Myron Pauls's page

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While there are many of us here on the forums that are happy to answer your questions, you can also check the Additional Resources for information on what is and isn't legal for Society play.

In fact, if you want to use anything that isn't in the core assumption, you have to bring the book it's from and a printed copy of the most recent Additional Resources.

With all that being said, Mr. Sin and Draven are correct: you need a special boon (usually won at a convention) in order to play a kitsune character.

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These all look great, especially the host devil.

What is there to say about the Drowning Devil… Weighing in at 600 pounds…

I guess I won't be ordering this set — the shipping charges to Canada for this "mini" alone will break me. Very fiendish, indeed!

Congratulations! That's quite an accomplishment!

I'd like to see a scenario where the PCs are stripped of their spell components somehow, and have to figure out what spells they can still cast with the materials they can scrounge from the immediate area.

I'm currently running a group through

In it, the group has to It was quite interesting watching the spellcasters of the group figure out what they could cast.

I find this type of adventure very interesting, as it forces players (and GMs) to think outside the box.

I love the Rosie mini. It's great to see more minis that aren't in combat poses, and could be used for many different roles.

Oh, and the other ones are nice too!

Congratulations, Kolby. Welcome to the team!

Thanks for putting this together - it's probably one of the most confusing set of rules in the game.

I just have a little nit-pick you might want to look at before you publish your document.

Sight:

• Low-light vision - Double the effective radius of bright light, normal light, and dim light.
• Darkvision - See normally plus dark areas within 60 feet. A creature can't hide within 60 feet of a character with darkvision unless it is invisible or has cover.

There are many creatures (including some valid character options) that allow darkvision at different ranges. You might want to consider:

Sight:

• Low-light vision - Double the effective radius of bright light, normal light, and dim light.
• Darkvision - See normally plus dark areas within range of darkvision (usually 60 feet). A creature can't hide within range of a character with darkvision unless it is invisible or has cover.

Ahhh yes ,,, the annual meet people and eat them ... forgot about that .. ok .. so the evening game is tentative, depending on what those plans turn into

1pm - TBD
Gm Wes
player 1 Thea
player 2 zylphryx
player 3 Myron
player 4 Marc R.
player 5
player 6

7pm - TBD -- dependent on MnE plans
GM: Wes (or Thea)
player 1 Thea
player 2 Pirate Rob
player 3 Ill_Made_Knight
player 4 Myron
player 5 Marc R.
player 6

My friend Marc has no internet access at work, so he asked me to put his name down as well.

Purple Fluffy CatBunnyGnome wrote:

Ahhh yes ,,, the annual meet people and eat them ... forgot about that .. ok .. so the evening game is tentative, depending on what those plans turn into

1pm - TBD
Gm Wes
player 1 Thea
player 2 zylphryx
player 3 Myron
player 4
player 5
player 6

7pm - TBD -- dependent on MnE plans
GM: Wes (or Thea)
player 1 Thea
player 2 Pirate Rob
player 3 Ill_Made_Knight
player 4 Myron
player 5
player 6

Personally, I would be just as happy playing a game as attending the Meet and Eat.

For game suggestions, I would enjoy playing Day of the Demon. Or pretty much anything else. I've got lots of characters of various levels.

I would be interested in gaming on Thursday. A bunch of us from Winnipeg are driving, and will probably arrive Thursday morning sometime. Since we're Canadian, we're not that interested in the 4th of July. :)

Added custom maps for 4-13: The Fortress of the Nail. There are two versions - letter size which can be taped together, or poster size if you have access to a plotter.

I'm interested in this workshop!

Welcome to the club!

Congratulations!!

Those are awesome maps, thanks for sharing them! If you haven't already done so, please consider adding them to the GM Shared Prep thread/drive.

I'm always looking for ways to make better maps, so I'm wondering what, if any, other programs you used for effects.

Congratulations and welcome to the mountain!

Since you obviously run a lot of great games, what advice do you have for all the other GMs out there?

For anyone prepping, I uploaded all the bestiary baddies in a single file to the GM shared prep folder. Enjoy.

That was fast! Thanks a lot for getting these ready and sharing them.

Welcome, Nina, to the illustrious ranks of the Venture-Lieutenants!

I ended up having him hide in one of the cubbyholes, and when one of the party members disturbed the shrine he jumped out and started attacking. It was a very interesting encounter, because the party had only one member who could cast Daylight, but he was the one who disturbed the shrine(and thus was the first one submerged in the Silence+Deeper Darkness).

I was expecting a few deaths based on the way the fight got triggered, but everyone actually made it out alive due to impressive co-ordination among the party members, which was great to see.

That prep drive is near Myron, I'll have to prepare that stuff if I ever run this again(I really hope to, actually).

Sounds like you had a good game. If you liked this one, the next two in the series are also very good. I ran all three in one day for the same group of players and we all had a great time.

