Arne Schmidt's page

You may be correct, but I don't believe Corbin Dallas' quote actually refers to the issue at hand. That quotes clarifies that equipment is not damaged when a spell is targeting the bearer (save in the case of a natural 1 on the saving throw). It does not actually say that equipment cannot be targeted.

I'm having trouble because disintegrate clearly states that it can target an object. And equipment is by definition an object.

The ray ignoring armor class is a pretty good argument, but couldn't one just as easily say that the magic behaves so because the intention is to hit the wearer? In the case of a ray that may target an object couldn't the intention be changed?

Also impact location with a ray does seem to matter since a ray is capable of scoring a critical hit and thereby doing greater damage. If the target location didn't matter at all, as DM Blake suggests, then why would this be the case?

I'm fully prepared to accept that one cannot do as I'm suggesting, I just haven't seen any RAW yet that actually seems to state such a thing.

Again I don't disagree with what you're saying outside of the context of clearly defined alignments (as much as something so subjective can be clearly defined). I just don't believe that the Pathfinder system lends itself to as strict a set of definitions as you're advocating. The alignment definitions as provided do not support a conclusion that paladins would be deontologist IMO (and also IMO directly contradicts your assertion that deontology defaults to NG).

You make it sound as though all lawful good people would have the same response to the same situation (such as the OP's) and I don't believe the alignment system is that limiting. Deontology seems to most closely resemble lawful neutral to me as the outcome of the trial is less important than that the system be upheld. That is that a deontologist would see a lesser evil outcome as acceptable as long as it supported the greater good (the authority and integrity of the legal system). Even if the system is intended to provide the maximum possible good, that position is lawful neutral.

Your interpretation makes it sound as though the paladin's code is inherently in conflict with having a lawful good alignment which I also don't agree with. For example, if the paladin is lawful and must follow his code which commands that he punish those who harm innocents than isn't he required by his code to punish the good and lawful court that executed a man he knows to be innocent? After all the code provides no allowance for "unintentionally" harming innocents.

I'm just saying that the alignments as defined for game use in the core rulebook don't seem to support your conclusions (assuming I've read them correctly- I think you've been advocating the paladin letting the innocent be executed to uphold the greater good of the legal system and avoid unintended chaotic and/or evil consequences down the road).

But again this is subject to interpretation and this is merely how I interpret it.

Finarin Panjoro wrote:

I don't believe that breaking the innocent man out of jail does constitute a chaotic act either. The paladin code requires them to respect legitimate authority. Respect does not mean obey regardless of the prevailing situation. Being lawful implies obedience to authority, but the paladin has sworn to uphold a higher authority than mortal law.

In any event a paladin falls for violating his code or committing an evil act. The first line of the PRD's description is "Good characters and creatures protect innocent life." His code commands that he helps those who are in need (as the accused clearly is). So the paladin must protect the innocent man accused of these crimes.

"Respect does not mean obey regardless of the prevailing situation" - agreed.

Like wise, "protect innocent life" does not mean "Protect innocent life regardless of the prevailing situation."

By way of extreme example, "Protecting one innocent life, but sacrificing one hundred" is a bad and wrong choice. Read below to see what I mean when I talk about "prevailing situation" of protecting the innocent.

Finarin Panjoro wrote:

Further he is commanded to respect legitimate authority. So he must attempt to appease that authority, reason with it, or take the punishment upon himself. Ultimately preventing that authority from unwittingly committing an atrocity is an act of respect. If it became known that the legitimate authority had executed an innocent man, confidence and trust in it would be greatly eroded perhaps destroyed all together. If the paladin can spare that authority from such a fate by taking the responsibility on himself that seems both lawful and good to me.

Ultimately, usurping that authority's right to rule is *not* an act of respect, it's one of hubris and offense. It is, in effect, an act of war. Would a good authority want to do the right thing? Of course, but that's his judgment to make, not the Paladin's. But even a neutral or evil authority has the right to...

Jupistar, I don't disagree with your point about the law of unintended consequences, but that sword cuts both ways. Allowing the law to execute an innocent man can likewise lead to unintended chaotic consequences (loss of faith in the system, defiance, riots, even rebellion) and certainly leads to an evil consequence (the execution of an innocent). It is entirely possible for chaotic consequences to result from lawful acts, especially in a case where two lawful forces are in contention.

