Let's say the party goes somewhere, not knowing what to expect, such as exploring a swamp, forest, or really massive cave system. In this case, prepared spellcasters are going to probably run with their "standard routine", and cast spells conservatively. They need to be ready for anything, and they could be traveling all day. So there might be a couple hours/level buffs running. This really isn't what I'd consider a massive pre-fight buffing buffet.
If the party knows they're about to storm a castle, or a hideout, the prepared spellcasters are probably going to prepare general-purpose spells as with the previous case, but here, they are not expecting to have their spells last all day. Instead, they'll have a coordinated pool of buffs that stack different bonus types and such, and cast 10 minute/level spells, with the intent of finishing well before that time expires. Maybe some 1 minute/level spells after a few fights, or before the ominous looking door. The party charges in, and seeks to destroy nearly every living thing in whatever stronghold they're going into. No time for searching, just get in there and kill. If an obstacle is reached, try and brute force it to get through as quickly as possible.
If the party has really good intel, such as "the bandits will come at midnight, and their leader is <XYZ>, and the lieutentant is <ABC>," this is a great amount of information, and it'll proceed much like the previous example, but the party knows better which spells to prepare, and/or which weapons to use.
Now, this is all assuming the party has some peace and quiet to do all this. If they stand right outside the door of a room with some baddies, odds are good that whatever is inside will hear all this spellcasting going on, and try to disrupt it. Or, cast spells of their own, or maybe even run away to find reinforcements. So, it's generally not a good idea to do any prep near your enemies.
Having the bad guys buff in advance is somewhat harder to pull off, since it seems the bad guys are most often (not all the time, of course) on the defensive. As the game progresses, the enemies can get as much intel on the heros as the heroes have on the enemies (e.g. when the adventurers hear "evil necromancer", they kinda know what to prepare for, same as if the bad guys hear about the good guys summoning angels, preferring certain spells, or something). Luckily, minions help sound alarms and such, so whatever villain is in the inner sanctum is ready for the intruding party, and might even be able to set traps specifically for the heroes, but I digress. Just pointing out it's a two-way street.
Edit: On the subject of time, what we do is use rough ballpark figures: "It takes 2 minutes to loot the bodies." "The pool drains in 5 minutes, revealing a tunnel." Generally, this works out well, and if buffs are about to run out, everyone's respectful, and recasts them, or maybe we might do dramatic effect: you got 10 rounds left on those buffs! Ballpark.
If the material component is not in the equipment list, I'd say the creature can't cast that prepared spell <edit: without getting, or being given the resources, through a deliberate action by it or someone else> (or use it as a spell slot type spell, if spontaneous -- basically, if it's a regular spell, not an SLA). As precedent for this, I point to APs, where caster NPCs/enemies get listings of which components they are carrying. It also means there is no reason to planar bind a creature to kill it for its wealth in expensive material components.
For raise dead and the like, it makes sense, as such a creature could be called to cast that spell, caller supplying the material components.
However, I would probably be pretty pretty lenient on lower-cost spells, e.g. stoneskin, especially if the creature is likely to cast that on themselves. Otherwise, using the rationale of "this creature expects to be called (probably via planar ally), and prepares spells knowing there are certain expectations, but doesn't have the wealth to grant it freely," helps describe why it works the way it does.
Edit: But strictly RAW, creatures tend to have equipment listed, so if no nontrivial material components are in that list, it doesn't have them, unless the GM gives it to them, which is plausible.
This might not be exactly what you asked for, but here's what I used when making spellbooks in my Runelords game: Listing of all spells
It's just a doc with a list of all the spells from non-AP Paizo sources, from d20pfsrd.com. If it's not a "standard" source (CRB, APG, UM, UC, ARG), I include a book designation in superscript following the spell name, using d20pfsrd's abbreviations. It's not an automatic random generator, but I think that tailoring spellbooks is best, anyway, since there are gonna be some staple spells, and a spellbook speaks to the personality of the bearer. It takes a bit of time, and players might not truly appreciate the level of effort you spend (hey, you never know), but I'm fond of spellbook craftsmanship. Here, you gotta delete the spells you don't want, so it's not hard work, just a little tedious.
(Edit: I'd make a copy of it just in case something happens to it.)
However, I have vague future plans to make a spellbook selector, which makes defining a spellbook easier (something along the lines of check the boxes of spells that you like, then hit generate for a nice listing, or something). Mostly as a fun side-project. But, I haven't had a lot of spare development time lately, so it might be a few months before I get to it. :P If and when I get around to it, it'll be found near my Item Generator for Settlements (maybe not on that exact page, but there will at least be a link there). The item generator takes priority over the spellbook generator and/or helper, unfortunately.
When running it, I found the background information to be useful to me, when the players don't act as expected. For example, there's a love triangle among NPCs in Burnt Offerings, which I used to figure out how some of them would act in a given situation. One tried to save another, for example (instead of, say, running away), and the would-be rescuee sold out the would-be rescuer on the first chance to save their own skin.
Limited use, sure, but this specific instance was one I remember.
But really, it's to help the GM know what to do. Would character X know information tidbit Y? Would character X surrender, lie during interrogation, or spill the beans? A tactics block might say "fights to the death", but if something unexpected comes up, maybe that character might change their mind. That sort of thing.
Edit: I second Landon's 2nd paragraph. Read, absorb what you can, work with that. Tailor things to your liking. I made a few mistakes myself, and the players were none the wiser, and it made things interesting anyway.
Regarding the point of using charm to get information from NPCs (Mokmurian knows where Xin-Shalast is, for example) - there is a spell in Second Darkness Player's Guide called Hidden Knowledge, which converts knowledge to a tattoo. Have Mokmurian (and other wizards) use this spell regularly to hide knowledge from himself. Instructions directly from Karzoug, what a schmott guy. I mention Mokmurian specifically because he's the only one who knows where Xin-Shalast is, and that information is really only supposed to be available later on.
Alternatives:
Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law
Minions like Mokmurian are under such control by Karzoug that they can't be enchanted again.
Karzoug used Wish to erase the memory of the location of Xin-Shalast from Mokmurian's mind.
It should be fine as-is, considering its exact purpose is for players to read before the campaign starts to help them come up with characters. I mean, remove whatever you'd like, but it sounds like you don't have anything in mind. If you're worried about it spoiling something later on, it doesn't. It points out that there are giants, but that's about it.
The first version has Xin-Shalast on the map, but it was removed, and so that older version is unavailable, and even if it wasn't fixed, you'd just say that there's no way the characters would know where Xin-Shalast is, it's easy enough to find at the start of book 6.
It does not affect supernatural abilities. Antimagic field does, but this is not antimagic field.
