Uncle Fred's page

For a Golarion Goblin Barbarian:

"If you can read this, I'm probably raging."

I like to customize my player's magical items by giving their weapons names. One of my players is parting ways with his current magical greatsword (a +1 keen shocking burst adamantine greatsword I had the blacksmith name "Splitstrike") and using his funds to buy a new sword. He is considering either getting a +1 Holy Shocking adamantine greatsword or a +1 Omnious Ghost touch Flaming cold iron greatsword. I'm drawing a blank on naming either of these. Any suggestions?

Now I'm confused. I was asking if it was a good idea to use a medium sized firearm as a small creature given the conditions I've mentioned, or if I should craft my next firearm as an appropriately sized one (small). I thought it was possible to do wield an oversized weapon (as in my character wielding a medium sized weapon) albeit with a -2 penalty. I've looked ta the FAQ and it was my understanding that that was just a clarification on whether or not the -2 penalty per size difference would apply. What you seem to be suggesting is that it's not possible period?

Me and my party are playing through RotR and last session I failed a massive damage save against an outerdimentional overweight lava spewing ... thing. 60 points of lava damage almost cooked off my ammo, and definitely cooked me up.

So the druid in her infinite kindness reincarnated me. Surprise, I'm now a Snirfveblin! None of my clothes fit, nor does my armor and my gun is a size category larger than I am.

I've looked up the rules on oversized firearms and this is where I'm looking for advice. I'd be taking a-2 penalty for using my current gun. Now I was already considering making a new gun once we got out of our current predicament. But I'm seriously considering making my next firearm a medium sized firearm as well, instead of making a small sized version. -2 to attack rolls at level 12, even considering all the other penalties I can choose to tack on (Rapid Shot, Deadly aim), and given that my attack bonus went up by an additional +1 seems like it wouldn't penalize me as much as it might otherwise.

What do you think about it?

(From a character perspective I believe that my character would want to see his appearance and size restored, so it would make sense that he would craft his next weapon as if he's going back to that size. I myself am going to hope that my party members will want to help me find a way to restore my towering stature and rugged good looks, as getting a wish spell seems remote at best and the party's wizard has already scoffed saying there are much better uses of a wish spell.)

An acquaintance of mine approached me about a twink game featuring the Ravenloft setting.

We're all starting off lvl 9, no limits on races/classes etc.

1st question is what are common attacks/strategies/damage etc for Ravenloft. I'm assuming undead is a feature, so alot of negative energy/level stuff etc, but was wanting to query the common knowledge pool here.

second. The create a race stuff in the Advanced Race guide, how does that work exactly? Someone is using the older half-dragon template that increases effective character level by 2.

I cannot answer the second part of your question. Concerning the first part, the common strategy for Ravenloft is "play smart" Undead, DPR ... all of those things are completely irrelevant if the DM has any clue what he's doing. Honestly it sounds like he's giving you enough rope to hang yourselves with.

Alright, that does help. Any other recommendations?

I just started a campaign where we were told to make 35 point buy characters and add another 10 skill points to our characters to invest in professions, crafts and all those "lifestyle" skills. This has led to a number of players creating very efficient characters. I chose to play a cleric, opting to try and tone things down so to speak, given my relative ignorance of the class. However, as things have progressed, some of these same players have taken upon themselves to take their newfound power to try and cause trouble by being excessively provocative.

As I lurk around these forums quite a bit and fancy myself to be a well meaning gent, I took the approach most frequently advised in these forums: Talk. Talked to the parties involved, talked to the GM about toning things down and thus far I have been rebuffed in some way or another. I have also considered leaving (another time-tested suggestion around here) but me being involved here is a necessary evil. You'll have to take my word on it.

So, I have been going around and peeking at some of the advice given for clerics; the guides to building one, various optimization questions, and that has helped somewhat but I'd like to push the envelope. Which might help me get my point across (hope flows eternal).

I settled for a melee cleric as the group was lacking anyone who could take a serious hit. I do want to keep doing that. Here is the build so far. I believe I could ask to move some things around, but that's by no means assured.

I was thinking of trying to make a holy vindicator, but as I've said, I haven't really played a cleric. Do you have any suggestions to offer with the build and further optimizing it?

