Wolf Munroe's page

I use the Critical Hit and Critical Fumble decks. I usually don't have mooks draw from the critical hits deck, but I'd use them for bosses if it comes up, and use them for everyone if the players prefer.

I did rule that we use the Critical Hit deck and the players can't just roll damage for crits normally though, because I had a player who would always roll damage normally given the option since damage normally at x2 was superior to some of the 1x+bonus effects on the cards. I'd rather he have to hope for a 2x+bonus card if he wants the 2x bonus.

Ustalav.

I mean I love Prince of Wolves, but we need even more Ustalav. :-)

I'd also like to read some Ketapesh, or well, stuff in a region where Sarenrae is the dominant religion.

I hope the B3 catfolk illustration is still the baseline assumption. I was very happy to see the way catfolk were done in B3.

I like using maps and draw out the maps to a scale for use with minis.

I second this.

Gaming Paper makes gridded paper that rolls off a tube. You can get a 30"x144" roll for $4 here at paizo.com:
Gaming Paper 1" grid roll.
Or you can go with 1" gridded easel paper in 50-sheet pads:
OfficeMax Easel Pads (two-pack 50-sheet pads, 27"x34" per sheet)
Note that the linked page has both gridded and lined easel pads. If you order from there you want the gridded one.

I suck at math so you can figure out which one is a better deal.

With some 1" grid paper and a set of colored markers, you can make some lovely dungeon maps ahead of time. (I actually used my Vis-a-vis wet-erase markers because they were what I had handy at the time, but I recommend going with basic markers since they're cheaper and easier to find.) One day I might try doing one with paint. That could be a fun experiment.

My gridded easel paper came from Staples and I would have linked to theirs but I couldn't find it on their website. (Apparently they now have Post-It brand and off-brand sticky easel pads, but they cost twice as much.)

I haven't used Gaming Paper but will get some eventually. I bought my easel pads before I heard of gaming paper.

Since the GM and the players all missed it, I'd say the resources already spent were spent. She was sick. But since she does have Purity of Body, she gets better without further expense.

Basically, since her Purity of Body was a new ability, it hadn't quite kicked into full gear yet. Maybe she needed to fight off a sickness to "awaken" the power. Anyway, remove the disease immediately, but have her recover the accrued Con and Dex ability damage with rest as normal. Sure, she was sick this time, but it's the last sickness she'll ever know. Making the recovery part of the game will make the player more likely to remember she has Purity of Body next time there's a disease.

I see someone has been reading about Cândido Godói and the theories behind the twins there :)

Perhaps they can get one free teamwork feat? Might be a bit overpowered, unsure really.

Had actually not heard of Candido Godoi. Interesting though, and gives me some idea of what percentage is "above average."

Some of these suggestions are cool but they're a lot more powerful than what I've been thinking. After reading some of the suggestions, I'll probably give the twins a bonus on Bluff, Disguise, and Sense Motive checks, and make them class skills for the twin, or something similar. Like I said, the other twin is likely to be a townie NPC so having twin-powers doesn't really work. But Bluff, Disguise, and Sense Motive benefits I could see as a developed skill from tricking people about which twin you were growing up, and the Sense Motive for learning to deal with a twin sibling, and also reading others reactions when they had the twins mixed up. And possibly a +1 to Will saves versus compulsion and charm effects as the twin has a strong sense of self-identity that was developed as a result of defining how the twin was different from his or her identical sibling.

The +1 Will save vs. compulsions and charms would be beneficial in the campaign too since vampires are going to be prevalent later on. (It was a vampire's fertility experiments that caused the increased incidence of twins to begin with. He wasn't trying to make the town more fertile, he was actually trying to solve his own sterility issue.)

What about for a twin whose brother/sister is just a townie NPC, not one of the PCs? I doubt any of my players will actually play a matched set.

One of the things I have set-up for my starting town for my campaign is that it has an unusually high number of twins (in part because I like making twin villains and have a couple sets). Basically a villain was doing fertility experiments in a lair in the region and accidentally got something in the water that caused the incidence of twin births to increase.

