Snow Crash's page

Thanks. You guys are awesome as per usual.

Hey guys and gals. I was charged for 2 greenvise vine minis but only received the one. If it is still available would love a replacement added to my next delivery pls.

Thanks

Agreed. I would read ahead just so you have an idea where it's all going to pan out. It's also nice to be able to give the player snippets of ideas about what maybe be coming up. Many times they will want to do things in what appears to be some dirt of random order due to the sandbox nature of this AP. My characters very quickly become overpowered by having too many magic items so i would consider toning back on the treasure the module award.

Marked so I can come back later. Sounds super interesting.

I'd give my lefty for a 30' template.

First off I haven't read every post just the first couple of pages so if I repeat anything sorry

This is a slippery slope you tread.

1. When the characters get more reward from simply killing him and taking his gear as opposed to handing him in and collecting a meager reward. They are quickly going to learn and go for the kill every time.

2. They are not playing lawful characters. If you wish them to obey every law than maybe you shouldn't allow non lawful alignments in your game. In which case you are going to quickly find yourself with no players or at thievery least bored unhappy players.

3. You as a gm really need to be able to put aside what you know and learn to have your npcs act upon what they "know" and as others have said unless they know for certain what went down then why would they take the word of a known criminal suspect against the people that the courts hired to bring that suspect to justice.

In short. Yes, I think you are being unrealistic in your expectations. And as a player I would feel very wronged should you take the path you are hinting at.

As an encounter pack I would rather see a themed group as opposed to what another poster has mentioned "simply a group of minis that you say go together."
Would live to see a group of soldiers and a commander figure. Or a group of skeletons and a couple of Skelton champions. The sort of things i need a lot of. I would happy buy several packs of those. Do I need 6 identicle succubi or evil cleric minis. Not really.

Just my 2c

Don't forget he's probably not sleeping in that armor. Kingmaker involves a good amount of exploring and camping out in the wilderness. Unless he happens to be on watch when a nighttime encounter takes place, his AC should be much more reasonable.

Yes but this is a very specific encounter as oposed to the vast majority of combats which I needed a liitle advice on.

Plus they go to great magical lengths to conceal their campsight at nightime. I figure if they are going to burn a bunch of spells concealing and protecting the campsight then I need to reward them a little for that. I reduce the chance of wandering encounter to about 5% and then it literally is a wandering moster stumbling across their campsite by accident.

Giving a 10th level Character a lot of wealth and then come back crying? His Ring alone is 40.000gp. Add in a (probably) +3 Weapon and +3 Armour & Shield and we already are over his wealth. Add in the Ring of Protection, Cloak of Resistance and his inevitable stat boosters it is even crazier. I mean has he like 120k wealth?

Also his Ring of Protection and his Smite Evil DO NOT STACK.

Can you give us a quick roundup of all his magic items?

All treasure is pretty much the standard stuff found in the AP.

He has +2 Armour, +2 shield. +2 Ring of Prot, +2 defending longsword, +2 Cloak Resist, +4 Headband of Cha, Ring of Freedom of Movement Some of this stuff was made by the PC caster. Plus obviously various potions etc and a bag of holding. Armour might be +3 dont have character in front of me.

But I have not been pumping up the treasure. If anything I tone back on what is handed out as standard in the AP

As to the treasure. Yes the arcane caster is making a lot of the magic items. It is kingmaker and they have all the time in the world.

I like a lot if what I hear and will be putting some of it to great use.

I agree that for some encounters he should be able to feel untouchable due to his high AC.
What I was looking for was some advice on how to mix things up a bit so he still feels vulnerable sometimes without overpowering other members of the group

Yes they also have plenty of Roleplaying encounters as well.

They are also about to raid the stronghold of a strong enemy who used to be a member if their council for many years. So he knows just about everything there is to know about him and wil be planning his defenses accordingly.

Thank you for all your advice.

On a side note The treasure I have been handing out has been the treasure that comes with the module ( I have even been toning down on that's well) plus what they have crafted for themselves. .

Ok, so I read the thread and don't see the issue. I would hardly call an AC of ~40 optimized for a 10th level character that is specializing in being a tank. Of course, doing so would hurt his offensive capabilities but then... that is what specializing in being the tank actually does.

Asking the player who worked hard on making his character be effective is NOT a good solution.

