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I'm doing some theorycrafting and such in HeroLab Online right now, jsut to get a sense of what can be done with Patfhinder 2e. Right now, I'm playing with a high-level bard. The bard has Performance at Legendary. Thanks to Versatile Performance, he can use his Perform skill to Make an Impression or Demoralize an opponent.

According to HeroLab, this combination makes the bard eligible for the Scare to Death feat. Scare to Death requires Legendary Intimidation.

...

Versatile Performance can't allow this bard to take Scare to Death. Can it??


So, my players are in the middle of Tempest Rising. They've dutifully pursued leads on the Chelish spy ring, but things have taken a ... weird ... turn, partly from player agency and partly because I put out some potential hooks.

The upshot is that rather than find Corlan and prevent the assassination, the players decided to find out why the heck there were dashes beside Endymion Arronax's name. As a GM, I firmly believe that the world moves on with or without the PCs, so Corlan got himself assassinated, and Hell Harbor guards have a msytery.

Meanwhile, the players decided to get the attention of guards (and perhaps Arronax) by killing a bunch of imps and turning them in for a bounty. (Said bounty is detailed in Isles of the Shackles). After a street battle with some INCREDIBLY annoying imps (including one imp who used his Suggestion SLA to force the party alchemist to inventory a banana cart for three rounds), the party hauled their corpses to the guards. In turn, a guard investigator named Inspector Hiram Goldpicker did a nice little dance of checks with the PC captain. The end result was that Hiram gave up a little bit of information about Corlan's murder, and the PCs shared a little bit of their information about investigating the spy ring. The PCs are going to get Sandara to use Speak With Dead on Corlan's corpse ... and Hiram gave them the guards' opera tickets.

The players want to use the opera to get close to Endymion and figure out what his deal is. They went out and bought their fancy duds, and they're headed into the opera.

The opera will be next weekend. And, quite frankly, I'm at a loss as to what to do. I've already decided to structure it loosely around the Ultimate Intrigue rules, with five "social round" opportunities: pre-show reception, Act I, intermission, Act II, and post-show reception.

Aside from that ... I've got really hazy ideas. I could use some help here, particularly on the following questions:

Who's at the opera and what do they want? Both Longbeard and Endymion are in attendance. Who else might be there?

What opera is being performed? Themes, anything!! I'm actually thinking about an operatic version of the players' exploits back in Plunder and Peril, but told from Varossa Lanteri's point of view. (They let her go, BTW. She's since become this NPC who pops up occasionally. It's really fun for me as a GM because the players expect trouble whenever she's there.)

What hijinks and side plots should be available?

On this, I have no idea.

So ... any thoughts would be appreciated because I'm sort of regretting writing myself into "Pirates' Night at the Opera."


My players are almost to the end of the spy ring, so the Free Captain's Regatta is ahead.

I've looked it over, and I'm not fond of how it goes. In particular, I don't like the fact that it automatically comes down to final bit of race between the players and Harrigan, and that even if the players lose, they still "win" because of the plot.

So I'm looking to redo this a bit. A couple of guiding principles:

The storylines converge. The PCs at this point have a number of allies, rivals, friends, and enemies. I want several, if not all, of the captains from those ships (including a ghoul pirate who has a beef with the PCs) to be opponents in the Regatta.

The players must work to win. I don't want them to loose the Captain's Regatta. But at the same time, they should have to work for their victory -- make skill rolls work together with their crew, etc.

There must be a chance for the players to lose. I don't like the ending where the players get handed the victory even if they lose the Race. I want there to be a genuine chance the players will lose the race, and thus lose out on their opportunity to get the Isle of Empty Eyes. The reason for this is that if there's no chance the players will lose, then I don't really feel like they've earned their ending.

Those are the metagame/design aspects of this for me.


Once the PCs have completely overwhelmed the opposing ship, and it looks like all is lost for the opposing ship ... a mage there sends a fireball high into the air, where it explodes without hurting anyone.

(Two round interval)

A fireball explodes in the air, from a few miles away ....


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I'm a pretty dedicated 1E player/GM, and I'm still getting my money's worth from first edition. Still, I like a lot of what I've seen so far when playing with and theorycrafting 2E characters. There's a very good merging of story and system that I'm discovery as I play with HeroLab.

The other day, I conceptualized a sorcerer with a dragon ancestor. And then I thought, "What if the ancestor shows up to pester the sorcerer for not doing things the way the dragon would like?" And ... the second level Summoner Dedication does that perfectly. Suddenly, there's a dragon spirit following around giving you all sorts of unwanted advice.


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Good evening. I'm trying to pull together maps of the ports that my players will visit during this AP. I've put together decent maps of Beachcomber, Quent, and Slipcove, but I was wondering if anybody has a decent map of Drenchport or some of the other towns. IN particular -- Drenchport has a lot of houses built of shipwrecks and driftwood. Has anybody used something that is Roll20 friendly?


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Has anybody done anything with Aashaq the Annihilator? I found her stats in Dragons Unleashed along with her treasure hoard. Tentatively, I thought it might be interesting if she and Kerdak Bonefist had some kind of deal going to keep the Shackles pirates divided ... or if she manipulated everything leading to the Chelaxian invasion so that the pirates remain divided. Tentatively, I might buff her stats (if needed) when the PCs are right at the end of the campaign so that they have a choice: Reach an accommodation with her, or else unite as many pirate lords as they can to bring her down once and for all.


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My group is just at the start of Tempest Rising. They're actually 8th level instead of 7th level, so I may tweak things accordingly.

I intend to run the Regatta mostly as-is, but the competitors will include captains they have met over the course of their adventures, both friend and foe.

Just to make things fun and increase the chances for interaction and possible social disaster, I'd like to open the Regatta with a social event -- the Pirate's Ball, hosted at Kerdak Bonefist's keep in Port Peril, for captains and officers who will be competing in the Regatta.

