Riggler's page

Only if it is dealing slashing damage somehow. Having a magical weapon doesn't mean you can bypass all DR, so you'll still be hindered by DR you can't overcome.

One of my GMs had the same thought awhile ago, so I'm pretty curious where the idea originated.

The idea likely originates from D&D 3.0 rules. In 3.0 magic weapons overcame damage reduction.

Pirates are bandits of the sea. I've never seen any bandits or thugs in any role-playing game played as having a Lawful alignment and rarely have I seen them Neutral. To me it's pretty simple. You seek out travelers and take their stuff without provocation. Seems pretty chaotic to me.

Some posters have mentioned the burn stacking, or rather the lack thereof. While, true you are missing the point of a fire elemental, especially against multiple opponents.

Since I mostly GM I think of baddies from a GM perspective, not a player perspective.

The key to the fire elemental is versus multiple opponents, if it is strong enough to survive -- or multiple elementals against multiple opponents.

You can't think of the elementals and compare them power for power like that. They are situational.

In short, when running fire elementals as a player or a GM, don't worry about Burn not stacking. Catch all of your opponents on fire. While it may not stack on one, give every enemy a chance to catch fire.

I got really burned out when I ran my first AP. I think I made the mistake of reading the whole AP almost before I ran any of it.

I'm currently running Skulls and Shackles. We are probably 1-2 sessions from finishing the first book. I've only read bits and pieces of the Second. And I've glanced at spots in the third. I've read some spoilers of how the APs motivations b/c I keep an eye on the boards to make sure there's not something that happens latter I need to be be aware of, but I'm not planning on reading that far ahead of where the players were.

As it is with the first book, I read it in December. With the holidays, getting a new campaign started up and playing once every two weeks -- It has now been almost 5 months since I first read the 1st book of the AP. Of course I've read it several times since then, but to say the least I'm done with it.

Luckily I haven't read Book 2 from page to page yet. (Only most of it) And I certainly haven't thought about how the encounters might go down. So it will be fresh for me when I start Book 2.

My suggestion is that if you are running an AP, don't read ahead any farther than you have to to be prepared to run the next session or two. If that doesn't work, then you are not a module-GM. You should probably try to do all your own stuff or try ad-lib GMing.

I'm a module GM. I don't have time to write my own stuff. A long-time fellow GM with who I compare notes A LOT through the last couple decades is my exact opposite. He's an ad-lib DM. He has a few creatures preped a few notes jotted down and he ad-libs everything at the table. Both have positives and negatives. But the ad-lib GM never gets bored with what's coming next, cause he doesn't know until it comes out of his mouth most of the time.

Then again, lizard-men and humans worked on V: The Series.

Some GMs don't even use XP anymore. They level the party when it "feels" right or an AP (if running published material) calls for it.

I blame Cosmo for making it impossible to search the messageboards for things concerning Cosmo that are do not relate to this thread.

Thanks for the input guys. I guess the people who have frequented my game groups over the last few years have been the exception rather than the rule.

I can't say I'm certain they choose races other than humans because of the point-buy boosts, but I can certainly say I've seen few role-play up the non-human racial aspects of their characters. I can think of 3 out of the 18 demi-humans I've seen run that played up the non-human side for flavor.

I find human PCs open a lot more story options up for NPC relationships, especially playing APs that do stay human-centric. Perhaps it's an opportunity to emphasize that they are a hodge-podge of races in a human-centric world.

Explain to them dual talented :)

Its the bomb!

So duel-talented gives the benefits of the +2/+2 bump without the negative and takes the extra feat and skill points.

So, a -2 to a set stat = the racial traits of all the core and featured races? And a -2 to a set stat can be offset by a 2 CP cost in the Point Buy system.

Hmmmm....I guess a dwarf's racial traits are certainly worth 2 CP, but I don't if other demi-humans are.

Golorian is supposed to be human-centric, correct?

But I see a trend among players at my table that Human is rarely selected as a PC race for them. Thinking about it as a GM and a player I attribute this to the Point-buy system for generating PC attributes.

It seems that because of the graduated cost of higher stats, the +2/+2 boost and -2 penalty to attributes is a far greater investment with the point buy system than the human's simple +2. The reason obviously being is you can buy up low stats to cover the +2 for 2 CP, but get the boosts to higher stats that wouldn't be a 1 for 1 cost.

The human benefit of bonus feat and skill point doesn't seem to be enough incentive when comparring demi-humans. I mean for general purpose feats that do the same thing there is Toughness (well I can get a demi-human bump to Con and get the same impact, but a bonus to Fort saves and any other con-related check). Or I can get Dodge and get that bonus to AC that a Dex bump might get me, but also get a bonus to reflex and Dex-based skill checks.

It's really easy math to figure out why with a Point Buy system, it is handcuffing a player to choose to play a human.

