Calnar's page

Hey All, while I love pathfinder, to give my players something new I was thinking of pulling some ideas from D&D 5e specifically when it comes to high level baddies. The things I wanted to start using were things like

Legendary Actions (a list of attacks or abilities that a powerful enemy can use on the players turns with. Each action has its own point cost and a baddie has so many points to use between their turns) Since my guys are getting high level I figure this is a way to make single bosses cool again without adding in a host of minions while letting a baddie not just be pounded on by the 6 of their turns and all the attacks and abilities that implies.

Legendary Resistances (a set number of times per battle, where a baddie rolled a fail on a save, but through their own power can declare that they saved) I am less sold on this as most creature saves in pathfinder are much higher. The only reason that I still considering this is that I did have the experience of rolling the 1 vs a feeblemind spell cast on an ancient green dragon, taking it from an awesome encounter to here is a bag of hit points to wail on until it is dead, but at the same time my guys felt awesome. I figure if I did this then it would need to replace spell resistance.

Lair Actions (Makes it more of a threat to attack a big bad in their home base. And again adds more to the action economy of a big bad to the mix. The place seeped in their power gets a turn and different environmental effects occur)

So here is my question is this. As I am not a numbers person does anyone have experience with this and what kind of adjustment in power level it would create? I don't want to make it an outright death to players, and because I want to award appropriate experience points. Usually I can do well with the experience point budget system, just want to add something new.

****Spoiler Warning American Gods Book*****

Hey all, so continuing to flesh out a campaign I am working on. I have a core villain that I want to introduce early, but remain close and helpful to the party. In part I am basing this villain off of a friends character in a game I played in and partly off of Odin in American Gods. I was thinking that they will "rescue" this Oracle of the Dark Tapestry in a tower top from some Cthulhu styled minions. Another girl currently sacrificed on the altar and this girl in a cage. I want her to in secret be the high priestess of the cult. I planned to give her the feat where her tongue was altered to pronounce things in alien languages. I though I could somewhat cover this by having the sacrifice's tongue also be altered, though the sacrifices's would be raw and bleeding. My character would be attempting to help the party along the way to go with them to the "final battle" so she could claim the blood spilled as a sacrifice and use energy to raise an elder god.

What I am looking for though is seeds to plant throughout the campaign. Things so that even though she is helpful to them and I want them to consider her a friend, that when she betrays them the disparate clues make it seem like, "how did we not see this coming?"

Ok so I am homebrewing for the first time. I started working on everything a while ago, but our current campaign is taking a while. The good part is that this is letting me flesh out the world I am making more. Anyway, I am rubbish at maps, so I had planned on using real world maps as a base line. I enjoy my Scottish heritage a lot so the campaign has a Celtic theme. I had started with including an amalgamation of real world places, old myths, and my own story elements. I had developed a viking analogue as they will frequently be interacting with the players. And an invading empire that has taken over part of the islands (essentially a Roman analogue).

Seeing the real world cultural aspects, I have a player who is playing a Kitsune and wants to ancestrally be of a Japanese analogue. I have no problem with that, my question though is more of a practical one for GM's who have prepped worlds before. Since I have opened this door of real world places and cultures, should I work at being ready for players to potentially visit anywhere reasonable. To give real world flare to the places I am making I am actually looking up some of those places and legends to include. Then I am letting those flavor what I put there of my own story elements. On the other hand a part of me is now wondering if it wouldn't just be easier to have a friend map out a completely new world and populate it with the few cultures already identified, rather than attempting to summarize a cultures when it looks like my players will interact with it.

Ok working out some starting details of the world for a campaign I am hombrewing for the 1st time. This world is going to have a high celtic theme to it. Druids are therefore going to be fairly dominant in society. My plan was to have there be different druid circles within a grove to add Rangers, Shaman, Hunters, and maybe the new Shifter class in with standard Druids and socially count as Druids. The Shaman would be the Voice of the Spirits, Rangers the Eye of the Hunt, Hunters the Brothers of the Wild, Druids the Soul of the Land, and maybe Shifters will be the Fang of the Beast. Anyway while I intend for class Druids to be in effect the central circle or high priest as they somewhat encompass all the other duties. Still working all this out, but my questions is should I have the other classes also have druidic given to them as a language. On the one hand I am not sure it makes sense to deny it if I am making them culturally one body. On the other hand in game I had intended to give the guy who wants to play a Druid Ohgam Script key and have things written in "druidic" around the world. I now also have someone who wants to play a Shaman. I am now stuck with which is better give them a shared language and not have that be something unique for the druid, or is there a viable reason druidic is just for class druids.

