Zynete's page

I've posted an event already for the Saturday of August 13th. I'm going to try to run parts 1 and 2 of First Steps at my local store (A Hidden Fortress). Overall though, I'm mostly curious to see if there were any other local PFS players in my area that I could draw into a more consistent set of PFS games.

So far I only have the friends I've known for years, but I don't know much about other local groups. I wanted to see if there were any other nearby players that might be interested.

I just came out of my first session following a player getting Ultimate Magic and the first encounter where a caster used terrible remorse. I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do against that because it just shuts down so many encounters with or without considering the post by Jason on the spell.

Should I run with the spell as written in Ultimate Magic or should I use the bit from Jason that I can tell for certain on the spell (On successful initial save, lose next turn -2 AC.*)? As I said, I'm not exactly how to (or if I can) respond to this spell.

*This wouldn't have changed anything during this session, losing the next turn was enough to kill Calipharo and would have been enough to decimate Achistem

I am almost certain I have seen this question before, but I wasn't able to find it easily. One of my regular players asked what the rules were, if any, for applying one of the new archetypes from Ultimate Magic to their current 9th level character.

I am almost certain that applying that is not within the PFS rules, but I wanted to confirm it for him.

Yesterday I had a new player come with a character just out of the Red Box adventure. He went through the store stock and grabbed the Player's Handbook off the wall and purchased it. This certainly worked for him, but there were a few bits that didn't fit for his group.

Specifically, his group had two rogues from the Red Box that seemed to use the Essentials builds which don't mesh particularly well with the rogue build in the Player's Handbook. He had a wizard so the book should work fine for him, except one of the questions he had was what a 3rd level common magic item was (the adventure he gave it as treasure before). I explained that common items were a new thing in 4th edition, told him what a common item looks like, and informed him that the update on Wizards of the Coast's webpage would have updates for the book.

Afterwards the store owner asked me if he should be carrying the Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands instead of the Player's Handbook for newer players. I bounced back and forth a bit before tentatively suggesting that a new player probably should get Heroes of the Fallen Lands (and not the Player's Handbook), Monster Vault (and not the Monster Manual), and the Dungeon Master's Guide. While the Player's Handbook is still fine to me, I thought it would be unnecessarily confusing to get a book new and some rules to be revised when you join another group.

I wanted to check with other people to try and see if I was missing a required book or if books like the Player's Handbook should be kept in stock. It there any books you would recommend to the new player and his friends?

I just wanted to throw this out here, rather than other places because this is the community I enjoy above others.

A couple of weeks ago my FLGS got a package with my name on it. When I got to the shop, the owner gave it to and I opened it up to find a thank you note from Wizards of the Coast because I ran the D&D Encounters at the local shop for a number of months.

With that they included a large calender with a lot of neat art, a pair of packs of fortune cards (along with a promo card), and the bulk of a set of Gale Force Nine's Dungeon Master's Tokens.

I was quite surprised and happy to get a gift, I felt at least I could at least do is talk about this neat stuff I got.

The tokens are nice. Obviously focused on 4th edition, but I probably will be using them in all my games. They are a lot better quality than I would have imagine from the pictures. They are not awe inspiring, but they don't feel cheap to me and seem as though that they will last quite a while.

The fortune cards look nice. Most cards though get repeated images of symbols based upon the type of fortune it is (shield for defense, sword for attack, etc.), it would seem only rare cards get unique art, which I understand. Don't like the rarities on the cards though, don't think it fits for how they seem to be used.

Not too sure about the rules for them, my games seem to operate slowly without the cards and I just imagine some players wanting to spend some extra time rereading the card and analyzing their situation before moving on with their turn. I can't imagine it would add too much time, but my thoughts generally are focused on speeding up turns.

I am not sure how much of an advantage a player with the cards would be compared to a character without. Many of the cards are usable in a certain situation, others have some restriction on how you can use the boon, others require a sacrifice, and others include a risk. I would say that the deck certainly boosts the power a bit and that a thoughtfully built deck can be significantly better than that. Just not sure how big the difference in power is.

Overall I like the "gamble" cards more than the others though there are a couple that I really enjoy thematically. I want to try and use the cards in a game, but with modified rules because I don't have enough cards for all my players to play by the suggested rules.

If one wanted, I think that they can be used between d20 systems in a fashion. The closer the game is to D&D the easier it is to use them. You would have to reinterpret what somethings mean on the fly though.

There is another thing that I enjoyed about the packs. Along with the fortune cards in the pack, there is the standard card with advertising on the back, but on the flip side there is a card that you can use for tracking things in your games. For example, the two that I got are an initiative tracker (a PC/NPC/Monster card that has spaces for writing down the Initiative, perception, AC, Fortitude, Reflex, Will, and Name/Description/HP) and a condition tracker (a generic card with space for condition's description, duration, and other information about it). I wouldn't buy the packs specifically for them, but they are a nice extra inside the packs.

That went a lot longer than I had originally intended, but I am avoiding the temptation to avoid culling it. Again I really enjoyed the gift package I got, it really did feel nice to get an unexpected reward for running the Encounters games.

I know that I probably was just very slow to just discovering the Interactive Gamma World Character Sheet, but I recently discovered it, have been having a fun time just playing with it, and wanted to share it with anyone who didn't know about it either.

Party:

• Elf Alchemist 6
• Halfling Fighter 5/Hellknight 1
• Human Ranger 6
• Half-elf Cleric 3/Wizard 3
• Halfling bard (sandman archetype) 5/assassin 1

After a brief warm-up battle for the party I set them against an encounter with a pair of destined kobold sorcerer word casters and some scaly pets (Pteranodon and Deinoychus). The kobolds were set up in a room filled with difficult terrain.

With an alarm tripped by the party, the kobolds had a chance to cast some spells in preparation for the battle (protection from energy (fire), force shield + enhance form (Dexterity), and eagle's splendor on themselves and then fortify on themselves and their three pets.

The party was delayed for a few rounds by the pets, the kobolds took the opportunity to cast invisibility on themselves and then were promptly hit with glitterdust and blinded. The kobolds spent the turn of blindness to cast blur on themselves. I threw a good number of word spells in the following turns, (Large Line + Boosted Burning Flash + Cold Snap, Medium Burst + Frost Fingers, Small Burst + Torture, Single + Force Bolt + Burning Flash. After this the kobold pair were both defeated.

I didn't do a whole lot to prepare for this fight aside form setting up the stat block I set up below. As a consequence I think I defaulted to using more powerful 3rd level word combinations without much thought. Making the words was pretty easy and quick with the notes that I made (On the stat block I marked family name, point costs, and target limitations). Once I figured out the base word that I wanted to use, I found it simple to attach the other words to it, the biggest problem was that I wasn't prepared with any idea of what spells I wanted them to cast before hand.

This next encounter was the third encounter of the day and the party had expended a good chunk of their power in the previous encounters. Down a passageway a conjuration specialist wizard summoned one of his 4th level fire elemental summons to seek out the party. He cast a protective ward (enhancing Constitution) on himself before spending a few rounds summoning a few of his shielded fiendish rats (2nd level spells) to aid the fire elemental that had not returned yet.

Throughout the battle the summons were threatened by the alchemist's dispelling bombs, but only one of them managed to dispel any of the summons. When the party started getting near enough to him, the wizard used his fifth level spell cast shielded servitor V to summon a bearded devil with a force shield. With all it's augmentations (+4 Strength, +4 Constitution from Augment Summoning, and +4 AC from the force shield word), the creature hit the party pretty hard (in part because the fighter had not reached the battle yet leaving the bearded devil fighting the alchemist.

The wizard then cast fire wall separating himself from the rest of the battle. The bard was the first across using a combination of stealth and blur to get through the wall undetected. The wizard then used the scroll of invisibility the next round to hide from anyone that crossed the fire wall. The bard then grabbed at the square the wizard was standing in an attempt to use his sandman power to steal a spell from him. This brought up the question in my mind if he could steal a words of power spell that was prepared. It didn't work though, but the wizard panicked at the touch and fired (and missed) with a corrosive pain spell.

Finally, after the bearded devil was killed, the conjurer then summoned a replacement using his 5th level perfect servitor IV. While it was the same word level, the augmented fiendish wolf was much easier to defeat (and much less dangerous) than the augmented bearded devil.

With the party overcoming his last powerful summon, the wizard took the opportunity to use dimensional steps to escape the battle.

The wizard had a lot of control over the fight, I would really say that the thing that really worked in his favor was that he could summon as a standard action with his servitor words. He was able to quickly send out his summons and replace them if necessary.

There was a comment at the table that his higher level spells were inappropriate for his CR, specifically the fact that he could summon a monster from the fifth level list with +4 AC (single + servitor V + force shield) without requiring more than a 5th level spell slot. I believe that (I may be remembering incorrectly) it was also said that because of these feature (to summon a 5th level creature while also empowering it with a first level spell at no additional increase to level) that the system was inappropriate for PCs. I disagree, but I thought it appropriate to pass on the concern from those players.

Below are a few of the notes that I typed as I was putting together the NPCs and their spells.

Since the only divination words available could not be combined with any other effects, I quickly went with divination as a prohibited school for the wizard. If he needed to detect magic or thoughts, he could easily spend the two spell slots to prepare those spells.

Trying to create something with the barrier words, but kept finding that there wasn't much I could add to them without reducing their duration to instantaneous.

A few of the words, specifically the acid words, should have the (creation) subschool next to them (like the other acid firing spells).

The saving throw of the horror (fear) word should be Fortitude partial instead of Fortitude negates

There wasn't a lot of variety among the 0-level words. There wasn't much I could put together with them.

I specifically avoided the force block word because it couldn't really be combined with any words that I could see (If attached to any of the buff spells, it reduced the duration to a single round) and because it was very likely that anything in the battle already had an armor bonus from some other source.

Noticed shock arc offered a saving throw whether or not it required an attack roll.

There isn't a real point to using heighten on a word spell that I could see.

I didn't notice any rules for creating scrolls, potions, and wands using the words of power including which classes would be able to use them.

Among my current PFS groups, it often seems like the characters aren't even Pathfinder Society members. Instead they are just members of their faction along for the ride so they can complete their faction mission. The worst usually is when a player forgets details about the adventure they are playing in (because it wasn't important for their faction mission) or when a player gets so focused on completing a faction mission that they ignore the actual Pathfinder mission (or leave it for party members to complete).

There are a few PFS scenarios that have missions that exacerbate the problem by having certain faction tell their members to go off and attack the Pathfinder Society. I feel they are incredibly inappropriate for groups that don't want to piss of the Pathfinder Society.

Given my experiences running and playing through these adventures, if a faction mission asked for the character to shoot a Venture-Captain with a crossbow bolt, then that character would be shot a couple of sentences into the adventure preamble every time it was run.

Because of that, I really think that faction missions like the ones above should be absent from all scenarios. The characters are supposed to be members of the Pathfinder Society, not traitors trying to bring it down for their faction.

One thing that another thread popped into my head was the question of if any of the deities had any husbands or wifes (besides Torag). A few seem to be a definite no (Calistria, Cayden Cailean, Shelyn) while a others seem like they would have found some being to spend their lives with. Like Erastil, I find it odd that, given his beliefs, that he hasn't been married. If he is, are they still alive?

