Carnestolendas's page

Random encounters don't feel random at all if the "table" you draw them from is closely tied to the environment. Also, it is up to you, the GM to turn that 4= Brigands into something unique. Again if the chart is well designed and the "encounters' entries (note the use of encounter instead of monsters) has some clues as to how to operate with the rolled result, you can have real fun and enrich your campaign.

In this regard I do like very much how the guys at Frog God Games design their random encounters.

They are long posts but here you have two brilliant ways of managing random encounters in the same adventure: Rappan Athuk.
http://paizo.com/campaigns/GMBloodsRappanAthukPF/gameplay&page=17

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pn6y&page=last?Abandoned-Arts-Runs-Rappan- Athuk-Campaign

There lots of interesting ideas here. Here's my two p:

If you make an effort of describing a room more or less with the interesting features, you are already giving them clues as where to find details of interest (along with red herings but that's the point of investigation). So a "generic" search the room roll in this case should have an increase in difficulty. Even if the players choose to do so and take 20 by doing it they mightnot meet the difficulty requirement. In this case I find a very nice option to tell the players after the gaming session where they missed something. This is good for two reasons:
a) As somebody else posted before, you'll get feedback and the players generally turn more proactive by the next session.
b) You might notice where your descriptions might not have been fair enough in order for the players to notice the specific detail.

Player characters get double advantage (after all they are the heroes). You can describe the thing to them, the might notice your pont and try for a "specific" bonified perception roll or they may miss the point and have the generic one. This gives not-so-attentive players the chance that their characters do notice something. Of course on such a person can play an observant character, that's what dice are for. But this system (as every statistical one) is adjusted by chance, so the possibility of failure is always there. In fact, we are all accustomed to reading episodes of unforgivable distractions by heroes in fantasy literature. This is often used by authors to introduce a dramatic (or violent) scene. It's not bad at all.

My final point is random encounters. Right now we are playing Rappan Athuk and I must say I do love the temporalized encounter tables for the different areas. If players want to be hypersure they miss the least amount of details or "over-rest" they risk the chance of being interrupted by hostile visitors. It's a matter of risk/benefit. I suggest you adapt the Adventure Path encounter table from the end of the chapter and consider applying it (you might complement it with GMG's ones for instance).

Enjoy the game

Oh, THAT!

I had completely misunderstood your post. I was getting the idea that actually came up with another way of "running a dungeon", maybe the way it is suggested in "D&D next"´playtesting...

Indeed the earth-glinding elemental is going to change lots of things. Keep us up to date!

Best uses I've seen of disarm:

- Remove a potion from the enemy's hand before he gets a chance to drink it (step up + combat reflexes makes this especially devastating)
- Relieve the evil cleric of his holy symbol
- Take away a caster's bonded item

Those are actually pretty smart. My own group of players has yet to uncover the usefulness (or uselessness) of Combat Maneuvers. I do find the really interesting from a mechanical and also a narrative point of view. However, does the feat tax (combat expertise) pay out. Would it unbalance the game to allow people to pick the improved "insert combat maneuver here" ?

Keep them coming! These reports are awesome!

BTW, what did you mean by "Things will get more interesting soon, and the dynamics of scouting and room exploration (as well as combat, actually) just got a whole lot different at the end of our most current session"?? You left me curious.

I'm not so sure of that. If you take a closer look at the map you'll notice that Zelkor's Ferry lies 20 miles south of the Forest of Hope's indicator and 20 miles SW of the Dragonmarch Lowlands "sign" on the map. It is surrounded by a lake and a river, and the troll's lair is not too far away either. In fact, Zelkor's Ferry lies almost as far as it gets from the Coast Road (40 miles westwar at least)...

Thank you anyway. It seems I'm not the only one wondering here...

This is a question concerning running RA. Players, keep your eyes away!

Thanks for the answers!

We all play no-map oriented games in between our PF sessions and it was a specific request on behalf of the players. However, they really are new to Pathfinder and I didn't want to have them feeling disappointed (I'm really concerned with mid-high level encounters, but we'll see).