DIE ROLLING STATS IS NOT AN OPTION. While it may correct the issue I've mentioned above, it brings with it issues that the culture of gaming in my group is just not likely willing to deal with.

SO, is there any suggeestions out there to make the Point Buy system be a human-centric system? Should it cost 2 CP to build a demi-human race under Point Buy?

The party right now at 3rd level:
Tengu Alchemist
Gnome Rouge (Pirate)
Dwarf Fighter (Corsair)
Human Bard
Dwarf Druid (Sea)

Healing light and no one wants to be a band-aid kit. Should be fun. Isn't Golorian supposed to be a human-centric world though? Not with the point-buy system, it turns out.

My players also were getting to feel that Harrigan might be an ally of thiers near the time of the taking of Man's Promise, but that was because Harrigan was "off camera" all the time, and they REALLY hated Plugg and Scourge. I think they began to idolize Harrigan as an authority figure that they could make fit whatever role they wanted since they had not dealt with him personally.

I let Fishguts put a worm in their ear, though. "Don't you be thinkin' the Capt' is a good lad. You hate Plugg and Scourge so much? Whodoya think put'em in charge? He knows what bastards they are, and he's happy with it."

Of course if Plugg and Scourge come off looking like buffoons and Harrigan shows some less evil tenencies then the OP may be looking at a very amplified version of what I was going through.

Correcting is still well within your perview. Once the crew gets to the Man's Promise, the PCs should still only be level 2 and easily bullied by Plugg and Scourge. Add Fishguts badmouthing Harrigan and you can get the PCs feeling what they need to by the time they get put off in a cutter to look for water and search for their missing allies.

Ok, my old eyes obviously read it wrong. I usually don't penalize someone for getting the same disease more than once but I can see Riggler's idea on it to increase the Fort save and duration.

<---- Wonders if brvheart is reading posts or scanning them quickly filling in the gaps between the words he reads with what he thinks they say. :)

Note: I said the exact opposite of the above quoted text.

If Capt. Harrigan wanted him to LISTEN and PAY ATTENTION more, why would Capt. Harrigan make it more difficult for him to LISTEN and PAY ATTENTION? Sure, you could go with, "Well, since you aren't using your ears, you won't be needing them."

But wouldn't Harrigan want discipline and a crew member that could do his job and take orders during a bording? Harrigan would more likely use other pirate punishments I would think than mutilation. Some of which might end in death if it was left to the Lady of the Waves.

I like the "swarms get full tummies and fly off" idea. Yoinked. ;D

Shaun Ketterman wrote:

But that brings me to a question. The fighter got ghoul fever from one of the ghouls and got it a second time from the bot flies before the first infection was totally resolved. Does this mean that after his first infection runs its course, does the second kick in? I can't find anything on whether two infections run consecutively or concurrently. To be clear, he failed the check to become infected by the ghoul, succeeded his save upon onset a day later (hence no syptoms yet), then failed the throw to become infected by the botflies.

I believe this gets handled the same as would multiple poisonings... treat it as one occurrence, but the "save" DC increases for each addtional infection.

The more knowledgeable among us may have better info, however....

This is far from official. But I treat poisons and diseases differntly. Poisons have an increased save DC and a longer effect for multiple poisonings, this is represented by multiple doses of a toxin being injected/inhaled into the body. Diseases on the other hand are different.

If you have a disease type A, you can't catch disease type A if you are exposed to it, and its not harder to fight off disease type A if you are exposed to it again. If a person is infected with a type of disease, multiple exposures do not change that.

With exposure to a disease, the PCs will make a saving throw to see if they contracted the disease. If not, they will roll the save everytime they are exposed to it. Once they fail this initial save after exposure, they have contracted the disease and the disease begins to run it's course with the next action occuring after the ONSET time has expired. And then its the regular save or else effect until ther number of required consecutive saves have been made.

In short, once you have a disease, you can't catch it again or have a worse case of it, you just have it. And you then deal with the disease as per normal until you are dead or cured.

The issue is that they used the rum to make the water palitable and kill bateria in it. Unless the characters have access to create water they are going to be in dire straights w/o their ration or have disease issues. Pirates drink, it is part of what they do so I want the characters to do so at least initially. We are not talking 21st century here, we are talking 16th-18th. Water was more of a threat of illness aboard ship. I could see the 1 Con damage as a compromise unless they fail the save.

I allowed Purify Food and Water to work on the rum.

Rum Ration. There has been a lot of talk about the rum ration and the option of serving the newbies grog. Well a pirate is more likely to drink bumbo than grog and it was usually a mix of sugar, water and rum. Not that pirates didn't get drunk often, sometimes enough for the ship to be easy prey but the single ration was unlikely to cause con damage to someone with a CON of +2 or better being at least 1/3 water. This should cut the equivalent drinks down to 5 for a ration. Now playing heave would still obviously be an issue with the usual affects. I am going to rule for my game that if they only drink their ration if they make their fort save they don't take any damage and are only fatigued. If they fail then they take the damage.

