Russell Akred's page

• An NPC gets in trouble when the building he is in is hit by a boulder and collapses. The PCs must rescue him or he will be trapped. (This one will not be used because it will de-focus the event of the attack.)
  
• A boulder comes bouncing down the street, causing destruction as it comes. (Color, nothing the PCs can do to stop it just see it coming and know that there is something out there throwing stones.)
  
• A band of “bad guys” encounters the PCs – looters, Sczarni, or just some toughs. The bad guys drop whatever they were doing and fee in different directions when confronted.
  
• A woman screams as her building is hit by a boulder, no damage is done to her. (This may defocus the attack as well.)
  
• A small group of horses/ponies/cattle come stampeding down the street. (An opportunity to use stampedes :) )
  
• A town guardsman is attempting to pull people from a burning building.
  
• Another guardsman is hiding from the chaos and destruction.
  
• A large boulder hits in the middle of the street 1d4 × 10 feet in front of the PCs
  
• A runaway horse pulling a cart...

How about...

• The old, you hear screaming and see a woman's body on the ground with a frightened baby crying her eyes out.(mother at -1 will die if left unattended for 9 rounds)
  
• A Horse breaks loose from the stables and rushes down the street dragging it's rider and trampling towns people every round until calmed.
  
• The side of the bath house crumbles dropping a bathtub filled with a woman and a man and sends them bobbing down stream.
  
• The stairwell to the complex below sandpoint is hit by a boulder blocking it.
  
• A drunk stumbles out into the street and starts relieving himself on or by a PC.
  
• Potion dealer steps out of his door with a quickly drawn sign "Protection from Missiles 50 gold pieces"

What I do for combat in my game is use initiative cards with one at initiative 10 (+0) that has the list of happenings in order to be checked off.

rustle

I'm all for it. Put me in for a yes vote. It should be there for players to see when they choose a item. The rapier should take serious damage from a loud scream though.

The workhorse spell I am always twisted by as a Game Master is "Charm Person" since most players seem to feel it should be very powerful and I feel it is weak and difficult to master.

The bottom line here is the adventure was written to have the player characters begin by solving problems within their grasp. The problems become more complex as the characters advance. The motivation is there is a much bigger event taking place here that the players do not fully understand until book 4 or 5. Start messing with the plot and you will be struggling to explain motivations later.

That goblin looks familiar. Just can't put my clawed finger on it.

Eric

Contact me offlist at russakred@cinci.rr.com and I will put you on a local forum that might get some replies.

rustle

As long as these two things are kept I will be happy.

1. be able to use my Complete and races books. I find this a big thing for me.

b. Be able to change monsters quickly and so far PFRPG is doing that well.

Very functional and well organized sheets, thank you sir!

Is it possible to change the fancy looking font to be slightly less...fanciful?

This simple enough for ya?

even more simple

even less complex

The link seems fine to me. Its under the link for "stuff" if you can get to if. If not then I do have copies of each parchment on my hard drive and if some one informs me how to upload it I'll sort it out (thats assuming the original owner has no objections??)

Must have been down while I was looking at it. Same address but there was no website there. Gotta keep up with that domain registration payment or they turn the lights off.

I wanted the crimes to have an impact from the get go so I made handout notes for the first two in Skinsaw Murders.

Cougar Note

Lumbermill Note

rustle

I wanted the crimes to have an impact from the get go so I made handout notes for the first two in Skinsaw Murders.

Cougar Note

Lumbermill Note

rustle

They are from Andreas Blicher (Warhammer mapmaker extraordinaire) - http://www.andreas.blicher.info/

The site seems to be down. Did anyone grab that parchment before it was taken down? If so could you post the file please?

I wrote an adventure set in Sanos Forest. An order of rangers had been defending a place called Earthroot.

Mary

Mary could you please send me a copy too please. I would be interested to see if it would work for my group.

russakred@cinci.rr.com

From the DMG2 it looks like the PC will need the skill Profession(Innkeeper) to make the check for profit. If he has 5 ranks the skills sense motive and profession(Brewer or cook) then he gets a +1 for each, 10 ranks gets a +2, 15 ranks gets a +3. Sandpoint may or may not have a guild the PC can join if the PC joins a guild then that's a +1. The PC needs to be there at least 8 hours a week or he gets a -8 to the roll. Full time gets a +2, and business savvy feat is a +2 also. It's a high risk so that gives a -4 to the roll. If the PC failed in the previous check give 'em a -1 to the roll. Only as good as your last brewsky.

Now the Innkeeper skill check is DCs 25 everything over 25 is gravy. Multiply the results by 50gp. If lower than 25 multiply it by 50gp for the loss amount. Rolled a one with no modifiers ouch fork over 1,200 gp buddy.

So you want to own a tavern huh?

