Anastasius Brightstar's page

I'm running this campaign, and don't plan to make my party deal too much with the caravan specific stuff because it feels like a lot of unnecessary bookkeeping.

As for the NPCs being over powered, I'm going to just have them be the caravan drivers, so the PCs won't realize how strong they are unless their help is SUPER needed.

Then once the PCs are higher levels than the rest of the NPCs, I'm going to keep the NPCs about 2 levels below them for the rest of the campaign. But I do like Alleran's idea of Leadership feats and cohorts. Though I'm not sure my players would be as interested in RPing an NPC that they've gotten to know externally first.

Sin magic stuff on PFSRD

Beautiful! Thanks! :D

Hey all!

I'm looking to build up a dungeon themed around Alaznist, the Runelord of Wrath (and maybe some others in the future) beyond what I have available through the Shattered Star AP. I'm wanting to have a few extra things themed around the Runelords' capabilities, like evocation spells acting at higher levels in Alaznist's dungeon, but I can't find what her opposition/forbidden schools of magic are anywhere. Does anybody have any ideas on what each Runelord's primary/opposition schools are? (Or, recommendations, if they haven't been defined by Paizo yet)

Thanks in advance! :D

Read the section under Oracles for the Curse. I believe it says you add half of any non-oracle class levels to determine the effect. So in the case you presented that character would be level 6 for determining the effect of their curse and thus get the 1st and 5th level effects.

Yeah! I just saw that part literally a minute after I posted. Tried to delete the thread since I found it. Oops.

Thanks though!

Private tutor to the wizarding elite.

Because I'm literally a private tutor. And if I could legit study magic, I'd be all over that.

I think that having an agent of Calistria would be fine, especially because you could use them to give them a stern talking to. like "they went down and you STILL decided to keep going instead of recovering? What's wrong with you?!" to hopefully keep TPKs from happening again.

Fun story. I played a pally on my first run of Shattered Star. (Once as a player, now I'm DMing a run of it with a different group.)

My Pally followed Sarenrae, who is moderately obsessed with redemption. So When stuff wasn't evil, but was still on the wrong side of things, I'd try and sit them down and talk about their life choices. Which ended up with some fantastically hilarious situations.

there are also plenty of unrepentingly evil funsies in the AP, but moreso toward the later books.

So if you want to play a more evangelical type pally, then I think it'd work great. But a Paladin of Torag might have some problems.

And if you opt to play a Paladin of Sarenrae, (or any divine character of Sarenrae) I made these fun little pamphlets for a convention one time. https://www.dropbox.com/s/iunkzsvm53iqe52/Sarenrae_Pamphlet.pdf?dl=0

I didn't end up being able to go, but they've been fun to print out and take to some of my local game groups...

DM: Okay, we'll go around an introduce yourselves.
Eventually gets to me: I am Jezriel, a humble paladin. Have you heard the good news of Sarenrae? /hands out pamplets to everybody.

My players have been pretty smart too, but they've been far more successful at roleplay (and some dumb luck on skill checks).

For example, the attack on Natalya's Lair had them completely tapped out and they barely finished (she charmed the barbarian - which was really the only reason they had any trouble). But either way, they're exhausted, and have just left the shack when Terisha and her minions confront them to demand they hand over Natalya. Obviously, they didn't want to, but had little choice; they were all out of spells, healing, and were still down on hp.

I figured it'd be a no brainer that they'd hand her over. But nope. The Barbarian decides he's not having any of that. But before he can do anything, our tiny little gnome oracle of Pharasma rolls to intimidate and nat 20s. Then the sorcerer burned his last 1st level spell on a Burning Hands to intimidate them into backing up a bit (which came with a natural 18 on intimidate). Then instead of rolling to intimidate, the rolls diplomacy (because he's Charming) and nat 20s.

At this point, I pretty much just roll with whatever the PCs are wanting to do and let the baddies die whenever I decide it's best to. (Even if that requires some random healing mid-battle)

Hey all. I'm running my second playthrough of Shattered Star for a new group and have been using an excel sheet to keep up with all of the exp and gold/treasure.

Right now it's still very much a work in progress (I'm almost done with book 1 and will be moving on to book 2 shortly, but the dropbox link below will stay active and functional)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1b9f7tlmut6lf84/ShatteredStarLootExp.xlsx?dl=0

Feel free to download it and use it yourselves! (Or alter it to suit your needs :) )

:D My group is planning on something really similar for the Shattered Star path. But we're a lot lazier so I'm playing through d20 pro and streaming/recording my computer screen and audio

I hate this spell (Contingency).

Let's say the wizard has a spell to teleport him if he is attacked (or has a spell cast on him, or is the subject of a dimensional anchor spell in particular).

What's the order of precedence? If dimensional anchor succeeds, does the contingency attempt to port the wizard, and fail because he is anchored?

Does the contingency fire off before the spell hits? So the wizard is ported?

I've had people argue that the contingency will fire off if someone attempts to cast a spell on you. But how does it know? I mean if someone is hidden and casts a spell silently on you, you never know it's coming.

But contingency somehow knows what is about to happen?

I think in general people make it too powerful, or at least too discerning.

Yeah, I typically make it a thing like "when I fall below X hp" or something that's a bit more tactile than "when a spell is cast at me." The more concrete, the better. Because what if a spell is cast around you? That gets to ugly and nasty.

Hey all, I'm prepping for an adventure I'm working on and am going to be dimensional anchoring part of the dungeon so they don't just walk through.

The question is that our wizard has Contingency paired with a teleport spell so that they can autoteleport to safety if needed.

Normally I'd just say that the Dimensional Anchor would override it, but wanted to double check since the wizard cast the contingency and teleport outside of the area.

Basically, would it affect a spell that's technically already been cast?

Hey all! I'm a DM for a gaming group at one of my local universities and we're starting to wrap up our current AP. I've been trying to do some research into other APs, but it's hard to find what I'm really looking for without actually buying the full APs and reading them all. So my question for you is what APs you would recommend playing (or which ones you definitely recommend avoiding).