Changing the rum damage to 1 Con seems to take care of the problem in its entirity, while still achieving the desire effect.

The desired story effect: A docile crew who doesn't cause trouble at night and stays in line.

Mechanical means to desired effect: Fatigued plus 1 Con damage means that early to bed and early to rise gets rid of fatigue and 24 hours later the 1 Con damage is healed.

Of course my group found solutions to their rum "problem" within about two nights unless they wanted to drink the rum for its beneficial nature. Funny thing is one night they "tricked" an NPC into drinking the PC's rum ration, thereby boosting his Cha score and making him more difficult to influence. They failed diplomacy and he turned hostile because of the improved Cha score modifying the DC.

Heh, I'll get slammed for this, but what the heck.

Virtually every thread on this subject is filled with indignant GMs complaining about how magic item shops ruin their sense of "rare and wondrous magic items" and so they institute a variety of means to thwart the players' desire to acquire magical stuff that suits their characters.

There's only one real major problem with this.

In Pathfinder magic items are neither rare nor wondrous.

It's just not part of the game. Magic items are not only not rare, they are baked into the power curve expectations of the game. +X armor, swords, amulets, rings, etc. are expected by the game designers to be readily available if the character has the cash and/or time to buy/make them.

The bottom line is that if you are playing a game where +1 swords make the characters swoon with joy....

You really aren't playing Pathfinder. You're playing "Lord of the Rings" or "Conan the Barbarian" or "Xena: Warrior Princess" or something.

As a player, I sort of want to play Pathfinder. So as a GM I run Pathfinder games for my players.

AD, do you allow any magic items players want to be purchased?

My only issue with magic item availability is that if the players have the run of it, there is always a best choice. That pretty much elimnates 90 percent of magic items that have been designed. How do you adjudicate that?

I think the numbers part of the game that players focus on is an illusion. The GM has full ability to modify anything the players face on the fly. GURPS GMs do it all the time -- hell GURPS discourages GMS from bothering to develop NPCs beyond only what is needed at the time.

I can say that just by messing with GURPS for a few months certainly made me a much better GM of D&D/Pathfinder. I think Pathfinder players get too focused on the numbers. Build a super powerful character. Or build a weakling. The GM can adjust the game on the fly. Hence, the numbers are an illusion. Although the illusion is much harder to hold together when you have powergames are purposely non-powergamers at the same table.

Gorbacz wrote:

Riggler wrote:

There just seems to be other design choices that could be made to accomplish a more powerful AP without a hardcover subset of rules.

Like, which ones?

Like creating a set of granted boons that the PCs gain as they progress through the adventure, which specifically boost their ability vs. specific foes.

Like a set of items or rituals that allow the PCs to bypass immunities and other defenses of ultra-powerful foes.

Like specific materials which, when activated by specific rituals, are capable of harming ultra-powerful demon lords who might otherwise be invulnerable.

And like any of the options I've just listed, but having them grant the PCs a set of special defenses which allow the PCs to survive combat with said demon lord long enough to use these weapons/boons/etc.

I wasn't even talking about something as complicated as that. Because it's true those would just each up AP space. Add supernatural abilities here or there to the bad guys, a couple of templetes in the beastiaries and start the PCs at level 5. Done, it's "mythic."

A "mythic" storyline doesn't need a new rules set. It just doesn't. I have full faith that James Jacobs and Co. could contrust an epic AP within the current rules they had centered arond Demon Lords and it would have been just as great as the previous APs. A small subset of rules has appeared in most APs or player's guides. Sometimes they were good, sometimes they were not. They were experimental though for that AP. The new direction of a Hardcover Rules Set for an AP is just a bit harder to swallow for me. I think it's a bad direction. Again, I just don't think a new core rule expansion was needed to tell an AP.

The setting, the story, the writing, the NPCs the goals and objectives are what make an epic AP -- not a new rules set.

Cintra Bristol, I think you got exactly what I was saying.

I think James Jacobs outreach to customers is delightful. It is the kind of customer service fans of RPGs clamor for. And I hold his opinions and explanations in high regard.

That being said, I have trouble wrapping my mind around a "Mythic" type rule set being needed to tell a "Mythic" type of story. There just seems to be other design choices that could be made to accomplish a more powerful AP without a hardcover subset of rules.

And my problem isn't so much with more options. I love more options IF those options are well thought out mathmatically. APG was/is an amazing crunch book. The Ultimates leave a lot to be desired in the math/balance department.

I see what you guys are saying. Paizo is a business. Paizo is in the business of selling books. The more books they sell, the more money they make. And so the cycle of TSR and WotC begins anew. But I thought Paizo was different. I thought the business model was such that they didn't need all these accessories, because the bread and butter was the APs. I guess when you become the new King of RPGs, you act like the new King of RPGs.

