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Please cancel my adventure path subscription. Thank you in advance!

tcavagne wrote:

When will we get a book about fairies, James?

Is that something the public wants? If so, probably a year after we realize that (since it takes about a year from the "Let's do this book" stage to the "Yay, it's in print!" stage).

From several threads on the forum and interest between my own groups, yes!

When will we get a book about fairies, James?

Also, how about an NPC eldritch knight (evil) who pretends to be a paladin?

Malaclypse wrote:

There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.

Which is why you should take the player aside, let them know what the charm means their character, and trust that your good "roleplaying" friend can play their own character while charmed/suggested.

You don't have to take away control.

I hate to take these spells out, so I'm inclined to agree with MisterSlanky. I never use these spells in combat, though--only to add to the plot. When the PCs meet the BBEG for the first time, I roll will saves vs. charm and say "She's stunningly beautiful--just your type" or "You get the feeling he's a trustworthy guy." When they finally fight the BBEG, they eventually realize I used charm on them--this allows them to keep playing their character realistically without feeling like they've lost control.

LordRiffington wrote:

Samnell wrote:

A cat that can talk. Not a cat person. A regular has-no-hands cat. With sorcerer levels.

I'd totally allow that, assuming it would fit into the campaign.

Granted, I'd require the player to take Still Spell, because I can't see a cat casting spells with somatic components.

It uses its tail.

In the game I'm running, the boss's pet is an awakened cat wizard. Granted, it's an "enchanted forest with evil fairies" type game, the boss is an old, mad version of Rapunzel, and the cat also has an animated spellbook that can cast of its own accord. Still, I can see this being a fun PC concept. She certainly makes a great villain.

Dear all-knowing James Jacobs,
I have never understood why the cleric (and now oracle) have a d8 and a 3/4 BAB and the sorcerer and wizard are stuck with d6es and 1/2 BABs. Can you unravel this mystery?

I always find my best inspiration comes from reading.
Try "The Rats in the Walls" and "The Lurking Fear" by H.P. Lovecraft. They're creepy, not outright horror, which makes them a lot scarier, IMO.

I recently made a male witch. He started out as a street kid who was down on his luck, but then he met a stray cat who clearly had the ability to help him cast spells. So he started stealing scrolls and teaching them to the cat. This made him the leader of a street gang, because the other kids thought he was a sorcerer descended from dragons (he's a pretty good liar). He's since reformed; this was just the best way I could think of to create a male witch.

The first mod I ever GMed was Hangman's Noose. It is a fabulous module, and my players will respect me forever because of how I did Jarbin Mord's voice.

I promise you, GMing is nowhere near as scary as it seems. Really, all you're doing dips entertaining your friends. The point is that the experience should be fun for all of you, including the GM. When planning the game, keep that in mind. Have fun making quirky NPCs. Do their voices and accents; no one cares if you're doing the Italian accent wrong as long as you do it flamboyantly wrong.

To take a lot of the pressure off yourself, remember this one tip... The rules aren't important. They're there to facilitate your game, not to stress you out. There are probably one or two people in your group who know the rulebook backward and forward and would be happy to help you out whenever you need it. Of course you should read the book and try to have a general idea of the rules, but don't stress too much. Once you've been GMing for a while, you'll find that you remember the rules better by using them.

If you really are worried about your lack of rules knowledge, make yourself a little notebook or cheat sheet to hide behind the GM screen.

The most important thing is to have fun. Remember, you're roleplaying, not roll-playing. The dice don't own you, and ultimately you're the GM and what you say goes. Your gaming group will be supportive of any little flaws as long as you're having fun, and if they're not, you shouldn't be gaming with them anyway.

Thanks for the advice, guys! Very helpful. I'm just a bit concerned about CG and LE working together--their backstories are quite different and dramatic, and they're going to play a large part in the storyline. I'm not quite sure how to get both of them to work together to protect the rogue, especially if he's on the run from a rather large and dangerous organization. If I can get them to ally against this group, though, I think I have nothing to worry about.

In response to Doug:
No worries there; there's never been any jerkery with this group. I'm worried about character disagreement, not player disagreement.

I'm running a campaign starting in a few weeks. It's set in a home brew world, and the premise is an airship race around the world. I made a players' guide to explain the setting, and even included a bunch of campaign traits that I THOUGHT would get my players to be willing to work together from the get-go. I didn't anticipate any problems, because I've been DMing for these guys for a while and they've always been inclined to play good guys before.

This time, though, they all created their characters separately and emailed them to me at roughly the same time. When I opened my email, I found a chaotic good summoner, a total neutral rogue... And a lawful evil fighter.

These are good role-players, and I'm afraid their characters are going to take issue with each others' decisions and attack each other. Any advice?

I'm going to start running a home brew campaign in a few weeks. I'm pretty excited, because it's my first time running game in my home-brewed world (though I'm a pretty experienced DM). I also have experienced players.

The problem is in how the characters were created. I stupidly assumed these guys were going to create characters that would work decently together, because they've all been attracted to playing good guys before. Unfortunately, they all created totally different characters, and they sent the concepts to me around the same time, so I had no way to warn them of the others' alignment choices.

Now I've got a LE fighter, a TN rogue, and a CG summoner on my hands. The campaign centers around an airship race, so they're going to be living together on a tiny airship.

How do I keep them from killing each other? Especially because they're such good role-players and will actually take issue with the others' alignments.