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Intimidate to Demoralize causes the Shaken effect, which is a fear type effect.

Does this stack with the penalty from Aura of Despair, which is also a fear type effect?

"Fear" isn't a specifically listed bonus type, and these are different sources, but it kind of feels like they shouldn't stack. The despair aura seems to be a lesser version of shaken.

Thoughts?

So, one of my players took Nocticula's profane ascension.

The Lilitu managed to charm and convince her to beg for a wish, in order to bring a righteous hero low (As her profane wish alters alignment.) So, minor victory for her there, before she was torn to shreds... But, then that PC had no qualms about accepting Nocticula's blessing.

So, how should I run the interaction with Iomedae and that PC in book 5 now? Anyone else have a similar scenario? The PC in question is actually a little behind on loot, and she isn't a huge power gamer, so the buff isn't too imbalancing on her. I'm just unsure how to run the Iomedae stuff with this caveat, lol.

Wrath is now my 2nd Mythic campaign, after employing the rules in my homebrew game. My players are pretty notorious min/maxers as well. I've yet to see the Mythic rules cause too many problems. In my opinion, I think the ability score increases cause more damage than any of the abilities granted by tiers do. Also, the initiative boost tends to cause issues IF players also boost their init via feats/traits. So, if you want to keep the difficulty higher, maybe consider removing those bonuses, or disallowing the +2 ability score boosts to stack, forcing players to spread them among 5 abilities.

It seems like every time I see any complaint thread about Mythic, the detailed explanation reveals they were running some component of the rules wrong. Our first crack at Mythic seemed broken, until I really dug into tracking the players actions/resources.

I see a lot of people allowing Swift actions to happen in place of move actions. I see a lot of people ignoring the interaction between immediate & Swift actions. I see a lot of people forgetting you can't use a free action when it isn't your turn.

A good example is the Mythic Wizard, I see them come up often as a problem:

They get (effectively) either a pearl of power, or a wildcard spell as a swift action. That's not a whole lot more effective than any caster with quicken, or a rod of quicken. And (common error) they cannot also use a quickened spell. Their Swift is used up already. They can take an extra standard, which can't be used for spells (or by extension spell completion items, no pulling out a wand/staff here).

I mean, really I don't see the Mythic Wizard getting a whole lot that the base Wizard doesn't also get access to. And that's pretty much across the board for most classes.

So, don't be petrified by the horror stories. Just be diligent in tracking the action economy better, and player resources. Mythic rules lean heavily on Swift/immediate actions, so keeping those straight is critical. (Note: remember that using an immediate action causes you to lose your following Swift action. I see many people thinking you get one of each)

I've been playing tabletop RPGs with friends for something like 15 years now, but I've never once been to a public game, despite being a pretty avid convention-goer - I'm trying to change that.

A few friends and I are going to GenCon this year, and we bought spots for The Confirmation & Horn of Aroden, but there's a few things that I've had trouble dredging up in my reading about society play. I'm sure I'm just being overly-concerned, but...

First, gencon specific, Should we be concerned at all about getting the three of us at the same game table? I have no idea how that organization works, last year we just peeked into the huge hall it was in, and were totally overwhelmed!

Second, how much of the Golarion lore should I catch up on to effectively roleplay? How roleplay heavy do these events typically run? I'm assuming it's a case-by-case basis, but I don't want to ruin someone's fun by being "that guy that over-RPs", or "that guy that isn't even RP-ing." I know that spectrum well after many years of playing, lol.

I'm sure it's going to be a huge culture shock, but I'm really interested in seeing how other people GM. After years taking turns with the same 3 or 4 people GMing, that is what has me most excited.

I've poked around and seen this ability brought up in several topics, but haven't seen a good answer to this question...

For the uninitiated, the ability reads verbatim: "Whenever you roll a critical threat against a non-mythic creature, you automatically confirm the critical hit and deal the maximum amount of damage to that creature. This ability can be selected twice. The second time it is selected, it also applies to mythic creatures."

What exactly does "the maximum amount of damage" mean?

The previous tier has a skill "Maximize Critical" which reads: "Whenever you score a critical hit, the weapon's damage result is always the maximum possible amount you could roll. This doesn't affect other dice added to the damage, such as from sneak attack or the flaming weapon special ability. For example, if you score a critical hit with a longsword (1d8/×2), treat the sword's damage dice as if you had rolled 8 both times, then add any other damage bonuses that you would normally apply to a critical hit."

I'm wondering if the intent of "Maximum Damage" is the same as Maximize Critical's "Maximum possible amount you could roll," which is to say, only applying to weapon damage dice, and not anything additional - or if it literally means your maximum possible damage... Because, if that is the case, does that then apply to a Magus' Spellstrike, essentially giving him a free maximized critical?

I'm of the opinion that 'Critical Master' should function similarly to 'Maximize Critical'... but then Maximize critical becomes redundant, which seems wrong.

Help me, Paizo messageboards, you're my only hope.

So I'm GMing for my group, and we've recently picked up a copy of Ultimate Combat. One of my PCs wanted to give the gunslinger a try, and after looking at the pictures and reading up on the Grit system and the Daring Acts, as well as the Archetypes he settled on a Wandering Stranger style because a Daring yet foolish hero seems like he shouldn't be centric around Wisdom.

So he wants to dual wield his pistols, since every art piece in the book shows gunslingers dual wielding pistols - He wants the kick-the-door-in guns-blazing devil-may-care attitude robin-hood type of hero that all the art seems to depict.

Here's the roadblock: As far as we can tell that's not possible. We try as best we can to follow the base rules and use existing methods when we can, so we cooked up this:

If he has Alchemical Cartriges and Rapid Reload that reduces his Standard Action reload time down to a free action: However he needs a free hand in order to load them. Holstering his gun is a move action[As it triggers an Atk of Opp. and Sheathing isn't sped up by quick draw], Drawing them is a free action with quick draw.

So we are at:
Move 1: Holster Gun A
Free : Load Gun B
Move 2: Holster Gun B
Free : Quick Draw Gun A
Free : Load Gun A
Free : Quick Draw Gun B
<Fun fact: Provokes 4 Atks of Opp>

So he's essentially firing twice every other round as opposed to once per round - it all shakes out the same.

Also when he reaches 5th level and higher he will be able to reload his weapon as a free action while firing off his multiple shots - but he won't be capable of that while dual wielding. (At this point wielding only one would provide better damage output...)

The only loophole we've found would be to cast the reloading hands spell on his guns and hire a powerful mage to cast permanency on the enchantment: And even that is a stretch as it's a very powerful spell to have permanent (I'd probably make it part of some difficult quest)

But while permanently having spectral hands reloading the guns would seem cool thematically - it just seems odd that for all the art showing dual-pistol wielding heroes, the rules make it nearly impossible.

I'm just curious if I missed something, or if we need to make a house rule here to allow one-handed reloading. It doesn't seem like it should be this difficult given I see dual-wielding pistol users on pg 4, 9, 242... in fact I don't think I see an image of a gunslinger where they aren't dual wielding. I see other class archetypes with guns splashed in, and they're using muskets - but every gunslinger class picture shows them wielding two pistols. If that's the true flavor of the class, why can't the rules replicate it? I'm at a loss.