On to the secondary discussion taking place, this is how I see it working (the area version, anyway):
When cast, end all magical effects in the area, and have each magic item in the area save. Magic items that fail their save, but not on a natural 1, are affected by mage's disjunction for the duration of the spell. The area is no longer of concern after the instant the spell is cast. Even though the spell has a listed duration, it does not apply to the area.
In general, this is a problem with the "standard" spell fields. Some spells don't quite fit the mold, but which are shoehorned into them anyway out of necessity. I don't feel like looking for examples, but mage's disjunction can actually serve as its own example in a different way. Look at the "area" line -- it lists a target. Why is there a target in the area line? Well, you can't have both lines, but the spell has to be written somehow. I don't like it, but I understand.
In any case, I don't believe the area itself is meant to be an ongoing effect, though I don't really have rules text to support this, except the fact that the text doesn't mention anything about items entering the area (though admittedly, it's a fairly weak semantics point). I apologize for my half-hearted argument, but I'm not really feeling motivated today.
@Strife2002
His physical enhancement boosts don't matter, because his ioun stones already cover his enhancement to CON, and his belt already covers his enhancement to STR and DEX. However, he should apply those bonuses to STR and DEX, even though the belt supersedes them, as a backup if his belt gets disjoined. He doesn't need that safety net to CON, since the ioun stones granting him CON are minor artifacts, and as such, are not susceptible to the area version of mage's disjunction.
I might as well throw out some [very] random ideas/seeds (not all will be applicable):
1. Large, fancy dinner party, when a team of thugs bursts in and demands jewelry, etc.
2. Townspeople start hallucinating. This is more of a side quest, but I just wanted to include this one.
3. Acrobatic foes attack a caravan on a narrow path, like the classic train fight. They are probably there to assassinate the heroes, but there might be another purpose if you need a plot hook.
4. The party encounters a town in their travels that is not on their map. The town is from 500 years ago, or thereabouts, and was destroyed by a massive fire. The town or PCs were moved across time, and today is the day of the fire.
5. Same setup as #4, except the unmapped town is not from the past, it's just hidden by magic, and not on the main road, the PCs got their due to a navigation error. The townsfolk aren't happy to have their existence known. They prevent the PCs from leaving in as nice a manner as possible. (Yes, cribbed idea from The Twilight Zone).
6. Is the BBEG a caster? The BBEG casts a variant form of nightmare on the entire party, and the party plunges into a dream world. This is basically carte blanche to do whatever you want, if realism was the cause of your writer's block. One possibility with this is to make the encounters highly brutal, and dying in the dream causes wisdom drain and the typical effects of nightmare, but getting to the end provides the effects of heroism (or greater, depending on level) for 24 hours.
I don't have anything really specific I feel is worth saying, but perhaps I might have some general helpful advice for clearing the writer's block, and that is: search the dusty corners of the game, for things that probably only NPCs can get away with. Then, if you have an interesting enemy or group, the encounter might just write itself.
Are there any character concepts that you never got to try? Maybe there was one you skipped because it wasn't a good team player. NPCs don't need to be team players.
Are they any interesting feats that might be fun to try once? An enemy is a great place to try it out. I know I ignore a lot of feats when I build a PC because it's just not practical to have, maybe due to steep requirements, being deep in a tree, or only extremely situationally useful. Pick the feats and make that situation happen.
In particular, look at the teamwork feats. They might not be great for PCs because of the high level of coordination required (character builds), but if you're designing a gang of thugs, it's a good opportunity to set them up exactly how you want them.
Look at the weird or impractical prestige classes. I can't get myself to play a mystic theurge, but I would totally make up a mystic theurge enemy.
What's on sale now? I can help answer that one with (shameless plug incoming) my item generator for settlements. As for making it more interesting and dynamic, I can't offer better advice than the posters before me (nobody at my table is interested in haggling, etc, so I have no experience with this).
Thanks, Twigs. Being a complete noob at high-level combat myself (highest PC I've played was a sorcerer 15, and my only introduction to high level combat was the few high level characters in the pinnacle), I thought it went rather well. My main goal was to avert rocket tag, so that goal was met. I'm 95% sure that without the preparatory spells I added to the map, they could have taken him down in one round.
I'd say it was fairly easy for them but it was not the usual "derp right in without a plan" sort of thing that is often normally possible. So, not too easy. I did kill two PCs after all, and they did actually have to think and coordinate. They were very well prepared, and really took the time to stack every bonus type they could muster. It went about almost exactly like I planned, really, except I expected Karzoug's minions to be more effective.
I was kinda foolish for having Karzoug cast imprisonment (especially since my character spell-turned a maze in our last campaign which really helped turn the tide of the final fight), but doing something else instead (e.g. point-blank disjunction and quickened dimension door to safe range) would just have delayed the inevitable in this instance. Karzoug was down to about 3 WIS and one more attack from the apostate devil would likely have drained all of that.
Name of PC: Achille
Class/Level: Wizard 7/Diabolist 10
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst and Story (final battle spoilers):
Catalyst:A wizard in an antimagic field becomes a fragile monkey... but a dragon is still a dragon (and a rune giant with vital strike is still a rune giant with vital strike).
Story:
Achille teleported himself and his melee buddies to where they thought Karzoug would be waiting. When they saw Karzoug, the ranger popped an antimagic field (long story). This made the wizard a very tempting target to Karzoug's dragon and rune giant. The dragon got a full attack, and the rune giant dealt a massive vital strike, taking the wizard down to well below his negative constitution score. A breath of life in the next round saved him.
Name of PC: Raunkin
Class/Level: Wizard 17
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst and Story (final battle spoilers):
Catalyst:Mage's Disjunction, Wail of the Banshee
Story:
Raunkin got disjoined in the first round of combat, eliminating his pre-combat buffs, which really made it hard for him to resist the wail of the banshee in the second round. He was brought back to life with a wish.
Achille, human wizard 7/diabolist 10
His command over devils is unparalleled.
Athyra, halfling rogue 17
Her skill with a rapier is something to be feared.
Mark, human lich ranger 17
An unstoppable kukri-wielding shredding machine.
Raunkin, half-orc generalist 17 (he was a half-elf, then a human, then a half-orc, due to reincarnation)
No school of magic is unknown to this master of the arcane arts.
Witch, samsaran witch(winter witch)7/winter witch 10
This cruel woman encases her victims in ice, and few survive.
Karzoug preparation:
The party is very well made and geared, so Karzoug needed to be tailored accordingly, and to make it a battle worthy of a megawizard of his stature (to the credit of the authors, most of the changes I employed were not to his statistics, but his tactics, so it was a great head start for me!).
I swapped out his combat expertise feat for improved initiative.
Before the party found Xin-Shalast, Karzoug called a succubus to receive her profane gift. He put the resulting skill points into stealth. Everyone in the party has it (thanks to the diabolist), so this helps even the scales. This granted Karzoug an extra 9th level spell, and a couple extra lower-level ones.