An interesting fact is that this is a new group I'm talking about here, with only one in 4 players being previously known by me. Games run far more smoother than with my all-life buddies' group, and the only difference lies in the absence of tactical map. I've found that without one players tend to argue far less with me and interact much more among them, but this again may change with advancement. Has anybody tested this in Pathfinder? Playing without maps in mid level games?

Hi there. After > 2 years playing combat as RAW as my brain allowed me I've come across a group of vets that don't want combat with battle map and the resting paraphernalia.

We are playing the KM adventure Path and I must say the result from the first two sessions was quite satisfactory. Both sessions ended ahead of time because I had not enough thoroughly prepared having miscalculated combat encounter times.

I managed to keep combat violent, thrilling and the players had a lot of fun (even though one PC was dropped to zero HP in both sessions).

The firs impression was great as I had not th feeling that I was playing "against" the PCs which normally "possesses" me in standard combat resolution.

While I personally like the idea (it was the very thing that made my entry in 3.x a late one) Ifind a few issues, that have at least surfaced so far but will be more prominent as the party gains levels:

1) Keeping balance. Things go more "old school" and it might lead to deus ex situations.

2) Difficulty integrating AoO with fairness for everyone. For this I have thought of having the actual map behind my screen and advising that PCs could incur in AoO while moving we're they've previously figured just via my own description. Note that I do like the idea of AoO and wouldn't want to cut this game feature.

3) Character builds. Some feats rely heavily on the fact that you're using map, grid and tactical movement. I don't want to screw a player's choice by reducing the chances of his PC using his "powers". Note that point 2) is directly related to this situation.

Any suggestions? I had thought of the aforementioned idea of keeping the map to myself in order to "guide" the tactical narration and keep fairness and mayb leaving one or two important encounters with map...

Thanks in advice

hargoyle wrote:

Sack the fighter-rogue-wizard-cleric combo! What are the craziest you've seen or played in?

The classic configuration is, of course, in The Hobbit.

13 Dwarves. All fighters. One wizard - although quite epic - who apparently has evocation as a barred school. And one commoner hobbit. And they still manage to pull it off.

Well, judging by the fact that the dwarves can't win ANY fight in the whole damn book they seem more like warriors to me, or even commoners with a few levels in warrior or fighter.

Also, they hired Bilbo explicitly as the rogue (or the master thief), so even if you assume him to be a commoner at the beginning - when the second half of the book comes around, he DOES do a lot of thieving, so he took some levels.

Agreed with the dwarves. Bilbo was a bard, check his life career in general AND the Three Trolls chapter in particular for evidence. Supper at Thranduil's and of course, Riddles in the dark, also give a hint.

Actually:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/equipment.html#inappropriately-sized-wea pons

Don't have the math along but I guess that raging the penalty is overcome.

He's talking about Amiri's Greatsword. In he fluff it says tha she only wields I properly when raging. As for the ruling, I must check it.

Name: Klaive Bronn
Race: Human
Classes/levels: fighter 5
Adventure: what lies in dust
Location: Bisby's final resting place.
Catalyst: Phantasmal killer spell
The Gory Details: (optional) the PCs entered the fateful room thinking they would envision yet another ill-begotten bmemory. They correctly interpreted the sitting corpse as Bisby's and tried to use the grave candle on his skull, which prompted the disaster. On the first turn Klaive Bronn failed his will save and then his very good fortitude save (having CON 16).

I think you're absolutely right about the vampires needing to show up. Your contingencies sound good to me, so stick to your plan and let us know how it goes!

The game was an absolute blast. Again, my players surprised me.

I normally give the XP after game sessions but in this time it proved to be a critical factor, for the cleric rose up to level 6 between sessions. This allowed him to de IDE this interesting encounter.

They continued afterwards:

There's more tomorrow.

My group turned out to be quite resourceful. It consists of 2 5th level wizards (diviner and tansmuter), a 4th level fighter, a 5th level, negative energy channeler cleric and a 4th level alchemist (grenadier).

What do you think?