I recently have been privileged to play in a scenario for Tier 1-2 with a 1st level character (and a band of the same level). Sadly, several of the encounters were quite difficult.

Throughout this, my biggest thought was of disbelief. I mean, I never thought that they would actually send these things to kill the party.

The issue seems to be that players assume that the game is going to be remotely fair to them. They don't expect to have the Tarrasque charging at them when they start on their mission without a way for them to escape or beat it.

I'm not sure what to do in scenarios I play in now. Should I run at the very first sign of trouble now? Because after this scenario, it feels as if I should make a coward that will ditch the party after the first round when something seems dangerous?

It would make me a complete jerk though, but that is the only way I think my character could have possibly survived this scenario.

The scenario faked me out by pretending to be appropriate for me character. It then stole my character from me because I trusted that the game would be balanced. I want to ask for my character back because if this is how it is, I will just accept the fact that PFS wants me to run from every encounter right when it seems dangerous. If a scenario is broken, there should be a better response than, "well I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do. Your character is dead."

I would like to ask if after a new clarification, errata, or removal of items from Chapter 13 in Guide to Society Play, what options are allowed for those players. What is allowed if a trait goes from legal to not after a guide revision? Can they pick a new trait? Things of that sort.

In my case, one of my regular PFS players has a 4th level monk with newly purchased +1 brass knuckles from Adventurer's Armory and, after a clarification, the damage for the character went from 1d8 to 1d3+1 (with a plus 1 to the attack). Following the correction, he will likely wish to know what options he has.

If he doesn't wish to keep them, does he have to sell them at only half price, or can he get a full refund following the clarification? Or is there some other option available to him?

I just wanted to confirm that in a multi-part scenario (specifically The Devil You Know series) whether you had to use the each player had to use the same character through all the parts, and that it wasn't an option for them to play with one character for the first scenario and with a second character for the rest.

I was just trying to plan my flight and was wondering if there was an estimate or time that the convention events were ended that I had missed.

I would like to confirm whether or not the Untrained restrictions on the 'Trained Only' skills applied to the checks required by Faction Missions.

For example, some mission might require a DC 15 Knowledge (nobility) to make a good impression on some nobles. While any character might be able to make a DC 15 Intelligence check, if the character is not trained in that Knowledge, they wouldn't be able to make the Knowledge check because it is not allowed for untrained characters.

The desire popped into my head recently to run a campaign on the planet Triaxus (of Golarion's system) that takes place over several hundred years with the players taking control of the descendants of the or characters. It would start in a more carefree time as the jungles flourish and eventually, as the group gets higher in level, will become a frozen land.

I'm pretty much set on humans being one of the major races in the area, but I am not decided on how I would describe their appearance or what names they would use.

I was wondering if there any ideas for the other civilized natives of the land. I am generally happy with elves, dwarves, and such, but for this game I would like to avoid them to make the world feel more like a different world.

Another question I have is to ask if there were any suggestions for the exact length of a Triaxus year as well as how it's orbit actually works.
Unless I missed something, a planet going getting as close as Venus and as far away as the gas giants would take about five Earth/Golarion years to make one trip around the Sun assuming an elliptical orbit (as opposed to hundreds of years.
Right now I am planning to describe Triaxus as having an very odd orbit where the gravity of the other planets of the system keep it from traveling the system at a "normal" pace, but I would love another suggestion how this planet works.

I was wondering who else here was going to run or otherwise participate in the upcoming Worldwide D&D Game Day or the Wednesday D&D Encounters?

In the previous version of the Summoner, the eidolon got an ability score boost every 4 Hit Dice (like all creatures that gain HD).

Now, in the current table, it still gets the ability score boosts at the same levels so it doesn't happen at every 4 Hit Dice anymore.

Something has been irritating me a while about the Monster Manuals for a while and I feel compelled to voice my dislike.

The amount of white space bugs me looking through the Monster Manuals. What I'm talking about are the empty sections in a column that show up at the bottom of many pages (Examples from MM: pg 128, pg. 138, pg. 200-201. Examples from MM2: pg. 34, pg. 71, pg. 120-121).

To me, the white space is less appealing than my least favorite art pieces in the books. I would prefer almost anything to the blank space, either more art or more text.

Of course, I'm not sure how reasonable those requests would be in the end, as both would increase the costs, but I want to assume that the costs would be minimal for something that I would think that would improve later Monster Manuals.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I thought now would be about the best time to post it rather than continue to sit on this and do nothing with it.

These are just my various things that I am considering adjusting or bringing into later 4e games I run with reasons I came up with them and would like to hear opinions on them or modifications I should make.

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I like magic items, but I dislike the complete the utter necessity of certain magic items. For example, if a high-level character loses their
high level weapon/implement, and they didn't happen to carry a spare in their bag, their effectiveness in battle drops to nearly nil.

House Rule, It is the Warrior that matters not the Weapon:
As characters increase in power, characters benefit as if they had magic items on them. At 6th level, characters get a +1 enhancement bonus to all defenses, attack rolls, and damage rolls (these do stack with enhancement bonuses from magic weapons). In addtion, for determining the extra damage from a critical, they can deal +1d6 damage instead of using the critical effect of their current magic weapon or implement. At 11th level and every 5 levels after, the enhancement bonus increases by +1 and the critical damage increase by +1d6.
If a power gains an additional +2 bonus for paragon or epic, like the Dragonborn's Dragon Breath, ignore those bonuses.

I think that this would have a minor increase in power and hopefully make more interesting choice for magic items. I'm not sure if that would be the result though.

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For me, neither the Bull Rush or Grab options are especially reasonable choices for players to attempt, their effects are superseded by other powers practically all of the time, making them used sporadically at best. To me, I think that unless I'm going for more damage, the warrior should be using bull rush to knock around foes, and currently, unless they focus a lot, the ability to push something one square while dealing no damage is a significant penalty.

Improved Bull Rush Attack | General Power
At-Will
Standard Action | Melee 1
Special: This power can be used in place of the basic attack at the end of a charge.
Target: One creature
Attack: Constitution vs. Fortitude
Increase to Constitution + 2 vs. Fortitude at 11th level, and to Constitution + 4 vs. Fortitude at 21st level.
Hit: 1d6 + Strength modifier damage, push the target up to a number of squares equal to your Strength modifier, and shift into the space they were in.
Increase damage to 2d6 + Strength modifier at 21st level.

Improved Grab Attack | General Power
At-Will
Standard Action | Melee 1
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. Reflex
Increase to Strength + 2 vs. Reflex at 11th level, and to Strength + 4 vs. Reflex at 21st level.
Hit: 1d6 + Strength modifier damage, and the target is immobilized until it escapes or until the end of your next turn.
Increase damage to 2d6 + Strength modifier at 21st level.
Sustain Minor: The immobilized condition persists and the target takes Strength modifier damage.

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I really do like Rogue's with options with more weapons. While I don't think they should be best with other weapons, I like to keep options open such that unarmed, with an axe, or a spear, a rogue is still viable.

Versatile Rogue
- Prerequisites: Rogue, Sneak Attack class feature
- Benefit: You can wield any weapon you are proficient with to deal Sneak Attack damage and to use rogue powers that require a light blade (you still cannot use throw weapons that don't have the light thrown or heavy thrown property, nor can you use a ranged weapon as a melee weapon). For weapons using this feat, reduce the Sneak Attack damage for one-handed weapons by one die and reduce the Sneak Attack damage for two-handed weapons by two dice. If the weapon has the off-hand property, reduce the damage from Sneak Attack by 1 instead.

I don't think it is more powerful than any single feat I've seen grant a similar ability. There are racial feats that do this for one specific weapon, but those are usually military weapons that the race is automatically proficient with and this does still require more energy to be spent on proficiency. If it works how I like, it should be as good as those feats and make additional similar feats unnecessary for my game.

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Overall, I feel that the books tend not to favor many using ranged weapons, off-hand, from the Player's Handbook and Player's Handbook 2 the only classes that have any support for the ranged weapons for powers that use them are the Ranger and the Rogue (who is limited to the crossbows and light blades). While these options are reasonable options most of the time, there are times that I want to play a Cleric, Fighter, or Paladin with a ranged weapon and I find the current options for supporting this to be lacking. I have no issue with a class being better with one type of weapons, but I still like having the other option available.

Point Blank Archer
- Benefit: When wielding a ranged weapon that you are proficient with, you can make attacks with it as if it were a melee weapon with the Reach property.

Using this doesn't change the role the Fighter plays. He gets no exceptional abilities at any range, he still works best by being right next to his enemies in order to pin them down and he still uses Strength-based attacks (just with a bow). In this case the bow wielding Fighter could still multi-class into Ranger and have the advantage of having Fighter powers for melee and Ranger powers for long range.

Compared to Opportunistic Archer from Martial Power, I would say that my suggested feat is exceptionally more powerful, but that doesn't really say much as Opportunistic Archer is extremely weak in allowing you to actually use it and the benefit is not exceptional to begin with.

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One of my favorite things is terrain, when used I believe it really creates a positive influence during a battle. However, one issue I do have with terrain is that most people I have been playing with have been treating the terrain as a bad thing, preferring to often just stay away if they can take any sort of defensive position, and have been considering it to be an immutable object. I think this is part due to the limited phrasing of most terrain. For example, a set of plant life around the ground may be poisonous to those who travel though it and would list effects on creature that pass by, it will be less likely to informing one how easy it is for a player to set fire to it or cut it down.

The system I would like is to be able to use skills to alter the terrain. From a Wizard setting fire to dangerous terrain to a Barbarian ripping a pillar from the ground and using it as a very long reach weapon against that annoying flying creature. I would like to have some idea how I want to react to any suggestion they want to attempt. I know that I want to set benchmarks for what a certain DC should effect, but I'm not sure of much more than that.

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I can see that what some people mean when they say that monster attack bonuses and defenses scale faster than the player's own numbers, but I'm not sure if I like either the way masterwork armors or feats with exceptionally large bonuses solve the issue.

Instead I'm considering a system where characters get magic item-like abilities every few levels to augment the characters offenses and defenses. Granting resistances to psychic damage, ability to deal fire damage instead your normal type, or the ability to resist the effects of being dominated. This could be used in a game with less magical items as well.

So far all I imagine for this is that there would be the option to pick a new ability every few levels, and abilities would scale and could have prerequisites based on level, class, race, or build. Given the number of options I would imagine this would need, this has fallen by the wayside in preference for simpler to implement changes.

I'm currently a player in my 4e group, but I will be shifting back into the GM's seat within a few weeks. So I will likely have to deal with this power the party's Invoker revealed the newest ability that she had gained from channeling her deity's power.

She conjured a flag onto the field and announced that everyone within line of sight to it would get a +7 to all defenses as long as she sustained it.

My immediate reaction was disbelief and a request to see the power since this would render all of the attacks against us useless. The power is "Pennant of Heaven's Armies" [Invoker Utility 16, from Divine Power] and that is exactly what it says (plus a bit more).

So, lacking official errata, I'm wondering how to deal with it without being heavy handed. What tactics I can use in any combat without making it so her power isn't rendered completely useless or make it seem as if every enemy seems to be aware of her ability. I could also reduce the power of the ability (by reducing the bonus, reducing how easy it is to use, reducing who is affected by it, or just even naming the bonus rather than leave it unnamed), but I'm not exactly sure where to reduce it to.

