As a DM, I just started the 4th book, Blood for Blood. I'm running into a few problems already.
First, the PC's got a small taste of mass combat with the attack on Tatzlford. While we were there they got somewhat frustrated with their inability to interact on an individual level with the combat.
First, they are very particular players and we all know the ins and outs and details of the system quite well. And when I say particular, I mean very numbers oriented. They want to know exactly what the population is of their Kingdom. I'm hesitant to give them this number because, as the module has been very clear, the population numbers are very arbitrary. The book says 250 people per square (or something like that) but obviously, Varnhold is far from this number. Anyway, their particularity has lead to them wondering why they cannot take an individual hand in the Mass Combat. "Why can't I shoot four arrows a round and whittle their numbers away?" or "My fireball, should have killed all of those people on average dice rolls." Some will start to do the math and realize by the numbers they should have killed some 80% of the invading force and say "So how is this still a fight?" Short version, what does everyone do to deal with PCs who want to micromanage mass combat?
Secondly, and somewhat oppositely, how do you deal with PCs who ONLY want to use Mass Combat. With one taste of mass combat under their belt the PCs want to quash any problem they face with a mass of troops. And honestly, I don't necessarily blame them. After the attack and talking with Kisandra, the PCs said "Well, why don't we put together a force and storm the keep." Obviously, Drelev doesn't have rules for Mass Combat and the PCs don't even have their rules for building armies yet. Does anyone else have this problem? How do they deal with it?
It sounds like your PCs are a lot like mine. They love to min/max, although they are still great roleplayers and good players in general.
All true. They sometimes get a bit cross talky, but for the most part their great and I want to give them a great game.
hazardousindex wrote:
As for hex exploration, allowing players to rest all the time greatly unbalances the game in favor of spellcasters and PCs with powerful daily abilities. Right from the start, I informed my players that allowing them to rest constantly would make the AP a lot easier. They agreed that they didn't want it to be easy,
When they can justify it to themselves (normally pretty easy) my players can be hyper realistic. Saying "this will make stuff really easy so you shouldn't rest here" would be met by "Well, why WOULDN'T my character want to increase his odds of survival. Thats just good roleplaying."
hazardousindex wrote:
so we decided that they could only have a "full rest" if they spent 24 hours camping and recuperating in a hex, in which case they would have about a 50/50 chance of a random encounter that day. Given how tough some of the random encounters in the AP are (3 trolls at 2nd level, anyone?) they quickly learned that resting a lot in the wilderness was not safe. Also, they could achieve a full rest by staying in one of their towns. This added a nice "home base" feel to the PCs' kingdom, and also always gave them a reason to return home.
I like this. All of it. The only thing is, random encounters for me have fallen by the wayside some. First, I find that they didn't happen all that often anyway, and when they did, most were more hassle than they were worth. Further, the amount of time they take up when I want to get to real stuff (i.e. the story, or even mini stories within the hexes) seems like a lot. I applaud this strategy though. Seems like it would work well if I had done it from the very beginning and stuck with it.
hazardousindex wrote:
As for individual encounters, all the usual DM tricks like templates, sizing monsters up, and additional mobs work well enough for most encounters in Kingmaker. Although, judging from your comments about Vordakai, the Stag Lord, and others...it doesn't sound like you have that much trouble challenging them.
Challenging them through the lower levels took a little bit of work, but has gone well so far. I just worry that with Armag being a melee type character, he could get wiped pretty quick. Although, seeing that Armag has his skelly's and Irovetti his guards makes me think those fights could be much more fun.
hazardousindex wrote:
Try not to get too frustrated as they gain power and move into high levels. High level players need to feel powerful. Maybe those 12 low-level barbarians are there to get stomped and make your players feel like they're awesome. Those encounters can be just as important and memorable as the raging barbarian who sundered all their magic swords and nearly killed them.
I'm trying my best not to get frustrated cause I know they are enjoying the power. Its just, most of our games don't make it this high so its a bit of uncharted territory for a relatively new GM. And the 12 low level barbarians will stay low level. So will the boggard encounter. I know why those are there, let the players feel like bad asses. I just wanted to make sure the encounters that are SUPPOSED to be life and death, are life and death.
Peruse some of the pertinent campaign journals. If you think that the baddies are fine offensively but lacking in staying power, simply inflate hp so they should last a few rounds.
I've bumped up the HP on almost every thing they fight. Offensively they seem fine. Honestly, they are probably fine defensively too, I just have a bunch of twinked out players.
