Chogokin's page

Ah, but that's exactly what I disagree with. Here's a quote from that passage on page 20:

"Humans receive the language
associated with their ethnicity for free, and the ethnicity
that corresponds to a language appears in parentheses.
Modern Human Languages: Hallit (Kellid), Kelish
(Kelishite), Osiriani (Garundi), Polyglot (Mwangi),
Shadowtongue, Shoanti (Shoanti), Skald (Ulfen), Tien
(Tian), Varisian (Varisian), Vudrani (Vundrani)"

That isn't a list of the available ethnicities, that's a list of human ethnicities that receive a free language (apart from Common). Now, I think its a poorly worded list, because it creates exactly the impression that you, and the makers of Hero Lab's Pathfinder module, have. Namely, that Chelaxian and Taldan are not legal player ethnicities in Pathfinder Core.

That's just a bit silly on the face of it because several of the playable factions have Taldan or Chelaxian roots, and a large chunk of the NPCs are Taldan or Chelaxian. Additionally there's no logical reason why I could make a Taldan character in regular organized play, but not in Core.

It's trivial, but its annoying, and I think it should be corrected at the root of the problem, page 20 of the Guide. Maybe in the next version...

I was just noodling around in Hero Lab, making a Core Campaign character. I was putting together a human paladin, and noticed that two ethnicities, Taldan and Chelaxian, were not available.

I was trying to figure out if this was a Hero Lab bug or something official. The only thing I can find to somewhat support this is on Page 20 of the Pathfinder Society Guide. Down on the lower left, it mentions the languages spoken by various ethnicities. Chelaxian and Taldan are not listed there, I presume because they don't have any unique ethnic languages.

I'm guessing that the intention is that Chelaxian and Taldan are still viable ethnicities in Core campaigns, they simply don't grant any advantages in terms of speaking an additional language besides Common. So this is an error in Hero Lab.

Does that sound right?

Thanks!

I just wanted to thank everyone for their input so far.

I started my campaign this Saturday. I got through character creation, and got the group into Sandpoint, followed by a short combat encounter with a goblin scouting party when the PC's decided to head out of town.

Following the advice, I worked to get the players invested in the setting (my players are not terribly familiar with Pathfinder or the Golarion setting), so this took some time just talking about the backgrounds of their races and ethnicities, the character motivations, etc.

Once we had some functional PC's, we entered Sandpoint. As we are a player short, I'm supplementing the party with a GM character, a Halfling Rogue who is a Sandpoint native. He will serve as a 'native guide' for the group, and is drawn to the adventurers by the prospect of something interesting to do. The dwarf fighter, a Hagfish Hopeful, immediately headed for the Hagfish, and almost beat the challenge (I set the DC to 25, something impossible to achieve without a significant investment in CON and Fortitude saves, but not prospectively impossible for lower level PCs).

The party's druid decided to participate in some friendly gambling, coming out slightly ahead (which I may spin off into an encounter with disgruntled gamblers who want their money back) before deciding to get back to nature by leaving via Sandpoint's southeastern gate. The wizard, who had been spending time in the bookstore, elected to follow her out. The rogue, noticing that half the party was heading out into the forest, alone, at night, grabbed the fighter, who was washing away his sorrows with ale, and followed after.

I decided that this was a great time to have a small party of Seven Tooth goblins ambush the foolish adventurers. Being somewhat overexcited, they started singing the Goblin Ambush song, alerting the PCs that something was up. However, they also took advantage of their stealth abilities and the darkness to fire arrows at range. This could have been a much more painful game of "Chasing Goblins in a Dark Forest while they Shoot you with Arrows," but the fighter was a dwarf, the wizard a half-orc, and the druid a half-elf, so the darkness wasn't as big an advantage as it could have been. The druid had a high Perception skill, and the wizard summoned an Eagle, and collectively made short work of the goblins, though not without minor injuries.

Anyway, I think things are off to a good start.

One question:

Is there a table or list of suggested DCs for learning/knowing or identifying Thassilonian relics? The discovery of a Sihedron is a significant element of Burnt Offerings, and I'm curious if there is a suggested difficulty for identifying such objects and their significance.

Thanks!

Flagged to move it to the rise of the runelords thread.

Also consider reading those posts. Lots of good information there.

Ah, cool, didn't notice this board. Thanks!

Good afternoon. I'm going to try running Rise of the Runelords for a small gaming group. I'm interested in any tips, caveats, etc., that you can share.

I'm a fairly experienced gamer and GM, although I have mostly only done Pathfinder as a player.

I don't know how far I'll get, as my players are mostly college students, but I hope to get to or through the 2nd adventure in the series by the end of April.

Mostly I'd like to know if there are structural problems that crop up during play that aren't obvious from reading over the adventure, or anything I could do to improve the flow of the adventure.

Thanks!