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Since the Forewarned ability does not actually offer any insight into the situation, I would not say that the wizard would "sense" that something was about to happen, especially if he fails to perceive any impending danger. Reason for this is that there is a spell to receive / sense danger what is about to happen, and its 9th level spell.

If he had an active Foresight effect on him, then he would receive magical warning / sense something was about to happen and how to best counter it.

In this case, going first when nothing has yet happened would not benefit the wizard (especially if the initiative is made in secret, to prevent meta and just casually mention that the wizard can at this moment make one action)

Good insight, Claxon. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies and clarification. Mods can move/lock this thread now.

Thank you for your reply and clearing the initiative tie rule.

I realise that I could have checked the initiatives prior to the attack in secret, and tell the wizard that he can at this moment make one action. Of course, as the wizard would not know specifically that they are about to get jumped on, telling him to roll initiative would give away that there is a fight coming.

Forewarned seems to be quite powerful against ambushes, if the wizard can score the highest initiative, as in such cases he would be able to act before the ambushers. Of course, there is the question then, that if the wizard fails to perceive the attackers, but goes first, what use is it? The Forewarned does not actually warn him before hand of any impeding danger, and I suppose that in some cases, would act against him.

I would need a little bit of clarification on how ambushes are worked out, specifically with one certain scenario:
Two characters enter a room, where there is a stealthing assassin. The two characters fail their perception checks vs the assassin's stealth check.

The assassin then spends 3 rounds observing his target, and moves in for a kill and attacks.

Now, I am the DM, and the assassin is an NPC. Of the two characters, the other is a wizard (divination) with the Forewarned ability, enabling him to act on surprise rounds. The other is a rogue/cleric (getting attacked By the assassin).

How the attack / initiative should work? Should I have all characters roll their initiatives first (even if the victims are not aware of the assassin) - then proceed to the attack (and if the wizard scores higher initiative then the assassin, the wizard goes first? - even if he has not observed anything yet, as in, no attack done = no visible assassin)

Should the assassin make his attack as per normal regardless? Should the initiatives be rolled AFTER the assassin's attack? How the scene should play out if we go by the book?

The way the scene played out in play was like this:
Since the assassin is getting his jump on his targets, I ruled that this would be the Surprise round, but, I would not roll initiatives, but instead have the assassin go first and then the wizard (because he has forewarned)

The assassin scored natural 20 on his attack against his target, dealt insane damage + sneak attack + death attack + massive damage, and killed his target with that one strike.
Now, the wizard could make his one standard action, which was to cast Hold Person on the assassin. The assassin rolls natural 1 and is held.

Now, I call for initiatives because the surprise round is done and normal combat starts. The wizard rolls natural 1 and scores total of 9. The assassin rolls 4 and scores a total of 9 as well.

I believe in case of a tie, the one who rolled higher would go first, but there was some discussion about the nature of succesfully casting hold person, and losing the effect if the assassin goes first and succeeds on his full-round action will save, effectively negating the spell too soon, so to speak.

So I allow the wizard to go first, and he delivers coup de grace against the helpless assassin and he rolls another natural 1 on his fortitude save and dies.

Something that made the scene a bit absurd was the fact that the assassin was level 18, while the wizard was levl 7.

Anyways, I would just like to know how the scene should had played if it went entirely by the book, and some clarification on these, as the player later messaged me that

1) initiative should be rolled before the surprise round.
2) even if no one is aware of the attacker, they roll initiative (I take he means before the attack happens)
3 The one initiating the surprise round would act even with the worst initiative of everyone involved
4)(he then adds) expect if he had rolled better initiative than the assassin (assuming he means he would had get to act first with better initiative, coupled with Forewarned - despite failing to spot the assassin).

((( I am aware of the wording regarding the start of combat as "When combat begins, all combatants roll initiative." and then proceeding to check if there is a surprise round or not)))

While the "oldest game" does sound pretty nice, I do know that it is somewhat challenging to come up with phrases like "I am fire, air-consuming, all things burning." on the spot with a set time of like 15 seconds. I do like the idea, but, not sure how to incorporate it to the test.

Like, on my previous camapaign, there was a sphinx that challenged the players with a word puzzle, and any answer they said, would come into effect, literally. For instance, if someone said "hell", they would be teleported to hell. After that, they all just prefered to remain silent.
So, while its not exactly the same situation, coming with something yourself, as in, instead of the character, it is challenging (considering the wizard character might have intelligence of 20 and thus quite word-ready...)

@ Sesharan, interesting ideas, especially the enchantment one.

So, I'm running a campaign where the players are students in a school of wizardy studying to become Red Wizards of Thay. Towards the end of their training, they will (and every other student from their year) undergo a trial, gauntlet, wizard's test, where their knowledge of the Art will be tested.

While I have come up with some puzzles and tests, (for instance, how to deal with illusions that can kill you...) I'm in a sore need of more material to use in these tests. The tests are done alone, no party involved. The PCs will be around lvl 5-6 by the time of their graduation, so the difficulty should scale to that (Though higher level spells used to complete some is possible, since scrolls do exist). Also, the tests are designed as a standalone tests, meaning that test #1 will have no impact on test #2, whetever or not the subject succeeds.