My DM is running a homebrew setting in which divine casters are disliked and arcane casters reviled. Last session he gave my character an item with which I could learn any three spells I know of or have heard of and add them to my spellbook as arcane spells. I could do this for any level but it seems that holding onto such an item forever would be a waste, given that we are only level 4. That's why I'm looking at level 3 spells as the selection of good arcane spells available is in of itself worth spending all three "charges" on spells from that list.

I'm liking the feedback so far, but I need to keep in mind that I have to have heard of that spell before attempting to use the item on it.

I've managed to come upon the ability to learn three level 3 spells from any spell list and cast them as if they were on my own spell list (currently playing a wizard). So while I can thank Treantmonk for his advice on wizard spells I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to evaluating other spells from other spell lists. What spells would complement my wizard ? The spell's level must be 3. And if you could please provide multiple choices and grade their cheese factor; I'd like to minimize my cheese.

Prehensile hands. Extra cheesy.

Dotting for awesome.

So I'm preparing future adventures for my PCs and I wanted to run them through the Tomb of Horrors (because I've run through it and I want them to experience the thrill and possible horror of dying to a booby trapped item). However I just found the excellent X2 Castle Amber conversion that has been put up here by the gracious daemonslye and I'm conflicted as to in what sequence I should run them. The description in the foreword of Castle Amber mentions that the PC's should hit level 11-12 by the time they are done with the module. Tomb of Horrors is intended for level 9 characters according to the WotC conversion available online, but given it's lethality perhaps another level or two couldn't hurt; but where does that leave the sense of trepidation that one has when going through Acererak's tomb?

What do you think? In what sequence should I run these two modules?

Ok, so I'm finally home where I have access to my notes. His (or her as I have in the notes) CMD is a 21. I think the problem is that I have a feeling they will have exhausted a lot of their supplies just exploring, and will not think of resting just prior to "that one guy" . So forget about them being fresh; they will be hurting. So I'm thinking perhaps I should instead go for a skeletal champion as described above and save the Graveknight for a later day. It's not like there wont be other opportunities to slip that one into the story.

I wish I could answer your questions about the party's resources, but I have only looked at their sheets once so far. I would have a better idea if, as I had asked, they had sent me a copy of their sheets, but they didn't which has led me to prepare ... well ... a CR6 monstrosity with 31 AC. Which I suspected after last session's encounter would eat them alive. Thank you for confirming that.

By the way, noone answered if this was in fact correct; is this a "legal" CR6 opponent? (forget about him being beatable, and go over my numbers.)

Spells, bombs and combat maneuvers. Is there something you aren't telling us?

If I'm not, it isn't intentional. As I said I want to give them a challenge, and a good sized one, but not a TPK. But I also want to introduce them to "thinking on their feet" and going beyond standard tactics.

Can you provide a breakdown of the Graveknight lizardfolk's AC?

At 31 AC, its seems really high for a lv 3 party. A CR 11 Human Graveknight have only 25 AC...

I suggest providing some sort of environmental or magical means of defeating the Graveknight.
Maybe there a shrine to a Deity nearby that you could have the party lure the Graveknight into and defeated, (Via some divine magic effect/ritual.)

Or lure it into a falling lava trap.

A straight up fight seems overly difficult and is highly prone to trouble and frustration for your current party.

I think it all stems from the fact that this is a lizardman graveknight.

Lizardmen have a +5 bonus to natural armor. (+5)
Add +4 for the graveknight template (+4)
The knight is wearing half-plate +8 (+8)
He has armor training 1 so he can apply his +1 bonus from Dex (+1)
And I might be mistaken; he does not have a ring of protection +1, he has a +1 heavy shield. (+3)

Adds up to 31 AC

I wouldn't mind switching to an alternate template, such as the skeletal champion for a total CR of 5, but it will still be a lizardfolk base as that is the theme I'm going for (Plot reasons).

Does the Alchemist have bombs?

What's this BBEG's touch AC?

The alchemist does have bombs. He took the Grenadier archetype from one of the splatbooks.

And the BBEG's touch comes in at 12 IIRC.

