Dice, oodles of pretty fresh dice, and an opulent dice rolling area/backstop done in subtle velvet.
Oil painting of dogs playing RPGs.
Second hand overstuffed armchairs.
Port and cigars.
Modern art sculptures and absenthe for coming up with ideas for dungeons/outer gods/exsurgent virus strains.
Use it to hire a burly fellow student to keep the riffraff out, also a velvet rope.
I like the way you think
So far we're seriously considering the Paizo flip mat for a battle grid (I looked at the Chessex one but dry erase will work better for us than wet erase)
We're umming and ahhing about a bestiary box, npc codex box and the combat pad, we can't afford all of them so something will have to go.
What are people's favourite tools/accessories for tabletop gaming?
The games club my RPG group is part of is giving us some money to buy stuff to improve our gaming sessions (approx £60-70) which we are allowed to spend on whatever we wish and we'd like to buy some tools for pen and paper RPGs.
We play a fair range of systems so we would like to keep things fairly generic, what sort of tools do people use in terms of maps, combat trackers, minatures etc?
A megadungeon needs a plausable reason why the inhabitants don't beseige the party in whatever room they decide to hole up for the night in.
A plausable reason why when they leave the dungeon to rest and refresh they don't come back to find the entrance barricaded and an army waiting to ambush them.
Are you looking for them to fight the villains of the stories (wolves, witches, giants etc)?
Or more twisted versions like groups of dwarves that capture princesses and imprison them in glass boxes and mermaids that take on human form to lure princes to their deaths by drowning?
I've got a few too many of my own projects on at the minute or I'd volunteer but once some of them are out of the way I should have some free time to help out.
I'd run the Lock Ward trick past your GM first, it's the sort of thing that can piss off a GM who was rather expecting you to have limited access to buffs.
Would it be a huge task to re-organise the Bestiary sections slightly?
Would be useful if the Monsters by type and Monsters by Terrain at least also included the CR of the monsters in their links so that when people go "I need to fill a dungeon full of undead for an APL 4 group" they can go the Undead Monsters page and pick straight from the appropriate level monsters and ignore all the ones that are far too high/low.
It sounds like your goal is to have an adventure site that is both very large and under the control of a single, organized, intelligent faction--an active fortress or similar.
If you're also approaching this as a primarily combat-oriented adventure site, then yes, you've set yourself up with an extremely difficult problem to design your way out of, and one that experienced players will readily recognize as A Bad Idea to go into. I think you have to examine your assumptions.
Can you make it an infiltration-based adventure site, such that the ultimate goal (kill a particular baddie, rescue a hostage, retrieve an artifact) can be achieved without the PCs slaughtering their way through everything? I don't know about you, but my group loves spending entire sessions planning out stealth/finesse approaches, picking supplies and spell lists, performing recon, etc. When you're on the GM side of the table, this can be really frustrating, unless you're willing to roll with it and say, "yes" to whatever questions they ask that allow them to invent solutions to this uncrackable fortress.
I'm not actively planning one, I was just looking at some of the maps people have made available online and wondered how people do run those kind of storming the castle scenarios
Murph. wrote:
Otherwise, think of Kings Landing from Game of Thrones, and the various hidden tunnels and staircases that even most of the castle's inhabitants don't know about. Make your adventure site that convoluted / secretive, and arrange for your party to discover at least one such secret passageway that they can hole up in. The dungeon may then be on high alert, and it's going to be a really tense night as armed guards repeatedly pass within yards of the PCs, since they'll never know who does and who doesn't know this passage exists, but at least they can recharge. (Esp. if they can use illusions or similar to extra-hide their secret passage.)
That's another idea I hadn't considered which has some possibilities.
From what other people have said the Dread Office Block of Evil model is more common than I thought as well, has anybody actually run/played in a storm the castle style crawl, how was that handled?
Since my suggestion was missed Scroll of Rope Trick, and the PCs can rest under the BBEG's nose.
It is a level 2 spell, you buy one or you plant one as a GM that is caster level 8. You can design your effing dungeon however you effing want.
Rope Trick is not as useful in Pathfinder as it was in 3.5. You can no longer hide the rope. So the dungeon inhabitants are walking along looking for the intruders, and spot a length of rope floating in midair. If if they don't know its a Rope Trick spell, they would know something was not right here.
Yes if all your patrols have max perception and spell craft, than yes you are screwed. But most of the time patrols are looking for bodies not a rope hanging from the ceiling and if your PCs are paranoid they can just hang a rope in every room they clear out.
See if the patrols find the room with the rope trick.
Not an approach I had considered but one I will bear in mind thanks.
The proper way to deal with this dilemma is to not make such artificial meta-game assumptions. From a PC's perspective, be prepared: assume there's always going to be another hazard. Do your recon, so that you can balance the risk of one more fight before resting against the risk of leaving those guys to attack you while you rest. Take enough resources--and measure their use--in such a way that you can survive whatever the night has to throw at you. Retreat to a genuinely fortifiable area before resting.
It kind of sounds like you're asking from a GM / dungeon design perspective, though. In which case, I don't understand why there's a problem. :)
I suppose I am really. I'm GMing a couple of groups at the minute and neither are likely to face extended crawls (one group just arn't interested in that kind of game and the other is pretty new to gaming so wouldn't know how to prepare for an extended crawl) so it's mostly for my own curiosity on the off chance I get to run one at a later date.
Suppose we knock the assumption about the 4 encounters per day on the head, doesn't throwing wave after wave of monsters to be slaughtered get a little tedious? If the encounters don't challenge the characters isn't that boring for the players?
The idea of fortifying any part of the dungeon (or leaving and coming back) changes a dungeon crawl into a seige, one that the party will almost certainly be overmatched for.
The idea of putting gaps in between sections of the dungeon has some merit although IMO it changes the idea from the Dread Castle of Evil to the Dread Office Block of Evil where different armies rent out different floors rather than a cohesive whole (although I suppose you could get some milage out of the even the evil guys don't get along with each other trope).
SO possibly the question should just be, to those of you who have GMed such medium to large sized dungeons which approach did you use?
(OR How Long is a Piece of String 2: The splicing)
Ok I know there's no set answer for this but I just can't quite wrap my head around the idea of multi-day dungeon crawls.