Turin the Mad wrote:
Alernatively, pad them with gaggles of nini-onions that do simple stuff like aid his AC, toss volleys of alchemical items or pepper the heroes with low-charge / cunsumable items such as wands, scrolls, beads of force and fireball beads from necklaces of missiles.
Another alternative are fey druidy types that spam summon nature's ally spells.
I've done this here or there as well. I just don't want this to become the standard for every big fight. I added a few waves of summon monsters for Vordakai that made things fun. However, I find that summoned monsters are little more than an annoyance to players who either a) Ignore them or b) One shot them. Granted, b does buy the big bad guy a turn. Plus, aiding AC only helps for melee, archer still lights things up.
Turin the Mad wrote:
Irovetti needs sturdy guard types to screen for him.
Haven't looked at this fight in depth. Glad to hear its a big sha-bang with all kinds of guards.
Turin the Mad wrote:
Armag is a push over until you take a really close look at what his weapon does for him.
What are you referencing here?
Midnight-Gamer wrote:
I gave Armag, adamantine full plate to help mitigate damage from the PC's. It took two battles to kill him, during the second, he goaded the paladin in the group into single combat. Considering Armag is not evil, smite did not work and Armag got at least one kill.
The adamantine full plate idea I will almost definitely steal. Also noticed the not evil thing. Looking very much forward to watching the Paladin's heart sink on this one.
Midnight-Gamer wrote:
The fight with Irovetti was exciting simply because the large numbers of combatants led to a battle which has been unrivaled throughout the AP. It was a continuous slug fest that lasted two full games sessions, and it was the only time the party has been substantively worn down, and on the ropes due to attrition.
Very happy to hear this. Hope it all plays out well with my players. Like I said, I've had really good luck with making the final fights big. The Stag Lord was some 25 rounds of hit and run. Even dragging on a bit using Diehard. The Owlbear was almost a TPK turned heroic achievement. Vordakai was a real war of attrition (40 something rounds, used summons to keep people occupiedish and stat minus galore to help).
Bless my players, but they all have a certain tendency to build fairly powerful characters. They make good characters and roleplay well, but they tend to have a different standard for "playable". We've made it through the first three books and for most of the hex encounters they've come to realize they can just blow all their abilities, rest, repeat. But, as the books get further, I've found its less about those encounters so thats not as much as a bother for me. However, for Kingmaker to stay interesting, at the very least I have to make them feel threatened during the big story encounters. Thus far, I've been able to do that. The Stag Lord did it all on his own at that low a level. The Owlbear (with a slight boost to AC and some more HP) made an exciting encounter where the last standing PC KO'ed him. Vordakai kept them on their toes after a long trip through his tomb.
However, looking to Book 4 and 5 I have some concerns. Both Armag and Irovetti have 200ish HP and it seems like my players will steam roll them.
My players currently consist of:
An animal domain Cleric - She heals like crazy, keeping the team standing. Never attacks, sometimes supplements damage with spiritual weapons. Her animal companion, an ape, gets loaded down with gear and beats face with all his primary attacks.
A switch hitting ranger - Depending on what the situation requires he either carves up opponents with an eleven curved blade (and improved critical) or lets loose a flurry of arrows through rapid shot and many shot. Soon, instant enemy will give him a flat +6 to attack and damage.
A lance wielding dragoon paladin - His damage is a flat dice +20. Sometimes, when he gets a charge off on his mount this of course turns into a rather substantial dice +60. If he crits, its rather messy.
My fourth player is making a new guy before the 4th book.
Granted, I haven't looked too deeply into things, but seeing Armag with a 24 AC and 200ish HP I just imagine the ranger taking his turn being instant enemy and letting loose 4-5 arrows (the lowest of which will hit him 50% of the time, the others are rather likely to hit) doing dice +25 on each hit.
Anyway, does anyone have any advice in general or even specifically to the Kingmaker scenario? Not against them being powerful, just want to make sure the second half of the game stays as interesting as the first.
Honestly, just be happy he's doing it at PFS and not a regular home game. For a lot of my players I try and use PFS as a way for them to get this kind of tendencies out of their system so I'm not spending every moment of my home games trying to plan around their inane builds and how to continue making games interesting.