The party I'm DM'ing is about to encounter a BBEG with an AC of 31 (a Graveknight lizardfolk Fighter 3 with Dex 12 and a ring of protection +1). Now while that might not be a problem for certain parties, This party is made of two fighters (both of whom are two-handed weapon fighters), an alchemist and a wizard (whom in this particular instance decided to leave his spellbook somewhere he cannot access it prior to the encounter).
Now, while I do not wish to scrap the current build of the BBEG, I do not want to outright kill them; this is only their second/third session with me as their DM. Their characters are all level 3.
So my question is in two parts: Is this a reasonable encounter per RAW? (By my calculations this should be a CR 6 encounter; in my experience with other groups this should be challenging, but not impossible and there should not be any PC deaths; however given the party composition, I am doubting my assessment)
As a follow-up what items can I plant in the dungeon for them to use that would make this encounter "easier" (but not too much so; this is supposed to be a BBEG)?

Saw this topic and had to log in:

Here's a few:

<Rough Winds>
{2X Length of Rope, 2X Block and Tackle, 2X Pulley, 1X Bed, 2X Windows or Doors}
Depending on the location of the targets bed in their room you will need 2 portals or open spaces for this trick, whilst the target is asleep tie the two lengths of rope to opposite sides of the bed, attach to appropriate pulleys/Tackles, start gently pulling the ropes opposite each other in tempo, 1,2,1,2,1,2. Should the target suffer from sea/air sickness this gentle rocking should stir the targets gut, otherwise proceed to heave the ropes too and fro like there's no tomorrow simulating turbulence.

<No Magic in the Privy>
{1X Toilet/Privy/Chamber Pot, 1X Mage capable of casting floating disk}
Have he mage cast floating disk between the target bodily functions and the Privy... This is akin to placing Cling Wrap over your toilet at home... ewww

<Kiss of Nature>
Add extract of poison oak to the targets shaving lather and to his/her razor, the fine hairs of the oak will cause irritation of the skin.

<Egg Bucket>
Water in a bucket is all well and good for these Gnomes, but its time to up the ante, Take 3-4 eggs and place them in a seal-able jar with Vinegar or Brine, leave for as long as possible, trust me it gets better with age, open jar, remove eggs with tongs, and place this new liquid in a bucket and repeat the water bucket prank, this stuff smells terrible, will stain cloths, bleach hair, strip paint and will not wash out with ease.

<SLAP!>
Have an unseen servant slap the target in the face at random intervals throughout their day or whilst sleeping.

I realize some of these pranks are childish, but they are Gnomes, if these suit your needs then all is well however if you require a more sophisticated prank befitting the setting then please let me know.
{Also a more detail description would help with the writing, Details such as: Class, Items/Resources, Target and Setting may be very helpful.} The most fun pranks are usually available to...

You're right, some details might be needed here.

Currently we are on the ground searching for something, but we will doubtlessly board the airship at least one more time for a trip lasting anywhere between 2days to a week +.

This is a custom setting: here, gnomes have access to a mix of technology and arcane magic beyond that of the rest of the world, as the rest of the world is domineered by an empire who believes that arcane magic is devil-magic. The gnomes also have access to guns and gunpowder. So I would imagine that we can find on board our ship anything that would be gun-related or ship-related. Oh and the airship is held aloft by a big bladder of gas. Should I mention the ship's name is the Hindenburg?

My character is Rogue (Scout) 3 / Fighter (Weapon Master) 2 and has the following miscellaneous items:

-Silk Rope
-Waterskins
-A lot of marbles
-Calthrops
-2 Smoke arrows
-A winter blanket
-Manacles
-Quite a few cigars
-A spare weapon cord
-A flask of Alkali chemicals.

Let me know if you need me to mention weapons and armor.
-MW Thieves tools

So we are on board this airship crewed by a bunch of playful gnomes. A bucket filled with water fell on another character, another prank happened to someone else and my character got hot-footed during his sleep. Now, given my current surroundings, do you have any suggestions as to pranking them back?

master arminas wrote:

Well, I did shush her; her Charisma might have been high, but she was never good at talking people into things (or out of things). And I KNEW she was about to put her foot into her mouth over (another) forced wedding. So I deserved that one.