If we make all the standard assumptions about things like 4 encounters per day then how do the party not get found and stomped while they're resting?
Small dungeons arn't a problem, with less than a dozen rooms you can fill them quite nicely with 3 warm up acts a BBEG and a handful of traps or just decorative rooms.
City sized dungeons again probably offer a myriad of nooks and crannies that a resourceful adventuring party can hole up in with minimal chance of being discovered (although if that dungeon is full entirely of soldiers rather than a large number of non-combatants to a small number of soldiers/police as you would get in an actual city things become a little trickier)
But it's that middle ground that confuses me. If an adventuring party merrily slaughters their way through the first floor of a 7 level dungeon and makes camp in a storeroom or somewhere they can barricade the door against easy entry how do they not get found or wake up to find they've either been locked into the room or a small army encamped on the threshold?
A small group of searchers can go room by room in even a fairly large building in a matter of hours (and when aided by a trail of corpses, blood spatter and a sharp demarcation between the occupied and unoccupied rooms even quicker) so how does a group even spend 1 night in a dungeon safely and sucessfully?
(We can leave the undead out for now, as they're (for the most part) mindless creatures its more understandable that they might not even notice the intrusion and if they are being directly controlled by a single entitiy that will slow down searches considerably as it will either have to split its attention or be much slower and more methodical)
If fireballs were like grenades and there was some variance in explosive power I would agree, but in the game all fireballs have the exact same "kill radius".
I must admit that would be an interesting addition to the AoE rules, roll a d4x5ft spread
you'd have to fudge the maths a bit for simplicity's sake so a
5ft spread 4x dmg
10ft spread 2x dmg
15ft spread 1.5x dmg (it should be 1.3 recurring but nobody wants to sit and work that out)
20ft spread x1 dmg
You could even extend it outward so it has a chance of spreading too far but doing less dmg per creature
of course bigger AoE effects the maths becomes even more of a headache...you know what, nevermind.
Not every fireball has the same radius, it's just that every fireball radius is between 20' and 24'. That's a pretty big realistic difference, but doesn't have a mechanical difference. I don't think grenades have explosions between a few feet and several yards.
Yeah I just thought it would be an interesting idea were it not for the math involved, could still be a good wrinkle for an area of wild magic but you'd have to set constraints to keep the maths simple.
If fireballs were like grenades and there was some variance in explosive power I would agree, but in the game all fireballs have the exact same "kill radius".
I must admit that would be an interesting addition to the AoE rules, roll a d4x5ft spread
you'd have to fudge the maths a bit for simplicity's sake so a
5ft spread 4x dmg
10ft spread 2x dmg
15ft spread 1.5x dmg (it should be 1.3 recurring but nobody wants to sit and work that out)
20ft spread x1 dmg
You could even extend it outward so it has a chance of spreading too far but doing less dmg per creature
of course bigger AoE effects the maths becomes even more of a headache...you know what, nevermind.
Sorcerer: Harry Dresden from The Dresden Files (yes he calls himself a wizard, but his descriptions of himself - all force, heavy focus on blasting, very little ability with "subtle magic", etc - scream Sorc)
I'd disagree personally, he's just an Evocation Wizard. (Or possibly a Sorc/Wiz multiclass)
He's had to learn all of his spells none of them come naturally to him without knowing how they work, he can and does learn and develop new spells (a wizard can in character learn and develop new spells while a sorcerer just has a series of powers that unlock as he gets powerful enough to cast them).
He requires various foci to be able to actually cast anything properly in the first place (so multiple bonded objects)
I'm surprised nobody has suggested Darth Vader for Anti-Paladin yet, martial prowess and dark force powers make him the most obvious choice for me.
An item I just handwaved in to my campaign (so I'm not 100% sure on the price) was;
The Cloak of Shifting Shadows.
Rather than a single piece this cloak is made of many long strips of material that gradually darken from grey at the top to black at the bottom. This cloak allows you to change the size and shape of the shadow you cast.
In bright light this cloak provides a +5 bonus to intimidate rolls by making your shadow seem more montrous, in dim light (but not darkness) it provides a +5 bonus to stealth rolls by making your shadow smaller and harder to detect.
Ability to heal other people's injuries
Ability to remove poisons/diseases
Ability to sense emotions
Ability to control water
A cleric with the Water Domain & Ocean Subdomain from APG would enable you to do most of the physical water based things that Isana accomplishes in the books. (although I'm thinking mostly of that fight with Odiana in book 1)
There's no direct analog for the empathic powers but the community domain comes close (you could change some of the domain spells to some of the more emotion based spells for a closer fit)
The energy channelling is a bit of a headache as there's nothing comparable in Alera, the Ale/Wine version of the variant channelling rules in UM might serve as an appropriate ability (you just refluff it that isntead of energy you spray everything with a light mist of water)
That would be the closest way of turning a cleric into a watercrafter I think, there may be something you could do with a druid with the aquatic domain but I don't know the druid class very well so I'd have to go and read up on that, and quite frankly I'd have to read the books again to remind myself of exactly what powers watercrafters display
Sorry, didn't mean to come over quite that negative, I just couldn't see a practical use for it, you've satisfied my curiosity on that score.
On the rounding note you can get a more even distribution by rounding to the nearest even number so 32.5ft would round down to 30ft but 37.5ft would round up to 40ft (which makes it a slightly more complicated houserule)
It's not something that's come up in any game I've played so I don't know if it is already part of the rules but different terrain types (as opposed to favourable/unfavourable terrain) would have an effect on your running speed.
It's more difficult to run on sand than hard packed dirt for example, long grass compared to short grass would also slow a runner down.
I've occasionally wondered if this would ever get turned into a game, but I think one major problem at least to be aware of if you're going to try something like this is the inherant disparity in power levels between commoners and nobility.
As the common folk can only control one or two furies but the nobility can generally control all of them and their furies are considerably stronger than those of the commoners you'd have to place some fairly heavy restrictions on nobility characters and NPCs.
You could have a lot of fun with the different races though as they would each have a set of different classes available to them as well.
The Marat have their animal totems (but no magic which I suppose makes them Fighter Archtypes rather than seperate classes), the Canim have their warriors and bloodspeakers (who would be sort of like witches with their covens), the Icemen don't really come into it much so you'd have to make something up more or less from scratch for them.
