Thanks everyone for the continual stream of suggestions and tips, I've been meaning to post an update but between college and read the AP all the way through I hadn't gotten a chance. I'm currently in the process of reading from cover to cover jotting down notes as I go for things to look more into, before I get into the specifics.
I plan to take the suggestion that was put out there to start the players off with an adventure before jumping into the AP, I'm thinking of finding a way to modify an old D&D module I have saved "A Dark and Stormy Knight", using goblins instead of hobgoblins and the zombie bugbear, possibly have the location of it set on the party's path to Sandpoint setting the timeline about a week or so prior to the Festival giving them time to go through that small dungeon and explore town a little prior to the festivities.
Qakisst Vishtani, I live in virginia so thats probably just a little too far to travel lol.
I do have a question for yall does anyone know if the map folio is worth the money or would it be simpler to just stick to the chessex battlemat I have?
Story Archer, thanks for the link to your wiki, I'll definitely check it.
Arthur G, I actually have considered some of what I will do with the festival actually after seeing another person's post here with events and things they had happen at it. I will add the thread you mentioned to the folder I'm compiling to reference and help me along the way.
Latrecis, I will be either updating this thread or creating another once I get the book (should be next week) and read it. Believe me I have learned from when I use to play some two years ago that this forum is one of the few places that has a respectful and helpful community, which is why I came back when I was about to start again. As for the player's guide I have actually downloaded the original one already (didn't even know there was one for the AE, which I have now downloaded too) and plan to familiarize myself with their information prior to getting the AP.
Qakisst Vishtani, that's an interesting suggestion and something I had not considered before you said it. After getting the book and reading it I will be sure to keep your suggestion in mind when preparing everything.
One final question to anyone, I have multiple books (Core Rulebook, APG, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, and Bestiaries 1-3), initially I was planning on basically exposing my players to just the Core Rulebook but while writing this response wondered would it be a bad idea to also include the APG giving the more classes and access to character traits?
(anyone who hasn't responded to the original post feel free to still offer advice or tips)
As the title says I'm a new GM (well new to premade modules, I did a little custom made stuff about 2+ years ago but sadly haven't had a group to play with since) and I'm about to run Rise of the Runelords. I'm going to running it for 3 people who have never played any form of tabletop rpg before and one who has. I'm in the process of reading some of the threads here, the gm reference threads in particular and any others that catch my eye.
I'll be starting in about 1-2 months, and should have both the Rise of the Runelords anniversary edition and the face cards coming in the mail in about a week or two. So I plan to start reading the actual module when it arrives and trying to familiarize myself with the plot and what's going on ahead of time.
So if anyone has any helpful advice or tips I'd very much appreciate it.
Thank you for the responses, I really like some of the suggestions, like Wolfsnap's suggestion to have units share a single character sheet which is something I will most likely do. And for those who suggested I take a look at different books (Later Kingmaker books, Rules for Mass Combat, and The Saxon Stories) I will attempt to get a hold of the books and at least browse through them to see if they will be helpful.
Korpen, your comment about the style of war (State-centric vs Pre-modern personal perspective), my idea for the war strike me as a little of both with the ruler of a neighboring country declaring war on the PC's country due to the refusal to extradite the PCs.
Again thank you all for the responses, they are all helpful and I will be sure to consider them while doing work for the campaign.
I am currently working on preparing a home-brew campaign for my group which for when our current GM finishes his campaign or just wants to take a break from being GM. I have only run 2 campaigns and both were sort of failures (in my opinion at least), the first ended with 3/4 of the party being killed and the sudden decision that the 1 living character was actually a spy for the villain and the time. The second campaign I continued from the last and let the 1 remaining character stay and had the other 3 be evil, and that just ended with more chaos than I could handle (burning a bar to the ground, killing guards, permanent enlarged half orc female in party, all after the first campaign where one of the party members killed a man's young daughter in his arms after the party freed her from a curse)
The campaign I am now working on, I have been working on it since at least August, the plot I have been working around is the player's characters being involved in a war between the nation they are from and that of one that is bordering them, I was planning to have them initially be on the battlefield itself and after a while have them do more covert things for the war. My problem is I have no idea how I should go about running a war, like running the combat.
Travel to a new city, take the 2 days of travel and just wait until you can get your hands on weapons and bombs and blow the **** out of all of the inns and stores that the player owns. It should be easy to find other characters in the campaign's world that have lost everything due to the tyranny of the player in question so you may even be able to raise up a small group of "freedom fighters" at which point you can fight back
You may be seen as evil and defiantly chaotic. Just make sure the player that is trying to extort the you and the new people is left with no businesses, and if anyone stands in your way knock them out, tie them up and leave them in the buildings as they are blown up (or burned if you prefer).
