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Blue Dragon

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Pathfinder Society Member. 126 posts. 1 review. No lists. No wishlists.


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In my opinion, The Impossible Eye seems to be a colossal waste of time. The heroes are desperate to get back to the prime material plane, they finally escape kakishon, and they end up stuck in the city of brass. I can see some of my players walking out at that point. I mean it really seems like the heroes should go right from The End of Eternity into The Final Wish. It's like the writers suddenly realized the campaign was ahead of schedule and needed to stick something in as book 5 to get the heroes their extra 3 levels (I so hate D&D's level system). So, what's the best way to remove The Impossible Eye? Should I just get rid of it and reduce the level of The Final Wish? Should I increase the level of The End of Eternity and find something that can go between it and The Jackal's Price? Is there something that can be done on the material plane that can be used as a direct replacement to The Impossible Eye, like maybe the heroes return home and find that they need to do something before they can face Jhavhul in The Final Wish?


I think I may have missed something. I was reading House of the Beast and got to Shirak's Crypt. I was expecting Shirak's body and belonging to just kind of be lying out in the open, but was very surprised to find they were all in a sarcophagus. How exactly did Shirak's body and belongings get into the sarcophagus? None of the gnolls ever made it down that far and so far I can't find anything that says who could have put her in there. Is there something somewhere that describes how Shirak got into the sarcophagus?


Does anyone happen to have a list of the Reaper Pathfinder miniatures sorted by what AP they appear in (those that actually do appear in APs)?


I've just started reading through CotCT (thinking of converting it to Savage Worlds to run with my group). I was just wondering if parts 4 and 5 actually serve any purpose other than feeding the PCs some xp? They seem completely pointless, but I may be missing something that's important later in the campaign. Or can these parts be completely skipped over without causing any problems?


Does anyone know if there are vampire and mummy templates where you can choose from a list of special abilities, kind of like the ghost template?


Recently I've been messing with some ancient mythology pantheons for a campaign I'm working on. I've got the Greek pantheon sort of worked out and I'm working on Egyptian and Celtic pantheons. I may also throw in the Mesopotamian pantheon, although I don't know much about Mesopotamian mythology.

I've left out the alignment domains on purpose. Each deity will have one or more cults and each cult will have it's own alignment. If a cleric belongs to a cult he/she/it will get access to that cult's alignment domains. This was a lot easier than trying to assign alignments to each deity, and seems to fit better with how deities worked in ancient mythology.

Opinions, suggestions, alternate domain lists, etc are all very welcome. I'm not the best at coming up with things like this, so the more feedback I get the better.

Anyway, here's the Greek pantheon I've come up with:

Aphrodite (goddess of love and beauty): Charm, Trickery
Apollo (god of prophecy, healing, and the sun): Glory, Healing, Knowledge, Sun
Ares (god of savage warfare): Destruction, Strength, War
Artemis (goddess of wildlife and the wilderness): Animal, Healing, Plant
Athena (goddess of wisdom and tactical warfare): Knowledge, Protection, War
Demeter (goddess of agriculture): Earth, Plant
Dionysus (god of wine and madness): Charm, Madness
Hades (god of wealth and the dead): Death, Earth, Repose
Hecate (goddess of magic and ghosts): Darkness, Knowledge, Magic, Trickery
Hephaestus (god of fire and smithing): Artifice, Fire, Strength
Hera (goddess of marriage and vengeance): Community, Nobility, Protection
Hermes (god of travel, commerce, and thievery): Liberation, Luck, Travel, Trickery
Hestia (goddess of hearth, home, and family): Community, Protection
Poseidon (god of the sea): Destruction, Strength, Water
Zeus (god of the sky): Air, Nobility, Strength, Weather

I'm not sure what the Rune domain is supposed to represent. If it's supposed to be magic then it should go to Hecate. If it's more about crafting then it should go to Hephaestus.


Adding multiple d6s to all of a character's attacks seems pretty powerful. Even the most powerful of magic items rarely gives damage bonuses higher that +5 or maybe +4 and +1d6. Sneak attack is more limited than a magic enhancement bonus, but those limitations have shrunk to almost nothing in Pathfinder, and really, how hard is it to stay flanking an enemy. Maybe sneak attack should be changed so it's only added to the first attack made during the character's turn? Or maybe it should be changed to a flat, cumulative +1 or +2 bonus (each d6 of the sneak attack becomes +1 or +2)? It just gets a little annoying seeing characters built for combat rolling a single die and getting piddly flat damage bonuses when the rogue is carving up opponents with his 3-4 dice of damage (which becomes even more ridiculous when the rogue starts getting iterative attacks and follows the Two-Weapon Fighting feat tree). A rogue getting 4-5 attacks per turn with each attack rolling several dice of damage just seems absurd and way overpowered.