I could see 10 + the highest BAB +2 for each opponent. Not as hard as you might think and the modifiers still apply from 3.5. Should the fall DC be 10 +1 per 10 feet fallen? I know I had a 12th level character maxed out on tumble in LG. 15 ranks +8 Dex +2 Synergy and Skill Mastery from Thief Acrobat giving him a 35 without rolling. And I used it all the time.

Made this for my group and wanted to share.

Malfeshnekor

Rustle

Is this good enough?

tastes great

less filling

Now I am drawing Malfeshnekor for my players.

Rustle

Sorry it took so long. Busy running Burnt Offerings.

Character Sheet

As a ex-Living Greyhawk player I was unsure until they said they were killing LG for Realms. On top of that obliterating Realms and restarting with a clean slate there. To tell us the books we been buying from them for years had a bad system made me even more upset. They sold us that then they called it junk. Typical marketing manipulation. That great computer you bought last year is bad buy our new one. From the announcement on I have refused to purchase any other Wiz products. Paizo listens to their users and I feel respected. Don't treat me like a cash machine and I will stick with you.

No! What you do is pump it up. Set the lighting in the room down low, have speakers in the darken corners making whispering sounds of children playing, have blood drip on the battle mat during suspenseful parts right before you let our a dreaded scream of panic. Now that the frightened player is dead you can play the remaining four hours of gaming without worries.

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Started in Burnt offerings right before Thistletop. Using everything but the skills from Alpha 1 now we will probably use all the rules for Alpha 2 for next weeks Battle deep inside Thistletop.

I like the rules so far and have enjoyed running them. Trying to choose whether to convert the NPCs to Alpha 2 or not.

I do just as soon as the next set of checks come in. Fifty bucks is something that doesn't fit into impulse buy.

122

Why is the projected Beta release after the hardcover?

Last night I scanned in the Burnt Offerings at a 400 dpi then scaled them up to 1" per square at 100 dpi. Threw a paint daubs filter on them in Photoshop to kill the dot pattern then selected and placed them on a letter sized page one room at a time. Printed them and cut them out. Now I'll have battlemaps for those levels. Should work well for Skinsaw too.

Thats what Overrun is for.

Or if you're quite adept at tumbling you can tumble through the occupied square.

Robert

The rules say:

Bull Rush
You can make a bull rush as a standard action or as part
of a charge. A bull rush attempts to push an opponent
straight back without doing any harm. If you do not have
the Improved Bull Rush feat, or a similar ability, initiating
a bull rush provokes an attack of opportunity from the target
of your maneuver.
If your attack is successful, your target is pushed back 5
feet. For every 5 by which your attack exceeds the DC you
can push the target back an additional 5 feet. You can move
with the target if you wish but you must have the available
movement to do so. If your attack fails, your movement ends
in front of the target.

It doesn't say you can use the remaining movement to proceed around the target. In this case the path was blocked by a PC and the NPC wanted to get away by pushing the PC back 5' then go right his remaining 15" to slip into some cover. Since it didn't say you could keep moving the NPC just was stuck there.

I found the current Combat Maneuvers OK in dynamics with our playtest yesterday. I intentionally ran a few during the game and found then to be alright. As a judge one thing I felt wanting was an adjustment to the bull rush. Could there be a mechanic for pushing yourself through another character/monster? Having to stop after pushing seems wrong. You want to break through the defensive line to get to the QB right. Not just push the blocker back.

Yeah, my group has been suffering from home game fever. Too many years of playing LG and random party members makes it tough to line up weekends for all of us to get together. Hope it will pick up after this weekend's game.

I felt like my players will want to see what the hermit crab looks like so I make a sketch. As usual I share.

Hermit Crab

Started on a polyform fig but it wasn't coming out good enough. Thus the drawing. I made a 2 x 2 square version too for combat.

Hermit Crab square

enjoy

I just thought cleave would be a lot more popular feat with this system.

I find running most combats that it doesn't matter if the combat is level 1 or level 12 it is always as deadly. The more hit points you get the more damage they do. The higher you AC the higher their to hit bonus is. The better your save the crazier the DC is. I have seen too many combats that last the same amount of rounds regardless the level. I never see 12th level PCs fighting a dozen simple medium skeletons in an encounter. What's the point?? I always assumed everything ramped up together to give the illusion of the players getting tougher. Sure that goblin almost cut you in half at level one but you ain't fighting that little guy anymore, are ya?

This would change the power of DR in combat. Taking 5 points off each attack and taking it off one is a big difference.

I searched but didn't see any general fumble rules questions. Even though you have the Fumble deck would it be possible to put fumble rules into Pathfinder RPG?

In Burnt Offerings I have enjoyed the chance that a dogslicer will break on a roll of 1. Too bad most goblins are dead before they can roll a 1 though.