Something I had done a while back when playing around with the idea of trying to convert each of the signs in the Wither series into usable spells in Pathfinder:
Igni Sign: like burning hands, 60ft cone deals fire damage. Reflex save to half damage, if reflex save is failed creatures in cone are burned, for 1d6 rounds and take 2d6 fire damage each round, and is fatigued.
You could change the fire damage and burn to something different to better suit being used against demons.
Chapter 14 in the Core Rule Book is all about building NPCs, and in the back of the Bestiaries you will find a section on creating your own home-brew creatures. You can also use the Creating NPCs section on d20pfsrd (link below)
For the CR for races that do not have racial hit die, take the class level-1 (if it has a PC class/classes) and class level-2 (if it only has npc classes).
Since you mentioned human adversaries, you should probably only need to stick to Chapter 14 in the Core Rule Book and not need the bestiaries for building the types of foes you listed.
In chapter 12 of the Core Rule Book they have a table for encounter difficulty based on the party's average level,
APL-1=easy
APL=average
APL+1=challenging
APL+2=hard
APL+3=epic
Over all I'd suggest picking up a copy of the Core Rule Book if you don't already own one and look through the GM'ing chapter (chapter 12) and the NPC building chapter (chapter 14) for the things you asked about here. [tho I would also suggest at least skimming through the entire thing eventually just] and if you are low on funds you can always check out d20pfsrd which is a great source for this type of stuff.
All I am going to say is if I were the paladin, the moment my GM said those words to me I would have made it my duty in life to make him regret them. If I saw a poor homeless child stealing food I would instantly cut the child down and simply use the excuse that what he did was wrong and proceed to remind the GM of the Lawful Stupid statement. If a party member does something that could be perceived as evil or chaotic then I would turn on him/her. But then again thats me and I can be quite spiteful and a bit of an ass when I want to be.
if you do not want your players to act in this manner tell them that everytime they die or reroll a character, they take an xp and gp penalty. Then dying has an actual negative impact on them.
Good suggestion.
I was going to suggest requiring them to make a completely different character the next time. ie New house rule to promote variety: Nobody can play two characters in a row of the same class.
This is basically what my group does, we all agreed that when we die we are not allowed to play the same class as the previous character (tho if the new character dies we can go back to the original class but none of us are willing to abuse this). We also have the character start at the minimum xp for the APL so if the party consisted of 3 level 4's and a level 5, and someone dies then the new character would be at the minimum xp for level 4. They would also start with average character wealth and be able to spend it how they please at the beginning so long as it isn't crazy like all gp on 1 weapon.
And to the OP I'd say for the loss of an item, tell the players no. A character isn't entitled to their items and don't deserve to get them back without some valid explanation as to how they did so simply because they were reckless and were unable to judge the level of threat. And as I see it losing an item or character life is a risk that is taken with any decision a character makes unless they decide to just sleep and eat all day.
I am working on a campaign to GM for my group, currently I am a player so I have time to add, remove, or change things. I believe I have enough prepared to that people should be able to comment on what I have.
A few points, this is taking place in the same country I used for my group previously for a campaign that I was ill prepared for. I already have a basic map for the country that they will start in and which most of the campaign will take place, I still need to make the map for the Northern country and of the cities themselves. I will be continuing to try and come up with side plots aside from the two listed in the document. The encounters I intend to come up with closer to when I actually GM, which will probably be a while.
I guess I have said enough, please give me critiques on the campaign write-up.
Alignment stuff looks like a lot of work I wouldn't concern myself with it that much. So, what is the goal of the campaign? There really isn't a plot just some background information and a little info on how the world works.
Truth be told I don't have a major goal for the campaign as of yet, the only thing I really have in mind is after some time of the party traveling a war breaking out between the Norther nation and the nation that the party is citizens of. The best cause for the war I have thought of so far (subject to change if something better comes up) is that a noble's son from the north loses his life to a member/s of the party while competing in a tournament held by the Dwarves.
The alignment stuff is something that I thought to use in a hope that it would allow the characters to be played more naturally as opposed to trying to fit into an alignment chosen at creation.
I am working on building a campaign to GM for my group during the time that I am a player. So far I have written up a basic skeleton for the world and some stuff concerning the characters. I would like some opinions of my write-up, and if anyone has any changes they think I should make I would like to hear them so I can consider them. I plan to share this with the people in my group as well to get their views, I have already checked with them on their views of some of the aspects such as the characters being restricted to starting at True Neutral, and their races being restricted to Human or Half-Elf.
'Additionally, a paladin's code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.'
Teammates are doing what the EVIL red dragon wants, helping them is not required according to the code.
His teammates weren't doing what the red dragon wants, 1 was bleeding out while under the effects of a mind effecting spell and the other was also under the effects of a mind effecting spell. The fact that he would walk out of the room leaving them there next to a red dragon seems pretty suspect. Doing what the red dragon wants and helping his teammates is not the same thing. Dropping his sword outside the smoke, running over and picking up the 60 pound kid seems like a pretty safe way to get at least the dying person out of the smoke so he can be healed.