I've played RPGs for many years. Before Pathfinder Society, I always used a screen. After seeing many GMs not using one, I decided to try it.* To my surprise, I quite liked rolling in the open and I think the players prefer it as well. I still use a smaller screen to conceal the maps, etc, but that's it. A screen is also handy for tacking up notes of things I need to remember for that session.

*To me, this is one of the greatest things about Pathfinder Society—seeing different play styles, and learning new tricks and styles of play.

I realize this is probably too late for you tonight, but I've uploaded my custom maps for this scenario on the shared GM prep drive. Some assembly required.

I've run this three times. Two of those times, the party could produce daylight, either by casting it, or with an oil. Both times, this fight was fairly easy for the party, especially the time when the monk jumped behind the guardian and got flanking with the rogue.

The last time, no one was prepared for deeper darkness, and it was a very challenging encounter. Everyone could either fly, levitate, or spider climb. This turned the fight into something very special. I created the stairs in 3-D, so everyone could see their relative positions. Of course, in the darkness no one really knew where they were, but we all had a lot of fun anyway.

Currently it's my personal google drive.. however, I'm in talks with someone to host it... if it's something that can be upleaded as a google doc then it takes no space, if it absolutely cannot be a google doc then feel free to upload it (there is still tons of room currently)

Myron -- after your things were uploaded I'm still only at 18% for the whole drive (shared and my personal sections) so I think we're good.

Thanks for the quick reply! I will convert the PDFs that I posted to Google Docs format later this evening. I'm not sure how well the poster maps will convert, but I'll give them a try too.

Myron Pauls wrote:

I can't easily find any pictures, but here are the images I used to make the gate.

Ooh! Can we post these on the shared prep google doc?

I just posted them there. I also included my custom maps.

I've uploaded some items for 3-25: Storming the Diamond Gate. Included are:

• Images for the rune gate.
  
• My GM cheat sheet, including player handouts for the various runes.
  
• Custom 1" scale maps for both levels of the dungeon.

Note that these maps are designed to be printed on a plotter. It should be possible to print them on smaller paper and tile them together.

Out of curiosity, how much room is there on this Google Drive? Some of my maps are fairly large files.

Has Myron posted a picture of the one he made? That sets a really high bar for game props.

I can't easily find any pictures, but here are the images I used to make the gate.

The linked folder has 2 versions of the rings I used for the ring gate, as well as my cheat sheet for this scenario. If anyone wants the custom maps that I made, please send me an email at:

To make the gate, I pasted the rings to foam core board, then cut them apart (keeping each ring intact). I had to trim off a bit more so they could rotate past each other easily. I then glued the whole thing to another piece of foam core. A few finishing touches, and it looks pretty good.

When I get home tonight, I'll dig up some images of the finished product and post them here.

Another Canadian - awesome!

Welcome to the crew.

Congratulations! It's always great to see another 5-star around.

I would also be interested in this. I'm just not sure if I can fit it in around my PFS GM schedule.

I'll second the suggestion for Rescue at Azlant Ridge. Probably one of the most memorable fights in a PFS scenario.

Thanks, Kinevon—this is handy to have all calculated in one place.

Also note that 0 level spells are only included for completeness, since IIRC, all spellcasters begin with all the 0 level spells for their class already. Maybe a cantrip from an Additional Resource?

Wizards don't start with any cantrips from their prohibited schools, so this could come up.

Hmm, just curious (and not wanting to start the flames) but if a Paladin activates it, he's done right? Because it's knowingly performing an evil act?

I am also looking for an answer to this question, as I'm running this scenario on Monday and one of the characters is a paladin. Not only that, but the player of this particular paladin is always looking for any mechanical advantage, even if it's morally grey (I know he's already required several atonements).

I'm always a fan of "Each turn, the target has a 50% chance to act normally; otherwise, it takes no action". Whenever I use that one on my players, they seem to roll very poorly, making it end up more like 30% chance to act.

The best one was when an alchemist with wings was hit with this curse. The party came up against a particularly nasty enemy. The alchemist rolled to see if he could act, and was able to, so he decided to fly out over a cold, dark, underground lake to escape. Of course, the following round, he wasn't so lucky and fell into the water and started drowning.

RtrnofdMax wrote:

Yes, that too.

Here is the one stop shop for all of your legality answers.

Bookmarked - and thanks!

Now I just need to find a local PFS table to play at...

Check out the events page for local games. You can also try contacting your nearest Venture-Officer for more information.

If you have an Android device, there is a great app for tracking all your scenarios. It's called PFS Scenario Tracker and can be found here.

I just wish there was something similar for the iPhone!

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As for "spawning a high level character", a PC doesn't have to actually have stats until it's time to play them. Heck, you could GM-credit your way to 12th level and then play Eyes of the Ten with him (though that doesn't sound like the most-fun use of your one playthrough of that arc).