I corrected Karzoug's wisdom score (which should be 18, based on my reverse engineering of his point buy).
Every few days, Karzoug casts dimensional lock on the arrival platform. The Anima Focus is an artifact, and is unaffected by the locking effect, so unwelcome visitors can still gain access if they know how to use it.
Karzoug placed a touch-activated symbol of revelation on the floor of the arrival platform.
Karzoug placed a permanent prismatic sphere that encompasses his throne and the area to the right.
I swapped out a few of Karzoug's spells. Notably, removed quickened baleful polymorph, meteor swarm, crushing hand, and added imprisonment, an extra wail of the banshee, clashing rocks, and mage's disjunction.
I allowed the party to receive free wishes to boost their stats... there's a backstory here that I won't get into. In doing this, I also reasoned that Karzoug's minions should also receive this benefit. I did this so that both the party and the minions would be a little more robust against save or die spells, and more HP, etc, especially since I altered Karzoug's tactics significantly. I think it worked out well in the end.
Party preparation:
Diabolist used multiple castings of gate to call two planetars, an immolation devil, and an apostate devil.
The planetars buffed the party, and would help with combat.
Ranger used scrolls to cast contingency to cast antimagic field when he spoke a key word.
The entire party received communal mind blank, and one of the wizards cast invisibility sphere prior to using the anima focus's fiery transportation device.
The rogue had greater invisibility.
Combat:
All throughout this, summoned outsiders are basically attacking other outsiders.
Round 1:
The party appears on the arrival platform. This triggers the symbol of revelation. Witch tries to ice tomb one of the storm giants, the giant saves. The diabolist, ranger, and rogue exit the dimensional lock area, and the diabolist uses dimension door to transport them over to the throne area, and they notice the prismatic sphere. The rogue attacked the dragon (readied action after transport). Karzoug emerged from the sphere, and the ranger spoke his antimagic field keyword trigger. Though the field is invisible, its effects were noticeable, and fairly obvious to Karzoug. Karzoug decides to cast mage's disjunction at the generalist and the witch. This took out all their buffs, and the pair lost a couple magic items between them, but notably the witch's headband of vast intelligence and the generalist's belt of physical might (DEX/CON) were destroyed, and the loss of these two items is felt later in the scene. Karzoug then uses quickened time stop to gain two rounds of buffing, during which he cast cloudkill on the arrival platform, and limited wish to wish for greater invisibility. With mind blank, he would be hard to detect (same as the rogue, were it not for the antimagic field). With his time stop rounds, Karzoug moves to one side of the Eye of Avarice. The dragon and rune giant ganged up on the diabolist, and killed him. The generalist casts hold monster on the other storm giant, who fails the save.
Round 2:
Wanting to take one of the storm giants out of combat, the witch casts maze on the storm giant she tried to freeze. The ranger moves himself and the antimagic field out of the way so that one of the planetars could rush to the diabolist's side, and cast breath of life to save him. The diabolist uses his diabolist dimension door power to move back to the arrival platform. The rogue kills the dragon. Karzoug casts wail of the banshee where the wizards and the witch are now standing, and the generalist fails his save, and dies (he would have had more HP than wail of the banshee would have dealt if his belt still functioned, but alas, it was disjoined). With his second quickened time stop, Karzoug gets five rounds, and casts more buff spells, and a wall of force between the rogue and the rune giant, and moves to the other side of the Eye of Avarice. The rune giant attacks the immolation devil.
Round 3:
Witch casts heal on the diabolist. The diabolist uses the Anathema Archive to cast wish to revive the generalist. Karzoug casts finger of death at the diabolist, who saves. Angered, he follows with a quickened magic missile, then moves out of the area. The generalist comes up with the idea of casting interposing hand, which is not fooled by the mind blank/invisibility combo, to help point where Karzoug is. Being the grid that it is, the hand is directly in front of him, and so the generalist moves forward, and the hand shifts over to his front-left square. This gives the party a 45 degree cone (front to front-left), and because their perception checks helped them discover the square from which Karzoug cast finger of death, they guessed on his probable location. One of the planetars picked up the rogue, flew her over the wall of force, and put her down next to the rune giant. The rogue and the immolation devil killed the rune giant.
Round 4:
The witch delayed for Karzoug to be revealed. One of the planetars tried using greater dispel magic to undo Karzoug's invisibility, but missed. The diabolist tried disjunction in a different spot, and it hit, clearing all of Karzoug's buffs, including invisibility. Fortunately for him, most of his power comes from artifacts, though he did lose power to all his magic items except for his ring of protection. The witch tried to ice tomb him, but he passed his save (he would have failed if her headband still functioned). The ranger rushed at Karzoug, using his quarry ability and instant enemy. Karzoug reacted to this rush by casting wail of the banshee at point blank range, and everyone succeeded on their saves. He then used quickened dimension door to go to his prismatic sphere. One planetar dispelled the symbol of revelation effect from the rogue. The generalist cast disjunction on Karzoug, though mainly to dispel the wall and sphere.
Round 5:
At this point, we erred in initiative order, so I swapped Karzoug and the generalist, who had virtually the same score, and this ended up putting the party together, and as a result, they began to swap orders for better coordination. Witch casts ice prison on Karzoug, who succeeds on his save. The diabolist casts time stop to get closer to Karzoug, and to re-cast mind blank and greater invisibility, to be ready with trap the soul for when Karzoug is killed (he needs Karzoug's soul as part of his backstory). The generalist disjoins Karzoug again, though mainly to get the wall of force and prismatic sphere. This allows the rogue to get into position, where she gets one hit at Karzoug. The ranger also moves into position, having to cast instant enemy again, since Karzoug was just disjoined. Karzoug casts imprisonment, and touches the ranger, who, unexpected to Karzoug, had spell turning running via his ring. Karzoug fails his own save and succeeds on passing his own SR, so he gets imprisoned.
The party then takes a few rounds to converge on the imprisonment site and prepare, and the diabolist uses his arcane bond to cast freedom. The party utterly destroys Karzoug immediately after he is freed.
Shouldn't the wardens of runes have +3 to all their saves because of the sihedron ring?
I looks good to me.
Standard storm giant = Fort +17, Ref +8, Will +13
Advanced simple template adds +4 to all scores, increasing bonus by +2
New total = Fort +19, Ref +10, Will +15
Sihedron ring grants that +3 bonus to all saves so:
Final total = Fort +22, Ref +13, Will +18
Which is what's written in the statblock.
Well, it's a weird question, since he asked about the wardens of runes. They don't have full stat blocks in the AP, you pretty much have to look up the entry in Bestiary 2 and apply the template, ring, and the +5 armor yourself.
