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I might be missing something obvious, but I cannot find any reference to what I am allowed to do while brewing my alchemist mutagen.

I get that it takes an hour to brew, and that I can technically make a new one whenever I have consumed the old, but that brewing a replacement mutagen takes 1 hour. However, what exactly does 'brew a mutagen' mean? -Is it mixing some reagents and allowing the 'potion' to rest, meaning I can do other stuff meanwhile (such as preparing extracts/spells, or being the party look-out while everyoe else sleeps)?
-Does it require constant attendence, because magic? Meaning I can't do anything else?
-Does it require occasional attendence, such as stirring it once in a while, or adding new ingredients? Meaning I could be party look-out, or cook the dinner/raise a tent/whatever, but not preparing spells or other stuff requiring full concentration?
-Does it require an alchemist lab, even a portable one?
-Does it require any alchemical stuff, such as boiling over my bonfire (meaning I can't prepare if without lighting a fire), or any of the options outline for alchemical recipes?
-Does it even require ingredients? Can I brew it if I have lost my ingredient pouch?

Thanks for answering.

So, the situation is this; I am going to build an encounter, in which the players will face a Cyclops Druid. But here's the catch: The players will most likely never engage the druid in melee, and not even shoot directly at her. They'll only face her spellcasting, and therefore it doesn't matter at all what race she is.

Can I, in this situation, ignore her race for CR-purposes, and just treat her as any HD 0-creature when calculating CR and XP? It's important for the storyline that she's a cyclops, so the easy solution, to have her be an elf or whatever, doesn't apply here.

I'm currently running Tempest Rising, and my players are in the middle of the Regatta. I feel that the end as written in the AP is pretty lame, and in fact very much an anti-climax. So I've prepared the following end instead. Comments, ideas and criticism is very welcome. I'll post more when I've tested the race on my players.

I'm running the encounters as outlined, but changing the final leg to the following;

Start.
I'll set up the PC's and the Wormwood so the PC's have 20 encounters to the goalline. The Wormwood will start at a distance of 10+PC's race score (If the PC's have a race score of 17, the PC's will still have 20 encounters to go, but the Wormwood will have 27. If the PC's have done poorly, and only have a race score of 6, the PC's have 20 to go, the Wormwood will have 16).

Encounters
I'm using the chase rules, with the following encounter. Each encounter also have a target number for the Wormwood. If I roll this on a d20, the Wormwood will advance 1 square in this encounter. If they fail the skill check, the PC's will not advance this round

*Superstitous sailors refuse to sail on, after a dead sea gull drops on the deck. Knowledge (religion) DC 20 to convince them this doesn't matter. Wormwood: 8+

* A maelstroem suddenly appears in front of the ship. Knowledge (nature) DC 20 to know how to surf the edges. Wormwood: 7+

* Weird magic effects threathen to rip the sails apart. Knowledge (arcana) DC 20 to dispel them. Wormwood: 9+

* The wheel is stuck. Disable Device DC 15 to repair it. Wormwood: 10+

* A reef is close to the surface. Perception DC 28 to spot it in time. If failed, the ship takes 8d8 in addition to not advancing. Wormwood:9+

*The rigging is in disorder. 2x climb DC 20, falling damage to the PC if the second check is failed. Wormwood:13+

* An officer is required in the other end of the ship to defuse a complicated situation. Acrobatics DC 20 to get there quickly. Wormwood:10+

* Danger straight ahead. Sailing DC 30 to avoid it. Wormwood:14+

*Man overboard. Spend 2 rounds to pick him up. The PC's can chose to sail on and automaticly advance this round, but this might affect crew loyalty. Wormwood:12+

* The crew despairs in the foul weather. Diplomacy or Intimidate DC 30 to convince them to go on. Wormwood:12+

* Torn rigging and sails trap a PC. Automatic advance, but a random PC is unable to assist in future encounters, untill he has succeded at a DC 20 escape artist (one check pr. encounter). Wormwood:6+