In the OP's scenario the paladin is faced with no clear choice, either one has unacceptable consequences. But the only one which is irrevocable is the death of the innocent prisoner (discounting resurrection magic as a remedy since there's no guarantee the prisoner would return or the magic would be available). If the paladin frees the prisoner he then has time to address the consequences of that choice, unintended or not. By submitting himself for judgement by the authority that he's offended he is telling the society that the law is still right and valid and must be upheld, but that it is not absolute. If he finds the evidence of innocence and turns himself and the prisoner back over for judgement he again affirms that authority's legitimacy.

Also to be clear, I would only support the paladin's breaking free an innocent prisoner if the penalty for his crime was death. If the society in question has no death penalty than a paladin would never be put in this position because the prisoner is not under the threat of irreparable harm. In a society with no death penalty, there is time to work within the system, to go find proof of his innocence and return it to the court. The paladin might dedicate his life to doing so even if he never found such proof (though that would make for a poor heroic tale). My personal feeling is that a lawful good society would not have a death penalty because of its irrevocable nature. The freeing of this prisoner might even serve as the starting point for a legitimate campaign to end the use of such permanent punishment (a perhaps unintended lawful consequence).

It seems to me that a paladin would have to include a limitation in his oath to a liege lord that indicated that his obedience was conditional upon his orders not violating his existing code as a paladin. If the liege lord could not accept that then no oath of allegiance would be taken.

If he is sworn to a liege lord before becoming a paladin I'm not even sure it would be possible to become a paladin since he's already taken an oath which may prevent the fulfilling of his code. In my world there are fighter/clerics called paladins who use this combination of powers to get around the requirement to be lawful good (or to serve a deity who cannot have lawful good followers). These seem more likely candidates for such service.

I don't believe that breaking the innocent man out of jail does constitute a chaotic act either. The paladin code requires them to respect legitimate authority. Respect does not mean obey regardless of the prevailing situation. Being lawful implies obedience to authority, but the paladin has sworn to uphold a higher authority than mortal law.

In any event a paladin falls for violating his code or committing an evil act. The first line of the PRD's description is "Good characters and creatures protect innocent life." His code commands that he helps those who are in need (as the accused clearly is). So the paladin must protect the innocent man accused of these crimes.

Further he is commanded to respect legitimate authority. So he must attempt to appease that authority, reason with it, or take the punishment upon himself. Ultimately preventing that authority from unwittingly committing an atrocity is an act of respect. If it became known that the legitimate authority had executed an innocent man, confidence and trust in it would be greatly eroded perhaps destroyed all together. If the paladin can spare that authority from such a fate by taking the responsibility on himself that seems both lawful and good to me.

Well since you asked :)

The most important thing I've found so far is to not treat Hell as one monolithic den of villainy with a common purpose. In each layer there need to be factions with conflicting agendas (this duke wants the other duke's territory or harbors a grudge of some kind) and so on. Also conflicts between layers can be food for much adventure and intrigue. These factions may want to manipulate, bargain with, or outright help the PCs if they are moving against one of their political enemies within Hell. Otherwise your adventures will become repetitive battles against a single empire.

Also don't be afraid to have large numbers of non-lawful evil encounters. Visitors from other planes, mercenaries hired by a duke of Hell, celestial or demonic spies, and so on. I have almost as many neutral evil bad guys roaming around Hell as lawful evil, the idea being that these neutral evil creatures are just one step away from belonging so Hell encourages them to visit in the hopes of winning them over to a lawful evil perspective.

Also remember the environment, part of the fun of adventuring in Hell is that Hell is vastly different from the Prime Material plane. So try to find ways to use the environment to make travel and combat unique (fireballs falling from the sky, poison gases erupting from the ground, etc).

Along those lines is the issue of travel magic. If your plan is a quest through Hell it can be made way too easy by spells like plane shift and teleport. In my campaign I decided that each layer is considered a separate plane for purposes of plane shift (so they need a special rod attuned to each layer to be able to plane shift to it) and that no one can teleport from one layer to another layer unless they have already been to that layer. So once the party reaches a layer for the first time they attune a rod to it, they can also then teleport back to anywhere they've already been and return to their current position.

Also because of the endless hordes of enemies that are ahead of them stealth has been important in my campaign. To aid in that I have a houserule that modifies the aid another action with regard to skills. I let the best member of the party make a skill check with a -2 penalty for each creature that he is aiding. The people he aids then only need to make a DC 10 check to use the result of the primary skill user. That usually winds up being my ranger helping the paladin, cleric, and sorceror with stealth checks, but it also applies to climbing and other reasonable activities. This way the investment of a few points in stealth (or other skill) is still worthwhile (the paladin has a natural stealth bonus of -3 due to armor check penalty) without requiring them to spend everything they have to be mildly competent.