The answer I have to it right now is to just go after the fact that it only provides allies the bonus and focus all the enemies attacks on her. Even then, I'm not sure how effective that would be with the rest of the party around to defend her.

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And to try and counter any of the down-ed-ness of the post, a quick comment about one of the rounds of the battle that I found entertaining.

I was playing a Dwarven Warden eschewing the bonuses from the pennant (to give the DM a reasonable target to hit) and was surrounded on all sides by murderous goblins, vicious humans, and cackling gnolls.

Seeing the opportunity for carnage, the party's own goblin artificer dropped one of his bombs right into the space I was standing to strike all the enemies at once. It didn't detonate then, the timer needed to wind down or it needed to be struck for that to happen.

That was when the Sorcerer came in, also seeing the opportunity, he threw his magic explosion of lightning centered on me. It struck me along with several of the enemies and it connected with the bomb as well. The bomb then exploded also hitting me and several of the enemies.

It had seemed that this round, my own allies were as great a threat to my life as the enemies I was facing.

I felt very grateful for when it came to the Deva Invoker's turn, because, he player turned to me and asked, "Are you bloodied?" I was happy that someone in the party was thinking of my welfare and that she would expend some ability to my wounds. I answered yes happily.

She responded somewhat gleefully, "Good, I get a bonus to damage!"

My head hit the table.

I'm just curious if there is an issue with my latest order that is causing to remain pending rather than shipping.

A little way back I made a number of monsters as I sent my party against menacing Metal Men following me getting a bit into thinking about running adventures in Golarion's Numeria. I just ended up inputing them into my computer and decided to post them here before I forgot about them. I was reasonably happy with them (although I really don't like the wording on the Veenin's grenade related abilities), but I would still love to hear if there is something I could or should do to improve them.

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Zerun | Level 10 Soldier
Medium Natural Animate | XP 500
Initiative +6 Senses Perception +7; darkvision
HP 104; Bloodied 52
AC 26; Fortitude 23, Reflex 22, Will 20
Speed 6
M Slam (Standard; at-will) * Force
+17 vs. AC; 1d8+5 force damage, and slide target 2 squares.
r Force Cannon (Standard; at-will) * Force
Ranged 5; +15 vs. Fortitude; 1d6+5 force damage, and push target 2 squares and knock them prone.
c Gravity Pull (Standard; recharge 56) * Force
Close burst 2; +15 vs. Fortitude; 1d8+5 force damage, and pull target up to 2 squares.
Alignment Neutral Languages Common, Hallit
Skills Athletics +15
Str 21 (+10) Dex 8 (+4) Wis 14 (+7)
Con 16 (+8) Int 18 (+9) Cha 11 (+5)

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Veenin | Level 12 Artillery
Medium Natural Animate | XP 700
Initiative +6 Senses Perception +10; darkvision
HP 95; Bloodied 47
AC 24; Fortitude 23, Reflex 26, Will 24
Speed 6
M Slam (Standard; at-will)
+19 vs. AC; 1d8+6 damage
r Crystallizing Ray (Standard; at-will) * Cold
Ranged 10; +17 vs. Fortitude; 1d8+6 cold damage, and the target is slowed (save ends). First Failed Save: The target is immobilized instead of slowed (save ends). Second Failed Save: The target is petrified (no save).
c Lightning Cannon (Standard; recharge 456) * Lightning
Close blast 5; +15 vs. Reflex; 4d8+6 lightning damage.
r Launch Grenade (Standard; when you have no active grenade recharge 6) * Conjuration
Ranged 10; +17 vs. Reflex; 1d8+6 damage, and a grenade appears in single space occupied by the target and is attached to them. As long as the grenade is attached to the target, it moves with them. The target can use the escape action to break free (vs. the grenade's defenses). Miss: The grenade is placed in a square occupied by the target, but is unattached. Effect: This effect does not end if the grenade leaves the Veenin's range. The Veenin can end this effect and destroy the grenade as a minor action.
Detonate Grenade (Standard; at-will, requires grenade) * Fire
Make the following attack centered on the Veenin's grenade within 10 squares. Burst 5; +15 vs. Reflex (automatic hit and crit on target attached to grenade); 4d8+6 fire damage. Miss: Half damage.
Alignment Neutral Languages Common, Hallit
Str 14 (+8) Dex 11 (+6) Wis 19 (+10)
Con 17 (+9) Int 22 (+12) Cha 12 (+7)

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Zununes | Level 16 Skirmisher (Leader)
Medium Natural Animate | XP 1,400
Initiative +12 Senses Perception +13; darkvision
HP 157; Bloodied 78
AC 30; Fortitude 27, Reflex 29, Will 27
Speed 8, teleport 6
M Dagger (Standard; at-will) * Weapon
+21 vs. AC; 2d4+7 damage, and ongoing 5 damage and target takes a -2 penalty on saving throws (save ends both).
R Dagger (Standard; at-will) * Weapon
Ranged 5/10; +21 vs AC; 2d4+7 damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends).
Phasing Blade (Standard; at-will)
The Zununes makes a basic attack, teleports adjacent to the target of the attack, and can make another basic attack.
Site-to-Site Teleportation (Minor; recharge 56)
The Zununas teleports an ally within 10 squares to any other unoccupied square within 10 squares.
Alignment Neutral Languages Common, Hallit
Str 16 (+11) Dex 15 (+10) Wis 21 (+13)
Con 21 (+13) Int 24 (+15) Cha 14 (+10)
Equipment 8 daggers

Slorp slorp slorp

I’ve been playing with different terrain effects in my games to see how they interact with the PCs and the monsters within a battle. I have been trying to make the combats feel more in line with the their tier by adding new and more fantastic terrain features, these are a few of the ones I have used.

Slope: Acts as difficult terrain, but only going up the slope. Had a bit of an effect, but was about as interesting as difficult terrain in that single combat I used it. The terrain kept the ranged characters relatively close to the bottom of the pit, which was what I wanted.
Damaging Terrain: A creature takes 5 damage of a certain type per tier when they enter or start their turn in this square. I have generally liked this sort of terrain in my combats when wielding monsters capable of forcing the party into them. The party also has been enjoying them for throwing enemies into them and using fighter abilities to hold them there. They tended to make a bit more motion as creatures move out of the terrain and shove their enemies into it.
Warped Space: It costs no movement to enter or be forced through (push, pull, slide) a square of this terrain. Another interesting terrain. I considered having it affect power ranges, bursts, and blasts, but I thought that might be getting way too complicated as the party would be doing a lot more thinking of where to position those effects. The party and I had a lot of fun with this one, managing to pull off a number of silly tricks in combat. This also caused a lot more movement to occur on the areas near this terrain as creatures used it to make quick jumps to out maneuver the adversaries. There were some issues with not counting the squares in movement however, it seems I and others got into the habit of counting out each square. It got much easier when people began just sliding their figures across this areas rather than moving the figure 1 square at a time. (Although it became a bit less mystical in my mind when the party rogue used the areas to aid him in spending his last turn to take a victory lap around the battlefield.)

Has anyone else made any interesting terrain features or suggestions for modifying my terrain features?

I can see it in his avatar's eyes!

Help!

I wondering if the art in these will be all new or have some pieces reused from other products.

The Putrid Temple of Volner Tain
This was once a temple of Erastil built in the earlier days of the city, but has been long since abandoned for newly constructed chapels as the town has grown into a sprawling city. Since it was abandoned, the area around the temple has been corrupted by poverty, crime, and now the thrice-damned Volner Tain. He hopes to be able to use this battered temple as a staging ground for a massive plague of madness that will spread to the outlying areas so quickly that no response will be effective enough to stop the devastation it will leave in it’s wake. He looks forward to cities full of people turning weapons on one another as their sanity disappears.

Until that particular task is ready to put into motion, he uses this as a base of operations for when he needs to gather materials and minions to aid him in his various plots. Tain often leaves the base to his servants to maintain while he enacts plans across the area, returning only to rest, restock, and otherwise prepare for his next move.

Within the week Tain will have set up the final preparations necessary to begin the horrific spread of disease after which Tain plans to move on to leave the plague to either succeed or fail on it’s own. He has already begun looking for new locations to deliver pain and suffering to.

1. Temple Exterior
The wooden frame of this building is rotten and warped. While stronger wood has replaced portions of the building, much of the wood still looks ill suited to hold anything up. Solid wooden plank replace areas once left aside for windows blocking the view from the outside.
Tain leaves no servants patrolling the streets for fear of accidentally drawing too much attention that would put a halt to his masterful plague. The blocked out windows prevent most parties from seeing inside the building, as well as stopping Tain’s servants from seeing the party approach.

Most of the other worn down buildings in the area are not used and this is not a heavily traveled road, at any time on average there are dozen people within a hundred feet of the temple.

Characters can hear the sounds of laughter coming from the ill inside the temple with a DC 15 Perception check.

2. Diseased Temple Hall (CR 13)
The sound of flies drones through the building, their focus on the filth residing across the aisles. In the northwest corner of the room, there is a pile of destroyed benches and up above there is a long wooden ledge holding up wooden and stone statues that watch the temple floor. The remaining benches face the northern wall where a faded and cracked painting of a tranquil scene of people performing tasks to maintain a small village. It shows several men out plowing fields while others hunt and bring back fresh game. Another portion displays women of the town caring for children and cooking meals. At the center of it all is a cleric of Erastil guiding and encouraging all of the folk to complete their tasks. While the passage of time has caused most of the damage to the painting, there are many cuts where someone has attacked to people within. Special attention was paid to the cleric as his eyes have been gouged out and large hole is left where his heart would be.

The ceiling rises high above to the floor to height of twenty feet in all but the front of the room where the wooden ledge lowers the height to ten feet.

The door that leads into the room in the back (Area 3), is obscured by the pile of broken benches. A DC 15 Perception check allows a character to find the door under the pile of rubble. A full-round action is enough to clear enough of the pile to open the door and enter that room.

Creatures: The half a dozen insane laughing humans resting here currently are all infected with cackle fever (PFRPG Beta 391) given to them by diseased invisible stalkers Volner has called. Thee daemons of disease have infused the their essence into these invisible stalkers allowing to act as carriers of many diseases that do not affect them so that they can spread them among mortals. Once Volner finishes decimating the city’s ability to treat a wide spread epidemic he will release them on the town, for now though they wander the temple floor infecting those that rest here. A pair of leukodaemons watches the progress of the disease from the ledges above the ground (Area 4). The invisible stalkers and leukodaemons attack if they see somebody attempting to treat the disease, they perceive anyone that seems to be able to see the invisible stalkers, or a group of well armed people attempting to progress into rooms further into temple.

The invisible stalkers attack anyone unable to see them, while the leukodaemons above focus their attacks on the other members of the party. The leukodaemons like to stay above, but will pursue if the party attempts to move into deeper rooms within the temple. Both sets of creatures fight the characters to the death.

Diseased Invisible Stalkers (4) CR 7
NE Large elemental (air, evil, extraplanar)
hp 52 (MM 160)
Melee 2 slams +10 (2d6+4) or diseased air +9 (cackle fever)
===== Special Abilities =====
Diseased Air (Ex) As a standard action, a diseased invisible stalker can make a touch attack to deliver cackle fever.