So I want to offer a campaign trait that is for a twin player-character from the starting town. I just don't know what kind of mechanical benefit to grant that would make sense.

Any suggestions?

Yeah, they're still intelligent undead, they just don't have their former class levels. There's a sample ghoul necromancer in Classic Horrors Revisited, for instance.

I checked my Pathfinder AP books. A fully statted ghast doesn't appear in Trial of the Beast (AP 44), but the ghasts that are called out in the adventure are listed at CR 2.

I know in the Pathfinder modules Gentle Repose has been used on undead at various times. One of the villains in one of the modules (for 3.5e) was a mummy cleric that cast gentle repose on herself so she still looked human after hundreds of years (thousands of years?).

What happens when you turn a PC into a Ghast?

What do you mean? Ghouls and ghasts normally don't retain their class levels when they become undead, so the PC would become a standard ghoul or ghast, as appropriate.

They're CR 2, the extra stuff that makes them ghasts doesn't bump their CR any more.

Ghouls are very powerful CR 1 though. I'm sure the same goes for ghasts at CR 2.

I know ghasts appeared in a module or AP volume statted as ghasts, but I haven't found it yet. Looking for it now.

My next campaign is going to be at the local game store, so I'm trying to decide what I'll need to take with me.

I'm printing a custom three-ring of monsters from the assorted books and with variants for the campaign, but I still think I should take the CRB and the APG, dice, cards, and maps, and minis, paper, and pencils.

The Kinect support is cool because you can use any dragon shout you have on the favorites menu, and it does introduce new ways to sort inventory that are only available to Kinect users.

Also, you can say "Ally Trade" and you don't have to go through your ally's conversation every time you want to open their inventory.

The ability to equip weapons and spells is OK. It's all just assigning key phrases. So to equip the shield and dagger (I play a sneak), first I have to assign the phrase "dagger" to a weapon with "assign dagger" and assign the phrase "shield" to a shield with "assign shield," then I can say "Equip dagger and shield" and it will equip them both. It's not picky though, you can assign any of the assign phrases to pretty much anything. I have assigned "bound weapon" to the Bound Sword spell but I assigned "bow" to my Bound Bow spell. I was trying to assign "Cold spell" to my Ice Spike and it assigned it as "Calm spell" instead because there is no "cold spell" phrase, the phrase for that is "frost spell."

The most annoying thing about the Kinect support is that it has trouble differentiating from when the player is speaking and when an NPC is saying dialogue because the Dragonborn is nearby. The Kinect doesn't listen during actual conversations, so forget saying what your character would say in a conversation like Mass Effect 3 does. It does listen when you're not in a conversation though, so four different times so far when an NPC has said something like "Watch yourself at night, it's not safe" the game has spontaneously popped up with "Saving Game...." because it thought I said "New Save" or whatever the phrase is.

The Kinect feature is disabled by default after the update and has to be turned on in the game options. Because it changes the game controls slightly, it resets the control to the (new) default configuration so, after turning on Kinect support, I had to go remap my control. (I have RB and LB swapped because I don't like holding sprint and indicating direction both left-handed.) With the Kinect enabled, it automatically listens for Shout names (that are on the favorite list) that are spoken in English, but if you want to say them in the "dragon tongue," you have to hold in the shout button while you speak them.

All-in-all, I do like the Kinect support, but the fact that it hears the NPCs and thinks they're me is annoying, and I have to occasionally go and delete erroneous save games it created.

Thanks. It's something to look at anyway. I hadn't thought of dollhouse stuff, I was thinking more like wedding decorations or something, so I'll expand my possibilities.

Kill it with fire.

Or Channel Positive Energy, whatever.

Every time you try to channel positive energy to heal the party, opps, it was channel positive energy to injure undead instead. Every time, as long as the abomination exists.