My group's final session is tomorrow. I'll come back in to report how it went, but in the mean time, has anyone got any final battle stories? How did Karzoug and the PCs alike prepare for it, and what did they do once the battle took place? Was it a 2 round rocket tag, or a minute-long epic confrontation? I'd love to hear your stories, for entertainment and yes, maybe some last-minute prep ideas. (All I could find on the boards so far were recounts of the original edition.)
Additional specific magic items for sale in Sandpoint are detailed in the pages that follow. Every month, roll 3d4 to
see how many new minor items are for sale, and 1d6 to see
how many new medium items are for sale.
But I don't see any charts or anything for magic items?
I think it's referring to the one or two items that are listed in the text in the pages that follow, such as that darkwood crossbow. The rolls it mentions would be used like you would do for rolling up magic items in general.
Also, I'll take this opportunity to promote my settlement item generator (custom base values coming soon!).
I'm a huge advocate of 20 point buy. But, if you guys like the 4d6b3 method (which, on average, will produce ~19 point value builds, even when you consider comically bad rolls which would be valued very, very low), I say go for it! I doubt you're really setting up for failure at high levels. With 20 point buy, my campaign so far has had about 6 PC deaths, so if you get that many or less, you're doing fine. Final session is tomorrow (in which I expect maybe 1-2 more deaths, but I'd not count those, with 9th level spells, death is nearly guaranteed) - but the point is 6 over the course of a campaign is slightly worse than average I'd guess (our other full campaigns have had like 2 and 4 respectively, IIRC), but still not devastating. Once the party gets access to resurrection, death is merely a setback. This campaign has loads of wealth (including several scrolls of raise dead, resurrection and even a couple scrolls of true resurrection), so the party should be able to afford it easily.
In the days before Pathfinder rules, mage's disjunction was a harsh instant effect that snuffed out spells and destroyed magic items. Now, it has a duration, which has the interesting effect of allowing dispel magic to affect its lasting effect on items (well, probably greater dispel magic, to try to "get back" multiple items in an area).
1. Do you know whether that was specifically intended? In other words, is the theme of the spell for it to be actively suppressing magic items (breaking some in the process), or is it more that it nulls out magic from some items (failed save), and those items slowly and naturally regain their power? The latter is the way the item-dispelling version of dispel magic seems to work.
I could see this going either way. I rather like this opening, actually -- a dispel is not guaranteed to work, and having spell effects automatically unraveled is the more important feature of the spell, in my mind.
2. Intended or not, how would/do you run this with respect to the dispel aspect in your games?
3. Due to the amount of time-consuming math this spell can introduce into a session (feared by PCs, NPCs, GMs, and players alike!), do you treat it specially in your games in any way? Taboo in the game world (it's fightin' dirty)? Taboo at the table (it's fightin' dirty)? A backup nuke in a cold war, only to be used if used against you? Outright banned? That kind of thing.
At least one player in my group knew there was a trap there (nobody else said anything), and had his character go past it anyway. He expected the statues to attack. He didn't expect the floor to drop afterwards. Quite amusing. So, even if they spot it, they might try walking directly into it to prove how tough they are ;)
Hmm. So you end up with 8 daggers whose individual actual values total up to the original thing's value, or 1 dagger priced normally? Weird, but so is the pricing scheme for adamantine. I'll take it. Alternatively, I'd try to calculate a value for a pound of adamantine, and house rule that is how much it costs, and invalidate the specials materials table regarding adamantine (and follow suit with other metals as needed).
This little piece of advice may be a little late, but when I started RotRL, I made character creation guidelines, and one of them was that the players had to invent a reason why their character would want to be involved in the campaign's activities, with a suggested default of "just up for adventure: fun, danger and profit". In RotRL, this was namely, "why is the character here?" and "why would the character wish to risk his or her life for this seemingly insignificant town?"
Perhaps you can suggest to the player that they come up with such a reason, retroactively as if that had been the reason all along, and then that character has motivation for doing things. This has the advantage of making the player do most of the work, and makes it more likely the work won't get wasted.
I can think of one idea
RotRL spoilers:
The character is related to, or friends with, Tsuto, and that character will follow along the group because <insert some temporary reason here, e.g. mayor pays for adventuring services>, and once it is discovered that Tsuto is involved, that character has more reason to follow along. Unfortunately, after the first adventure, there will likely be little reason to continue. The adventures are kinda piecemeal with no obvious connection from one to the next, except much later on.
However, once the major threat is known, even a neutral character should feel that they need to participate in resolving it.
Alternatively, don't think of a reason, just play the game :P "Nobody knows why <name> did what <he or she> did, but it was a good thing." Maybe something will come up later naturally? Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.
Here's the procedure, for a low-level party that can afford the initial buy-in cost, as I understand it:
1. Purchase an adamantine greatsword. Cost: 3050 gp.
2. Hire an NPC spellcaster to cast fabricate to convert the 8 pound greatsword into 8 one-pound adamantine daggers. The DC to craft a dagger is 12. The caster must have 15 INT to cast this spell, which is a +2 bonus. Even untrained, the caster can take 10 on the Craft(weapons) check and result in a 12, meeting the DC. Cost: 450 gp for fabricate, resulting daggers are worth a total of 3002 gp each, or 12,000 gp once sold. If the DC were a couple points higher, this could be compensated for with crafter's fortune and maybe fox's cunning if the caster didn't get to his or her 15 INT by starting with 11 and using a headband.
3. Sell the daggers, and thus earn a profit of 8508 gp. You (slightly more than) double your initial investment. I doubt the market of a metropolis would get saturated with a couple dozen daggers, so this method should pay off a couple times before it loses steam (GM intervention).
(Even better if you can cast Fabricate yourself, but this method was devised post-session relating to an actual ongoing game.)
Oh, it's definitely rules abuse. Adamantine doesn't seem to have a price per pound (and even if it did, this follows parallel rules for special materials), but per item, and this method really exploits that fact. It was my players who figured out this method (or something close to it, anyway, and I think theirs might have been more cost efficient), and I'm fairly sure I said something along the lines of, "don't do it." Might have been accompanied by threats.
If someone gives a reason for it not working, I'll be happy. I'm fine banning it, but it's better if it doesn't work in the first place.
Stealth: If you have concealment (you're out of line of sight, deep in fog, or in dim light, for example), or some other effect that allows you to use stealth while observed, you roll a Stealth check while doing another action, such as moving, if you care about being hidden. If you have done this and moved out in the open, even though you're in the open, you still can't be seen (think of it as "noticed" due to other distractions) unless someone rolls a Perception check that meets or exceeds the Stealth roll. (this might start a debate, but this is how I understand it). As for whether it can be used often, not really, unless a character focuses on making that their goal. I would consider it something that can be done occasionally - it may not be worth the time and effort most of the time.
Standing up: It is a move action to stand up from prone (despite its name, "prone" seems to refer to both prone and supine positions [the game only uses the word "prone"). If you stand up while threatened by an enemy, that enemy can attack you using an attack of opportunity, if that creature can make them at that time.