Leukodaemons (2) CR 9
hp 95 (Pathfinder #8 80)

Infected Humans (6) CR 1/2
Human commoner 1
N Medium humanoid
Init +0; Senses Perception -3
AC 10, touch 10. flat-footed 10
hp 3 (1d6+3)
Fort +0, Ref +0, Will -3
===== Offense =====
Spd 30 ft.
===== Tactics =====
Before Combat They prefer to lie back and laugh due to the diseases’ progression.
During Combat Once combat start they panic and retreat from anything that approaches them.
Morale These humans don’t think to retreat from combat until forced. If attacked they run out of the building.
Base Statistics Unaffected by cackle fever these humans stats change as follows:
Senses Perception +0
Will +0
Wis 11
===== Statistics =====
Str 10, Dex 11, Con 11, Int 10, Wis 5, Cha 10
Base Atk +0; CMB +0
Feats Endurance
Skills Climb +4, Handle Animal +4, Swim +4
Languages Common

3. Destroyed Room
These rooms have been torn apart. The remains of a smashed desk and a scattered straw bed lie on the floor. A hole in the deteriorating ceiling opens up onto a platform above. On the eastern side of the room, the floor has been broken open to reveal a set of stone stairs leading down into the ground. Across the passageway’s walls are many scratches and claw marks of some sort of beast.

Trash and rubbish are all that remains in this room.

When he first arrived Volner ordered his xorn to dig into the ground after which he used stone shape to form a rudimentary staircase.

4. Leukodaemon’s Roost
Refuse and squirming maggots cover the platform. Near edge rest a few animal statues are attached to the platform that look down over the putrid temple floor and damaged benches.

The leukodaemon spend most of their time hiding here watching the humans below slowly go mad from the progression of their disease.

5. Underground Cavern (CR 12)
The stairs open up into a large stone cavern with larger pillar of rock in the center holding up the ceiling. Piles of rotten flesh pepper the stone floor and four tunnels go on for several feet before ending abruptly while a fifth tunnel continues toward the south. Across all of the stone surfaces are thousands of marks made by creatures clawing at the rock face.

The original temple did not have enough space for Volner to hide and plot so after he arrived he began work on creating caverns where he could store important materials and hide his work. The walls and ceiling are rough and marred, but the floor is relatively smooth thanks to several stone shape spells.

Creatures: In order to quickly form this underground base Volner called for servants that could dig tunnels through rock. Volner gained a group of Xorn corrupted by daemons of famine. Now they have an unquenchable hunger that drives them to consume all the minerals they can find. The deamon influence has affected their taste causing them to prefer bones above all other meals. While Volner has given them several bodies to feed off, their main food source has been the rock around them. They have eaten the broken and consumed the rock in order to create the underground rooms. Aside from their emaciated appearance these xorn look normal for their race. Despite their hunger, they remain in this cavern rather than seek out tastier food sources because of their fear of Volner Tain’s wrath.

A single xorn works at each of the dead end tunnels digging when the characters come. If they detect the characters with tremorsense, they earth glide underground and wait for them to enter the cavern. They move and rise out of the rock next to the characters once they have moved more than ten feet from the stairs. These xorn are driven by their hunger and do not retreat from combat.

Starving Elder Xorn (4) CR 8
NE Large outsider (earth, evil, extraplanar)
hp 130 (MM 260)
Melee bite +21 (3d8+7) and 3 claws +19 (1d6+3)
Special Attacks improved grab
===== Special Abilities =====
Improved Grab (Ex) To use this ability, a starving elder xorn must hit with a bite attack. It can then attempt to use the grapple combat maneuver (CMB +23) on the hit creature as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. While grappling, the xorn cannot use a bite attack. When performing the Damage action in a grapple the xorn deals lethal damage equal to its bite damage.

6. Tain’s Chapel (CR 17)
The tunnel expands into a cavern with a plain stone alter at the south end. Throughout the room are pillar covered in dozens of carvings depicting faces of creatures in screaming in agony. In several areas writing has been engraved into the wall.

This is the living quarters of Volner Tain and the return point of his word of recall so that he can quickly return if events draw him away from his lair that day. Currently, if he casts word of recall he teleports just north of the altar.

Carved into the walls are various notes in Common taken by Volner, each noting hatred for a particular deity and listing a preferred method of destroying their followers. Volner uses these to focus his desire to destroy whenever his devotion to his cause might waver.

A DC 30 Perception check to search near the stone alter reveals a secret compartment that usually holds Volner’s written plans on the plot to spread the plague.

Creatures: If not alerted of intruders Volner Tain works at the altar going through maps of the area and going through notes of various plots he has in motion. If he hears anyone in coming from the other room Volner’s first concern is to gather the notes and place them within a secret compartment next to the altar before preparing for combat by casting air walk, invisibility, and shield of faith. He then takes a position behind a pillar and waits until the party are approaching the room to cast divine power followed engaging the party with his standard combat tactics. Volner is more cautious here as the notes on his various running plots and if they got into the wrong hands his plans would be severely disrupted. Since casting word of recall would take Volner Tain to this room, he does not use it to retreat from battle.

Volner Tain CR 17
hp 123 (RPG Superstar 2009 Round 3)

Derinogen, Aristocratic Mage
Male human aristocrat 2/transmuter 5
Description: Derinogen is a handsome Taldan noble in the prime of his life. His short dark brown hair is rarely ever out of place and complimented by a short-trimmed goatee. He is always dressed in fine regalia with an elegant rapier at his side and accompanied by the scent of exotic perfumes.
All of this is a façade that hides the death he has caused to maintain his status among his peers. Secretly he is taking several types of medication to augment his natural abilities. Derinogen’s experiments have killed and maimed many in the progress of discovering what treatments would be beneficial to him.
To aid his schemes he has used his family’s connections and money to finance a business buying, transporting, and selling various medicines. This allows him to surreptitiously gather many of the materials he needs while funding his experiments.
Motivations/Goals: Derinogen is starved for any sort of attention and has found that, among nobility, nothing grants a man more attention than a handsome face, a swift blade, and a silver tongue. While he had some skill in all of these areas Derinogen required much more. Unfortunately, while he excelled at magical studies, training these abilities took too much effort and moved too slowly for him. Therefore, he turned to creating elixirs and potions to provide more immediate results. To protect himself from unknown side effects he took to testing enhancements on unsuspecting people causing some to die and leaving others crippled.
Schemes/Plots/Adventure Hooks: Derinogen has paid mercenaries to spread several treatments among the people of a small village nearby with the hope of discovering a life extending elixir or at least something useful for maintaining a youthful appearance. Recently this has caused several of the people in town to start rapidly aging. It is up to the party to find the cause and cure before it claims any lives or begins to affect more of the village.
He has just kidnapped another victim off the street in an effort to find something to expand a human’s mental capabilities. Derinogen has already killed half a dozen of his test subjects attempting to improve memory, enhance oratory skills, and awaken the hidden potential to read the minds of others. A companion of the missing person asks the party find the missing person. If the party does not act quickly, they may find the test subject disabled or killed.
The party has come close enough to Derinogen’s schemes for him to believe that they threaten his standing among other nobles. To remove them as a threat he hires assassins to kill the party. If the party accuses him publicly, Derinogen calls them liars and attempts to rally other nobles against them so the city will see the party as villains if they attack him directly. If they wish to take the noble down while maintaining their status, they will need to gather support from other nobles and city officials.

Derinogen, Aristocratic Mage CR 5 [-2 NPC with class levels, +2 aristocrat, +5 wizard]
NE Medium humanoid (human)
Init +3 [+3 Dex]; Senses Perception +0 []
===== Defense =====
AC 17 [10 base, +4 armor, +3 Dex], touch 13 [10 base, +3 Dex], flat-footed 14 [10 base, +4 armor]; (+4 [+4 mage armor] armor, +3 Dex)
hp 48 (2d8+5d6+22)
Fort +3 [+1 wizard, +1 Con, +1 cloak], Ref +5 [+1 wizard, +3 Dex, +1 cloak], Will +8 [+3 aristocrat, +4 wizard, +1 cloak]
Defensive Abilities brooch of shielding
===== Offense =====
Spd 60 ft. [30 ft. base, +30 ft. expeditious retreat enhancement]
Melee +1 rapier +7 [+3 base atk, +3 Dex, +1 enhancement] (1d6 [-1 Str, +1 enhancement]/18-20)
Special Attacks telekinetic fist
Spells Prepared (CL 5th [+5 wizard], melee touch +6 [+3 base atk, +3 Dex], ranged touch +6 [+3 base atk, +3 Dex])
3rd--ray of exhaustion (DC 18 [10 base, +3 level, +5 Int]), slow (DC 18 [10 base, +3 level, +5 Int])
2nd--eagle’s splendor*, fox’s cunning, minor image, scorching ray
1st--expeditious retreat* (2 [+2 wizard school power]), jump, mage armor, shocking grasp (2)
0--detect poison, mending, ray of frost, touch of fatigue (DC 15 [10 base, +5 Int])
*bonus spells from arcane school
Prohibited Schools abjuration, enchantment
===== Tactics =====
Before Combat Given time to prepare, Derinogen casts mage armor, fox’s cunning, and then expeditious retreat.
During Combat Derinogen starts combat by casting slow on as many enemies as possible and then casts mage armor if it is not already active. He likes to use ranged spells like ray of exhaustion and scorching ray on characters that prefer to fight in melee and use melee abilities like shocking grasp and his rapier on characters that fight at a range. Derinogen drinks the elixir of Calistria’s grace if he finds himself outnumbered more than four to one or after taking 10 points of damage in a battle.
Morale Derinogen has no intention of letting himself die, if brought below 16 hit points he drinks his potion of invisibility before running away, casting expeditious retreat to hasten his escape if necessary. He prefers to let the city guard or assassins deal with opponents that have defeated him.
Base Statistics If Derinogen is not under the effects of expeditious retreat, fox’s cunning, or mage armor, his stats change as follows:
AC 13 [10 base, +3 Dex], flat-footed 10 [10 base]; (+3 Dex)
Spd 30 ft. [30 ft. base]
Spells Prepared
3rd--ray of exhaustion (DC 16 [10 base, +3 level, +3 Int]), slow (DC 16 [10 base, +3 level, +3 Int])
0--touch of fatigue (DC 13 [10 base, +3 Int])
Int 17 [15 base, +2 racial]
Skills Appraise +8 [+2 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 Int], Craft (alchemy) +13 [+7 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 Int], Craft (painting) +8 [+2 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 Int], Knowledge (arcana) +10 [+4 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 Int], Knowledge (nobility and royalty) +10 [+4 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 Int], Spellcraft +13 [+7 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 Int]
===== Statistics =====
Str 8 [8 base], Dex 17 [14 base, +1 ability score increase, +2 specialist enhancement], Con 13 [13 base], Int 21 [15 base, +2 racial, +4 fox’s cunning enhancement], Wis 10 [10 base], Cha 12 [12 base]
Base Atk +3 [+1 aristocrat, +2 wizard]; CMB +6 [+3 base atk, +3 Dex]
Feats Agile Maneuvers, Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item, Eschew Materials, Scribe Scroll, Toughness, Weapon Finesse
Skills Acrobatics +8 [+2 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 Dex], Appraise +10 [+2 ranks, +3 class skill, +5 Int], Bluff +11 [+7 ranks, +3 class skill, +1 Cha], Craft (alchemy) +15 [+7 ranks, +3 class skill, +5 Int], Craft (painting) +10 [+2 ranks, +3 class skill, +5 Int], Diplomacy +8 [+4 ranks, +3 class skill, +1 Cha], Heal +3 [+3 ranks], Knowledge (arcana) +12 [+4 ranks, +3 class skill, +5 Int], Knowledge (nobility and royalty) +12 [+4 ranks, +3 class skill, +5 Int], Ride +8 [+2 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 Dex], Spellcraft +15 [+7 ranks, +3 class skill, +5 Int], Swim +4 [+2 ranks, +3 class skill, -1 Str]
Languages Celestial, Common, Elven, Osiriani
SQ Arcane bond (+1 rapier), specialist bonus (+2 [+2 wizard] Dex)
Combat Gear +1 rapier, elixir of Calistria’s grace, potion of invisibility, pearl of power 1st-level spell; Other Gear brooch of shielding, cloak of protection +1, signet ring, 19 pp, 10 gp