What I need is, some ideas / situations where the PCs will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of Art. Each and every school of magic.

The situations can be as simple as using one or two spells to do something, or word puzzle on the nature of some school of magic or anything in between.

The emphasis is on roleplay, more than mechanics, though.

Thanks.

I don't intend to kill the player character for making that wish, or make him unplaybale. Though this thread has given me some thought on how his wish will manifest, and I believe I'll probably end up going with DR 15/bludgeoning, with severe vulnerability to blunt damage. Basicly his skin is hard to penetrate, but his bones shatter easily.
(also being suspectible to all magic damage, as normal)

The character in question is a fighter, so I'll let him have his short moment of glory fighting against slashing / piercing opponents, and then throw some strong dude with a 2h-hammer at him.

Its up to him if he wants to keep his invulnerability, or to revert it. I won't harass him constantly with these bludgeoning guys, but once in a while remind him of his brittle bones.

Besides its not like I really need to screw over the player's character too much, he accomplishes that pretty much himself. Before getting that wish, he picked up cursed berserking sword, and will have to use that in the next fight. I'm guessing the other party members will find it hard to appreciate this berserking, invulnerable half-elf.

Anyways, thanks for the suggestions all.

So he can't be wounded, but he can be killed. Have it look like instant regeneration. Add up the points till it would go past negative con, allowing for any healing due to magic or time. At some point he just falls apart, all the 'wounds' now visible.

You mean that, it would look like the wounds he receive would be instantly "healed"? While in reality, he keeps taking damage; he just doesn't know or feel it? And after taking enough damgage to to go over the death threshold, he dies?

Give him DR 15/Magic. He is now nigh unkillable to regular means but anyone with a +1 dagger goes right through that. Or access to a wizard with magic weapon. He gets somethings quite use(less).

I was thinking of DR when he gave the wish, but they do seem a bit too strong a buff, when the whole idea behind this scenario was that a evil guy gives this player a lamp to make wishes, and have the efreet twist to wishes into something awful. The person who gave the lamp takes delight in watching mortals suffers from these kind of actions.

But now I suppose that DR 15 /bludgeoning and some form of vulnerability to blunt damage (shatters bones easily, etc) might do the trick. He wanted to be unable to receive wounds, basicly. So... have the bones shatter instead is a good idea?

Turning into adamantium and unable to act has more drawback than DR, since he can't participate in fights. With DR he would be kinda strong against slashing and piercing opponents (this might be done to accomplish greater sense of "oo I am so awesome now!" only to be met with a huge fighter with a really nasty 2-handed hammer that crushes his bones). Oh the multitude of choices...

There are boots in the UE that let you take a five foot step to move fifteen feet. Not quite the same thing, but a hell of a lot cheaper than the other two.

What boots might these be? I assume that the 5-foot step taken to teleport 15 feet in this case will still allow full-round attack?

I only need a way to bridge a gap with this sort of a small distance, tactical teleport and have that full-round attack still available.

Quickened Dimension Door (CL 15) at will: 216,000 gp!

Quickened Dimension Door 1/day: 43,200 gp. More reasonable, perhaps?

Dimensional Door won't allow any actions until my next turn, so... it doesn't really fit into this.

Also, no house-ruling. Going stricly by the book, so to speak.

Was wondering if there was any single item or feat perhaps, that would allow free action teleport (or similiar effect; doesn't need to be too long a distance jumped) to be used in a combat to effectively teleport next to someone, and still be able to take full round action.

Sticking to the core classes; without archetypes. All possible items and feats usable though. The class in question would be rogue.

Thanks.

I was thinking right alongside RumpinRufus. Make him invulnerable (in some fashion) only when he is attacked and have it be a random length of time and that it renders him virtually useless or even dangerous while the effect is in place. Shins' idea was excellent, too. He no longer takes damage but his allies do.

You could also get even more tricky, he never said what he wanted to be invulnerable to. If you want to be generous, you could make it something useful. If you want to twist it as you said, then make him invulnerable to itching, or cats, or metal poisoning...or a specific creatures bite or venom, etc. Or worse, he's immune to unarmed attacks....from fairies.

Ah, there is somewhat lost in translation, as we play in a different language than english. More to the letter, the wish would translate roughly to: "I wish to be unwoundable" or "I wish to be unable to be wounded".

So, there is somewhat specification about it. But yeah... I might probably go with the "flesh to adamantium" when being hit at. Thanks for the great suggestions!

Those are actually pretty darn good ideas. Adamantium certainly would fit into the whole invulnerability thing, as would being unable to harm or act during fights.

The character is chaotic evil, so I would assume he might have hard time to go to a temple to find remedy for this curse. Should be doubly fun!

