Owl

xn0o0cl3's page

RPG Superstar 9 Season Star Voter. Organized Play Member. 391 posts. No reviews. 6 lists. 1 wishlist. 2 Organized Play characters.



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I'm going to replace the combat slog in the Forgotten Keep with a social encounter in the Witchmarket. To foreshadow it, Tig & Perlivash, who the party made good friends with, will let them know the Witchmarket has appeared at the Keep and they've heard rumors that it was to strike one specific deal. I'm running Dudemeister's changes, so that deal will be Hargulka purchasing Nyrissa's will-o'-wisps, per her arrangement.

The goal of the encounter will be for the party to navigate the Witchmarket and figure out what was sold and to whom, but I'm having trouble figuring out a good string of social encounters to get them there (aside from the opportunity to strike weird bargains with fey merchants, of course). Does anyone have any suggestions?

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I created this class for an upcoming Curse of the Crimson Throne. The class is inspired by the urban witchcraft of Dishonored's main characters, Corvo Attano and Doud, and China Mieville's Bas-Lag series, which I found difficult to create in Pathfinder. Witch/rogue/arcane trickster was just too weak to build and I didn't think it really got the feel of Corvo just right, so I built this instead. It's mostly just for personal use, since I found the style of Dishonored to be really cool, but I hope some other people out there might like the class.

Any critiques/suggestions are welcome, of course. In particular, if anyone has any suggestions for a better name, I'd be glad to have them. Athame is the only thing I could come up with that fits the typical Pathfinder pattern. Personally, I'm calling it a witch assassin.

Anyways, check out the witch/slayer here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12sB6waaS1TZcT2dVZuTXzHpmBV7eZL_75PyM38x R4tc/edit?usp=sharing

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Hey folks! Pretty soon I'm going to be running Skull & Shackles re-flavored as a steampunk aiship adventure. A lot of APs can really benefit from foreshadowing early on - is there anything in S&S I should be adding in early on?

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So, a long time ago I thought it would be great to take the eldritch heritage feat chain with my summoner to get the arcane bloodline. We're finally approaching 11th level, when I could grab Improved Eldritch Heritage to pick up any 4th level or lower Sorc/Wizard spell. Only trouble is, I'm starting think that taking Expanded Arcana to grab two third level summoner spells instead.

Question is, is there any single Sorc/Wizard spell that would trump getting two more extremely handy 3rd level summoner spells?

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As stated above.

I really loved the Apostle of Peace from BoED back in 3.5, so I was really excited to see a paladin archetype of a similar vein! Unfortunately, it looks like it's really terrible, or at least it is as written.

I have to assume that the intention was to allow the guardian to use Touch of Serenity once per day per level as a monk would, but alas, they cannot.

Even then, is that ability REALLY worth giving up Smite Evil for? Being able to shut down an enemy's offense is a pretty powerful ability, but that's if they fail their will save, and it's only for a round... Yuck.

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Seriously, what's with all AP titles that start with S? I can't abbreviate anything!

Serpent's Skull = SS
Shattered Star = SS
Skull & Shackles = S&S

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In the next month or so I'll be running Carrion Crown, time permitting. I only have a three people players though, so I'm thinking up ways to up their power a tad. They'll have 25 point buy, but I'm also trying to come up with some flavorful extra powers to give to the group. I have the paladin and dhampir inquisitor figured out, but the witch is giving me trouble.

Each player is going to be loosely associated with one aspect of Pharasma's faith:

The paladin of Abadar will represent Fate. Unbeknownst to the character and the player, he was murdered on the way to Ravengro and sent back to the mortal plane to complete his destiny (defeating the Whispering Way). I'm using the Restless Souls rules from Rite Publishing. Basically he's got a list of cool feats to manifest weird ghost-powers, and he'll get a bonus feat from that list at level one, then one every 4 levels afterwards.

The dhampir kinslayer inquisitor will represent Death. He'll be getting the Ray Brand power for free at level one (essentially a bonus feat), and then at level 5 he'll receive the paladin's divine bond with a weapon. He'll only be able to augment his Slayer's Brand, and I'll be giving him a custom list of abilities to pick from. I think I'm going to tone the ability down to 1 round per level though. It seems like it'd be a little much to give him the divine bond at full strength.