If the other characters were under powered and needed help then I would say that they would need some work. That doesn't sound like the case here as it sounds like they are filling their roles as to be expected. I don't want to sound like a jerk here, but if the characters are all filling their roles well and the modules are not challenging them then it is the responcibility of the DM to make the content more challenging. This is a fluid thing. You do not have to use all of the content in modules as is without modifying it. In fact, IMO, this is needed.

Which is kinda my point. I dont want to penalise him for building a good character. And most party members seem to be filling their roles nicely. Maybe two characters need to be optimised a little more but thats neither here nor there.

My question was, what can I use to indeed make the encounters more challenging. Up til now I have been pumping up attack rolls a little. I am a single parent with two little kids and I work full time so I dont have a lot of spare time to be fiddling around with modules. Hence why I run pre written APs like kingmaker. However with the modules as written, nearly every encounter except the BBEG pretty much need to roll a 20 to hit him which tends to take a lot of the challenge out of it.

I was hoping for some advice on how to tweak encounters a little to try and provide a challenge for him without unbalancing it for everyone else. A lot of the encounters, especially in kingmaker do not use intelligent creatures with a variety of spells at their disposal to counter him. Simply increasing the power of creatures will risk all other party members being way too easy to kill. But having him wade into combat feeling pretty much invicible sort of takes the challenge out of it as well.

As it is I am maxing out all the NPCs hit points to make them last a bit longer. I am liking the ideas presented here and will starting using terrain, traps and the odd sundering foe in the future.

I try to keep thing realistic (haha)in the fact that only intelligent foes will fight with tactics etc while wild animals will act like animals, lashing out when cornered, attacking nearest when surprised or picking out the weakest party members when they are hunting the party.

I've had this issue before. When one PC is clearly optimized much more than the others it makes it hard to balance encounters for the very reasons you mentioned: the other PC's get stomped. Overt and continuous use of attacks that circumvent defenses get to be unrealistic (ha!), too. Even if the PC in question is the tank, who tries to attract as much attention as possible, it tends to make no sense when enemies ignore the rest of the group. When this happened, I dealt with it two ways.

First, I talked to the player in question. He is a mature player and is in the game for everyone's enjoyment. It just so happens that he's good at min/maxing. Once I pointed out to him that if his character falls, it will result in a certain TPK, he realized that his character's power needed to be brought in line with everyone else. He was willing to retool his PC to remove some of the optimization. However, after I thought about it, I felt that I would be punishing him for playing his character well and/or knowing the rules. So I decided on a different tactic.

Second, I brought it up to the group. I pointed out to everyone that this one PC is the backbone of both offense and defense and when he dies, the rest of the gorup will die, too. Since the other players were not quite as good at min/maxing as the other player, I allowed them to rebuild their own characters with the more knowledgeable player's assistance. They all stayed true to their own character concept and agreed to purchase/create magic items in the near future to specifically cover some of their weaknesses. Money was pooled to buy items for a couple characters who needed extra help.

In addition, we made a "cheat sheet" for everyone, describing what maneuvers and tactics are available (e.g., new players frequently forget flanking bonuses - in this case remind them). I encouraged everyone to become familliar with the combat rules for cover, concealment, reach, ranged attacks, touch attacks (hello, alchemists fire), etc. I also asked everyone to...

The other players are starting to catch up quite well. The archer is a killing machine (another problem I need to counter) he has no AC but deals massive amounts of damage pretty much ignores cover etc all the usual archer buffs. The Druid is finally coming into his own and can deal some massive damage when shape shifted but again no AC and goes down fairly quickly when engaged. Spell caster is begining to hold his own now and has a decent AC (for a caster that is). The two other characters need a little work perhaps. Its just the massive AC that seems to have me stumped.

I still would not punish the player for such a heavy investment.

My though exactly. He has designed his character well in invested heavily in this style of combat.

My problem as a GM is I still need to make encounters challenging and fun for the group as a whole.

On a side note he is halfway through kingmaker atm and I do try not to deviate too heavily from the module so as to simply counter the PCs. They have designed their characters well and deserve the rewards from that. AS I said I still want to make it a challenge for them though.

Hey guys thanks for advice.

High AC comes from magical armour and shield with a defending longsword and ring of protection. Also has stalwart defender and when possible smites (paladin). 10th level character and when his is properly buffed etc gets his AC over the 40 without breaking too much of a sweat.

Grappling etc is out of the option as he has a ring of freedom of movement. Spells etc are difficult as he has massive saves due to Very high Cha Paladin and cloak of resistance.

