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LOL I saw that. I edited the photo to make the window disappear.


there are some iconic thassilonian monsters in shattered star that are also in RotRL. I am DMing shattered star but never have played or DMed through RotRL. One of my players is playing that game at the same time, and he already knows about Karzoug, and runelords and such. He doesn't really feel spoiled and I still don't know very much about RotRL outside of some events (some big attack on sandpoint)

Shattered star is very fun though and it's also kind of a sequel to curse of the crimson throne (well one part is)


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My players got to "that trap" but it was anything but interesting. they simply saw the trap and saw that it was a clone of Sorshen. fearing a failed disable device would insta kill the trapfinder the wizard buffed his will and destroyed the clone and passed his will save.


My player, the wizard, animated the bulette. The rogue was a worshiper of pharasma so he wasn't having it. A fight broke out and the wizard simply let it loose to fight on its own. to make matters worse they got close to the ooze during that and it joined in the fray. The wizard was supposed to be LG. I gave him a good talkin to about that and he apologized both in game and out of game.

They turned the gold they would have gotten from selling the animate dead scroll into XP.


between areas C3, C7, C12, and C16 there are stairs leading up if the outside picture is to be believed. so area C7 is higher than C3. C3 has a door that leads to C6, which has a door that leads to C8, which has a door that leads back to C7. are areas C6 and C8 slanted to be on level with area C7?

looking at it harder it is not as bad as I thought. area C4 and C5 are on the ground not connected to C7. C9/C10 is on level with C7 as no other doors lead to any area lower or higher. C13, 14, 15 are on level with C12 for the same reasons.

All this would go away if we just deleted that door between C6 and C8... aaaaand it's gone.


update!

They just finished book 1!

The clockwork servant(from area C5) they named 'cranky' and they went to golemworks to get it to aid in craft alchemy checks for wizard. (+23 bonus at level 5
(5 ranks, 3 class skill, 4 int, 5 crafter's fortune spell, 2 shard of pride, 2 master alchemist feat, 2 aid another) craft alchemy in no time.

Rogue, a worshiper of pharasma, carefully destroyed lockerbie when the time was right. The effects of the timeglass artifact(in book 6) allows the PCs to use acquired points throughout the story to have spells cast. They had enough points for their future selves to cast resurrection on Lockerbie to return him to human form. reunited with his wife.

The party spent too much down time crafting things (nearly 3 weeks), the cleric retrained into crusader archetype. so while fenster was the first victim of the derro atlatia made him an amnesiac(a form of madness) and returned him to magnimar, and captured Natalya who cleric had been courting. Sheila told PCs that she is late for update on her spy work for Sczarni. They didn't find out that the sewers were connected to the crow until after they defeated all the derro except Khrysm. cleric is lucky on diplomacy checks to lay with certain women so far. (to date a random librarian, Natalya, and the captain of the Wanton Ways herself) Natalya being saved twice is completely infatuated with anyone who wants her attention, the cleric. (he also has ranks in perform wind instruments (an accordion) that makes him all that much more romantic)

Cleric went to docks to secure the voyage on Wanton ways and saw Fenster working the docks moving cargo. He was found and put to work by the docks to earn a decent living. also having memory failure noticed that he himself was a nasty fellow so he got himself clean. Cleric subtly tried to get his attention but being an amnesiac didn't recognize him. cleric dropped the issue thinking he was better off.

Sheila sent them on a week long team building training exercise. each PC would gain a free teamwork bonus feat. This is my own thing to hammer down the team thing that sheila really wants.

They had just met with Maroux from book 2. cleric of course courts her and she wants nothing to do with that!

Wizard (the diviner) will soon receive the vision of Vargun making her own divinations. (if you've been following my posts...)


they found and returned Lockerbie's brooch and completed the side quest and gained his aid against the derro.

They decided to go after the tower girls. they are thinking this area is not connected to the crow. tried to request lockerbie's aid, he denied saying the deal was for him to aid against the derro and to come to him when they are ready. they just defeated ayala last session and went into dungeon level 1 against the mites.


I did look into thundercats but didn't dive too deep into it all the pics seemed too cartoony, lion like, or too much animal. dude needs to look human not like a catfolk.

I did a search for tigra and that returned a, ahem, very female tigress. then I redid a search for thundercats and found a guy with tiger features by the name of TYgra.

did a search for tygra returned a few good ones...

This one is pretty good but it looks like he has make-up on. but the hair and eyes are great. I can crop out the thundercats logo can't make it look too obvious.

This one is too much tiger and he has a weapon.


I did look at some two kinds art but nothing tickles my fancy.