Elixir of Calistria’s Grace
Aura faint transmutation; CL 3rd
Slot --; Price 200 gp; Weight --
===== Description =====
After drinking this elixir you gain exceptional agility at the expense of your health. You gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves and you begin taking 2 points of bleed damage. If the bleed damage is healed, you lose the dodge bonuses from this item.
In addition, as an effect of consuming this elixir you automatically contract Calistria’s vengeance, a non-contagious affliction (pg. 389) that acts like a disease with the following effects. Save Fortitude DC 15; Frequency 1 hour/1 day; Effect 1d4 Con damage; Cure 2 consecutive saves
If you are either immune to the disease or bleed damage, you cannot benefit from this elixir.
===== Construction =====
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, cat’s grace, creator must have 3 ranks in the Craft (alchemy) skill; Cost 100 gp

Derinogen, Aristocratic Mage
Male human aristocrat 2/wizard 8
Description: Derinogen is a wizard of moderate power that appears to be a handsome Taldan male in his mid-thirties. His short dark brown hair is rarely ever out of place and complemented by his short-trimmed goatee. He is always dressed in fine regalia with an elegant rapier at his side and is coated in so much perfume that it is likely that you shall detect the fragrant aroma that surrounds him long before you ever see his face.
All of this is a façade that hides the death he has caused to maintain his status among those around him. Secretly he is taking several types of medication to augment his limited natural abilities. In the process of discovering which would be beneficial to him, many were killed and maimed while being used as test subjects for more deadly substances.

Motivations/Goals: Derinogen has been starved for attention for most of his life, but was devoid of the natural talent that would lead people to care about anything he accomplished. The progress made with training moved too slowly for him, so he began turning to elixirs, potions, and ointments to substitute for actual skill. To insure his own safety from negative effects he first tested enhancements on unsuspecting people causing few deaths and left several others crippled. He succeeded however and soon he was all that was talked about among the upper class in the city. He was more eloquent when delivering speeches, more graceful displaying his dueling ability, and just more interesting.
However, unless he continually improves he quickly becomes yesterday’s news. So while he attends the balls and other fashionable events in the city, he continues to find new ways to enhance himself. This was his primary reason for studying the exceptional art of wizardry. He wished to magically augment his form and mind in tandem with his other medicinal supplements.

Schemes/Plots/Adventure Hooks: Several men have been bribed by Derinogen to use a small town nearby as a test bed for various alchemical concoctions that the mage is currently curious about. This has caused most of the town to seemingly contract various illnesses. A few have already died as a result and many more are likely to die if the source of the illness isn’t discovered and stopped.
Derinogen is currently seeking out test subjects that he can hold in his home and perform more extensive tests on. He has already kidnapped and killed a small number of peasants for previous experiments. His latest captive is a NPC close to the PCs and if the ally is not saved soon there will be another casualty to Derinogen’s vanity.
Derinogen knows or thinks the adventurers have found out that he has been using elixirs to improve his abilities. If they reveal this Derinogen’s reputation among his peers would be devastated. He intends to have the party dealt with before that happens so they do not interfere any of his upcoming engagements.

Aura moderate evocation; CL 6th
Slot hands; Price 14,000 gp; Weight –
DESCRIPTION
Infused with the power of the wind these gloves allow their wearer to direct the surrounding air with incredible force. They grant a +2 bonus on bull rush attempts and as a standard action, the wearer can perform ranged bull rush from up to 55 feet away. This uses the same rules as a normal bull rush except for every 10 feet the CMB check receives a cumulative –2 penalty and wearer cannot move with the target.
By channeling ki, a monk can increse the power of the wind created dramatically. The wearer as a standard action can spend one point from his ki pool to cause a blast of air traveling at 50 mph in a 60-foot line. He then makes a ranged bull rush against every creature in the area. This wind puts out any small, unprotected flames, like torches, within the line and even has a 50% chance to put out small flames that are protected, like the flame in a lantern.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, gust of wind; Skill Craft (cloth weaving) Cost 7,000 gp

While I am fine with assassins without spells, I like the idea of them having the choice between having spells or some other ability, similar to the spell-less ranger variants out there.

Here are a few of my idea of what this ability or chain of abilities might be.

Grant a bonus on a skill check involving the target for a period of time after examining them for three rounds (which is necessary to perform a death attack). Disguise checks when disguise yourself as the target, survival checks to track the target, perception checks to detect the target, and so on.

Abilities that grant a specific boon on one attack against a target made before the end of the assassin’s next turn if they spend a standard action to examine the target (even in battle). Attack the target’s touch AC, leave a blow that continues to bleed, deal extra damage on the hit, a bonus on a combat maneuver used against the target

The list of trademarks on the nostore page hasn't seem to been up updated in quite a while, a number of the mentions are outdated looking out the list on the front page and such.

For fun I worked through the weapons in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover to see if I could make 4e equivalents in case I ever ran into a situation where I would need them.

Overall I attempted to make them reasonably balanced compared to the weapons in the Player's Handbook, and tried my best to make it so that none of the weapons were exactly the same as a weapon in the Player's Handbook.

How do they look? Are there any that I made too powerful? Any suggestions for improvement? Does the formatting on this post make it look unreadable?

SIMPLE MELEE WEAPONS
One-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Wooden stake +2 1d4 5/10 1 gp 1 lb. Spear / Light thrown

MILITARY MELEE WEAPONS
One-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Dogslicer +3 1d6 - 5 gp 1 lb. Light blade / Off-hand, tranform broken dogslicer (1)
Broken Dogslicer +2 1d4 5/10 5 gp 1 lb. Light blade / Off-hand, light thrown, tranform dogslicer
Starknife +3 1d4 6/12 25 gp 3 lb. Light blade / Light thrown
War razor +3 1d4 - 10 gp 1 lb. Light blade / Off-hand, high crit
Klar +2 1d4 - 10 gp 6 lb. Light blade / Off-hand, shield 1

Two-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Earth breaker +2 1d10 - 30 gp 14 lb. Hammer / High crit
Horsechopper +2 1d8 - 10 gp 7 lb. Axe, polearm / Reach, small
Ogre hook +2 1d12 - 25 gp 10 lb. Pick / High crit
Osirian khopesh +2 1d10 - 20 gp 8 lb. Heavy blade / High crit

SUPERIOR MELEE WEAPONS
One-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Bich'hwa +3 1d4 - 5 gp 2 lb. Light blade, monk / Off-hand
Flying talon +3 1d4 - 15 gp 3 lb. Flail, light blade / Off-hand, reach
Tri-bladed katar +2 1d8 - 5 gp 2 lb. Light blade / High crit
Maulaxe +2 1d6 5/10 25 gp 5 lb. Axe, Hammer / Off-hand, heavy thrown
Pata +3 2d4 - 15 gp 3 lb. Light blade / -
Sawtooth Sabre +2 1d6 - 30 gp 2 lb. Light blade / Off-hand, high crit, versatile
Thorn bracer +3 1d6 - 30 gp 3 lb. Unarmed / Off-hand
Aldori dueling sword +3 1d6 - 25 gp 3 lb. Light blade, heavy blade / Versatile
Falcata +2 1d8 - 15 gp 4 lb. Axe, heavy blade / High crit
Temple sword +3 1d8 - 20 gp 4 lb. Heavy blade, monk / -
Urumi +2 1d8 - 30 gp 3 lb. Flail / Reach

Two-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Elven curved blade +3 2d6 - 25 gp 7 lb. Heavy blade / -
Bladed scarf +3 1d6 - 10 gp 2 lb. Light blade / Reach

SIMPLE RANGED WEAPONS
One-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Blowgun +2 1d4 5/10 2 gp 1 lb. Sling / Load free, damage poison

SUPERIOR RANGED WEAPONS
One-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Shoanti bola +2 1d4 5/10 15 gp 2 lb. Flail / Heavy thrown

Two-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Double crossbow +2 1d8 15/30 40 gp 18 lb. Crossbow / Load move, capacity 2, multi-shot
Thorn bow +2 1d8 10/20 30 gp 2 lb. Bow / Load free, high crit, small

One-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Blunderbuss +2 2d6 3/6 520 gp 5 lb. Firearm / Load move, versatile, explosive 2, expensive 2
Pistol +3 1d6 15/30 520 gp 4 lb. Firearm / Load minor, explosive 1, expensive 2
Revolver +3 1d6 15/30 520 gp 5 lb. Firearm / Load minor, capacity 5, explosive 2, expensive 2

Two-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Group / Properties
Musket +2 1d8 20/40 520 gp 9 lb. Firearm / Load move, small, explosive 2, expensive 2
Rifle +2 1d8 30/60 680 gp 8 lb. Firearm / Load minor, high crit, explosive 1, expensive 3
Scattergun +2 2d6 6/12 680 gp 8 lb. Firearm / Load minor, capacity 2, explosive 1, expensive 3

Transform: This property describes a weapon that can be quickly modified to become another weapon. The weapon name that follows is the weapon it can become. During a short rest you can decide to change this weapon into the listed weapon. If a number (or number range) is given the weapon if forced to become the listed weapon when that number is rolled on an attack roll.

Shield: A shield weapon also functions as a shield. Like other shields it needs to be strapped on like a shield to be used. The hand wielding the weapon can't be used for any other task. It provides the following number as a shield bonus to AC and Reflex defense. If used in an attack, this weapon stops providing a shield bonus to AC and Reflex defense until the beginning of your next turn.

Capacity: A projectile weapon with this property can be loaded with multiple shots before being fired. For example, a weapon with capacity 2 can have two load actions taken on it, it then can be fired twice before needing to be reloaded. If a power allows you to hit multiple targets, the use of that power only results in the weapon having one less projectile. The power still requires the additional projectiles, they are just replaced during the use of the power.

Multi-Shot: A multi-shot weapon takes advantage of being loaded with more than one projectile. When fired it launches all loaded projectiles at the target dealing an additional [W] damage for each loaded projectile beyond the first. If a power allows you to hit multiple targets, the additional damage only applies to the first target.

Damage: This property indicates that the damage this weapon deals is not normal damage. Instead this weapon does the following type of damage, when it would normally do normal damage. For example, a weapon with damage poison would deal poison damage. If a power deals non-normal damage, this property does not change that non-normal damage.