OK GMing question. I am working out a campaign where the players are starting of as early teens in a small town. The first few levels will occur over the years. Those playing "educated" classes are going to have mentors. This includes a Druid, an Arcanist, and either a Magus or an Occultist. There is also an Oracle, a Kineticist, and a Slayer.

Anyway I had the idea of the Arcanist receiving a book from his mentor. This could include arcane knowledge. Potentially things like how ley lines work or how to read a harrowing. That may or may not become useful in the campaign. Now I had 3 thoughts. Originally thought it might be cool to age up some paper with tea and make the whole booklet right from the start. This i thought woukd give it that I have a prop that "belongs in this world" feeling. I also had the idea of making a binder so the book can have "a spell on it that only allows him to see the pages when he is ready for them." That way I could add more later. Then I also thought what if each character had some source of knowledge that could be used later. If the one guy plays an Occultist he might have half translated lists of words from an ancient language he gets from his parents. The Druid might have a lexicon for reading Druidic and stories around places of power. The slayer may even know the ingredients for natural poisons.

I like the last option best, but not sure how to give something similar to the Kineticist and Oracle. Also does this make it seem boring and all the same if everyone or nearly everyone has some knowledge base like this? The benefit I saw was down the road I could slip in puzzles like having a password to enter a tomb be an ancient word written in Druid and then players have the info to work it out from the beginning making their backstory and mentor important.

Hey all,so I have never tried this before, but I kind of wanted an archetype mimicing the idea of master of many forms from older D&D ideas. I have seen a few other archetypes on here doing something similar, but I didn't want to give up spell casting for the capability, so I looked to limit the more extraordinary wildshapes in another way. Looking to potentially use this in an upcoming campaign in about a year or so.

Wild Heart
A Wild Heart is an ancient path of druids who saw their role as emissaries between their tribes and the beings of the greater world. While most druids divide their focus between their bonds to external aspects of nature and to mimicking that varied nature in themselves, a Wild Heart druid is drawn solely to showing nature’s power and majesty through their own bodies. These druids often feel more comfortable interacting with non-humanoids even more so than other druids and so they were often the representative from their tribe or grove to other intelligent races.
Archetype advances as Druid with 4 exceptions.
1. Class Skills – Wild Hearts prefer where possible to take the form of the beings that they interact with which often precludes riding and often will need to interact with other intelligent races as they make pacts and treaties. They therefore lose Ride as a class skill and gain Diplomacy.
2. Wild Empathy – in addition to the typical use, a Wild Heart, through a greater understanding of the beings with whom they are interacting may add half of their level to interactions with intelligent beings, whose form they have already taken. This is specific by species and so taking the form of a silver dragon for instance will not help a Wild Heart to understand brass dragons or any other similar form, but turning in to a medium silver dragon will grant the bonus when interacting with an ancient silver dragon.
3. Nature’s Bond – as the Druid expresses their bond to nature through their Wild shape feature they do not gain any other benefits. They do not gain a companion or a domain and this archetype is considered mutually exclusive with any other archetype that affects Nature’s Bond.
4. Wild shape – Except where noted a Wild Heart’s use of Wild shape functions as any other druid, including the restriction on being familiar with the creature they are changing into. When Wild shape is used to take the form of an intelligent being (Monstrous Humanoids, Magical Beasts, Giants, and Dragons) at least 2 uses of Wild shape are utilized instead of 1. An additional use of Wild shape is utilized for each step a druid’s alignment differs from the typical representative of the race on the druid’s non-neutral alignment axis. (i.e. a lawful neutral druid would only use up 2 uses of Wild Shape to turn into a gold dragon as they are typically lawful good or a blue dragon as they are typically lawful evil, but would have to use 4 uses to turn into a brass dragon as they are typically chaotic good or a red dragon at they are typically chaotic evil. 2 uses for being a dragon and 2 uses for the 2 steps from lawful to chaotic.)
a. Level 2 - A Wild Heart druid is considered to gain the Wild shape ability at level 2. They cannot at this time take any specific forms and can only use their hours of Wild shape as the spell Monkeyfish, with the exception that armor will not prevent its use. Medium and even heavy armor that the druid may wear without violating their prohibition will bind itself to the druid’s form for the duration of the Wild shape, nearly like an exoskeleton. This means that the druid may not remove their armor for the duration of this use of Wild shape, but does not offer any other benefit or restriction. Medium and Heavy loads apart from armor still prevent effective use of the climb and swim speeds granted. Loads may be put down at any time throughout the duration of this Wild shape to utilize its effects. While this ability does not yet allow the transformation to other shapes, it does qualify a character for any feats that have Wild shape as a prerequisite though not any additional prerequisites such as level. This additional use of Wild shape is also added to the druids total with the expected additional use added every 2 levels. (a total of 9 uses at 18th level)
b. Level 4 – The Druid is now able to use Wild shape to take the forms of Small / Medium animals, as well as Small / Medium vermin. Wild shape may now function as Beast Shape I and Vermin Shape I.
c. Level 6 – The druid now adds Tiny / Large animals, Tiny / Large Vermin, and Small elementals. Wild Shape may now function as Beast Shape II, Vermin Shape II, and Elemental Body I.
d. Level 8 – The druid now adds Diminutive / Huge animals, Small / Medium magical Beasts, Medium elementals, Small plant creatures to their list of Wild Shape forms. Wild shape may now functions as Beast Shape III, Elemental Body II, Plant Shape I,
e. Level 10 – The druid now adds Tiny / Large Magical Beasts, Large Elementals, Large Plant Creatures, and Small / Medium Monstrous Humanoids to their Wild shape forms. Wild shape may now functions as Beast Shape IV, Elemental Body III, Plant Shape II, and Monstrous Physique I.
f. Level 12 – The druid now adds Huge Elementals, Huge Plant Creatures, Tiny / Large Monstrous Humanoids, and Medium Dragons to their Wild shape forms. Wild shape now can function as Elemental Body IV, Plant Shape III, Monstrous Physique I, and Form of the Dragon I
g. Level 14 – The Druid now adds Diminutive / Huge Monstrous Humanoids, Large Dragons, and Large Giants to the Wild shape forms. Wild shape now adds Monstrous Physique III, Form of the Dragon II, and Giant Form I.
h. Level 16 – The Druid now adds Huge Dragons and Huge Giants to the Wild shape forms. Wild shape now functions as Monstrous Physique IV, Form of the Dragon III, and Giant Form II.
i. Level 18 – The druid is now capable of utilizing their A Thousand Faces ability when Wild shaping. This allows them to impersonate a specific being whose species form they can assume through the use of Wild shape (i.e. a specific dog’s form could be taken, but not that of a specific great wyrm golden dragon as they are colossal, which prevents Wildshape from being able to be utilized to transform into them).