Metamagic: Metamagic doesn't use more slots, only higher level ones. For example, an empowered Magic Missile would require a level 3 slot, since Empower Spell make the modified spell require a slot two levels up. When it matters, it's still considered to be a first level spell, even though you're using a third level slot.
Archetypes: There are no prerequisites except that class features they modify or replace must still be present and unmodified -- that is, if you have no archetypes, you can always take one, but if you already have one, you can only take a second (or third, fourth, etc) if a previous archetype didn't change something that a new one modifies. For example, most rogue archetypes can't be combined because they drop trapfinding for something else, but there still are some valid combinations. When you take the first level of a class, you must decide what archetypes you want, even if they don't "come into effect" later. However, as GM, you may wish to allow your players to change archetypes around if they are also new to Pathfinder, but too much changing around can cause confusion, so be sure to tell them to be careful with their choices!
Flat-footed: you are generally flat-footed if it's the first turn and you haven't acted yet. You aren't if there was a surprise round and you succeeded on a perception check to notice your attackers. Some class features might make it so you're not flat-footed in certain situations and so on. The character loses the DEX and and Dodge bonuses to AC.
Edit: Threw in some clarifications, hopefully I didn't over-explain - you did mention being somewhat new.
Hmm. Since it's a calling effect, I'd actually have the creature roll initiative and place it in initiative order accordingly, and then it acts when its turn comes up.
It's summon monster I that specifies creatures act on the caster's turn, so that doesn't apply here (calling and conjuration do not say anything about when a creature acts). and I'd assume summon nature's ally I has a similar clause. Now, in those cases, if you used two standard actions over two turns ("start full-round action", "complete full-round action"), it would still appear and act on the caster's second turn, and get a full round.
Edit: I didn't look into the bargaining aspect, so that might take up its own time, but that can be determined separately.
Hey, James. Hope your Friday is going well! I got a couple Karzoug questions:
RotRL:
1. Is it impossible for Karzoug to leave his little plane, or does he just not want to do it until he's ready? If he left early, would he get weaker (i.e. the plane is fortifying him), or is he waiting to get stronger before leaving? Consequently, if awakening actually makes him stronger, what would you do to reflect this with stats?
2. If the answer to #1 is that it's simply impossible for him to leave, if an attempt is made to forcefully remove him from the plane (e.g. Prismatic Spray, Spell Turning reverb effect), does the attempt fail, or destroy him?
3. Can and do Karzoug's minions occasionally enter the plane, or do they communicate with Karzoug using the Anima Focus (or perhaps the dimensionally-weakened areas where he can manifest to taunt the PCs)?
Thanks kindly, and I hope you have a good weekend.
I've tried to set up a precedent where some enemies might give up good intel after surrendering. The party has thus accepted surrenders, but have not tried to tactically force enemies to surrender (they might ask them to via threat, but not block off exits, etc.). If it's important for one reason or another, how the party handles a prisoner is also an okay way to gauge alignment or personality.
Side note: I have special provisions for XP and loot that provide incentives, or perhaps more accurately, drop the disincentives, for solving encounters in ways other than fighting. So if they talk their way out of an encounter, they get XP for it, and karma loot later, same result as if they had just killed everyone. I don't do this for runners, though. If the runner is significant enough, they'll track it down, or it's a recurring enemy or something.
As for chasing down runners, if an enemy runs while combat is still in full-swing, it's pretty much assumed that runner just got away, unless the players tell me they want to track it down, but it's a tracking situation, not a following situation.
If there's something nice in the treasure, anyone can claim it, and if there are multiples, they decide among themselves who should get it (e.g. "you got X last time", or "I'd like that, but you need it more, so you can have it, and I'm gonna buy Y anyway"). Then someone might say, "don't sell X, we might need it later," and everything else is sold, and the proceeds are evenly distributed, no matter who is present or absent (the penalty for being absent is you miss out on the game and hanging out, which is punishment enough, we all agree). One person generally volunteers to track loot, and undistributed gold. This can occasionally result in the sale of an item that someone wanted. In which case, usually the GM permits "unselling it" as if it hadn't been sold (if it was a recent thing, not 2 months ago, for example), which affects previously-distributed sale proceeds, but it's usually not enough to warrant recalculating everything. The group pays for anything healing-related, including fixing negative levels and resurrection (unless there was some exceptional circumstance). Usually there's enough undistributed coinage/loot to be able to afford group needs, but someone mentioned using a "group share" for such things, and I like that idea, so I might pitch that to the group next time I'm a player. As GM, I'm not involved in the present system (I communicate what was found with the "quartermaster", but that's all), but that's basically how we do it no matter who is GMing.
Can't really top ciretose's answer -- too many factors to consider!
It's a spot decision. For example, in the last session I ran, the PCs fought two enemies. They disarmed one, and utterly detroyed the other. The remaining disarmed one was not in a bad position to simply run away, but seeing decent ranged capability, decided it might be best to surrender, and get out of the area. If he had some other means of escape, he'd have done it. Also, he didn't have any valuable equipment, so I was more willing to let the party have that victory without making them spend more resources chasing him down. ;)
This gave me an idea that might be interesting to try later: each player chooses either A) 20 point buy, but you can't have less than 10 in any stat before racial modifiers; or B) 15 point buy, no restrictions. Not sure if this'll change anything (point buy is not significant in the long run [Edit: but as someone else mentioned, low is quite inhibiting to certain classes, so I generally prefer 20, and it is nearly equivalent to 4d6b3's average rolled array, though it enables dumping better than 15]), but I like the idea. Maybe.
In any case, I don't think you're doing it wrong. As you say, if the players feel challenged and are afraid of their characters dying, but it doesn't happen often, that's a good place to be. If you occasionally counter a strong ability they have, that's fine. If you always negate it, that's where the line gets crossed, and sounds like you're aware of that.
Things start to get a little crazy around level 12. That's just how it goes. By 15-16, things can get really out of hand. I can't really suggest anything except "experience helps" (I'm learning, myself). Know how the spells work, and don't be afraid to say, "no, that's ridiculous," as long as it's reasonable, of course.
WBL is not an entitlement. Generally, loot found should be worth <WBL> at market value, and sold for somewhat less, e.g. 60-75% of market (some of it is gems and art sold at 100%, others are equiment at 50%, other items might be things they just keep, and therefore 100%). That said, very low wealth can be frustrating. If their total equipment value is sitting at around 75% WBL, they are doing pretty well. If they are unhappy because they bought a +5 item, and have no gold left to round out the rest of their gear, that's on them. Incidentally, are you using settlement rules for available magic items, or is everything just available? ((Shameless plug)) If you declare everything just available because you don't want to roll all that stuff, check out my Settlement Item Generator! Further improvements on it are forthcoming (I've not had much time to work on enhancements, but will soon).