Too cartoony for a fantasy pic of a character.


for my tiger weretouched shifter.

My internet-fu is failing me. I've seen a lot of good pics but none of them are quite right.

I am not looking for a simple weretiger

I am looking for a man with slight tiger features. flat wide nose, maybe cat eyes and orange or blonde hair with black stripes, slightly pointed ears, big clawed hands, no weapons, no armor, no tats.

honorable mentions I've seen...

This guy is pretty much what I am looking for IF I was looking for a man with lion features (and no weapons, or tats)

If anyone is good with photoshop they could edit this guy to be more tiger like and delete the weapons and tats

This guy fits the claws and cat eyes but he looks too emo, or crazy, or vampire-like. the blood is a nice touch but he looks nothing like a tiger.

If anyone can link me a picture with these specifics it would be much appreciated.


So before they even entered the crow my level 2 players really wanted to explore the missing persons route so we spent the entire session making gather information checks and finally went back to fenster the blight, but he was already taken by this point so they found tracks that led into the sewers. went in, did a "random encounter" and when the tracks disappeared (through the secret door) they spent hours searching that area (they took a 20) and finally found the DC 25 secret door that led to area D7. after a nasty fight with the cave morays they heard the singing from brast and went to go talk with him and got the side quest to return the brooch to his wife. They could have continued but sensed that this area was way above their level.

I'm not sure I liked that but I'm not about to make things easier because they went in the back way.

I did tell them this is later game stuff but they are kind-of content with continuing to super level down here. Hope they don't die some pretty nasty fights down here.


I had a dream the terrorists were killing people setting off nukes and stuff all over the world...

did this movie really gives me nightmares?


yeah I knew some characters were going to die but not THAT MANY and the ones I thought were going to die didn't. namely thor, cap, and iron man. Thor's axe is friggin AWESOME.

Orthos you missed agent hill...

let's not forget the possible implications this might have on the netflix shows.

let's also not forget spiderman, guardians of the galaxy, black panther and doctor strange all have sequels coming. I don't mean to get all meta but let me break it down further.

multiple people can hold the mantle of spiderman, guardians of the galaxy, and black panther BUT there can only be one doctor strange. it is the name of a person not really a title.

this could mean that everything that happened can be reversed.


I'm a bit confused as to the XP awards of defeating an army in mass combat in ultimate campaign

say a fine army (a single lvl 17 fighter(CR 16, ACR 8)) defeats a huge army(400 lvl 2 fighter orcs. (CR 1, ACR 5))

legitimately this could be done in both mass combat and standard combat rules. The ACR 5 indicates that the fighter would gain a measly 1600 XP however if the fighter fought all 400 orcs he would gain 160,000 XP. even if he didn't directly confront all the orcs even a quarter of this is far more than fighting as an army

By the same token two CR 10 characters go head to head the winner gains 9600 XP if we convert those two characters to fine armies (individual CR -8) the winner only gains 600 xp.

By the same triangle a colossal army of 2000 CR 1 humans (ACR 9) fights and defeats a Horned devil (CR 16, ACR 8) each human would gain 4800 XP. Or by the standard system they would gain 38 XP (76800 / 2000).

is this just so abstract that the army would gain weird XP because of the rules system of mass combat.

Or am I just missing something?


I'm in the same gaming group as OP...

we ended up simply deleting the word 'living' from the ability so it does half damage to creatures. the ability itself is not crazy powerful to begin with so we didn't see it as a problem to do like 10 damage a turn to creatures.

we're level 15 now so we're fighting things that treat this as a flea bite.


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I made the box. I cut it up and made it a huge 5X5 inch monstrosity. glued it together. I made a note that said "roll initiative!!" Put that inside along with 2 pugwampi pawns.

should be fun when this comes up.


what would the knowledge (nature) dc of determining that a pile of brown stuff is in fact guano?


I've searched everywhere.

what is the golarion equivalent to ecstasy if there even is one?


dawn of the scarlet sun is a free side quest module paizo offers it is talked about in book 2 page 25 under the solifugid nest.

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8rgh?Pathfinder-Module-Dawn-of-the-Scarlet-Su n

This is a small excerpt that had to be scrapped in book 2, it details events between book 1 and book 2.

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5ldww?Week-of-Free

ultimate equipment is a good choice.

pick up a bestiary 1 many monsters are from that book that the adventure doesn't give stat blocks for, later you could pick up 2 and 3 as is is used more later in the AP.


Fenster the blight uses tiger style feat from ultimate combat.

The pale stranger from book 3 uses guns, gun rules are found in ultimate combat.