Broadly, I think the whole thing would be conducted under parlay, meaning that while Kerdak isn't going to take away anybody's weapons, it's also going to be the height of bad manners to kill a competing captain without the host's permission.

Attendees would include:

Party Attendees:
* Several of the pirate lords, including Kerdak Bonefist, the Master of Gales, Tessa Fairwind, Jolis Raffles, and others.

* Isabella "Inkskin" Locke, who in my campaign is a showboating captain who's got a bunch of sahuagin allies.

* Barnabas Harrigan. 'Nuff said

* Varossa Lanteri, whom I won't spoil because she's in Plunder & Peril. Suffice it to say the has a grudge against the PCs.

* Merrill Pegsworthy

* A slaver captain (to be decided) hailing from the Rampore Isles.

* Cap'n Bloodwine, a dread ghoul captain who's been an offscreen presence for much of the AP. He's hunting for the person who stole his buried treasure. (Spoiler: It was the PCs)

* That hobgoblin captain (can't remember his name) from the Sea Wolves encounters in the second module.

Anyway, I'm at a loss for what would be some events/intrigue to throw in here. Any ideas?


I may be running Kingmaker under PF1 rules for a gaming group sometime in the next year or so. The problem, though, is that at least one person in the group has played the CRPG, and most of the rest of the group already knows some of the things I did with the game previously. Wanted to get some folks' thoughts on a changed-up campaign I'm considering.

The Big Boss. I'm thinking of swapping out Nyrissa and the Fable with The Colony of the Immortal Arts, something I dreamed up a couple years ago. I would run the Colony as a city-sized demiplane that occasionally intersects with the Prime Plane. The Mistress of Beauty would be an immortal, undead "forgotten patron" who wants to be remembered again. Her citadel would show up on the site of the Castle of Knives at the appointed time, and then her agents would disperse across the Stolen Lands to find artists and singers. She wants to find somebody worthy to depict her in song or in art, which she believes will stabilize her citadel and make her happy again. (Not to mention it might give her a taste of divine/mythic power again).

Other things:

Stolen Lands would run mostly as-is. However, the Stag Lord would be having an affair with a rusalka named Kareen ... and I would turn his physical death at the end of Stolen Lands into a segue to a variant of Hargulka's Monster Kingdom, but with the undead Stag Lord as the Bloody Huntsman off a scenario I tried for a PbP that died a couple years back.

I would replace Vanhold Vanishing with something involving politics w/ settlers from Brevoy coming into the Stolen Lands, mainly to gauge player interest in a Game of Thrones in Brevoy.

Haven't thought much beyond that. Any thoughts from the crowd here?


I'm trying to figure out ... what is the best way to import the PDFs of Pathfinder Flipmaps and Game Mastery Map Packs into Roll20?

Specifically:

* What is the best way to take the map images into Roll 20?

* Is there a way to turn off gridlines?

* Is there a way to turn off the watermark with my name/email address on it?


My players are almost ready for S&S 3. Here is what we have so far:

Plunder & Peril:

I subbed in parts of Plunder & Peril for parts of Raiders of the Fever Sea. I kept a lot of the random events along the way, but excised the Sahaugin plot as uninteresting ... and my players have not yet gone to Tidewater Rock. Instead, they've decided they want to make Warvil's Folly their home base. They bribed the lizardmen there to help build up the monastery now that they've cleaned it out.

They're currently in Ghol-Can chasing down the treasure of Jemma Redclaw. If everything goes well, at the end of Plunder & Peril, they will have:


  • Two, possibly three, ships under their command: the former [i]Wormwood, the Magpie Princess, and the Fearsome Tide.

  • The beginnings of an island base on Warvil's Folly.

  • Nice amounts of Plunder, Infamy and Disrepute.

  • Sixth level, going on seventh.


Miscellaneous plotty bits:

Unique to our campaign, we have a couple more storylines:


  • The PC captain is after sunken treasure left behind by an ancient goblin captain known as the Sodden Gob.

  • The PC First Mate is searching for her missing uncle.

I've decided to tie the two plots together. That is, her uncle was also searching for the Treasure of the Sodden Gob. Part of their search will involve following his footsteps.

Ideally, I'd like for the group to get the Treasure of the Sodden Gob when they're around 10th or 11th level. So far, I've introduced the first mate's cousin, who dislikes her and is also searching for the uncle. I've also introduced a scrap of his journal saying he was at Tidewater Rock for a while. My general plan is a little devilish. I plan for the uncle (who was trailing his own ancestor!) to have found the treasure, but to have been ensanred and taken over by its guardian ... a familial lich!!

My general plan is for the players to then find another scrap of his journal indicating that he went to talk to the Ancient Mariner in Mancatcher Cove.

I also plan to have a mcguffin -- a ruby encrusted conch shell - that sings in Goblin when you put it to your ear in Jemma Redclaw's treasure. The goblin song will be a clue -- the treasure is underwater somewhere.

I've tentatively decided to use Mancatcher Cove, maybe with sahaugin, maybe not, as a second place to find a clue -- something with the Ancient Mariner, perhaps.

Finally, I've introduced a rogue plot element in the form of Captain Bloodwine, a flesh-thirsty ghoul pirate and his crew who ply the seas. So far, the players have had tangential encounters with his stuff. They encountered ghouls on Bonewrack Island (his base). They also shut down a slaver operation that supplied Bloodwine with food and crew. I'd also like him to have one of the Sodden Gob mcguffins. I'm thinking a dagger that will provide augury once per day, but only if the question is asked in Goblin. That dagger might also hold some other clue to the treasure, but I have no idea what that clue should be.

Also hovering in this are another player's story (to fight slavery).

So ... any ideas of how to integrate all this with the third module? Because it's a lot to take in.


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Yes, yes, this sounds like a SyFy Original Movie. But bear with me here.

