in order to make that concept work. If you want to play a fighter who overcomes his opponents through tactics and wit (example: Sherlock Holmes in the most recent film adaptation), there's no real mechanical way to represent that. Divorcing combat effectiveness from ability scores allows you narrative control to describe your character however you want without being hampered by the numbers.

One thing that annoys me is that, by the rules, you can readily have all the materials you need to bend the fabric of reality to your very whim in an easily-replenished 5 gp spell component pouch, but if you want to do something crazy like fight with a bow, then by gods you'd better be tediously keeping track of every single arrow and rolling a percentage chance to see if they break after you use them.

Honestly, I'd get rid of ability scores entirely and have all your statistics derived from your class and level. Ability scores lead to characters being too similar, ironically - every fighter ends up being strong and dumb, every wizard ends up being smart and weak, etc.

For your specific example, though, I'll go ahead and tell you that things not published by Paizo are never legal (unless there's some exception I'm unaware of).

Though they don't seem to mind letting authors use cheesy tricked out Tome of Horrors monsters...

Any comment on the Globster's stat block being incorrect? This appears to be an error in Bestiary 3, but I am not sure if the error is the Strength score or the rest of the stat block...

You're probably right, either the Strength is wrong or the rest of the statblock is wrong. It should probably be errata'd one way or another in the future.

Unless I'm mistaken, drugs aren't legal in PFS anyways.

I saw a group that all had fogcutting lenses and would absolutely murder things while under cover of obscuring mist.

I was wondering about that too, and I just decided that the otyughs had been around this area long enough to adapt to dragging half of their body through the muck. It didn't really end up being an issue beyond the first round of combat, though, as both of them ended up staying pretty still.

My main confusion came from the second encounter, with the two urban rangers. I wasn't entirely sure where they were supposed to be positioned, so I had them poke their heads out of the pipe while the party was examining the statue. When they wiggled out, the positioning was such that there wasn't really anything stopping them from fleeing once the gremlin started making the statue glow. Overall that whole encounter was confusing, and I don't I did a good job of conveying what was going on.

Worldwound Gambit taught me the swear "Iomedae's tapered teats", and that's been pretty useful so far.

No mention of King Xeros? Man, that one was brutal...

Oh yeah, that one was pretty bad, especially when our cleric

I think so there is a standard across the board ... w/out the rule you'd have people with odd numbers and such .. this way it's even ... just think if you could switch on each scenario ... oops .. i died ... guess i'll be at full progression to get the money to rez and stuff .. and oh next scenario i'll go back to half progression cause i want to play more.

But you can already do that, just only for those scenarios when you're exactly at the level cutoff.

slow advancement can only be chosen at each level up -- it sounds like he's sitting at 5.1 so opting for slow advancement won't work in this instance ... the new character is really about the only option avilable.

I always thought that was a silly rule..does anyone know why it's in place?

Honestly..the most deadly game I ever played in was Murder on the Throaty Mermaid. Somehow between the terrible rolls on the part of the PCs and amazing rolls from the DM, we almost TPK'd in the first combat.

I'd say Rebel's Ransom was a close second.

I had a fun time playing it, until we got to the

, which was just an incredibly long, boring slog against creatures with unbeatable DR. That one fight probably took over an hour and we ended up running out of time.

I tend to read the conclusion of the scenario to the players, though ocassionally I will ad lib it instead, but I always try to have something to say or do after the boss fight, just to help the scenario actually feel complete.

The problem is that a lot of scenarios don't really have a conclusion written at all.

Can someone provide me with a link to an end-all be-all darkness adjudicating guide? Or a diagram? I'm thinking a Venn diagram with light, darkness, daylight, deeper darkness, and heighten daylight in prevailing light conditions of darkness, dim light, normal light, and bright light would solve the issue.

You'd think so, but the rules on darkness in general are a complicated, confusing mess that manage to confound some of the best DMs I know.

Bully for you, good chap!

I tend to (try) to make rather powergamey characters, and I don't think I'd take that trait. I'd much rather have extra class skills, or a static bonus to prop up a weaker save. I don't remember the exact math on it, but I think a reroll of a d20 works out to something like a +3 bonus on average. Personally, I don't think that a +3 bonus on one roll per day is really that more powerful than a constant +1 bonus.

It sounds like that player was doing some sort of ninja/gunslinger multiclass gimmick that wasn't very effective. Maybe it's one of those characters that needs a few levels to start to shine.

Where are you at in Michigan? I know there's games being run in Fowlerville and Mt. Pleasant on a regular basis. Check out the forums on www.michiganpfs.org and see if anything is happening nearby, or toss an email to your local Venture Lieutenant, Eric Clingenpeel, and he might be able to help you find some players.

I took Spectacles of Understanding.

Just a small reminder: edition warring isn't OK on paizo.com.

Really? Because there's still a pretty offensive post up there "4e is, was, and ever shall be an abomination that trampled the history and traditions of our game)." Is it only anti-Pathfinder edition warring that gets disciplined?