If you want to add flavor to the terra-cotta soldiers in area A16 of book 3 you can give them katana, wakizashi and do-maru armor all from ultimate combat.

Mochtau from area L4 of book 2 uses a stone great axe (I think... looks like stone in the picture.) rules for stone weapons are in ultimate combat.

This is all I can think of I'm sure there are more.


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how do you pronounce Kaer Maga?


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During the shattered star campaign the acquisition of some of the shards grant story XP, but not all of them.

shards of greed, lust, and envy don't award XP for merely picking them up.

Is there a reason for this?


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I'm a DM preparing a shattered star campaign. I have a question regarding book 1: shards of sin area A4: Fortified position.

The book says the goblins are wielding medium heavy crossbows. Heavy crossbows are two-handed ranged weapons. Under core rulebook page 144 regarding inappropriately sized weapons

"If a weapon’s designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can’t wield the weapon at all."

and yeah under page 145 for heavy crossbows you can shoot a heavy crossbow with one hand at a -4 penalty, could mean two hands could be used to fire at -4 penalty but it is not included in the book.

So my question is.

How are these goblins wielding these heavy crossbows?


Not trying to step on any toes here. But I made these and I am sharing.

Crystal Palace Ground Floor

Crystal Palace Lower Hold

Crystal Palace Workshops

Crystal Palace Apex

I decided to keep all of the skymetal vaults on one map (Apex) figured it would be much easier.


most crystals are actually not perfectly clear. You can simply say the crystal is quartz or amethyst or fluorite(as hard as a wall of force of course) should provide plenty of privacy without adding furniture.


All standard doors in traditional maps show them white with black outline. These doors are black with a white outline. I am guessing they are all "locked".

Now my question.

I am making maps and got to area A8. According to the description there are several steps leading to a podium (of which is of course an actual creature.) In the map given in the book there are no steps. I see why there isn't the podium cuz it's a creature.

Where are the steps?


Paint.net

It's a free program that gives you tools very similar to photoshop such as wand select, clone stamp, layers, gradient, transparency, and more, maybe. I don't have photoshop to compare.

https://www.getpaint.net/


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Since DM Bigrin stopped making maps I had to make my own from "scratch"

No displeasure toward him I know life happens.

Jubbek's Halls

Silent Halls

The Core

Embassy of Leng

Temple of the Crawling Chaos


Question about the switching demon angel thing (Area E7)

What's stopping the PCs from simply leaving not releasing any of them?

Evil guy inside angel would probably freak out like "No please you must release me."

Good girl inside demon would probably understand and say "that is the best course of action."

Which would also tell the PCs who to release. The angel (and PCs?) knows that if they choose wrong a demon disguised perfectly as an angel could wreck some serious havoc. She would rather die or suffer more eternity here than to let a demon pose as an angel.

She could also say something along the lines of.
"You release me and he's telling the truth you simply have to fight a demon.
you release him and I'm telling the truth you release a demon perfectly disguised as an angel. which do you prefer?"

How could the demon counter that?
"If I'm telling the truth and you release me you gain an angel as an ally. If you release him and he's telling the truth you gain a demon looking thing as an ally. do you really want a demon following you around. Imagine what your superiors would think. They would cast you out for worshiping demons. If any of you is a paladin you could very well lose your powers for releasing a demon, whether it's an angel or not."


anyone here thinks Ardathanatus should be an old age elf?

being a cleric adds 10d6 years to the base elf age of 110 making him about 145 years old when he starts his adventuring career taking average rolls. (core rulebook page 169)

His backstory says he spent several years as an adventuring cleric and OUTLIVED HIS COMPANIONS.

Assuming they were human and died of natural causes we'll add a rather low 40 years to his age making him 185 when he joins the wind song abbey. we can even say he spent a very small amount of time at the abbey before the death of aroden after which he went on his rampage.

if the current year is 4711 aroden died in 4606 which adds 105 years to his age making him 290... well beyond the old age mark of 263 (again core rulebook page 169)


So I am DMing this AP in about a year, so far I am reading asylum stone.

One of my players is playing a Diviner (wizard with divination school)

I want to give him some serious foreshadowing.

A few months before the AP starts he has a vision of magnimar just after the formation of the Sihedron. so he sees the darkening of clouds on the horizen and the ground rumbling. It then flashes to the scylla, Aereusa wrecking havoc in soaked streets of Magnimar. then it flashes to the end of the first vision of dead heart of xin... a clockwork army dismantling Magnimar and replacing it with clockwork and crystal.

Not too revealing, in the vision he never sees the Sihedron, nor does he ever see Xin.