* A group of hostile Orcas delay the ship. Sail around (no advance this encounter), or fight 5 orcas. If they're not defeated in 5 combat rounds, the ship is delayed and does not advance this round. Wormwood: 12+

* A random PC is swept overboard by a freak wave. Swim DC 20 in order not to delay the ship by forcing it to mount a rescue operation. Wormwood:13+

* A ballista is torn lose, and rolls across the deck. Reflex save DC 15 to get out of the way (failure: 5d6 damage). Wormwood:8+

* 2 crewmembers pick this time to start a fight. Intimidate DC 20 to get them and their mates back to work. The situation is to heated to use diplomacy. Wormwood: 7+

As said, comments are very welcome, as are additional ideas for encounters.

I'm GM'ing a party of 4 players, level 8. They have a pretty well equipped ship, with a broadside of 10 ballistas and a gunnery crew lead by a cohort with all necessary siege weaponry feats to make them work.

I'm thinking of throwing some sea monsters at them. I think I can improvise some rules treating the monster as an enemy ship and thus allowing some sort of ship vs. monster combat. But what kind of CR am I looking at? How do the ship and it's weaponry factor into the strength of the party? Would a CR 9 or CR 10 monster be to tough on them?

My players are pretty experienced, and have built dangerous characters. So I shouldn't have to pull punches. :)

As a GM, i've just encountered my first sound striker when a player made a replacement character for lvl. 7.

The character has a CHA of 24, meaning he can as a standard action throw 7 weird words at 1d8+7 as a ranged touch attack.

If all of them targets the same enemy (and I see nothing to prevent that), we're looking at 7d8+49. Yes, it's fortitude for half, but this still looks pretty mean.

I don't know if the weird words are treated as ranged attacks, but if they are, he's adding point blank shot for an additional damage pr. word, and precise shot to avoid the -4 penalty for opponents in meele. Later on, he'll take arcane strike, for an additional +1 (+2 at 10th level) pr. word.

I think this'll add up to something pretty damn powerfull, am I wrong? He can cut down low-level trash mobs by dividing his words between them, or throw anything at the BBEG for one huge damage output.

All comments and input are appreciated.

My party has had a few rough encounters. Luckily, replacements are readily avaiable, it's simply a matter of a crewmember stepping up and joining the officers circle. So it's not as such a problem to introduce replacement characters.

But since the latest encounter in Mancatcher Cove, I have now unfortunately killed off everyone who ever served under Captain Harrigan. As he is cast as a recurring villain, this means I now have a main foe whom my PCs has no relation to, and he has none to them.

Does anybody have any ideas how to solve this? I'm at the end of AP 2.

My players have talked about raiding Pharasmas Boneyard, in the hopes of finding a particular soul.

Apart from Aeons and pshycopomps, what enemies would be fitting as guardians in the Boneyard. I am searching for foes at most CR 10.

Thanks

I'm currently running a campaign, in which we mainly have 1 encounter pr. day. This means that the Magus and Wizard in the group really gets to shine, since the can nova in every encounter we have.

I know that I could throw in extra encounters, but apart from that, I'm considering building an enemy spellcaster with the primary purpose of being a dispeller. I know that's easily achieved by readying to cast some damaging spell, but I would prefer him to actually use Counterspelling.

So far, I'm planning a abjuration wizard, with counterspell sub-school, and the following feats:
Heighten spell,
preferred spell (Dispel Magic),
Spell Focus (abj),
Mages Tatoo (abj),
Spell Specialization (Dispel Magic),
improved counterspell.

Am I right in calculating that he has +3 CL on Dispel Magic. Can this be made any higher, either through items or feats?

My other plan is a sorcerer, whose main method of dispelling would be the feat Ordered Mind. This allows him to counterspell with any spell from the same school, at equal or higher level. He would then know spells from the standard destructive schools (evocation, conjuration, necromancy), and thus counterspell with them.

Any advice on either plan?