Thanks all very much. The player was happy with this one https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q7cKD3TbM25PlfFOtkTEleZjJ9MzcasSdqGyoEH 48Bo/mobilebasic?pli=1 but I'm going to pass the new suggestions just in case. And yes, I was referring to Serpent's Skull. I'llgive feedback on final choice

Thanks, I'llspeak with the player to offer either one of Cheapy's options or go Alchemist

Also, shouldn't it be possible to run such a class in PF, what alternatives would you suggest?
I was thinking in some variation in the transmuter wizard or an alchemist...

Hi there. I'm about to start SS campaign with some veterans from 3.5days. All of them are starting more or less core classes but there is one that asks for playing an artificer, a he enjoyed playing Eberron. Now, I know there is a 3rd party product that features the artificer but checking on different resource databases on the web I've found two different "incarnations". Are both, one or none PF legal and/or featured in said 3PP?

I
Main question is that I don't want any 3.5 material on the campaign as it would not be very fair and I'm not confident performing conversions myself.

Thanks in advance.

I've been struggling to find a way to express myself without being dogpiled on as a Pathfinder fanboi and being told to stop hating, but essentially I really, really don't like it. I expected perhaps, a little bit of innovation, but this feels like 2E with bits of 3E and 4E bolted on and not in a good way. It feels like several steps backwards for me with a disturbing lack of any new, bright ideas. I never quite fell in love with 4E, but I did really appreciate some innovative elements and new ground the dev team for that dared to tread.

The sheer amount of errors and redundant abilities in what appears to be a really simplified version of the game is also extremely worrying, as is the apparent lack of customisation. I'm also really not a fan of DND being pitched as a "Storyteller" system, it feels very much like old WoD and frankly, if I want a storyteller system with loose mechanics and tons of GM adjudication, that's where I go for it.

Suspect my opinions are coloured by my comparatively young age compared to most posters here, but I did go into the playtest with an open mind and hoping to find a system I liked.

Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of old school DND. But nevertheless, I can't see this as an edition to "unite" the player base. If anything, it looks like Wotc are competing for the 2E players and those not enamoured with 3.X and hoping to bring the 4E fan-base along with them.

I'm not sure if I'm being 100% accurate, but I think that old felling D&D had a lot to do with rather lax storytelling in terms of game system. The rules were deeper into detail concerning combat (because of the war-game background of Dave Arneson and Gygax himself) but it was still a lot about telling a story in first person...

From the professional point of view: RPGS as such have not been thoroughly checked in terms of clinicals trials and the lke. I guess the sampling would be both scarce and heterogenous. Mostly MMORPGs have been studied. Check this site and perform the search if you like: www.pubmed.org

How did you manage to not fall off your seat laughing? Hilarious! Would fit in a Monty Pithon film!

Name: Silth Maelström
Race: Elf
Classes/levels: Rogue 5
Adventure: What Lies in Dust
Location: Some back alley in Rego Cader
Catalyst: Shadow Mastiff
The Gory Details: It whas a near TPK, so all goy details afeter the rest of the presentations.

Name: Itharaina Arothar
Race: Elf
Classes/levels: Diviner 4
Adventure: What Lies in Dust
Location: Some back alley in Rego Cader
Catalyst: Shadow Mastiff
The Gory Details: see above

Name: Rizzardo
Race: Human (Shoanti)
Classes/levels: Barbarian 4
Adventure: What Lies in Dust
Location: Some back alley in Rego Cader
Catalyst: Shadow Mastiff
The Gory Details: idem

Name: Gaius Baltar (YES)
Race: Human (Chelaxian)
Classes/levels: Cleric (Calistria, false cleric of Asmodeus)
Adventure: What Lies in Dust
Location: Some back alley in Rego Cader
Catalyst: Shadow Mastiff
The Gory Details: see below

[b] The Gory Details [b]: The rest of the party included an elven alchemist and a transmuter. The party was deciding how to deal with the Devildrome encounter and Gaius Baltar came with the following plan:
a) Retrieving the Tiefling's corpses from the first adventure from rego cader
b) Burying them in the devildrome
c) Casting of [i] Desecrate [i] at the proper timing.
d) Gaius Baltar would be the "Summoner". He would bring forth X HD worth of Undead and would command them to move as puppets, some of them with clothing resembling Wiscrani VIPs. They would cast [i] protection from evil [i] to the undead and wait for Thrax to extinguish all his summonings.

a) and b) would take place during the night. The Transmuter, being LG decided not to take part in retrieving corpses and desecrating them. The alchemist decided to stay at home preparing fireworks for the show.