Later he has a vision of Vargun, the troll augur from Kaer Maga, She has her guts spilled out and is in the process of looking through her entrails (her way of seeing the future) as she reads, she looks up and sees the diviner with a rather confused look. then the vision ends.

Any Awesome riddles about the sihedron or other questions that he can ask a divination spell? I am terrible at making cryptic texts.

Any visions I could give him? I don't want to give him too many so each vision is impactful and important but not too revealing.


so I use hero lab. It seems the base array for monsters are 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10. using those 11s for physical stats on a mastiff it would be 20, 16, 18.

meaning a shadow mastiff's racial stats would be +9, +5, +7.

OR does the stats in hero lab and bestiary 3 already include the racial stats meaning a more even racial increase of +8, +4, +6.

according to hero lab If a PC wanted to be a shadow mastiff they would have 10s in every stat with +9, +5, +7, -6, +2, +3 as racial adjustments. then adding in a point buy system or any other system adding to stat points...

a 10 is average for humans in every stat however a creature's average is given in its stat block already modified by racial adjustments with a 10 in every stat. Like an average dwarf would never have an 11 for a con or wis score

Not sure what monsters have a base stat or a racial increase to stats that act as base stats.

so tired/drunk posting this then sleeping...


I've noticed that many monsters or NPCs have odd numbered stats. Is there a specific reason for this other than flavor?

As far as stats go, having an odd numbered stat other than to qualify for feats or abilities (of which most monsters/NPCs don't have) seem to me to be pointless. As a DM, have anyone every added 1 to each of these odd numbered stats or at least taken away from one to add to another and not had a problem with it? And to make a given encounter more challenging because you have veteran players.

For example when I decided to make this thread I looked at the Shadow Mastiff (more specifically the shattered star encounter called L18: secret Shrine). In bestiary 3 (page 241) it is marked as having a 19, 15, 17 as physical stats. It has power attack which only requires a 13 in strength. would any veteran PC or DM have a problem with making these stats 20, 16, 18 to make the encounter (slightly) more challenging but not add any XP for reward.

Would you ever really notice the difference?

also with these increased stats the CR chart (bestiary 1 page 291 Table 1-1 monster stats by CR) for Shadow mastiff is not that much changed from what a CR 5 should be.


Distract trick on ranger's falconer archetype.

from PRD:
Distract (DC 20; bird only): The animal companion flutters wildly around any enemy it would normally attack with the attack trick. It makes an attack roll against that enemy. On a hit, the enemy is shaken for 1 round. This ability replaces wild empathy.

1. what action does it take?

it seems like it should be a standard action but we're wondering if it would be as an attack action. meaning an eagle would use bite to distract and each talon to distract. so it can attempt to distract 3 times in a turn.

2. does it do damage?

it still says "on a hit" hits normally do damage.

another question unrelated to first two.

if an animal companion/eidolon acts on the character's turn, can it make readied actions separate from the character. I would see an animal companion not be able to but an eidolon is smarter.

Edit: We have determined that animal companions/eidolons act on their own initiatives.


OK bit of back story I am converting a 4E campaign into pathfinder. in the book there is a large and dangerous open area with a few landmarks. In between these landmarks are chock full of baddies.

The book gives so much detail about how to travel on foot between these locations (in the form of dreaded skill challenges) and several scripted encounters. They also have flying enemies roaming around so PCs can't use fly however 4E does not have wind walk. Those scripted encounters could easily be bypassed.

the real question is
should I make the enemies prepare for an assault by wind walk?

Meaning should I give enemies magic bows to fire at the clouds whizzing by? the place is in the abyss where there is never a cloud in the sky so they will be spotted by somebody eventually. and wind walk/gas form drops your AC a lot so they can be damaged in gas form.

This is both an in game question and an out of game question.

in game: would the BBEG (the king of the realm the PCs are in) think to fight against wind walking enemies.(and arm his roaming minions) (he has 26 int and 28 wis)

out of game: I read in DMG (or other advice threads) never to undermine the PCs' abilities. if a spellcaster uses fire all the time never throw too many monsters immune to fire. Let PCs use their abilities don't tailor enemies to destroy the PCs etc etc.

Overall I think he should. PCs would have used wind walk a lot by now it's nigh time they met an enemy smart enough to fight it.


I made a thread on the advice forum about my player having a really high perception check.

I got a lot of good advice from the thread but it outlasted its usefulness and was locked.

This thread

For those wondering I did simply ask the player and he said he wanted to roll for perception checks and have a chance of failure. The promise of extra XP was too good for him to pass up.

And here is the trap I came up with.

...
Down the hallway are two arches. At the end is a large pit and the hallway turns to the right. An abstract eye has been painted on the wall at the far end.

