MythicFox's page

In a campaign I'm running, I happen to have the perfect opportunity to work this particular module into the narrative. However, one thing I'm not sure will go over well with my party is the group being able to pick exactly one item (which would probably have to be part of a Macguffin my party's been questing for). So I'm considering doing a bit of handwaving and letting them each get something. What would be an appropriate value of item to divide up among a group of players?

Or is there enough stuff in the module (particularly with Huyanwo's hoard) that I could just make the Macguffin the sole reward and they won't be shafted on loot?

I recently ran that encounter and handwaved it that she had the ability to speak regardless (something like Are's 'ghost sound' suggestion). I made the executive decision that just as many of the NPCs in the Harrowing aren't precisely what they're represented as in the text (the Nightpeddler not being an actual Denizen of Leng, for instance), I could fudge a bit with Sonnorae.

If nothing else, you could say it works like the illusion power the folks in the playhouse have -- it's just a quirk of the world that it works the way it does.

Dungeonscape, by some guy named Jason Bulmahn, had the same theme going on. If you looked at the art, it told the story of the party going through a dungeon. Except in that book, everyone but the Rogue eventually died.

The old Hackmaster 4th Edition Hacklopedia of Beasts did something similar. The covert art across the volumes showed an adventuring party being picked off one at a time, until all that was left was a single torch-bearer.

And then came an Appendix volume where the adventuring party rose as undead and got the torch-bearer.

Good times.

*deeeeeeeeeep breath of air*

...yay!

Louder!

First off, unlike prior reports of mine in this one I decided to go ahead and give the brick-by-brick breakdowns. I didn't put them in any sort of booster order, though, as I found it easier to do an inventory later if I just typed the names in in figure order.

This is all the outcome of a single case.

And now, my totals across the entire case:

Common
1 Caedimus......................4
2 Portioque.....................3
3 Mite..........................3
4 Grub Swarm....................2
5 Boggard.......................4
6 Clockwork Soldier.............3
7 Tower Girl....................5
8 Shadow Hound..................4
9 Xulgath.......................2
10 Medium Air Elemental.........5
11 Medium Earth Elemental.......3
12 Medium Fire Elemental........4
13 Hell Hound...................4
14 Pallid Path Cultist..........4
15 Medium Water Elemental.......4

Uncommon
16 Mummy Cleric.................2
17 Caulborn.....................2
18 Catfolk Rogue................2
19 Cleric of Zon-Kuthon.........2
20 Caryatid Column..............2
21 Gray Maiden..................3
22 Ravenous Ooze................3
23 Hound of Tindalos............3
24 Mite on Spider...............3
25 Nightgaunt...................2
26 Shriezyx.....................3
27 Skeletal Champion............2
28 Night Hag....................3
29 Guiltspur Naga...............3
30 Gug..........................3
31 Hill Giant...................3
32 Fire Giant...................3
33 Glass Golem..................2
34 Iron Golem...................2
35 Wyvern.......................3
36 Troll Champion...............3
37 Wrath Demon..................3

Rare
38 Lem, Halfling Bard...........1
39 Amiri, Human Barbarian.......1
40 Ardathanatus.................1
41 Koriah Azmeren...............1
42 Natalya Vancaskerkin.........1
43 Xin..........................1
44 Gray Maiden Commander........1
45 Runelord Sorshen.............1
46 Sheila Heidmarch.............1
47 Mesmalatu....................1
48 Alchemical Golem.............1
49 Clockwork Reliquary..........1
50 Dullahan.....................1
51 Large Air Elemental..........1
52 Large Earth Elemental........1
53 Large Water Elemental........1
54 Large Fire Elemental.........1

Premium
55 Gargantuan Blue Dragon.......1, of course

Problem pieces:
One of the Hounds of Tindalos had its tongue break off in the box
The Troll Champions' knives were all consistently bent against the corner of the box. I'm aware that it's a minor problem (these weapons get bent in the boxes pretty often), but it was consistent enough across all of the Troll Champions I feel it deserves mention.
One of the Night Hags seemed to have been bent way back on the base. It still stands properly, but the Hag herself appears very off-balance.
One of my Shriezyx lost a tooth (but I appear to have gotten absurdly lucky with regards to the legs).