The climax of Skull & Shackles involves going to war with the Chelaxian navy and (as I recall) a battle with the Hurricane King.

A couple sessions ago, while we were doing the earl stages of Plunder & Peril, my players nearly got TPKed by an elder nirento. This has left my players really, REALLY paranoid about trees that might try to kill them.

I flipped through the Pathfinder plant critters. If my players are going to be paranoid about trees, I want to play with that a little. Then I came across this fellow: The Bodythief. It is a tree devoted to order that eats people and turns them into pod people.

Which gave me an idea for a new Big Bad. What if I rechannel the AP so that the Big Bad is a bodythief, or a cabal of bodythiefs that want to bring order to the Shackles by wiping out piracy?

If I slap the Aquatic template on them, I have underwater trees, and they can have underwater pod-spawned critters as minions. (I imagine pad Adaros and such swimming around).

Might this work?


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I compressed a little bit the events on the Wormwood and the Man's Promise. I wanted my players to get a sense of hard work on the ship, I wanted them to make friends and influence people among the pirates, and, of course, I wanted them to hate Mister Plugg and Master Scourge.

I also ran a brief early battle with that slaver ship mentioned in the back of the book. That raid ended up with four slaves in the Wormwood's hold. I randomly generated backgrounds for them, and one was a doppelganger.

One PC (a monk w/ a background as a freed slave) had a subplot with the salves that culminated in him getting her a masterwork thieves' toolkit (unknowingly aiding a doppelganger). She escaped, some blood was found.

With these mostly accomplished, we did the storm and the shipwreck. My players know their tropes, so they genuinely expected another friendly NPC to get tossed overboard, and they'd have to save that NPC.

Instead -- grindylow battle, shipwreck. The group was shipwrecked and Sandara Quinn and Jack Scrimshaw were kidnapped. Egads!! Master Scourge didn't seem too concerned. My players had a somewhat understated reaction, so I decided to ratchet up tensions a little bit. Rosie Curswell assaulted Master Scourge with her fists.

The bard hissed something at her about trying shenanigans, but things were in progress.

Now ... I intended this just to be a scene to ratchet up tension before Scourge and Plugg sent the PCs off to the island for water. But the goblin brawler didn't like things one bit ... so he joined in the assault on Scourge.

MUTINY!!!

I took about five to ten minutes to load everyone into Hero Lab, then to position all the NPCs in the ship. And I realized I hadn't included enough of PLugg's supporters. Oh well. Nothing to be done about it.

I think the fight lasted around 45 minutes real-life time, complete with a Fishguts Croop who (egad!) turned out to be a doppelganger and tried to kill the PC alchemist. (Player: "HELP!! HELP!!" Other players: "We're fighting Scourge and Plugg!!")

All's well that end's well, though. The players did successfully mutiny and I think they enjoyed the fight. Next session, they're plotting to rescue Sandara and Jack. I'm thinking of splitting the two. I like the idea of Sandara being a prisoner of the ghouls, while Jack is being held by the grindylows.

I'm also planning to expand the ghoul situation a little bit. I have an idea for a ghoul pirate ship (my take on the Black Pearl, and I like the idea of this stockade being a place that ship visits occasionally.


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1) I'd love to see a lot of material from these boards -- Venture Capital, Dudemeister's stuff, Redcelt's material, and so forth -- incorporated into the new game, should people give their permission.

2) The BBEG needs to be foreshadowed early.

3) Kingdom-building rules should be inspired by Ultimate Campaign. There should also be a mechanic for PCs to build up their individual influence within the kingdom. This could take the form of their individual offices. Or there could be a system where PCs can build up their own little subdomains within the greater kingdom, giving their subdomains their own unique character.

4) From Module 3 onward, the adventure should assume that rather than going out to explore themselves, the PCs are sending adventurers or scouts to do their exploring for them.

5) I'd like to see an appendix that offers dynamic options. For example, what happens if the PCs leave a particularly desirable place unclaimed and undeveloped?

6) I would incorporate mass combat or something similar early, possibly from the very first adventure. Let players feel like really lords in the making as they take on the Stag Lord.


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I'm GMing the Shackles soon, and I'm spitballing a few ideas for weird and wonderful ships my players might encounter. A few ideas:

* The S.S. Tucker. It appears to be a derelict, but it's actually covered by traps crewed by kobolds. They stay belowdecks during the day. They ambush people who get caught in the traps above deck.

* An all-halfling ship that preys on Chelaxian ships, especially those carrying halfling slaves. The captain, a merry sort, enjoys chasing after buried treasure and a good intrigue. If she ever stops joking, that means you're in trouble.

* An "aircraft carrier." A huge ship (and a couple supporting vessels) manned by mites who raid ships from atop domesticated giant wasps (using their vermin empathy ability).

* A ship crewed entirely by ghouls, my take on the Black Pearl. They were cursed with ghoulhood after the cook led a mutiny, then cooked and served the ship's former officers after food ran low. In the captains possession is a map that leads back to an island that is the lair of a baby dread lacedon bronze dragon and his undead minions.


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It's been a long, long run, but we finally finished my mythic Kingmaker game.

I decided to let Nyrissa (a dread lord nymph in my campaign) show herself earlier than planned with a bloom I called "Sleeping Prince." She was supposed to fight, then teleport out to fight the players later, but they got a lucky hit.

I offered my players a choice: End the campaign there, or have a coda. They voted coda.

I had at my disposal Ithuliak, the Knurly Witch, the Jabberwock, and Phomandala as the last named adversaries.

So I concocted a scenario. Thousandbreaths was collapsing. If it collapsed, the creatures there would spill out into the kingdom and the surrounding area. Some, like the Knurly Witch, would just find their own homes and not molest others overmuch. Others, like Ithuliak, would seek to conquer.

The only way to stop this? Someone must take Nyrissa's place as the new Lady of Dreams.

