I don't understand the OP problem either. It's trivial to align the border when preparing a map for a VTT. In particular, I am against the suggestion that maps should be smaller to accommodate 5' squares. I like big , sprawling maps because they give enough distance in encounters to allow movement to be a substantial tactical consideration. I really hate runningg encounters in 30x30ft rooms. Ken
I agree, the current mapmakers are great. I can't emphasize enough how much as a GM a good map sells me on an adventure, and Paizo maps are top notch.
Yeah, there isn't much of a game balance issue here because Dominate Person already has such a long duration. I think I would bump the spell by a couple of levels and call it a day. However, if you create this spell you have an opportunity ; personally, I'd come up with some house rules regarding the long term effects of domination on the mind of the target. I've been currently thinking about this for a game I just started, my PCs just encountered a couple of servants whose master had dominated them for years, and the dominate spell has just ended. I told the PCs they were huddled in a corner, crying. The session ended at that point, so I haven't really determined what their long term mental state is. Ken
I wouldn't mind if Adventure paths came with house rules to address this sort of thing. Like, 'Create food/water doesn't exist, and Endure Elements is a 3rd level spell, caster only spell'. I agree that a desert campaign should have environmental challenges that are not trivialized by low level spells. By the way, if you want a great account of a camel caravan in the desert, read _Desert Road to Turkestan_ by Owen Lattimore.
When I ran Savage Tide on a VTT I imported the battle of Farshore map , put a scale on it, and ran the whole thing with 5ft squares. You can get really enormous maps with VTTs. The thing was , the Farshore map wasn't at a sufficient resolution to upscale well. It was super blurry. I get that it doesn't make economic sense for paizo to try to sell printed battlemaps, but it would be nice if the art was at a higher resolution so those of use who wished to could make our own. Ken
I think this would be a good change in general, it makes the fighter more interesting and the rogue tougher. But, I think the full fighter bonus feat progression plus the full rogue sneak attack and talents is too much. My off the cuff thought are that gestalt minus rogue sneak attack and talents, but with the ability to take +sneak attack or a rogue talent in place of fighter bonus feats, would be pretty balanced. You'd have a skillful, but nonmagical class that was tough and versatile. Ken
Yeah, I bought the season on iTunes and now I really regret it. What is it with the Scifi channel? Is good writing/decent acting really that hard to come by? I am an (amateur) actor in LA (software engineer by day) and the underemployed actors in my acting class can act circles around what is in this show. Ken
I wouldn't run Paladins in this AP because a lot of it is about making moral choices -- whether to accept Rowyn's offer, for example -- and I want my players to be free to make those choices in the moment, rather than knowing that of their own can only choose one way, and that they'd better go that way if they don't want the player to have to roll a new character. Plus, to me, the pirate theme works best with shades of grey, amoral characters -- more Han Solo, less Luke Skywalker. But, I have a very first-edition influenced, old school idea of what a paladin is. Your mileage may vary.
I've run this campaign twice, but never finished it. The first time was while in Argentina for a year, we got through City of Broken Idols then I had to leave. The second time was online and I got tired of running that game after finishing Tides of Dread. I would say this: If you find yourself lacking the longevity for the whole campaign, Tides of Dread is a great finishing place. Also, I didn't allow Druids or Paladins, and I am glad I made that choice. Druids make too much of the 'man versus nature' theme go away, and Paladins don't fit in well with the overall tone of the game, which is quite piratey. Ken
You should definitely use Mage Armor; it's a single first level spell slot that you probably won't otherwise even use. Going from AC 13 to 17 won't stop any high level creature's first attack, but it might stop one of its iterative attacks if you are unlucky enough to get full attacked.
But yeah, I don't generally invest in AC increasing items as a wizard. Your gold and the item slots are better spent elsewhere. Increasing saves should be a defensive priority.