A few things about our group -

We do have several players now that are very familiar with Pathfinder, since they've been part of the group for a couple years, but we do also have a LOT of new players. So I don't want a more complex rules like Wrath of the Righteous or Kingmaker.

We've also played through most of Jade Regent, and are in Book 5 of Shattered Star.

Beyond that, I'm pretty open to any AP. I just want to get some other suggestions for an AP that would specifically not be intimidating for new players to pick up.

I help DM at a gaming group at my alma mater. It started in 2007 as a board game and D&D group (we played 3.5 at the time), but the biggest thing that made me want to keep coming back was that we were all treated like equals. There weren't any fart jokes or sexist comments. It was great because faculty and staff were in on the fun and helped teach the games.

It also probably helped a bit though that this all took place at a private Christian University, so we aren't as likely to have as many issues with "inappropriate topics." Because of that, we have a really solid group of girls that come to play as well. It's not a 50/50 split, but girls probably make up about a third of the group.

We've switched over to running Pathfinder now, and have been for a couple years, and in the entire time we've only really had and issue was in the current AP we're running (Shattered Star). It's been a lot of fun, and the group has grown so much that we consistently have 4-5 maxed out tables. But halfway through last semester, when we found out that our next mission was to find and claim the Shard of Lust, and a player at my table decided to start making jokes that, while not sexist, were definitely past what we were okay with having in the gaming group overall.

I let our faculty organizers know, they talked to him about it first, and then made an announcement to the group that play like that was inappropriate, and wouldn't be tolerated. It hasn't ever been an issue since, and everybody's still having a grand time. And I think that's been one of the parts that's helped us retain our players (both male and female).

While the level of conservative-ness we play with at my group is probably too much for a lot of other groups, you can still make the idea work. Make the rules for what is and isn't okay to do at the table known. Make sure everybody knows that if they're not comfortable with something, to speak up. If something happens, it stops right then and right there until the game is over, and then once that's done you can determine where the line needs to be.

Also, what Sara Marie said. Find some public areas that aren't typical for convention-problems to show up, like adults that should know how to shower and use deodorant.

Still, there are times that you need to just cut your plans and run with a new idea. If he has internet, the archives of nethys or D20PFSRD and his character sheet should work, hell, even the PRD should let him build a bloodrager. Besides, I seriously think if you don't give him a bloodrager, you are doing something wrong. Bloodrager is magical and smashy. Two things newbies love. Smashing heads and burning things.

There's still the problem of him actually going through and reading things. Which is where the entire issue stems from in the first place with his magus. If he doesn't know where to find spell durations with a magus, he's not going to know where to find them for a custom cross-class that he'd have to build from scratch.

At his next level up, do not provide him with a sheet update. Make him do it. Then have the DM tell him that to gain his level he has to go through an Academy trial or something to prove his worth of holding the new level.

...
If falls and he really just wants to "hang out" (and the group is ok with that), then bring in the fifth player and demote this guy to a role he can be useful and still have fun.

Only issue with an Academy Trial is that we're out in the middle of nowhere basically, surrounded by evil and demons, and trying to reclaim a fortress... there's really nowhere that something like that could be worked into the campaign right now. We *might* be able to do in in like a month after we've claimed the fortress, but probably not anytime sooner.

This is a common occurrence with anyone who didn't really grow up playing these type of games. There is a process to fully "getting" what is needed to play, and there are probably times where an otherwise would-be-very-good-at-DnD person just doesn't make it past that hurdle. ...

1. Take a consistent, fair-but-firm approach to dealing with the constant lack of character knowledge. He will have to find incentive to learn it to put the effort in. Keep telling him to look things up and suffer consequences of not remembering or being more prepared (i.e. "ok, sorry, moving on..."). This should create incentive to want faster ways of knowing, like the cheat sheets.
2. In doing so, you have to first let go and know that him deciding not to play is a real possibility. This is very important.

If he really just wants to hang out... then there's no changing that, at least not quickly.

That issue with getting past the hurdle is why we're really trying to get him invested in his character. He's great at roleplay and a lot of fun when we're not in combat. And it's why we don't want to just cut him out of the group. But at the same time, it's hard to find a balance to keep him contributing and not dragging down the game.

Why the heck didn't you stick him as a bloodrager? Its a simpler magus, I don't actually own the book but I have looked it over and its pretty simple. A bloodrager is a redneck magus, there is no denying that. It seems like a really fun class for a new player.

Because we're using Hero Lab and that's not in the supplements we have available. The idea was to share a HL license so he could tweak his character at home, so we have to stick to the stuff that's available through there.

Honestly, I think magus was a poor choice for this. About half of the experienced players that I know have trouble keeping track of all the things a magus might/should/could do in a round. They have some really fiddly rules that are fairly complex.

Add on mythic and I can see a lot of people just giving up.

Did he really need spells or did he just want some unusual powers.

If he really wants a caster, it is possible to build an oracle or sorcerer that is relatively simple to play, survivable, and effective. Simple and/or static bloodline abilities, group buff spells (that the other players then need to keep track of not him), heals, and out of combat utility spells.

Yeah, we're kind of regretting it now, but he's really liked his character and we're a bit loath to take it away from him. As for magic, yeah. He specifically wanted to cast spells. For Mythic, it's got a bunch of flavory things based on which path you choose, but for him we basically ignore it so he doesn't have to deal with it. (in the name of simplifying things as much as possible). But he specifically wanted magic and melee. So we gave him an archetype that cuts off a lot of the extra things a magus can do in favor of making a few of them more powerful.

The problem with support spells that he wouldn't have to keep track of, is that if he's not contributing damage to the battle, he doesn't feel like he's contributing at all. Which is why I really wish we could've convinced him to play LG, so I could just hand him the paladin sheet until he really learned the mechanics.

Does your DM runs or plans to run WotR as written or cranck it up 4 or 5 notches?

He's not cranking it up as far as I know, but we are gaining mythic tiers more slowly so we don't start walking through things.

I'm chronically late for things, but it doesn't mean that I'm not interested in what's going on. If the player is just missing the session entirely that implies a lack of interest, but maybe it could be just a scheduling problem.