When to say "no" is very tricky. I've told my players, after being pitched an idea, "no, that's not the kind of game I want to play," and they half expected that. I am lucky in that they are very reasonable people. As long as you're not being an oppressive dictator, I think you're probably okay. However, there is always a chance of irreconcilable differences. They might just like easy victories and feeling powerful. *shrug*. There ought to be a bunch of easy encounters to fulfull that, and some difficult ones, too, as long as there is no unexpected wall of difficulty to slam into.
I think no, with the technicality of "ally who also has this feat". This implies that the "you count as your own ally" doesn't make sense, and so that clause doesn't come in. I believe the "also" is strong enough to require distinct creatures.
If the wording were instead, "whenever you and a creature with this feat flank...," I'd say it worked. As it is now, the wording is more like, "whenever you and another creature with this feat flank..." (just to put it in perspective).
That said, I'd allow it. But only one teamwork feat at a time, if the character has multiple. And for a counterexample, let's say there's a teamwork feat that grants you a boost to your reflex save when adjacent to another creature with that feat (I think there is indeed such a feat, but don't recall the details), and while you're dimension-hopping around, something triggers which causes the need for a reflex save (and it happens that you've hopped somewhere adjacent to your old location right before it happened). In that case, you can't help yourself save against it, even if the wording of the feat was the most favorable, such as "you and a creature with the feat". Unless it also said "including yourself", but I can't see that actually happening without it also mentioning Dimensional Savant, in which case, it's more obvious that would work.
Very nice! I'm sure the battle will be quite memorable.
I'm just going to print out the map in the book in 1" grid size (flat), and show some screen caps from this Eye of Avarice SketchUp file to demonstrate what it would really look like, as a flat map can be deceiving.
How about this one: the party is sharing the loot equally, despite the players distributing equal GP out to everyone's primary characters. The players are tracking GP values, but the characters are tracking "I got paid same as everyone". This really does require a certain frame of mind, and needs the concept of gear value to be similarly abstracted away, but it absolutely makes sense to me. Mechanically, the cohort has a lower effective value of all their items and coinage, but in-game, they are the same as everyone else.
Other approaches to thinking this out: think "1984" by Orwell in that 2 + 2 = 5, and we were always at war with Eastasia. Reality is distorted around the cohort. PC dies and the player wants to switch to the cohort? Have the player rebuild the cohort as a PC, as if making a new one from scratch, just with the same theme (so same feats, etc, but different point buy, and overall better gear). If this happens, the cohort is the same as he or she has always been, but mechanically this is represented differently.
Edit: I skipped large sections of the thread, apologies if this treads old ground (I generally read threads fully, but I'm not in a proper read-all state ATM, no disrespect intended)
Thanks for your input. With #2, I meant starting inside the wall and teleporting to escape it, and I'm not sure if you're answering that way, but since I now agree that sharing space with the wall triggers suppression even if the creature or spell is standing still, so the question isn't really important any more. Also, I'd handle Cloudkill like you would, except I'd remove the normal smoke as well.
After giving it some thought, I believe there simply has to be an error in the spell. And the error is that the wall should not be able to be placed where creatures are standing.
Otherwise, we have this situation: the party of PCs begins the boss fight, but the evil boss wizard wins initiative. Or maybe she doesn't, but survives the first round, and the PCs are still close enough for this tactic to work. Being the boss, she probably has at least 1 caster level higher than the party's highest caster. She then casts Wall of Suppression at her caster level minus 1 (assuming she's level 18 or higher), and chooses the wall to occupy the spaces where the party is standing. Without any saves or spell resistance, all of their buff spells and items stop working for 17+ rounds. And yet, since she had cast it at her caster level minus 1, any spells she casts at normal caster level are unaffected by the spell. This is no longer a wall, but an amazing offensive force of suppression of epic proportions, and tactically, does the job of Mage's Disjunction, only better (MD suppresses for minutes, but you only need a handful of rounds).
Now, suppose we have the same situation, but the wall cannot be placed to share space with creatures. Here, she can still create the wall, though this time as a barrier between her and the PCs, but still with the "trick" of doing it at 1 caster level lower. This still effectively makes a one-way block for line of effect, and that is powerful, but without the additional effect of suppressing all the party's buffs and magic items for 17+ rounds. That difference is significant. It sounded mythic before (or better?), and now it sounds like a 9th level spell.
Edit: RAW, I think it works in the harsh manner I first described, though that seems incorrect, so I'm still interested in hearing how that might be an incorrect reading. If indeed it is.
Here's a quick tip for helping even seasoned players not metagame what monsters they're fighting (and it's a fun surprise afterwards): don't tell them what they're fighting! At least, not exactly. Just use a brief description, like "tentacled monster", "large humanoid", or "flying thing with claws". They may still guess, but they won't be sure -- there's enough ambiguity to remove that level of confidence. Ask for knowledge checks, then reveal information based on that. It might almost feel like you're constructing custom monsters.
That wasn't related to classes and levels, of course, so I'll get to the main track. Personally, I like planning my character's levels out in advance, to make sure I can get important feats that I want. Let's say you try to grow your character organically, and then decide you like disarming. So you want to do that without provoking attacks of opportunity. Wait, can't get that feat yet, it needs Combat Expertise. And that needs... INT 13? That's a little unexpected, as INT does not contribute to combat maneuvers, and drat, you only have INT 10, and no headband is immediately available.
That's a rough situation. But that's one of the great things about this game being human-run: you can ask for permission to fix your character build, maybe fix your point buy, and/or retrain feats. Many reasonable GMs would allow a fix like that. But still, it's better not to assume that safety net is there, IMO.
On the other hand, planning out a character too much is bad as well. You might want to change something, then it all comes crumbling down if you really tightened up your feats too much. So, it's a delicate balance.
Wall of Suppression states that it affects magic items and spell effects that move through the wall, and its clear use case is, well, making a wall between two parties for defense, or perhaps to trap someone. But the wall can be placed where creatures are standing currently, and the spell only talks about moving through the wall. That may be to lessen its power a bit, to make it more defensive than offensive, but it raises some questions:
1. What, exactly, does "passing through" mean? If I try to reason this out using English, it ends up being really complex. The phrase makes a lot of sense with respect to thin barriers, but you can make a strangely shaped Wall of Suppression. If you start out in it, and move around within it, and don't leave, are you passing through it? You're certainly passing through cubes it affects, but are you passing through it? The spell uses that phrasing every time. I could see that answer go either way. I've been thinking about this too long, and I think I've made it worse for myself. I want to make it simple, and say, "moving into an affected cube counts as 'passing through'." Valid interpretation? (Side note: other walls with passing-through effects are planes, not cubes, and other walls that are cubes do not have passing-through effects. So, I can't find precedent elsewhere.)