Riggler wrote:

I mean the more Paizo forces me to buy rule books to play APs the more likely I am not to buy APs -- not the other way around.

Unfortunately, I think that makes you the exception rather than the rule. At least in my own experience, the presence of a new ruleset in the APs has always been great incentive to pick up a new rulebook, presuming I didn't have it already. I would imagine much of Paizo's customer base is the same. I think this is unfortunately a situation of you being the odd man out.

You may be right. But don't mistake Paizo's customer base with "Those who frequent its message board." The more fanatical fan is likely to hang out here. Those two groups probably have very different purchasing profiles.

I thought Mr Plugg was a great name for a villain. I don't even know what this association is.

Heck in real life there were pirates named Calico Jack, and Hornigold, and Lafitte.

If you think a pirate has a ridiculous name, just make sure the players only laugh once. Keelhauling isn't for the weak of heart.

After the Man's Promise ran aground in my game Saturday, the following came out of my mouth...

"So Mr. Plugg says to you, "It will take a day and a half to plug the hole....heh heh.,,," A mild chuckle from the table.

Mythic Adventures is not a new edition of Pathfinder, and if we've given the impression that it IS a "stealth edition" then we screwed up.

I'm VERY concerned with this. From the statements from designers, and I'm paraphrasing, "Why would we not support our new rule books in the AP line." To seeing the Ultimates cameo in the APS, the release of Mythic Rules and their impact on future APs have me worried.

I was so not happy about the power creep in the Ultimates, I shudder to think of the impact of Mythic on my beloved AP line. Needless, to say I plan on skipping this AP. I just don't want to have to skip others.

The Wrath of Winter led me to believe I needed the Planet rule book. I mean the more Paizo forces me to buy rule books to play APs the more likely I am not to buy APs -- not the other way around.

A summoned creature attacks your foes automatically and takes minor direction if you can communicate with it. I would call that Helpful attitude. Hence why I think Speak with Animals is needed to communicate, b/c the summoned animal is not trained.

But regarding handle animal and druid animal companions, BigNorseWolf, you are correct. I can't find that actually speaking to an animal companion is required to give it commands. And IRL trained animals do all kinds of commands with only hand signals. I guess it is best to treated ACs as being able to understand words and hand signals and only becomes an issue in underwater, zero visability situations.

And yes, I'm running a published campaign with LOTS of underwater encounters.

All this debate here on the boards is entertaining and all, but I'm quite confident that 95% of games will be run with players controlling their druid's AC, their paladin's mount, their wizard's familiar and their summoner's eidolon.

Why do you suppose that's the case? I suspect because it just works better that way.

But do you think a GM should adjudicate that an AC won't try to position itself to purposely flank without either knowing that trick or being pushed to do it? Or that a GM should adjudicate that appropriate Handle Animal checks be made to control the animal to do those tricks?

Hmm...it depends on the aberration. Can you spoiler it?

What creature is being summoned?

Aquan is a planar language, the plane of water. So it is very likely that this outsider has water breathing or some such that allows it to breathe (and hence speak) under water.

I'd probably treat all outsiders that natively speak Aquan as being able to communicate underwater.

Not an outsider. The creature doing the summoning is an aberretion. The creature being summoned is an octupus via Summon Nature's Ally.

My question centers around actions underwater, specifically speaking and understanding others who are speaking underwater. I have an Aquatic Druid in my campaign. And it's also important for a published encounter for which I will be vague about it's origins. If I need to spoiler this let me know.

In the encounter, the tactics indicate that the aquatic bad guy druid (who speaks Aquan) prior to combat she casts Speak with Animals. And then she uses Summon Nature's Ally. Hence, one would assume the Speak with Animals is to more easily control the summoned animal. This seems to indicate that she can communicate underwater. While the setting includes some above water surface air pocket, most the of combat and the summoned creature will be underwater. Speak with Animals is allowing her to speak with a creature obviously without a language in this case. So is the reason she can speak and the creature can understand because A) Rules are silent on communicating underwater as to whether one can or can't; B) Because both creatures are aquatic; C) She speaks Aquan; D) Other?

This is the only example I've seen in official Pathfinder products that indicates any hint at the answer to can creatures communicate underwater. And the answer seems to be yes, but doens't educate as to why.

As for why is it important for the rest of the campaign? My PC Aquatic Druid is a dwarf (non-aquatic, doesn't speak Aquan, yet) and has a non-aquatic animal companion (Croc).
So can he use Handle Animal on the croc while underwater by speaking commands? He also doesn't yet have the ability to breath underwater via abilities or spells or magic items. If not, what would he need to be able to do so?

Thanks for any insight you guys can offer, as I'm sure this will come up throughout the AP and the answer might differ depending on the player's choices as he levels up.