I had a prerolled encounter "Schedule" and for that night the menu was 4 Shadow Mastiffs. Knowing that my players are quite the optimisers I added one mastiff to the mix. I decided to officially inaugurate my "Ambus Sites" Map Pack and placed an rather narrow alley and set the encounter when the "heroes were carrying back the corpses of the tieflings. What followed was quite gruesome. Due to the map layout one of the Mastiffs was unable to reach melee, so in the surpirse round (only the rogue and the diviner were not surprised) this one used his Bail sending the brave Silth into a panick. One of the mastiffs charged against Gaius Baltar (who was with both hands busy holding the corpses) and the other charged Itharaina. The other two, due to map layout could not move into a charge but attacked nevertheless.

The result for the first round:
1) The diviner prone in the ground
2) The cleric losing 25% of his HP. Negative channeler with no healing spells prepared for that night.
3) The valiant elf crying pathetically against a corner
4) The barbarian botching his firs attack and being critically hit in return.

This tendency continued for the rest of the encounter but I have to say that the heroes fought valiantly, slaying 3 of the beasts and leaving one at 1 HP (the other untouched). Still, the barbarian, for intance, botched twice, failed once and stroke true once before falling. They didgn have sneak attack damage for 3-4 rounds...

I know the enconter was overpowered but they really are very good tactitians. I guess this time sheer luck showed how much and encounter needs to be tailored for it not to be spoiled by two rounds of extreme value-die rolling.

Still, we all had great fun with the encounter, and The Children of Westcrown decided to cast [i] gentle repose [i] on the two heroes that were from the start (Gaius and Silth, both of the excelled in the Sixfold Trial, which we "played", by the way), resurrected Itharaina and gave Rizzardo a nice burial.

The players had a good idea and I think you're right. The Lemures and Thrax have nothing against a shadow, except his +1 mithral quarterstaff. He could give it to a Lemure :-) I wouldn't start to summon the Lemures in the PCs cage so early with only the two spellcasters in there.

"Summoning" a Shadow Beast in Westcrown might not be a very good idea for their fame points.

The Shadow is a "intelligent undead" and the PCs have to catch it one or two nights before. They have to find one (not easy) and it has to fail a Will save. And than they want it to fight in public in sunlight. Not a good idea from the Shadows point of view. Perhaps a deadly idea. At least some opposed Charisma checks are appropiate.

BTW, they're cheating, is no lawful PC in the group?

Thanks! I'm not sure they have considered the implications of having a shadow beast controlled in Westcrown. They'll be having the definite debate on their plan this Monday. I'll give feedback.

Concerning cheating, there is but one lawful character in the group. He voted against that approach but was superseded by the rest (all CN or CG). As they normally heed and pay attention to what he proposes, he decided to let them be for this time...

My group is going to have trouble finding the Devildrome a challenge. They have named the cleric their "summoner" and I don't see how I will run this to make it interesting. I'll explain further.

0) My Pcs have done their homework and know what Trax usually does in the arena. They'll leave one or two of their numbers (probably rogue and barbarian) among the public just to check that there are no surprises while the casters (2 wizs) will stay in the cage with the cleric.

1) The cleric is a fake cleric of Asmodeus, in fact a CN cleric of Calistria (negative energy channeler). He is going to dominate a Shadow (via Command Undead) and fake its summon.

2) Either I am missing something entirely or the Lemures don't stand a chance against an incorporeal foe. Mantrithor Trax does not have anything in his stat block that may help the Lemures overcome a single Shadow.