We've already rescheduled our meeting time because of attendance issues. He said that Saturday nights were completely fine. We're also totally understanding when something unexpected comes up, but he's much more likely to find out about another event that he'd rather go to and then not tell us until the day of.

"If you don't know what you're doing this turn-I skip you (10 second count).

If you want to use a special ablity/feat/spell it's your job to have the facts ready, if not it doesn't work.
I will not interfer with your leveling and all choices are final."

After that I refused to spend extra time on him instead of other players and I shot down any attempts to make me do his homework, I pretty much told him indirectly "Step up or GTFO".

In this case it worked, after some harsh rejections and realizations he started picking up the slack, started reading up on rules and learned to be more patient about his character.
(a lot...

Yeah, if I were DMing, I'd have already done that a long time ago. Our DM has tried to do that a bit, although a lot more diplomatically because he's got real-world friendships to think about with the player. But I've stopped being as helpful.

1. Did he start at level 1 or did he start with a higher level character? He may need to start from level 1 if not.

2. I would start the game at a certain time no matter if he was there or not, or you can just wait for him to show up, and them drive over to where the game is. Alternately someone can offer to give him a ride. I would also address him being late, and find out why he thinks it is ok.

3. Also asking if he is interested may not be the best question. I would ask him why he has trouble learning the character, and as a reference to point 2, why is he not able to be on time.

We all started at lv 1. At lv 4, the DM let us respec things because I was the only one that had any experience with Pathfinder. (Our other two players were familiar with tabletop RPGs though - one had been a D&D player for a very long time, the other had played the Dragon Age table rpg).

Well he's either on time or cancels because of other plans at the last minute. It's not that he just keeps showing up chronically late exactly.

I would say that eventually, you need to let him fail on his own. Maybe he learns well through trial and error. If you keep his spellbook up, if you are the one telling how long invisibility lasts, stop. If he should know by now, and he's not a child, stop being his mommy.

If he doesn't know how to engage in combat properly, and he wades in, what's your usual response? Do you walk him through the process? Do you pull your punches? How would you react if it was a different player at your table that came derping in? The same or different? I'm not suggesting you crush him, but he needs to know that if he wants to play with the big boys and earn the big boy XPs, he's going to have to take his lumps like a big boy.

When it comes to new players and new groups and new characters, I tell people they have a finite set of levels to learn how their character drives (usually 4 or 5 max) and then the training wheels get blown off.

Well, I only keep track of his spell sheet at this point because I made it in Excel, and he doesn't have that software. But I also don't mind, because it really doesn't take a lot of work. When we level up, he picks his new spells and sends them to me to add.

As for combat stuff, it's a bit harder than that. I'm not the DM, so I don't know if punches are being pulled, but we're also playing Wrath of the Righteous, fighting hoards of demons, and I'm the paladin. So I'm the one that gets most of the targeting.

That said, there's also a lot of mass combat in WotR, so the number of actual player battles is pretty slim too.

Not to be harsh (but I'm going to be really harsh, so sorry about that), but it sounds like he's either dumb, lazy, or both. If he doesn't care enough to learn the rules....or read for two whole inches, then he doesn't deserve to play a high tier class like the magus.

I really think it's just lazy/not really interested in the game. I've simplified his sheet down for him to the point I can't simplify it any more. At this point, I really think he's just wanting to hang out.

What level are you?

We just hit lv 7. That's part of my hesitance to change his class. He's not reading the basic stuff for his current class... at this point, any class we pick for him is going to have a lot of stuff he can do (fighters will have tons of feat options, bards will still have several spells. We already have a rogue and a ranger... I really can't think of anything else simple enough to give him.)

Sounds to me like he wants a rules lite game, rather than pathfinder. I don't think there's an easy way around it - part of playing pathfinder is processing a lot of information and knowing where to look that information up. You've done a lot for him, by the sounds, but you can't make him access the clearly presented information.

I guess you could try refusing to answer his "how long does invisibility last?" questions - ie tell him that it's on the sheet - next to the words "invisibility" and "duration".

Its hard to put oneself in his shoes though - if it were me, with all these questions about whether I really wanted to play, I think I'd be embarrassed to still be asking people to read my character sheet for me. :/

Yeah, he's one of the very few people that I am starting to think D&D4e might be good for. Super lite rule system in combat.

As for the invisibility - that's exactly what I told him. He wasn't exactly thrilled, but I explained that "F'ut (the character's name) is YOUR character. You need to play him, not us. You need to know what you can do, otherwise he's not really your character, he's ours."

I think the point was made with that, but it's just really hard to find the right balance toward pushing him to know his character and being a bit b~~~&y (which, frankly, I tend to err on the latter side of that with repeated problems). He's a really fantastic guy, and he would be a brilliant roleplayer. I just really wish he could get into the shoes of something LG, because then I'd just hand him my paladin and say "always ask if it's evil. If it is, and it's also big and ugly. smite it. Bonuses for that are here. That's all"

You don't have to be difficult about it, but you know, give a man a fish...

When he doesn't know the answers to something within a fair time frame, just make a ruling. He can't remember if a spell is Close or Medium? Then it's Close, moving on. He can't remember if it's minutes or rounds? Then it's rounds, moving on.

It's not a penalty, it's just for ease of play for everyone else (can't remember the DC for your fireballs? Base DC for a 3rd level spell is 14, that's what we'll call it, moving on). If he wants to figure it out, he can. If you keep doing it for him...

We're not even to that level of literacy with his character though. His spell sheet that I made for him to simplify all of that has everything like that on it. It gives exact ranges, DCs, and even whether or not it can be cast through his sword. It's based off a sheet I made specifically new players in a college D&D/Pathfinder group that I help DM for. He doesn't need to know how to calculate it- he just goes "I want to cast fireball." and then read over two inches on the paper to see "reflex save for 1/2: DC 15." But he doesn't even do that because he doesn't read any of his character sheets.

My next advice if you don't want to drop him. Make him a Non-combat PC. Have him be a bard (it's magic and fighting) as long as he sings he does his job. And then he still has a character to roleplay as. But I get the feeling that you need to downgrade his level of impact. Kinda treat him as an NPC with the group. He's not going to change suddenly. If he was going to learn he would have by now, he really doesn't care to get the rules down. Pathfinder isn't really the system for him.