Holy crap, Adam! You've been busting ass down there. Seems like just yesterday I was TPKing you in your first adventure.

I recently heard a session of Fortress of the Nail (tier 8-9) garnered two PC death, one of them permanent. Apparently the GM had the Edavagor use its breath weapon, but allowing only one save. According to my understanding it has two breath weapons, thus both allow a save, and both are independently affected by Resist Fire and such.

So, be mindful of that.

I'm not so sure that's correct. Under the creature's statistics, it does say

breath weapon (2 30-ft. cones, 8d6 fire damage plus spoor worm, Reflex DC 24 half, usable every 1d4 rounds)

but it also says

Breath Weapon (Su) When an edavagor uses its breath weapon, both of its heads breathe a 30-foot-long cone of flame. These cones can be directed to affect separate squares (dealing 8d6 points of fire damage to those within), or can cover the same area (wholly or partially; dealing 16d6 points of fire damage to those within). The save DC is Constitution-based.

Based on my reading of the second section there, I think it effectively becomes one breath weapon with double the damage.

The portal isn't necessarily a wall of flame from the Hell side of the doorway. The edavagor should be at the far end of the room, close to the gibbets. With darkvision limited to 60 ft. and no low-light vision, it's going to need a round or two to use scent and move closer to investigate. It's entirely possible for the PCs to enter the kennels and escape notice for a round or more, and once they have attracted the guardian's attention, they can always go back through the portal to get healing and other resources they'll need to beat it after they've seen what they're up against. The additional devil only tries to stop them if they attempt to take Zarta through the portal. There's no limit to the number of times they can activate the portal, and thus they can retreat through it and re-equip/regroup as necessary.

When I ran this Sunday, the party's barbarian moved up to attack the edavagor and missed, then was on the recieving end of 5 attacks which killed him instantly. The rest of the party fought for a round or two, but then decided to retreat, and all managed to escape back through the portal. At this point, they wanted to go back to the Lictor and tell him what was going on, and try to get him to send reinforcements into the portal to help them. Realistically, that seems like a reasonable thing, you'd think that the Lictor would want to know about a portal to hell underneath his citadel and try to help, but I knew that that was outside of the scope of the adventure. Since time was running short on the con session anyways, I had the Lictor say that he'd have to launch an internal investigation, which would be a long, complicated, bureaucratic nightmare that would effectively mean it would be months before the Paracountess would ever be released. I hope this was a decent way to handle it, but I really felt like there should be something in the adventure for what happens if they ask for help.

Matt Haddix wrote:

Really? Needing to roll 3 strength checks threw your players into hysterical anti-4e convulsions? I don't see what's so terrible about needing more than one strength check to pull someone out of a hole.

Ability checks are almost never the appropriate answer.

What would be a more appropriate thing to roll?

Really? Needing to roll 3 strength checks threw your players into hysterical anti-4e convulsions? I don't see what's so terrible about needing more than one strength check to pull someone out of a hole.

A. "Who would benefit from Zarta's imprisonment

Spoiler:

If you play the Blakros Matrimony, you'll find out that Tancred Desimire is mad because he was in love with the daughter and a Chelixian Hellnight won her heart. There is also an underlying need to clear his family name after what is brother Aglorn did by turning to the Aspis (Storming the Diamond Gate.

That's not right, you're getting him confused with

That was a really interesting summary, I'll take some of those ideas into account the next time I run it.

CRobledo wrote:

Deussu wrote:

That I know. I allowed them in mainly because they want to level up their characters for Tier 10 goodness.

Naw, you ran it at the right ST (APL 6.8). Sometimes you have no control on the signups. Besides, the Edavagor would have probably eaten the level 5-7's alive.

I make it a point to run prep fights against every interesting creature that's presented in these scenarios against the level appropriate pregens from the NPC Codex just to prep since the fights can get involved.

With the 5 times I've run this fight against the NPC pregens the Edavagor is batting about 80% win rate against the party (hits 100% so far if the party doesn't have Seelah or Kyrah).
The sheer amount of damage, defenses, high speed and maneuverability makes this the most challenging 5-9 creature I've ever seen. I fear for an un-optimized parties survival against this thing.

Tomorrow is my regular game day and I'm going to try and pull a few of our experienced GM's aside and run a fight demo fight vs. this thing before unleashing it at the convention I'm scheduled to run it for next week. I don't have high hopes against this thing without a few barbarians and a paladin (or two).

I ran this tonight at the high subtier, and the party didn't have too much trouble with the edavagor. They managed to kill it right before his breath weapon was about to recharge in the 4th round. The 8th-level paladin doing the tanking had a 37 AC while smiting, and an alchemist throwing sonic bombs managed to whittle away most of its hp without too much trouble.

The roleplaying encounters went by pretty quickly, as I believe 4 or 5 of the 6 players were trained in Diplomacy. I really struggled with finding meaningful ways to make it more interesting than just "here's the evidence".