Seriously, though, destroy the horse. It might also mean retiring the character, so be prepared for that.

The character is a Pharasmin cleric, and this undead horse was put in front of him. Pharasma is testing him. Urgathoa is taunting him. The undead must be destroyed.

If the party kills the Pharasmin cleric because he destroyed an undead horse, I'm thinking they might not be the good guys.

If the party is composed of a Pharasmin cleric and a necromancer (or necromancer sympathizer), one of them is going to end up killing the other or the group is going to fall apart.

Of course if the horse can be restored to life, that's also an option. Does your cleric feel like dropping the gold for a Resurrection for a horse?

As a mount, an undead horse is awesome. It never needs to be fed (unless it's a ghoul horse?) and it never suffers fatigue.

I still say kill it with fire. Putting it in front of your character and not expecting him to attack it is unreasonable.

I want to use a vampire rose (or more than one) in an encounter eventually.

Vampire rose is a small plant that is a blood-drinking rosebush.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/plants/vampire-rose

Are there any good miniatures to substitute for such a thing, or any recommendations for making my own? Basically something very small that looks like a rose bush would be great.

F. Wesley Schneider wrote:

So for now, it's up to heroes on Golarion to fight the Worldwound. By the time the inevitable cavalry arrives, much of what makes Golarion (or, at the very least, the Inner Sea) what it is, will be burnt to cinders.

It's also likely that "burn to cinders" would be the Inevitable's method of dealing with the situation.

Not sure if that method would work on a portal to the Abyss though.

Mine is working now too. Thank you so much.

What are the new "lite" versions added?

Just tried with Google Chrome and its behavior is the same as Firefox. It just says it is personalizing the download. This on Chrome 18.0.1025.168 m, which I assume is the newest version since it auto-updates.

I'll try again in a couple hours.

Just tried again. It's still stuck personalizing.

I normally use Firefox 3.6 (Haven't updated to 12 yet, will soon.)

I just now tested it with Internet Explorer 8 as well. It doesn't even say it's personalizing after I click it, it just returns me to the list.

I would like to see a Lovecraftian horror type adventure full of debased tribal societies, crazed cultists, unspeakable alien creatures and mysterious beings that no one but the party knows exist. A game like this would start hard and would only be possible to finish through perious and mind-shattering research. Along the way the party members would be in danger of losing their sanity or being physically/mentally warped by the powers they face.

That sounds like something that could be done in Numeria. It's got barbarian tribes and alien tech, so what if some of that alien tech isn't quite abandoned? I don't know if it could make a whole AP, but it could definitely make a module.

J-Spee Lovecraft wrote:

If a tengu alchemist switches to long nose form and uses a mutagen, does the +4 to a physical ability score stack with the +2 bonus to Strength from the feat?

Yes. The +2 from alter self is a size bonus, the alchemist mutagen is an alchemical bonus.

What i want to know is how a tengu alchemist manages to drink a potion without any lips...

Why would he not have lips? He's in "human" form when he's got his long nose going on, so even though he's normally beaked, I'd think at that point he has lips.

Also, what does having lips have to do with drinking a potion?

Vic Wertz wrote:

Dragon78 wrote:

Now all we need is an "Ultimate Classes" book that gives us a system to create are own classes.

ka-BLAM

What was that?

...oh, just Jason's head exploding...

...again.

Hmmm. If we ask for Ultimate Adventure Paths, would James' head explode?

Would those be adventure paths in a whole different universe that's very similar to the existing one but without all the backstory so new readers can jump in at "the beginning" without having to know the existing lore going back to the 1960s?

When I got the notice that the Skull and Shackles Player's Guide had been updated, I went to the downloads page and sorted by most recent update.

I noticed the core books had received updates yesterday (same printing so I guess it was a bug-fix update or something) so I decided to re-download them.

I managed to download both CRB files fine, and the singleFile version of the Bestiary, but as I moved up the page it got stuck personalizing the File-by-Chapter version of the Bestiary and I haven't been able to download it again. I also tried the GameMastery Guide and it just jumps back to saying it is personalizing the Bestiary for download.