My question centers around actions underwater, specifically speaking and understanding others who are speaking underwater. This is important because of an Aquatic Druid in my campaign. And it's also important for the final encounter in this AP. If I need to spoiler this because it contains many issues that people may be using search to find answers to as they don't seem to be addressed in any other post, let me know.

In the final combat, Queen's tactics indicate that prior to combat she casts Speak with Animals. And then she uses Summon Nature's Ally. Hence, one would assume the Speak with Animals is to more easily control the summoned animal. This seems to indicate that she can communicate underwater. Speak with Animals is allowing her to speak with a creature without a language in this case. So is the reason she can speak and the creature can understand because A) Rules are silent on communicating underwater as to whether one can or can't; B) Because both creatures are aquatic; C) She speaks Aquan; D) Other?

This is the only example I've seen in official Pathfinder products that indicates any hint at the answer to can creatures communicate underwater.

As for why is it important for the rest of the campaign? My PC Aquatic Druid is a dwarf (non-aquatic, doesn't speak Aquan, yet) and has a non-aquatic animal companion (Croc).
So can he use Handle Animal on the croc while underwater by speaking commands?

Thanks for any insight you guys can offer, as I'm sure this will come up throughout the AP and the answer might differ depending on the player's choices as he levels up.

Quote:

The Bonus Tricks that an animal companions get do not require a Handle Animal Check to Peform. And they cannot ever be changed. From the descirption of Bonus Tricks:

Not true. They don't require a Handle Animal check to learn. Thats why its listed there with the note on no training time.

All tricks require a Handle Animal check to perform.

Really? See bolded:

The value given in this column is the total number of “bonus” tricks that the animal knows in addition to any that the druid might choose to teach it (see the Handle Animal skill). These bonus tricks don’t require any training time or Handle Animal checks, and they don’t count against the normal limit of tricks known by the animal. The druid selects these bonus tricks, and once selected, they can’t be changed.

This is my interpretation of the rules. Since the AC is an Class Feature, I let the player run the AC to the degree they follow the rules as I understand them.

If you want your AC to do something that is a Trick listed in Core, or Animal Archives, and the AC knows said trick you roll a DC 10 Handle Animal check. If your AC does NOT know the trick, you roll a DC 25 Handle Animal check to Push. If you want your AC to do something that is not a trick listed in Core or the Animal Archive, you are out of luck. There are no allowances for making up your own trick in PFS.

I make the AC move the shortest distance possible to meet its general objective.

EXAMPLES DELETED FOR SPACE

Excellent post, Arizhel.

I've just researched the heck out of this, since I am running a low-level Druid (with a crappy Cha mod) for the first time. And I'd like to add one more important thing....

The Bonus Tricks that an animal companions get do not require a Handle Animal Check to Peform. And they cannot ever be changed. From the descirption of Bonus Tricks:

The value given in this column is the total number of “bonus” tricks that the animal knows in addition to any that the druid might choose to teach it (see the Handle Animal skill). These bonus tricks don’t require any training time or Handle Animal checks, and they don’t count against the normal limit of tricks known by the animal. The druid selects these bonus tricks, and once selected, they can’t be changed.

I don't know about everyone else, but I love it when passive-aggressive personalities try to work out their differences on message boards under aliases of their message board aliases.

During Wormwood Mutiny, the PCs interacted with all the crew of the Wormwood. Each NPC I created role-playing notes, accents and personalities for. Of those that "clicked" with the PCs (as far as memorable, not necessarily liked) will not be dying unless the PCs kill them during the mutiny.

I'm sure the crew will eventually fade much more into the background, but if you've established 20 or so NPCs, there it doesn't make sense to me from a dramatic standpoint to use them for dramatic effect.

If I can get an emotional reaction out a slashing down of young, naive Jack Scrimshaw out of the corner of the crew's eye during a ship raid because they know him and like him, that's a much better use than a die roll of how many crew are lost. Or even a reaction to the the hostile (to my PCs) Conchobar getting nearly killed, because the PCs actually like interacting with the cocky, fake pirate that speaks like a Confederate southern Col.

I mean it would be a shame to recycle crew members the PCs know and have interacted with if I can gain some dramatic mileage out of those they know.

My groups whether I'm in them or GMing them just seem to work it out...UNLESS a Caviler: Order of the Cockatrice is in the party. Then it becomes a nightmare b/c of their edict:

Edicts: The cavalier must keep his own interests and aims above those of all others. He must always accept payment when it is due, rewards when earned, and an even (or greater) share of loot. The cavalier must take every opportunity to increase his own stature, prestige, and power.

There is nothing that is insurmountable here except for one thing. You as a GM have to take control of your game. It's not about being a tyrant. It's about it being your job as a GM.