The Knurly Witch showed up at the PCs' celebration and told them of this. After some negotiations to see to their kingdom's future, the NPC duchess led her ruling council into Thousandbreaths to take up the reins of the Lady of Dreams, and thus spare the Material Plane.

They made their way through the mostly depopulated Thousandbreaths, knowing that somewhere in the wilderness between Glades, fey armies were preparing to invade. They tried to take the rivers upstream to the Nyrissa's home, but the rivers turned them back.

They stalked into Ithuliak's glade, where Ankous and charmed Tyrannosaurus's were on patrol. The ankous spotted them ... and battle was joined.

The party faced down their first opponents. The ankou used Greater Darkness to strike from stealth, and one Tyrannosaurus ate the barbarian at one point. ("It's my thing," the player said as he grabbed his trusty handaxe and cut his way out).

And then Ithuliak joined the battle. In my campaign, she was a very powerful mythic dragon, ancient beyond belief, possessed of a high AC, many attacks, and a bad attitude. After a few rounds of battling, the queen realized she could not face down this menace.

She and the party alchemist fled intent on making their way to Nyrissa's castle, as the barbarian and the wizard continued their fight. (In real life, I put down a dice that indicated how many rounds it would take for queen and alchemist to flee the Glade and escape Ithuliak. If the wizard and barbarian fell before then, all was lost).

Queen and alchemist made it through. They trudged through the entry to the castle, and found the Jabberwock in the courtyard. (Real life: I sensed a very heroic moment coming, so I decided not to run a full combat between Jabberwock and the diminished party). The duchess, echoing the deed that one her kingdom when she sneaked up on the Stag Lord and killed him in his sleep, again crept past a foe. Meanwhile, the alchemist, possessed of Briar, engaged the beast to keep it at bay.

When his liege lady had fled to safety, the alchemist took gaseous form and also fled the Jabberwock.

Together, they moved further into the Lady's castle, bypassing a Phomandala intent on sculpture. They discovered Nyrissa's lab, with unicorn horn, Ovinnrbaane, and shards of the cyclops' eye. Exploring further, they found a diadem, a cloak, and a scepter. The duchess took this up, and claimed the mantle of Lady of Dreams. She visited the glade of Ithuliak to retrieve her friends' bodies. The dragon recognized the new Lady of Dreams, but proclaimed her hatred even as she stood by.

The new Lady of Dreams, now confined to this realm, arranged for her friends' bodies to be returned to their kingdom, where clerics in service to Erastil and Abadar could raise them from the dead, to live out the lives they were meant to have.

And the duchess, once known as the Bandit Queen, took up her new mantle. She had dubbed her mortal realm "The Kingdom of Second Chances." She adopted the same sobriquet for her new realm, building a place where fey, no longer welcome in a civilizing world, might find refuge.

And the Bandit Queen, and her retainers, passed into legend, their stories a part of the founding of the newest, and perhaps someday the greatest, of the River Kingdoms.


Hi there. I'm getting ready to start a new Skull & Shackles campaign in the next two months. Curious about any resources I should look into or things I should consider. For example:

* Have GMs here generated interesting content I should look at?

* What are issues with S&S systems? How could I address them?

* Would it be feasible to replace the Plunder system with the Downtime Capital system? (i.e., turn Treasure and Plunder into free Labor/Goods/Magic/Influence capital the PCs could use)

* Are there any interesting modules or adventures that could fit in with a pirate-y theme?

* What's the best way to make my game feel like a pirate movie?


I'm planning for my wizard character to spend downtime researching a new spell. The rules read:

Quote:
Pay 100 gp × the spell’s level for research costs and rare ingredients. You may spend Goods or Magic toward this cost.

So ... what's the rate of return on that capital? Specifically, I spend time (and gold) to get the Magic capital, then buy the capital at the "earned" rate, then if I turn around and spend it here, how many GP does the Magic capital sub for?


My players are putting together the final pieces of my (highly modified) Kingmaker AP before they plunge into Thousandbreaths, complete with a conference with The Marshal of Joyful Revels, a mythic Seilenos who has been something between an ally and a frenemy to the PCs.

So, some time back, my the PC duchess married the son of Castruccio Irovetti to create an alliance. (long story there). As a soap opera twist, I threw in the idea that Irovetti's son is also the son of Nyrissa.

When contemplating possible ways to deal with the Lady of Dreams, the duchess's player floated the idea of pregnancy -- perhaps if she conceives an heir to the whole enchilada, the entire war can get called off.

I have never before seen a player suggest pregnancy to solve a plot, let alone defeat the BBEG.


So we're approaching the crescendo of the final module at my table, and my players are going to enter Thousandbreaths soon. Considering my players have all these nifty mortal armies lying around, I'd like to challenge their kingdom back home while they're in Thousandbreaths. What might be some possible armies for Nyrissa?

I have the High Folly army in front of me.

Other things I'm thinking of:

* Twigjacks.

* Fey birds who swoop over the capital's defenses

* Cruel pixie archers

* Redcaps thirsting for the enemy's blood.

* Quicklings

Any other ideas?


"OH, you're rolling this Perception check when there's nothing on the other side of the door? Have a natural 20!"

"So your Improved Initiative feat gives you +4 to init rolls? That's OK. We'll go -8 on all rolls."

"What's that? You used Skill Focus, Keen Senses, and a magic item to get a +30 Perception skill? But you didn't know it was possible to roll a negative forty!"


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So, at last session, I set a couple different hooks in front of my players, including a collection of strangers asking about a mcguffin, and a wild beast rampaging in a nearby marsh. My players chased after the stranger. After they figured out the collection of strangers was one guy (a bad guy they'd tangled with before) with a fetish for polymorph magic, they decided to set a trap for him. They started rumors they had the mcguffin in a place and set an ambush. So the bad guy came ... and they sprung their trap. He fought them for a couple rounds, then when the ambush got the better of him, he teleported away. The players, being players, went for the old scry-and-fry.