Noteworthy figures/comments:
The Alchemical Golem's production proof photos don't come anywhere close to actually doing the thing justice. It is just gorgeous.
The Elementals are consistently wonderful and are some of the real prizes of this set if I may say so myself.
Also, the Gugs are much more menacing 'in person.' Part of that is the size (I'd like to reiterate that it'd be nice if we could occasionally get size comparison pics of these in the future, maybe comparing them to already-familiar figures for better scale).
I don't know if it's a new distribution formula or what, but I think this is the first time I've gotten exactly one of each rare in one of these sets. I don't know if you were shooting for that, but if you were then kudos are in order.

Congrats to the top 32. Also, I had a near panic attack when I saw 'Chris Shaeffer' because that's only one letter off my own name.

Oh, the cat people will get their due in #72's Bestiary, which exclusively features FELINES!!! That Adam's doing one fine job representing enthusiastic pet owners in the AP backmatter articles, isn't he?

So what you're saying... is that first you're taking the PCs to WWI-era Earth, and then the entire sixth module is going to be about catfolk? Man, trying to see how far you can bend the fanbase before it breaks off, aren't ya?

I was first exposed to AD&D 2nd Ed, but we never got a proper game going -- we got as far as character creation but couldn't manage a second session (of course, we were all in grade and middle school at the time so you can understand the obvious difficulties in getting together). My first game that I actually played was Trinity.

Holy crap, it's the time of year already. *gets to work*

Because I sometimes get players who grumble when someone who can't make it but would still get full XP and I'm not comfortable letting someone (including myself) play someone else's character beyond 'I'm running to the bathroom, just have me keep swinging at the monster until something changes or I get back', I've got a bit of a system. Next campaign/AP I start is probably going to use event-based leveling, but in the meantime I do it this way:

Assuming I've got no more five players (and I don't run for more than five anymore), I use the 'pre-calculated XP distribution table' from the Gamemastering chapter. You know the one, it says how much each award is distributed among various sizes of groups. But anyhow, I use that table but absent characters get XP as if the group is one category bigger than it is. So if I've got 4-5 players present, anyone absent gets individual XP as if the party were 6. So a CR 7 encounter would give the present players 800xp while the absent guy gets 535xp. It cuts down on grumbling over individual players not pulling their weight but it's not such a drastic imbalance that anyone is going to be more than a session or two behind anyone else in terms of leveling. (If they are more than a session or two behind everyone else, then there are bigger problems in play)

Of course, I don't apply this to story-based 'end of chapter/module' rewards.

I was gonna be all "I dial down the training in my home campaign when it comes up, and here's how..." but Michael's pretty well summed up how I do it. Not that it's come up much, but in my game I throw in a little bit of the Jedi/Padawan thing in there, too.

It boils down to this, in my game: If the character's an established adventurer and can get a respected Pathfinder (preferably a Venture-Captain) to vouch for them, then you're in. (And, for better or worse, being a noble is likely to assist with that.) If you're a random dirt farmer who hears about the Society and thinks "Hm, all manner of loot and adventure can be mine for the cost of a 10% cut that they apparently don't even enforce? Sold!" Then they're going to put you to work until you can prove yourself, find a mentor willing to take you along in the field, or both.

(And by 'put you to work,' I mean you're going to have to do some menial labor in between training sessions and probably some Miyagi-esque lessons thrown in on top of that.)

If you say so. Just the blog post has something of a different tone than what Ryan's said elsewhere on the forums and it was the blog post that raised my concerns. It just feels a bit too much like blatant marketing-speak for my comfort levels.

One thing I wouldn't mind a bit of clarification on...

The original Kickstarter was for the tech demo, which the backers have seen and is pretty sweet. But the point of the tech demo, to my understanding, was to help garner interest from potential investors... and now this Kickstarter is to pretty much bypass the 'finding potential investors' process.

Am I reading this right? Because even though it had been said a few times that there would likely be some more crowdsourced funding over the course of development, right now it's feeling like the first Kickstarter served little purpose other than to make the second Kickstarter possible. Investing just so we have the opportunity to invest more.