The witch is giving me trouble though. She's going to represent Birth, although even that's a stretch as the character the player created doesn't really have a connection to her aspect like the other two characters so conveniently did. I know she'll have a raven familiar and between levels 1-4 it's going to slowly manifest the abilities of a Nosoi (Improved Familiar for free). Beyond that though, I'm kind of stumped. A free pearl of power ability is always great for arcane casters, but I feel like that would be kind of unimaginative and it doesn't represent her aspect of Pharasma. Maybe something that would better fit RP situations instead of combat? Suggestions would be greatly appreciated :]

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So, I'm mulling around the idea of running an AP starting in August, but I'm not looking for something that will require an enormous amount of my time to GM (Kingmaker was my last game, had to quit because it just required too much of my time to run alongside school. Friggin love that campaign though). I'd like to have something I can complete in 6-7 months since I spend my summers out of the country, and I would also REALLY like to run Carrion Crown, which seems like it would fit the bill. From what I've gathered there aren't many sandbox elements and it's fairly rail-roady. With regular 5-6 hour sessions once a week, would completing the campaign by say, May, be plausible (7 months)?

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TL;DR - My Serpent's Skull character is a Chelaxian noblewoman who had to escape the country after she was involved in a hellish (ba-doom-pshh), reputation-destroying scandal. Up until this point in our game it's only been hinted at, but it looks like it could come to light very soon. Unfortunately, I still have no idea what it was, so I'm looking to brainstorm with you lovely fellow forum-goers!

The long of it:
Julianna Caiina is my Chelaxian summoner PC in our Serpent's Skull game. She comes from a powerful noble family in Egorian, where she was studying at the Egorian Academy, and for a long time enjoyed a position as the favorite amongst her siblings. She's told the rest of the party that she graduated at the top of her class and her family sent her to Sargava to try and gain a foothold in the government, and that she sees the promise of Saventh Yi's treasures as the best way to accomplish that goal. The party's caught onto her lie a couple of times, however. In reality, she was expelled just before graduation in light of some hitherto unnamed scandal, which stripped her of her good graces in the family and caused a huge uproar amongst the nobility in Egorian. The Caiina family managed to remain unmarred by whatever it is that Julianna did, but she was disowned and forced to flee the country. She has told the party (truthfully) that the expedition is an attempt to gain power and prestige for the Caiinas, but she is also trying to regain her good standing in Cheliax and with her family. One of our other players had to roll up a new character recently, which was also a Chelaxian. The GM's told me whatever she did is probably going to come up real soon due to the new character who will more than likely know who she is and what she did back home.

I'm thinking some sort of insult to the queen or the church would be best, or perhaps a scandalous romance or a murder. Or all three! Whatever it is, it's gotta be bad. Like, real bad.

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So I recently became interested in making a character for Kingmaker who puts a lot of focus on building constructs (mainly the Clockworks, freaking love those things). I was wondering if there was any justification or balance-based reason for the high caster level that many relatively low CR constructs demand? (looking at you, Clockwork Spy. CL 12 for a CR1/2 product? What's the point?) Other examples are the Clockwork Servant and Soldier, Wood Golem, and Caryatid Column.

Not seeing any real reason for the CL-CR disparity in those extreme cases, can anyone foresee any problems with editing the CL to somewhere within one or two, maybe three levels above the CR? I figure the high GP cost would offset the fact that there's no real limit to how many of those sorts of companions you could have with you, and would prevent anyone from spamming them out.

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Our's was fairly eventful. We played through our first six days on the ship, saw each other in the tavern, got assigned our roles, etc.

The party's bard (dervish dancer), alchemist, and true primal barbarian are swabs, the cavalier got assigned to kitchen duty, and the gunslinger's working the sails (without much success in the last couple of days. Scourge was none too pleased).

The GM's running Fishguts like he's a walking corpse. The man's liver is practically failing while we watch, and we've all taken a liking to him just for how utterly pathetic he is. "I need ye to - hiccup - kill this creature." - Ambrose Kroop, handing off a butcher knife to the Cook's Mate to fillet a live reefclaw.

So far we've also managed to get a rival member of the crew keelhauled, another one stuffed in the sweat-box (he has since escaped and vanished), and the dervish dancer is in the process of romancing Cut-Throat Grok.

Our fight with Owlbear was also pretty noteworthy, as he stomped through three of our PCs before the alchemist finally managed to knock him unconscious via bomb to the face.

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...on page 67. What is it, and where do I get one? Amiright?

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So Christmas break is fast approaching, and that means its time to forget my college studies, play Skyrim, and start GMing again! I will be spending my break in a fantasy land.