Swarms have worked in the past very well. And I successfully turned him to stone when he rolled a 1 on his save vs a basilisk the other day.

His character is designed to rush up and engage in Melee while the spell caster and Archer hang back and unload from range. He is also backed up in Melee by a combat Druid and a Cleric of Gorum. So manouvering past them to get at the squishies is difficult.

As I said I have to bump up the attack rolls on most bad guys just to be even able to have a chance of hitting him. The end result is if any other players stand beside him in melee they almost automatically get hit (reducing their fun obviously)

Smiting and rust monster etc seem like quite good ideas. Although I feel a little bad at the idea of destroying an expensive suit of magical armour on him. Spell casters generally try to remove him from combat by surrounding him in a wall of stone or ice etc.

As a gm how do I get around a player with a massive AC.
One of the players in my group has a much higher AC then the rest of the party members.

I either have to bump up npcs attack rolls, which means that l the other pcs pretty much get auto hit or i need to roll 20s to hit the one pc.
Eventually even he is starting to get tired of npcs always targeting him with area effect spells. His saves are also massive (paladin)

PCs establishing a business and having to deal with all aspects of running it successfully.
Dealing with traitors. Traveling to foreign lands to broker a trade deal etc.
Sort of like kingmaker but instead doing it for profit.

Can't find crypt breaker anywhere. Where is it from?
Another note. Brand new player, never played an rpg before so don't want to get too complicated for her.

As a side note. This character will be used for shackled city AP.

Got a new player wanting a tomb robber type character. Good at traps and break and enter etc but has the skills etc to be able to deal with undead guardians.

I was thinking cleric/rogue. Which Golarian gods would be ok with the idea of this kind of lifestyle and would provide the right bonuses spells etc for this class.

Are there any other options you might recommend?

We have a game scheduled for that day but decided against it based on the fact we all have families etc.

We did however run a Xmas themed session on our last session. Took a break from the main characters who were away dealing with stuff in kingmaker and went back to some cohorts who were still in the Capitol.

A winter circus came to town complete with sleigh rides, ice skating and undead reindeer and everything. Those who have run the module know which one I am talking about..

Good fun

Suppose I'm pushing my luck. But any chance the PDFs are included?

Snow Crash wrote:

Hey guys I just subscribed to the pathfinder novels but forgot to click add to next shipment.

Could we please adjust my order so that it comes with my next monthly shipment instead of paying the extra postage. Thanks.

Death's Heretic will now ship with your next subscription shipment.

Thanks Sara, as per usual you rock.

Hey guys I just subscribed to the pathfinder novels but forgot to click add to next shipment.
Could we please adjust my order so that it comes with my next monthly shipment instead of paying the extra postage. Thanks.

Is there a reason why my order has been split into 2 parts, with I am assuming 2 separate shipping costs?

Control of some sort of organization. Maybe let the players run a thieves guild or may control a large business with various threats trying to topple their ever growing influence.

Agree with the whole idea of multiple adventure arcs and campaign plots being needed.
To get an idea for this style of play one only needs to read Raymond Feist. He has a series of books that start out with an apprentice wizard who gets caught up in a war. Now after many books he is a power above any kingdom. He now is involved in stopping gods / demons etc from invading this plane of reality and his opponents are usually super powerful beings controlling stuff from behind the scenes.

One more option. When you add up all the costs of printing these maps out in collie etc on large sheets it comes out to quite a tidy sum after a while.

For under $400 you can buy a fullhd LCD tv between 32" and 40" lay it flat on the table put a sheet of protective plastic over the top and connect your computer to it. You have all the maps in the world now. At the touch of a mouse pointer. Works out cheaper in the long run and looks mega cool.

BrisVegas here. Have a regular fortnightly campaign going with a group of fellow gamers that have been gaming together for over 20 years now. Currently in the middle of a kingmaker campaign.

Anybody got any news on this product?

Basically I am running a Kingmaker campaign and am after something to flesh out their castle etc. Let them have some say on layout and additions etc. Basically a detailed Castle/Keep building set of rules/options.

Is that this product?

OK I now consider it officially missing in transit.

Currently Mon 22nd and I just received order no #1733861 which shipped 21 days after 1717892.

Anything we can do about it? Pretty Please?

Oh goody this discussion again :-)

My2c worth.

Paladins are Lawful Good but can be for a God/dess of any alignment.