As for the fury types it would depend how you want to mix Alera with Pathfinder.
A guy with an earth fury is strong and can track people, a guy with a wood fury is a good archer, a guy with both is a Ranger.
So you would either have to work at it from the Alera side (Fury X + Fury Y = Class A) or from the pathfinder side (Class A means you're good with Fury X and Fury Y)
Picking your furies and having that decide the character would open up some interesting possibilities for classes but would be one hell of a headache for coming up with all the permutations (it would be what 2^6 so thats 64, divide that by 2 for the overlap and yous still have 32 different ways of combining 2 furies [numbers pulled out of the air so may well be wrong])
(As a side note I'd have said the metal crafters were more barbarian than anything else due to their abilities to ignore pain)
Given that most people play on the 5ft grids you'd need a combined bonus of 10, 20, 30 etc in order to fit nicely into that (how do you represent a movement of 32.5 ft?) so it would only be useful for very high levels and just more of a headache for actual combat.
LG = Batman/Indiana Jones
LN = James Bond
LE = Boba Fett / Magneto
NG = Zorro / Spiderman
N = Lara Croft
NE = Mystique from X-men
CG = Malcolm Reynolds / Robin hood
CN = Jack Sparrow / Snake Plissken
CE = Riddick (Pitch black)
I agree with those choices, and for Darth Vader, I would put him along LE, he's not the best example, but that would be my category of choice.
I'd say Indiana Jones was at best NG but more likely CG, he has no trouble making blackmarket deals for antiquities, stealing artifacts and shooting first and asking questions later.
There's the Spell Focus feat which increases the DC of a specified school by 1 and can be taken multiple times but I don't know of anything that give you a flat out increase to everything.
I thought they would but only after flipping backwards and forwards in the CRB and APG for 30 minutes reading and re-reading sections.
If it hasn't been noted already it could do with being cleared up in future editions
A number of evolutions grant the eidolon additional natural attacks. Natural attacks listed as primary are made using the eidolon's full base attack bonus and add the eidolon's Strength modifier on damage rolls. Natural attacks listed as secondary are made using the eidolon's base attack bonus – 5 and add 1/2 the eidolon's Strength modifier on damage rolls (if positive). If the eidolon only has a single natural attack, the attack is made using its full base attack bonus and it adds 1-1/2 times its Strength modifier on damage rolls made with that attack, regardless of the attack's type.
How are people interpreting this?
Is this a misprint/poor choice of words that should say full attack bonus instead of full base or does the Eidolon actually not add its Strength bonus to its BAB?
Possibly it's me being pedantic but the way I read "full base attack bonus" is "base attack bonus without any penalties" rather than "base attack bonus + strength modifier + size modifier" which would be "full attack bonus".
Without either the word full or base in there it would be clear but with both it's confusing.
The Hound Archon is not really capable of being an improvised weapon...
A better solution would be to just have the cleric align the barbarian's current weapon.
Looked it up, its not a feat its the rage power Body Bludgeon
Quote:
Body Bludgeon (Ex): While raging, if the barbarian pins an opponent that is smaller than her, she can then use that opponent as a two-handed improvised weapon that deals 1d8 points of bludgeoning damage, assuming the opponent is sized Small. Larger or smaller creatures used as a bludgeon deal damage based on their size using this base damage. A size Tiny creature deals 1d6 points of damage, a size Medium creature deals 1d10 points of damage, and so on. The barbarian can make a single attack using the pinned opponent as part of the action she uses to maintain the grapple, using her highest attack bonus. Whenever the barbarian hits using the pinned opponent as a weapon, she deals damage to her target normally, and the grappled opponent used as a bludgeon also takes the same damage she dealt to the target. If the pinned opponent is unable to resist being pinned for any reason, the barbarian can use that opponent as an improvised weapon without grappling or pinning the opponent, until the creature is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, at which point the creature becomes useless as an improvised weapon. A barbarian must be at least 10th level before selecting this rage power.
Alright the Barbarian would have to be enlarged inorder to pick up the Hound Archon so assuming that would it work?
(We are never going to actualy try this I'm just curious as to whether it would work or not) so
IF the Barbarian COULD pick up the Hound Archon (OR another Good aligned monster of different size) WOULD it bypass the DR on the demon?
Came across an amusing (if somewhat hypothetical) question the other night in our session.
While fighting a demon with DR 10/Good our cleric summoned in a Hound Archon (Lawful Good). Our Barbarian, irked somewhat at the reduced damage his sword was doing asked the question; if he had the feat that lets him pick up other creatures and use them as weapons (I forget which feat it is) would picking up the Hound Archon and hitting the demon with it bypass the DR?
I can't seem to find a way of removing a word from the construction (I accidentally added a third word when trying to add a target word)
Also there appears to be no obvious way of scrapping the word and starting again
Volcanic winter complete with periodic ash/dust storms lasting about 400 years ish, not cold enough to kill off all life on the planet or cause a full on ice age but definite reduction in temperatures, populations greatly reduced, humanoids reduced to small enclaves scratching out a living growing just enough to support themselves but definitely not the surplus of resources needed for expansion or even holding steady.
Scarcity of "traditional" prey leading to predators becoming less afraid of/desperate enough to attack humanoid travelers/settlements
I wasn't particularly striving for realism just wondering whether to make my wolves regular or supersized and whether large dragons would have died out through lack of food or vice versa (small dragons being too weak to survive)
In a post apocalypic world where game has gotten scarce would people expect predators to have gotten bigger (because only the strongest/most powerful will survive and they can prey on smaller members of their own race if neccessary) or smaller (because they can get by on less food)?
I see what you're saying, I just rather assumed that the spells per day limit wasn't just 'this is how many spells you can hold in your mind' but was also 'this is how many spells you have the magical energy to cast today' (Those interpretations are a little sloppy as if either was the case you would be able to sacrifice lower level spell slots to prepare and cast higher ones)
The section earlier on the page about spell casting states
Quote:
A wizard can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Wizard
I took this to mean "The wizard can cast three level 0 spells per day at level one and that's it" which the Cantrips entry then qualified with "these spells are so minor you can cast them again but you're still limited to the number of spells per day that the table says"
I'm more than happy to be proved wrong on this matter (who wouldn't want infinite spells of whatever level) but RAW can be interpretted either way and I'm not sure which one is RAI.