A lot of people have touched on areas that should be focused on.
1) Know your PCs. I've started auditing PCs between every level up. I just have them send me electronic copies. If it takes you a while to look up their character abilities, that's fine. You learn more about the rules while doing it. You MUST know your PCs backward and forward and the rules behind them. It's essential, especially if you are going to be designing your own encounters. If you find things that are not correct, teach it as a learning expereince between GM and Player not a adversarial one.

2) It's never GM versus the players. Players like to say such. I always curse when I miss, as a GM playing a bad guy. Or they down a BBEG. When they say something along the lines of "Our GM just wants us to die." I give them a wink and a nod, and reply, "It's all a part of the illusion." GMs can kill players at any time. It is never GM v. the players. The GM will ALWAYS win. If not, you are doing it wrong. But, of course one is doing it wrong if it ever gets to that point.

3) GMs control alignment in Pathfinder. It's not a player democracy. This goes back to No. 1. Take control of the game. Use Rule 0, when neeed. In this case, it's not:
From Pathfinder SRD: Changing Alignments

Alignment is a tool, a convenient shorthand you can use to summarize the general attitude of an NPC, region, religion, organization, monster, or even magic item.

Certain character classes in Classes list repercussions for those who don't adhere to a specific alignment, and some spells and magic items have different effects on targets depending on alignment, but beyond that it's generally not necessary to worry too much about whether someone is behaving differently from his stated alignment. In the end, the Game Master is the one who gets to decide if something's in accordance with its indicated alignment, based on the descriptions given previously and his own opinion and interpretation—the only thing the GM needs to strive for is to be consistent as to what constitutes the difference between alignments like chaotic neutral and chaotic evil. There's no hard and fast mechanic by which you can measure alignment—unlike hit points or skill ranks or Armor Class, alignment is solely a label the GM controls.

It's best to let players play their characters as they want. If a player is roleplaying in a way that you, as the GM, think doesn't fit his alignment, let him know that he's acting out of alignment and tell him why—but do so in a friendly manner. If a character wants to change his alignment, let him—in most cases, this should amount to little more than a change of personality, or in some cases, no change at all if the alignment change was more of an adjustment to more accurately summarize how a player, in your opinion, is portraying his character. In some cases, changing alignments can impact a character's abilities—see the class write-ups in Classes for details. An atonement spell may be necessary to repair damage done by alignment changes arising from involuntary sources or momentary lapses in personality.

Players who frequently have their characters change alignment should in all likelihood be playing chaotic neutral characters.

Once you get control of the game and audit the characters, I think a lot of the other problems you are having will take care of themselves. A GM must be assertive or the game develops into Chaos. Players who are too immature to listen or appreciate an assertive GM that guides the game and keeps it fair for all, are playing the wrong game.

The messageboards serve as a resource for me. I don't care if a thread was started three years ago and had someone contribute to it 16 months ago and then again contributed to it 3 months ago, when I'm looking for information, I'd like to look in as few as threads as possible about the subject matter with as many voices as possible. I care not if those opinions on a subject came recently or years prior.

Thread necromancy haters just don't seem to get that. And it's a shame that some don't recognize these boards as a resource and have to shame those who have something to add to these resourceful threads with necro-name-calling.

Totally off topic here, but I saw this quote below and had to answer-

Crustypeanut wrote:

They did horrible things to Plugg and Scourge (And Conchobhar) for it. Horribbbblllle things.

Why do groups dislike Conchobhar so much? I had assumed that my group would love his ridiculous style since it fits with their normal way of being, but one of the guys was getting in good with Rosie and she grumbled a bit about one of his advances and a rivalry has quickly grown between them.

Conchobhar got a good lecture to back off from Rosie, and so to show the he will flirt with whoever he wants the next morning the gnome brought one of the girl's in the group her breakfast(laced with his elixer of love). Naturally, though it caught everyone off guard(including me) our groups goblin announces he is going to grab her biscuit and stuff it in his mouth(she made the mistake of feeding him once and he's like a seagull).

After seeing the goblin googly eyed following her around all day the original instigator of all this decided he was going to get his revenge and waited til the middle of the night and summoned a dire rat to bite the gnome and is now pleased with himself as he starts to see signs of filth fever showing in the gnome. And since this happened the night before the group was supposed to have to go down into the bilges to deal with rats, it worked out really well story wise.

We've only done one session so far so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where this goes as it builds.

Conchobhar being a Bard with an above average Cha makes him harder to influence than other NPCs, thereby making a flub on the cheack easier and sending him towards Hostile. At least that's the math and what happened in my game.

My group hasn't gotten to the Mosquito swarms yet. But if any group should be able to deal with them, mine should.

I think swarms jumping low level PCs without a chance to just run away can be very dangerous for most groups and is a pretty d*ck move by a GM.

With a cleric and an alchimist in the group, I'm slightly worried. But I do know the group has two classes that can really help out with a swarm with bleed damage.