I'll be starting to run my players through Vordakai's Tomb tonight. The party is comprised of:
Half Elf Ranger Switch Hitter
Human Monk/Magus Defensive Staff User
Aasimar Cleric/Paladin Healing Machine (with an elephant animal comp)
Human Fighter/Paladin Mounted Combatant
The group is on a 15 point buy. The players are quite experienced (all over five years of gaming, two over ten years, and one over twenty) at both playing AND building. Thus, they've got very competitive builds that do their jobs well.
Mostly, I'm just looking for any generalized advice from GMs who have done this previously. Any snags I should be looking out for? Any encounters that might be too easy or too hard? Specifically I'm looking ahead to the Vordakai fight. The DR 15 could be a big issue for everyone but the Monk/Magus (and he's not a HUGE damage dealer). They just found the +2 Warhammer at the Ettercap trap and I'll be adding a bit of an NPC nudge to keep it (their first instinct with everything magic item is CASH IT OUT!) and have the scrolls of remove paralysis handy.
Even still, I worry that with a lot of defensive buffs, that DR and the ability to cause permanent paralysis (which the healer will spend a turn taking care of the first three times) this fight could get out of hand quickly.
Also, how did GM's handle the group trying to sleep/rest in the tomb? Granted, running through the whole dungeon in one swoop would be quite difficult. And I have nothing against the group resting because I'll buy the arrogance of Vordakai lets him wait. But, how do I avoid the whole dungeon turning into a bunch of one and done's like the rest of Kingmaker?
As a player, what makes a game to me, are NPCs. I want NPCs that feel real and reoccur. Nothing gets me into a game quite like meeting a really deep NPC that has real motivations and such more than once. It makes this come to life and that makes me want to invest back into the game even more. Also, when NPC's interact with you it makes you feel like your decisions and actions have consequences on the world. As stated above, thats good for players.
Sorry about the delay guys. Hopefully this helps everyone out.
The first link is to the NPCs & Monsters of Book 3: Varnhold Vanishing. They should all be there. Disclaimer though, I do sometimes tweak a few things to make games for my twinky building players a little harder/interesting. I don't know exactly where I do a few of these tweaks at but for example:
Example:
I gave Kankerata, the bulette, the giant template for a little more fun. :-)
The second link is a generic 4 cards to a sheet. You can print them out and hand write things on them if you prefer.
My players finish book 2 next week so I'll prolly do the monsters for book 4 soon.
Again, hope this helps people out cause its super convenient for me.
Just my few copper about what I've used and such. Keep in mind, I got pretty ambitious and really wanted to make this a long term and memorable game for my players.
- I type up notes as opposed to playing directly from the book. The notes let me know exactly what to read to my players as description. I use a little of the books, a little of my own. Also, any events where a skill check is to be expected I write in a description of what each DC would tell the players.
- I write up note cards for EVERY enemy in the book before we player. Almost all the combat relevant info is there. Its a ton of work, but makes things run really smoothly. (I started typing the cards up for Book 3 and 4 if anyone wants to google docs access or a copy of the generic fill in cards) Because of this and my notes, I rarely crack the AP book while playing so I'm not searching for a page number, specific description, etc.
- I print (on card stock) a picture of all the enemies/npcs that will come up and cut them out before each book. Again, alot of work, but I think it adds a nice touch. I haven't used, but hear great things about the paper mini sets for KM. If they make the later books, I'll use them.
- When you know something is coming up, predraw the map out for it. The same goes for things like the Fey pranks. Have a list you want to use before they players get into it.
- It helps to have and read all 6 APs before you start but sometimes its difficult/impractical. But ALWAYS read at least the whole of the AP before you start. KM can go so many different directions at the drop of a hat you need to be prepared.
- As stated above, use the forums. KM is so unique and so much fun to tweak here and there to keep your players on their feet. These boards have SOOO many great ideas and people willing to help. Use them.
Hmm? You must be a very young player to the system. thinking that you can't have fun or be fair with a low point buy. Or you just can't handle not having higher stats in the game system.
See how that works there? Sorry this just irked me for some reason.
Honestly a low point buy game adds some challenge to the game that many experienced players and GM's really like.
If I'm not mistaken, 15 points is the standard point buy that's assumed for all the AP's isn't it? So 10 would be a low point buy and 20 a high. My players sort of got the same entitlement with PFS and thinking 20 was "normal", "fair" and sometimes "required". When I told them we were doing 15 points (again, the standard) for a Kingmaker game they insistently complained until character creation. They still taunt me with the quick catch phrase question they slipped on the end of every sentence during character creation: "20 point buy?" Literally, it came after everything. "What animal companions would be allowed, 20 point buy?" or "Will I have the chance to use disable device alot, 20 point buy?"