Oh God you just described the majority of my party. I usually just :rolleyes: and :facepalm: but I see now I need to start shushing.

He also just described me. >.>

I think I'll go cry in the corner over there.

Color me interested. Since it's by the same publisher I imagine it would perhaps give me some idea s to what to expect.

Is it easy to add plot to? What are your thought on Shackled City?

Dotting for reference

I've been looking at an old copy of the World's LArgest Dungeon and I'd like to get some people's thoughts on it. Back in 3.0/3.5 how was it? Enjoyable? Did it have any problems? Pitfalls? Issues easily corrected?

Do you think it is a good candidate for a conversion? Would it retain, or gain any enjoyment?

I just got the ability to cast Earthquake in one of my games. While I am thrilled, I'm also aware that this could backfire in spectacular ways. So, can anyone here give me some advice as to how to use the spell cleverly? Maximize the bang I get for my buck so to speak. And what pitfalls to avoid?

The reason for E6 is to stop people from getting 4th level spells since they tend to be such game changers. (Personally, I prefer E8, but both have their good and bad points.)

On that topic, running tomb of horrors at E6, without conversion, is a party wipe waiting to happen. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, it is the tomb of horrors after all. . .

Ok, how much conversion are we talking about here? I have the pdf, and I have run through it myself once as a player character. Even at 9th level it was a party wipe. A fun one, with long-standing characters going "I'm out" mid-way through, and their replacements suffering soul sucking or explosive deaths, but fun nonetheless. I would like to bring this fun to a group but within the parameters of E6, as the store I will be running this at has a "tradition" of games in the E6 format. So, to get back on topic, what if we were talking about an E6 party with a great deal of experience under their belt? Say, maybe 10+ extra feats (6th level +50000 xp) ?

What is E 6?

Is that like the West End Games, Star wars D6 game?

Perhaps I should have been clearer. E6 is short for Epic 6 where leveling stops after level 6 and a new ruleset takes over. More on those rules here: http://e6pf.wikidot.com/

I'm planning on starting a group that will use this ruleset and I've been told that they have not run through the Tomb of Horrors. Since I have and loved it I wish to share my experience of it. Thing is, can they take on the challenges of the tomb under these rules?

Don't go by the CR. The Bestiaries list equivalent levels for cohort-appropriate monsters, and they are generally of a higher effective level than the CR indicates.

What page? And what beastiary?

Would it need tweaking? How much? Any specifics?

If you took teh leadership feat, could you, instead of getting an NPC of the appropriate level, take an intelligent monster of the apprporiate CR in it's stead, with all the limitation of alignment that exist on that matter with the feat?

Kelsey Arwen MacAilbert wrote:

Yes. We lost them after the new GM told them to leave when they started yelling.

I would like to kiss your DM in a totally platonic way.

+1.

How old were those two misfits who seem to think yelling will get you what you want?

I have tried to keep up with the thread, so if I am mentioning something that has already been stated please ignore me.

Give her the blade. And let her die. You've said so yourself, she has been close to dying multiple times now hasn't she? Well then. And she has told you multiple times she will not heal you? How amusing. Let her have the sword. Let her try and fight it out. Let her die and reroll. Meanwhile you can take the blade and she has no valid RP claim to the blade. The trick here will be to ensure that you live through the encounter yourself, along with your summoner friend. I do not know if you have any way of turning invisible, or hiding away, but in all those ninja movies, the ninja can disappear like Batman, so I trust you can vanish away. Or you can arrange combat so that your party prevails, but she's dead (trickier to pull off to be sure, but less of a chance of losing her remains to some snarky undead with a taxidermy fetish).

Should she complain, you can tell her that you not pulling her ass out of the fire is the equivalent of "not healing". And remind her that words have power.

Now that I have given my take on the "solution" to this, I would also like to point out that you surely realise two things: That this argument is pretty damn stupid (extremely so in fact, effectiveness and survivability be damned) and that your DM, after a few months of this banter should have taken care of things aside. Seriously /months/ of arguing over scribblings on a piece of paper? I'd show up to game drunk if I knew that was going to be in my ears while I'm trying to DM.