Lawful means you follow strict rules. Paladins are a member of a militant arm of their church. Being part of a military they must adhere to strict rules, follow a chain of command, do as their superiors tell them etc. Therefore Paladins are a part of a Lawful militant order of their church.

Good means doing things for the betterment of others rather than your own personal gain. As long as the paladin is putting aside their own personal fortune and prestige in order to better their church's goals and look after their church's followers and interests then they are good.

One of my players had a LG paladin of Calistria and I have so far not had a problem with it. She is a prostitute of the church and as long as she puts her church's interests ahead of her own and does what the church and her superiors demand of her then I have no problem with it.
She overseas disputes and puts peoples rights to revenge at the forfront. An eye for an eye. She promotes lust and polygamy among the populace. She sleeps around and she tries to right any wrongs she sees being done by helping those avenged to seek a suitable revenge in fitting with the slight against them.

Hey fellow Paizolanders..Mature aged (40) gamer with lots of experience looking for a local game to play in, fortnightly or even monthly.

Would prefer a regular campaign either homebrew or a campaign arc. Not really interested in PFS play as I would prefer to work on character development.

Currently GMing a group so I would prefer to actually play rather than GM anybody else.

Love to hear from you fellow BrisVegas pathfinders.

Your order was shipped on the 8th, today is the 20th business day which means it's just on the verge of being late. I would give it another couple of weeks to arrive and if it hasn't by then let us know and we will discuss replacement options at that time.

Currently Sat 20th August and it still hasn't arrived.

That makes it 6 weeks since the order was shipped.

Realm of the Fellnight queen should work very well in this AP.

Haven't read realm of the fellnight queen. Read the description and was concerned it was too close to what was already happening on a much larger scale.

It doesn't overlap too much does it? or give too much away?

I found a great map that I thought would be perfect for expanding Candlemere tower.

Check it out HERE.

Love the map. Thanks. Will definitely use this

OK Thanks for all the advice.

1. I am looking at removing the magic item economy altogether. and replacing it by letting the players trade extra BP generated by farms/mines away etc to neighbouring nations and travelling merchants. Effectively giving them the option of having negative consumption.

2. Also looking at implementing rules for no farms etc during winter and having them have to store excess grain and foodstuffs etc in warehouse. With a random event that food spoils etc or if a fire or flood occurs and happens to randomly destroy that building.

3. Completely removing the mechanics for withdrawing funds from the kindom, especially for the purchasing of magic items. But I might provide each of them with a small wage based upon which office they hold. If they wish to take magic items or funds for personal use it becomes a purely roleplaying excercise, with merchants getting very upset and business suffering if they continue with such options. Maybe magic stores or markets shutting down because they don't like the way business operates in this new fledgling kingdom. Or maybe a disgruntled previous owner hiring someone to come and retrieve the item in the middle of the night.

4. I like everyones options on bringing along retainers . Most of it I already had in mind anyway. eg most encounters running away from a large force. Spreading the XP over all people present not to mention retainers expecting a portion of the loot. Was just concerned as to how difficult this would make things considering a lot of encounters would eventually be skipped or need some major rearranging on my behalf. If he continues to try and bring them along he will definitely be copping a hit to his leadership if a bunch of his retainers die facing high CR monsters.

We have already had a big discussion regarding leadership feat which I am encouraging all the PCs to take. But I do not want large groups of PCs with their sidekicks romping all over the country. Instead I offered the option of sending their followers out on missions instead of themselves. Any XP earned by the followers instead goes to the PC and the follower just maintains his 2 levels lower than the PC. This way the bard baron can send his rogue manservant out to explore some hexes or look into those ruins outside of town in his stead. Sort of makes more sense. When they go to other kingdoms they can take them along at retainers etc who tend to stay back at the house but can be sent out on other missions while the main PCs are doing social interactions.

In my opinion, if you use language in a way unacceptable to the owners of a forum and they tell you not to, you shouldnt continue nor take it up with 'the general public'.

Send them an email if it really bugs you, imo. Internet forums are not democracies.

all right fair call. I am just quited ticked off about it.

OK here is the original post with the offensive word removed.