Were at the end of the second book and only know do I honestly feel I've moved them in the slightest towards accepting this as a good thing.
I'll throw one into the hat here. What happens when a Druid/Ranger uses his animal's stat boost on Int bringing it up to a 3? Does an animal just transform into a magical beast?
I have a player who reads and memorizes everything he touches playing a Wizard who retired his character to play a more martial character. Ever since they got a Kingdom he just kept thinking of EVERYTHING to a point where we both got a little annoyed. "Why wouldn't we protect from scrying?", "What if our castle gets hit from stone to mud?", "How do we protect against teleporting?", "Why would he have massive wars when we can teleport in and just assassinate their leader?". It goes on and on forever. I had to tell him "We'll deal with it when it comes up?" as they're not into a big kingdom with rivals and such yet but he didn't want to be the player that just bogged the game down/ruined others fun so he switched. We'll see how it goes.
I'm DMing Kingmaker and during our last game my players encountered the Cult to Gyronna and sought to investigate. The sent the one female PC and Lily (who I've fancied up as a duelist and is currently involved with a PC) to infiltrate and the other PCs to follow close behind. My players are all level 6 and are a Heal Bot Cleric, a Switch Hitting Ranger, a Charge Machine Dragoon and a Comical Frog-like Gunslinger. All in all, they are very optimized and blow through a lot of encounters. As such, I like to mix things up with them some and add a few things here and there. Sometimes I slap advanced on a monster, sometimes I add a couple more mooks, whatever. Even then, the players seem to massacre most encounters and the generic hex encounters are mostly quick and sometimes, honestly, just a bit tedious as its simple a matter of how quickly they gun them down. However, the joy my players get from gluing a new hex onto their explored maps, their willingness to get involved when the story presents itself, their interactions with, great ideas and combats when they meet bosses/big encounters makes it all worth it.
Anyway, back to the story. The Cult encounter looks like one thats WAY easy for where the players should (especially since they were using Lily to help) so I decided to spice it up just a bit, and it turned out to be a very memorable encounter. When the fight started Niska wound up confusing both the infiltrating good guys (Lily and the Cleric) who started duking it out with each other. To make matters even more entertaining, before the went in, the Cleric cast Shield Other on Lily to make sure she was out of danger. The Cleric started beating herself to death. The cult members and Niska go down in the blink of an eye to the Ranger's (Lily's boyfriend) many shot. So after 2 rounds of PC v. Cult combat, the battle went for at least another 10 as the Ranger tried to grapple his girlfriend Lily to keep her from doing any more harm, to which Lily crited her boyfriend. This ensued, with Lily dropping her beloved ranger to -7 and on the last turn of her confusion. While this is going on the slightly klepto Gunslinger went to investigate/steal the bloodshot eye gem stone. This was where I spiced things up. I put an identical madness effect on the stone for anyone who touched it. So while the party is trying to end a cat fight the gunslinger turns around and starts blast teammates.
All in all, an encounter that my party normally would have just mowed down in 2 rounds turned into an extra memorable 15ish round fight against each other that saw 3 of the 4 party members hit negative HP.
Anyone else have fun tales of spicing up encounters out there? Any other suggestions for spicing them up besides the standard advanced template/extra mooks?
I love nothing more in D&D/Pathfinder than the Bard. As such, I play alot of Bards. In a general sense of "what does your Bard do?", I can't tell you how many times I've had this conversation:
Party Member: Does a 22 hit?
DM: Nope, sorry.
Me: Did you remember inspire? Does a 23 hit?
DM: ...yes.
Or
Party Member: I do 24 damage.
DM: He looks like he's hanging on to life, but just barely.
Me: Did you remember inspire?
Party Member: Oh yea, 25 damage.
DM: He collapses to the floor, unconscious.
For a specific story of what I've done as a bard I have a story that really had very little effect on the mechanics of the game, but is one of the most, if not THE most, memorable moment I've had in gaming.