So this may be a misunderstanding of how this feat works, but trying to figure this out. It seams that it should be possible using this feat to subsequently utilize it to awaken a companion, but then keep it as my companion. If I have understood this correctly though I need to figure out what the animal's effective level would be. In the first place how do I figure out the effective level for a normal animal that has been awakened? After that my subsequent question though is, would this effective level change depending on my level as that changes the animal's level, but it doesn't appear to change the effective level for the animals listed in the feat description. Asking this last as my GM believed that was the case in a game I was in, but in a game I am running a player is considering the same thing I was and I am less certain.

So since I have seen the Rise of the Rune Lords Anniversary Edition, is there any chance there will be a similar edition of Kingmaker since much of it is also out of print?

Hey all, so this may me a stupid question and it has likely been answered in one of the thousands of threads on this campaign, but after looking at a few pages I didn't see it. So here is my question. I bought the anniversary edition at Barnes and Noble originally. A few of my friends are starting to play. They have only played 3 sessions before and I want to make this campaign awesome. I saw in an off-site review that the PDF includes specific PDF's of the handouts, but when I looked on here it just listed the maps. While cool that was not enough for me to put out the money for the PDF. If the handouts are included too though as they are in the book so I won't have to take the time recreating blood spatters and seals that would be awesome. So in short does the PDF also include specific print outs of the handouts?

Hi all, so here is the situation I work at a mental health facility for kids. I have been gaming for about 5 years, but I have never been the DM. Recently some of the kids where I work wanted to try gaming. I advocated for it and said that Pathfinder would be great due to the free content. The kids were given a beginner box and started trying to play twice on their own, but don't understand the rules enough to get through it. I want to lead a game,but since all the kids read the beginner adventure I don't want to do that one. I got a hold of rune lords, but with the issues the kids are facing I don't think an adventure with ritualistic murder is a good fit. So after all that can anyone think of an adventure path where the kids get to feel like heros, but the circumstances won't be triggers for past traumas?