I'll try again in a couple hours.

I don't mind the flavorful names. As long as I know what the item is when I'm sorting it, I sort it for what it is, not what it's named.

I do agree about the rum bottle in the potions category though. That threw me off.

I never have known what the distinction was between what you call "wondrous" and "mundane," I just sort all those together because which category things appeared in seemed random to me. I usually just think of those two card styles as "everything else."

Sterlite plastic "shoe" boxes for my D&D Miniatures, very roughly sorted into a bin of "undead-related," a bin of "most recent campaign," a bin of commons, a bin of uncommons and rares (mostly still in the plastic), and a bin of Unhallowed set (still in the plastic, and of which I'm missing maybe 4 minis). I also have a couple huge D&D minis sitting on my mantle because I'm out of room in the "shoe box" bins and need to buy another one. They cost like $1 each, I just haven't bought one yet.

For the metal minis, of which I have very few finished, I have them in foams in a cardboard comic book box. The unfinished ones that have been based are sitting on my mantle, and, aside from one in my toolbox (my next one to start), if it's not based, it's in original packaging.

Since the Worldwound's been around for about 3 or 4 times as long as the lhaksharut has been, and since we've not done much with the Worldwound since we invented the lhaksharut...

... nohting's been said yet. There are likely some lhaksharut involved in opposing the Worldwound, but there's not a LOT of lhaksharuts to go around, and there's more than just the Worldwound on their radar.

AKA: They won't be much of a help for now. It's still up to the Inner Sea region to handle the Worldwound.

Alright, thanks. I don't read everything I buy in entirety, thought I might have just missed something.

Well, anyway, it will be something cool for the future then.

I like to imagine the Worldwound would be even worse today if it weren't for existing lhaksharut involvement. (Just because they didn't exist doesn't mean they weren't out there saving the Prime anonymously.)

That spell is definitely cool for our non-tengu friends as well.

Pathfinder vampires burn in sunlight though. So that's the most important part for this supplement.

In the story of Carmilla, she seemed to be active any time after noon. (They never saw her until "late in the day" or something along those lines.)

When Dracula was out in the day, was it overcast? I don't remember.

Also, I don't know if I mentioned it before but that mock-up cover for this one looks awesome. I hope the finished cover looks as good.

Is there any information on what lhaksharut inevitables are doing about the Worldwound?

Lhaksharut (the CR 20 inevitables from Bestiary 2) are charged with preventing planes from forming permanent connections with other planes. I kind of think they'd consider the Worldwound a major issue to be dealt with.

Has this been addressed anywhere?

Never actually hard of that variant. What is it?

Thanks for the recommendations. Still not sure what I'll go with, but the recommendations will help.

Any plans to put the full list (minus dead gods and former deities, of course) of subdomains in a print product ever?

It would be handy to have.

Ok, tried it a few more times, using village idiots equipped only with clubs (1d6+1 damage) instead of improvised clubs (1d4+1 damage).

4 village idiots vs 2 fire skulls (CR 1/2 each): 4 surviving idiots, minor injuries
4 village idiots vs 1 burning skeleton (CR 1/2): 4 dead idiots
4 village idiots vs 1 festrog (CR 1): 4 surviving idiots

The fire skulls (burning, screaming beheaded) were push-overs. They managed to hit one guy before they were smacked down. The festrog did better, taking one guy to 0 hp and a second to 3 hp (from 6 at full health), but I had him run away when he was reduced to 3 hp himself.

Now, on the subject of the burning skeleton, I did equip it with a non-broken chain shirt and a scythe. I think the scythe is neutral to the CR, but I'm wondering if the bump from broken chain shirt to non-broken chain shirt might have upped the creature's CR since it increases the skeleton's AC 2 points. I don't think that should matter that much though.