I really hate to be 'that guy' and I'd really like to see the project succeed. But I'm getting a gut reaction from this -- and I know I'm not the only one -- and I just want to make sure that I'm not missing something. I mean, if plans changed at one point, that's fine. I'd just prefer some transparency to new marketing buzzwords.

I could theoretically see Lashunta 'psionic' flavor being handled by race-specific archetypes. Say, for instance, if there was ever an ARG2 or something similar...

So, my copy of the book arrived today. Intrigued by Mikaze's reaction to the Termagant, that was the first thing I flipped to.

...

Now that I am no longer able to sleep, I would like to second that reaction, and think someone with a webcam needs to make a 'reaction' video for YouTube. It's that horrifying.

Are there any spoilers in Killing Time for the story told in the Jade Regent adventure path? I'm only 1/2 way through that AP, and I've been avoiding this so far, but I want to give in and read it! :)

I actually just finished reading both the Jade Regent AP fiction and Master of Devils (finished MoD last night, in fact). No spoilers for "Husks," and as Dave said only the slimmest of spoilers for Master of Devils (what few spoilers exist are on the level of 'Varian and Radovan lived to appear in another story after the novel'). If that helps you feel better.

Honestly, my thought on this generally is that doing stuff like boarding up an arrow trap should/could still need a Disable Device check to do it properly without setting it off.

He's a bit old for the sorts of action scenes Radovan gets into, but when I read his narration I 'hear' Ron Perlman's voice in my head.

I've got a minor rules question regarding the Sunder article... how does the new Sundering system (which I love, BTW), interact with the 'broken' condition? Does it replace it altogether in some way? I'm partially wondering because one of my players asked with regards to the Gunslinger's starting weapon, but I know there are one or two other things that specifically reference the Broken condition (the Disposable Weapon and Fortified Armor Training feats in UC, for instance).

There's probably a simple interaction I'm missing or a passage in the article, but if there is I'm overlooking it.

That feature exists in Hero Lab.

I've got Hero Lab, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to do the sorts of charts I'm talking about.

You know what I think would be nice? An app (web-based or whatever) designed to automatically produce/print a full class progression chart for an archetype that includes all of the adjustments to class features/spell slots/etc. Sure, it sounds lazy, but I imagine there are a lot of groups that would appreciate something to cut out the 'looking up the archetype to see what's changed' part of the leveling process.

I've made my own before with some copy & paste action and a word processor, but surely there has to be an easier way. Anybody know of one, or have any suggestions as to how one could be put together?

I really like this idea. I wish it had occurred to me when I ran my players through Carrion Crown #2, because that one really assumes PCs that leave nothing nailed down.

Y'know, that 'unknowable horrors from the edge of the cosmos that man was never meant to experience (but which will look GREAT on your gaming table!)' line would make for a good blurb for the box or on a poster or something.

while I will concede that a normal human does not have a tail, you can always take the 'deformity' trait and say that your deformity happens to be a vestigial tail.

By its very definition, a 'vestigial' tail would be useless and shouldn't be able to wield weapons.

Given that my original thoughts were for Desna, I would prefer to play a good aligned cleric.

So the deity may be Neutral, but not evil (so suggesting Demon Lords are kind of not helpful).

This is also the root my problem with both Besmara and Calistria, because - while CN - their philosphies lean strongly to the "dark."

Well, Besmara's philosophy is pretty much 'cause trouble and get rich.' She's pretty flexible on how that happens, last I checked.

Those are very nice. And if it helps you guys feel any better, the H&M mummy is a little generic but that gives you some wiggle room if you want to re-task it as something other than a mummy. For instance, I've used mine for Adherers and Rope Golems (from the Tome of Horrors Complete).

It partially depends on how flexible your GM is going to be on alignment and how 'piratey' you expect the player characters to get. Now, that said, there are a lot of Chaotic Neutral pirates, which falls in Desna's range. But the 'helping travelers in need' is going to be potentially-awkward; you might have to basically work out where the line is drawn with your GM there.