In my S&S-campaign we have just included curses. It was actually the players own input.

We use hero points, and after one player lost his character, who was acting as captain, the player opted not to save his character, but rather spend his hero points to cast a curse on the ship. So now, the old captains rather draconic rules are permanently nailed to the main mast, and will reappear whenever they're torn down. Furthermore, whenever a crewman is tied to the mast for punishment, he/she will magicly receive two lashes of the cat'o'nine tails.

Then there's the hammock of hospitality. One player sadisticly kept Plugg alive for months, torturing him daily, and having him sleep in the hammock to be well rested and recupiated for the next days torture. So now, whenever a character uses the hammock, they'll be tormented by Pluggs nightmares. In game terms, a Will DC 10 (+1 pr. consecutive night) means just a poor nights sleep, filled with nightmares. A failed saving throw leaves the character fatigued the entire next day.

Now, for the curse I need your assistance with: The players married the lady of Tidewater Rock, only to lose their captain (and thus new lord of the Rock) the very next week. That was the guy who cursed the ship with his own rules. But as the players returned, they tricked their way in, and challenged the Lady and her champion to single combat for ownership of the Rock. Even though Royster McCleagh won, the PC's interferred in the combat, and cut him down, after which Lady Agatha Smythee threw herself off the tower in desperation... to which my players in general replied "That's a curse on the tower!"

Not one to disappoint my players, especially when they try to make things more difficult for themself, I am now trying to invent a good curse on Tidewater Rock, only to be lifted if the players find and return Captain 'Iron' Berts body to his beloved wifes side. But what is a fitting curse? Potency doesn't matter, anything is welcome.

I'm having some troubles figuring out how to calculate ships CMB and CMD. Mainly, do you add the captains sailing skill to a ships CMD?

Adding it to the attackers CMB seems straightforward and supported by the rules:

Grappling:

If only one pilot wants to grapple, she must make a combat maneuver check against the target ship’s CMD, using the base CMB of the ship plus the pilot’s sailing skill modifier (or Wisdom skill modifier if she is using that ability to control the ship) as the total CMB of the grappling maneuver.

Ramming:

The ship’s pilot must make a ramming combat maneuver check against the target’s CMD, using the base CMB of the ship plus the pilot’s sailing skill modifier (or Wisdom skill modifier if she is using that ability to control the ship) as the total CMB of the ramming

maneuver.

Furthermore, under the heading ships statictics, it says:

CMB and CMD: The ship’s base CMB and CMD. To calculate the ship’s actual CMB and CMD, add the current pilot’s sailing skill modifier (or Wisdom modifier, if she is using that ability to drive the ship) to the ship’s base CMB.

Nowhere is it stated that you add sailing to the CMD of a ship. However, all ship stats presented in Raiders of the Fever Sea have added the captains sailing to the CMD. This makes ramming extremely unlikely to have any real effect (since it sets your own speed to 0, but only affects opponents speed if you beat his CMD by 10).

So, is the players guide or Raiders' shipblocks wrong?

My players have started their career as pirates with a string of humiliating defeats, as their victims outmanouvered them and fled the scene. I'm playing with the standard naval battle rules, and so far that's quite allright.
Now, after a visit in Bloodcove, they've upgrade their ship with a couple of catapults. And that seems awfully broken:

First of, the rules for aiming catapults make them very easy to use.
BAB + knowledge (engineering)-4 for non-proficiency. For the party wizard, with high int and maxed knolwdge (engineering) that adds up to +6.

The main issue is that the rules state they catapult makes aiming checks vs. DC 15 (light catapult) instead of attacks against the targets AC. They are using chain shots, and targeting the opponents sails... but as I read the rules, I can't find any modifiers for that kind of caled shots. If they were using ballistas, everything would be fine, as they would then target a higher AC for shooting at the sails, but I can't find any mention of that being the case with catapults.

Am I missing something here? Or is it that simple to take down the opponents sails with chain shots?