But, like I've said in other replies, he has his heart set on magus. He doesn't want to be support - he wants to be right in the front of the battle hitting things.

Does this guy have a lot of other things going on in his life that require a lot of attention? ...

At first, Pathfinder night was going to interfere with something at his church that was starting, so we moved it from Sunday night to Saturday night. But if he has any other big problems going on he hasn't said anything. Attendance would mostly be missed because of a work party or something that he wouldn't tell us about until the day of. After our last session our DM asked if he was still committed to playing and he said he was. So we're just waiting to see how that part plays out.

Magus is probably the most difficult pre-ACG class to learn. It might arguably still be the most difficult class, and is definitely not something I'd recommend to someone who hasn't gotten the hang of the mechanics yet. Is he insistent on playing a Magus in particular?

If he just wants swordy wizard, something like the classic Wizard/Fighter/Eldritch Knight might prove a lot simpler.

Yeah, he does seem pretty set on it. I suggested a few simpler classes when he first started, but when our DM said "swords and magic" he was pretty sold. But still, after 7 months of play, he should be able to handle looking up info on his spell sheet, or at least have a general idea of where the extra text on his sheet is. If he were more likely to say "Oh, I have this thing. Hang on, let me find it.." than to ask how long his spells last when his spell page is literally the one he's open to, we'd not be having this issue. It's not that the class is too hard, it's that he's not invested any time trying to learn what he's capable of. I honestly don't think he's read through his powers once in the time we've been playing.

Get a 5th player. I find 5 to be the magic number. If one player cant make it the game goes on. This is probably the best solution because you can keep your friend in the game but it wont slow you down. If the player cant make it then you play without them. If they are in it for the camaraderie they wont mind you playing without them. If they are in it for the story it ought to convince them to commit more.

Our DM is really keen on having 4 people because of how things are balanced. He's found a person that would be interested in stepping in and joining the table, but he doesn't want to throw the balance off. And really, we do have a good balance at 4 people.

But, really, it doesn't sound like they're all that into the game. They probably like hanging out and can enjoy the game when everything comes together in the right circumstances, but it's not sounding like they're into the game itself.

That's what I'm thinking too. I'm thinking it might be a lot better if we find a diplomatic way to get him out of the table and just find another time to get everybody together for random games on a different day.

Best to just be on the level with him then and let him know he needs to get up to speed on his character or change it to something easier to track. If he keeps showing up early, then he obviously wants to play, but there seems to be some sort of disconnect along the way.

That's exactly what I think the issue is. I think he wants to play, but there's some disconnect somewhere. We keep trying to nudge him into playing his own character, but it's like pulling teeth.

I just am really hoping to find the disconnect and find a solution instead of just booting him or issuing an ultimatum.

Definitely play when he can't make it. His not showing up shouldn't ruin it for everyone.

Also, talk to him about his character. Let him re-build it if he wants to. Especially the crunchy bits. A Fighter 1/Sorcerer X/Eldritch Knight might be a whole lot more fun and easier for him.

About his character sheet, try to customize it for him. Color code it, use BOLD ALL CAPS to label different areas on the sheet (skills, spells, attack rolls, saves, hit points, speed, initiative, etc.). Make spell cards for him. And teach him how to use his character sheet and spell cards. Don't tell him how long invisiblity lasts, show him how he can find out on his spell card how long invisiblity lasts.

I used to play a dwarf barbarian 1/magus 7 for a while, and it was pretty complex. Rage Power Attacks one-handed, Rage two-handed non-Power Attack, Non-raging, Power Attack two-handed, etc. etc. etc.

We've rebuilt his character once already. But I'm also worried about scrapping his character and rolling up a new one that's simpler overall. He isn't trying to understand the basic things like why he can't move and cast and strike all in one round. Giving him something entirely new is just going to put him back at square one with no idea how to do anything.

As for spell cards, I end up being the one to keep his spell list updated (which I really don't mind doing. I made an Excel sheet that keeps things neat and auto-calculates things when he levels up https://www.dropbox.com/s/ugsqmirokoa8e0z/HuttoSpells.pdf?dl=0 )
And he still doesn't want to read things enough to have a basic understanding of his spells.

Here's a thought...do something out of the box and give him a one on one with a magus master, someone who can do a Karate Kid style of tutoring him in his abilities and powers. maybe even give him a chance of retraining to a new style.

Ask him what he wants in the character, see if there is some model. some fictional, or perhaps even wuxia that he wants to emulate and work on getting him closer to that ideal, using retraining to sculpt him to where he wants to be.

If you can get him invested in his character, that just might be the key that turns the engine on.

The only problem with that is that we've kind of already done it. And he gets lost in his character sheets any time he's not making a melee attack roll. And our DM is also really big on story. We're currently out in the middle of nowhere, trying to get into a giant fortress full of demons, and don't have a lot of access to that.

We warned him that magus was a hard class to learn from scratch, but he insisted on wanting magic and melee. It's just that his enthusiasm has tapered off really quickly. So much, that after months of playing, he doesn't even know the things that he can do. As much as I hate to say it, he still sometimes tries to move into melee and then take a full round action, and ultimately ends up playing a lot more like a fighter with no feats. It's just really frustrating because he could easily keep up with my paladin in DPR when I'm smiting.

We've repeatedly asked him if he's really invested in playing, but we're just not seeing any evidence of it. We don't want to boot him, because he really could be a fantastic player and improvs his roleplay really well. But he drags down the game a lot and we're just not sure how to fix it.

I've had a few players that just never learned the game or their character. What i gathered from them, it was because they didn't take the game seriously. They came to hang out, not play. This meant that they never bothered checking any rules between sessions, never attempted to learn what the numbers on the paper meant or how they can improve their game. This is okay and should be accepted, as long as it doesn't stall the game... which it most likely will since they're not interested in the game.

What you and your DM can do is to ask him to do more things, in-game. Make him do skill checks, ask him to cast spells. This only works if he's active from the start, though. If he's not, then just talk to him and ask why he even bothers coming.