They teleported into a swamp ... only to find the bad guy had set a trap for them!!! The swamp beastie attacked, and the bad guy stuck around for a little longer ... then he teleported away while the players turned to the swamp beastie.

The players emerged without deaths (mostly thanks to Stoneskin), but I kind of liked turning the scry and fry around.

Now, I wonder if this bad guy might try to scry and fry THEM!!


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And my goodness, it was fun. And it felt more like a fantasy-novel wizard than the D&D and Pathfinder wizards ever felt to me. Mainly, I really liked the way it changed the old Vancian magical system. In the classic system, I had to say, "Ok, I think I'm going to have to cast Endure Elements three times today and Magic Missile twice, and Create Pit once." I like just saying, "I think I'll need Endure Elements, Magic Missile, and Create Pit," and then casting them in proportions as I see fit.

And the Arcane reservoir and exploits (along with Consume Spells) were pretty solid, too. I played the occultist archetype (with the Summon Monster archetype), and I loved having the exploits on tap and the flexibility that came with Consume Spells.

All in all, a damn solid class.


Yohoho and a bottle of rum!! I'm looking to GM Skull & Shackles sometime soon (any day now!!), and I could use a couple bits of advice.

First, I'd like to ask -- is it just me, or is the Inquisitor (Sacred Grimoire) not a great background character for a pirate campaign? I imagine somebody walking around with a copy of the Pirate Code and whacking people who get out of line.

Ok, back to something serious. My current AP is Kingmaker, lots of fey, lots of politics. I want the new AP to feel a lot like a pirate movie. To this end, if anybody's got some ideas, I'd love to hear them:

* Any good atmospherics I can give my players? I'm thinking of passing out hats, eyepatches, and hooks for everyone to wear -- and then when they get their own ship, the captain's Player will get a really nice hat.

* I'm a big fan of the rules systems spread out in the books. Right off the bat, I'm planning to use Auto Bonus Progression, Background Skills, Wound Levels, and Combat Stamina (all characters for free). I'm also thinking of using the Occult Rituals rules and some of the rules from Ultimate Intrigue.

* Does anybody have ideas for adventures or short scenarios I can adapt easily into a pirate-y sort of side adventure? I'm thinking of stuff that involves heists, thievery, skullduggery, disguises, and lots of buckling of swashes.


Each player must play a vigilante (magic child) who dresses in a different color and has a different animal as a familiar. And each of the players has access to a Huge golem modeled after its familiar ...


Could somebody help me here? I'm trying to game out feat selection for an arcanist (occultist), and I'm considering Extra Reservoir:

Quote:

Extra Reservoir

Your reservoir of arcane energy is greater than the reservoirs of others.

Prerequisite: Arcane reservoir class feature.

Benefit: You gain 3 more points in your arcane reservoir, and the maximum number of points in your arcane reservoir increases by that amount.

Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Now, per the rules, my arcane reservoir can hold up to 3 + caster level points, and I get 3 + 1/2 my caster level in there each morning when I do my ablutions. So ... does Extra Reservoir just add to my max pool (now 3 + caster level + 3), or do I also get more points in the morning (for 3 + 1/2 caster level + 3)?

I've seen this before, but there seems to be no Word of Designers on it.


4E is much maligned (and for good reason), but I did rather like skill challenges. In that system, players would use their skills to accomplish a goal, hoping to achieve a certain number of successes before a certain number of failures.

I found it to be a really neat way to unify disparate rule systems (social challenges, mysteries, heists, etc.) and a way to draw ALL players into challenges that they might ordinarily feel left out of (even though I typically ran the challenge behind the screen). it was also a good way to ensure that major challenges didn't come down to a single skill roll. Are there any thoughts to important the mechanic or something similar into Pathfinder 2?


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1) Is it true you are drawing inspiration from Synnibarr?

2) Which will be more important: Feats of strength, strength of feats, or feats of feet?

3) Will bards be able to defeat opponents in dance battles?

4) Can characters use Teamwork feats to combine into a giant mecha?


Has anybody considered scrapping the kingdom-building rules and going with a sort of enhanced Downtime system? For my new campaign, I'm playing with the idea of letting my players set general directions for their kingdom (which I as GM would then implement), and instead of crunching through all the kingdom-building turns, instead letting my players use buildings and teams to represent their individual holdings (their lands, farms, etc.) and income. Thoughts?


I understand you wanted to redesign your site. That's fine, and it probably needed it. But none of the URLs leading to the messageboards worked anymore. Among other things, this going to complicate inbound traffic. I (and others) cite to posts on Pathfinder messageboards all the time in other fora, and now those URLs are completely borked. Any chance of restoring that structure?


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I'm in a second gaming group now, and they're looking at having me run a new round of Kingmaker. I'm pondering the first book, and I'm choosing between possibilities.

I'm playing with the Bloody Huntsman scenario for the Stag Lord. But I keep coming back to one idea: building a kingdom.

The first book is about exploring wilderness, not building a kingdom, and rightfully so.

Stolen Lands envisages a Greenbelt that contains three unified political entities: the Sycamore Mites, the Sootscale Kobolds, and the Stag Lord's bandits.

Beyond these, the Greenbelt's inhabitants are a rather disparate lot. You have a number of hunters and trappers who wander in and out of Oleg's. There's a crazy hermit (Bokken). You have Oleg and his wife Svetlana. Later in the adventure, the players will meet Kesten Garess and his soldiers as well as the priest Jhod Khavken.

And of course, you have various low-level fey hanging around, and the occasional wandering troll.

Vanilla Stolen Lands anticipates that the players, explore the Northern Greenbelt, then invade the Stag Lord's fortress by force or by subterfuge and take it down by themselves. Actually, if we go by the book, the players do everything by themselves.

That doesn't seem very kingdom-y to me.