Guardian1300 wrote:
5th round A red dragon comes out thanks us for killing its captors and informes us that the smoke is bad that we should put it out. Cleric gets to act normal heals the summoner moves towards the smoke source and ask the paladin to help put out the smoke. Paladin walks back towards the entrance. Summoner has to hit him self.
As you can see the OP did say the cleric and summoner were doing what the red dragon suggested. The next round he states the cleric fails his save and attacks the summoner. So no one was bleeding out until after the paladin began walking towards the door. This could raise the question of how thick is the smoke, is it thick enough that the paladin would be unable to see what was happening with the cleric and summoner after walking away. I mean obviously the dragon was hidden somewhere in the room since it just came out of some unknown location.
Here's my question, though: what was the GM thinking throwing in an effect that clearly nobody in the entire party had any chance of saving against?
iirc the paladin's player said that he can save on a 4+, logically that means that the summoner saves on about 8-9+ and the cleric on a 4+.
That isn't necessarily true, the paladin would get to add his charisma bonus (if any) to all of his saving throws. But I'd say its doubtful that the bonus was so high that his saves dwarfed the others.
Doesn't the eidolon get banished immediately once the summoner falls unconscious? Not really relevant to the whole paladin thing, but worth mentioning at least
Yes it does, and actually in a way it is relevant because the events that transpired could be completely different if the character hadn't been taken to the cleric by the eidolon.
But on the OP's main question I agree with the many people saying there is insufficient data to come to a valid opinion. With only once side and that side being one that seems to have suffered in this situation the data we are given is one sided and biased. If the paladin were to post on this thread giving his side, or even another 3rd member of the party were to recount the situation then a valid opinion may be formed but as it stands this entire thread comes off as someone crying because they didn't like the events that transpired.
I also agree with Snorter in that even tho the character is claimed to be an 8 year old child, it possesses class levels and stats equal to that of an adult. So the character would have to be insanely, and I mean insanely, gifted child who was simply born with and able to utilize his summoner abilities from birth.
As far as I'm concerned, yes. What you do sounds to me the same as watching a movie, seeing the chekov's gun and then skipping to the end and saying "Told ya so." THE END. What a great movie. As far as you know, everyone else at the table picked up on the narrative and decided NOT to use metagame knowledge to bypass it. And even if they didn't, that it is conceivable would be enough for me not to do it.
I have to agree that the way you are doing it Mok is wrong, I have always seen it as a player should avoid using metagame knowledge as best they can.
And on your question Davick, I would have to say ask him about it and if he denies it take his word for it, but continue adding in red herrings into the game and if he is the only one to question them ask for his reasoning. And if push comes to shove you could always try having another person in the group ask him about it without him being told you had anything to do with the questioning about it, if you are willing to let someone in the group (or if someone in the group knows your concerns about the player).
Ok so first off, if you are in my party I know you are gonna end up thinking I am just complaining because of the situation.
Ok so I need some advice, I am GM'ing for a group of friends and recently one of them who's character died decided to roll a Druid, nothing wrong with that. The thing I need advice with is the player is basically using his animal companion, an ape, to stand guard at night and sleep during the day, I had nothing wrong with that when he informed decided to try it. But here is where the issue comes in, the ape is woken up for every encounter thus interrupting its sleep, so it is effectively staying up all night taking a nap then getting up exerting itself then going back to sleep until next encounter or night when it will stand guard for the sleeping party.
It strikes me as the ape should be fatigued unless it gets a full 8 hours of sleep, but I haven't found anywhere that it states the 8 hours need to be straight and can't be spread out like the player is doing. How would yall handle this situation, I asked the player to give me a write-up of his ape's sleep schedule and am hoping he has something for me tomorrow (well actually later today, Friday) but am doubtful. And I know I am the GM so my word is ultimately law but if the sleep can be spread out then I don't want to just say he can't do what he is doing just because I don't like it.
The problem with this I see is that if you revert to your wizard side while in combat and you are in armor you will have difficulty casting your spells. If you are starting at a higher level, at least level 5, then you can make some custom continuous items of shield and mage armor. If you take the right restrictions on the items then the cost of those custom jobs would be relatively low in cost.
If it only happens at the start of combat then who would gain the XP, the wizard personality or the fighter? If only one personality was present for the fight then only that personality would gain the XP. Statistics say that you would both go up at the same but then again 50% of all statistics are wrong. If one personality starts falling behind then when that personality pops up it may be un-effective for a given encounter.
If both personalities grow then only half of the XP would go to each personality or the secondary personality could have growth similar to that of a cohort which may not be a bad idea. The other personality belonging once to family might be a solid idea.