I think, ultimately, that's probably what we'll end up doing. Which is sad, because he could be a really fun player. And I actually think he'd make a good wizard if he focused on spells that don't require attack rolls (like the battlefield control spells). Then again, I may be seeing too much potential in him because I love arcane casters. I actually ended up playing a Paladin instead of a wizard because he wanted magic. (that... and the DM didn't want someone that knows all about magic and wizards to gain mythic powers too... *sigh*). We're just kind of hesitant to take things away from him that he wanted really badly. But that sounds like a good idea to artificially make things that require his skills so he learns things more. I'll definitely forward that over to the DM.

New player, playing a magus, and mythic rules?

I don't think that this is going to work.

Yeah, we basically just ignore mythic rules for him. He has them, and when he gets close to hitting an enemy but misses we remind him of the +1d6 thing he can do. His build is actually intentionally cheesed a bit to compensate.

If anyone in your group has Hero Lab they should work up his character for him and print out the sheet, gear and complete spell list. This will give him everything he needs to know about the character in one easy to find spot with explanations for everything he can do.

We have done this in Hero Lab. But I'd made an even more simple and standardized sheet for his spells. His problem is that he doesn't want to read his sheets. He wants to be magic, but he doesn't want to read his sheets and find out that Scorching Ray is a ray attack and that he can cast it at a distance, while Shocking Grasp is a touch attack, and that you have to be in melee range. He just doesn't want to read things.

The reluctant, absent minded magician who forgets how his own spells work is a great character for the right player, you know.

Yeah, but the PLAYER should know his stuff, even if the character doesn't. That's the problem we're ultimately having.

Well, the problem was that our player really wanted to be magical in some way. We were trying to find a balance between overwhelming him with spell listings, but letting him have some magic. We didn't push him to pick a martial class because we also weren't going to have any arcane magic at that point anyway.

I was initially going to suggest him play a paladin (since WotR is great for pallys) but he's not the type to play LG basically ever.

We also already had a ranger and a rogue.

The DM and I are just kind of not sure how to deal with him. He wanted magic, so we tried to give him a more limited magic to not overwhelm him. But he's been playing for 7 months and still doesn't know where things on his sheet are outside of AC, HP, and attack bonuses.

I think we're considering stripping his magic (or rather, asking him to, since he doesn't use it anyway) but we're trying to make sure it doesn't stop being fun.

I'm at a table that has been playing through Wrath of the Righteous since July of last year, and we've had a really consistent problem with one of the players. The GM and I are trying to figure out the best course of action for how to deal with it. Warning, this is going to come across as really complainy, but I don't have much of an alternative way to explain

Basically, the issue is that the player does want to play, but hasn't been putting any effort into really learning his character's abilities. He's brand new at Pathfinder and playing a magus, so we were really patient for the first few sessions. I'd even gone through and made him a custom spell sheet that has everything organized based on spell level, name, school, range, duration, whether or not he can cast it through his sword, etc.

But we've been playing for seven months and at the last session, he literally looked at me and asked "how long does my invisibility spell last?"

He is fun to have at the table when he's on point, but he doesn't know his abilities aside from a select few names, and even then still doesn't really know how they work and what they can and can't be used for.

The DM has spoken to him about whether or not he really wants to continue playing (because he's also chronically late and horrible about prioritizing the game and making other plans instead - which is why we're barely halfway through the second book in 7 months of play)

Our DM (and myself as well) are hesitant to boot him and find another player because of out-of-game friendships with the player, as well as finding another player (we only have 4 people right now) and then also finding a new player to work into the story.

But at the same time, it's really hard to continue playing with the Magus. Because the rest of us end up playing his character for him.

So my players are going to run into a BBEG wizard in a couple sessions, and I just needed a sanity check on one thing real quick.

Only prepared arcane casters can copy spells from a spellbook right? (So basically, only another wizard, magus, or alchemist could use the spellbook?)

One thing I'm planning to do for an upcoming campaign I'm running is to start out the party with enough exp to be halfway to level 2 and 300-500 gold above normal to represent a simple mission they completed beforehand. Maybe it was clearing out some goblins, maybe it was retrieving an item. I'm going to let the PCs decide before we actually start. (Giving them a little bit of freedom and flavor because each PC could go on a different type of mission)

Anyway, they were successful, and brought back some really nice stuff that they obviously sold off or turned in. From that, each mission recovered something inconspicuous, but connected. The person in charge of their initial missions realizes this and sends them a summons to meet at a very specific time at a safehouse/outpost about a mile out of town. The message is specific about time that evening and location, but otherwise vague, and sounds rather paranoid.

The PCs likely meet up on the road and arrive just in time to see the safehouse/outpost engulfed in flames, an NPC be shanked (silhouetted against the flames for flavor), and several forms fleeing into the forest.

The PCs manage to find another lead on the body they saw cut down (since the enemy had to flee before taking that evidence) in the form of a note or object. Or, if the PCs have no healing yet, the info could be given with the PCs dying breath (even placing a hard limit on the number of questions the NPC can answer before dying)

Look, have the rogue roll acrobatics to avoid the consequences of the trap, then let him disarm it. Each round needed to disarm it he needs to roll another acrobatics check to beat the traps attack roll.

If it had been a pressure-plate type proximity thing, I'd have totally done that. But it had True Seeing, so I don't see how Acrobatics would help.

If so, advice follows:

You should probably mix the encounters up if they have a possible "I win" button. Another idea is to put a counter into a room. As an example, the game has spells that block extraplanar travel.That should stop outsiders from being dismissed even if they fail a save. Of course that would also shut down their ability to teleport, but it is better than the alternative.

Yeah, I didn't realize that the inquisitor had Dismissal. I'm planning on doing Dimensional Anchor on rooms closer to the BBEG (who had summoned the creatures here and then given them specific instructions about not using plane shift to go home). My players are steamrolling things as it is (even with advancing creatures and adding more)

If you can't really disable a trap then it should just be an obstacle to avoid upsetting a player. There is no purpose to a DC that can't be beat.