My solution at this point would be that Trax acknowledges his defeat from the first round and starts summoning Lemures INTO the PCs cage from the 2nd round onward, flodding it with Lemures to keep the rest of the party busy, while acid-darting the cleric asap...

Any ideas?

Your character's acts turned him to CE. Put a little depth into it. Try to shrink you fellow's credit whenever you succeed in the AP. put minor obstacles in their way, craft a cursed item for them, plot against their lives along the AP and towards its end. Risk the party's ultimate success by delaying your chance on them till the AP's very climatic encounter. Then give your character the chance to redeem himself in the last moment (a la Raistlin Majere) or become yourself the party's greatest nemesis. In the meantime you can play the meek-repentant one so noone suspects. This would certainly be coherent with "teamwork play" while allowing you to develop you character as you see fit and it won't spoil the AP by risking it of an early termination.

This is, in my humble opinion, more consistent with role playing, stepping into someone else's skin, and there would be always space and time for your character to reverse sme steps in his alignment. Good luck and enjoy.

Let's be honest here, we all know this is going to happen in the back alleys of RP servers. Happens in WoW, happens in Guild Wars, happens in EVE Online, happens everywhere.

WTF???

Plus, it would be great for all the Shelyn/Lamashtu-worshipping roleplayers

Good idea, you might as well add Calystria worshippers

Why a rogue?
While I could aggre with the mechanical and "munch" arguments that the Rogue's niche is filled by other classes I must, on the other hand, disagree.

1) From the mechanical point of view I would say that the Rogues Role is to be useful in every aspect of the game from subtly bypassing traps and locks to weakening foes or even the odd lucky try on that cool ancient magic artifact. From the sole point of view of combat, the rogue unique's mechanics is the sneak attack. So I would guess that the rogue chararcter's player's role should be to try to make those sneak attacks land as often as possible an be as crippling as possible. If your GM is not saddistic you should have your share of foes vulnerable to sneak attack with good timing and positioning.

2) From the fluff pont of view, and despite all archetypes you may want to throw at me, the average Joe has normally somethin in his mind when building a rogue that pretty much more or less only fits in a Rogue. Examples:

- Kheldar of Drasnia (Chronicles of Belgarath asf) is no bard
- Tasselhof Burfoot (Dragonlance) only fits in a Rogue
- Even Thom Merrilin (the Wheel of Time) fits better in a Rogue with perform skills than in a bard's skin.
- In the latter series you could also "build" Mat Cauthon with a rogue character.
- Arya Stark (A song of...) has the feeling o a rogue
- So has Varys the spider and Littlefinger

All these characters have something in common: they are pretty damn memorable. The "rogue role" is usually one of the most popular in fantasy series.

I don't usually copy characters from fantasy when building a PC, but it's true that some inspiration derives from literature, graphic art, films asf and IMHO in the very root of Roleplaying (hence the name) lies the act of giving life to somebody of your imagination.

Excuse the length but I'm not able to express myself in english more concisely...

These players are pretty good natured. One was a little irritable but the other two wanted new characters anyway. They took it well and were not too surprised.

Sounds like a crazy game to me. If in general terms, everyone got a bit of fun, more power to you and your players. I'm rather curious as to the actual alignment of the wayward characters, so far I have only read guesses of other posters, to which I adhere thinking they were CE. Were they like that from the start or did they pay not attention at all at alignment?

Hama wrote:

W E Ray wrote:

1} No one should ever bring a gun (or "gunslinger") in Pathfinder fantasy.

I completely agree...guns have no place in heroic fantasy. whatsoever...

I agree as well.

I also think that psionics has no place in fantasy. Sci fi yes, but not fantasy.

I did not like gunpowder in medieval oriented settings. I remember refusing to play shadow run for more or less the same reasons. however let's do some mental gymnastics:

Excuse the rant but this is only my way of accepting figures such as the gunslinger (which I really find interesting).

Pd. By the way in warfare history you normallyhave one technology at it's peak being surpassed by a better counterpart. Such I the case of the European gothic full plate. T was the best you could get for personal protection... Around the 15-16th century, but it was rendered useless by the nascent fireguns. So if we follow this train of thought the gunslinger turns out to be not only not out of place, but also coherent.

