Brenden Falke's page

In a Song Of Silver (Hells Rebels 4), the Bleakbridge was officially renamed to the Silver Span. I see that in the players guide it is once again called the Bleakbridge? Did the heroes that liberated the city fall out of favour? Why would they reverse the name change?

Congratulations! What were some highlights?

Hm that's a hard question to ask about a 4 year campaign. There have of course been a great many little moments that were cool or touching. I made (some of) my players cry twice, once out of sadness, once out of happiness.

Every player has had a personal story woven through the AP which was very cool for them to go through.

I would say the one thing I might highlight was a relationship the group built up with a tiefling crime lord in the Devil's Nursery called Rator. I improvised this NPC early on in the game during the Murders In The Devils Nursery mission, when the players asked to go into a bar I had just made up asking for witnesses. I played the crime lord as a terse man who was a bit rude, since he really didn't have anything for my players.

However, especially one of the players for some reason took a liking to him, so this randomly improvised NPC became their go-to whenever they needed rumours about the kintargo underworld, or when they had stuff they needed to fence. So much so they as a group got a bit too comfortable in my opinion building a productive relationship with this crime lord.

So I wanted that relationship to backfire a bit. If you empower a crime lord, he's gonna have his own plans. He's not a nice guy, even if you act like he's your best friend. This all came to a head when his own plans were unveiled at the end of book 5. He'd been using all the things the players had provided him with (and even some favours they did for him) for his own dastardly plans, and the players were confronted with the fact they had been unwittingly helping this crime lord. They ended up fighting their way through his hideout and killing him.

It was our first in-person session after the pandemic, so I'd drawn an elaborate map in the old DnD style: https://imgur.com/a/vkbn8yf

After 67 sessions (most of them 5-7hrs) my players reached the Apex of Bone and defeated Barzillai. I'd built the apex of bone from foam and some electronics to create the hellfire columns, so it looked pretty good!

Some photos of the final fight: https://imgur.com/a/j5ooPAY

The heroes were:

- Zero the Hero, human reach cleric of cayden cailean (and champion of Thais)
- Dolores Fistweaver, human unchained monk with the drunken master archetype
- Ialon Holatris, elf conjuration wizard
- Majet Trig, gnome mastermind investigator (this character left after the end of book 4)

They were a very powerful group that worked together well, their only weakness was swarms.

Most of the AP I could run relatively unchanged (though usually adding details), with major changes being mostly driven by player choices. I added a completely re-written No Response From Deepmar module just before book 3. I also added an election after book 4 (which Zero won), for which I had to develop election mechanics I'm very happy with. So Kintargo has a different mayor than the books assume now.

The heroes have now been asked by Thais (the herald of cayden cailean) to recover her 6th wing from Hell, for when we want to play to level 20.

I've occasionally asked advice on this forum which definitely helped, as well as reading older posts when I needed inspiration or ideas, so thanks!

Am I missing something? Bejakra's description says she "has also mastered the art of crafting portable traps that she can set up swiftly" and that they are detailed below but I cannot find any details on these traps.

In the campaign setting book from 2008 it is described as originating in Abaddon:

> ...the waste of Abaddon stands as the source of the river Styx and is the native plane of the daemons

In Book of the Damned hell chapters it is described as originating in Avernus:

> The River Styx: The river of forgetfulness is born from Avernus and wends its way through several layers of Hell

and

> ...the ocean-sized marsh of Eridanos. Mingling with the souls of the damned, the refuse of the Maelstrom, and the eroded sediments of Hell, this noxious mixture forms the headwaters of the infamous River Styx

Except in the Book of the Damned, abaddon chapters it once again starts in abaddon:

> The so-called “River of Forgetfulness” is born in Abaddon at the Drowning Court, wends its way through several layers of Hell and numerous layers of the Abyss

Planar Adventures also places the source in Abaddon:

> Abaddon is a bleak realm—the source of the legendary River Styx

In the great beyond, guide to the multiverse we find this:

> The Drowning Court: At a juncture of eight branches of the River Styx, Charon, the Horseman of Death, rules over the floating, moving realm of the Drowning Court. [...] Lesser satellite islands routinely break away from the Court and f low downstream along the Styx’s tributaries toward the Abyss, Hell, the Maelstrom, Axis, or other portions of Abaddon

If all rivers from the drowning court are downstream, it must be the source. Except that lost omens gods and magic tells us:

> At the end of the River Styx await the rulers of Abaddon: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and their daemonic brood [...] at the end of the Styx within his sunken palace, the Drowning Court

Which implies the drowning court is the end of the river? Except the same book also says

> Abaddon A vast wasteland plane that is the source of the river Styx

So what is the actual source of the river Styx? The source books are all over the place :|

I'm writing this based on a reddit thread I saw where this issue is discussed and I'm hoping that perhaps we can get a paizo response on this matter.

