Balsamic Dragon's page

In the final encounter of the adventure, the Mercenary Scout (a human ranger) is listed as a level 3 creature. However, the damage that she's doing with her attacks seems way off (2d6+2 with a normal kukri and 2d6+2 with an expert composite shortbow). I realize that creatures in the Bestiary don't seem to match the normal character creation rules (that's a whole other conversation), but even so, that seems excessive.

Compare the anti-paladin, who also has an expert composite shortbow and is a level 5 creature, and deals only 1d6+4 damage. She deals 2d12+4 with her greataxe, but that's because it is a magical weapon.

I'm one of those people who likes solving puzzles on my own as a player, rather than simply making a bunch of skill rolls for my character to do it. I noticed that there is an intricate puzzle in Pale Mountain, so I wrote up an actual puzzle to go with it. It still incorporates the same skill rolls as the written adventure, so I don't think it will impact play-testing significantly.

It is a bit lengthy tho. If anyone is interested, I can either post it here, or I can send it via private message/email.

I have searched and I can't seem to figure this out. The PCs know that the Night Heralds are after the same item that they are. However, they have no idea how long it will take for the Night Heralds to reach the tomb and the traverse the labyrinth. The PCs just know that they have an advantage, since they know the back way inside.

However, the adventure states: "Remind the PCs how long they have left when they enter the tomb so they know whether they'll have any time to rest before or during their explorations."

How do the PCs get this information? Doesn't it make it more difficult to set up tension when the party has no idea whether they are ahead or behind schedule?

PCs: Human Cleric, Halfling Rogue, Goblin Monk, Goblin Sorcerer

Overall: one PC knocked down to 0 HP twice, but no PC deaths, all goals accomplished, didn't fight the centipedes or the quasits

The real stars of this one were the Human Cleric, who was optimized for healing, and the Goblin Monk. I was surprised at how effective the Monk was! Especially with the Cleric backing him up. The Monk went down twice to Drakus (two critical hits!), but the Cleric got him back up again (and the Monk spent a Hero point the first time). He had Tiger Stance to do slashing against Drakus, which was also good.

The Rogue got to sneak around, disarm the statue trap, and find the secret door, so she had fun. She also got a wicked sneak attack off against Drakus.

The Sorcerer had substantially less to do, in part because he cast summon monster too early (in the first goblin room, with only one goblin left standing), and then didn't have it for later fights where it would have been useful. They did get to avoid the fungus, however, by sending in the summoned monster to check out the room.

My dice luck is legendarily bad, which is to say, I rolled a lot of 1s and 4s, but then I did crit twice in the last fight :) However, the goblin fight in the back cave was also a lot of fun to run, the party felt pretty challenged by the adventure as a whole.

OK, I have searched all over for this, and I just can't find it.

If a monster has an innate spell, and that spell includes a material component, does the monster need that material component? Does the spell require the Material Casting action? Or does the spell cast at one action quicker than normal?

Example: Invisibility has both a material and somatic component, so it takes two actions to cast. Does a monster with the innate ability to cast invisibility also require two actions to do so?

Something came up in the Doomsday Dawn forum, and I wanted to move it here for those who were avoiding spoilers:

Are there ability checks in this game? Can you be asked to make a simple Dexterity check, based on anything in the rulebook? If so, based on the rules on page 290, this check would be Untrained, correct?

There are only two occurrences of the phrase "ability check" in the rulebook, both in relation to armor penalties:

"Clumsy This armor’s Dexterity modifier cap also applies to Reflex
saves and to all Dexterity-based skill and ability checks that
don’t have the attack trait."

There are no occurrences of this phrase in Doomsday Dawn (although there are situations that might normally call for one).

In area A4, the players can investigate a body and use a Medicine roll to determine cause of death. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the rules about what sort of a skill use this would be, what proficiency is required, or how long it might take. There is only one Untrained use of Medicine described in the rules, and two Trained uses (outside of feats), and there is no feat that covers Forensics.

In most games, I would simply make something up, as the GM. But I think that this sort of use of Medicine is so common, that there should be a described action. Here's what I wrote up for it:

Medicine Trained Activity

Forensics (Concentrate) (Manipulate) (Secret)
By examining a body for ten minutes, you can attempt to determine the cause of death and related information.
Critical Success: You learn an additional piece of information about a person involved in the death, a weapon used, or the location where they died.
Critical Failure: You determine incorrect information.

On a larger scale, this sort of thing is going to happen a lot. Rather than have a huge number of Skill uses to page through, there should be some guidelines on how to create these sort of actions.

I was surprised at the language choices when describing the Half-Elf and Half-Orc. _Many_ Half-Elves are "born out of violence"? This has always been a problematic area of D&D with respect to Half-Orcs, but I have never played in a campaign where it was common for a half-elf to be a product of rape (of an elf or a human). I have several thoughts:

1) If two of the base races are frequently products of rape, then rape is going to be an accepted story feature in your games. Are you sure that you want this to be the case?

2) If you are going to have rape be a part of the stories told in Pathfinder games, and have the game be more mature and dark as a result, I would suggest not watering down the language. "Born of violence" is almost a romantic euphamism for an issue that should either be dealt with in a more realistic way or not dealt with at all.

Although this is my first comment (as I am still reading my way through the rules), it shouldn't be construed as a negative impression. On the contrary, I think you guys have done a fabulous job from what I have read so far!

More comments to follow, once my toddler stops fussing....

Balsamic Dragon