There seems to be a substantial number of people indicating that you can cast cantrips/orisons an infinite number of times a day, where exactly does it say this in the CRB (or any other book for that matter?)
The PRD says
Quote:
Cantrips: Wizards can prepare a number of cantrips, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on Table: Wizard under “Spells per Day.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again. A wizard can prepare a cantrip from a prohibited school, but it uses up two of his available slots (see below).
Personally I took this to read that the spell itself is not expended (ie wiped from his mind for the day) but the wizard is still limited by his spells per day, so if a level 1 wizard prepares Detect Magic, Prestigiditation and Acid Splash he can cast each spell once or any of them up to 3 times but after that he's out of level 0 slots.
Also if you look at any of the other wizard school, or sorcerer bloodline powers that give a ranged touch attack it's always 30 feet. Why would this one be different?
I would like to see some additional words get released. I wonder, are WoP open for 3rd party to develop? Heck, how would I even find that out!
That is going to be a tricky one for the publishers I would expect, certainly I think there are some fairly glaring omissions (they have the physical stat buffs but not the mental ones for example) but they will have to be very careful about what words they release, too many words and the system becomes overpowered as it can do everything regular casting can do but with the ability to combine spells, the wrong "type" of spells and they lose the effect that they're going for with wordcasting being a more primal less developed form of magic.
Personally I'd certainly like to see them release more and until then you could always come up with your own and persuade your GM to houserule them in.
Azten wrote:
Banjax wrote:
There are some spells that just cant be duplicated by words of power
I just can't see this as a con. If you wanted to cast fireball and magic missile, why pick words of power as your spellcasting?
That's not quite what I meant despite my choice of example (I play an Evoker Wizard normally so those are just the spells I'm most familiar with).But there are lots of functions that WoP just can't reproduce, utility spells like Knock, Purify Food and Drink, Create Water, all of the mental stat buffs, Make whole etc
Granted depending on your character choices you may not have chosen them anyway, a lot of them are more the wizard's bailiwick than the spontanious casters as they can learn them with a fair amount of impunity but those are options that you're giving up by choosing WoP over Vancian.
A boost selected wordspell is very powerful: one target per caster level, without a limit other than "no two of which can be more than 30 feet apart." No chance of allies being caught in an area.
Ice blast and life leech are both 4th-level effect words. A boost selected ice blast life leech would raise both effect words to 7th-level. Per Table 4-1: Effect Word Combinations, that's a 9th-level wordspell.
Oh yeah I see that I was just unsure whether the rest of the targetting words were supposed to follow the same template as Selected or not, you pointed out the typo where the boost text says effect word instead of target word I was wondering if that was the only typo (i.e is it just a cut and paste job that got missed in the proofreading and they should all say the same as selected?).
I assume this has been errata'd and somewhere there is an answer that says what this should be, are the errata answers stored somewhere or can you only find them by digging through the threads where people submit them?
edit: after searching for 30 minutes (seriously how hard is it to find those FAQs?) it seems that this has yet to be an FAQ candidate. So I shall defer to your interpretation and see about drafting myself a wordcaster sorcerer reserve character
You are mis-reading the burst target word description (granted, the typo of "this effect word" instead of "this target word" didn't help). Normally, a burst wordspell is close range, affects a 10 ft radius, and is minimum level 1; using boost on the burst target word, the spell is medium range, affects a 20 ft radius, and is minumum level 3; alternately, a boost burst wordspell can be long range, affect a 40 ft radius, and is minimum level 5. So both the burst fire blast and the boost burst fire blast wordspells are 3rd-level (burst minimum 1, fire blast minimum 3; boost burst minimum 3, fire blast minimum 3)....
If that's definitely the case then that's great but are you certain?
If you look at the second example on page 165 the Selected Ice Blast Life Leech it starts off as a level 6 spell but says
"Ultimate Magic wrote:
A sorcerer or wizard can boost the target word to make this spell affect multiple targets but doing so increases the spell's overall level to 9
The Selected targetting word does have a different wording to its boost effect in that it says "This boosted target word increases the level of all the effect words in the spell by 3 levels" compared to the "boosting this effect word increases its level by X" which all the others have, I just would have expected boost to affect all the targetting words in the same way.
I suppose Selected might have its own rules due to the fact that there are a significant number of effects which you just cant use with words like burst, cone or barrier so being able to extend them out to multiple targets is a huge boost to them which would come with a corresponding level increase but you could argue that doubling the radius of the burst spell ought to come at the same cost as you can use that to hit more targets.
It doesn't matter if he knows 1/4 of all available words when the total number of words themselves are so amazingly limited in the scope of their effects.
Oh I don't disagree, a WoP caster is never going to have the utility available to a regular caster amd it suits the blaster type more than others the versatility people keep talking about with regards to WoP isnt the same as the wizard' "i've got a spell for every situation" but more "I can't use a fire spell so i'll use ice instead" and being able to combine effects, you need to take an enemy out of action so you combine a fear effect with a damage effect or the barbarian is charging in to hand to hand combat against a dragon so you give him an AC boost and a Str boost in one spell
I had a similar post a while back. I was pointed to a great pod cast that discussed all of your questions. My take away was Words of power not better than normal casting just different and in many cases more versatile.
Believe the pod cast was called the gamers guide to pathfinder.
If you are interested you can find more episodes on other subjects at www.35privatesanctuary.com where we are one of several great podcasts on their gaming shelf. You could also subscribe through iTunes or if you would like I can post a direct feed.
Sean Mahoney
Some interesting points there (love the Lock Ward trick :p )
It's something I might take a look at if I had a specific character idea in mind for a spontanious caster (magus aside I wouldn't touch this system with a 10ft pole if I play another prepared caster) although I think you do run the risk of falling into the "I want to be a swiss army knife character" trap only to realise that it doesn't really have anything much in the way of utility spells, most of the words there are are fairly combat oriented.