Expensive: Expensive weapons cost much more than normal weapons. When assigning this weapon as treasure, treat it as if the item’s level is increased by the indicated value for the purpose of determining cost. For example, a standard weapon with the expensive 2 property is treated as having a cost equivalent to a level 2 magic item. If you wish to make this weapon magical, you must add two to the normal magic item level and use that number to determine the actual cost. The expensive 2 weapon with a the abilities of a level 3 magic weapon would cost 1000 gp (instead of the 680 gp a normal magic weapon would cost).

Explosive: When you roll the listed number or lower on the attack roll die with this weapon, in addition to missing you must roll a saving throw or your weapon is disabled until you take a short rest, on a success your weapon is jammed and a load action can not be taken with it until a standard action is spent removing the jam. If a 1 is rolled on the saving throw, in addition to the normal penalties for failure, you also take [W] damage. If a 20 is rolled on the saving throw, the gun is not jammed. Whenever you deal damage with this weapon and roll maximum on any damage die, reroll that die and add that roll to the total as well. If you roll maximum on rerolls, continue to reroll, adding to the damage each time.

I am not sure if anyone has brought this up, but on some of the threads some of the new posts are placed at the end of the previous page rather than at the end of the thread.

This post is an example of it happening.

There was something that I remembered in reading the other thread that mentions planar binding. That I dislike both planar binding and planar ally.

I never could come to terms with what would should be even called intended when PCs start using these spells. I mean, it the intended power to be able to something as strong as an earth elemental?

A 8 hit die earth elemental with a CR of 5?

Or is it fair game if a PC can also summon a ghaele (10 HD, CR 13!) that matches the earth elemental's hp and saves, then has better skills, speed, saves, attack, abilities, and is possibly capable of being just as good of a spell caster as the summoner, if not better (They can cast spells as a 14th level cleric, to summon them you need caster level 11 at least). And why not, she comes with a +4 holy greatsword.

Should I start looking to crush PCs who try to use these spells? Should I just arbitrarily punish a player who crosses where I think the line is?

I have similar feeling about these spells and polymorph. I don't want to play baby sitter for every use of these spells. I want to feel like, that they can cast them and it will be unlikely that the game will all of a sudden become enormously easier for them. I don't want to wonder, "I wonder if they will just blow through this adventure now," every time I hear, "I cast planar binding."

---

Before I end this, a quick comment to the differences between planar ally and planar binding. They are pretty similar in function (and the same level) but there are a few differences in what they need. Planar ally has a expensive material component, your diety in general chooses who answers your call, and requires prices so high that I imagine many PCs wish they could be summoned by planar ally* (it should be noted that they can reduce or eliminate the price if they really want to accomplish this task). The additional cost for planar binding is that you tick off yet another extraplanar being.

While there are costs for both, I think that the prices for outside help for both spells to be more in line with each other.

* A small earth elemental if all I wanted was something that could earth glide. However it still would want 200 gp for less than half an hour or 1000 gp for less than a day's work.

While I like the idea of races having bonuses to specific senses (like keen senses granting +2 to sight- and sound-based Perception checks), I don't really see a great place to note the bonuses with the current character sheet. The Misc. Mod. space is pretty darn small to note these bonuses and I am concerned that putting them in the Conditional Modifiers section will just make it likely that I'll forget it over and over (just because it isn't right next to the perception bonus.

I might suggest that there would be a one or two additional "blank" Perception slots in the skills section, so that I might write next to one "touch and taste" and the perception bonus +2 (from keen senses), and next to another "hearing" and the peception bonus +5 (from a specialized feat or class ability).

While this topic may have been more appropriate when discussing the character sheet, I think that if nothing could or would be done to allow this common bonus to be noted, then either the Keen Senses ability instead should be changed (like a race getting a bonus to all perception check instead, or the keen senses ability becoming much less common).

When I started running Rise of the Runelords I had the feeling that something about it felt familiar somehow. I know that the base plot has many familiar elements to fantasy. However there was something about the rise of the runelord, combined with the about of time that he was trapped.

Then I remembered where I saw it before. The first twelve seconds really. :P

Most of the basic races have a racial ability, while good for several other classes, that is useless for several other classes. Abilities like Elven Magic, which is good for many of the significant spellcasters, but isn't really worth anything to the non-casting classes or the classes that are not likely to deal with spell resistance (like ranger or paladin).

Either using one of these abilities either requires you negate the more powerful class abilities or class abilities that make the abilities useless.

Some of these just pile on benefits for going with one class, beyond what I feel is necessary.

For example, an elven wizard gets the +2 intelligence bonus, wizard flavored class bonus, and the elven magic ability. On the other hand an, lets say, an elven paladin (or fighter, barbarian, and so on) only really benefits the +2 intelligence bonus bonus (and much less so than the wizard benefits from it).

While I agree with giving bonuses for going with certain classes, it does seem to get too much. I would rather see most racial abilities (exception for favored classes) be able to benefit all classes in some way, or at least give alternate racial abilities that replace ones that don't do characters any good.

"Useless to some" racial abilities.
Dwarf: Slow and Steady
Elf: Elven Magic
Halfling: Fearless
Human: Weapon Training

I just wanted to ask, if you find something like a medium +1 frost greatsword during an adventure, can small characters buy a small +1 frost greatsword instead or do they have to wait until a small version appears?

Same question for other weapons and armor.

Similarly, if the party finds a large magical bastard sword on a frost giant, if they can buy a version of their own size at the end of the adventure, can they get the large (giant-sized) version instead?

I decided to try to make a hellknight base class for fun. I based it mostly on the PFRPG paladin and the Despot from Dragon #312. For some reason I want to write more here but I rather just send this off quickly without worrying too much about it.

Edit: Made it slightly more readable.
Edit2: Left one sentence off the final ability.

Hellknight
Alignment: Any Lawful
Hit Die: d10

Class Skills: Craft (weapons and armor only) (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int)

Skill Points: 2 + Int modifier.

Base Attack Bonus: Like Fighter.
Fort Save: Good.
Ref Save: Poor.
Will Save: Poor.

1st: Aura of law, smite 1/day
2nd: Infernal resistance, hellish rejuvenation
3rd: Aura of intimidation, infernal health
4th: Oppress, smite 2/day
5th: Hellknight’s bond
6th: Status
7th: Smite 3/day
8th: Aura of determination
9th: Bestow curse
10th: Smite 4/day
11th: Aura of order
12th: Discern lies
13th: Smite 5/day
14th: Aura of law
15th: Mark of Justice
16th: Smite 6/day
17th: Aura of infallibility
18th: Heal
19th: Smite 7/day
20th: Champion of absolute order

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Hellknights are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all types of armor (heavy, medium, and light), and with shields (except tower shields).
Aura of Law (Ex): The power of a hellknight’s aura of law (see the detect law spell) is equal to his hellknight level.
Smite (Su): Once per day, a hellknight may attempt to smite his opponent with one normal melee attack. He adds his Charisma bonus (if any) to his attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per hellknight level.
At 4th level, and at every three levels thereafter, the hellknight may smite one additional time per day, as indicated on the hellknight table, to a maximum of seven times per day at 19th level.
Infernal Resistance (Su): At 2nd level, a hellknight gains a bonus equal to his Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws.
Hellish Rejuvenation (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, a hellknight can heal his own wounds by merely increasing his resolve. Each day he can use the ability a number of times equal to 1/2 his hellknight level plus his Charisma bonus. With one use of this ability, a hellknight can heal himself a number of hit points equal to his class level. As a hellknight gains levels, he can use this ability to create other effects. The DC for any of these abilities is based off the paladin’s Charisma.
Aura of Intimidation (Su): Beginning at 3rd level, a hellknight is immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Each ally with 10 feet of him gains a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects.
Each enemy within 10 feet of him takes a –1 morale penalty on saving throws against fear effects. This penalty increases to –2 at 8th level and by another –1 every three levels afterwards to a maximum of –6 at 20th level.
This ability functions while the hellknight is conscious, but not if he is unconscious or dead.
Infernal Health (Ex): At 3rd level, a hellknight gains immunity to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases.
Oppress (Su): When a hellknight reaches 4th level, he gains the supernatural ability to cow the impudent masses with a few mere words. All other living creatures within 60 feet must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 hellknight level + his Charisma modifier) or be sickened for 1 minute. Non-chaotic creatures get a +2 bonus on this save. He may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 1 + his Charisma modifier. Oppress is a fear, mind-affecting ability. Using oppress is a standard action.
Spells: A hellknight casts spells as a paladin, but from his own spell list.
Hellknight’s Bond (Sp): Like paladin’s “Divine Bond” mechanically with the following exceptions. A hellknight can form a bond with any weapon forged by devil’s or hellknights, not just his deity’s favored weapon. The weapon properties available instead: axiomatic, brilliant energy, flaming, flaming burst, keen, speed, spell storing, thundering, vicious, and wounding.
Status (Sp): At 6th level, a hellknight can spend two uses of his hellish rejuvenation ability to use status, as the spell. His caster level for this effect is equal to his hellknight level. This is a 2nd level spell.
Aura of Determination (Su): At 8th level, a hellknight is immune to charm spells and spell-like abilities. Each ally within 10 feet of him gains a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against charm effects.
This ability functions while the hellknight is conscious, but not if he is unconscious or dead.
Bestow Curse (Sp): At 9th level, a hellknight can spend two uses of his hellish rejuvenation ability to bestow curse, as the spell. His caster level for this effect is equal to his hellknight level. This is a 3rd level spell.
Aura of Order (Su): At 11th level, a hellknight can expend two uses of his smite ability to grant the ability to smite to all allies within 10 feet, using his bonuses. Allies must use this smite ability by the start of the hellknight’s next turn. Using this ability is a free action.
Discern Lies (Sp): At 12th level, a hellknight can spend two uses of his hellish rejuvenation ability to discern lies, as the spell. His caster level for this effect is equal to his hellknight level. This is a 3rd level spell.
Aura of Law (Su): At 14th level, a hellknight’s weapons are treated as law aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Any attack made against an enemy within 10 feet of him is treated as law aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.
This ability functions while the hellknight is conscious, but not if he is unconscious or dead.
Mark of Justice (Sp): At 15th level, a hellknight can spend three uses of his hellish rejuvenation ability to use mark of justice, as the spell. His caster level for this effect is equal to his hellknight level. This is a 4th level spell.
Aura of Infallibility (Su): At 17th level, a hellknight gains DR 5/chaos and immunity to compulsion spells and spell-like abilities. Each ally within 10 feet of him gains a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against compulsion effects.
This ability functions while the hellknight is conscious, but not if he is unconscious or dead.
Heal (Sp): At 18th level, a hellknight can spend four uses of his hellish rejuvenation ability to heal, as the spell targeting himself. His caster level for this effect is equal to his hellknight level.
Champion of Absolute Order (Su): At 20th level, a hellknight becomes a living embodiment of order. His DR increases to 10/chaos. Whenever he uses smite against a chaotic outsider, the outsider is also subject to a banishment, using his hellknight level as the caster level (his weapon automatically counts as an object that the subject hates). Also, non-chaotic creatures no longer gain the +2 bonus against the hellknight's oppress ability.

Have the bonuses from the Weapon Focus (and the greater version) and the Weapon Specialization (and the greater version) also apply to any weapons from weapon groups that the character has chosen from weapon training.

