Cavalier Lord's page

As a GM who has always hated the Paladin Class, love the AP for it's potential to truly grind them down, force them to make moral decisions, and ultimately punish them vigorously with things that find them irritating-but-tasty!!!

I love the premise of the AP, and the idea is solid.
That said, I have done some tweaking as all GM's do when running an AP, to better customize the experience.

Mendev and the Worldwound, what comes to mind when thinking of the crusade? I know! A Meat Grinder.

Putting it simply, I established that the players could play their 10th level heroes from the start, and have one 4th and 1st level character each. Now this sounds like a terrible idea! Well follow along now, this is where it gets interesting.

When the wardstone falls, the high level PC's are in the thick of the action, and systematically get shredded along with the silver dragon! So yes the players are devastated, this is good! They also feel they soiled themselves. After all, what can a 4th level PC do that a 10th level couldn't? Except die well.

Now believe it or not I had some amazing RP interaction, 10th level guys and gals trying to save others, igniting the true feel of desperation, only to be cut down by a Demon.

Making the lower level characters panic as they sat in the tavern when the wardstone fell, each party was divided geographically, so they couldn't help one another. Some actually lasted long enough to interact with the lower level heroes, gear was pretty much abandoned in panic. Trying to grab that +2 longsword often resulted in being someone's dinner.

(this is how many of the 4th level PC's died)Simply because I baited the ones I knew would dive for higher level gear, allowing them the honor of feeding-a-demon day at the zoo.

Some survived long enough to make it to certain places that were still standing later in the adventure (they didn't know what locations they were, so it was a hoot!). Some were picked off by NPC foes, like:

1) LE Cavalier trying to get the attention of a demon or two.
2) Killed by Crusaders who lost their minds.
3) Wandering Demons.

Remember this takes place while the 1st levels are swallowed up by the earth. So they really are cut off from one another. Upon re-emerging from the catacombs, the formerly 1st levels are now dealing with what the 4ths have been fighting.
(only 1 of the 4th level pc's survived)

So largely I did follow the AP, but felt the magnitude of a wardstone falling was too light, and the horror of what they faced was glossed over. If surviving a low level dungeon crawl warrants one to "deserve" mythic tiers, then I felt they should understand just how much they did earn it. A lot of PC's died, simply because I refused to run the surface battle the same as the battle down in the catacombs. It just felt wrong awarding them mythic for something so unspectacular.

I'm trying to say simply, that this is the Worldwound pouring out, Kenabres is lost, and all I get to do is run the PC's through a dungeon Crawl to freedom, and the nightmares they witness afterwards.
Apparently the Worldwound has only so many demons in it. I mean, let's face it, it didn't feel like the abyss was opened up much at all. So I improvised with a surface battle that was not only horrific, but definitely caught the flavor of the Worldwound. Or at least I think so.

No disrespect to all of the wonderful staff at Paizo, but I felt this should be a higher level adventure path, taking you from 4th to 20th.

Or something like that.

Also Paladins, thank you for putting out the complexity of what goodness is in Champions of Purity. I now have an Asmodean Demon Hunter, Hellknight who is more virtuous than the paladin. Hey they can be LG. Heck even the Ranger and the Rogue are more pure of heart than the paladin. So when Iomedae gives her blessing she passed up the Pally for the Cavalier. HUZZAH!

Technically the Paladin already has Iomedae's blessing. So I refuse to empower that specific class further. Largely due to the player being more self-righteous than most tele-evangelists. Which brings me to the 2nd point...

Homosexuality in the game, doesn't bother me, but some players are way too sensitive IMO. The beauty of the AP is that it helps players and GM's put a more realistic spin on the game.

A Manual of Gainful Exercise+1 is a wonderful thing, but a +4 is always better. So my question revolves around the use of said types of Tomes and Manuals.

I know each of them is a one time use item. But later in a PC's career should they find another +4 Manual of Gainful Excercise, would they be able to use this new one like they did the old one to get a boost to thier stats?

This is a problem I had back in 3rd with a Munchkin-like player whom was a good soul, but very... well annoying when he played his Fighter.
Having gained the benefit of a +2 to his Strength last time he used a Manual of Gainful Excercise +2, at level 18 he finds in a dragon's treasure, a Manual of Gainful Excercise +4, he used it between games to apply the +4 to his Strength, so next time we played his might and ego were even bigger.
Then he found another Manual of Gainful Excercise +4 at 20th level.
It became a slight arguement of wether or not he could benefit from this books magic like others in the past. My players voted no.
With the exception of him of course. I feel this is a good question, any input would be helpful.

Thanks in advance!

Just wondering what everyone thinks about brewing, yes the end result is always fun to drink, but would you label it as a Profession or Craft?

I always thought craft as is it would require some skill to make a good ale, I always had it as a Craft skill. So then a failed batch would taste less like ale and more like watered down swill.

Just looking for your thoughts on this.
Thanks in advance.

A player and I are at odds with how each of us thinks the Character Traits work, by that I mean does it count against your 1st level bonus feat, and replace it with two traits?

Our disagreement is rather the; yes it does count against your 1st level bonus feat and uses it up. Or No it doesn't, so sit down shaddup and enjoy the game already.