Concept wise it is not new but concept wise I would suggest that there was some sort of tragedy in the character's past and he absorbed the personality of the one he lost in order to cope or due to magical reasons and it really is that personality.
Another concept would be that in times great emotional stress the two personalities would combat each other in a mental arena or perhaps on the ethereal plane.
I am not sure how I will handle the xp and leveling up yet, I originally planned giving one a level then the other which would keep them equal at every even character level they would be equal, but it was also suggested to me by a person in our group to have the personality that is in control at the time of leveling up get the level.
karkon wrote:
I would recommend against this whole idea. You are taking a multi-class that can be very weak and making it much weaker to the point of uselessness.
If you split the levels evenly then your group essentially gets the part time services of a half level fighter or a half level wizard. Now if you favor one class over the other it gets much worse for half the time and slightly better for the other half.
if you want to do this "crazy" person plan then I suggest doing a full level character who periodically thinks he is something else:
The full level fighter who thinks he is a great paladin hero from the past
The full level cleric who thinks he is a great barbarian warrior from the past
The full level monk who sometimes thinks he is a demi-god.
etc.
That way your party gets a full leveled but partially gimped character sometimes and a full power character the rest of the time.
I knew he would be weaker than a full character but this is more concentrating on how effective he would be, and to be honest I typically make characters more for how I picture the character than what would be most effective. (hell I ran a duel sickle wielding spell casting Druid my very first time playing). Since my GM mentioned possibly having us run Gestalt characters would you think this idea work better then as opposed to the multi-classing?
calagnar wrote:
Way did the party of adventures pick up a crazy person in the first place? Maby they did not know your crazy. Personly if my character learned that you where crazy. Your character wold be asked to leave the group, or be killed if you displayed traits that might get the party killed.
So why are we traviling with the crazy? Thats the first thing you need to over come.
Since this character is currently only an idea I haven't considered why the rest of the party wants to let him join. That seems like something that would come up once we actually begin playing the campaign and not something that would come up when there is no hint as to who the rest of the party is.
I like it, I could be fun but it could also be extremely annoying for your fellow players. Just a few questions:
-Does the fighter know spells or are they 2 completely separate characters?
-Will you keep the feats you take with the fighter when the wizard is the front personality or do you have a separate character sheet?
-Are they aware that the other exists?
You might set up a timer and every 30 minutes or so you change characters or when ever a specific cue or trigger pops up in game you change characters.
Allow me to answer them in order:
-The fighter would not know the spells, they would be like two completely separate characters that inhabit one body.
-Since I picture most of the fighter's bonus feats being melee oriented I would say the Wizard has access to them but acts as a mage and rarely enters physical combat, so he wouldn't really use them.
-They are aware of the other's existence and actions but can't communicate directly with one another, and both somewhat accept the other (in that the fighter won't throw out the wizard's spell book wondering why its in his possession.) however they both see themselves as the true personality of the body, hating to lose control to the other.
As for the timer, while that would definitely work and if the GM prefers that I wouldn't argue doing using that method to when the personalities swap, I think having the changes be random might offer for some more interesting situations (personality changing in the middle of an argument or even combat) but the randomness may be more difficult to pull off so depending on what the GM prefers.
I am sure this type of character has come up in the past, the concept seems like something many people may consider but most would probably argue that it is flawed and not consider it. Today the idea hit me that for my next character I may consider running a multi-class Fighter/Wizard character that has dissociative identity disorder (or multiple personalities) one being the fighter who is pretty much an aggressive attack first ask questions later type of person and the other being the wizard who is more of a calculative person preferring to consider all of the possibilities before making a decision. Now I know that the multi-classing in and of itself would make the character weaker than others as well as the need for two primary abilities and really only 2 possible dump stats. The thought that got brought up by one of my friends who is in the group I play with was possibly having the GM roll like a percentile every now and then to determine when the character changes personality.
The idea strikes me as having an interesting RP aspect to it of having to play two distinct personalities for a single character and having the chance of personality changing at an inopportune time.
The person who will be GM’ing after me who I would most likely use this concept with said that he is letting the characters be gestalt characters, since we only have 3 players and he is trying to think of a way to try and make up for the missing 4th, so if we use that type of character would the character be more plausible then with multi-classing. And what do you all think of this idea as a whole?
Ok if the both of you had looked at the post date for my OP you would notice it has been close to 7 months since this was posted. There is no need to bring this back up to top when it should have been buried long ago.
An enviornment and level of the party will be really helpful.
They are currently traveling along the main road system of the country (when I get a chance I will try to scan and show a link to my horribly drawn map). The country is made up of mainly flatland, plains and the like, with some small forests around, large body of water along the east of the country, two rivers going through the country, large mountain range along northern border, and a large forest in the west.
Tho get to their destination they will have to travel past a few small forested areas, cross a river, and pass through 2-3 towns (can't remember exact amount and don't have map in front of me).