Perception DC 50 notices a perfectly square crack at the apex of the arch (10 feet high)

Pressing it deactivates the trap for one round.

When anyone besides the guardians stands within 30 feet of the eye they are subjected to a grapple maneuver +40 vs CMD. If it succeeds it is grappled. The CMD of the effect is 50.

In the next round the trap tries to move the grapple to the pit. Success means it is moved 10 feet closer to the pit. Before it reaches the pit however the target gets one last escape attempt with a +4 bonus.

The pit is really only 20 feet deep however the floor of the pit is a portal to an extra dimensional space. The portal is all darkness and absorbs all light. It radiates an overwhelming aura of conjuration(calling). Anyone who falls into the pit is teleported to a realm filled with negative energy. They are constantly falling there is no floor in this realm and take 4d8+20 negative energy damage(will DC 31 for half) per round.

If they pass the save twice in a row they free themselves of the realm and are teleported near the center of the sarcophagi chamber. Due to momentum not changing when you are teleported you take 20d6 falling damage.

As soon as the telekinesis is triggered the alcoves in the sarcophagi chamber conjure up the carrion golems.

Battle: 6 carrion golems


Sundakan wrote:
Tormsskull wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
The point I was trying to make was not about any rules, but that if you are going to not want players to do X because you don't like as a GM it is better to let them know, than to try to do it "behind the scenes" and hope they don't notice because if they notice on their own it won't likely end as well as if you tell them up front.
It's not about not wanting PCs to do something. It's about recognizing that no matter how good an individual PC is, somewhere there's someone better.

So this trap maker who is the best ever is an actual NPC they can murder, right? And when they do, the traps become easier again, correct? And, it should go without saying, the NPC is someone you actually built as a character, within the rules, rather than arbitrarily raising the DCs?

Because if the answer to any of those three things is "No", this fails as justification more than it already does (largely because telling someone "You will never be the best at anything, an NPC will always better you" defeats the entire purpose of leveling).

it was a group of about 10 gods from ages ago who made the trap (and the prison)

their thought process was "We can easily find this trap. A mortal who gets really good at finding traps will easily find this trap. so either we nix this trap or try to make this trap invisible to us even."


WOW this thread exploded...

Orfamay Quest wrote:

...

picks don't break,
...

At one point I said jokingly that anytime you come across a lock we should open a game of skyrim and try to pick those locks. the picks you break in skyrim uses your actual resources in pathfinder.

one thing I forgot to mention was we are going into epic levels with this campaign and I am using the rules suggested in the core rulebook which would let spells above 9th level to exist. As these traps are created by gods I'm sure they can use heighten spell to make a telekinesis spell be 15th or even 20th level.

this trap can be triggered during a combat encounter and would actually add more enemies to the encounter. and this trap was created by gods several thousand years ago but I just now remembered that the bad guys are also here to try to free the world ending monster and they saw the trap and bypassed it.


I don't actually have the book. we use hero lab everyone in our group DMs and we don't have a problem with getting traits that make skills into class skills.

I was looking through my conversion and apparently I did not have a problem with increasing trap DCs before as many traps have DC 35 or 40 (still auto pass), one trap with DC 45 and another at 50.

IDK maybe I'll stick with the illusion bit to trick them into running into the trap.


Suthainn wrote:
wordelo wrote:
we play pathfinder not 3.5 everything gives XP even the CR 1s

No idea what the rule was in 3.5, but if you're giving exp for encounters 10 or more CR below the APL that's your own house rule and not RAW.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/gamemastering.html wrote:
...you should never bother awarding XP for challenges that have a CR of 10 or more lower than the APL.
It's about halfway down the page, under the Awarding Experience header

it does use the words "you should never bother" not "don't ever" meaning it's up to the DM. I see no real problem with it. it's not like 300 cr 1s is going to make a huge difference when they need millions of XP.

I totally have a few cr 9s facing the party at level 20, you better bet they are going to be somewhat effective and still get XP for them. but my players are complaining that everything feels like a boss fight so these cr 9s serve as someone that can just die. put a red shirt on him.

Rub-Eta wrote:
Gods don't need traps and guardians to fend off mortals...

again another situation when I just can't give enough details. Just like DMing I can't prepare for every strategy PCs come up with.

So gods from ages ago when the universe was first created built this place as a prison for some really powerful creature that the gods had to gang up on; not even the gods could kill this creature so they just imprisoned it. These gods got together and put a ban on any god entering this realm with the prison, so no single god could try to break him free.

but there is a problem. Gods can still send in mortals to free this really powerful creature and that is what happened (pesky mortals) so this other god calls upon the PCs to go in and put a stop to this. That is why the gods need traps and defenders because they cannot interfere directly.