Now just to be clear there is a difference between it being impossible and the players not having the means to do so. Casting dispel magic could have shut the trap down for a long enough period of time for the rogue to get to it.

If I were you I would help the rogue think of ways to handle such traps, and to ask the party members for help if needed.

PS:To add to Paulicius idea, if the rogue has fog cutting lenses then he can see through the fog with no problem.

Yeah, again the only reason that I just ruled against it was because they didn't have anything to get into the range or suppress the magic (the only casters they had were a bard and an inquisitor)

But I also didn't want to give them too much info because a) I'm a big fan of players taking charge, b) they'd walked through three encounters that were 1-2CR over them, and c) playing in the situation we have on my university means that friends that are at different tables will have to sit around and wait (so we try to keep as much of the same pace as we can. As such, if I'd let him just disable things, the party would've been done with all four encounters that we'd planned to take a 3-4 hour session in about 30 minutes. So there are external limitations as well. :/

A 45 on any skill check is beyond superhuman. The rogue doesn't need an explanation for how he bypasses the trigger any more than the bard needs to write a sonnet to use his perform skill. You should have let him beat the trap - otherwise you are invalidating potentially his only useful ability and making him feel like he is wasting his time playing.

Depending on the DC, a natural 1 might have let him pass fine as well. There are no natural 1 instant fails in skill checks.

My specific reason for the DM fiat was because they'd used Dismissal on every single combat in the dungeon level up to that point (having gone in fully rested). Since these were combats rated a full CR over a full party and then we had a no-show, I decided to force them into one combat so we wouldn't be done with the entire session in 30 minutes.

(Normally I would just let them continue playing, but we play on a university and have to keep all the tables together so that players don't accidentally spoil the rest of the dungeon for players at other tables)

Ultimately, my reason was because he didn't have anything to disable it over the 15 feet he had to stay away. If he could get up to the trap, I'd have totally let him do it, but it was triggered based on anyone stepping into the area.

Howdy,

So I have a rogue at my table that is completely focused on finding traps and consistently rolls 30-45s on his Disable Device checks.

Recently, we came across a trap that was triggered anytime someone came within 10 feet of it.

My rogue argued that since he couldn't fail (without a nat-1), that he should have the chance to disable it. I ruled that he's going to have to get next to it first and that, since its trigger was Proximity (True Seeing) that he wouldn't be able to get close enough without it going off. He argued a bit (because that's his rogue thing) but I eventually just pulled a DM fiat since they'd had a super easy time with the dungeon so far.

My question is mostly for future reference, but is there a way for a rogue to bypass a proximity trigger like that? Obviously if he sees pressure plates or if it's not a true-seeing level detection there's probably a workaround somewhere, but I wanted to double check. Because I like letting players use their things.

Hello!

Fairly new at DMing here, but I had a party member detect magic on a room in which some enemies were hiding to wait for an ambush. Obviously the +1 bows the enemies had count as magical, but when you concentrate and try to figure out the magical school I didn't know what kind it was.

So, do plain +1 weapons/armor have an associated school of magic? I would guess armor could be abjuration, but I'm not sure about weapons.

sorry for a super late reply, but I have a paladin of Sarenrae that I really love playing.

She basically opens fights with an attempt at diplomacy if they're not obviously demonic, but acknowledges that they only have one chance to surrender before the party will move forward so that I don't drag down the party too much.

If they seem redeemable at all though, she will continue trying to talk them down during the fight and accepts the BBEG surrender at any point if it is made.

Basically, I've modeled her after the character of Michael Carpenter from the Dresden Files who, (spoilers for the most recent book) tries to save someone who is possessed by a fallen angel at a critical point in the battle instead of just slaying him.

Okay so I live with some other people that play pathfinder and we were coming up with crazy class combos that just might work.

Or rather, coming up with combos and trying to make them work.

Anyway, we were laughing about a monk/barbarian and initially rode it off as not doable because of the alignment clash.

But I was rolling up a monk as a pre-made character for a university gaming group and discovered on the monk class descriptions:

"Ex-Monks:
A monk who becomes nonlawful cannot gain new levels as a monk but retains all monk abilities."

That does mean I can "try really hard to be a monk" (for say 5 levels or whatever) and then just get sick and tired of all the rigidity and "always eating stupid rice!" and flip my lid and all the sudden take my next level in Barbarian?

Because I'd kind of love to rage with flurry of blows.

Hello!

I've got a group of friends that all like Pathfinder, but we've never had a huge chance to really invest in mounted characters. So we're looking for an adventure path where mounted combat is actually worth investing in. I'm just not really sure where to start.

Anastasius Brightstar wrote:

True, Torag is definitely Lawful Good and not Lawful Nice, but I wouldn't call for a fall over accepting a surrender, especially for a first offense. And I wasn't offended at being given a hard time. I'm more concerned with lore consistency.

Torag's paladin code says he doesn't accept a surrender unless its to take information. No mercy, allow no surrender except to extract information, honor to torag. Something like that. Don't have any of those darn books on me to double check.

Pretty sure he doesn't say a thing about flirting, or that that's really the problem since its made from out of game things.

Derp. I'd completely forgotten about that. Side note, that's the exact reason I had my pally follow Sarenrae. So much more freedom in how I act with evil NPCs.

Also, does anybody know where I can actually find a list of Torag's tenets? In a nice, organized list? Not like "He's the god of the forge, so don't make shoddy daggers. Also don't take prisoners." That would also be helpful in this situation, and I can't find an official list.

Actually if he accepts a surrender he should fall as a paladin of Torag... Torag isn't the nicest guy in the world.

Talk with him though if you think he's giving you personally a hard time, or get someone else to. He sounds a little socially awkward if he's trying to tell you to get the sin of lust... for whatever reason.

True, Torag is definitely Lawful Good and not Lawful Nice, but I wouldn't call for a fall over accepting a surrender, especially for a first offense. And I wasn't offended at being given a hard time. I'm more concerned with lore consistency. I think we'll talk with him after the session this Friday, regardless of how it goes and let him know that he can change his patron deity if he wants without consequence, but that in future sessions he'll be held to the tenets of whatever deity (if any) he chooses and that consequences for falling can be really critical.