Title sums it up. Been looking around, both on this site and elsewhere for an non Play by Post online campaign so as to be able to game during the week from the comfort of my own house. I haven't been all that successful in finding anything though. Any suggestions?

Many people here have suggested many (if not all) of the loot tracking solutions I would suggest to you.

Concerning the DM's unwillingness to figure out what your gold share is: He is in your home. You are doing at least two of his players a /favor/ by being willing to host. Point out (respectfully) that you have had trouble for hosting the game and that you feel that it would only be a reciprocated courtesy if he figured out what your share of gold is.

Concerning Psycho the Banshee's attitude: This is your house. As such, while you are doing your friends a favor, you do not need to extend that favor to her. I will predict that killing her character will satisfy you for 3.5 seconds, until she starts, shattering windows and piercing eardrums with her... enthusiasm. You need to make it very clear TO HER that you will not accept any out of character name calling or hostility from her. You should also make it clear that should she threaten you again, you will be calling 911. Oh and the next time she acts in the way you described to us? Call 911. Seriously. Don't even stop to think. Call 911.

Her psychological issues are not your problem. You can certainly empathize, but when all is said and done it is. Not. Your. Problem. And you should not have to deal with it.

Good point on the wigger/bro thing. Yes, he's not the annoying, trying to be a raper guy. The "bro" thing got tagged on by the DM when I first pitched the guy. And with a 14 in both his Dex and Con, he could pull some of it off. The bad Str score is the one thing that makes him "that" guy. The one scrawny guy that hangs with the big overly boisterous bros, dresses like them, emulates their ways. But at the core, I'm really going for the dilettante Trust Fund kid with noble parents and a ton of money; a spirited, brash, easygoing young man with a taste for freedom and the ability to do whatever he wants.

I realize I should perhaps give some background as to what seeds I'm currently working with. I've played many melee types over the years and always wanted to try my hand at a spellcaster. So I decided to play a human wizard. Having randomly determined his age (19), I decided to have him be a bit of a prodigy. As I wanted him to have a varied assortment of craft and profession skills, I figured he would be /that/ kid. The one that always skips out of school, always out doing something else. Runs away once from the wizard academy: decides he wants to be a carpenter for a theater troupe. Gets caught by parents/school/law enforcement. Runs away again. Decides this time he's going to try his hand at architecture, with maybe a particular focus on stained glass for temples, churches and cathedrals. Rinse and repeat. He was bullied a lot as a child, and has rich parents (considering it's a low magic world, probably VERY rich parents). He's a dilettante trust-fund kid. He's also a "bro" or more accurately given his physical stats, more of a wigger (and I apologize if that's not an appropriate word to use here). He's that scrawny kid that hangs out with the bros. And he's an illusionist. Because nothing is more mischief-inducing than some well placed illusion, as well as being a great way to get out of trouble. Or postpone trouble.

This would be fine in my eyes for a level one character, but as I sit down to write more about this guy, I can't fit in the extra 8 levels he has.

So I've just retired an old character of mine and came back into play with a new, level 9 character. From a mechanical standpoint, he is pretty solid, but I want to give him some depth, a past, some background and some personality beyond his current quirks and quips. Which brings me to the following question:

How much adventuring has a level 9 character done without gaining too much renown for it? I'm not getting any good ideas from the old character, despite having played him from lowly level one.

So I turn to you; Does anyone have any ideas or experience on the subject matter?

Thanks.

I've always been enamored with making a duelist, and I've been trying to build one in a campaign I've been playing in. The DM has told us that characters would likely be 12th level by the time the game finishes (starting at level 1) but I would like to have hit my "peak" at about 10th level. I've started with 2 levels of rogue so far, but now that I am about to reach third level, a number of choices are available and I'm not sure what direction to go in.
Also, I have been reading around and it seems that the Duelist is, not quite as optimal as some other regular classes; if the character would become too sub-optimal as compared to some of the standards out there, I will probably scrap the idea entirely.
The world is low magic, and the character's race is a homebrewed one, whose main features are some minor bonuses to stealth, perception and a land speed of 40 ft.