For the mindless undead (fire skulls, fire skeleton), I was rolling dice each round to see which target they'd attack if all enemies were equally far away. In actual play, I'll probably have them target characters that look like clergy first, everything else being equal.

Given my experiences with the ghoul and the festrog, I'll probably avoid using a ghoul until the party are at least into their PC class level. I'm kind of disappointed that the festrog and ghoul are the same CR. Of course none of the test NPCs had slashing or piercing weapons to trigger being splashed by the festrog's diseased pustules, but the disease has an incubation of 1 day anyway so it's not like it matters for the actual combat.

I might see how the village idiots fare against my "vampire-festrog," an advanced festrog with vampire-spawn grade fast healing (2/round) and turn resistance (+2) that I currently have rated at CR 2. I'll be really disappointed if the test NPCs just whoop it though.

A few things:

One thing I've been doing, since I plan to have the PCs start as NPC classes for the first 1000xp on the slow advancement track, is to run mock combats myself with four level 1 commoners from the GameMastery Guide (The Village Idiot) and seeing if they can survive an encounter.

So far I've ran 4 village idiots (10 AC, +1 STR bonus, equipped with clubs and slings) against a few encounters just to test them out.
4 village idiots vs medium jumping spider: 4 surviving idiots
4 village idiots vs medium web spider: 4 surviving idiots
4 village idiots vs a single ghoul: 4 dead idiots.
4 village idiots vs a single ghoul (again, changed tactic): 2 surviving idiots.

So what I got from that is that I should be very very careful with the ghoul. If they don't play smart their adventuring careers will be very short.

Upcoming for my tests are against a burning screaming beheaded, a burning skeleton, an exploding skeleton, and a festrog. Then maybe spider swarm with some acid flasks provided to the test NPCs.

Careful with diminutive/fine swarms. Ideally, make sure the party blaster is fully rested before messing with them. They're nasty, even with alchemist's fire.

For higher CR encounters, I was working on adding some beheaded variants to the skull swarm (making a burning screaming beheaded swarm) and I noticed that it's a tiny swarm that lists as having immunity to weapon damage. I'm thinking that's an oopsie on the part of the devs since it's a tiny swarm, not diminutive/fine so I'll likely change that to half damage from slashing/piercing to match tiny swarms when I run it. (Alchemists fire won't help that one at all, it's immune to fire since it's on fire.)

I solve this issue upfront.

"By playing in this campaign, you consent that whatever evils might befall your characters, once they are no longer player characters in the campaign the GM has authority to use them as NPCs in this or future games."

I've yet to reuse anyone's PCs this way, but if I always say it could happen then it's covered.

I love the face cards. While I collect and sort the item cards decks, I haven't figured out how to employ them in games to my satisfaction yet. I actually use the face cards in play. I don't write on the back of my cards that I do have (the previous three face card decks), instead putting a post-it on the back with the name so my cards stay nice.

I like that the Rise of the Runelords cards have their NPC name for the module but also have a space for personal notes. Occasionally I've wondered where the characters on the face cards actually appear.

You know what I'm looking forward to? The new supplementary material for Rise of the Runelords, particularly the new Rise of the Runelords Face Cards.

Is there ever a case of fractions rounding up? I can't think of any instances.

Not that I'm aware of off the top of my head, but Pathfinder is an exceptions-based game, so if there is one it will be spelled out.

I know in calculating monster and NPC hitpoints using average values, add all the values together then if there's a remaining fraction round down.

So, for a 3d6 HD NPC 3.5 + 3.5 + 3.5 = 10.5 rounds to 10.0 hp

But which one is best?

I'm making a pair of twin sister NPC witches. One sister has a shadow theme (so shadow patron) and the other witch has a "good fey" theme. To me I guess that kind of means like The Summer Country of British folklore, which I kind of equate with more goodly aspects of the First World.

As the subject says, what's the best patron for a witch with a good-aligned fey theme?

OK, so I guess I should have phrased that as a question.