I need help picking a couple of Paizo modules to run though, as I don't know much about them. I would like to run two or three over the break, and connect each one so that we have a sort of mini campaign that we can begin and wrap up in a month. From what I've gathered there are some modules related to each other already, but I would LIKE for Carrion Hill to be one of them... Does anyone have any suggestions for two or three modules in the level 4-7 range that fit that criteria?

PS: Challenge Mode: Our normal gaming group has about 8-9 people in it. We don't like running large games, so another GM in the group will also be running a game of his own and each of us will take a few players. I thought it would be really cool if we could link our games together somehow, and better yet add some aspect of friendly competition between the two groups. We could run our games at the same time in different rooms, then convene afterwards to swap stories of our exploits, and a way to actually link the two games would be really cool.

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While thinking up a new character for Jade Reagent I settled on playing a monk with a heavy emphasis on creating spell-like effects - conjuring fire, casting spells, etc. Before I sat down at my books to look this concept over I thought the Qinggong monk was going to fill the role, but after looking it over I was unsatisfied. The only thing I was really interested in was scorching ray...

So I turned elsewhere. I looked over the Kensai Magus archetype as a possible outlet, but choosing Unarmed Strike as the Kensai's weapon just seems incredibly ineffective. The damage would be abysmal, and all the cool style feats and elemental fist would be out of reach until post-level 10 - no good. This method gets the spells, but doesn't feel much like a monk (or not a decent, playable one at any rate).

At this point I'm considering going with a Qinggong monk/Master of Many Styles and grabbing all the genie styles, which would certainly have a lot of cool, elemental-conjuring effects, but then I'm not REALLY casting spells either.

Am I to despair and assume that the only way to pull off such a character would be a new Magus archetype? That would probably be the best way to make this character, but as we don't have that archetype, I ask you, can this character be made? Are there outlets I haven't considered? CAN the Kensai be made into a decent monk/caster?

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So I've been obsessively reading the Spellslinger archetype in Ultimate Combat because I'm a steampunk junky like that, and noticed a neat little loophole (read "big loophole.")

The archetype's two signature abilities, arcane gun and mage bullets, don't actually require wizard spells - or even arcane spells - to use. Any casting class at all could take a level dip into Wizard and suddenly gain the ability to fire spells from a gun or sacrifice them for weapon abilities. Those abilities don't scale in power with the Wizard's level either, so that one level is all you need to get the full effectiveness of the Spellslinger abilities.

Is this useful? I have no idea. Is it awesome? Absolutely.

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So, the double hackbut in Ultimate Combat is clearly the pinnacle of musketeer technology, weighing in at 2d12 damage. I also noticed that the penalty for wielding an oversized firearm is only -2, which is VERY manageable for a Gunslinger.

Now, the question is: if I were to play a Gunslinger using a large double hackbut, what would it's damage be? 2d12 increases to... ?

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If a rogue were to attack a creature with DR, but his/her weapon damage did not penetrate the DR, would their sneak attack damage still apply? The rules don't directly address damage reduction's effects on sneak attack, so can anyone help clear this up?

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Oddly appropriate store blog for this weekend... Done with purpose, or mere coincidence? Ponder ponder...

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I've got a couple friends that are constructing some iconic locations from Kingmaker in Minecraft, and it got me wondering about other awesome areas to build...

Which sites from any modules, APs, society scenarios, etc., would be the most awesome to display in blocky glory? I'm thinking Serpent's Skull is going to have some really amazing ruins to build.

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After my GM's current campaign wraps up we'll be moving on to Serpent's Skull. The African imperialism elements in the Mwangi Expanse/Sargava are really intriguing to me, and since we've never really had anyone play a lawful evil character in our games, (we have, but I don't count them because the players were terrible at it) I decided an imperialist character would be great. There'll be social darwinism, taking advantage of the locals, forcing Cheliax's religion on them (because of COURSE she's gotta be Chelaxian :p ), the whole shebang. My question is, will there be much opportunity for such a character to flex those dominating, all-conquering, lawful evil muscles, or does this game focus more on the ruin-delving, Indiana Jones-esque elements? I get the impression that the latter is more prominent, although I'm ever so optimistic that this character will be fun to play in Serpent's Skull.

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Apologies if this topic has been raised already; I've not kept a close
eye on these playtest messageboards.

Leaping Shot Deed (Grit):
You leap through the air, guns blazing.
Prerequisites: Dex 13, grit class feature or Amateur
Gunslinger feat, Dodge, Mobility, base attack bonus +4.
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on Acrobatics checks made
to jump. As a full-round action, you can move up to your
speed and make firearm attacks at your highest base attack
bonus with each loaded firearm you are wielding. You can
make these attacks at any point during your movement,
and if you are wielding two firearms, you can make the
attacks at different points during the movement. At the
end of this movement, you fall prone. This deed costs 1
grit point to perform.