I have ideas for distractions in the towns, tho the party seems to be strictly focused on hunting for/killing Alister or finding more information about him (they only know the name, a city he is supposedly in, and that he has pull almost all around the country aside from in the capital and in the north), but have no ideas for the road.
I am currently GM'ing for a group of friends and am having difficulty coming up with ideas for encounters while they are traveling between cities. When we last left off they had just finished traveling 1 day of a 5.25 day trek to a city where they were told a crime lord they are hunting for resides. (They are hunting for him since the crime lord, Alister, sent thugs and bandits after a group of traders the party was escorting. By defending the traders the party got on the bad side of Alister who has since sent multiple assassins after the party, one of which killed the parties wizard, and has sent a single messenger to tell them to stop searching for him or they will be killed, suffice it to the party refused and was attacked by the messenger.) Their first day went fairly uneventful, a carriage passed them on the road and they were attacked by assassins while they slept, tho that is seeming like its going to be difficult to do anymore since the party's new druid (replaced cleric, read my thread CRAZIEST SESSION I'VE HAD TO DATE) has decided she will order her Ape companion to stand guard at night and sleep while they travel and I'm not sure how to work around it's scent ability.
All of this mixed with my lack of creativity lately is making it difficult to come up with ideas. What can people suggest I do for encounters during the travels?
It may require some tweaking, so if you don't want to do so ignore the suggestion, when me and my friends were first starting (we first tried a single campaign of 3.5, then redbox, and came to Pathfinder which we stuck with) we did "A Dark and Stormy Knight", its short but should be something a first time GM can handle.
Actually just sounds like someone trying to blow up your game. I would probably kill his character on the spot and have the ruler's cleric heal the girl before she died. I would then take your friend to the side, ask him if he still wanted to play in the game. If he did, I would tell him that he wouldn't be able to make a character till the next game. I would then make sure the rest of the group got huge awards for not helping to destroy your campaign and I would make echo's player start at 1st level. Oh yeah, I would explain to him if he tried something like that again, he wouldn't be playing in my game again.
I honestly believe that he wasn't trying to break the game and that he was doing what he believed his character would or at the very least doing what he believed would allow him to be both greedy and true to his religion (or at least his interpretation of it).
Valandil Ancalime wrote:
I told a friend this, and he laughed out loud. We talked about it and are in agreement, the fact that his character thought the girl should die is possibly a reasonable (if not a very good) character motivation. But his choice of time and place to act on it was chaotic-stupid, foolish and selfish - in a "hog the spotlight/make the campaign about MY characters actions/it's what my character would do" way.
I will not argue that his action was chaotic-stupid, as I stated above he was expecting to fulfill his religious beliefs and his greedy nature, acting for himself and not what was the smartest action.
I've been GM'ing for a group of friends recently, two sessions ago they were informed of a Striga terrorizing a village and accepted the job of curing the creature (a 7 year old girl) of its affliction. Yesterday the party faced to Striga and cured it.
... Upon Receiving payment from the Governor, bag of gems and jewels worth 6000gp, Echo proceeded to smashing the young girl's skull......
I would be interested in what level the pc's are. At higher levels it might be a symptom of, "I can do what I want and normal rulers and guards can't stop me".
I probably would have looked at the player and said, "Do you really want to do that?" To give the other players out-of-character time to react to his characters action. This is a campaign altering event and doing so without consulting the other players, or at least giving them in-character warnings is, IMO, bad gaming. And the impression I get from the story is that the character pulled this stunt out-of-the-blue with no warning.
If he persisted, his character would have died (killed while "tying to escape") or become an npc villian.
All of the characters were level 3 at the time of the event so I doubt it was that he thought he could do whatever he wanted. If he hadn't pulled the stunts in prison (killing another inmate and Sound Blasting the guard) I was considering having the character return as an npc.
He told me today that he had planned to explain his actions, if the party had helped him, as a temporary psychosis due to a the conflict between his desire for gold and shiny stuffs and his religious views.
Altarlost wrote:
I would have had the character executed or taken away and turned into a villainous NPC and probably asked the player not to roll up a replacement. If I were one of the other PCs I'd strongly consider leaving the group. Certainly I have trouble imagining myself playing any character that would be willing to adventure with someone so obviously unhinged as to act as Echo did. Normal people don't even consider things like that. The player is, at best, not seeing the NPCs as characters which is fine in some contexts, but is not what I'd want at my table for a serious RPG.
If I were GMing the actual event I think I'd let the other PCs sense motive to get the chance to roll initiative and intervene. And probably give an ad-hoc initiative penalty for sudden loss of clericness to stack the deck in favor of the other PCs. Then if the ex cleric escaped I'd take him away and use him as a villain.
I wouldn't ask the player to leave the group since he is a friend and our entire group is a random bunch. So I should have expected something like this from him but didn't realize that it was a somewhat predictable action until after it happened.