Should I keep the skull swarm's listed immunity to weapon damage or should I follow the general swarm rules that swarms of tiny creatures take half damage from slashing an piercing weapons?

If I follow the latter, how much damage do they take from bludgeoning weapons? Full damage? (I'd be fine with that. They're skulls, after all.)

What do you think about saying a bludgeoning attack does normal damage to the swarm AND actually knocks a skull out of the swarm, thus spawning a separate flying skull, up to the number of HD of the swarm?

Summon Monster V allows you to get 1d3 hound archons. Instead of buffing the one archon, why not just say he brought some friends along?

It's actually potentially messier than just buffing the archon though because you have to run three archons instead of one.

If you do advance the archon, I'd advance him either by hitdice or paladin levels.

An Incubus really is a Succubus with a penis. I'd just refluff (pun intended) an existing Queen.

And model him after dr. Frank N. Furter.

While I agree in general fantasy terms that an incubus really is basically a male succubus, Paizo did introduce a separate incubus demon in Bestiary 3, so if you want to differentiate between an incubus and a succubus mechanically, comparing the two in the bestiaries is probably a good place to start. (Both are on the PRD if you don't own one of the Bestiaries that features them.)

If your last major campaign didn't kill off Nocticula's brother (forgot his name), he'd probably be my first choice of a king of incubi. Of course that's assuming a Golarion campaign and that wasn't specified in the OP.

Hmm... Something I just noticed:

Swarm Traits: A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernible anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits or flanking. A swarm made up of Tiny creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage.

But the Skull swarm's listing says it is immune to weapon damage. It's made up of tiny creatures so should, by the swarm subtype description, be taking half damage from weapons.

The standard beheaded doesn't have any special reason it would be immune to damage so I'm thinking that's probably an oversight in the creation of the swarm.

You could stat out a Large swarm of humanoid skulls to bump this to a higher-level encounter if you were so enclined; but I see your point, given that the Skull Swarm entry lists it as Tiny.

Still, this has given me something for later in my current campaign, so thanks for letting me mumble to myself for a bit.

You lost me with your first sentence. A swarm of humanoid heads would be listed as tiny because the creature size is the size listed for a swarm of the creatures, but the swarm itself occupies 4 squares. That would be true whether it was 2 HD or 4 HD, at least as I understand it.

Swarms, particularly flying swarms, if I remember right, are usually composed of hundreds of their representative creatures (but I might be thinking back to 3.5e), so I definitely wouldn't want them saving against all the included creatures.

The swarm I statted has all the properties of a burning skeleton and a burning beheaded, so like a burning skeleton it explodes when it reaches 0 hp.

Well, I was thinking once a swarm is "dispersed," a number of screaming fire skulls are expelled in the Fiery Death explosion equal to the swarm's HD, and each one of them has the normal screaming ability too, and they're not technically the same creature so PCs would have to save against those screaming skulls again (but at a lower DC since they have less HD).

That's not bad if the swarm HD remains at 2 HD, but gets annoying if I bump the swarm up to 4 HD. That would mean the CR X swarm explodes into a CR 3 encounter with four CR 1/2 fire skulls. Of course I haven't looked to see what the CR would increase to if I increase the HD from 2 to 4. Right now at 2 HD it is CR 3 for the swarm (CR 1 basic skull swarm, +1 burning-skeleton variant, +1 burning-beheaded variant, +0 screaming variant).

One thing that comes to mind, and it's been awhile since I read it so I'm paraphrasing here, is a note in the entry on orcs in Classic Monsters Revisited that mentions that orcs with less human-blood in their ancestry tend to look more pig-faced.

That, to me, is a reference to the pig-faced orcs of earlier editions.

Of course Classic Monsters Revisited is kind of old now as far as Pathfinder books go (since it was written for 3.5e Pathfinder Chronicles). Not sure if that same note is called out anywhere else though.

A Decemvirate member without a mask is just a Pathfinder.

Hey, I didn't say there was anything wrong with the mask, just the hat.