One set of classes that I would love to see updated (but wont) are the classes from the Dragon Compendium. So I worked on this for a while; I didn’t think many need a big boost in power (although I did feel the savant needed a boost in purpose) so I feel I made minor adjustments in most cases. Many of the changes I suggest or just modifications to match other classes. Some are just things that I felt could use a minor correction. Then there are other abilities that I added because I thought they made the classes more interesting through all twenty levels and I didn’t think they increase the power that much. I didn’t bother listing modifications for class skill’s or hit dice because those are usually trivial to change.

Battle Dancer

The Dance of Reckless Bravery is activated when you start a charge against an enemy.

Adjust the skill requirements for tumble to be three less.

Didn't think of any changes for this that I fell in love with, so I left it alone for the most part.

Death Master

Change cantrips to be the same as the PRPG wizard.
Change rebuke undead to be like the PRPG cleric’s channel energy (negative only).

Also, instead of getting an undead minion a death master can choose to have access to one of the following domains: Chaos, Death, Destruction, and Evil. He uses his death master level as his effective cleric level.

Jester

Change cantrips, spells per day, and spells known to be the same as the PRPG bard.
A jester can cast arcane spells in light armor with no arcane failure chance.
Reduce skill rank requirements by three.
Change Vexing Dialogue to so that Spellcraft replaces Concentration.

Fruitful Comedy: Like Bone Rattler except at 13th-level and it affects plants instead of undead.
Adamantine Joke: Like Bone Rattler except at 16th-level and it affects constructs instead of undead.
Unstoppable Pun: At 19th-level any creature can be affected your antics as long as they have a mind. The jester’s mind-affecting jester’s performance abilities function as normal against creatures that are immune to mind-affecting effects, but possess intelligence scores although these creatures get a +2 bonus on their saves against such abilities. Creatures that lack intelligence scores remain immune to the jester’s talents.

Gain Bonus Feats at 10th, 14th, and 18th level: Must pick from this list and still meet the prerequisites (Blind-Fight, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Spell Focus (enchantment), Greater Spell Focus (enchantment), Skill Focus [for any jester class skill], Quick Draw)

Add this as a Jester’s Performance
Last Laugh (Su): A jester of 20th level or higher with 20 or more ranks in Perform (comedy) can use his performance to cause one enemy to die of laughter. To be affected, the target must be able to see and hear the jester perform and be within 30 feet. The target must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 jester’s level + jester’s Charisma modifier) or begin laughing in an increasing manner. If the target fails the save then they can only take a single standard or move action for next three turns. Also, if they had failed, on the fourth turn after save they must make a second Will save at the same DC, with a –5 penalty to the save, or be unable to take any action for the next ten turns. If they have fail the previous save, on their next turn they must make a Fortitude save against the same DC or die (creatures that can’t die are destroyed). A single creature can’t be under of the effect of two different Last Laugh effects at the same time. This is a mind-affecting, language-dependant effect.

Montebank

Bloodline: A mountebank chooses either the Abyssal or Infernal sorcerer bloodline. She gets the Bonus Feats from the bloodline and she gets the bloodline power as if she were a sorcerer of her mountebank level.

She can cast the spells off of the bonus spells list (assuming she her mountebank level is at least the number noted) as spell-like abilities. To use one she must expend three of her uses of her infernal patron ability. The time required to use them are the casting time for the individual spells and if the spell has an expensive material component then the mountebank must provide it.

She can turn on and turn off her bloodline as a standard action. When it is off she loses access to her bloodline powers and the changes to her appearance that they create disappear, but she keeps the bonus feats and access to the bonus spells.

Infernal Escape: replace teleport with greater teleport.

Savant

Arcane Armor: A savant can cast arcane savant spells while wearing light armor without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance.

Class skills: Don’t change. (I just wanted to be able to say this and I didn’t think I would get a chance later)

Academic Lore: Change this to match the new Bardic Knowledge (1 bonus rank per class level in single knowledge skill, add half class level [min 1] to all knowledge skills, and make checks untrained)

New Abilities:

Assist Talent (Ex): At 2nd level gains the ability to lend additional assistance to his allies a limited number of times per day. He can use assist points to activate his Assist Talents. An assist talent gives a single ally access to an additional ability for a short time.

He has a number of assist points equal to one half his savant level plus his Intelligence modifier.

You can spend 1 assist point while using the aid another action to grant an additional bonus equal to half your savant level to the target you aiding.

A 2nd level savant can use improved aid another and one other assist talent chosen from the list below. A savant can pick another assist talent at 6th level and every four levels afterward.

To receive the benefit of an assist talent, the ally must be within range of the savant’s skill assistance. You can only use an assist talent once per turn. Unless otherwise noted it takes a move action to activate and it lasts until the beginning of the savant’s next turn. Using an assist talent does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

Talent List

Quick Assist (Ex): At 11th level a savant can spend an additional two assist points when using an assist talent to activate the talent as a swift action. This does not affect talents that don’t take a move action to activate.

Improved Assist (Ex): At 20th level a savant can spend double the number of points an assist talent requires and spend an additional swift action to be able to affect an additional ally with the talent. They still must be within range of the skill assistance to be affected.

Sha’ir

Cantrips
Cantrips would work like the sorcerer. He can cast 0-level spells from his known 0 level spells without making the skill check to prepare them. (He would still be able to cast other 0 level spells using his higher level spell slots.

Gen Familiar
Some changes to familiars should probably be carried over to gens. The Sha’ir gets one automatically at first level, he doesn’t lose experience when the familiar dies, it takes a week until you can replace it, and 8 hours plus 200 gp per sha’ir level to recover a familiar.
Also a Sha’ir can attempt to make a plea for a spell without his gen, but then he takes a –5 penalty on the check.

Domain Spells
Since domains have changed so this might need to be looked at as something that should be modified to match. My initial idea is to remove all references to preparing or learning divine spells. Then when he starts meditating to recover spells (At least I think that is how they do it) he can send of his gen for an hour and when it returned he would gain the domain powers of a single domain (chosen from the one’s a Sha’ir normally had access to) until he meditated again (and sent his gen was sent to gain the domain). He would use his Sha’ir level in place of the cleric level and would use Wisdom instead of Charisma for DCs. (To continue the use of the non-casting stat for the domains )

Modifying the Diplomacy Check and Spell Recovery
Every sha’ir level you take you get one free rank that goes into Diplomacy (like the bardic knowledge ability gives you free ranks in a single Knowledge)
Instead of making a Diplomacy check you instead roll a d20 with a bonus of your Sha’ir level versus a DC of (10 + Spell Level x2). You have a +2 bonus when attempting to get one of your known spells, -2 penalty for every time you have failed to retrieve this spell this day, -1 penalty per level this spell is adjusted by a metamagic feat (except Heighten in which case you get a +1 bonus per level of adjustment).

Known spells take 1d4+1 rounds to recover.
Other spells take 1d4+1 minutes to recover.

Minor Adjustments
Recognize Genie Works: Let this ability also work off of Appraise as well since that fits the theme of the skill.

Urban Druid:

Orisons for the urban druid would be modified to match the druids.

Instead of getting an urban companion the urban druid can instead get access to one of the following domains using his urban druid level as his effective cleric level and using his Wisdom bonus instead of his Charima bonus for determining the DC: Artifice, Community, Law, Nobility, Protection.

Adjust Urban Shape so that the urban druid gets 1 use per day at 4th level and an additional use every two levels afterward. At twentieth level urban shape can be used at will.
Urban shape uses the same rules as the revised druid’s wild shape except that the forms urban shape can take are limited to humanoids and the urban companion list (the aberrations on the companion list are treated as animals for the purpose of this ability) and the spells urban shape mimics are different.

4th level: transform into humanoids (small and medium) and vermin (small and medium)
When taking the form of a humanoid it functions as alter self.
When taking the form of a vermin it functions as vermin form I.

6th level: expands to include large and tiny vermin. Also small and medium animals are now available.
When taking the form of a vermin it functions as vermin form II.
When taking the form of an animal it functions as beast shape I.

8th level: expands to include huge vermin, more animals (large and tiny), and constructs (small and medium).
When taking the form of a vermin it functions as vermin form III.
When taking the form of an animal it functions as beast shape II.
When taking the form of a construct it functions as construct body I.

10th level: expands to include huge and diminutive animals and more constructs (large and tiny).
When taking the form of an animal it functions as beast shape III.
When taking the form of a construct it functions as construct body II.

12th level: expands to include huge constructs.
When taking the form of a construct it functions as construct body III.

12th level: expands to include gargantuan constructs.
When taking the form of a construct it functions as construct body IV.

alter self, beast shape, vermin form, construct body
4th – alter self (2), vermin form I (2)
6th – vermin form II (3), beast shape I (3)
8th – vermin form III (4), beast shape II (4), construct body I (5)
10th – beast shape III (5), construct body II (6)
12th – construct body III (7)
14th – construct body IV (8)

Construct Body I

Construct Body II

Construct Body III

Construct Body IV

Vermin Form I

Vermin Form II

Vermin Form III

Any advice or comments?

I wanted to try to set up some quick house rule to grant more benefits for having Profession skills. There are points when you are expected to be able to do the things related to your job. Being an expert sailor, who still can’t maintain his balance when a ship rocks or a librarian who knows nothing about the books she manages and so on. The character can spend some ranks on those skills, but I think while characters who train at a profession should have some automatic skill with things associated with their job.

So this is just a quick and dirty rule to define about where the bonuses to those skills would be. When it says that a profession mimics a skill I mean that when making that other skill check you use either the number of ranks in that skill or the number of ranks you have in that profession minus ( 1 - 2 times number of skills that profession is mimicking ), whichever is higher, for number of ranks in that skill. Also you get a single minor ability when you put your first rank into any profession ( You get only one minor ability no matter how many profession skills you are trained in ).

The minor abilities are meant to be worth about a single skill point.

Mariner:
Mimics: Acrobatics and Climb.
Minor Ability: +1 to Acrobatics and Climb while on boat.

Service Industry:
Mimics: Diplomacy.
Minor Ability: Grants one commonly used language.

Food Gathering/Preparation:
Mimics: Perception.
Minor Ability: When you successfully forage for food you find enough food and water an additional person.

Buying and Selling:
Mimics: Appraise.
Minor Ability: Grants one commonly used language.

Research/Librarian:
Mimics: Any number of knowledge skills.
Minor Ability: Grants one non-secret language.

Con-Artist:
Mimics: Bluff and Sense Motive.
Minor Ability: Grants one commonly used language.

Bouncer:
Mimics: Intimidate and Sense Motive.
Minor Ability: +1 to your CMB to defend against maneuvers used against you.

So if there was a character with 10 ranks profession (fisherman) might get a +1 bonus to Acrobatics and Climb and would be treated as having 5 ranks in Acrobatics, Climb, and Perception. Alternatively they could get the bonus to foraging for food and act as if they had 9 ranks in Perception if they didn’t fish from a boat. This rule is not attempting to define every bonus you might get from a profession, but instead provide generic rules for setting up the bonuses.

I don’t think that this is good for PRPG, but I think it might work out as a house rule. What do other people think about this?

Ok, this is going to be bit long. I’ve been trying to work on this a while (little more that a week) with some helpful comments from other people on the chatroom. All of the stat blocks do not use the rules that I consider current (which are near the bottom of this initial set of posts and above the comments about monstrous PCs). I present them because I wanted to show how I got to this point (also if I type this much I really don’t want to keep it to myself).