And if you wouldn't mind define exactly what a normal person is.
His only other argument was that she had been killing people as the striga, but as I pointed out to him they had cured her of the affliction causing her to do so and that she wasn't in control of her actions at the time, and that if he wanted that to be a valid answer he should have killed her before the sun came up and they had cured her of the affliction.
Had he voiced that opinion from the begining or only after being confronted with consequences of his action?
He only voiced that opinion after being confronted and being placed in the prison to await being killed in a sick and cruel way.
He killed her after receiving payment because from the start he had planned to have the character be greedy, being easily swayed by gold or gems/jewels. He claims that he had expected that the rest of his party would assist him against the guards, but quite frankly I have no idea why he expected that.
Drejk, you are right the Striga was a Monstrous Humanoid, the player rationalized that if Pharasma is against undead then she would be against resurrection as well, so he ran his character with sort of an extreme to the anti-undead beliefs so any return to life is considered wrong and should be killed, and since the girl who became the Striga was stillborn he saw it as she must be killed since she had come back to life.
His only other argument was that she had been killing people as the striga, but as I pointed out to him they had cured her of the affliction causing her to do so and that she wasn't in control of her actions at the time, and that if he wanted that to be a valid answer he should have killed her before the sun came up and they had cured her of the affliction.
I've been GM'ing for a group of friends recently, two sessions ago they were informed of a Striga terrorizing a village and accepted the job of curing the creature (a 7 year old girl) of its affliction. Yesterday the party faced to Striga and cured it.
Before I go any further let me give you some info about the party:
Echo: Dwarf Cleric of Pharasma
Locke: Halfling Rouge
El: Human Barbarian
Malkior: Half-Elf Magus
Ok so Yesterday after curing the Striga and it reverted back to a young 7 year old girl the party took the girl back to her father, the Governor, carried on Malkior's back. Upon Receiving payment from the Governor, bag of gems and jewels worth 6000gp, Echo proceeded to smashing the young girl's skull in with his Masterwork Gold Gem-Encrusted Amethyst Spiked Morning Star (long story), rationalizing it as the girl had returned to the dead so Pharasma would be against her existence. The Governor proceeded to call for the guards, devastated and enraged by Echo's action, as the guards came in to attack Echo Locke ran into a corner choosing not to take sides, El grabbed Echo, and Malkior readied an action so that if Echo resists he would use shocking grasp on him. Echo proceeded to surrender and was sent to prison. While in prison Locke visited Echo in prison and was permitted to enter his cell, with the catch that it would then be locked until he called for the guard when he was ready to leave. Locke proceeded to pick the lock and let Echo out of his cell until he decided he had no viable way of sneaking him out, Echo returned to his cell and Locke walked out and was promptly questioned by the guard about how he left the cell without it being unlocked for him. After accepting Locke's excuse the guard went to the cell and tried to question Echo, which lead to a Sound Burst being cast at the guard and Echo being knocked unconscious. Afterward Echo proceeded to meditate and ask Pharasma for guidance, to only be told to wait, and then attack and kill a barbarian in the next cell who killed 10 men before being caught. Meanwhile the remaining members of the party contacted the guild they are a member of asking what they should do about the situation with Echo, only to be told to leave him to the justice system of the city. The guard called for reinforcements and his former party members were called for after seeing he has some prowess with magic. Locke refused to go saying he won't kill a companion, Malkior attacked and delivered the finishing blow to him, and El just watched, during all of this Echo just sat in the corner after casting Sanctuary and calmly talk to his old companions perfectly calm and content as he was being slashed and burned by guards and a flaming sphere from Malkior.
What do yall think of the events that transpired and how would yall react?
If silver is to be crucial in combat you could think about changing fast healing to regeneration. Then silver weapon will be required to deliver finishing blow or just strike just before finishing blow.
Technical note, that is rather of little importance if you don't plan to reuse the monster and don't bother with full statistics - only objects have no Wisdom and no Charisma scores. While Charisma might be between low to 10 for Striga, Wisdom should be at least 10 and probably more, to give her improved Perception and Will saving throw.
I doubt I will use the monster again after the mission but I will change the fast healing to regeneration since it makes more since and will work better for the mission since the party has been requested to cure the creature instead of killing it (they are free to kill it if they decide to) and will give it wisdom and charisma scores, just in case later down the line I decide to reuse it.
• Striga: CR6
o Initiative: +7
o HP: 80
o AC: 18
o BAB: +6/+1
o Will: +2 Ref: +5 Fort: +5
o Attacks:
+10 Bite (1d8+4 19-20/x2)
+10 2-Claws (1d6+4 + blinding critical)
o DR5/Silver
o Regeneration 2 (silver)
o Speed 50ft
o Vulnerable to Silver
o CMB:+10
o CMD: 23
o Str: 18 Dex: 16 Con: 22 Cha: 5 Int: 5 Wis: 10
The Fast healing wouldn't work on silver damage, and the party will be informed and have the opportunity to acquire silver weapons. The town's store will carry silver weapons and they will be informed by the Governor and Guard Captain that it is vulnerable to silver.