Rub-Eta wrote:


I'm guessing the trait that lets him disable magical traps is the 'Trap Finder' trait from Mummy's Mask? Unless you're playing that AP, I don't know why you'd allow him to pick that trait. As it is considered to be about the best trait in the game (because it replaces the Rogue class). Campaign specific traits such as this one are probably designed so that the AP doesn't have a party composition requirement (without the trait, chances are that you would NEED a Rogue (or one of the few Archetypes of other classes that also grants that ability) to play through Mummy's Mask). They shouldn't really be considered as normal traits for any other game.

Personally, I'd ask my player to switch that trait, as I would never have allowed it in the first place (I'm usually liberal when it comes to letting my players build). I'd also allow the player to make other minor changes as well, since a lot of the skill ranks and feats seems to have been chosen solely because of the trait making it worthwhile.

The trait is also from the book "people of the sands"

I don't have that many traps. the tomb of the illusionist had the most traps; but I think over all the game I may have had less than 15 traps so far. plus the 6 or so in the tomb and this one. I'm kind of aiming for like a CR 23 trap (with everything combined). something that does not really exist anywhere else. if they overcome this trap they get loads of XP but I don't want to bother making this super epic trap if this fighter can just auto find it. then I'll just make it like a CR 15 or 16. (for those wondering the boss of this adventure block, The one the god personally called upon to assemble a team and free the beast is a CR 25)

again fighters have worthless class skills IMO, this fighter is an archer, basically better than any archer ever in any context fiction or nonfiction outside of D&D (can fire about 170 arrows in 1 minute if the situation calls for it, now at level 15). I think an archer should be extremely good at perception.

I should probably point out that they are mythic.

And I guess I could point out that all of this are not my ideas, changed to fit pathfinder, sure. but the story comes from one of the 4E campaigns. We actually tried playing it in 4E and we ended up hating it so bad. but I told them that I really liked the story of the campaign just the rules system was horrible so I said I will attempt to convert.

It's taken some tweaking to get the conversion right but I think I finally got the hang of it. level 13 in 4E does not equal level 13 in pathfinder.


okay few things...

one: I knew I would end up having to give more details which if I gave in the OP would make the already long post even longer. don't worry I give more in this post.

two: the character is a fighter archer he has plenty of feats and does the most damage in the party by far.

three: I don't have traps very often. when I do this fighter always spots them without rolling. It would be mean to simply assume they are not searching for traps. Why would they not? and when they have this guy that can always find all traps they have never needed to cast detect magic to find a magic trap. So the players do not even know that detect magic would not detect magic traps in my game. (I know I should probably tell them, but as long as this fighter is alive it is basically moot)

four: It seems the general consensus is to not increase trap DCs. I get that.

five: he notices everything else, searching treasure piles, sneaking enemies, statues that are actually creatures. and many other perception checks that I have made the DC 40 or lower so they are automatically found.

six: I am thinking of creating an illusory image of a creature behind the trap trigger so that the paladin, or skald goes after it to trigger the trap during the encounter right before the trap. is that cheating?

seven: this fighter used 1 feat out of 16(skill focus is auto granted by half-elf); 2,500 GP out of 120,000 character wealth (we use auto bonus progression from unchained which also granted him a +6 to wisdom); all his traits (traits make skills into class skills, IMO that is more powerful/useful than adding 1 to attack and/or damage); 1/4 of his skill ranks (others in stealth, disable device and acrobatics. What more does a fighter need? all other fighter skills are basically worthless IMO or very situation dependent); basically I am trying to say it seems this character did not spend many resources on being good at perception.

eight: for those wondering this ranged fighter who hardly ever sees melee combat has 114 HP and 32 AC. the paladin of the group tends to be in the front line.

nine: we are currently not playing this game this will not happen for at least another year or two. just preparing ahead.

ten:

Suthainn wrote:
Bear in mind also, if the CR of the trap is equal to or less than the APL-10 (so presumably CR5 for this group) the trap is worth no exp anyways, even CR 9 and 10 traps are going to be giving very little exp compared to what a normal CR 15 encounter would, so that's not necessarily something to get too worried over.

we play pathfinder not 3.5 everything gives XP even the CR 1s

eleven: gods created this trap. This area was built by gods. The defenders here were put here by gods. Surely the gods are not limited to a mere max of 34 DC for traps. and the ultimate question... would gods even bother putting a trap here if even some level 15 schmoe can find it without trying?