This feat has been throwing me off since Round 1, so I think it's high time I had some things cleared up. Obviously this deed implies that your character will be flying through the air, feet not touching the ground, but never does it actually require an acrobatics check. Are we meant to treat this as a normal move action, still taking into effect anything that would impede a character on foot? Because otherwise I see this as an obvious (and very handy) exploit for moving around the battlefield. E.g., a hasted gunslinger could use this to leap a 60 ft. chasm (DC 60 Acrobatics) with no skill check. And I won't even get into the things that same gunslinger could do with a high jump... yeesh.

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So, I'll be playing a druid in an upcoming game and he's going to need - need - a dire weasel companion. Following are two incarnations. The first one is true to the old 3.5 dire weasel - the 10 foot long, 700 pound monster. At first I didn't want to stat this version up, as it does somewhat offend my sensibilities (despite being AWESOME) so I was just going to stat up version 2 alone... but I couldn't let it die. Also this isn't possible with version 2: this. Version 2 is a smaller dire weasel, a bit more realistic (realistic? Dire weasel? We'll ignore that statement...) and is basically just a badger/wolverine from the Core Rulebook with a bleed attack instead of rage.

Here they are:

Dire Weasel 1
Starting Statistics: Size Medium; Speed 30 ft.; AC +1 natural armor; Attack bite 1d8; Ability Scores Str 11, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 10; Special Attacks bleed 1d6 Special Qualities low-light vision, scent.
7th-Level Advancement: Size Large; Attack bite 1d8; Ability Scores Str +8, Dex -2, Con +4; Special Attacks bleed 1d8.

Dire Weasel 2
Starting Statistics: Size Small; Speed 30ft., burrow 10 ft., climb 10 ft.; AC +2 natural armor; Attack bite 1d6; Ability Scores Str 10, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6; Special Attacks bleed 1d4; Special Qualities low-light vision, scent.
4th-Level Advancement: Size Medium; Attack bite 1d8; Ability Scores Str +4, Dex -2, Con +2; Special Attacks bleed 1d6.

Another idea I just had while writing this was to give them grab and have the bleed effect come in during grapples, which I think would make them more useful as well as make them more true to the 3.5 dire weasel. I'm way too tired to do that right now though, so we'll see about having that up tomorrow.

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So, back when the party cleared defeated the enraged owlbear, the party druid nursed the surviving cub back to health. They left the south eastern Kamelands unexplored so the owlbear would have decent hunting grounds... until recently.

The party druid headed south and spent his hero points to awaken the enormous owlbear... then brought it back to their capital as the new general. Not only are his physical abilities absurd, but the 3d6 roll for intelligence came out to 6+6+5. And the extra ability score it got from the HD increase went to that. The owlbear's better at every than any NPC, but naturally he's the general, leading an army which now consists of Bird Shamans, Bear Shamans, and barbarians.

Win.

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Animal shamans gain the ability to use wildshape at their druid level +2 for their respective animal, while taking a -2 to anything else. I'm kind of confused as to what exactly this affects and why it is useful. From what I can tell the only thing that is level dependent in wild shape is the level of beast shape you can use. However, this means that the ability works at level 6 when animal shamans get the ability, increasing their wild shape to beast shape III rather than beast shape II, but after level 8 when beast shape no longer increases, all this ability does is hinder you.

This raises another issue: the bird shaman, for example, gains the benefit of the increased wild shape level when turning into eagles or rocs. Rocs are gargantuan, a size category which wild shape doesn't grant access to. Is this to say that you can use wild shape to turn into a large category roc, as per the druid animal companion, or a huge category roc? Can druids alter the size of ANY animal they wish to turn into?

I'd like to think I'm just missing something about wild shape, but this animal shaman ability seems fairly pointless. Could someone enlighten me? Please?

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My gaming group has convinced an old-time DMs to run Rise of the Runelords! None of us have ever played in it before, although we know a little bit about it from brief glances and word on the message boards. What I'd like to know is what types of characters will really excel in this game? Which classes will see the most action, be most useful, and fit the setting and overall themes the best?

I'm considering either a Shoanti rage prophet or a Varisian magus (bladed scarf+spellstrike = win), leaning towards the Shoanti. The rest of the group consists of a cavalier, a two weapon fighter, and maybe a ranger (she's kind of up in the air). Any other input is greatly appreciated!