For a while now I've been wanting to make up some adventures and campaigns based on ancient mythology. Recently I decided to give it a try with Pathfinder. At first I was thinking about what I would need to modify and add to get Pathfinder to works with an ancient mythology setting. But really, apart from removing non-human races and limiting the equipment that's available, what else needs to be changed? Are there any classes, feats, spells, etc that really need to be changed or added? Or can everything be used as is? I've been looking at books like Testament and thinking "some this new stuff is good, but is any of it really necessary?" None of the new classes and prestige classes were really that different from the core ones, and none of the new feats and spells really screamed "ancient mythology". Has anyone here tried using Pathfinder for an ancient mythology setting? What changes did you make, if any?


When an ability possessed by a prestige class says something like "This ability functions as shadow conjuration, using the shadowdancer’s level as the caster level.", does it mean total character level, or just the levels of the prestige class? So would a Rogue 10/Shadowdancer 4 use the above ability at caster level 14, or 4?


I'm converting some prestige classes in Testament to Pathfinder. I've come across one, the Desert Hermit, that has Track as a bonus feat at 2nd level. What would be a good replacement? The Skill Focus (Survival) feat, a flat bonus to Survival checks made to follow or identify tracks, or something else? I was thinking of replacing it with Favoured Terrain (Desert), like the Ranger ability, but how will that work is a Ranger takes this Prestige Class, particularly one that already has Favoured Terrain (Desert)?


If I make it so that weapon focus and weapon specialization feats apply to categories of weapons, like the fighter's weapon training ability, will that make the feats too good? Has anyone else tried doing this for their campaign?


I'm a little unsure about how Rake is supposed to work with the new Pathfinder grappling rules. Does it allow for two grapple checks with each doing claw damage? Or does it allow the creature to inflict claw damage twice with a single grapple check? Rake makes sense when used with pounce, but it doesn't seem to make sense when used in a grapple.


With feats like power attack and combat expertise, can you choose to take less of a penalty to get less of a bonus? Or do you have to take the full modifiers?


Can a creature use spring attack while flying? Or does it need fly-by attack? Does a creature need spring attack to not provoke an attack of opportunity when using fly-by attack?


Lets say I want to add the vampire template to an ogre. Do the ogre's 4 racial hit dice still count as being Humanoid for determining BAB, saves, and skills, or do they become Undead?

Also, what happens when a creature already has DR and resistances, but gains DR and resistances from the template? Do they all get added up, or do the template ones replace the racial ones?


I love how some monsters have tactics other than simply "beat the enemy until it stops moving" but when do such monsters ever get to actually use such tactics? Take the Bone Devil for example. It's perfect for misdirection and hit-and-run tactics (attack then quickened invisibility. Use Major Image to pull away the melee characters, slaughter the spellcasters and archers who think they're safely out of harms way, use greater teleport and quickened invisibility to get to safety if needed. Etc). But a simple See Invisibility spell (or any of the many spells that allow characters to see invisible creatures) and/or a paladin's detect evil ability completely ruins all these tactics and turns the bone devil into just another "beat the enemy until it stops moving" monster. So, how do you allow these monsters to use all their cool abilities and tactics without completely nerfing the characters?


I'm trying to convert greater stone golems from 3.5 to pathfinder and I'm worried about the 42 hit dice. With the new BAB of constructs that would give them an attack modifier of +53. It seems like, from the monster advancement table in the pathfinder bestiary, that a greater stone golem should have around 28 hit dice instead. Would a 28 hit dice stone golem be a CR 16 creature?


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

Grab says "each successful grapple check the creature makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold. Otherwise, it deals constriction damage as well"

Does this mean that a creature who successfully maintains a grapple can choose the Damage dealing natural weapon damage), inflict additional damage from the Grab (dealing natural weapon damage), and constrict (dealing constrict damage), effectively dealing 3x damage on each successful grapple check?

Also, if a creature successfully Grabs an enemy, does it do it's normal attack damage and choose a grapple action? Or can it not choose a grapple action on the turn it Grabs? The rules are a bit vague about whether you can actually choose a grapple action on the turn the grapple is initiated, or if they can only be chosen on turns you successfully maintain an existing grapple.