What is a kingdom, exactly? A kingdom is the people in it. The nobles. The knights. The guards. The peasants and the beggars, the scholars and the thieves. The village idiot and the mayor. They may not even like each other, but they're all part of something bigger than themselves.

But something, some person, at the start, steps up to lead these people, to bring them together.

What if the true goal to Stolen Lands is to kindle the first embers of a nation? What if the players actually make a kingdom?

I'm going to post more in this thread as I think about this. My goal is to take the bones of Stolen Lands and introduce my players to the idea of forging a nation, from the very start of the game.


One thing I really liked in Courts of the Shadow Fey was that all of the fey had really long, complicated titles in addition to their names. I've started doing that (a little bit) with some of the notable fey in my game.

Nyrissa, for example, is "The Lady of Dreams."

D'Kara, an erlking I added, is "D'Kara, the Marquis of the Fallen Leaves, Custodian of the Castle of Knives, and True Lord of the Stolen Lands."

Angmar, a seilenos, is known as "Angmar, the Marshal of Joyful Revels, Regent of Pitax." He also gets disco music whenever he enters a scene.

Anything you guys have come up with, either for existing fey or your own creations?


OK, here's the situational. I'm currently playing in Curse of the Crimson Throne. It's three players. The other two are an arcanist and a ranged rogue. Thus, my brawler (wild child) and his bear buddy are the entire front line.

We're currently at 4th level, and I think we'll hit 5th level soon. My feats so far are Dirty Fighting, Improved Grapple, and Dodge. I'm looking at my feat for 5th level, and I can't decide whether Mobility or Power Attack would be a better choice. Power Attack (alongside Dodge, Combat Reflexes, and Combat Expertise) is a gateway feat needed to maximize martial flexibility's, well, flexibility. On the other hand, if I pick up Mobility, it seems to offer a lot of neat options.

My play style so far has been very light on the raw power attack moves. I typically flank enemies with the bear -- the bear actually does more consistent damage thanks to his bite/claw/claw routine. I've also used Dirty Fighting so I can do things like yoink an enemy's weapon out of his hand without eating an AOO. Martial Flexibility has been very much an ad-hoc thing -- getting Boar Style for numerous foes with low AC, or using Crane Style to pump up my own AC against dangerous foes, or goind Dedicated Adversary for enemies that are hard to hit.

Any thoughts here?


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https://imgur.com/H4N8f2V


"And one time, at bandit camp ... "


At our next session, my players are going to fight for Pitax's capital. The city is currently ruled by a Seilenos. For the mass combat, I'm preparing the Seilenos as the commander of a small army of Maenads.

I'm trying to decide how to implement his Dramatic Flourish and Impossible Verisimilitude abilities:

Quote:

Impossible Verisimilitude (Su)

As a standard action, a seilenos can begin telling a story so supernaturally vivid that the elements described spring to life, replicating the effect of a spell of the seilenos’s choice: screen, shades (can also mimic summon nature’s ally VIII), or veil. It must use a free action to continue the performance each round; if it doesn’t, the illusion immediately ends. As part of this free action, the seilenos can add, remove, or change one illusion effect each round, to a maximum of three simultaneous illusions.

Any save DC is 30, regardless of which effect the seilenos chooses. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Quote:

Dramatic Flourish (Su)

As a standard action while its impossible verisimilitude is active, a seilenos can inspire strong emotions in all enemies, all allies, or all creatures (seilenos’s choice) within 120 feet that can hear or see it, replicating the effect of a spell of the seilenos’s choice: charm monster, confusion, crushing despair, fear, good hope, joyful rapture, reckless infatuation, suggestion, vengeful outrage, or waves of ecstasy. A creature that successfully saves against a seilenos’s dramatic flourish can’t be affected by that seilenos’s dramatic flourish again for 24 hours.

Any save DC is 30, regardless of which effect the seilenos chooses. The save DC is Charisma-based.

I am thinking this: The seilenos implements his Impossible Verisimilitude during any combat phase, targeting one army. The Army's commander must make a Will save and the army must make a Morale check, both against the DC of Impossible Verisimilitude.

Then the following happens:

Army commander saves, Army makes morale check: No effect.

Army commander saves, army fails its morale check: Army can make no attack during that combat phase.

Army commander fails save, army makes its morale check: Army can make no attack during this combat phase.

Army commander fails save, army fails morale check: Army attacks and damages an army of the seilenos's choice.

What do you guys think of these rules? I want the battle to be as creepy as possible.


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If falling in love with martial flexibility is wrong, I don't wanna be right.


Just started a new campaign. We're a three-person party (Rogue, Arcanist, and my brawler). My brawler has the wild child archetype. His buddy is a bear named Walter.

I think my brawler is going to be primarily a grappler, subbing in useful combat feats on an ad-hoc basis with Martial Flexibility.

So far at 2nd level, my feats are Dirty Fighting and Improved Grapple. At the next couple levels, I'm thinking Dodge (level 3) and Stunning First (level 5) to round out the prereqs for other useful combat feats. Any thoughts here?


In vanilla Kingmaker, Brevoy mostly moves offscreen by the end of book 2 or so, with a couple possibilities for action after the module is over. But there are possibilities up there, particularly considering the amount of real estate given to the Houses in the Kingmaker players guide.

Here's how I've used Brevoy:

* My players got caught up in some of the internal Brevoy politics when they pressed the Swordlords for independence. Among other things, Noleski Surtova was nearly assassinated in their capital.

* The Black Prince, a vilderavn, tried to draw the players' kingdom into Brevoy politics to destroy their kingdom and wreak vengeance after the PCs double-crossed him.

* The Black Prince has engineered a coup in Brevoy and is the mover behind a civil war. He currently holds one of the PCs councilors hostage, and Akiros Ismort pledged service to the black prince to secure the release of his wife's (an NPC paladin) soul. Several important NPCs (including Jhod Kavken) have set out to rescue the councilor. They're offscreen now, functioning as Heroes of Another Story.