So give me your 2 coppers on if the charcater traits count against the bonus feat at 1st level or nay!

Many thanks in advance.

What I love about PF is the chance you have to continue the home grown campaign you started, how many times has this happened to everyone? New edition comes out so now you have to re-do everything, from re-tweaking the classes of NPC's and rulers. Add new rules here and there, or just play the last edition to a turning point in the ages and craft a new age for your players. With new rules, etc.

I always made it so that if a charcater wanted to play a certain age or era of my homemade campaign setting, that they needed to play in that edition of rules, (made conversions easy, because it was like having an excuse to dust off the old orange spined books of 1st edition.

The best part for me with this game is the chance to possibly someday submit or contribute something to it. In my opinion the best kind of game allows players and actively encourages them to pitch in, so it's really more everybody's game than it is a brand & logo without any real care for a fan following.
To me the biggest joy is creating something, a campaign setting, a new class or race. I just wanted to say thank you to Paizo for letting us have the chance to continue our work, of designing new things and enjoying the game for a very long time to come.

Look at history, How many Campaign settings do you remember? How many really hooked you and rubbed off on your own home-made ones?
Core rules are the base for every player & GM, what you add after that tends to make it more & more your own style of gameplay.

So hey, thanks to all of you at Paizo for giving us the chance to continue our own homegrown Campaign Setting.

I'm sorry but I couldn't help but comment, but your re-working of the races really has fleshed out the races better than any previous edition before in my opinion.

Will there be other types of Dwarves down the road?

I know I posted it in the wrong forum, sorry in hindsight.

I was just wondering if you might be interested in adjusting the base AC for each PC race?

I mean if Humans are the middle of the road with 10 Base, an elf or gnome could have a base of 8. Dwarves have a base of 12 and half orcs as well.

It's just a thought.

In my campaign we use a 7th ability, yes it may sound odd but honestly it's a lot of fun. The ability is LUCK. Originally I passed it over in the Green Ronin Advanced Player's Handbook. Admittedly I had held my doubts, but it really made the game downright nail-biting at times.

Say you didn't have a high enough skill to disarm a trap? Substitute your Luck score modifier for your normal one, or in some cases add to it to accomplish your task.

The main reason I wanted to share this with everyone is simply for the fact it is something they might want to look up and try themselves, and maybe Pathfinder could use something like it down the road for an expansion?

I made Gambling a skill and Luck was it's main attribute, it turned out pretty well.

It's been a house rule of mine to alter the Base AC of various races, much like the varying base AC of most monsters. Before I go on please allow me to explain my reasoning, not all races of monsters and humanoids are alike, for example the Dwarf is stout and durable, while often in fantasy we see the elf as graceful but far less durable.

Dragons of course are above the status quo as they are the apex predators in most any game.

My suggestion is that if you want a dash more variety (not that I don't love what I see, I do, this is just from my campaigns to you), that you should consider having a slight diffrence in the base AC by race & monster type.

Take for example:
Elves have a base AC of 8, though I compensate this by offering them 2 0 level spells they can cast once a day as they are always considered a magical race.

Dwarves are given a base AC of 12, they maintain the same abilities & perks but suffer one drawback, a -4 to Charisma.

Half Orcs have a base of 14 and remain largely the same.

Humans are still base AC of 10.

I do however understand the Base AC is 10 for all races for the simple fact it brings balance to the game, no once race is better to play than another, my way is just for the effects of having a harder impact on players to really be GLAD they have a Dwarf & Half Orc in the front of the party in combat.

(Oh and as far as the elves choice of spells for which 2 they get, is the player's choice. Considering they are 0 level spells it just adds some fun & help to any elf fighter who has two 0 level spells in his arsenal.

Having been forced to play 4th edition for 4 sittings now, I was driven (by hunger for a better game) to either give up on D&D and resort to a life of WOW for my sword & sorcery fix.

Fortunately that didn't happen, I popped on here to buy a T-Shirt and a plush elder god...

And taa-daa here is Pathfinder, and I must say it feels more like Classic D&D than D&D 4th edition does! Does anybody else think so?

So to me I tend to call Pathfinder D&D, and D&D 4th edition something along the lines of Junior D&D.

...Pacifier NOT included.

(You must excuse my rantings, as I've been denied my funyuns & Mt. Dew.)

I've always enjoyed the Knight class (or Cavalier Prestiege Class), and the Swashbuckler class. I'm hoping there is a chance that somewhere in the pathfinder campaign setting that these two favorites of mine might be re-done later in a future book?

My only request for the swashbuckler is to maybe make them a bit of a cross between the Corsair & A Fencer (from the Variant fighters article back in Dragon #310). This probably isn't possible, but I figure the swashbuckler was always more of a scoundrel of the high seas come to port, than a musketeer in the royal courts.

One of my gamers has it in his head that a charcater can take more than one Prestiege Class, even if the requirements were met it would clash. so I have not allowed this to happen. I mean a Swashbuckler Dualist/Dread Pirate? Sounds good but some things you need to Role play, not just add a class to flesh out your charcater.

Well I ask this question in hopes of hearing if one CAN or CAN NOT have more than one Prestiege Class per character?

Thank you.

A very overworked DM