It was an Ebberon game where I played a Bard (multi-classed, but bard none the less) from House Lyrander. Game had been going for well over a year and had come to an epic story line that had us traveling continents to find these dragon eggs to try and uncover the meaning of the prophecy. We wind up on Argonessan ready to wrap up an epic game when we find out the Council of Dragons decide what we are doing is blasphemes and cannot continue and the fate of the world basically hangs in the balance of the battle that will inevitably ensue. We had a big bad ass black dragon as an ally who, a few hours before the council was to arrive decided that our story to this point needed to be told to the world, regardless of the outcome of the next few hours. So with a little GM magic a magic circle was conjured which amplified my voice to the entire world of Eberron. The dragon gave me a magical lute which, as I told our tale slowly carved a visual representation of the events into the wood to aid in my story telling. Everyone thought this was an awesome moment and began dropping any and all buffs possible to get my perform check as high as it could go. The bonus total turned out to be a +60. I picked up the die and rolled in in-between my clasped hands for awhile, and said aloud to the party and GM "I've never wanted to roll a nat 20 more in my entire life". And on a roll that didn't lead to a crit and wasn't a save that kept me from dying I wound up with a total 80 Perform in a moment of true epicness.
Oh, and the ensuing multi-dragon throw down after that was pretty awesome too.
Anyway, a smart bard with well placed skills, clever spell usage and a small library of scrolls can be quite unstoppable and SO much fun to play. Enjoy.
Sorry, I was leaving words out at the end there. Meant to read as they can't multiclass into their respective base classes. And it is possible that they didn't have any archetypes simply because they don't. I find this situation unlikely, though.
More than understandable. Clarity is sometimes hard to come by on internet forums. Crazy right?
And I'm not saying they don't have archtypes simply because they don't have them. I'm saying they don't have archtypes because they don't have them YET. Nothing says they won't release Ninja/Samurai archtypes in the future.
It seems unreasonable that Paizo would introduce two new classes(Nin/Sam) and not give them archetype support at the same time they introduce two other new classes(Gun/Mag) and do.
And while I know that N/S are alternate classes where G/M are full classes, if we are saying that N/S are not allowed to take archetypes from their base class, then they are effectively entirely new classes, but with even more restrictions (no multiclassing into base class) and fewer benefits (no archetypes).
Not true. The Samurai and Ninja can multiclass into base classes. They cannot multiclass into the base class from which their alternate class is deviated. But, that's not really a restriction as the rogue can no more multiclass in ninja than the ninja can multiclass into rogue (or the fact that a fighter can't multiclass into fighter for that matter). Having less archtypes may just be because, well, they haven't released any yet. Not say I know either way the answer to the OP's question, but there is obviously reason to believe Alternate Classes are treated a little differently (hence, you know, the different title).
Dragon style evokes the power of the dragon. This is a style unique to Pathfinder, but they did a great job making it.
Not to nitpik, but there IS a Dragon style martial arts. Pathfinder did do a good job of capturing its essence though, as with the other styles.
Agree almost across the bored with peoples points. The styles took a class that saw more "Monks = suxxorz" threads on the forums that almost any other class (we'll forget about the Rogue for a moment) and made alot of people (myself included) excited to play one. Great job.
I think, at least to Paizo, BAB, HD and Saves are the line. To me, that was the big change on the Gunslinger. It was originally a Fighter alternate class and, granted, alot of the abilities were vastly different, but it still gets bonus feats (at large level increments) and it still gets weapon training (but only for guns), but the good Reflex Save just made it feel wrong.
Personally, I love archetypes and hate "alternate classes". When someone says alternate class I hear "a new base class, but we know people don't like more and more base classes so we'll change it's name".
My group has had a hay day with this one specific PFS exception. We always joke that a module will be released with an elephant in it and we'll all quit because its broken.
Or, we've all kicked around the idea of making a summoner and adding evolutions to make a large, quadruped with a gore attack and a "tentacle" and see if other players catch what we're doing.
I played a Draconic Bloodlined Sorcerer awhile back that thoroughly enjoyed using his class or his spear. I made sure to express to GM and fellow party members that his gear was like that of a lightly armored warrior. Mechanically, it wasn't armor, but I said he had a shoulder pad here, a shin guard there, etc. Essentially pieced together armor. During down time and such he practiced his martial techniques, finding a field for spear work or doing physical exercise because, as a sorcerer, his magic came to him naturally. It wasn't something he felt he needed to "train". In a sense, he "faked" as a martial class the whole game. If you never saw him cast, you wouldn't know he had the ability to(sans the claws striking you as something weird, pun intended). Also, as was discussed slightly in previous posts, it kept him alive in some situations. Our GM plays NPCs very smart. If they see magic, they kill it first. No one suspects the spear wielding fighter to let loose a fireball when its opportune.