You can run with three PCs. What I would do is allow one of the friendly major NPCs to become a member of the party and pass the PC around after the NPCs personality is clearly defined by you. Let anyone who could handle or would want two characters to get in on the action. The great thing about the AP there are plenty of named and no-named NPCs just hanging around most of the time as the ship's crew.

Doing the above brings you to 3 PCs and an NPC. I wouldn't even use XP. Just level them up at the appropriate times as a guide in the book. I was opposed to this method, but have come around to it. But this also solves your problem of NPC XP.

I've not researched Infamy in depth, cause I'm not far enought into the AP that it matters yet.

The pathfinder journals can be for your enjoyment or you can share. I usually don't as it would require either letting players borrow the book or breaking copyright laws by copying the pages.

Rumors: My thoughts are like yours. If I ever need a tavern story or a shoot-the-crap story, I've got plenty of rumors to drop in. We've only played one session, but during rum hours is a great place to share the rumors from the first book. But be prepared if you use the rumors to design your own side-trek adventure in case they PCs pursue them.

I've started the game in the summer months. I haven't nailed down a specific month yet, but it will probably be late July on Day 1 aboard the Wormwood.

Even though it is in a tropical setting and warm year round there is mention of a couple of massive storms and very hot days in the first book. That to me equates to late July or early August.

I only discovered the Pawn line about a week ago and already have the B1 and S&S sets. (B/c I'm running S&S and B1 was just about as cheap as buying bases.

I'll be buying these for any AP I run in the future. My only wish is that, as least for S&S it included more of the NPCs. I would have paid much more for not having to scrounge for mini's to represent.

So my wish list item, is when you do an AP set make it Beastiary size and up the price. It will be worth it.

The GM does not have to play by the rules. So, yes, all the baddies just hit better. You can spend all your time with all the reasons why this baddie hits better than the other one, but there's no point to it.

After doing D&D for 20+ years, I read GURPS advice for GMs. The rules are in place to put the players on equal footing, not for a GM.

So yes, you can spend 20 hours a week coming up with a backstory about the guy who drank a magic potion, this other guy is on drugs, this other guy has a greater stat block, the other guy has two feats other than the useless ones in his statblock.

Or....

You can just say it is, cause you are the GM. The GM can ALWAYS crush the players at any time. The MAGIC of GMing is to make it look like you can't and to not.

That's ok.

You're right, it's easy to stop that stuff getting into your game. After all, it's more effort to hunt something down than it is to stick to the couple of books in front of you.
I have to wonder if using the CRB as your whitelist represents the best play experience, though. I mean, it's got most of the most powerful classes in it and bigger power gaps between classes than the rest of the PRD.

Out of curiosity, what are some major things you never allow? Guns? The Summoner? Ninjas?

Trust me, play experience may be a totally different thing. Hell, the CRB may be power light. But I'm of the opinion that it is poor design if it is. The CRB should be the baseline of any system. If you want something better, one should give up something of equal mathmatical value given general situations. Otherwise there is power creep, at least by my definition.

I do not allow Summoner. I WILL allow guns and gunslingers in my upcoming campaign that starts Saturday, but I will not allow players to START with gunslinger. An optomized gunslinger does concern me. A ninja does not concern me as much as it does everyone else apparently. And a monk in the base system is not nearly as underpowered as some on here believe that it is. I ran Legacy of Fire with a monk. As a matter of fact he was the only PC to survive the whole AP from 1st level. He dominated. Which surprised the heck out of me and the biggest optomizer in town.

But to answer your question more directly... I allow CRB and APG. Any supplemental that is designed for the AP I run I allow pretty much everything for that AP. But EVERYTHING else I need to pre-approve.

Example, someone asked me about all the combat talents added for the rogue in UC. I evaluated them all on their mathmatical advantages. I banned 2. I approved 3 with the condition that it depended on the power level of the party, the depth of the AP they had reached at that point, and/or how they would react with abilities the PC already had.

Nope. You're trying to have your cake and eat it there.

You're telling me I'm a bad GM because you wouldn't enjoy my game (which is not made for you to enjoy, by the way), but also claiming that's just your opinion.

You also said that without a "poor GM", unusually powerful builds only show up because of braggarts playing pathfinder like a videogame in a deliberate attempt to steal the spotlight from their friends.

Either my players and I are wrong and bad or you and I just have different but equally valid tastes and each do what's right for ourselves and our groups. The two possibilities are mutually exclusive.

Please be consistent, non-judgemental or quite.

My apologies if I offended you.

I'll stick to the points. I think there is a lot of power creep in Paizo's products, especially in the last 18 months. And I think there are ways that if a DM doesn't like it, they can easily keep it out of their games.