Thanks for the baddies docs, will definitely help.

My first read through gives me a less then stellar expectations for it. The roleplay elements look fine but lack the details I know my players will want to know (details on the "evidence" is sparse at best

That was my impression as well, I'm really struggling with ways to drag each roleplay scene out into multiple skill checks.

I ran this twice at Winter Fantasy. Sadly it was at 8 am both times so I think some of the role playing suffered, but it seemed to go pretty well the second time around. For the first group, they seemed to mostly focus on making small talk and I had to nudge them into trying to make the Pathfinder Society look good. The second time, the group really got into the role playing, so much that we ended up running out of time before the final combat.

My highlight was the group from Kentucky whom I dubbed "Delta Force", they ran through the special with extreme efficiency as a 4 man team. I was told to take it easy on them initially because they were a 4 man team. I stopped taking it easy about half-way through, and they only lost one man, and that was due to a really bad tactical decision to save gold.

Yeah, those guys were like the Harlem Globetrotters and my poor Lissalan cultists were the Washington Generals. They were still a blast to run for, probably one of my favorite tables at the con.

My highlight was Bonekeep with Jason Bulmahn as the GM. I died, got raised, got my negative levels removed; now broke I went back and died again. It was a privilege to play as Jason's table.

You should have just played a summoner. ;)

Scrynor wrote:

What about spells you cast on other people? You've got your whole group flying, you die, do they all fall?

Only spells with (D) in its duration will stop if the caster dies.

I've heard people say this before - what's the reasoning behind that? The only thing I can find in the rules regarding (D) is:

(D) Dismissible

If the duration line ends with “(D),” you can dismiss the spell at will. You must be within range of the spell's effect and must speak words of dismissal, which are usually a modified form of the spell's verbal component. If the spell has no verbal component, you can dismiss the effect with a gesture. Dismissing a spell is a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

A spell that depends on concentration is dismissible by its very nature, and dismissing it does not take an action, since all you have to do to end the spell is to stop concentrating on your turn.

I'm also not sure how the Shadow Lodge is going to convince the rest of their party members to go along with their faction mission. "No really, let's let this elaborate twin-swap plan carry out, and just let the crazy Ulfen guy carry off the bride. It's for the better good, I'm sure of it." Ah well.

I'm reading this to prep for Winter Fantasy, and I'm finding it a little confusing. For instance, when the elaborately far-fetched kidnapping plot takes place, why is the groom's first instinct to talk to the PC's? Supposedly it's because the mother of the bride is watching him like a hawk? Wouldn't she be interested in the fact that the BRIDE IS MISSING? Why isn't the fact that the BRIDE IS MISSING causing more of a commotion? How does a bride manage to disappear from her own wedding reception without anybody noticing or caring?

Those druids have one hell of a union, apparently.

I believe every feat in the core book is legal, with the exception of Leadership and item crafting feats. For other books, you can check the additional resources guide here.

And keep in mind that your physical chronicles is the official record, the online reporting is just a backup. As long as you have a chronicle sheet, you have the XP.

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elephants are never legal for play

You could even say that they're irrelephant.

Am I reading correctly that I cannot buy anything from my faction until I complete three scenarios, thus accumulating 6 fame (5 is the number on the chart, but I'm not sure how I'd even arrive at 5)?

You could arrive at 5 because you're not guaranteed to get 2 every time, since you could fail a faction mission.

Really sad we lost the vivisectionist, and I would like to hear why, from a mechanical standpoint, they are unbalanced. If they aren't, could we please have some other archetype of the alchemist that has sneak attack instead of bombs? That was an amazing idea, and I hate to see it go.

My guess is because of its potential when used as a dip for other melee builds. Throw 2 levels of vivisectionist on top of a barbarian and now you've got access to feral mutagens (stacks with rage) and enlarge person extracts. It gets to be pretty powerful.

Does the Axe Beak boon allow someone to buy an axe beak to use as a mount? I have a player who is playing a witch who wants to buy one now.

I've also seen a fair number of local players riding axe beaks on classes that don't get any sort of animal companions. By my reading of the boon, it simply extends the companion list to include axe beaks, it doesn't make them available to any character. Am I reading it wrong?

On another note, just how much bacon do y’all eat in one sitting?!?!

This is really a binary question. Is there bacon left? Keep eating.

If you go back to the late 1700's nearly half the country spoke German. In fact, the vote to make English the official language won over German by 1 vote.

That's an amusing urban legend, but it's not true.

Heretical scum such as Oracles don't worship a deity so I don't see why a deity should bother listening to their pleas.

The oracle in my home game is a Shoanti tribesman with the ancestors mystery. His spiritual weapon is fluffed as actually summoning the spirit of one of his ancestors to fight on his behalf.

We're talking about a game where people in full plate fly around smacking dragons the size of 747's with flaming swords, and old guys in bathrobes wiggle their fingers to make things explode. What's verisimilitude got to do with anything?