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What the hell does this accomplish? Is there any real use for this hex?

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"Targeting the torso doubles the critical range for the attack."

How does this ability interact with things like Improved Critical and Keen?

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Any chance we'll ever see a technology based supplement from Paizo?

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I had expected the kingdom building portion of Kingmaker to bring its own special type of fun to the Adventure Path, much like building up forces in an RTS or the Villa in Assassin's Creed 2, but so far it's just been really, REALLY boring! Everyone likes constructing a kingdom, but whenever we get to the actual process the game grinds to halt.

Has anyone else had similar issues or found ways to spice up the process?

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I've been working for a collector these past couple weeks, mostly just doing data entry for d&d miniatures so he can sell them on Ebay.

Now, I knew this guy's collection was big. I mean, this guy has SHELVES upon SHELVES of gaming paraphernalia, but I got the grand tour on Friday, and boy... wow.

I held, in my own hands, the first 3.5 D&D Player's Handbook ever printed, the pre-print copy of the 3.0 Player's Handbook and DM's guide, Gary Gigax's copy of the magazine in which he conceived the idea for Dungeons and Dragons, just to name a couple. Turns out the artwork on the walls, which I had just dismissed as random pieces of fantasy art, were original works of several big name RPG industry artists, INCLUDING the original painting of the cover of the last issue of Dragon magazine.

Incredible day. Totally surreal experience.

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I have a PC interested in turning Candlemere Tower into his caster tower. This PC also happens to be a witch, and as we all know, witches get their powers from some mysterious, otherworldly power. (See where I'm going with this yet?) Does anyone know of an HP Lovecraft story that I could incorporate into the game once the witch takes over Candlemere Tower? I'd like this to end with him fleeing the tower in terror.

I've already built up a great haunting plot with the Candlemere lights. Way back in Stolen Lands I rolled a Willo' Wisp as a random encounter, but the party was split and the two PCs (the witch being one of them) wouldn't have been able to take it. Instead of killing them, I had the willo' wisp leave them alone... for the time being. Every night after that, the witch saw that eerie lantern light bobbing a few miles off in the hills. Once the party moved into the Stag Lord's fort and built a town around it, he saw them from his window every night, just bobbing there across the Tuskwater.

So not only do I have him thoroughly creeped out, but he has a vendetta against this willo' wisp (or as he'll soon find out, all twelve of them.) Once the tower's cleared out, everything will seem peachy for a few months, but then the Lovecraft strangery will begin! *Twiddles fingers diabolically*

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When do we get one? How utterly amazing would a swashbuckling high seas adventure path be? I mean, everything is there: the Shackles pirates, the Eye of Abendigo, etc., etc... Plus everything Paizo releases is pure gold, and pirate adventures just scream epic.

Has this been considered? Please? Pretty please? Don't make me put the sugar on top...

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The possibilities with the summoner's eidolons are almost endless, and I bet we've all come up with some really flavorful concepts for the class.

Imma start:

The summoner I'm playing right now is an 8 year old kid. He's just an unsuspecting, normal kid at first glance, but after staying with him for a while the oddities start to show. He casts spells, he's positively rolling in money, he's a loner with no parents, no guardians, and his only friend is the mysterious "Mr. Grizzles." Mr. Grizzles is his eidolon, a hulking, terrifying teddy bear the size of a man.

He's a blast to play. I gave Mr. Grizzles bugbear feats from Classic Monsters, like Sow Terror. The summoning process involves Damian looking under beds, opening closets, etc, all the classic spots for childhood monsters to hide. Love it.

I'm interested to hear what unique summoners everyone else has come up with. Let's see 'em.

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My DM's being an ass and decided at the very last minute to go with 3.5 instead of Pathfinder. I'm stuck with this amazing character that I'm not giving up on, but he happens to be a Summoner, so I'll need to backwards convert him.

Suggestions? I'm thinking I'll roll the HD back to a d6, maybe set the duration of the summon monster ability back to rounds, or allow it less times per day or something like that, and then there's the eidolon... I'm not even sure where to start with that.

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So I noticed that the new zombie/skeleton variants didn't say what additional spells you'd need to create them. I'm thinking something like fireball for exploding skeletons, stinking cloud for gasburst zombies, etc.

What do you guys think?

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So, how are home made monsters viewed in submissions? Is this something that's usually frowned on, or is it generally assumed that if they're crafted well it's fair game?

This isn't for something really outrageous either, I just wanted to include a new elemental, like the ones mentioned in the Campaign Setting (sand elementals, for example).