2. Does casting a spell to teleport out of the area count as moving through the wall? My guess would be no, but I'm not so sure on this one.
3. Can Dispel Magic dispel it when cast within the wall? What about from outside? I'd say "no" for inside, and "yes" for outside.
(There was already a thread asking this, but it is old, and if I attempted to revive it, for some reason, it would move from Rules Questions to Advice, so it seems better to just start this query anew.)
Asked this in the "Ask James Jacobs" thread, and this was his response:
(link)
James Jacobs wrote:
1) The Will saves talked about on page 317 must be made whenever a character enters the Xin-Shalast environs, yes.
2) If every PC passes the Will save, then they get to ignore the requirements associated with the Avah River.
3) They will indeed get separated. The PCs who passed the saves will need to backtrack out of the region to "re-sync" with the reality that the save failures are still in.
4) If the PCs take this route, and the caster level check is accurate, they can appear within the Xin-Shalast environs zone and thus bypass the Will save, but where they end up is entirely up to the GM, since until the PCs visit the place, they can't pinpoint it to teleport to it.
2b/4b) The CL check does both. You cast teleport, then make the CL check. If you succeed, you know something was trying to mess with your teleporting but you powered through it. If you fail, you know the same thing and when you arrive, you know because you're not where you were trying to go to. Following the phantom river is the best option for groups who lack the powerful "rules breaking" options of certain high-level spells or the like, but if the party has the resources to use those options, they should absolutely be able to enter Xin-Shalast.
The point of this whole thing is to explain why very few people have found Xin-Shalast over the past 10,000 years, and to make the PCs feel like they're high-level bad-asses when they DO find Xin-Shalast.
I don't want to be a bother, and maybe you intended to get to it later, but if you simply missed my questions, could you give them a quick look-over and reply? As always, your time on these forums is highly appreciated!
Edit: might as well copy it over:
Rise of the Runelords #6:
In "The Spires of Xin-Shalast", when the PCs are searching for the city:
I really love what you've done with locating the lost city, but I'm confused about a few things, and I want to implement your vision. At this point, the PCs have Silas Vekker's journal pages.
1. Are the Will saves mentioned on page 317 of the anniversary edition pertaining to simply entering the "Xin-Shalast Environs" region?
2. If every PC passes the Will save, but haven't met any requirements for seeing the river Avah (either mundane or magical), can they still see Xin-Shalast if they traverse the mountains? In other words, is seeing the phantom river just a guide, or a necessary "tunnel" across realities?
3. If some PCs pass the save, but others do not, do the ones that passed end up in X.S., and the ones that failed end up separated? What prevents the PCs that passed from noticing the others are no longer with them? Is it just one of those things like, "hey, we're here! Wait, where's Phil and Suzanne?"
4. If the PCs teleport to where Xin-Shalast is on my map (let's say they guess randomly, like "over that mountain pass" or something) and the caster passes the caster level check, do they simply end up in Xin-Shalast? I reckon this is the same as #2, but it might be slightly different.
Edit: 2b./4b. Is the CL check to prevent teleporting directly to X.S., or is it to demonstrate that something funny is happening here? Same with mundane travel in #2. If this is the case, the only way to X.S. is the phantom river method?
Right, so let's say I wanted to roleplay my stats. How do I do 12 INT versus 10 INT? What if my rendition of 12 INT is higher than my friend's rendition of 14 INT? Who's wrong in the case? How do I do 36 INT? I can't imagine what that's even like. Or is this just a matter of above 10/below 10? Well in that case, 6 is closer to 10 than 36 is, so that can't really work. It's easier just to decouple ability scores from roleplaying.
You can't simply decouple abilities from roleplaying. Just like a character with 5 str and 7 con cannot be an enormous beefy juggernaut.
Being a a beefy juggernaut is not roleplaying. Or, amend my recommendation to "decouple mental ability scores."
Edit: well, you could certainly get a hat of disguise, then look beefy, then act like a juggernaut, and charge into the fray, then get quickly smooshed. That's a perfectly valid action. And you can do that with 20 INT and 20 WIS! I see no problems with this (other than the possible bad use of your and everyone else's time, naturally).
Right, so let's say I wanted to roleplay my stats. How do I do 12 INT versus 10 INT? What if my rendition of 12 INT is higher than my friend's rendition of 14 INT? Who's wrong in the case? How do I do 36 INT? I can't imagine what that's even like. Or is this just a matter of above 10/below 10? Well in that case, 6 is closer to 10 than 36 is, so that can't really work. It's easier just to decouple ability scores from roleplaying.
In "The Spires of Xin-Shalast", when the PCs are searching for the city:
Rise of the Runelords #6 Spoiler:
I really love what you've done with locating the lost city, but I'm confused about a few things, and I want to implement your vision. At this point, the PCs have Silas Vekker's journal pages.
1. Are the Will saves mentioned on page 317 of the anniversary edition pertaining to simply entering the "Xin-Shalast Environs" region?
2. If every PC passes the Will save, but haven't met any requirements for seeing the river Avah (either mundane or magical), can they still see Xin-Shalast if they traverse the mountains? In other words, is seeing the phantom river just a guide, or a necessary "tunnel" across realities?
3. If some PCs pass the save, but others do not, do the ones that passed end up in X.S., and the ones that failed end up separated? What prevents the PCs that passed from noticing the others are no longer with them? Is it just one of those things like, "hey, we're here! Wait, where's Phil and Suzanne?"
4. If the PCs teleport to where Xin-Shalast is on my map (let's say they guess randomly, like "over that mountain pass" or something) and the caster passes the caster level check, do they simply end up in Xin-Shalast? I reckon this is the same as #2, but it might be slightly different.
Edit: 2b./4b. Is the CL check to prevent teleporting directly to X.S., or is it to demonstrate that something funny is happening here? Same with mundane travel in #2. If this is the case, the only way to X.S. is the phantom river method?
From experience, it seems likely that the party will have their meat shield open the doors in case there are monsters, or perhaps elect someone else (with good saves, perhaps) to do that. Or, even worse, take turns. This reduces the probability of any haunts being triggered, and deprives them of story and XP. Or, they end up forcefully triggering all the traps by having everyone hop into the room, and then it just feels forced. So, making them universal might help there.
Additionally, a party with Detect Magic may be in the habit of scanning for magic items, and not seeing any, won't trigger haunts that are based on opening a drawer, or such. This is where having the entire house have a strong aura of necromancy helps, since it prevents scanning through walls (via one strong aura overwhelming weaker ones). The party can still open doors, though, and then scan, unless you want the furniture affected, which is fine, but I personally prefer just the house's walls.