On a side note, how does Rake work in a grapple? Does the creature have to make a Grapple check first, then make it's Rake attacks? How does that work if the grapple check requires a standard action and the Rake attacks require a full-round action? I think I like the idea put forward in another thread where the Grab ability allows the creature to maintain a grapple as a free action, but doing so means you can't choose a grapple action. Or maybe Rake should be a grapple action instead of a pair of natural attacks.

I think the problem with Rake may be caused because the rules for making attacks against a grappled enemy have changed in Pathfinder, but the rules for Rake stayed the same. Rake worked in 3.5 when natural attacks made against a grappled enemy were done as normal attacks with -4 penalties, but that's not how it works in Pathfinder. So maybe Rake needs to be re-written to work with the Pathfinder grappling rules.


Does the size and strength of a creature effect the range increment of thrown weapons? Or does a Strength 5 gnome throw a dagger the same distance as a Strength 35 cloud giant?


One of the things my group is trying out is advancement without xp. Basically their characters increase in levels as the level of the campaign increases. I have an idea of where the level-ups should go, but I was hoping to get some second opinions. One thing I'm struggling with is whether I should move the level-ups until later because my group has 6 players instead of 4. Keeping to the level of the campaign may make them too powerful later on.

Spoiler:
Burnt Offerings:
- advance to level 2 upon Tsuto's defeat
- advance to level 3 at the end of the catacombs of wrath
- advance to level 4 at the end of Thistletop (or maybe at the start of Dungeons: Level 2)

Skinsaw Murders:
- Part One should bump the PCs up to level 5
- advance to level 6 at the end of Foxglove Manor
- advance to level 7 after dealing with everything in Magnimar

Hook Mountain Massacre
- advance to level 8 at the end of the Graul Farm
- advance to level 9 at the end of Retaking Rannik
- advance to level 10 upon Barl's defeat (I'll probably be skipping the flood and the Whitewillow, and just doing Skull's Crossing and Hook Mountain)

Fortress of the Stone Giants
- advance to level 11 upon reaching Jorgenfist
- advance to level 12 upon Mokmurian's defeat

I haven't read through the last two adventures so I don't know when to put the advancements.


While going through the RotR campaign I've noticed several encounters that I may end up removing. For example, the flood and The Haunted Heart sections from Hook Mountain Massacre, and the stone golem, scanderig, and Headless Lord encounters from Fortress of the Stone Giants. Although these are all minor encounters, I'm starting to get worried that if I remove them all the PCs will start to lag too far behind in xp. Will the xp loss be too small to worry about, or should I bulk up some of the other encounters to make up for the loss? Has anyone else tried running the campaign without these encounters?


Should lamia matriarchs have the Undersized Weapons rule that creatures like regular lamia and centaur have? Or are lamia matriarchs much bigger than those creatures?


The greater combat maneuver feats, like Greater Trip, say that the target provokes attacks of opportunity. Does the character making the combat maneuver get to make an attack of opportunity immediately after performing the maneuver? Or is it only other creatures that can make attacks of opportunity?


In 3.5 Divine Health specifically states that it works on mummy rot, however there's no such statement in Pathfinder (at least, not that I've noticed). Since mummmy rot is a curse as well as a disease does Divine Health still work against it in Pathfinder? Personally, it would be nice to have some really powerful curse-diseases still work on paladins. Becoming totally immune to both fear effects and diseases so early on (3rd level) makes it really difficult to do nasty things to paladins. Giving them big bonuses to saves vs fear and disease would have been better than giving them complete immunities.


I noticed RotR has a number of dread undead. Wouldn't it be better to use regular undead with class levels? Since I'm converting the campaign to PFRPG I like the idea of using core material only, so removing the advanced bestiary stuff would be great. The only problem I can think of is the dire bat ghoul in Skinsaw Murders. I could use the monstrous ghoul template from Dragon #307, but that would mean using non-core material. Maybe it would be possible to create a similar template from the ghoul in the Pathfinder bestiary. Is there any reason to keep them as dread undead? Or will undead with class levels work just as well?


One thing I've noticed about D&D adventures is that the main villain is almost always either a spellcaster, or a creature with lots of spell-like abilities. RotR is no different. With some villains (Nualia, Xanesha, Karzoug) it makes sense, but do villains like Barl and Mokmurian really need to be spellcasters? It seems completely out of place that not one, but two stone giant main villains are spellcasters, especially as their favoured class is supposed to be barbarian. So, where are all the non-spellcasting major villains? How come there aren't any major villains based on the barbarian, rogue, and fighter classes? Would it completely derail the campaign if I made both Barl and Mokmurian into non-spellcasting villains? Just once I'd love to see a campaign where the biggest of the major villains has absolutely no spellcaster levels or spell-like abilities of any kind.