I'm prepping my notes to run my group through RRR very shortly. NPCs make games for me. Having personality and quirks on notable townsfolk has always been something I remember about games long after I can recall what I rolled to hit the BBEG in the epic fight. So, I have been looking to really bring the Kingmaker NPCs to life. Looking through the book it seems that Lily was intended to be fairly important as she is listed in the potential Kingdom Roles chart at the beginning of the chapter. Surprisingly, she seems incredibly unsubscribed (outside of the mention that shes a flirt).
So, like I'm sure most GMs have done, I've been fleshing her out as a character for the upcoming games. My goal was to make her memorable and, as I'm trying to build up the long term Kingdom ruling part of the game, make her a potential love interest/possible spouse for a PC. As such, I asked myself "what would make her more attractive to my players"? Knowing my players as quite the power gamers I knew exactly what would make her more appealing, Hit Dice. So I restated her up, gave her class levels that helped preserve the small description in the book, but also build her up a little more. Her levels are in Free Hand Fighter, looking to go into Duelist. I plan on running her a lot like Isabella for those of you who have played Dragon Age 2.
So my question to the masses is, what have you done to flesh out some of the more descriptiveless NPCs? What quirks and personality have you given them? What NPCs have you just straight made up? How have they gone over with your players? Just in general, talk about the notable citizens of your Kingdom.
I've been GM a Kingmaker game. We played the first two sessions, everyone got really busy with things (myself included) and it seemed it was going to die. However, a few weeks ago, my players really got the itch to get back into, it inspired me, and we cracked out several quality sessions. Last night was the final game.
The Final Fight:
They did enough to sneak into the Stag Lord's fort but got busted by Dovan who drew steel and started a big chaotic battle. The Owlbear got out (after a PC & a Bandit wrestled over the gate for 2 rounds). It ate the bandit as soon as it got out then grappled the wizard. Fat Norry, who dropped his chicken and ran at the sight of a fight, alerted the Stag Lord, who immediately started raining arrows and dropping PCs like crazy. Luckily the Cleric kept the party mostly standing, if only barely. The whole of the fight was 23 rounds and the majority of it being the PCs chasing the Stag Lord around, trying to corner him, the Stag Lord bolting around a corner, hiding, and then repeating. Eventually, the numbers over came him and the Stag Lord fell. Sorry, just wanted to brag on my players a little for an excellent and fun combat.
Anyway, everyone is really excited about RRR and I've been prepping my notes to hopefully get started on it this weekend. However, I had a few questions about moving forward and wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions/had run into this problem before.
1. I'm having a little difficult sorting out the countries, factions and possible loyalties of the region. The players haven't asked too much, knowing the Swordlords to be their quest givers and handsomely rewarding them for their work. But with the building of the city and a little more social/political feel about things, they want to know more about the government and countries around the place. Granted, I know very little of the setting, and like I said, this far they've been in the woods and it didn't matter all that much. If I wanted to know a little bit more about the Swordlords and their political agenda, etc, where would I look? I know the KM module books have some information on them. Is it worth reading to understand this?
Also, only have read through RRR module, to what extent are the PCs "under the thumb" of the Swordlords? The charter seems to grant a lot of independence, but are they technically agents of the Swordlords? Do the PCs have to listen to them? Do the PCs at any point break away from their affiliation with the Swordlords (perhaps in an occurrence in a future book)?
2. One of my PCs decided to be from one of the royal families, the Surtova. He more than any other player, seems especially intrigued by the possibility of political going on's in the formation of a new Kingdom. Do any of the later books present possibilities for this?
3. I've recently found I'm going to be dealing with quite the cluster of a PC party. It is only a 4 PC group, but each seems to be bringing more to the table. The Ranger just hit level 4 and has an animal companion. The Cleric has the domain power granting an animal companion and just hit level 4. The Barbarian/Oracle is debating a level of Cavalier and would obtain a mount. The wizard plans on taking an improved familiar to get in the mix, binding outsiders when he can, and wants to craft his own golem when he has the opportunity. Not only can this be daunting to worth through during combat, but I'm afraid this many combatants could make the party a little better than it should and possibly walk through some encounters that should be harder.
4. My wizard PC took Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd, wants Craft Arms & Armory and is salivating over the idea of a personal golem at some point. With the way Kingmaker is laid out, it seems he will essentially have infinite time to craft, therefore making magic items half the listed price. I'm afraid this is going to severally change the dynamic/difficulty of the game. My group is normally very power gamey already (this is the first game any of them have every played with a less than 20 point buy). I've tried to stress to them this shouldn't be an arms race or a min/max-a-thon but its so far out of their nature to make any character build choice that is even nearing "subpar" as they call it (not optimized) they I can easily see this game getting out of hand. While I could increase the difficulty of encounters to compensate, it seems it would be ALOT of work, on top of what is already a lot of work, to adjust every encounter to up the difficulty a bit.