I've always liked the spell for chase situations. If any of you have read the wheel of time series you know what I mean. Chases in forests and other wild landscapes are not usually short-termed. They can take place in the lapse of days. Remember also the hobbits making it for Rivendel... So if you are being chased you might as well be able to calculate y it's inevotable that you're caught, and when. So it's very useful to prepare such a spell in order to turn a butchery in a last minute escape. In game terms it depends on how the GM runs this situations so it can be more or less situational (always a little bit though).

AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

3) I've seen a LOT of Lovecraftian movies. The BEST of them are Alien, The Thing, The Mist, and 2001, and of course any movie actually inspired by Lovecraft (such as "Re-Animator" or "Call of Cthulhu" or "Whisperer in the Darkness").

Have you seen Dagon? I liked it sorta, although it annoyed me that it seemed like 90% of it was in like Italian or whatever and it wasn't subtitled (at least when I saw it on Sci-Fi Channel it wasn't). While I understand the main characters didn't speak Italian so therefore maybe it added to the mystery, 90% of a movie being unintelligible was kinda breaking for me.

I actually had the good fortune to see Dagon screened by Stuart Gordon, the director; he hung around to answer questions too. It was neat! Living in Seattle is awesome!

Anyway, I liked the movie quite a lot, and I don't remember it being 90% in Italian at all... especially since it was a Spanish production...

They spoke spanish (starring girl asf). One of the great things about the movie was that the Innsmouth people (starred by the late and great Paco Rabal) actually spoke galician, which along with catalonian and basque is another cooficial language in Spain. Galician is spoken in Galicia, northwesternest region of Spain, very famous for its rich fishing gastronomy. There are lots of small fishing villages there.

Dagon was therefore very fun to see here in Spain, at least for mysel, not being a galician speaker (which sounds similar to portuguese)

Isn't Mr. Pett the man who introdced Xanesha to the Rise of the Runelords campaign? Do you know how many PCs she has brutally murdered?

I'm scared.

Xanesha was responsable for my second obituary in PFRPG and for my almost first TPK. I really prepared that encounter thoroughly and could surprise my supermunchkin players. It was a MEMORABLE encounter with a victory both epic and dramatic!

OWS movement is a local manifestation of a global sapling: one that questions the current economical ruleç/politics but not necessarily its system. I won't praise nor will I criticise this last part, but IMHO it's a good sign that people question/dislike the obvious excesses this system has allowed, some of them well known, I afraid most of the well hidden between the system's own frame. A good sample of a similar movement outside the US is this: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movimiento_15-M , the spanish version of the topic.

The thing started in march (hence the name 15-M) and it has already been assimilated by both the left and right sided main parties, but I'm quite confident that it has started something that could drive every-day people to try to question this Ponzi Scheme that we call financial system...

I'm sorry the link has no english translation but lots of you folks already speak spanish better than I write english xD.

Neat. Mine is a half-elf bard. Heh. There's a gnome bard npc (male)... That might be a fun rivalry to play up with your wife's character. The bard class is good for the PC to help in recruiting NPCs, winning the allegiance of factions, etc. You'll also probably find that the 1st adventure in the SS path could even work well as a stand-alone adventure. MINOR SS SPOILER: After completing the first adventure and feeling very satisfied about redeeming/reclaiming the island, my character didn't really want to leave her new island paradise! My hubby had to work hard to come up with enough motivation for her to do so. Before she left the island at the end of adventure 1, we actually had a little fun with her founding a settlement there using the Kingmaker AP kingdom building mechanics! Also, you might want to read up a bit on the Jade Regent AP relationship/rivalry mechanics and incorporate some of that dynamic with the Serpent Skull NPCs. Enjoy! :)

I guess the temptation of staying in the island must be very strong. I can imagine that in a solo adventure it easily turn into a Lord of the Flies-ish situation would the PC turned into one of the starring kids (depending on demeanor and alignment...)