The biggest problem with this approach is that you don't really get a good feel for the character. If you suddenly start playing at level 10 (or whatever), you might find that some feat/spell/ability isn't as great as you thought it would be. After learning this the hard way, I always make sure to play each of my characters at least once per level.

And one more!

Chelaxian Dragon Disciple, 12th level (5th level sorcerer/7th level blue dragon disciple) Marax Sinira

Ready to start Eyes of the Ten in a couple of weeks—can't wait!

Jiggy wrote:

And that's... bad?

I agree. Why is that bad?

It seems silly to allow a potion of Lightening Bolt, which would hurt the imbiber, but not one of Aspect of the Bear.

A potion of lightning bolt would make for an awesome trap, though!

GM: "You find a potion labeled 'Potion of resist energy, electricity'"
Player: "A labelled potion, awesome! I drink it."
GM: "Zzzzzap!"

If folks would like to see certain headshots added to the blog (and thus the Community Use Package), that's something I could maybe arrange. I have a blog coming up on Monday anyway...

I would love to see headshots of all the Venture-Captains (in–game, not the R–L ones). Also, some of the NPCs that show up in several scenarios, like Nigel Aldain, or Osprey.

A great starting point is Painlord's "What to Expect at a PFS Table" post, as well as the comments in that thread.

Congratulations, Mike! Welcome to the club.

As far as the water question: it's come up before for other games and the general consensus is that people float in water, unless they are otherwise inclined to sink (lots of gear, heavy armor, etc), in which case they sink at a rate you as the GM determine as fair. So if they fail their swim check (or die, as someone did last night when I ran this) their body (or corpse) floats on the surface.

My general rule of thumb for sinking is that it takes 1 successful swim check to resurface for each failed check. This assumes that they are wearing more than light armor or are carrying more than a light load.

** spoiler omitted **

Welcome to the club!

It is possible for a level 1–7 character to play sub-tier 3-4. However, in my experience, it's not very satisfying to play with that much of a level spread. The low level characters will have a hard time keeping up—and surviving, while the high level characters won't have much of a challenge.

It's better for the players with high level characters to create new first–level characters and play the low tier. An alternative (as Paz mentioned above) is to play a pre–gen. Keep in mind that you only have one chance to play any given scenario, so if you use a pre-gen, you will never be able to play that one with your own character.

Related question:

** spoiler omitted **

If the character you are applying credit to is in between sub-tiers; you must apply it at the lower sub-tier.

Ex: If you run a 5-9 (Sub-Tiers 5-6, and 8-9) with a level 7 character. You must apply the 5-6 sub-tier.

I knew I missed something. Thanks!

This is to compensate for the fact that if you are GMing, your character doesn't have to expend any resources or consumables, and doesn't take the risk of dying (and the associated resurrection costs).

When you GM a sanctioned module, you gain the full 3 xp and 4 pp as the players as well, correct?

Likewise with the rare scenario that awards more than 1 xp (such as eyes of the ten part I), you gain that full xp as well yes?

These are both correct statements. There are also some scenarios that only give one PP—even to GMs. Eg: We Be Goblins! & Master of the Fallen Fortress.

Thanks for the fast reply Myron, much appreciated.

You're welcome!

To clarify a bit further, when you GM, you give yourself a chronicle sheet just as if you had played the scenario with that character. You get maximum gold, 1 XP, and 2 PP (or half that for slow advancement track) for the tier that is appropriate for your character—which is not necessarily the tier at which you ran the scenario. You do not get a day job check, but you do get any of the boons on the chronicle, and access to any items for the appropriate tier.

You can also apply the credit to a lower–level character. In this case, you don't get access to the chronicle until your character reaches the level of the lowest sub–tier of the scenario. For instance, say you ran #3-06: Song of the Sea Witch, which is tier 3–7. You don't have any characters in that range, so you apply credit to a second–level character. As soon as that character hits third level, the chronicle for Song of the Sea Witch is immediately applied.

Modules are designed for a party of four PCs. I recently ran a group of 5 PCs through this–levels 2,2,3,3,4. There were a few challenging moments, specifically:

All in all, I would definitely recommend this choice as well. It can be really creepy, and the player's paranoia should be really high by the end.

Myron Pauls wrote:

As a fellow terrain–junkie, that is awesome!

I had dreams of doing this full-scale, including height. By my calculations, it would go from floor to ceiling, with the middle courtyard being conveniently at table height. It would require full–size people for the statues, and they would have to be willing to stand there for the whole session.

So, we need to start a Kickstarter?

I was thinking of hiring some mimes, spray–painting them grey, and making them stand still for 5 hours. It couldn't cost that much—there can't be that much demand for mimes. :)

I'd have to put a funny hat on one of them for the harpies to roost on. For added realism, I could add some pigeon poop.