First if you are in my party please go no further.
I am running a campaign for a group of friends and they are about to go through a side-quest based on a story from The Last Wish (also the opening cinematic from The Witcher) and need an opinion my build for the Striga, like is is too over powered for a party with APL 3.
Striga:
• Striga: CR6
o Initiative: +7
o HP: 80
o AC: 18
o BAB: +6/+1
o Will: +2 Ref: +5 Fort: +5
o Attacks:
+10 Bite (1d8+4 19-20/x2)
+10 2-Claws (1d6+4 + blinding critical)
o DR5/Silver
o Fast healing 2
o Speed 50ft
o Vulnerable to Silver
o CMB:+10
o CMD: 23
o Str: 18 Dex: 16 Con: 22 Cha: 0 Int: 5 Wis: 0
What causes a Striga is unknown, whether it be magic, a curse, or simply the result of a stillbirth, the corpse is transformed into a creature with two rows of sharp teeth and sharp claws.It sleeps during the day and is active during the night, killing and feeding on any living thing that it can. If it doesn't make it back to its sarcophagus and is exposed to the sunlight it reverts back to being human.
I would go with just the Alchemist but I don't see how the bombs alone would be able to emulate the signs.
Especially where the Magus gets spells like Burning Hands which is pretty much the Igni sign, and all you would have to do is research a version of Burning Hands that deals force damage and has the ability to knock targets back (research higher spell level versions that have a chance to stun) which would work as the Aarad sign. The Shield spell would be pretty much the Quen sign. This would leave only 3 signs, the Axii sign which is pretty much a charm spell, the Yrden sign which may involve making an all new spell, and the Heliotrop sign which again would involve making a new spell.
And while possible to make a character that emulates a Witcher using any race, to stick with the idea of Witchers I favor a human.
That doesn't seem like a bad idea, Breakfast has a good idea with the undead bloodline.
And you could actually use that as a plot device and have his father come up as an enemy for the party trying to turn his son to evil and the ways of necromancy or kill and raise him as an undead.
I know this has come up before but I don't think it has come up after the UM was released so I want some opinions/advice on my idea for a Witcher PC.
I am thinking a Magus/Alchemist, wielding a Bastard Sword, the Magus class would give the melee capabilities as well as the spells (researching spells that emulate the signs) and the Alchemist class would provide for the mutagens.
Any views on whether this seems like a feasible build?
I have to agree with this, especially since my understanding of a Sorcerer is that they have a innate arcane power as opposed to wizard who had to study and work for their power.
APG... Cestus weapon - a studded gloove. 19-20 X's 2 believe give P/B damage. enchant with keen...
Unless I am mistaken that would make the damage 1d4, making a Monk deal less damage. So that would mean at a Level 1 Monk with Cestus would have 1d4 damage with 19-20/x2 crit, where a Level 1 Monk without the Cestus would have 1d6 and crit only on nat 20. The slight increase in crit range wouldn't be worth the damage trade, especially at higher levels when the damage dice increase.
no a monk may choose to do his unarmed strike damage with a cestus or brass knuckles
Oh ok, then you are right getting either a Keen Cestus or taking Improved critical for the Cestus would be the best option.
APG... Cestus weapon - a studded gloove. 19-20 X's 2 believe give P/B damage. enchant with keen...
Unless I am mistaken that would make the damage 1d4, making a Monk deal less damage. So that would mean at a Level 1 Monk with Cestus would have 1d4 damage with 19-20/x2 crit, where a Level 1 Monk without the Cestus would have 1d6 and crit only on nat 20. The slight increase in crit range wouldn't be worth the damage trade, especially at higher levels when the damage dice increase.
My only thought would be to take improved critical for unarmed attacks, that is the only think I can think of and it would only make the threat range 19-20. (to the best of my knowledge there is nothing preventing it)
First off let me thank you all for the suggestions.
Kolokotroni wrote:
what kind of guild is this? Why did the players join it? What do they want?
I don't really know how to describe the guild but a major insperation for the whole guild were the guilds of the manga/anime "Fairy Tail". I am leaving the players reason's for joining the guild up to them which they will hopefully cover in their back stories. What they want has also gone uncovered so far but I am hoping they will have something on that by the next time we meet and if not I plan to bring it up and ask them to try and come up with something.
CourtFool wrote:
You may have to fall back on greed to encourage PCs off the sofa. Have them hear of rumors of great wealth guarded by evil monsters. This appeals to the kill things and take their stuff crowd.
I know this is a possibility but it is a route that I would rather do my best to avoid falling back, tho I know it is probably the best way to compel the party's rogue to do stuff.