My players have shown no interest in prestige classes because they like the base Pathfinder classes so much, so I can't help you there, but do watch out for extremely Hell specific combos and don't be afraid to say no to something that will affect the enjoyment of the other party members.

Hope that helps. If I think of anything else I'll post it here.

Finarin Panjoro wrote:

I house ruled that everyone gets the Vital Strike feat chain for free. This has kept all of our melee types on par with the spellcasters (in a 16th level game no less). With this the melee types can still move and make a meaningful attack each round.

Does this go for Monsters too?

Yes, it does.

I'm currently running a level 16 campaign that started at level 14 and will go to around 21 or 22.

The Pathfinder OGC is your friend http://www.d20pfsrd.com/.

In particular there is a monster builder in their bestiary section that allows you to advance most of the monsters from the Pathfinder Bestiary by adding the most common templates and straight hit dice increase.

There's also a great random treasure generator under the Extras section (at the bottom of the left most column).

There are a few things that have made this easier and more fun for me.

The first is remembering not to sweat precise details. Don't build full NPC stat blocks if you can avoid it. Give them the stats you need for their purpose in game. Base it off of something similar if you have it, if not wing it. Don't create a brand new monster if a repurposed monster can do what you want (use the stats for a white dragon to create a new ice demon for example).

The Second is ignore experience points. Keep a rough tally of the number of level appropriate encounters that it should take to advance to the next level and when they're there tell them to level up. If you stop tracking XP it greatly reduces your book keeping.

Third throw out the treasure by level guidelines and don't bother tracking it to closely. Start them at about half what the book tells you to give them. Otherwise your treasures will be minor bumps (from a +4 sword to a +5 sword, instead of from a +2 sword to a +5 sword). Realize that certain characters will get way more use out of certain items than other characters and so it's actual impact on gameplay is way less than it's gp value would suggest. For example, my current party is a paladin, a ranger, a sorceror, and a cleric. At this point they've all specialized in their chosen fighting styles. So if I throw in a +5 holy anarchic hammer I know only the cleric is going to be interested in using it and he almost exclusively casts spells in battle. So despite this being a +9 weapon by gp value it will almost never come into play. This can be a problem if you allow easy selling and purchasing of magic items since they might sell it, but I don't make it easy to do that so it hasn't been a problem for me and the treasures feel substantial. The trick is to keep their primary weapons relevant, but not overpowered.

Also don't be afraid to throw really powerful creatures against them or to kill them. At this level, they can handle almost anything. Also don't be afraid to throw underpowered encounters at them, you want them to feel powerful at this level. Just use what your story calls for. If they can't beat it they almost certainly have the power to escape, gather new resources, and try again.

I ran a campaign that went up to 14th level (this is actually a continuation of it with nearly all new characters) and I hated it because I tracked every detail meticulously. Learning to relax and just go with something approximate makes all the difference in the world.

Good luck!

I don't like the idea of magical invisibility granting a straight up bonus to stealth. Because Hide and Move Silently have been combined this really doesn't make sense anymore. After all the invisible target is no harder to hear than they were before.

I would apply it as a penalty to perception checks to pinpoint an invisible character (-20 for moving, -40 for immobile) instead.

So a magically invisible character would make a stealth check to bypass a guard. If the guard's perception beats their normal stealth check then he's aware of their presence. If the character was moving and the guard's perception beats their check by 20 then they've been pinpointed. If they're not pinpointed while moving but the guard hears them (by beating the base stealth check) and begins actively looking for the character who in turn stands still to avoid detection, then the guard needs to beat their stealth check by 40 to pinpoint them (because they're now immobile).

I'm running a sea-faring campaign currently. One of the things I hated about Stormwrack was the way that there were basically aquatic versions of elves, humans, and halflings.

So I decided if the humanoid was the basic form of life on land then the merfolk was the basic form of life under the sea.

So I made different tribes of merfolk with different philosophies and physical characteristics.

The Malenti- are elf-like in appearance and demeanor. They are guardians of the sea.

The Eadro- are the most numerous of the merfolk and are city builders. They are the standard merfolk seen in the monster manual.

The Darfellan- resemble killer whales and live a nomadic life as hunters.

The Aventi- most resemble humans in skin-tone and body style and are a noble warrior tribe.

The Sheol- are small, fast merfolk who dwell in small villages and around Eadro cities. They are the best farmers of the merfolk (like halflings).

This made the merfolk a much more interesting race to me. I also made spells from Stormwrack that let them adventure out of the sea a little easier to come by.