Wait, so he was trying to seduce someone mid-fight?

He thought that by brandishing his "lance" for SIX SECONDS he could get an evil opponent so hot that they would stop attacking?

Forget Paladin Ethics 101, this guy needs Women's Studies.

Yeah... I was definitely NOT the DM in that situation. The pally then tried to give me a hard time, as I was the only female at the table. He didn't seem to understand that you can be as suave as Fred Astaire, but not even a natural 20 on your diplomacy check will endear you to me, much less get you laid.

Though, he actually wields a lance. He didn't actually drop his pants - it was just jokes being made in character. He was a bit more poetic when trying to convince the Derro to come down from above us and "shelter in his arms" I think is what he said. But it wasn't done in a surrender-and-we-will-not-harm-you way. Especially when he decided that my wizard should come along for the Shard of Lust specifically so he could make me touch it and get the corresponding curse.

I think our conclusion for now is to have him visited in a dream and given a warning, along with a quest to make sure nobody is cursed by the Shard of Lust that they're going to retrieve, along with a warning that if he continues down the path he stepped toward that he will lose mojo. He'll have several interactions on this next stage of the adventure path that involve female NPCs, and I plan on dropping in some Torag-friendly things he can do, like the abandoned forge that someone mentioned, to start encouraging him to do some research on his deity to help him roleplay more effectively. So if he tries to seduce the women he runs into instead of staying focused on strategy, and mission completion, he can lose some mojo mid-adventure. Then if he hits other checkpoints, he can regain it.

This looks like more of a warning situation than a punishment one. If he continues to act that way, then yes, power loss or reduction is a viable option. Power loss at this stage is probably overkill, and may discourage future paladin play.

Yeah, that was my initial thought, but we don't want to drive away other players that aren't comfortable with that kind of behavior at the table while potentially letting him continue this path.

Talk to him about Torag, but don't just force him or make him fall. Its entirely possible he doesn't see things the same way you do, and won't take punishment well because he won't see that he has done a thing wrong. If its all in good fun in the moment its a big bleh to make him fall, and its hard to see that its awkward to others sometimes when your on the smiling end. Mutual communication is important.

Again, one of the reasons why the shacking attempts is an issue for our game group is because of the location in which we play and the potential new players we have. During the last session, some of the other players were, while not joining in, were definitely amused and carrying on running jokes for the rest of the session. To stop something like this would require us calling out the player in front of all the other players (a bit more overt than we'd like), or giving him a vision/dream and letting him decide how to rectify the situation (giving the player more control over the outcome).

Admittedly, it would have been better to talk to the player after the session ended last week, but he left too quickly for that to really be an option, and the leaders wanted a consensus on what the best course of action would be so that we'd all be on the same page for whoever ended up running his table. None of us want to call him out on things in front of everybody, but due to the nature/composition of our play group, we can't let him continue this way regardless of what deity he actually follows. The fact that he follows Torag is just giving us a bit more lore-friendly ways of solving the problem due to the conservative nature of Torag and how he doesn't associate with enemies. We don't want to make him take a full fall, which is why he still keeps some of his paladin powers, and, frankly, some of them won't even make any difference in this upcoming session so it won't be as harsh as it sounds. But this player is experienced enough to know better than to just completely ignore his deity's tenets.

I may just give him a -1 or -2 charisma penalty for the adventure and pile on additional mojo-loss penalties if he does the same things again, since there's going to be another female NPC in this section too.

I'm not really sure what he did wrong. If it was consensual, he certainly broke no laws and there's no rules that Paladins can't *ahem* enjoy the company of others. Yes, it was incredibly awkward and probably inappropriate for a game setting, but I see no overt wrongdoing. The Paladin is fine.

I'm not saying it's against the LG alignment. I've no issues of pallys getting some periodically. And honestly, if he followed a different deity, like Caden Calen, or if the enemy wasn't evil, I'd probably just take him aside and ask him to keep in PG or PG13 and leave it at that. The issue is that he freely chose to follow TORAG. And that he wasn't trying to redeem the soul of the enemy, nor was he trying to seduce her to defend the rest of us, nor was he misleading her to try and win. He was doing it in a non-chivalrous way, which is, while not outside LG, definitely outside of Torag's tenets. That's also why I'm not taking away all of his mojo.

I actually really like playing paladins, and giving them some depth and quirks within the bounds of the deity and alignments isn't hard to do. I don't want to ruin paladins for our player, but I need to be harsh enough that other people don't start to follow suit (to keep the tables PG/PG13). Especially since you can choose any pretty much any of the deities you want As of right now, he shouldn't have any problem getting his mojo back in one session unless he actively continues toeing the line.

After this week, we'll probably let him choose to continue following Torag or pick another deity, since he probably didn't put a lot of thought into it, but make him come up with his take on that god's code of conduct so that we can all be on the same page for future adventures.

I'd thought about some dreams or things like that, but we don't want it to take that long for him to get the point and get back on track. After chatting with some of the other DMs, and looking into some of the next bit of the adventure, we've come to this conclusion:

He will be visited by a messenger of Torag. In person, and in front of the party. Torag himself actually plays a pretty important role in the rest of the adventure path we're going through (The Shattered Star). The messenger takes away some of his mojo, and explains that he must struggle to complete a mini-quest to prove he is still worthy to be a paladin of Torag. He also indicates some Obi-Wan/Anakin levels of "YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE," although it's a bit subtler than that movie, to encourage the player to keep going with his paladin.

Until he completes the quest, described below, his smite only does half damage, his LoH ability can only be used on helpless creatures, doesn't get to use his divine bond (just reached level 5), and any charisma-based checks are made at a -1 (or autofail if he's actively flirting as part of the check)

Mild adventure path spoilers below (but SUPER mild)
Since the Shattered Star adventure has them seeking out shards themed around the 7 deadly sins, and the next one they're going to get conveniently happens to be the Shard of Lust, part of his quest is to ensure that nobody is cursed by the shard during its retrieval. Part of this next set involved dealing with a tribe of troglodytes that are at war with some boggards. As part of this war, the trogs have lost their chief, and are currently being lead by the tribes cleric. Nobody in the tribe really wants to follow the cleric, and it's stated in the adventure text that once he is removed from power, the rest of the trogs could be pretty easily redeemed and made into non-evil allies if handled properly. There's also a room full of filth fevered (and completely helpless) trogs that were injured in fighting the boggards (that he would be able to use his LoH with).