Herbo wrote:
If you have no end goal in mind for the party it may be a good idea to plumb the PC's individual back stories for some ideas on how you can weave them together and give them something shiney just over that next hill to explore. This still puts some of the work on you as you tailor the campaign to the stories of the party, but it'll get them invested. After a few sessions of this you can reduce your "carrot dangling" bit by bit until they are coming up with plans and crazy schemes all on their own.
I was actually somewhat planning to make the experiences based off of the PC's back stories. But unfortunately as of yet the closes thing to a back story any of them has is whats mentioned in the traits they took. But I am hoping they will have one soon since my becoming GM for the group was a little sudden and I'm not sure if all of the characters had been prepared beforehand.
I just started GM'ing my first real campaign and in my work preparing I made up a map of the country (city locations, mountains, rivers, ect.). I introduced the party as new recruits into a guild and explained their party being together as being done by the guild. After being tested by the guild (the first little mission/job of my campaign) the party proceeded to inquire about jobs the guild can offer, and I am predicting that this is the only way they are really going to do. Unfortunately I currently have no idea what the main goal for the campaign is and was planning to build to it based on the parties actions through their travels but I am beginning to think that unless I can get them to travel around on their own and not just for a job from the guild they won't really experience much.
So my question is:
How can I get the party to explore and travel the country without just relying on guild jobs?
I have done both, the first campaign I made I tried to think like the people in my group, planning out different possibilities just to try and cover what they would most likely do. After that first campaign I began winging it more, designing maps and a basic plot idea and setting up encounters but nothing concrete.
I am working on an idea for a side plot in the larger campaign that I will be running for my group. Before I go into details I feel I should give a basic synopsis of the idea.
Idea Synopsis:
The party enters a house, which upon entering the door slams shut behind them and any attempts to open or break the door fail. After looking around the room, six shadowy figures come rising out of the floor and out of the walls telling the characters to sit down and let them relive their lives through what they tell them.
A single character can sit with a single figure (so 2 characters can interact with 1 figure each and 2 character can interact with 2 figures each [there will be 4 characters in the party]), sitting with one of the figures causes both the character to be transported into the figure's memories. The character will be unable to interact with all but one of the memories, which depending on his/her actions will effect how the figure views the party outside of the memories.
To the other characters it appears as if the character interacting with the figure and the figure are in a trance-like state
I have so far made 3 of the 6 figures that are interacted with, and need some help coming up with the last 3. I currently have:
Elenee: Half-Orc Sorcerer, NG
Aribeth De Tylmarande: Half-Elf Paladin (or Anti-Paladin depending on interaction), LG (or CE)
Bishop: Human Rouge, CG
The Back-stories I have so far are:
Elenee:
Born with latent arcane abilities, she abandoned by her tribe as a child after her abilities first appeared. She wandered the countryside fighting against those she felt were evil, trying to avoid killing but feeling that it was necessary at times. She entered a city ruled by a tyrannical ruler, who after trying to intimidate him to either change or give up leadership of the city after he refused Elenee took his life and left the city.
Aribeth:
Born in the city of Thundertree, of two half-elf parents, the village was wiped out in an orc raid leaving her the sole survivor of the massacre. Vowing vengeance, she hunted down the perpetrators and slew them all, but, unsatisfied, continued to hunt and kill orcs in an obsessive quest until she was trapped in a sudden blizzard and rescued by a valiant sword-mistress in full plate mail, believed to be the avatar of Iomedae but was actually a priestess of Irori. From that day Aribeth dedicated herself to becoming a Paladin of Iomedae, which led her to Neverwinter and eventually to meeting the man she would fall in love with, Fenthick Moss a priest of Iomedae. Fenthick was eventually found guilty by association and is hanged for trusting Desther, the man who spread a plague throughout Neverwinter. Fenthick’s death caused Aribeth to question her faith, and leads to her becoming an Anti-Paladin (possible for PC to convince her to not give up on her faith and stay Paladin). As an Anti-Paladin she becomes a general of an army attacking Neverwinter.
Bishop:
Born to a poor family, having to steal in order to survive. As he grew older Bishop began stealing for the sake of others, targeting the greedy and rich. After many successful thefts he had been given word by one of his source of the location of a wealthy and greedy noble who has more than Bishop has ever stolen before. Upon arriving at the location it turned out that it was a set-up, his source had been bribed into setting him up, Bishop barely escaped with his life when his source, regretting his actions, caused a distraction allowing Bishop the opportunity to escape.
I need help coming up with back-stories for the last 3.
Lorne: Dwarf Barbarian, CE
Neeshka: Halfling Wizard, NE
Grobnar: Gnome Range: LE
Feel free to make different characters to replace the 3 without back-stories (I just ask that if you do so please make them evil) and feel free comment on the 3 character I already have done.