Kthulhu makes a point about the limited number of words that a spontanious caster would be able to learn, I'm not entirely convinced it's as bad as he says, in terms of the words of power system a level 20th Sorcerer will know approximately 1/4 of all available words of power up of levels 0-6 and approximately half of 7-9, which is a larger proportion of effects available to them than with regular casting (although the pool of possible effects is smaller which reduces the versatility somewhat) and if you play in a campaign where you will never reach level 20 (PFS, E6, E12 etc) then you may feel that you just don't get enough variation to actually be able to combine them well.
Anybody who has actually used this system in a live game care to chime in with how versatile it actually is in practice? Do you feel limited by the number of available words at lower levels?
I purchased season of Ghosts four volumes for Foundry VTT yesterday. I created a new world, and installed the monster tokens first. The season of ghosts modules are purple and mousing over them gives a message.
"Cannot be enabled due to issues in required dependencies"
Now other modules with dependencies, I can click on them and get a list of what I need, but season of ghosts doesn't offer that. I have the blood lords modules, and it looks like those are dependent on a 'Basis pack' that doesn't exist for season of ghosts.
I'm really bored of taking the same 5 or 6 general feats on each character, so I designed some new ones to diversify. I think these are balanced against the power of Fleet, Shield block, and toughness, but I'd appreciate some feedback.
Alchemist’s Friend level 1
You gain resistance to splash damage from your allies equal to one-half your level, with a minimum of one.
Better Backstabber level 15
When you hit a flat-footed creature with a Backstab weapon or unarmed attack, it deals one precision damage per damage die in addition to its normal damage instead of the normal backstab benefits. You may choose to use the standard backstab benefits instead if you wish.
Better Brace Level 15
When you ready to strike an opponent who moves within your reach, until the start of your next turn strikes with the brace weapon deal an additional 1 damage of the same type as the weapon for each weapon damage die it has. This is in addition to Brace’s regular damage but is not precision.
Dangerously Deadly level 19
When you would add a deadly weapon damage die, add one additional die of the same type.
Day Tripper level 1
You have a +2 circumstance bonus on fortitude saves to avoid addiction.
Expert Study Level 3
You gain a 1st level feat from your class that you qualify for.
Note: You may not take this feat if you have the human feat Natural Ambition, nor may you take this feat and later take Natural Ambition
Expert Training level 7
Advance one of your skills from trained to expert
Fatal and Deadly level 19
When attacking with a fatal weapon or unarmed attack, it gains the deadly d6 trait, in addition to its other traits.
Flash Grip Level 11 Free Action
Requirement: You are holding a combination or modular weapon.
Frequency: Every ten minutes
Change your grip on the weapon from one mode to another.
Great Backswing level 3
In addition to Backswing’s regular bonus, after missing twice in a row with a Backswing weapon or unarmed attack, you gain a +2 Circumstance bonus on your next attack. After missing thrice in a row with a Backswing weapon or unarmed attack, you gain a +3 Circumstance bonus on your next attack.
Great Force level 19
When using a Forceful weapon or unarmed attack, your third attack each turn with the weapon gains a circumstance bonus to damage equal to thrice the number of damage dice, and your fourth attack each turn with the weapon gains a circumstance bonus to damage equal to four times the number of damage dice.
Great Resonance level 19
When you use the conduct energy action granted by a Resonant weapon, the energy lasts until the end of your next turn.
Hidden Lethality level 1
When using a weapon or unarmed attack that has the nonlethal trait, you may make a lethal attack with a -1 circumstance penalty. If you are an expert in that weapon or unarmed attack, you may make a lethal attack with it with no penalty.
Legendary Training level 19
Prerequisite: master Training
Advance one of your skills from trained to expert, from expert to master, or from master to legendary.
Master Study level 11
Prerequisite: Focused Study or Natural Ambition
You gain a 2nd-level feat from your class that you qualify for.
Master Training level 11
Prerequisite: Expert Training
Advance one of your skills from trained to expert or from expert to master.
Small Bite level 1
Frequency: once a day
The first time each day you bite down on a Lozenge, you may choose to gain the secondary effect without ending the primary effect.
Swift Capacity level 11 Free Action
Frequency: Every ten minutes
Requirement: You just fired a capacity weapon.
Switch to the next chamber or barrel of the weapon.
Swift Grip Level 7 Free Action
Frequency: Every ten minutes
Change your grip on an item from one-handed to two-handed, or two-handed to one-handed, or from one hand to another free hand.
Triple Sweep Level 7
When using a sweep weapon or unarmed attack, if you have attacked two different targets this turn with the weapon already, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your attack roll if you attack a target you have not attacked yet this turn. If you have attacked three different targets this turn with the weapon already, you gain a +3 circumstance bonus to your attack roll if you attack a target you have not attacked yet this turn.
Wand Wielder level 15
Frequency: Once a day
You may activate a single wand one additional time each day.
Saw this on Reddit and it was an instant buy for me. A PF2e Video game? Finally! It’s clearly worth the $5 price tag, but I’m torn between “leaves you wanting more” and “maybe classes should have more than a single 2nd level feat?” I thought it had good encounter design, but terrible writing. I’d have played more if Champion was an available class.
I have searched and searched and found no answer to if I must make online non-scenarios open to the public?
Hi, I have both a regular PFS game I play in, and an online group I've been meeting regularly with for three years. Due to my Voice Disability, I haven't felt comfortable GMing since High School, but my online group has raised my confidence. I'm going to try GMing the Beginner Box for them, using Foundry VTT. I would like to get PFS credit. Some of them are coming to Gencon, so I'd encourage them to carry a character into those PFS games.
Reading the official material and Doug Hahn's guides, they hint that scenarios must be open to the public, but give little guidance on how that works online. It's also unclear if that extends to the weird space the beginner box is in. It seems a proper adventure could be private. (If this goes well, I'll run Kingmaker)
Question: Can I run the Beginner Box for credit privately?
Question: Which venture-captain or other person should I speak to?
Suggestion: The Official guides should clarify which of Bounties, quests, scenarios, beginner box, or adventures must be public.
Suggestion: The Official guides should clarify what makes an online session "Public." We have rules lawyers in this community. I know I could charge for a public session, or at least, I've seen people do that. Is it public if I would accept anyone, but only tell my friends where to find the game?