This is about where I first came on board. Gaming groups around here have never been consistent things and we didn't play a lot of 3.5 (mostly due to difficulties finding people with the time and the interest in whatever setting the GM wanted to run) so my previous experience with the Pathfinder brand was limited. At the time, I only knew about the playtest rules (which I'd skimmed but didn't get a chance to do anything with because of the aforementioned difficulties) and I was only aware of the Adventure Paths in passing because I just wasn't much for running D&D as opposed to playing it. But I was attending Gen Con that year and got word that the book was coming out and heard about how the entire print run outside of what would be at the show was spoken for. Because of my schedule I wasn't able to get my copies before Sunday so I missed the huge rush but I didn't want to miss out. Sadly it would be another year and change before I'd get the chance to use the books at all but I've enjoyed the ride ever since.

(Also, wasn't there a special deal where if you got your core book at the booth the PDF was only $5? I distinctly remember that because it really impressed me to see that someone was fully embracing the PDF market, but it might have been a Sunday-only thing.)

I like the 'Soft Launch' idea, reminds me of stores doing a 'Soft Open' before the Grand Opening.

Based on Chief Cook and Bottlewasher's post I'm wondering if I missed something. What is the understood difference between Epic level play and Mythic level play?

'Epic' level play is generally meant to refer to taking characters above level 20. The Mythic rules can be used to enhance characters of any level, including making level 20 characters tougher (and thus able to take on the same sorts of tasks an 'epic' character could).

MythicFox wrote:

You still have to have Combat Reflexes (or some similar ability) to get multiple AoO's against anything. If someone moves through multiple threatened squares, they're still provoking multiple AoO's (last I checked).

Check again.

PRD: Combat wrote:

Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent.

Huh. My bad, then.

It qualifies but you can't take any more levels in it if you lose access to the feat. At least, I think that's how it works.

I'd go with this in the case of a familiar, as long as the player's making it cool and not just trying to save a feat for its own sake.

I wouldn't allow it for a magic item, though, but I admit that's just an arbitrary stylistic choice -- an investigator with his trusty animal companion presents a much cooler mental image to me than, say, an investigator with his trusty floating gem-thingy.

OooMatron wrote:

Will we get some classics like "The Hand and Eye of Vecna" etc. ?

Likely never, as they're intellectual property of WotC.

I imagine the Ear and Knee of Tar-Baphon are probably available, though.

Umbranus wrote:

I had the idea when I read that to target someone with a spell you have to either be able to see him or to touch him.

So if I touch someone and cast a ray at him it's still a ranged touch spell and thus it would provoke 3 times following this FAQ.

- for unarmed touching someone without a held spell
- for casting
- for ranged combat

Which is seriously breaking my suspension of disbelief.

And yet, you only get one AoO when someone moves through your threatened squares, regardless of how many they move through.
Really?
Seriously?
Can gaming get back a little realism, please? Just a lil? :P

You still have to have Combat Reflexes (or some similar ability) to get multiple AoO's against anything. If someone moves through multiple threatened squares, they're still provoking multiple AoO's (last I checked). You just can't necessarily take all of them. The ruling involving casting rays doesn't inherently give anyone extra AoO's.

So here's my draws with a full case (including Huges), ordered directly from the site. Anything with an asterisk is expanded upon below (some of this is general set feedback, though). Only two figures 'broken,' (and debatably so) and those will be part of the notes beneath my numbers. I didn't keep track of exactly how many times this happened, but I want to say about 8-10 of the boosters had one of the Small/Medium figures pop free of the packaging and go rattling around.

1 Bugbear Hero 2
2 Goblin Commando 3
3 Goblin Dog 3*
4 Goblin Warchanter 2
5 Kobold Champion 2
6 Faceless Stalker 3
7 Ghoul 2
8 Harpy 3
9 Ogrekin 3
10 Yeth Hound 3*
11 Denizen of Leng 3
12 Redcap 3
13 Sinspawn 3
14 Sinspawn Axeman 4
15 Skinsaw Cultist 3
16 Alu-Demon 2
17 Lamia Kuchrima 2*
18 Shining Child 2
19 Warrior of Wrath 2
20 Wraith 2