Thanks for bearing with the long post. Hope you guys have some great suggestions and tips. Can't wait to hear 'em.
...that is because all options for PC's are open to ennemies...
In all fairness, that's NOT exactly true. People can like/dislike "aggro" mechanics in Pen and Paper games but they're not used because of the "if the PCs can do it, so can the monsters" argument. Like its been said before, the game tries to avoid dictating PCs actions. Hence why PCs can use Diplomacy and Intimidate versus NPCs but don't influence PCs.
Charisma represents your character force of personality and ability to lead others as well as looks. You can have a charisma of 6 and still have be cleanly shaved , smell good and be beautiful.
This can and has stirred up much debated. Mostly because the word "appearance" is used in the Charisma description. (At least on srd, not next to a CR right now.)
But, I would add that when a character receives stat damage, it only matters in increments of 2. Meaning a stat of 16 getting a penalty of -1 doesn't do anything. Most people think it modifies the stat direct, but in actuality, its just that every 2 damage gives a -1 to all things related to that stat. I see people miss that all the time. Including my group, regularly. The same is true for stat penalties.
Going to be starting up a Kingmaker game here pretty soon and I've read through this entire thread. One of the things that I really want to do for my players is make the hexagon map and then allow them to glue the hexagons on as they successfully explore. To me, this really emphasizes the exploration and gives the PCs a sense of achievement.
So, my question is, I bought the book from my FLGS and didn't download the PDF. Is there any good way to get a copy of the map short of trying to scan the page out of the book?
Awesome. Thank you. I know Warforged fairly well and been thinking about this for awhile. And while I sorta had this idea, you really put it into simple words make usable. Thanks again.
I am gearing up to play in a new campaign that a friend of mine is running. He's using the PFRPG rules with a few changes. Since we're playing the game in Eberron, he's adding a few races (Warforged, Changling, Shifter, etc) along with racial feats to accompany them.
In introducing these races he has had to tweak their stat bonus. I'm playing a Warforged and the stat bonuses he has assigned are +4 Con, -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha. We're using a 20 point buy and I've manged to balance the points and get a 10+ in Int and Wis, but my Cha must suffer and will be an 8. I'm okay with this, it seems like a fun character to play. The concept that I have thought up is a rather smart Warforged (11 or 12) which House Cannith is interested in. They want to know why he is the way he is when the didn't build him to be particularly smart but just a smashbot.
So, I have an above average Int (especially for a Warforged), an average Wis and a low Cha. I don't want the character to be an ass, he's generally very curious about human nature now that he is out of the war, but obviously just doesn't get people. As a warforged, appearance really has nothing to do with his Cha.
So, I'm just looking for ideas on how to play his low Charisma. Ideas?
We have some really cool classes now. These new classes were accompanied with a TON of variants for the core classes. So the first thing that comes to my mind, is what variants could we expect to see of these new classes.
I enjoy the thread and the neat ideas but I doubt the new classes will get the variant options that the core classes did. Almost all of the APG classes were created with some sort of "built-in" variant.
Keep in mind, I'm not terribly well versed in the APG and just got my own copy the other day, but look at the options and choices each has.
Alchemist - Don't know the alchemist that well at all so I'll just skip them.
Cavalier - The Cavalier is built on it's Code (don't remember if thats what its called or not) but this is the most obvious built-in variant to me. New class skills, new options, changes class features.
Inquisitor - The different choices of judgments makes most Inquisitors different from one another.
Oracle - Can't remember what their option is called but they have a choice at character creation that greatly affects their abilities and class features.
Summoner - The Eidolon ensures that no two are alike.
Witch - Choice of patron spell list is their big customization.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the APG classes were meant to not need variant options.
Thanks to all who attended the Year of the Shadow Lodge event last night! It was really cool to be able to see all the new faces there--I hope everyone had a really good time and will be back on December 4th to have more great adventures!
A special thank you to Dallas, Matt, Bradley, Martin, and Evan for running. Hope you guys enjoyed the evening as well!
If anyone out there is interested in finding our little group, we are on Facebook under PFS Smackdown!!!! You can also find info about us on Valhalla's Gate's website.