So the best thing might be to:
1. Make the haunts universal. Perhaps provide a small bonus to the save if the haunt would normally not be tied to that character. Though if you don't want to do the personality analysis, that's fine, too. The save DCs aren't that high. Some are potentially lethal, though.
2. Put a strong necromancy aura in the entire house. Particularly strong magic items, however, should be noticeable, even with all the necromancy magic being noisy.
Does anyone know how the reality-warping effects of Leng play out exactly with respect to the saving throws mentioned on page 317? Does every PC passing the save allow them to bypass the hunger and full moon requirements, and simply see XS (they don't see a phantom river, but they cross mountain tops and eventually just see the place, is how I'm envisioning it, if that is the case)? what happens if some PCs pass the save it others fail it, do some end up in XS and the others end up on the other side? With the effect being subtle and gradual, would they not notice that they were split up until they've (either group) already crossed the area?
Edit: thinking about it some more, I think I've come to the realization that they need to be hungry, wait for a full moon, and pass the Will save when entering the area, the area of being the "XS environs" (not particularly in that order), in order to get to XS. But what about the splitting up thing?
Here is why Paranoia is great for this exact purpose:
1. Pickup time is low. To prepare for it:
Get a copy of Paranoia: Troubleshooters and read it (or Paranoia XP, but I'll assume the former since it's available).
Watch one or more of these: THX 1138, Brazil, 1984. ("Watch 1984?" Why not? If you have the time, read it, certainly, but one of the movie versions was pretty good, and accurate to the book).
Pick one of the missions in the P:T book. Either is good. I did Quantum Traitor* for my first mission, but the robot one is also good, and is actually easier to run, but I think it's best once people are familiar with the setting.
2. Run the game. Now this part is key: The players aren't allowed to know the rules. Thus, they don't have to learn anything to play.
3. You can be really cruel to the PCs, and the players'll love it!
4. Since anyone can just play without knowing much about the game, it's great for quick games at parties, conventions, whatever!
*Regarding Quantum Traitor, I just loved the mission objective: take this package from point A to point B. That's the mission. It's not toppling a secret organization, or recovering stolen information. It's literally moving a box from one room to some other room. Oh, there, uh, maaayyy be some caveats. Good Luck!
Things like this, in my opinion, is best done as "the party gets there in the nick of time". In other words, the raid should happen the day after the first PC arrives in Sandpoint. "PC" could simply be "information", if Sending is used to alert the town (though this can be a disaster if not done right).
If the party has teleportation, they should use it as many times as needed to get everyone to Sandpoint. There'll be at least a night to regain spells, so this is not unreasonable. Alternatively, they can leave some people, animal companions, or familiars behind. This is particularly well-suited if it turns out that on the session of the raid, someone can't make it. Incorporating an absence like this just spices things up, I think. Or, there's the classic portable hole maneuver. Or just petition the GM to allow teleportation to simply work on all party members when cast by a PC or villain (perhaps with an increase in casting time so it's not an escape spell), and have the standard limits for hired casters only. Just brainstormin' here.
As long as the players realize there's plenty of time, but the characters are acting as fast as they reasonably can, things are ideal.
If it seems unfair and railroady, well, it works the other way, too. There is downtime between adventures, or even during, when the adventure could easily be more time-sensitive. If the players ask, "how much time do we have," I respond with, "how much time do you need?" I usually have something in mind, but I might alter it based on their answer. Don't tell them, but it's usually, "subtract 2-4 weeks from what they want to make them prioritize and whittle down their crafting." Shhhh.
All that said, if you guys figure out a way to absolutely dominate the raid in a non-metagamey way, the GM should not stop you. For example, if you happen to have a dozen scrolls of teleport already on-hand, being able to bring all of the remaining Black Arrows with you should be possible. (That said, if I GM'd this, I'd not run the combat with Black Arrows involved in initiative and such, I'd just reduce the number of raid events, or make the enemies weaker or something.)
I kinda sorta "cheated" with respect to the haunts. Well, it's within the rules, but a little cheesy. I gave the entire house a necromancy aura, and it's possible for strong auras to muffle weaker ones. (Edit: wait, no, it's not as bad as that; detect magic doesn't work anyway! Cool I'm not a bad person. Nobody had detect undead or alignment.)
- - - -
BuzzardB, I think this is where you're confused:
Normally, a PC unwittingly steps into haunt area, or otherwise triggers the haunt, which then manifests, and a surprise round begins, with the haunt at 10 initiative. The PC rolls perception to notice the haunt in the surprise round. If a PC is a cleric who notices the haunt in the surprise round, and the cleric beats the haunt at initiative, the cleric could channel energy to harm the haunt.
If someone is using detect undead/alignment<X>, they can determine that there's a haunt there if they succeed at the perception DC, with -4 to their check, before the haunt even manifests. If they notice it, they can act on that information, e.g. stay away from the area, or prepare for it somehow.
Here's how it works:
You might play your character a certain way, to stick with some sort of alignment that you intend, based on your interpretation of how alignment works. The GM determines your alignment based on your actions and his or her interpretation of how alignment works. Then, you disagree with the GM, and the two of you argue. Whatever happens next depends on the result of the argument.
This is the plain truth. No amount of internet advice will help, unless houseruling is involved. Setting up an objective system is a bad idea, as objective systems can be optimized for. If houseruling, my advice is to allow PCs to arbitrarily select whatever alignment they want at character creation time, have it stay constant, and not have actions determine alignment, and vice-versa.
I assume it's a move action, same as drawing a potion from your pack with regular hands. It doesn't confer any special bonus here. What it does allow is just holding on to the potion ahead of time, which might be really useful.
I hate being negative like this, but I'm not sure an avalanche is a good idea. A sufficiently large enough one might threaten the city, and I don't think K is desperate enough to do that.
I do like the idea of it talking, however. It would show the PCs that Karzoug is aware of their presence, and if Karzoug also commands minions to zero in on their location, that might compel them to hustle forward, if the whole city might be after them. Well, take that last bit of advice with a grain of salt. My players would look forward to having XP and gold hand-delivered to them.
I'd advise against a dimensional lock effect. The spell itself doesn't affect a large area, and if anchor rays are shot at them, it's kind of silly. It could be considered very railroady. I encourage altering your goals to fit in with what you expect the PCs to do. If you think they'll teleport away, make that your goal. You've successfully scared them off, made them waste resources. Having the talking mountain also provides some misdirection, but it's thin ice. If the party is not trying to be particularly stealthy, but aren't being overt either, it's a way for you to "just decide" that Karzoug and his minions know of their presence. If they are trying to be stealthy, though, and Karzoug announces he knows they're there, that feels like an arbitrary move.
((Quick internet disclaimer: I hope I don't offend -- I'm not trying to tell you how to run your game, or make an accusation that you're "doing it wrong". This is how I try to think things through to keep myself in-line, as I'm aware it's often easy to forget to look through the player perspective.))