The issue regards the Bottomless Pit hazard, which is a level 9 hazard. The effect of this hazard is described as follows (emphasis mine):

The triggering creature falls in and continues to fall, potentially forever. That creature can try to Grab an Edge to avoid falling (page 472). The DC to Climb the walls or Grab an Edge is 26.

The pit contains many handholds, so the falling creature can try to Grab an Edge again every 6 seconds. If the creature succeeds, it can start to Climb out from that point (though it might be a very long climb, depending on how far the creature fell). Since the creature falls endlessly, it can rest and even prepare spells while falling, though items dropped while falling are usually lost forever.

Reading this hazard seems pretty straightforward. If you fall into the bottomless pit, you have a chance every 6 seconds to grab one of its many handholds to stop your fall and start your long climb back to the top.

However, the falling rules say

When you fall more than 5 feet, you take bludgeoning damage equal to half the distance you fell when you land. Treat falls longer than 1,500 feet as though they were 1,500 feet (750 damage). If you take any damage from a fall, you land prone. You fall about 500 feet in the first round of falling and about 1,500 feet each round thereafter.

and the Grab An Edge rules say

Critical Success [...] You still take damage from the distance fallen so far, but you treat the fall as though it were 30 feet shorter.

Success [...] You still take damage from the distance fallen so far, but you treat the fall as though it were 20 feet shorter. [...]
Critical Failure [...] you take 10 bludgeoning damage from the impact for every 20 feet fallen.

So in reality, how this Bottomless Pit hazard resolves is as follows:

A player fails the saving throw to avoid falling into the Bottomless Pit and starts falling into the infinite pit. 6 seconds (1 round) later, they can attempt to Grab An Edge. In that time they will have fallen 500 feet. Depending on the outcome of their roll, they will take at most 250 and at least 235 points of damage. This is sufficient to kill most characters outright. Additionally, if they fail or neglect to Grab An Edge the first time, they get another attempt 6 seconds (another round) later. At this point they'll have fallen 2000 feet. Grabbing an Edge will now deal between 750 and 735 points of damage. This will almost certainly kill every character.

Is this the intention of the design of this hazard?

bottomless pit: https://2e.aonprd.com/Hazards.aspx?ID=11
grab an edge: https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=95
falling rules: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=402
Reddit thread in question

Q: The are precise, imprecise and vague senses. I've seen senses marked as precise and as imprecise, but never as vague. What are vague senses?

Q: If a sense doesn't mention if it is precise/imprecise (like lifesense), which is it?

I'm just gonna turn the area between D8 and D10 into an airlock with double doors. That makes the system work (broadly speaking).

"Alexa, ask Stat Finder for the range of magic missile"

Hey all! Some of you might remember my thread looking for beta testers for my Amazon Alexa skill. Between here and reddit I got almost 150 beta testers, and with their help I've been able to refine the skills and release them to the public!

Based on beta feedback I have released two skills for US and UK configured devices:

Stat Finder for Pathfinder (previously called 'Irori')

Stat finder allows you to quickly get a stat of almost any spell, item or monster in Pathfinder.

Spell Finder for Pathfinder

Works exactly the same as Stat Finder, but is limited to spells only, which means its object recognition may be slightly more accurate in certain cases.

These skills are free, do not require logins or accounts, and all the software running it is publicly available on Github! If you want to help improve these skills I encourage you to start tinkering with!

I'd like to thank all the beta testers that helped me improve these skills and hope you find them useful!

"Alexa, ask Irori for the range of magic missile"

I have created an Alexa skill for Pathfinder. This skill is backed by a database containing all stats of all (well, most) items, spells and monsters in Pathfinder, and allows you to find out what the value of a stat is of a particular object.

"Alexa, ask Irori for the hit points of a goblin", "Alexa, ask Irori for the target of Chain Lightning" or "Alexa, ask Irori for the description of a Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents", etc. I have a little demonstration video as well!

It works fairly well, but there are still issues with object and stat recognition. As such, the skill is not certified yet, since it needs to be beta tested first, and that is where I need you help! If you have an Alexa device and want to help out, shoot me a message with your email address here or at irori@mindsoup.net.

If you're interested in helping out with development, check out the project on GitHub!

Basically as the title says. If someone is compelled/forced to sign an infernal contract, or agree to modifications of an existing infernal contract, is that contract or the modifications valid?