Just wanted to let you know that my gang and I (in total four guys new to the group) had a blast on Saturday. You'll most certainly be seeing us at the start of December. It was an awesome event and was run great. Fantastic job by Jason and Martin who ran our table (and I'm sure all the other DMs).
If anyone wants to get into PFS or needs a place to play, I'd highly recommend it!
Some friends and I are just getting into PFS. We have all been playing D&D and such for sometime and have even played PF for several months now. Obviously, PFS takes a little getting used to. For our first PFS game I bought #2-01 Before the Dawn: Part I, Bloodcove Disguise and ran the group through. All in all, everyone had a lot of fun and we're looking forward to more PFS. However, I did have a few questions and my players brought up a few that I wanted to try and clear up. Any help would be appreciated.
1. Before the Dawn is a two part game. Our group fully intends to play part two, but we may wind up playing other games in the mean time (scheduling and such). How do you reconcile this in a time line? Is it just assumed that our non-Before the Dawn game happened before or after? That is what I would imagine and told the players as PFS seems to be willing to sacrifice a little realism to keep things running smooth.
2. In a two part game like this where there is no time between the events in game time, are the players still allowed their Day Job roll? Again, I would assume yes, to keep the rules consistent at the sacrifice of a little realism.
2b. Does the money the players make from the Day Job roll count towards the maximum gold for a session or is that outside of the session?
3. Can an item that the players are capable of purchasing at the end of a session be affected during the session they are playing?
Ex. a If the Witch uses the wand during the encounter, are the charges on it lower for the PCs when they buy it?
b If the Summoner drinks her potion of invisibility (or any consumable for that matter), is it still available for the PCs to purchase?
c If the PCs get the potion of invisibility (or any consumable for that matter) from the summoner and use it during the game, is it still available to purchase at the end of the session?
4. The Summoner had a potion of CLW on her but it is not on the Chronicle sheet for the players at the end. Is this a type-o or is there a reason this is not available to purchase?
5. What is considered "mundane" equipment for the purposes of the House Carthege bonus? I know that backpack would count but would a masterwork backpack count or is a masterwork item not mundane? What about buying a horse?
6. I know the PFS guide mentions that PCs cant buy, sell or trade between themselves but can on PC outright make a purchase for another PC? This came up because one PC1 was having difficulty with his faction missions and asked PC2 for some help, somewhat bribing his character by offering to purchase a barrel ale for the road. PC3 insisted they couldn't do this as it was breaking the no buy,sell,trade rule. I told him I would inquire as to what other people thought.
Jason, I just wanted to let you know that you'll have probably 3 more new guys showing up this next session. We're all fairly experienced gamers and Pathfinderers (?) just new to Society.
Like I said, I love the flavor. I have the mental capacity and WANT to play a character like that. I just look at it and I'm left wanting for a lot in the mechanics department.
BAB and Saves are fine, just like the Bard progression. (Would the HD scale up to d8s when its updated to current PF rules?) But the abilities just seem so lackluster. You get a slowly progressing upgrade in sneak attack which is ok. But the rest of the abilities just seem very 'meh' in their usefulness.
The other thing that I really wonder about is the problem with the prerequisites. I understand that the skill prereqs are all at -3 (how do you reconcile Hide 8/Move Silent 6? Use the 8? Use the 6? Average for a 7? Also, do you ignore Gather Info, or does that become a Diplomacy prereq?) but in seeing as how you need to be a Bard to get into the school, you have versatile performance (great ability). Presumably you go Performance Acting to get Bluff and Disguise. This makes the skill prereqs a straight tax to get into the class.
Also, inspire self seems somewhat limited. As the character type is supposed to be a sneaky infiltrator (Stealth, Bluff, Disguise), making a "throaty chant" would seem to not help with things like Stealth, Bluff, Diplomacy, etc.
Again, I just find it lacking and I wanted to know others think I'm just being picky or this is a generally accepted truth.
I am starting to make a PFS character and my first inclination was to play a Taldor Detective Bard. I'm not particularly fond of the actual rules on the detective so I'm just playing a detective themed bard. I eventually wanted to mix in a few levels of Investigator Rogue (the actual rules).
In looking where I wanted to take this character I stumbled upon the Lion Blade PrC. The flavor of it was great. Its something I really love and it fits the feel of the character I am aiming to achieve. However, after looking at the class, it just looks terrible.
I understand that LB is from a past edition and needs a little updating but I just wanted to see what the general consensus was on the class as a whole. Thoughts?