Request: If Doug Hahn could add the above information to his amazing Guides, that would be sweet as well. Or maybe I've overlooked something.
I'm getting ready to run a Kingmaker game in Xen'drik, and I want to stump my players and encourage them to recall knowledge. They're experts about previous editions, but they haven't realized the value of recall knowledge yet. The Ceratioidi are a perfect monster to make them go "What the F%#$ was that?" and I can absolutely point to it as something Paizo published out of China Miéville's mind. (The Scar is one of my favorite books) But I can't find any conversions to PF2.
Here's the 1e entry, but there's much more info in Pathfinder #32: https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Ceratioidi
I'm thinking they'll be a special advisor to troll lord Hargulka. Thus, I'm targeting a level of 5 with minions at 3 or 6 with minions at level 1. They'd have a rivally with the newly arrived Tartuk, but the PCs will have to kill the Ceratioidi anyway. So I'm thinking maybe it has four actions? Permanent haste to stride or strike? It could have a strong attack, and water spells that force saves? But what weakness (small w, not just bonus damage) would balance that? It seems like the 1e version has low AC? I worry my players would one-turn kill it, say "That was weird," and move on.
Another issue is communication. The developers of PF2 talk about eliminating "hidden" abilities, and the tiny male half is very much hidden. I'm thinking it wiggles when it casts spells, which will absolutely be a joke when they figure out what the thing on the back of her neck is.
Some 3rd level spells for them to cast would be Sea of Thought, crashing wave, and Aqueous Orb.
2nd level: Enlarge, Sea Surge, Teeth to Terror
1st level: Aqueous Blast (I've removed the twins), Briny Bolt, Exchange Image, Grease, Kinetic Ram, Personal rain cloud (pre-cast on self, special version with salt water), Heal,
Cantrips: Daze, spout, Shield
The 1e dual mind ability is completely "Hidden," unless the players try mind-reading, which is now uncommon. "allowing it to fight with two weapons simultaneously without any penalties. It can also select two favored classes." None of this means anything now. I think I'm going to make Dual Mind be it has two turns with shared MAP, and two actions each.
The lure ability is also troublesome, as it's iconic, but also an action cost and probably incapacitation. I'm thinking it replicates a spell. The Spell could be Sleep (3rd level, once), Calm Emotions(3rd level, once) or Hideous Laughter (2nd level, reflavored, any number of times)
The Primitive Amphibian ability is mostly flavor, and I'm going to cover it with the Ceratioidi having a homebrew staff with Spout, Aqueous Blast, Personal (salty) rain cloud, Briny Bolt, and Sea Surge, and has a +1 rune. While wielding it, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to checks to Swim or navigate underwater. This is planned as a major piece of adventuring loot. It'll also have a spellbook as a wizard, despite being a priest. That's within the norm for Eberron. Everyone does magic a little differently.
On to Stats:
Ability scores for both 5th and 6th level creatures are High: +5, Moderate: +4, and Low: +2. I think giving low Dex and Cha, Moderate Con and Wis and High Strength and Intelligence is balanced, so
Str: +5, Dex +2, Con +4, Int +5, Wis +4, Cha +2
Perception: Original creature had high perception, But, it rolls twice with two actions each, so I'm going to say the Female has Moderate of +12 or +14, and the Male has terrible of +7 or +8.
Senses: I'm keeping Darkvision for ocean depths, but I don't think it'll matter much.
Skills: Athletics high: +13/+15, Priest of the Devourer, so Religion high +12/+14, They have moderate Arcana and Occult +12/+13. Moderate Intimidation +12/+13, and low deception +10/+11for this specific one.
AC is difficult, but as a spellcaster, I'm going with 20/22, halfway between low and moderate.
For Saves, the 1e version had Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +6. I've lowered dex, so I'm going with Fort Moderate +12/+14, Reflex Low +9/+11, and Will High +15/+17.
Moderate HP is 78/99 to 72/91
Immune to mental spells and effects. Resist mental damage 8. Weakness Freshwater 4/5 (all the Ceratioidi's spells are saltwater, so this is for very lucky mages or Thaumaturges)
Speed 25ft, Swim 25ft.
Strikes...Ummm...Attack Bonus (halfway between high and moderate) +14/+16 for Staff melee strikes, dealing Moderate 2d6+6/2d6+8, and dart throw, low +11/+12, for low 2d4+6/2d4+8.
The Male will have high Spell attack +14/+16 and High DC 22/24
As a Priest-Wizard, the male will be a prepared caster.
The 5th level version will have 2 3rd, 3 2nd, and 3 1st, While the 6th level version will have 3 of each level. Both have 5 cantrips.
Prepared spells: 3rd: Sea of Thought, crashing wave, and 6th level version also has heal.
2nd: Enlarge, Sea Surge, Teeth to Terror
1st: Grease, Kinetic Ram, Personal rain cloud (pre-cast on self, special version with salt water)
Cantrips: Daze, spout, Shield
Abilities: Dual Mind: The Certioidi takes two turns each round, with two actions each. The second turn has the MAP of the first. One turn is Female and cannot cast spells. The other turn is Male, and can cast spells, but can not use actions that require limbs. The Female and Male are telepathically linked.
Parry: The Female can use an action to hold its staff defensively, gaining a +1 circumstance bonus to AC until the start of her next turn (not the male's turn)
Traits: Humanoid? Aquatic, TN, Medium, Tiny? ceratioidi
I’ve been thinking about how to make the Swashbuckler deliver on its class theme, and concluded I want a more flexible swashbuckler. The feats below allow and encourage swashbucklers who can use two styles. I also give Swashbuckler automatic increases in acrobatics at level 2, 7, and 15. I do worry that this makes the optimal swashbuckler Wit into Gymnast (maybe hobgoblin with braggard/gymnast), but I’m fine with that. Such a Swashbuckler could target Fort (shove/grapple), ref(trip/tumble), or will (bon mot/demoralize), which brings them closer to a spellcaster in flexibility.
I also added some clown feats for a humorous swashbuckler, and to address a problem with improvised weapons. I’d like to add more clown feats, but many of the possibilities are not worth a feat.
Advanced Swashbucklering Level 1
You gain access to the Aldori dueling Sword, Butterfly Sword, Chain Sword, Fen Huo Lun, Karabit, and Spiral Rapier. For the purpose of determining your proficiency, these weapons are martial weapons.