21 Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog 3
22 Jakardros Sovark 2*
23 Lyrie Akenja 2
24 Ameiko Kaijitsu 2
25 Harsk, Dwarf Ranger 2
26 Lamia Matriarch 2
27 Malfeshnekor 3
28 Orik Vancaskerkin 3
29 Tsuto Kaijitsu 2
30 Vale Temros 2
31 Kaven Windstrike 3
32 Khalib 3
33 Ogre 2
34 Ogre Brute 3
35 Seoni, Human Sorcerer 3
36 Shalelu Andosana 2
37 Viorian Dekanti 2
38 Dire Bear 2
39 Stone Giant 2
40 Stone Giant Champion 2
41 Vraxeris 1
42 Lamia 3
43 Wendigo 2
44 Yeti 3

45 Aldern Foxglove 1
46 Jaagrath Kreeg 2
47 Lucrecia 1
48 The Scribbler 1
49 The Skinsaw Man 1
50 Highlady Athroxis 1
51 The Mithral Mage 2
52 Runelord Karzoug 1
53 Stone Golem 2
54 Azaven 1
55 Lamatar Bayden 1
56 Mokmurian 1
57 Forgefiend 1*
58 Nualia 1
59 Warchief Ripnugget 1
60 Young Red Dragon 2

61 Karzoug Statue 1
62 Lamia Harridan 1
63 Storm Giant 2
64 Treachery Demon 2

Notes:
Goblin Dog and Yeth Hound -- This is a general feedback thing, but I feel like these two could have been better differentiated. If you look at them they're clearly distinct creatures, but if you're rummaging around in a box (or trying to do a quick headcount in less than perfect lighting to make sure you got all your figures) it's easy to mistake one for a slightly 'off' paint job of the other. During my initial sort/count, I thought I'd wound up with 5 Goblin Dogs and 1 Yeth Hound. It's only when my numbers were off due to an unrelated mistake that I recounted everything and realized I'd misidentified a couple of these.

Lamia Kuchrima -- I understand that in shipping and packing a certain amount of bending is going to happen, particularly on thin bits like swords and spears. However, one of my Kuchrimas was bent forward so much that, while not totally misshapen or unsalvageable, has difficulty standing up. You'd barely even notice the difference if you didn't put it next to the other one. With some patience I should be able to get him standing right again but I just wanted to get this down for the people who keep track of these.

Jakardros Sovark -- One of these had a foot pop off the base. The peg is still intact, so I'm going to try and glue it back in place.

Forgefiend -- This one popped right off the base in the package. Might have something to do with the sheer mass of plastic. The base pegs are still intact, and he can sort of stand up but any sort of table wobbling will send him rolling off. Also going to try and glue this one back in place before bothering anyone at customer service.

Except Mythic Tiers are supposed to count for CR, so I'm not really sure how that will work out.

Won't know until we see the playtest rules, I guess.

In my experience, looking at the rules, a "+X to CR" isn't too different from saying "Counts as X levels higher." So a level 5 character (generally considered a 'CR 4' character by the rules) with 2 mythic tiers is going to count as a 'CR 6' character in the end. If that makes sense.

But the thing is, the Spark's spell list actually doesn't list any 0-level spell. None at all. For that matter, the class description doesn't even mention how/if cantrips works in the class. Ummm, slight miss?

Read 'Tools,' under the class features. That's the section that describes how they work. Long story short, Sparks get all of the sorcerer/wizard cantrips.

Having played a tricked-out 3.5 psion who regularly burned through daily resources to take extra actions, I can say with confidence that amazing initiative is going to introduce some of the worst flaws of the 3.5 psionics system into Paizo's mythic rules.

Is there an existing thread where I can post my actual, in-game experience with mechanics similar to amazing initiative, or should I wait until Paizo creates a dedicated playtest forum before explaining how amazing initiative is going to cause serious problems?

I'd suggest waiting until the playtest materials and associated forum are available, myself. Because otherwise it's going to look like a "sky is falling" thread based on a tiny part of a preview of a much larger ruleset and any good points you may have on the subject are less likely to be taken seriously.

Me too. That was a great suggestion from the boards and while it caused me to loose a few hours in rewrites, it certainly adds a lot of clarity.