What bloodline best suits Dorella? Maybe Aberrant or Destined? Or should she just default to Arcane? I'm not sure which bloodline would be best for "bonked on the head when she was younger".


The giant spider from the Pathfinder bestiary seems to use a different HD-CR progression. Does each HD added really increase the CR by 1? So, if I wanted a CR 7 Huge spider I'd just increase it's HD to 9? Or are the HD on the spider species table incorrect?


I'm converting Hook Mountain Massacre to Pathfinder and I'm a little stuck as to what skills I should give Mammy Graul. I gave the +2 human attribute bonus to her Int (increasing it to 17), which gives her a total of 48 skill ranks. With 8 ranks in each of Fly, Knowledge (arcana), and Spellcraft she still has 24 skill ranks left. What else should she have? Should I just ignore the left-over skill ranks?


I'm thinking about how to convert the ogrekin in The Hook Mountain Massacre to PRPG and I'm not sure if they should remain a template or be changed into a race. Personally I think they seem more like a race, similar to half-elves and half-orcs, rather than a template that gets added to other races. Has anyone converted the ogrekin in THMM to PRPG? Should they just be built as humans with the ogrekin template, or should they built as a new race without the human racial bonuses?


How much damage is a ghoul claw attack supposed to do? According to 3.5 they are only supposed to do 1d3 base damage. In the Pathfinder bestiary they do 1d6 base damage. According to table 3-1 in the Pathfinder bestiary a medium-sized creature is supposed to do 1d4 base damage with claw attacks. So which one is correct?


I'm not sure how animal companions work in Pathfinder. Do the stats on table 3-8 replace those of the animal chosen, or add to the animal's existing stats?


I noticed that goblins are missing their +1 size modifier to their attack rolls (should be +2 for the short swords and +4 for the short bows). Also, the DC for the quasit's poison seems too high. It should only be 11, not 13. Unless there's a +2 racial modifier that didn't get mentioned in the stats. Are there any other problems? Is there an errata for the bestiary?


I really wish something was done about how weapons are categorized in Pathfinder. Get rid of the Light, One-Handed, and Two-handed groups. Also get rid of different damage ratings for small and medium sized weapons. Just give each weapon a size, from Tiny to Large. The size of the weapon relative to it's wielder determines what type of weapon it is. So Tiny and Small weapons are Light, Medium weapons are One-Handed, and Large weapons are Two-Handed. Bigger and smaller creatures shift the weapon sizes down and up. So a Small creature would shift all weapon sizes up one (a small weapon becomes medium)and a Large creature would shift all weapon sizes down one (a large weapon becomes medium). See, much easier, simple, and more logical. Actually, how difficult would it be to house rule weapon to work more like I described above?


Are there any plans to make versions of the bard and ranger classes that don't have spells? Maybe a web enhancement or something with abilities and bonuses to replace their spellcasting with? I would really like to give my players the option of creating rangers and bards that don't have to have spells at higher levels.


There are some things in 3.5 I've never liked, and seem to have been fixed in 4E. Now, I'm not a big fan of 4E on the whole, but it did make some changes that may be worth "stealing" for Pathfinder. I haven't gone through Pathfinder completely so I can't make a full list of things I'd like to see "stolen", but some examples would be:

For races I think that negative racial ability modifiers should be removed, and the number of racial special abilities should be reduced. I also think gnomes and half-orcs should not be player races, and halflings should be taller, but those are more personal preferences that I can deal with in my campaigns.

For spellcasters I think the number of spells spellcasters get (especially wizards and sorcerers) should be reduced, and a lot of spells should either be reduced in power or removed completely. I'm sick of wizards being able to use spells to do things fighters and rogues can do, and do them 100x better than fighters and rogues can (who needs a skill to pick locks when the wizard can just cast a spell?). Or, better yet, make a completely new magic system that makes major spellcasters more balanced with non-spellcasters. The magic system from Monte Cook's D20 World of Darkness would be very interesting.

I haven't seen how Pathfinder deals with multiclassing but if it still exists in Pathfinder it should be removed. multiclassing is way more trouble than it's worth.

It might also be worth looking at games like True 20 and Mutants & Masterminds to see if there's anything they have that can be adapted for use in Pathfinder. If paizo took all the best parts of pathfinder, 4E, M&M/True 20, and some other D20 variants and mixed in some new stuff of their own I think they'd be able to make the best version of D&D ever.



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