Clown Level 1
Prerequisite: Trained in Performance
You pretend to not even be fighting foes while you have panache. As long as you have panache, the damage die for your fist increases to 1d6, and you may choose to make lethal or nonlethal strikes with your fist without taking a -2 penalty. Also, you do not take the normal -2 penalty for improvised weapon attacks, and improvised or unarmed attacks made while you have panache always apply your precise strike damage.
MultiStyled level 2
Prerequisite: Trained in appropriate skill: performance for battledancer, Intimidation for Braggart, deception for Fencer, Athletics for Gymnast, Diplomacy for Wit.
Choose another swashbuckler style. You can gain panache and take other swashbuckler feats in that style. You do not automatically gain the exemplary finisher or any other feature of that style. (If your new style would grant a skill feat, you do not gain it automatically.)
Style Expert level 2
Prerequisite: trained in your style’s skill
Choose one style skill you are trained in, increase that proficiency to Expert and chose a skill feat associated with that skill or acrobatics. You gain that feat.
Clown Pocket level 4 [one action]
[Flourish]
Prerequisite: Clown
As a clown, you have pockets in strange places. You can spend ten minutes to hide an item of light or no bulk behind your ear. While you have panache, you may use a free hand to draw a potion or elixir from behind your ear and drink it as a single action, or you may draw and throw a bomb from behind your ear as a single action. Despite the number of ears you may have, only one item may be hidden in such a way at a time.
Style Master level 8
Prerequisite: Expert in your style’s skill
Choose one style skill you are an expert in, increase that style skill proficiency to Master and chose a skill feat associated with that skill or acrobatics. You gain that feat.
Exemplary Multistyled level 10
Prerequisite: Multistyled
Choose a style you took with multistyled. You gain that style’s exemplary finisher. You may choose either, but not both, exemplary finishers to use when a strike you make as part of a finisher hits a foe.
Style Legend level 16
Prerequisite: master in your style’s skill
Choose one style skill you are a master in, increase that style skill proficiency to Legendary and chose a skill feat associated with that skill or acrobatics. You gain that feat.
Multi-Exemplary Finishers level 18
Prerequisite: Exemplary Multistyled
When a strike you make as part of a finisher hits a foe, you may apply two exemplary finishers to the foe.
(This is tongue-in-cheek, statements exaggerated for comedic effect)
TL,DR: What Healer type fits this LE-ish party and Dark Sun’s lack of Gods? How can I find ways to enjoy Dark Sun when I don’t enjoy super-dark settings?
My GM and online party I’ve gamed since June 2020, with has Started GateWalkers in Dark Sun. We have a weird Shedule. The main GM works on a Cruise Ship with a 4-month on board with weak internet, 2-month off in Brazil or Florida. Our group formed while the Cruise industry was suspended for the Pandemic. He usually runs a Very strongly story-based Eberron 5e game. While he’s on the cruise, other players take turns running different games. Two weeks ago, we started GateWalkers, moved into the Dark Sun setting.
I am not a fan of Dark Sun. It seems to be trying to out-edge WH40k, which is another setting I dislike. Slavery is common, life is short, no clerics, magic drains the world of life, and most importantly, all the different ancestries hate each other with good reason. Also, I purchased a box set PDF for the 2e setting, and it was clear that everything important was done by NPCs in the book series. PCs should be the Heroes of an RPG setting. I expressed my hesitation to the GM, who assured me I could be a shining light in the darkness. Thinking of the desert setting, I suggested a gunslinger, while the other players asked about Psychic, Magus, and rogue. Seeing as there was no healer, no divine magic, and no guns, I was talked into moving my concept to a chirurgeon alchemist. This was my first mistake.
My second mistake was being Chaotic good, a shining Beacon of light. I build a CG Elf Alchemist, taking ancient elf into wizard. Her backstory involves falling for a Human and having a half-elf child. Her tribe banished her for such an act, and now that both are dead, she’s out to join them in a way that strikes back at the ones who make the world so harsh. Her missing moment was with her family and a glimpse of a better world. Wraith deviant ability
My party members:
Strat, a Tiefling Human magus, Targe. LN, bordering on LE. Loves gladiator combat. No deviant ability. Intelligence caster. Defiler, which means his magic withers plants and curses the land nigh-permanently.
Tik-Tak’Cha, a Thri-kreen (Kashrishi)) psychic, TN. Very inhuman. Refuses to wear armor. No Deviant ability. Intelligence caster.
Skreeh, a ratfolk (Ysoki) Rogue, NE. Filth-lover. No deviant ability. Spec’d for Intelligence.
There’s some problems here, right? I’m sticking with CG, but I change my deviant background to the new Runner background in Firebrands, which fits elves of dark sun. We have two 18 Intelligences, two 14’s, and little or no Wisdom or Charisma. Should be fun! Because Dark Sun only has a few languages, and we are so focused in intelligence, the GM lets us take extra lores instead of languages.
Session one, we are escorting a caravan to Nibel or something. We’ve known each other for a few weeks now in-game. Caravan is attacked by elves, who avoid attacking me, but refuse to talk. We kill them easily. I mix it up with bombs, arrows, and my corset knife. The Rogue and Magus flank, and the Psychic provides ranged artillery. Easy fight.
Outside the city, we met the guy who is working on investigating the gates, a big dwarf with a gem in his forehead and psychic powers. He wants us to use a big party to slip through another gate in the city center. Now, we need to get inside the city. A city which has banned elves, despite having an elf market deep within it. I suggest Star Trek IV’ing my ears, but that won’t work because none of us is trained in disguise. We spend half an hour discussing it. Strat will distract the guards with a conversation on gladiator lore, and I will cling to the underbelly of the cart. We get in.
Session two is two weeks later, since we are switching between LANCER and Dark Sun. We find lodgings in the city, as they are crap, we keep watch during the night. During my watch, I steal a fruit. On the next day we investigate the city. The Rogue makes contact with another ratfolk, who doesn’t trust him because he’s too clean. The psychic looks at two temples of psychic power. The Magus scouts gladiator combat. I fail. We take a look at the gate, which is right next to the slave market. We decide to stealthily rush the gate during the parade.