Riggler wrote:

Any classed NPC should be experienced enough to be wary of a group of adversaries accompanied by animals (with the exception of horses). I know my PCs are. Why shouldn't others who have "experienced" the world?

But how do the NPCs know which animals to be so worried about? If a witch's familiar dies, she is crippled, but if a wizard's familiar or arcane-blooded sorcerer's familiar is killed, she's barely affected at all; attacking it would be a waste of the NPCs' time. A ranger's or druid's animal companion, or a summoner's eidolon, is a potential threat in combat, but not so squishy that it can be easily removed like a familiar. And if the animal is not a proper companion at all but rather a temporary product of the summoner's Summon Monster SLA? The PC's would love for you to focus your fire on it.

Unless the familiar is being used to deliver touch spells or something, targeting it relies on more than just "animals that accompany people might be important".

All I said was they should be experienced enough to be wary. And they would likely react differntly to a tiger in tow versus a fox or an eagle or a toad. An AOE targeted on the animal and as many PCs as possible seems very logical tactic for classed NPCs -- whether the animal is summoned, a PC in animal form, a familier, or an animal companion.

But yeah, if the NPCs are avoiding other obvious threatening targets while the familier does effectivly nothing, then that is a cause for a concern.

That's silly, Riggler.

Nobody is smart enough to just "know if something is power creep". That's a matter of opinion. I have no idea what you think is power creep and what you think is just strong.How am I supposed to know?

You also just called quite a lot of people poor GMs, myself included. That's much more rude than it is relevant.

Oh, and you're repeating the stormwind fallacy. Playing extremely powerful characters is not the same thing as being a jerk who cares only about winning and showing off. Way to dismiss one of my players as well.

Apparently my definition of power creep is a lot closer to a lot of others in this discussion than yours based on your other comments in this thread.

Powers, feats, spells etc. are simply math and some are situational.

So, yes, being able to do math (and with pathfinder its typicall simple addition) building a character that has a better mathmatical chance of general success at tasks (especially combat) when the source is from products beyond the CRB indicates power creep.

If this was simply a case of more variety, that would not be power creep, but alas it is not. It is a mathmatical advantage.

Now that we've defined terms, I stand by my two instances of when power creep enters a home game.

And I think plenty of MBs have been used in data transfer explaining why optomizing players and non-optomizing players just don't mix for an enjoyable game.

I said in my opinion GMs who allow all published material is a bad GM, because it's not a game I'd want to play in and not a game I'd like to GM. I've seen what it does to the tone of a game group when its allowed. Keeping up with the arms race, eliminating 100s if not 1000s of page of rules simply because they are not the BEST choice doesn't make sense to me. And that's what it does. If you play an allow everything, and there is power creep in a game, you eliminate a vast majority of the builds simply because you will be a bystander in that game.

And it might have been cool when I was 15 to show off my character building muscles, but more than 20 years later -- I just don't. I'll go play board games if I want to go compete with my friends on my strategy, tactics and mathmatics and I'd suggest they do the same. But again, that's just my opinion.

Power Creep in published Paizo products has reached a severe level, IMO. It did that with the Ultimate books.

Not counting Organzied Play, Power Creep only enters games where one of two things occur:

1) There are many games in town and players prefer to play video-game style braggerts who's only point in playing the game is to build something that steals the spotlight from their friends thereby requirng a GM to give in to keep players or;

2) A GM who doesn't ban books, classes, feats and COMBINATIONS of abilities that on their own aren't bad until combined with something else that makes them especially powerful.

In my opinion, a GM who says "I'll allow anything Paizo publishes in my games" is a poor GM. And frankly, not one that I would enjoy playing with very much.

My method to avoid Power Creep:
A) I tell my players what is allowed.
B) I tell them anything else I have to approve it first.
C) I tell them they are smart enough to know if its power creep and if that's the choices they present to me I have no problem singing them a chorus of no's until I'm blue in the face.
D) Lastly, if I'm inudated with requrest for approval of things that are over-powered compared to the baseline CRB, we'll just go back to core and I'll have peace.

Any classed NPC should be experienced enough to be wary of a group of adversaries accompanied by animals (with the exception of horses). I know my PCs are. Why shouldn't others who have "experienced" the world?

That said, the Gmay be taregeting your familier too much.

But another option, the GM may have a grander story option planned.

There are plenty of option in the way of feats, playing human or making sure to take a favored class to make certain skills class skills, get bonuses to certain skills and get extra skill points.

Just because a player wants all the cool advantages that comes with a certain race at the loss of a feat and skills for not playing human is their choice. But in the first chapter of this AP may not be the best one.

This AP is not like any I've ever seen. And players that approach it as such will be disappointed.

I took the suggestion from the Player's Guide for the AP. I stressed to players to make characters that WANT to be pirates and that would be good pirates. We start Saturday and the players have taken my advice. I think they will do fine without any bonuses handed out on my part.