What is Brevoy in your campaign?


In vanilla Kingmaker, Brevoy mostly moves offscreen by the end of book 2 or so, with a couple possibilities for action after the module is over. But there are possibilities up there, particularly considering the amount of real estate given to the Houses in the Kingmaker players guide.

Here's how I've used Brevoy:

* My players got caught up in some of the internal Brevoy politics when they pressed the Swordlords for independence. Among other things, Noleski Surtova was nearly assassinated in their capital.

* The Black Prince, a vilderavn, tried to draw the players' kingdom into Brevoy politics to destroy their kingdom and wreak vengeance after the PCs double-crossed him.

* The Black Prince has engineered a coup in Brevoy and is the mover behind a civil war. He currently holds one of the PCs councilors hostage, and Akiros Ismort pledged service to the black prince to secure the release of his wife's (an NPC paladin) soul. Several important NPCs (including Jhod Kavken) have set out to rescue the councilor. They're offscreen now, functioning as [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroOfAnotherStory]Heroes of Another Story/url].

What is Brevoy in your campaign?


My players recently visited a library in Pitax, where they learned that Briar is in Whiterose Abbey as well as some of the story behind it. I'm going to have to rebuild the Whiterose Abbey dungeon for my campaign. As I do, I want to share some of what I do here.

Some things to note here:

1) My players are mythic and higher level than the vanilla KM Whiterose Abbey. I'm going to adjust encounters to compensate.

2) My players have joined forces with Irovetti against Nyrissa and other fey. The new Whiterose Abbey will reflect this change.

3) Pitax's capital and some outlying areas have been taken over by forces of D'Kara, an Erlking who guards the Castle of Knives with a fey army and his court. D'Kara works for Nyrissa because his consort, a hamadryad, is a prisoner within the Fable.

4) D'Kara's regent in Pitax is a powerful [seilenos](http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/seilenos/). My players have met him once and they know he's powerful, but not how powerful.

5) I'm looking to incorporate some of the social challenges from Ultimate Intrigue alongside the library rules. In the former, I plan to set up things so Briar could be awarded in a social challenge or in a combat challenge.

I envision Whiterose Abbey as something of a race between three factions:

Nyrissa's faction does not know where Briar is, but it's reasonable they have spies gathering information about both D'Kara's people and the PCs. Faeries are very tricksy that way. They're going to cotton to Whiterose Abbey because the PCs or D'Kara's people are closing in on it. I think I'm going to have Phomandala leading this faction. I kind of like remaking her as an oracle with the dragon mystery (perhaps tying in with Ituliak!) I think she'd be accompanied by some suitably horrifying dragon crossbreeds.

This faction's agenda:

* Retrieve Briar.
* Destroy any relevant information about Nyrissa that it can find.

D'Kara's faction would be represented by the seilenos and some minions -- satyrs, treants, and maybe a drake or a zomok to round things out.

This faction's agenda:

* Retrieve Briar
* Prevent Nyrissa's faction from gaining Briar without seeming to prevent it.


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This is mostly for fun. I, like many GMs, like to use music at my table to enhance the experience. A couple sessions back, my players had a major encounter. The barbarian stepped up to do some wrecking against a jubjub bird. I decided to give him a little theme music ... Conan the Barbarian!! And wouldn't you know it ... the barbarian connected solidly with his axe!! Three times!!

The funny part is that a round later, when the music was gone ... he couldn't hit to save his life. And he got swallowed.

What are your great moments in RPG music?


In my combined book 5/book 6 finale, sometime in the next few sessions, I'd like to run my players ragged as Nyrissa sends her immediate henchmen to give my players headaches.

I'm using a sort of "Places of Power" set-up: Nyrissa wants to claim several places of power in the Stolen Lands so she can turn them into her curio. IMO, these places are the Temple of the Elk, Lake Hooktongue, the ruins of Vordekai's Tomb, Candlemere, the Dancing Lady's CAstle, and my players' capital.

Currently, my players' kingdom encompasses Candlemere (which they will reclaim at next kingdom-building turn), their capital, the Dancing Lady's place, and the Temple of the Elk.

Lake Hooktongue is under the dominion of a trio of black dragons called the Scions of Ithuliak, and Irovetti (an ally to the players) is trying to retake his capital from D'Kara, the Marquis of the Stolen Leaves (who has his own armies and is sworn to Nyrissa for personal reasons).

So, I'm thinking that sometime in the next session, the Scions of Ithuliak are going to make a move on the Dancing Lady's old digs. Dragons, with the Tiger Lord Barbarians, and a boggard army as backups. I'm thinking this might also be a good time to divide my players' attention.

This is a mythic campaign, and the Dancing Lady is a Cursed Lord unable to leave her realm. When a bloom is established, its area becomes part of her realm.

Other tools available:

* A bloom, maybe the frost giants.

* The Wriggling Man, reconfigured in my campaign as a powerful Transmuter. My players tangled with him once already. He impressed his power on my players with Power Word Kill, Chain Lightning, and an assortment of quickened spells.

* The Knurly Witch, reconfigured in my campaign as a hag witch with a penchant for hexes.

* Phomandala, not upgraded yet.

* Ithuliak (though I am saving her for later)

* The Black Prince, a vilderavn currently meddling in Brevoy politics.

The Horned Hunter has been slain in a somewhat less than epic battle.

What are some things I can do to make this really, really stressful for my players? I'm thinking of having the Knurly Witch and the Wriggling Man teleport between several of their communities, laying down destruction in their wake. The players run themselves ragged at the same time the Scions of Ithuliak make their move. Any ideas to make this extra nervewrackign and extra special?


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So, I'm moving into the last chapter of my mythic Kingmaker game, with Nyrissa's allies in the Stolen Lands (D'Kara the Erlking, a group of black dragons called the Scions of Ithuliak, and the Tiger Lord Barbarians) pressing an attack on the players' kingdom while Nyrissa opens her blooms twice a month on my poor players' kingdom.