Night of the parade goes very well, until the parade is attacked by Raptors from the Black. I crit my recall knowledge, so I learn they are a mishmash of 2e and 4e and PF2 rules. They have teleport 120 feet and AoOs, and weakness to cold iron. The Raptors are attacking the parade members (mostly slave!), but are just out of ray of frost range, and the rest of the party doesn’t want to engage, so we run on in.
Passing through the gate, we see an eye of a strange creature, which “chooses” to send us to a hilltop a day’s march from the city. Remember the Lores instead of languages rule? The Magus took Lore (far ones) or (GOO’s) or something. He rolls a natural 19 on his check and he knows the name of the eye we saw. The GM says this could change the course of the adventure and that’s where we stop.
Can you apply a merciful balm to a bomb?
If it causes splash or persistent damage, is that nonlethal?
If the persistent damage is nonlethal, and I hit someone in the last round of the hour, is it still nonlethal next round?
If it's an alchemist fire and it sets a house on fire, is the fire nonlethal?
Thaumaturge: "You don't gain the benefit of implement's empowerment if you are holding anything in either hand other than a single one-handed weapon, other implements, or esoterica, and you must be holding at least one implement to gain the benefit."
1)Do you "hold" a Gantlet?
2)If a Thaumaturge wears heavy armor, does he have to remove the gantlets?
Even more complicated, the bow gantlet from TV has parry.
3) I assume you can't use the parry trait while the gantlet is holding something, but I can't find that written as a rule
However, the Thaumaturge can stow or retrieve his implement as a free action, so
4) Thaumaturge is holding an implement in the same hand as the bow gantlet. He stows the implement. Then, he parries. Then, he retrieves his implement. Does he still benefit from the parry?
Booster Gold and the Authority are near the top of my list. I'm very curious who is going to be on the authority team. Supergirl is another fantastic choice. I'm excited for Waller and creature commandos, too.
So I'm playing a thaumaturge in PFS and we are fighting a group of foxes. The foxes have no weaknesses, so when I succeed on exploit vulnerablity, I pick a weakness that applies to one fox and just that fox, right?
I'm on the spot, so I say this fox is weak to rabbits. I pull a rabbit out of my bag (hat) and I beat the fox to death with the rabbit and my hatchet.
The whole table is in stitches, laughing about this. I decide the next one will be more serious. Next turn, I have another fox, so I roll exploit vulnerablity. This time it's weak to a piece of a henhouse, which no fox ever entered. The table laughs again.
Is this the proper way to play a serious member of the dark archive? What serious weakness would a fox have? Im not complaining, I'm curious what other thaumaturges would have done. Playing comedy characters is pretty common for me, and I'm glad to have the opportunity, but I don't believe this is how Paizo intended the class to be played.
Wayselm Davrell (Description on page 71, image on page75) is a N female tiefling half-orc bounty hunter 2. She is one sexy lady and she's got a lovely singing voice. I want to play her. How do you get to be both a tiefling and a half-orc?
Just saw that Batgirl cast a trans woman as a trans character, and now I'm super hyped about this movie. Also, Brendan Fraser has been knocking it out of the park on Doom Patrol, so I'm excited to see him in a darker role as well.
So I'm playing as a Paladin/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple in Kingmaker, and I worried about falling out of Lawful Good. (spoilers unmarked below)
The first thing that really started to pull me away from lawful good was being anti-slavery. If you say slavery should be abolished, you're Chaotic? I didn't think that was how this worked! Even Abadar is anti-slavery, and he's LN. I'm astonished that my paladin can't be strongly anti-slavery.
The second thing that's been pushing me are the kingdom decisions. Often, there will be a NG choice and a LN choice and some other choices, but no LG choice. No matter what I pick, I'm losing ground on my LG alignment. Like most paladins I've met playing versions of D&D, my character prefers Good over Law when asked to choose. The result? I'm pushed more and more chaotic, without ever picking a chaotic choice.
The third thing that bothers me is a lot of the LG options are dumb or contrary to my goddess. The game allows me to make a LG paladin of the NG goddess Sarenrae, but not to play as one. Sarenrae is all about redemption, but the LG option is often to attack without talking to my enemies. Would it not be lawful to follow the rules of my goddess? Or LG to give all creatures equal standing under the law, and not blindly attack goblins?
My main questions are How worried should I be about falling? And is it the same in Wrath of the Righteous? I was planning on playing a paladin there, too, but if it's like this, I might pass.
Magic weapon is a first level spell that makes a weapon +1 striking. This lets players have a weapon 3 levels before they could normally buy it or enhance a backup weapon. I like the gameplay of a caster enchancing a main weapon for boss fights, so I want to allow heighting magic weapon to get access to higher levels of basic magic runes. I'm thinking:
The weapon glimmers with magic and energy. The target becomes a +1 striking weapon, gaining a +1 item bonus to attack rolls and increasing the number of weapon damage dice to two.
Heightened (6th): The target becomes a +2 greater striking weapon instead, gaining a +2 item bonus to attack rolls and and increasing the number of weapon damage dice to three.
Heightened (10th) The target becomes a +3 Major striking weapon instead, gaining a +3 item bonus to attack rolls and and increasing the number of weapon damage dice to four.
This makes resistances to weapon types and materials less effective against a well-prepared party, but I'm ok with that.
I'm building a spellblending wizard with the witch archtype. I'm trying to decide some things. I want to have a diversity of spells, so I'm looking at taking a patron with the occult, divine or primal spell list. Which is best? I certainly want some magical healing-is Soothe sufficient? Is occult still best even if my DCs and attacks are low? Should I be doubling up on the power of the arcane list instead?
Also, I was looking at playing an ancient elf or a sprite. As an ancient elf, I could take Enhanced Familiar at 2nd level. Is that a big power boost, or should I just forget about my familiar and focus on spells? Is there a better second level feat?
Tumble Through says "You can Tumble Through using Climb, Fly, Swim, or another action instead of Stride in the appropriate environment." I'm trying to climb five feet, then tumble through an enemy standing at the edge of this ledge. My DM ruled I need a climb speed to do this. They say climbing with without a climb speed isn't striding and therefore can't be combined with using tumble through. Is this correct?