When did it become the case that you could use basilisk blood to restore stoned allies? THAT is coddling your players. I'd make them go bargain for the services of a wizard to restore their friends. The wizard says, 'sure, I'll do it if you kill my rival in that tower and return the spellbook he stole. My apprentices will accompany you'. The players of the stoned PCs play the apprentices.
Hey,
Any recommendations? Something about half the size of the Tegel Manor map would be just about perfect. Ken
Oh, and I agree that the Zelazny review is really weak, bad enough to make me discount the reviewer's opinions in general. And it's pretty funny to see these people going on about the sexism in Conan, ERB, etc. The depictions of women in these books were quite progressive for the timeframe in which they were written. Someone should make him go read the GOR books and write a review of those! Still , it's nice to see reviews of some of those appendix N books that I haven't read, like Hiero's Journey and the Poul Anderson book. Ken
All this is an action/isn't an action stuff kind of misses the point. Your job as a DM is to make the game fun. Here's a simple rule: It can be fun when the players exploit a rules loophole to the disadvantage of their enemies. It's NEVER fun when the DM exploits a rules loophole to the disadvantage of the PCs. You already have plot knowledge and the ability to craft the encounter on your side, if you think your PCs are doing too well use those things instead. So, even if what you described is technically allowable, you shouldn't do it. Ken
I'm not a fan of divination magic making theft impossible. Fortunately, with respect to locate object, it's radius limit would be well known in the game world among professional thieves. So, I am not sure a merchant would lay out 60gp, knowing that the item would likely have been moved. Furthermore, the spell is blocked by the simple expediency of putting the item in a lead box. Any self respecting thieves guild would keep their significant loot in one, at least until they could spirit it out of the area for sale in a distant market. Now, that merchant is probably paying protection money to the local thieves guild. So he goes to them and says, 'why did you steal from me; I payed my taxes'.
And _that_ is how I think I would keep this from getting out of control. Because fighting the thieves guild can be a fun adventure, unlike going to jail. Ken
The wierd thing about a child being an adept, is that there's no good way to model them becoming the equivalent of a first level PC over time. What happened to those Adepts spells they used to know, like Cure Light Wounds, that aren't on the Wizard spell list? And keeping the level of Adept just makes them suck, due to the way the class/level system is designed. Ken
I saw a reference to the altitude rules in the flaming sphere thread (see below). I hadn't seen these rules, and I know from personal experience (I do a lot of high altitude trekking in the himalayas and elsewhere) that they're kindof silly. In general, you can go to about 9000 feet without experiencing significant altitude sickness.
I personally would have the 'High pass' category kick in no lower than 10,000 feet. And the fort saves shouldn't scale past a point... it should actually get easier to pass them, as your body acclimatizes. The high peak category should probably be somewhere above 20,000 feet, given that they affect even acclimatized characters. I believe there are military bases in India/Pakistan where people permanently live at this altitude. There is certainly an altitude that people cannot acclimatize to, but I am not sure what it is. Stefan Hill wrote:
It's a big change to the rules, and pretty interesting. I like it that it helps martial types more than casters. IMO they need this help at high levels to stay competitive. I like that it gives non-wizards something important to do with downtime (to help balance crafting), especially since I don't like metagamey restrictions on crafting. If I had been designing the HP training rules I might have considered somehow putting them out of reach of casters. I like the 'casters are blasty but fragile, martial types are resilient bricks' trope. Ken
Yeah, that was my main concern. I'm against the wizard having to subsidize the other PC's magic item habits at all, though. They should take their own damn crafting feats! And get off his lawn, too! Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:
I haven't bought the book yet, and it sounds mostly awesome. But count me among the folks who aren't happy with the crafting/wealth by level tie in. It seems unnecessarily heavyhanded and gamist to me; in my opinion, constructs like this strongly contributed to ruining 4E. What I would have hoped for is 1) things that other classes can do in their downtime that generate benefit to them analogous to that the wizard can gain by crafting. 2) some suggestions on how to adjust encounters when a party has a great deal of wealth, or less than WBL would indicate. The DM has the power to add more monsters w/o adjusting treasure, so I'm basically unsympathetic to the idea that party-wide WBL problems need such a heavy handed solution. See (1) above for a better way to solve the issue of the wizard becoming overpowered relative to his peers. I especially dislike the idea that the wizard is obligated by virtue of having his crafting feat to provide services to the group, paid for out of his own treasure share. I hope this isn't really what the book says, and that I've misunderstood this part. The character background stuff sounds awesome. The building and downtime rules sound great too, assuming balance has been improved since the kingmaker days. And Sean, I do remember your TSR days. We had a pretty epic argument on rec.games.frp.dnd once, if I recall correctly! Ken
I am going to go against the grain here. I never fudge die rolls, nor do I use a DM screen.