Yeah I agree... that needle trap I mentioned was the entrance to a tomb of a powerful illusionist. I could not resist however THIS trap is happening a whole adventure away it is actually the first legitimate trap of this adventure block (path? section? outing?)

basically the needle trap I plan on the players being about level 16. This magic trap I want to make won't happen until they are level 20. and there aren't very many traps in between so I want to make this one special as it may just be the last trap I ever have.

The details of this trap involve telekinesis push to a visible pit dropping down into an extra dimensional space that is filled with negative energy which damages them until they make the will save at which point they are teleported back into the room before the trap... where monsters have appeared when the telekinesis went off.


At level 15 he has a +40 bonus in perception.

How?

15 ranks
3 class skill
10 alertness and skill focus
4 wisdom
2 half-elf keen senses
5 eyes of the eagle item
1 seeker trait

he also has the trapfinder trait which lets him disable magic traps.

I feel like making traps is just offering free XP because he is always going to find them. the highest perception DC was 34. I made an invisible trap with a perception DC of 50. It was a simple poison needle if he passes he smelled the poison on the lock.

the rules for magic traps say the perception DC is 25 + spell level. I wanted to make this really elaborate magic trap but I feel limited by what the rule is.

My question is should I make traps with a perception DC of 60, or so, just to combat his really high perception. increasing CR accordingly of course

OR

Keep with what the rules say and basically give free XP.

I am fairly certain I should stick to what is fun. so now my question turns to what is fun?

you find this trap, and disable it (similarly high disable check) here have some xp.

OR

(secretly rolls perception(fails))
You walk across the hall and the floor explodes dealing 34 damage. here have a lot of xp.

Then there is the question of realism, does the trap maker in game even know to make his traps extremely hard to detect mostly via the invisibility spell + permanency. but even then can you even use invisibility on a magic trap?

and for those wondering I don't allow detect magic to detect magic traps. two reasons for that... one: balance issue; the spellcaster can use detect magic infinitely and it would basically be able to find all magic traps... and two: there is a 1st level spell called magic aura. if you can make magic traps why would you not use this spell to mask the aura? Use identify if you want to detect magic traps.


Ryan Freire wrote:

At the level that pcs can kill adamantine golems, the value of their gear's materials is kind of moot wouldn't you say? Let em have it and they'll think you're super generous.

Edit: Especially since they'll need to already have an adamantine vorpal weapon, or 50k for miracle/wish spells to actually down the things.

I would let miracle work for free, I don't think killing an enemy after it has already been downed is as powerful as what it describes as costing 25k.

wish on the other hand.

My guess is they will just end up bashing them so far into the negatives that it will take time to fast heal it all back. That's what I would do.

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:


Adamantine is good enough to bypass the DR. Vorpal is questionable at best.

Then again, I've been in groups that managed to do so without either. Took a lot of sweat, teamwork, and a LOT of rounds of combat.

The DR is 15/ Epic and it has an ability similar to tarrasque where it can only be killed by adamantine vorpal weapon, or a miracle/wish.


Diego Rossi wrote:
If the cost of purchasing the golem body is 100.000 gp, the value of material is about 50.000 gp. Probably a lot of the golem weight is made by the "others metals". lots of iron.

It says "A adamantine golem’s body is made of more than 4,000 pounds of adamantine, mithral, gold, platinum, and other metals worth a total of 100,000 gp."

the price of the golem is 600,000 GP


I am sending a pair of adamantine golems at my PCs. I'm curious as to whether or not they can harvest that metal to forge their own weapons and armor and if so how much would they get? I know they are going to ask.

I'm thinking of using the rules on dragon hide for this. meaning they can create a suit of medium banded mail (from a huge creature) which weighs 35 pounds but not all parts of banded mail are metal. The description says the plates are attached to a leather backing so I would subtract the weight from the leather armor (15 pounds) which leaves us with 20 pounds of usable adamantine ore from each golem.

does that seem fair? The description of the golems says they are made of 4000 pounds of adamantine, gold, mithral, platinum and other metals. divide that weight by 5 and that leaves 800 pounds of each metal.

since the worth of these metals is 100,000 GP and the price of 800 pounds of gold is 40,000 alone I'm going out on a limb here and saying it's not all completely even in terms of how much of each of those metals is present in the golem.


short question
is a jump check distance limited by your speed or double move?

long example:
Let's make a dwarf with 20 foot speed

level 20 fighter

20 ranks in acrobatics
+5 from dex
soaring sprinter trait (+2 acrobatics to jump and becomes class skill)
class skill training +3
skill focus acrobatics +6
acrobatic feat +4
run feat +4 on running jumps
-4 for being 10 feet slower than 30.

total bonus on jumping acrobatics checks: +40

let's get crazy and add in the jump spell at CL 9. Should be easy enough. this adds 30 to the jump check.

so now our dwarf has a +70 bonus to jumps. and his movement speed is still 20 feet

so let's say there is a 50 foot chasm by the check the dwarf should easily make it.

