Some Newbie GM Questions.

[Jericho Graves]

I wasn't sure where to post this, but recently my Skype/home group completed their first module. Season 1's The Devil We Know: Shipyard Rats. Everyone had a blast, but a near death occured. I have a few questions.

1) One of the characters was hit pretty bad by the Huecuva's disease in the last encounter. He was dropped by 1 dex, 2 con, and at -2 hit points. This means he has to purchase a remove disease spell, two lesser restorations, and some cure light wounds to top it off yes? Do hit points cure between sessions?

2) Our fighter (lore warden, using a scythe) wants to use his treasure to get a new scythe with special materials. Can he have a Silver, Alchemical scythe blade with a darkwood haft? or is this not legal? I'm not 100% clear on special materials and such.

3) This is a really newbie question, but the Guide to Organized Play says there are faction specific boons you can buy with prestige, but the only thing I can find is the list in the Pathfinder Society Feild Guide. As far as I'm aware those factions are retired? So do the new factions like The Exchange or The Dark Archives not have specific boons like this? Does that mean characters from these factions are limited to the generic prestige chart in the Guide to Organized Play?

[DrParty06]

1. The disease is Filth Fever, which has an onset time of 1d3 days, meaning that it potentially only would have manifested after the scenario was over. Each day as long as the character has positive ability scores, he can attempt a new saving throw. If the cure condition of 2 consecutive saves is met, there is no need for Remove Disease. This should be rolled out at the end of the scenario unless the player just wants to pay for the Remove Disease. They only receive ability damage from this disease, which heals with time between scenarios and does not require any Lesser Restoration. Presumably, someone in the party could have provided a Cure Light Wounds to bring him to positive health, otherwise if he was not stabilized, he would have had to continue making Constitution checks to do so at the risk of dying. Once stabilized/positive, HP are full at the beginning of each scenario.

2. A scythe cannot be made from Darkwood. It is considered a metal item, since the blade is the functional part. It can be alchemical silver.

3. The boons in the Field Guide are the boons referred to by that text. Dark Archive has access to Cheliax boons, The Exchange to Qadira, Sovereign Court to Taldor, Scarab Sages to Osirion, and Liberty's Edge to Andoran.

[glass]

DrParty just about covered it, but one small thing: Shipyard Rats is a scenario, not a module. Modules are a different thing, with slightly different rules.

glass.

[Jericho Graves]

sorry for the misuse of terminology.

Thank you for answering promptly. When I looked at the disease in the scenario I must have missed the Onset. Since this is a home game played with PFS rules I'll fix the mistake and refund the gold for the restorations then.

And thank you for clarifying the boons and material question. We weren't sure how that played out since most scythes have a bladed head and a wooden handle. I'm assuming if a sunder is involved it still targets the haft of the weapon, however?

Edit: and he was left with -2 hp and the party divine caster (battle oracle) was out of spells for the day. So I ruled they could rush him to a city temple to get simple cure light wounds cast. I figure that wouldn't require the 24 hour wait since you expect temples to be able to heal their patronage. If I'm wrong on that... I don't want to be. The Oracle did have Stabilize as an Orison.

[Tiaburn]

Small clarification about remove disease would be needed:
a) according to spell description

PRD, remove disease wrote:

must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against the DC of each disease affecting the target. Success means that the disease is cured.

b) according to Guide spell are cast at minimal caster level

As far as I understood, this means player paying money doesn't mean he will be cured. It might happen (and it happened during my game), that he will roll low on caster level check & failed his save, next day suffer some Con damage, pay again - roll low - fail Fort save - suffer more Con damage.

As mentioned disease starts some period after the scenario ended. The party might not even be nearby or they might stay in same city to do their day job activities, etc. Lets take a character in a party was affected by disease and he failed his saves.
So, my questions are:
a) if party he was adventuring before getting sick, had cleric, who is capable to cast lesser restoration (but not remove disease), can character in question ask cleric to cast lesser restoration, instead of paying to church/society/GM?
b) if party had a cleric, who is high enough to cast remove disease, can character in question, ask him to cast remove disease spell[/i] instead of paying to the church/society/GM?
c) there is spell Diagnose Disease, in Ultimate Magic. [b]Can this be done via Heal check skill application? It seems strange: you can treat disease via skill, but you cannot detect is character still affected by disease or not.

How disease ended for paladin in my last game:

Paladin in question, affected by ghoul fever spend all his resources and reroll boon.
He tried to recover first 3 days losing 2 CON and 2 DEX. Than he decided to pay for RD. It didn't helped. He payed lesser restoration to restore DEX, than his CON felt down to 10, he payed LR and RD... Finally, he was down to 9 CON penalty (with total CON 12), he took anti plague, and needed to roll 7+.. first roll was 4, but then he found reroll boon in his first chronicle and he rolled again... 7. This was second success in a row, so he was clear of disease. Final price was: 6 remove disease + 4 lesser restoration + 1 anti toxin.

[Jericho Graves]

I knew about the Caster Level check vs the DC of the Disease, thankfully a natural twenty was rolled on this check. Far above the disease DC.

The only reason he asked for a remove disease was because our Lore Warden rolled high enough on his knowledge and knew about the diseases that Huecuva carried. (It was a 24 Knowledge Check) so the party made educated guesses.

[Jericho Graves]

Oh.. there was no onset listed in the Scenario. This is copied and pasted directly from my watermarked pdf copy.

"Disease (ex)Claw; save Fort DC 12; frequency 1d3 days/1 day; effect
1d3 Dex damage and 1d3 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves.
The save DC is Charisma-based."

Edit: The name of the disease wasn't even listed. ???

[Mystic Lemur]

When my players contract a disease, I give them the option of paying for the Remove Disease or going about it the "hard way" with Fort saves. We roll it out and record the success and any gold spent on the chronicle. Ability damage and hit point damage heal naturally between scenarios. Ability drain does not heal naturally, but can carry over between scenarios if the player can't afford the restoration.

Faction missions are purely for flavor, and handing them out is optional. The old factions map to the new factions as follows:

No Grand Lodge mission? -> Use the Osirian mission
No Scarab Sages? -> Also Osirian
Sovereign Court -> Taldor
Exchange -> Qadira
Silver Crusade -> Andoran
Liberty's Edge -> Andoran
Dark Archive -> Cheliax

If a player requests a mission from a faction that is no longer in play (say, Lantern Lodge, or Sczarni) I usually don't have a problem with it. They are, after all, just for flavor.

[DrParty06]

Jericho Graves wrote:

Oh.. there was no onset listed in the Scenario. This is copied and pasted directly from my watermarked pdf copy.

"Disease (ex)Claw; save Fort DC 12; frequency 1d3 days/1 day; effect
1d3 Dex damage and 1d3 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves.
The save DC is Charisma-based."

Edit: The name of the disease wasn't even listed. ???

There is a typo in the way the disease is presented in the scenario. The 1d3 is the onset time and the /1 day is how often the saves need to be made. The scenario doesn't list the name of the disease. I got that from the PRD, which apparently has an updated version of the creature here.

[kinevon]

@Aleksandrs:
Only spells purchased with PP are cast at minimum caster level. You can, by paying extra gold, purchase spellcasting services at higher than minimum caster level.

Otherwise, once you start hitting diseases or poisons in the 7-11s, you might as well not waste your money. At those levels, you can start getting DCs higher than 25, and, honestly, DCs higher than 15 should be considering higher caster levels, because you get a less than 50% chance to remove the disease at that point.