As DM, you have many tools to avoid a TPK. First and foremost, you control the circumstances of the encounter. Think the PCs will die in the next battle? Give them surprise... they'll have a chance to flee. Monsters are not all waiting in squads at full alert. They have lives. They don't all become ready instantly at the first sign of danger. Use this fact to buy PCs time to react. Once the fight has begun, don't play your monsters smarter than they are.
Your friend is displaying the type of behaviors that serial killers are documented to engage in in their childhood. Some kind of intervention needs to be done, because there's a significant chance that his needs won't be satisfied by the murder of rodents some day. It might end up being someone you know. Ken
In general you want to memorize your offensive spells and write your defensive spells to scrolls. With that in mind, I would memorize an additional casting of Color Spray or Grease (probably the former) and scribe Protection from Evil. If necessary, get rid of the Summon Monster I scroll; it isn't very useful due to its 1 round duration. Not sure if your summoner's charm ability affects scrolls; if it does ignore this last part. Ken
Just some stream of consciousness thoughts... In movies and myth, martial types succeed against evil wizards by skill, guile, luck, and tenacity. But, Pathfinder's method of allocating stats doesn't make it easy to model this. Warriors have significant incentives to dump INT, WIS, and CHA in favor of physical stats. So the clever hero disrupting the evil wizard's plan by thinking outside the box? Doesn't really fit. And, there isn't a central 'luck' mechanic in pathfinder. If there was, I would give high level martial types luck in spades. I'd make it a high level class feature of both fighter and rogue types. Essentially, at high levels luck , wit, and treachery defeat planning and magic.... sometimes. And martial types should be really skillful...essentially I'd kill the rogue and give the fighter all his stuff , at high levels. Probably in Pathfinder high level fighters get extra skill points, and high level rogues get more resiliant, and a 20th level rogue and a 20th level fighter ought to be able to do the same things. ken
Your job as a DM is to make the core conceit of D&D, which is "Evil sits in a dungeon, waiting to be killed" make sense. So, you have to come up with reasons that the enemies don't work together, because fighting all the monsters at once is beyond the PC's ability. Here are some possibilities: 1) The evil overlord mistrusts his lieutenant and wants him taken down, thinking that he'll step in and take care of the PCs once that's done
Just a few off the top of my head. Ken
Add me to the 'more support articles are better than fiction' crowd. My order of preference:
Here's another idea to consider: Use space in AP volume 2 to revisit stuff in volume 1/tie things together better. I'm sure there are lots of times when you wish you could update something but you've already gone to press. The next volume is a reasonable place to do that -- I doubt many people run your AP's as fast as they come out. BTW, I suspended my subscription recently because I wasn't finding time to play and I already had a huge backlog of APs to run...but I'll be back!
The maze section IMO has always been the weakest portion of Rappan Athuk, along with Greznek, which feels underdeveloped relative to the rest of the dungeon. My suggestion would be to repurpose the procedural table in the Bloodways section, using it there as well. Or actually my recollection is that the Bloodways were a drop in replacement for the maze section in Rappan Athuk reloaded; is this still the case? Ken
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