My DM has just ruled that the farthest he can ever jump is 30 feet after a ten foot running start because his speed is only 20 feet meaning he can only take a double move in the jump.

For this dwarf he would get a 10 foot running start and jump. soar through the air for 10 feet then take another move action(double move) to move another 20 feet then he would have to land or fall.

He says this based on a single sentence in the core rulebook under the acrobatics skill about jumping.

"No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round."

Now I get that this dwarf cannot jump and move 80 feet in a single turn then everyone would just be jumping around. What I'm saying is he would jump the 30 feet out then would have to spend the first move action of his next turn to finish the jump. (or in the case of an 80 foot jump two more move actions.)

meaning it took a solid 12 seconds for him to jump that far but he had skill and magic aiding him. This allows someone to interrupt his jump a wizard casts wall of force in front of you and then plow.

Is there anything in the core rulebook or any paizo product that says that those who rolls a jump check exceeding their speed for the round would have to spend move actions on the next turn to finish the jump?

I told him about the standard action that allows you to start or finish a full round action he didn't change his stance.


interesting point about experienced players.

so for the last couple years my DM who also DMs other groups has been telling me about the super dungeon he made, emerald spire and how it is so difficult that none of his players has been able to get through the whole thing without a death in the party or some setback or major difficulty.

We made sub-par characters non optimized classes from only the advanced class guide (brawler(me), arcanist, investigator, and shaman)

our first fight was a random encounter that almost killed us a CR 4 encounter against brand new fresh level ones. The investigator and the shaman's familiar were the only thing standing between us and a TPK right out of the gate. we licked our wounds and from there only got better.

Now we are level 5 with no deaths yet The DM continually tells us how much better we are doing. "No other group was able to get through that" he would say and "no one was able to find this secret thing but you guys did."

everyone in our group has been playing D&D for a combined 45 years now while the groups he has been DMing don't even have 10 years combined.


I have kind of the same issue. the archer dishes out over 100 damage per turn while everyone else struggle to do over 30. so when I throw monsters that the archer can't kill in one turn they all say.

"man it's a good thing we have an archer we would all die if we had anything else."

I just kind of ignore comments like that the goal is fun, not challenge. sometimes challenge is fun but too much challenge is not that fun.

I threw a bunch of vampire spawn during an epic boss fight. the archer was greater invisible and while using the feats snap shot/improved snap shot and combat reflexes (they threaten squares within 10 feet with a bow). the archer continually destroyed the spawn with nothing but attacks of opportunity.

from the spawns' point of view anytime a spawn went around the corner to attack, they came back as mist in the same turn.

That right there was the funnest part of the battle the players could not stop laughing at the slaughter fest. and then the BBEG showed up.


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Scott Wilhelm wrote:

Ah, so the lich's real enemy is not the party at all but rather this General of Orcus. The party might be the lich's best chance of winning his freedom. I think what the lich should do is surreptitiously approach the party and give them information that they can use to go after this Undead Demon General of Orcus.

He can use the village as a bargaining chip, threatening to destroy the village of poor innocent people if they don't cooperate, use the village as a diversion, keep the Orcus-General's eyes on the burning Village while the party sneaks into the castle and lays on. The Lich will pop in at just the right moment, steal back his soul object, and teleport away.

Yes the lich is not a fan of this guy but he still does what he is told, someone who is undead does not want to get on orcus's bad side. when the party confronts the owner of his phylactery (the owner has a refuge spell bottle to break bringing the lich to him) and if the owner dies first the lich takes a move action to get to him, move action pick up phylactery (we can even make that a standard for searching around.) and then quicken dimension door to get out never to be seen by the PCs ever again.

Suthainn wrote:

...

It's definitely a useful approach for a Druid, but since the caster in question is Arcane it's a bit of a tangent
...
wordelo wrote:

The spellcaster is a level 20 sorcerer lich very knowledgeable in the use of scrolls (+40 UMD) and he has more powerful friends that can provide him with any scroll he wants.

The lich can acquire druid scrolls and use them (up to CL 20) without fail (casting a scroll is DC 20 + CL) and has an 18 wisdom so more than enough to use control winds scroll at CL 18. A tornado ripping through town is more than enough to destroy a very large portion of the city. who needs to bring down the walls? just destroy everything but the walls.

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