My table was very frustrated with the quasit. Round after round passed until one player did a running jump from the upper stage and grappled the little bugger. Even then they couldn't hurt her so finally on the 20th round they held her under the fountains water she struggled for a few rounds then went limp. The party came up with the bright idea of throwing her body into the summoning pool. About five feet away the quasit tried to escape (it had played dead +10 bluff) and failed. The poor thing was shoved back under water for about a half hour to make sure it was dead.

Talk about some wrath points. Heck, the players wanted to kill me too.

I keep picturing the pesky monkeys that hang out around Indian temples. One of those could tear you a new one.

I see the imps not wanting to kill their meal ticket or upset the population by killing except in defense. Stealing stuff from open windows, grabbing food from unattended carts, hanging out in groups to share and spread gossip while smoking little clove cigarettes, or even swiping clothes off the clothesline that was left out after dark. In fact envision a few enterprising gnomes making a imp bar for profit.

Just watched "Life of Brian" with my kids this morning. They were cracking up at Brian having his Latin graffiti corrected by the soldier and this brings it all back. Very Fun.

Rustle

We've only made the first couple of games and they are trying to figure out what to do with the Quasit's returning dagger. I said that they could exchange it for a medium sized one.

Russell you have too much time on your hands.

What time? It took a half hour???

The cover reminds me of Apocalypse Now. He even kinda looks like Martin Sheen.

THE HORROR... THE HORROR...

NEVER GET OUT OF THE BOAT!!!

There is a good point that could be expressed in all the class arguments. Revamping the Core Classes is pulling away from 3.5 a little too much. Even though I don't approve of spell casting Rangers and Paladins maybe new non magical classes should be created instead. Two new classes that carry the abilities of the 3.5 core but loose the spells. Why recreate something and keep the name???

The idea that I am going with is placing a landing node on Thistletop and Skull Crossing. At skull crossing they find a key (my case a golden piggie with a seven pointed star on the sides) that when it approaches the node they both glow. When enough gold pieces are dropped in the slot on the back of the piggie points on the node twinkle until only one is constantly on. That one is Thistletop. When the piggie is pointed at the light then those on the node are suddenly flown at great speed and arrive at Thistletop in of a couple of hours or less. This gives the players the only known key to the nodes (10,000 years has buried or destroyed them all) and a way to get back and forth to their home town and the fort in short order. Karzoug will also know the nodes have been activated and will want the key as well possibly adding an additional item the Stone Giants are searching for in Sandpoint.

Here it is the ultimate in evil casting.

Evil Karzoug

For those interested here are drawings of the skeletons in the study.

monsterous skeletons thread

Yes I spoil my players. Learned the best way to cement a relationship is to ruin them for anyone else.

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It would be nice to get away from spell-casting outside of spell-casters. Giving the Ranger or Paladin special talents like the rogue or monk makes much more sense. I would worry about those characters that use their spell-casting ability to qualify for a prestige class.

Pathfinder RPG Alpha1 Charater Sheet.

I updated this file with the legal copy.

I like the separate Sorcerer and Wizard. It makes sense to the flavor of the game and not the mechanics. The problem I see was that WotC was too scared to actually make the Sorcerer stronger than it currently is. That's why they created all those heritage feats, to help the Sorcerers but with a lack of means to obtain a whole set quickly enough, it just didn't work out too well. I think that a Sorcerer should get the heritage from the get go as a bonus feat and as his level progresses, he gets bonuse heritage feats. That way, most characters can actually focus on their heritage and their casting or fighting abilities.

I know the Kobold Sorcerer was that way with Draconic Heritage as a first level sorcerer.

OK, I got it. If it ain't got class it ain't DnD.

I knew as soon as I asked this question in my mind I would have to post it. Then I also knew that the screams of blaspheme would follow.

One of the things I always like about a non-d20 game I played (Shadowrun) was the way there were no classes only paths you could take in creating and improving your character. You could have creation be a selection of choices Magic/Skills/Feats/Hit Dice/Special Talents where they are put into priority from 1 to 5. Magic would need to be priority 1 or 2 to manifest into powers like casting spells (Magic 1) like normal arcane or divine casters or weaker spell casters (Magic 2) where progress is slower. With Special Talents the PC could buy talents like Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Trap Finding, Familiar, or Slow fall.

When the PC gains a level they make a choice of improving their choices. It would open up everything and allow players to find a chosen path for their character.

Sleight of Hand (DEX) or Legerdemain or Prestidigitation

You are skilled at feats of manual dexterity.
Disable Device(physical) + Open Lock + Sleight of Hand.

What if it was called Nimble Fingers, or Deft Hands? That would fit this skill content better.

The redos of existing classes I could do without. Make something new instead of redecorating the fighter or rogue. I mean this is the chance to create new core classes for a new RPG. Take advantage of it.

The skill system I like as well as the Combat Maneuvers. Count me as happy with the ideas even though I have heard there is a lot of 4.0 in these rules. Paizo I am sure you will do a great job.

Thanks Rus, Very good looking character sheet!

No problem we're family right? Well not family but in the same screwy world.