He should be able to recover his powers in just the next session if he plays things right and is able to redeem the trogs. But at the same time, there are still plenty of opportunities for him to fall off the straight and narrow, so it's entirely up to him. I may also do that narrow-mountain path dream sequence as well for flavor if we need to.

Ah, this may not be quite so bad as you fear. Remember, redemption of the wicked is definitely Good. A Paladin can associate with Evil people if she is actively trying to turn them. Case in point, Seelah and Seltyiel, our Iconic Pally and Magus. And they do say Love Redeems.

I would suggest you take him aside and ask him(or maybe do it in a vision where a messenger of Torag comes to him wondering what the heaven he was thinking). If he gives this reason (you don't have to let him know you're looking for that reason if you don't want), you can let him go as long as he makes that clear.

Well, as a larger group that meets, we do want to make a specific in-game point (partly so that others won't start following that path) so that they don't scare off newcomers to the game. We have a lot of hyper-sheltered homeschoolers on campus and we want them to come out of their shells a little more instead of being scared off by intentionally awkward Lance of Injection jokes. So part of it is also making a bit of an example without being too severe.

After discussion with some friends, I think we're going to have one of Torag's messengers appear to him, take some of his mojo (maybe his spells and smiting ability, or halve the healing of his LOH ability) until he completes a miniquest. At the moment, it's probably going to be a simple retrieval quest, but one that would be a lot easier with his mojo. Not crazy hard, but enough to make the point.

Edit:
Especially because he wasn't trying to redeem the Derro lady. He was deliberately being awkward about it. And Torag isn't the most patient of deities which is why he doesn't get along with Sarenrae very well.

Hey all.

I've got a player with a paladin (Human, follows Torag) that's seriously pushing, if not breaking, paladin/patron deity moral code/code of conduct. I'm trying to come up with a nice, lore-friendly, way to get the point across that, as a paladin, you have to be mindful of RP scenarios and your alignment more than other cases, without being a total buzz kill. This player is a lot of fun to have at the table, and the play format we're all part of (details at the bottom of the post) have made for some unique issues.

TL;DR, he was actively attempting to seduce the enemy we were fighting (a female derro). The issue at hand is kind of obvious, in that paladins rarely even travel with evil characters, and only work alongside them for seriously compelling reasons. To attempt to seduce one seems even a step beyond that, especially for a follower of Torag.

Side notes for play format:
I'm helping with a Pathfinder group on my university campus (a small, private, conservative university), and we have a weekly gaming group that meets. One of the games available for play is Pathfinder (derp). We frequently rotate DMs so that nobody is stuck DMing unless they just want to. Last meet, I was playing at the same table as this Paladin. Next meet I'll be taking over as GM. So I didn't have a say in the rulings for the situation initially. But I will in this next round. For a variety of reasons, mostly consisting of not turning off new players that may not be comfortable with more awkward topics arising, along with the small, private, conservative nature of the university at which we play, the other DMs and myself want to do something significant without the consequence of a full pally fall (because we don't want to ruin the game for the pally either.)

Full story:
We'd been hacking and slashing our way through a dungeon, and came across a Derro (CE) and a couple constructs. During the fight she goes invisible and levitates so we can't get to her. In order to get her into range, the Paladin decides to seduce her. Mostly because someone made a joke about his lance. Still, he wanted to try. He rolled an insane diplomacy check, so the DM allowed for it, but he went for the awkward route instead of the please-surrender route. The theme continued for a bit before she fled (my wizard shot a scorching ray at her).

My current plan is to cut back his paladin powers (like his LOH heals 1/2, or he can't smite, or he takes a charisma penalty due to lack of confidence/connection to Torag) and have a vision or a cleric of Torag come to him before they set out for the next leg of their journey and give him a nice, lore-friendly quest that's not too difficult (I don't want the rest of the party to be stuck waiting on him too long) to regain his powers and set him back on the right track. I don't want to make him undergo a full falling, because the DM in the last session allowed it to happen (I found out after the fact that he doesn't speak any of the Derro's languages, so it shouldn't have. but oh well, to little, too late), but I want it to be severe enough that he gets the point. Especially since, due to the come and go nature of the gaming group, we're allowing people to create new characters pretty much whenever they want to.

But until then, I just need some ideas for what kind of penalties to give the paladin, and what kind of quest to send him on.

No. You do not have to scribe them at minimum CL. You can scribe them at a CL up to your maximum and down to the minimum need to cast the spell.

The very first response to this thread already said this, if not quite so explicitly.

Hence my preference for a thorough answer. Our Fighter/walking rulebook is rather adamant about his understanding of the rules regarding scrolls, and consequently saying "someone on a forum said so" isn't an adequate answer for me. I needed a ruling and reason to say that I am capable of scribing scrolls beyond their minimum level.

The fighter is partially right in this claim. Your current CL makes no difference when casting the scroll (unless you have specific abilities which create exceptions). What matter is the CL of the person who scribed the scroll.

Others have also already stated this.

And yes, others have now stated that more clearly (and with aforementioned reasonings).

Also, sorry to everybody else for me being a grumpy pants. This has just been an issue that's gone on for a few sessions and our GM is still very much learning the rules, so the fighter is usually the one to clarify things (and get me overruled), and thus, it's become something that's a bit taxing to deal with.

but you don't have to scribe them at your full caster level you can always choose to scribe your scroll of mage armor at caster level 1 to save money

Well yeah. I know that I can always scribe them at the minimum level. This entire issue was whether or not I had to, which, if anybody would have read what I initially said, was rather clear.

Sorry if I sound like a grumpy pants, but after two hours and six replies to the forum, I'd think that more than one person would have at least read the initial question and given a thorough answer.