We are just finishing up rivers run red and I am having problems with the kingdom building.
1. My PCs have by no way abused the rules with reguards to the whole magic shop abuse etc. But they still seem to be getting bulk BP each turn and controlling those BP in order to build what they want never seems to be a problem. I hate to imagine how many BP the guys who are using the magic shop economy loophole are getting.
2. Kingdom DCs seem to mean nothing. All of the economy, loyalty rolls etc are now only failing on a 1. Economy is about +70 and DC is 50ish. They never need to worry about failing.
3. They have just worked out that with kingdom happiness at the level it is at they can each take a salary of 500gp from the kingdoms treasury and never have to worry about citizens unrest. They are always going to make the roll and their characters are going to get rich for doing very little.
4. Magic Item rolls. My PCs see a magic item they want. They just take it. providing it's not prohibitivly priced of course there is very little chance taking the item will have a negative impact from the public apart from of course roleplaying opportunities. Admitedly they do not absolutely abuse this opportunity but they are still stocking up on some nice moderate magic items without actually doing any adventuring to get it.
5. My player playing the duke cannot see any problem taking an entire retinue with him wherever he goes. Eg they just left for Varnhold and he wanted to take a squad of troops with him everywhere. The other players had to talk really hard to talk him out of it. But realistically they were metagaming with the whole thought of just that the encounters would not be geared to having 20 1st level fighters on hotrseback with them. Not to mention he then complained that this is exactly the sort of danger a duke would not put himself in... He would send out hirelings to do this investigating for him.
Any Ideas?

I'm not trying to be a problem maker here but seriously it is a part of the English language and I have used it correctly. Just because it also means something else doesn't mean it should be banned. The example given in the dictionary is "the rape of the countryside"

Actually, those levels (econ, loyalty, etc) are kind of low. They'll get a lot higher as they go on. Don't worry about it.

However:

They roll a random magic item they want and they just take it???!!!???

They don't just take it...they remove appropriate BP from the treasury to buy it. knowing they can take the hit and cover it with their rolls.

500 gp a month is rich? No, it's not. It's not enough to even make a roll. For four players, that works out to 1 BP a month. Or a very small fraction of what they can get by adventuring.

True. problem is they dont go adventuring. Their kingdom needs building, even I agree with that, they need to build up their towns and kingdom size so they are putting aside adventuring and just sitting back and running their kingdoms for a couple of years. which accounts to 18000gp each or 90000gp if they wanted to pool it for a group item, for doing nothing. No risk involved. I could indeed throw in encounters and roleplaying opportunities that have occured due to some of their actions or kingdom events but that would just slow things down when they really need to be getting their kingdom size etc up.

I removed the original post. Please don't use language like that.

Huh? Please explain. What language?

Now no-one can see the original questions that were asked in quite a lengthy post. And seriously I do not recall using any language at all.

Also I'm having to seriously tweek the random event table. I cant imagine what I'll have to do to it once the kindom gets to a respectable size.

Rolling a random event that gives -2 to economy etc means bugger all when they are getting a +60 or more to their roll.

sweeto, will do. Just thought I'd ask in case it got held up at your end or something. Never taken this long for any of my other shipments and I am just an impatient bugger :-P.

Hey Guys,

This supposedly shipped on the 8th July but I still haven't received it. Any ideas whats going on?

estimated shipping time 12-20days

Do you have a list of all the minis in the first two sets? and maybe a linky to this black dragon I'm hearing about?

Love Love Love. I will be buying these definitley.

Other things I would like to see

1. Yes I would use rules for a mini based game.
2 Would definitely like to see a boxed set of commons to a theme...eg a box of skeleton soldiers with a skeleton champion. Or a box of Town guards with a Captain figure etc...You get the idea the kind of things we use a lot of all in one box so we pay a little less for bulk and you know you'll be selling a bunch of them.

All in all though very pleased. Thankyou Paizo and Wizkids

Could we please reinstate my adventure path subscription with the beginning of Jade Regent. Thanks.

Must admit d20pro is catching my eye. My whole crew already uses hero lab as a character generator so that integration looks really handy. Still unsure as to the whole losing the figures and going to tokens for character and monster representation will go down. Maybe we will wind up loving that aspect and I'll wind up with a couple grand worth of minis for sale on eBay :-). We'll see I guess. Thanks for the responses

After some advice which program to get.
Instead of having to draw maps I would like to place an led tv on the tabletop and connect it to
Y laptop.
I need to be able to easily load maps from the adventure path PDFs and blow them up to size for miniatures. I also need to be able to easily create my own maps to use.
Fog of war is needed, also the ability to show illumination from light sources would be nice.
Dice rollers and hit point trackers etc not necessary as we are happy with our own hard copies and don't mind rolling real dice.

Cost is not too much of a factor for the right product. Any suggestions?

Thank you muchly.