Hey, if a few hours now will cut down on endless hours of this in the future, it'll be well worth it.

MythicFox wrote:

Am I reading that correctly in that someone had prepaid for so many years of Dragon and Dungeon that their 'replacement' AP volumes didn't run out until Carrion Crown? Dude.

There were a number of people who signed up for three-year renewals every year. I think many of them probably did it partly as insurance against increasing subscription prices.

Fair enough. I know I did that a few times with magazine subscriptions over the years, although it was partially because I got into the habit of sending in my renewal slip every year but would forget that previously I'd had a little extra cash and sprung for a longer subscription to save a few bucks in the long run. Whoops.

One of the proud 1075 here, and intent to keep it that way. Yeah, these were some pretty chaotic times, with lots of heated arguments around, to put it mildly. I had a subscription to both mags running at that time, I think it was good for a few volumes, less than five, I think. But 44? Thats like a ten year sub or something.

If they had, say, 5-year subs to both magazines it comes across as only slightly less crazy. But still, I reiterate: Dude.

Am I reading that correctly in that someone had prepaid for so many years of Dragon and Dungeon that their 'replacement' AP volumes didn't run out until Carrion Crown? Dude.

I was leaning toward this (at least for this campaign):

Neutral acts would include - Your standard piracy. Robbing, pillaging, stealing, and even killing defenders in open combat, but without slaughter needlessly. Once weapons are dropped and surrender is offered, additional acts of violence would be evil acts. Press-ganging other pirates, or even other sailors, would be acceptable.

Evil acts would include - press-ganging innocents (women, children), slavery or human trafficking, rape and sexual assault, ritual sacrifice, 'chumming innocents' (cutting prisoners and tossing them overboard to attract sharks), killing simply to prove superiority, and so on.

I don't really have a problem with the first mate beating prisoners into submission or otherwise forcing the new crew to comply, but I do think starving men simply to break them is probably evil.

I can't speak for anyone else, but that sounds like a pretty solid standard to me.

MythicFox wrote:

Does anybody know if there's any particular reason why Witches got left out of the 'Class Roles' section?

Nope. Added to the FAQ candidates thread.

Whoops, I didn't realize there was a separate thread for that. Thanks.

Does anybody know if there's any particular reason why Witches got left out of the 'Class Roles' section?

I don't know if anyone's keeping track of this thread, but sometimes I tend to go back through my post history and see if there are old responses I missed and whatnot... there is in fact a POD version of Hunter: The Vigil up on DriveThru.

I can't remember off-hand how long it's been there but it's there.

for some reason the art reminds me of Pokemon

(Elder Water Elemental I CHOOSE YOU!)

It's because of the three sizes, I imagine. Conjures up mental images of Pokemon with three stages of evolution.

So has anyone from Paizo explained the logic behind the PDF costing 4 times as much as the other hardcover PDFs they put out?

Love to hear it.

In addition to TOZ's eloquent assessment, also keep in mind that this isn't simply one hardcover book but a collection of six AP modules in one place. It's 6 PDF's in one.

One thing I find sad is that it looks like costs for languages are still in.

Yeah, but I wouldn't be surprised if languages only cost something if the race has its own language or some such.

Unless otherwise stated, creatures with the "change shape" ability can remain in the alternate form indefinitely:

PRD, Universal Monster Rules wrote:

Change Shape (Su) A creature with this special quality has the ability to assume the appearance of a specific creature or type of creature (usually a humanoid), but retains most of its own physical qualities. A creature cannot change shape to a form more than one size category smaller or larger than its original form. This ability functions as a polymorph spell, the type of which is listed in the creature's description, but the creature does not adjust its ability scores (although it gains any other abilities of the creature it mimics). Unless otherwise stated, it can remain in an alternate form indefinitely. Some creatures, such as lycanthropes, can transform into unique forms with special modifiers and abilities. These creatures do adjust their ability scores, as noted in their description.

Format: change shape (wolf, beast form I); Location: SQ, and in special abilities for creatures with a unique listing.

However, from a roleplaying point of view, it would make sense to have it "wear off" after a period of time (as selected by the player).

Thanks, that's the sort of thing I was looking for.