So hopefully enjoy!

Multi-classing:

Currently when you multi-class, you stop gaining power in your current class to train in another class. In this way you give up a higher-level ability for a weaker ability and the chance to be more versatile. This sounds fine, that is the point of multi-classing in my opinion. However I think there is a problem if, by multi-classing, instead of dropping slightly behind the power of a single classed character you are far behind what the single classed character can do. It isn’t even a problem of being a jack of all trades and a master of none; it seems at times that you have a few extra things you can do, you’re your abilities pale in comparison to those your ally’s cohort. The effects of this drop in power seem to be hardest felt by spellcasters who have significant increases in power when they get access to their more powerful spells.

It is not like this has been ignored, there have been a couple of solutions to this in d20 that I’ve seen. The first is the multi-classing prestige class like Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight. They require you to take a few levels in a pair of base classes, then you can enter the prestige class and progress some of the abilities from each class more quickly than if you were to just take levels in the base classes. They tend to favor combining a spellcasting class with another class with a few exceptions. This works out reasonably well for me except that you have to wait a several levels to get into the prestige class and often, until you do, you are going to fall painfully behind more and more. Also each of these prestige classes takes a significant amount of space and most are not OGC. I would rather that space be put to better use than to make a single multi-classing option more viable.

Another thing that has popped up are multi-classing feats that allow you to use the combined level of two base classes to determine how powerful some of your class abilities were. Unlike the prestige classes these combine non-spellcasting classes much more often. These take much less space, but if used like this then there would be a feat for every combination of a class with another class. Several pages can be consumed easily if this route is taken, a better option might be to just have a single feat for each class that lets a select number of that classes abilities use your character level instead of your class level. That way they still would benefit multi-classed characters without having a feat for every class combination.

My idea:

Let me start this by saying that my goal is not to create a gestalt-type variant in which every character has abilities from multiple classes. I don’t want this rule to make multi-classed characters more powerful than single classed characters. My goal for this rule is to allow multi-class characters in general to work reasonably well without prestige classes, so that they can feel that they don’t have to take a prestige class just because they multi-classed. In effect I want to mimic what would be a weak generic prestige class that gives the abilities of both of the character’s base classes.

So if the character is a barbarian/druid as he progresses he continues to improve in his rage abilities and his druidic spellcasting and shapeshifting as if he were leveling in a generic barbarian/druid prestige class. I am not saying that I want to eliminate multi-classing prestige classes, I would like it to be more of an choice than it is currently. If you were to build a wizard/cleric then the character is almost certain to be a mystic theurge, otherwise the character falls farther and farther behind the power of other characters. I feel this is similar to what an archmage was like to a wizard in 3.5, it was just an advanced wizard with little reason to not enter it. It is my hope that with this new rule that you might see more multi-class characters not enter these prestige classes so that when you do see a character that is in one of these prestige classes, that they seem more special and unique.

When you multi-class you are treated as having a higher level in each of those classes for determining which class abilities and the power of those abilities. For determining your class abilities (not hit dice, base attack bonus, base saves, or skill points) you use that class’s level plus half of the level of the highest-level class from among your other base classes, maximum is double the class’s level.

The basic example would be a fighter/wizard. If he had 4 levels of fighter and 5 levels of wizard then he would get the abilities of a 6th level fighter (4 + 5/2 = 6.5) and the abilities of a 7th level wizard (5 + 4/2 = 7). He would still have the base attack bonus, base saves, skill points, and hit dice of a Fighter 4/Wizard 5, but he would more feats and better spellcasting (more spells per day, more spells known) than that.

Here are some characters I stated up at multiple levels using 20 point buy and the PC wealth from the Pathfinder RPG rules. I believe I made a few mistakes in there (I don’t think I took into account armor check penalties in the skills for example), but I think they are reasonably close to correct. I also left off the racial features other than ability modifiers to save on some time.

Thunk half-orc barbarian/sorcerer

3rd level character

4th level character

8th level character

12th level character

16th level character

20th level character

If I were going to attempt to build this character with 3.5 rules I would probably go with a single level of barbarian, six levels of sorcerer, and become an eldritch knight. At sixteenth level the base attack bonus would be +13 and the caster level would be 14. This is slightly higher than my barbarians +12 base attack bonus and caster level of 13. That would mean that the eldritch knight version would be slightly more powerful, except for the truckload of class abilities from barbarian and sorcerer that my version carries around.

At the moment I’m typing this that looks like a little too much. I’m not trying to create a variant more powerful than the existing prestige classes. It probably would be better if the effective level for getting class abilities were reduced by one with a minimum of the class level. I haven’t done this with any of the examples so that I could get this post finished. Either way I think this method produces something close to what you got using prestige classes. I think that it hopefully won’t need major adjustments to work in all cases and it should be pretty obvious if a dropping the power down a level wouldn’t help it this rule is really not a good idea.

Next is a non-spellcaster example. I’m not completely sure of how much is needed to fix this class combination or even if it needs to be fixed. There are very, very few prestige classes that combine non-spellcasting base classes for me to compare this to. I will probably do that next though and build a monk/rogue and compare that to a prestige class and see what comes out of that. Either way, here is the barbarian/rogue with me just going a little insane near the end of character creation.

Raneon human barbarian/rogue

3rd level character

4th level character

20th level character

Gets a few more rage points, rage powers, and rogue powers, fewer of any specific one if I had made this into a single classed character, but more overall. Gets greater rage and a few bonus sneak attack dice, but still doesn’t get the most powerful abilites of each class and misses out on mighty rage and the rogue 20th level ability along with another few sneak attack dice.

I think that I said most of what I wanted to say above, I have no idea how balanced this is, I have no idea how balance it was, so I’ll just move along for now and come back to this later.

So far I’ve only showed stats for characters with two classes, but this rule possibly should include characters with multiple base classes. This next character was the first character I built using my multi-class rule and it resulted in me immediately modifying the rule. This character used the combined level of all the other base classes divided by two to get the bonus for determining what class abilities he got. What came out seemed excessive in some of the cases (granting impressive powers from all the classes). To repeat, this next character was built using an older version of the rule, not the one I currently have listed. It is only shown for comparison and also to show how I got to this point. Also it is here for people to tell me if I was wrong if my judgement that the rule should be changed was wrong.

Also bard spells in the next set of stack blocks will have a “[]” following the name of the spell if that spell has no somatic components (so that it can be cast in full plate with no arcane failure chance).

Gileben gnome bard/cleric/fighter/rogue/paladin
Favored class (bard)
Cleric of Sarenrae (Domains: Glory and Good)

5th level character

Alternate 8th level character

10th level character

Alternate 16th level character

20th level character

This character was a pain to build because of the need to reference five different classes and it had three spell lists. I think that I would still have had this problem without my rule, all it would have meant is that I would have had to pick a few less spells overall. At this point I also compared it to a base class combined with a single prestige class that produced similar abilities to the five-class combination. That is bard spells, bard song, sneak attack, divine spells, good base attack bonus, and various paladin abilities from a single base class with a single prestige class. So I compared this five classed character to a bard/blackguard (who gets all of these abilities) to help determine if it were too much. This version of the five-classed character had better abilities than the bard/blackguard in almost every way (and it was only slightly worse in the ways it was worse). That is how I determined that the multi-classing rule for multiple rules should be scaled back.

Another thing I thought about when making this character was what about class abilities that were shared by multiple classes and stacked. For example the channel energy, if there was a cleric/paladin using my rule, then at 20th level (cleric 10/paladin 10) that character would be able to channel positive energy as a 27th level cleric (15 from effective cleric level, and 12 from effective paladin level minus three). Thinking about this, it probably would be appropriate to cap abilities to your character level just so they don’t beyond what a single-classed character can do.

The next character did use the more current rule. It only has three classes, and it uses only the level of the highest class from among his two other base classes to determine to bonus to the effective class level instead of using them combined. As this is a combination of non-spellcasting classes I’m finding it hard to determine if this is more powerful than a single classed character (again, this is something I want to avoid).

Droken Blackhammer dwarf fighter/monk/rogue

6th level character

12th level character

18th level character

20th level character

Now that is all up there I’ll take what I’ve learned from this and try to produce a better rule from it. For determining your class abilities (not hit dice, base attack bonus, base saves, or skill points) you use that class’s level plus half of the level of the highest-level class from among your other base classes minus one, maximum is double the class’s level and minimum is the class’s level. If a ability ends up using a higher level (through it stacking with two classes) than your character level then cap it at character level.

I think my rule works reasonable well in a game that uses the multi-class prestige classes because the prestige class levels do not advance your base class abilites. With the –1 change it doesn’t effect most prestige classed characters much. The fighter 1/wizard 5/eldritch knight 10 would have one more fighter feat than the character not using my rule. The wizard 3/cleric 3/mystic theurge 10 is the same as with the rule, but it gets a slight boost when taking that next wizard or cleric level. For the arcane trickster it is a little weirder, a wizard 5/rogue 2 under my rule can now qualify for the arcane trickster prestige class one level earlier (without doing something like wizard 5/rogue 1/assassin 1). The wizard 5/rogue 3/arcane trickster 10 on the other hand would now get uncanny dodge and a extra rogue talent as well as a bonus in both classes when he gains his next level (in either wizard or rogue).

Monstrous Races:

While pondering this idea I wondered if using this system with monstrous races. Monstrous races seem to have similar issues as standard multi-classing. Instead of getting a high level ability you end up getting lower level, and in most cases that lower level ability is going to be a lot weaker than the higher level one.

This operates on the same basic idea as the multi-classing system mentioned above. The only difference is that you don’t get any bonus levels for your monstrous class, only your base class’s abilities improve.

You create your monstrous PC as you normally would, taking their HD and LA into account. If the PC has no levels in a base class then there are no changes. However if they do have levels in a base class, then you use the multi-classing rules above and treat the number of monstrous Hit Dice as the level of one of the other base classes.

Another idea is to use the number of monstrous Hit Dice plus their Level Adjustment as the other base class level instead. This would allow most PC’s with templates to gain these benefits as well. Whether or not this is more balanced I’m not quite sure either way.

I am a bit tempted to stat these PCs in the depth like I did the other characters, but I wanted to get this idea onto the boards in some timely manner. So instead I just gave a simple breakdown for these PCs to get the most basic information for the effective class levels for just using HD and both HD and LA. I don’t think this will show much, but it should give some idea if this is radically off target.

The first is just a simple example using a wyrmling (chosen because the low ECL version is more likely to break the system) silver dragon with fighter levels.

wyrmling silver dragon fighter

Both systems add very little power to this PC. Early on it quickly advances through the lower fighter levels and it ends up granting a couple more bonus feats (and now a little more armor and weapon training).

19-20 hours of driving later I've put at least a thousand miles between me and Paizo.

Notes:

Overloading a car with old shocks is a problem. Got to hear every bump along the way.

There was some cloud cover along the trip that gave protection from the sun ... for about 30 seconds. The rest of the trip was a combination of Desert Bus and that one level of Super Mario Bros. 3 where that hateful glowing day-ball torments you.

Washington scenery is green.
California scenery is brown/green (see hateful glowing day-ball).

And it's good to be home.