Now I was going to take one more level of rogue, and some levels of fighter, taking the free-hand fighter archetype. But the free-hand fighter seems to be very focused on disarming. So far, our opponents have all wielded weapons, but the campaign does not seem to be an urban one (although since the world is low magic, perhaps we will only face humanoids?). Another option is to take some regular levels of fighter, and have the character dual-wield, foregoing the off-hand attack to use precise strike, but this almost sounds like spring attack. And I'm not sure if I like spring attack at all.

So if you could please give me some input, I would appreciate that very much.

Hi. For a couple weeks now I have been playing in a campaign in which half of the players are under eighteen (specifically 14 and 16) While I am not the DM I would like to find ways to involve them more in roleplay (they are both ok when it comes to combat). So how do I draw them in and make them feel more passionate about the various scenes and settings we find ourselves in?

Any thoughts or advice on achieving that?

Alright, I will certainly try and make those changes by picking up a level of fighter or two (probably two). But beyond the changes, what feats or magical items should I be looking to get in the future?

To me a group that "avoids" an encounter because they are playing smart rather than playing "Hulk SMASH" deserve not only the XP that you would have given for defeating the entire village, but even an additional 10% of that total on top of that. Playing smart is a behavior that should be encouraged in all groups.

Without knowing how you're been fairing previously, I'm not able to really help you out.

Dragon Desciple has 3/4 BAB progression inspite of having d12 HD. (Aside: WTF? That's soooo dumb.) So you'll really be hurting yourself interms of accuracy, especially with Two Weapon fighting.

Otherwise, everything looks like it's on its way to being O.K. go.

I think I've been hitting my opponent's ACs without too much trouble (when I can actually roll something above a 7; our table has been cursed with some of the worst die rolls I have ever seen. However the past couple sessions have had some decent die rolls). My major gripe at the moment is the damage output. granted, I do feel like I'm doing slightly more damage than the twf ranger and the summoner's eidolon, but I like to set my sights up high.

Other than that, my AC is pretty high and my hp is over 100, so I can't complain.

I'm more about optimized flavor, and not optimized power, but I think a lot of people would ask you why you aren't two-handed fighting instead of two-weapon fighting. You could replace the half-elf's Adaptability with Ancestral Weapon to get an Elven curve blade for free (or just pick up a nodachi if you can use UC without it being an Eastern setting). You can Power Attack and crit like crazy. If you go the intimidation route, there are a bunch of useful feats that allow combat and non-combat advantages as well.

I don't know how much, or even if, you can retcon your character. Or even if you want to. Before I get too much into it, I'd want to know how much you are able and willing to change in order to maximize damage output.

My thinking at the time of creation was that two attacks for less damage were better than just one that can miss ( I wasn't solid on the two handed fighting mechanics as well). And while I still think that, I'm not as convinced of the validity of that statement.

I don't think I can retcon anything at all, as some of this stuff has been on the sheet for over 6 months.

This might turn out to be "How can we salvage this" but anyway I have been playing a Half Elf Fighter5/Bard(Arcane Duelist)1/Dragon Disciple2 for about 6+ months now from level 1. I have been trying to come up with an optimal build but I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it. So here are the character's current stats:

Str 18
Dex 15
Con 16
Int 13
Wis 8
Cha 12

Attack: The character dual wields a Bastard sword/Short sword, the following are the stats when in that situation

Bastard Sword +2=> +12/+7 / 1d10+9
Short Sword +2=> +10 / 1d6+6

Feats:TW Fighting, Exotic Weap Prof (Bastard Sword), Weapon Focus (B. Sword), Dodge, Weapon Spec (B.Sword), Double Slice, Toughness, Step Up

Weapon Training I (blades, heavy)

The things that I liked about the Dragon Disciple were:
-Its becoming part dragon; that's pretty damn cool
-Progression involves getting bonuses to Str and Con
-Progression gives me natural armor
-Hit dice are 1d12

Now, I also wanted the fighter part of this to be a Two-weapon fighter, without going with the path presented in the APG.

Now, I'm trying to maximize weapon damage, and while I hope the campaign keeps going I would like the character to be as good as it can be by level 13. Also, our DM has some sort of dungeon in store for us when we hit level 10, so I would like to have something solid going on by then.

I know this board has some pretty serious optimizers. I'm hoping they can take a look at this and give me some options.