I was planning to stat Nyrissa up as a nymph dread lord with sorceress and mystic theurge levels, and with the Archmage mythic path.

But I just came across the Muse, and I got another idea. What if Nyrissa is a muse with oracle and theurge levels? Can that work?


The Muse's description says she can use bardic performance as a "16th level bard," but none of the stat blocks I've seen list her performances. Does she use those performance rounds for something?


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I was flipping through the Monster Codex last night, and the Enlightened Vampire (a vampire monk) really intrigued me. So I noodled with the concept a little bit.

What if you had a remote artist's colony run by vampires? The leader would be a dread vampire nymph or Leanan Sidhe who is a major patron of art and knowledge. She is an immortal, and when she sees a person who is dedicated to becoming the ultimate in his craft (artistry, performance, artistic crafts, knowledge or even martial arts), she brings him to her colony. If he is truly talented (or has the potential be truly talented), she makes him a project ... and then she gives him the gift of vampirism so he can spend many, many lifetimes pursuing his art. She is named "The Mistress of Beauty"

There are multiple layers of secrets and evil here:

* The colony is home to a number of mortals known as "Aspirants." These individuals are sublimely talented artisans, many of them kidnapped from their homes. They are kept in conditions of supreme luxury and encouraged to create their greatest works. They labor away, their every need attended to, in hope that they will attract the patronage of the Mistress of Beauty. If an Aspirant fails to impress the Mistress of Beauty, he suddenly becomes acquainted with the ugly side of the colony, as he his pressed into slavery as a guard, part of the herd, or as a servant.

* The colony maintains a "herd" of people who are regularly drained of their blood to sustain the immortal artists. Some of the herd are failed aspirants -- their artwork did not please the Mistress of Beauty. Others are mortal descendants of artists.

* The Mistress of Beauty cares only about artwork, beauty, and the perfection of craft. She cares nothing about mortals or others who might "visit," and nothing about the care and feeding of "lessers" who sustain the colony when its vampire artists are working. These tasks have fallen to a tiefling administrator named Vagyro and a cruel vampire warrior named Tetch. They rule over servants, guards, the mortal herds -- really, any aspect of the colony that is not artistry -- with an iron hand. As long as the Mistress of Beauty's golden cup is full of blood and her artists produce works of great beauty and perfect her craft, she does not care what they do.

* Some of the "younger" vampires are quite well taken with this opportunity, and they do their darnedest to work. Some do so for their own sake, but some do so because they hope to further please the Mistress of Beauty. As vampires, they have become indifferent to any suffering created in the progress of their art. All that matters to them is pursuing knowledge or art and earning favor from the Mistress of Beauty.

* Many of the "older" vampires no longer love their art or the pursuit of knowledge. They have been at their task for so long that they have grown bored. Yet, they are directly under the Mistress of Beauty's domination. They continue to practice their craft because the has compelled them to do so.

* The Mistress of Beauty will often become quite interested in a new artist for a time. She will lavish love and attention on him. In short order, she will grow bored and send him away. It may be months, years, or even centuries before she shows interest in his work again.


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My Mythic Kingmaker group was down its face this weekend, so I took what would be a short encounter (first bloom,modified to include a first encounter with the Wriggling Man and a jubjub bird) and expanded it into a wizard tower (based on A9: Rogue Wizard) with Wriggles and a froghemoth on top, and the Jubjub to visit soon after. I planned for Wriggles to toss off a few mythic spells (just so my players can get a taste of what's coming), then teleport out.

So, my players worked their way up through the tower mini-dungeon. They metagamed a little, but in a good way -- rather than burn through their spells and mythic abilities, they conserved resources because they anticipated meeting something big and nasty at the top.

The fight at the top took a while. First, my players had to deal with Wriggles and his Froghemoth companion, which took some doing. Lots of spells flying back and forth, and the party alchemist and barbarian mildly frustrated because Wriggles had a Displacement spell on him. The froghemoth fell fairly quickly under the onslaught of all the players. Meanwhile, Wriggles trapped the druid and barbarian inside a Wall of Ice (hemisphere) and temporarily Power Word Killed the Alchemist. (Breath of Life brought him back). The barbarian broke out of the wall and administered the killing blow to the froghemoth, just as they heard a bird cawing pecking at the tower roof, and a loud screeching. Wriggles said, "Jubjub!" and plane shifted back to the Fable. And ... BOOM. In comes the bird's beak. This was a pretty epic fight.

The bird started by targeting the group's alchemist, who was the nearest target. In the beak!! Then ... the Barbarian charges up the ice hemisphere to get at the bird. I allowed it on an Acrobatics roll because it's so damn cinematic. And the barbarian SERIOUSLY hurt the bird as the wizard and druid tried their spells on it. Jubjub dropped the alchemist and turned his attention to the barbarian. Bite, talon, talon. Shit-ton of damage ... and the barbarian was grappled!!

The druid was out of direct-damage spells, and the wizard couldn't find a good spell that would hurt the bird without hitting the barbarian.

Next round ... GULP!! The bird swallowed the barbarian!!

The alchemist (who was out of bombs) pelted the bird with Alchemist's fire, to no real effect. The wizard flipped through his spells, and unleashed a little bit.

But the barbarian was not to be stymied. I read the player his options for Swallow Whole -- that he could use a light piercing or slashing weapon.

So he started punching with his spiked gauntlet. Boom. Boom. Boom.

I described for the other players the bird shaking with the barbarian's fist.

BOOM!! BOOM!! The barbarian punched through with his spiked guantlet, and the bird exploded in gore!!!

And that ... that is a hell of a way to end a session.


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I was flipping through the Bestiary 6 at the bookstore yesterday, and I found the Wild Hunt is among the critters listed. May be of interest to Kingmaker GMs.

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