The thing is, the player character already had the wish done, and in-game it has been some time (though nothing of note has happened since; no battles, no fights, etc)

I am aware of the temportal statis, or own pocket planes where time has stopped, for those who wish immortality (he was thinking of wishing for immortality first; he is quite new to the game and not so well versed in the lore or these "quips".), but I'd really like an effect that he has now. I think I can't use undeath really, since you can harm them. Making him a construct might work somewhat, but... again, the difference between a construct and a half-elf is quite visible (I think?)

Kinda late to have him in temporal stasis now (unless he is basicly blinked out of the current plane and cannot act with basicly anything on the prime material plane, thus, cannot be harmed...?)

One of my players got a hold of a magical lamp that summons an efreet to grant 1 wish for the summoner. The player wished: "I wish to be invulnerable".

The idea behind the wish is that it will twist and pervade any wish made into a negative effect. (The lamp was bestowed on the player by a disguised, evil rakshasa)

I could use some advice as to how to accomlish this so that the wish will be mostly negative effect, without breaking the character to be totally unplayable.

Similiar to this is also one other of my players. This person also got a wish from an efreet (main storyline stuff), after freeing him from 7000 years of captivity, only to wish the efreet to be his slave ("I wish for you to be my slave"). The way I handled this was basicly give him a ring of djinni calling with the said efreet bound to it and have 24 hours / every other day as the per summon limit. The advice I need with this player, is how to machinate the efreet's espace from this captivity and inflict great pain for this treachery.

The player character did send the efreet to fetch one other player character from a faraway place, and during that time, the efreet asked that person to steal the ring and in return would grant this person everything he ever desires (the person fetched was neutral evil wizard). But besides this, I could really use some help on how to free this extremely powerful being from the clutches of a lvl 6 chaotic evil character.

note: the party is all evil aligned, from lawful evils to chaotic evils, and on lvl 6.

Thanks.

I also think that the ability to express the character's actions in emotes is important, both in animated emotes and written emotes. I would make the example of the way how WoW manages this, as they have both of these.

For example, should I want my character to show respect or obedience, I can have him actually /kneel before someone. My character stays knelt and I can then /say whatever i want to say, having the speech animation also play (having speech animation is quite important to me, as it elaborates the character quite a bit).

The above example is quite a lot better than having to /e emote the kneeling part, so that it is left to the imagination. Though this option still beats the 3rd option, which is simply saying *kneels* in a chat bubble, as hopefully, the /e is only shown in the chat log, not in a bubble.

I would also say that for a game such as this, which seems to be made as the roleplayer's paradise, making sure that players can express their characters through verbal (i.e. emote) communication is very important. I understand that its impossible to animate everything, emote-wise, but there is no need for that either. Its enough that I can emote the fact that my character glances upwards at the raining sky while the rain drops fall down onto his helmet, slowly trailing down. Without a speech bubble for the emote, or extra animation. While it might be a flavour emote or superficial, I think it adds some depth to the character than instead of him just standing in the rain, not being able to animate him to do the emote or using text for it either.

Most of my time I play on a NWN player-persistent RP-only server (Arelith), where everyone there is a rp in a player driven world. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt for you guys to check it out, and see how they do the things there, as its just simply amazing.

Note that all of this is just my personal opinion.

The kind of an innkeeper who welcomes you with a warm smile and tankard of mead, takes a meager pay for a room for the night and smiles and shows you to your room....

...but looks can be deceiving, heh...

Ah... Missed the meeting but on the other hand I think it would had been at around 4am my time or so.. My timezone is GMT+2 so theres that 9-10 hours difference. Also, haven't been able to check in here for about a month :s

I suppose I would wish for many different things, but one wish is beyond all others, make Pathfinder Online a true mmoRPg, with the emphasis on the RP. Enforce RP and one way or the other, make the players subject to it. If they want to go and play action mmos they can go play other games.

The world of Pathfinder is meant to be roleplayed, and if everyone there would be an roleplayer, the experience would be so much better. If there are people who don't want to roleplay, then they could go elsewhere, like World of Warcraft, where the only aim seems to be to get the best gear as fast as possible and world first kills.

Make the game a dream come true for roleplayers, and enforce RP. There is not a one game out there, with emphasis on the roleplaying community. You could be the first ones.

Could I suggest myself to the council then? I suppose it might even fit my character, being the spy-like / information guy to know stuff. Or, if not directly in the council, some form of an advisor or councellor to one of the council people?

If the devs want the players to contribute and change the world, then 1 server and 1 character for an account should be the way, in my opinion.
That way, theres 4500 unique characters out there to interact with each other, and if you're a total jerk and like to gank other people, you cannot switch your character and hide. Also makes your character more meaningful, I think.

On the topic of not being able to see a character's name when you meet them is a nice idea, one that I've though about several times before. In a game like this where essentially you could get backstabbed by people you don't know, in my opinon adds more depth to it, though at the same time it might give some protection to those griefers as you don't know the name of the killer, and hence how would people going after the bounty look for him? The bounty would include visual picture of the killer?

It would also give the option to appear as someone else, giving more some intruiging options, but I guess it would be too much to hope that every player of the game would be in it for RP, and treat the game as such as opposed to 'get to the high-end and get epic loot as fast as possible'.

Just my opinions.