Christopher Ginn's page

As a GM I strive to find ways to make PFS scenarios (linear by nature)
more non-linear in the way that they feel as they're played out.

One of the ideas that I have recently been considering is not disclosing the effects of certian found items.

Things like potions should be magical murky vials without labels. It should be up to the PC's to attempt to find out what the have collected from a body.

Magical wands likely have control words to activate. Discovering the secrets of these items could prevent useage until it has been found.

I'm sure there are other examples.

Do any other players or GM's have thoughts on this?

I'm running this scenario in 2 week and I'm wanting some perspective on how to run the final encounter.

Dorianna is an enchantment built bard whose tactics section implies the following: She drinks an invisability potion before the PC's enter.
During combay she attempts to turn the PC's on each other - avoiding melee. If she is reduced to 50% HP she attempts to flee.

There is often arguements over rules during the use interpretive Compulsion based spells. How do you think she should interact with the PC's for each teir.

1-2: Her abilities include Enthrall, Hypnotic Pattern, Suggestion, Cause Fear, Charm Person, Lesser Confusion, Sleep, Daze and Lullaby.

3-4: Her abilities include Bard Fascinate, Deep Slumber, Enthrall, Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern, Suggestion, Cause fear, Charm Person, Hideous Laughter, Lesser Confusion, Sleep, daze and lullaby.

6-7: Her abilities include Bard Dirge of Doom, Bard Distraction, Bard Fascinate, Dominate Person, Confusion, Deep Slumber, Slow, Eagles Splendor, Enthrall, Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern, Suggestion, Cause Fear, Charm Person, Hideous Laughter, Lesser confusion, sleep, daze, lullaby

I'm a new GM and I'm wanting to learn more about charm person.

I've seen a lot of threads online that discuss how a humanoid may react once a successful charm has ben confirmed. I'm wanting general feed back.

Let me list two situations that had occured. Both during an organized play event.

The first situtaion was as follows.

" 2 Humanoid Enemies were already in combat with the PC's.

The Sorceror casts Charm onto on of the Enemies. It rolls a DC 15 Will save with it's bonus for being a Humanoid and fails. The PC's have decided that they will stop threatening that Enemy. But are still in combat with the other, who obviously is an ally of the charmed individual.

How should this situtaion resolve?

Does attacking it's ally count as a threat?

Does the charmed humanoid still feel threated by the PC's who did not charm it?

Discuss.

I'm new to GMing pathfinder and have started running games at my local game store.

I'm also very new to pathfinder, since I have started only a few months ago. This leaves me very unaware of some of the game mechanics beyond the classes that I've played as or with during sessions. And also very unaware of some of the non-core rule book material that players use with their characters.

What frustrates me is that I'm finding players taking advantage of abilities I've never heard of and bending the rules with them so that they become completely overpowered.

For example, I did not know the rules specifics for the Bard Spell, Summon Instrument. Asking the player who wished to cast it what it did, they explained that it summons any instrument that the character has seen before as a standard action. The player, whose multi-class gave them a companion animal bird, shared the spell multiple times during a scenario to cause a Pipe Organ to appear over an enemies head for substantial crushing damage. This I later found out was complete rubbish. It in effect removed all of the challenge from the two major boss fights in the scenario using a 0-level cantrip. Needless to say I won't let it happen again. But what of all the other rules that I don't yet know?

In order to learn more rules, after I run a scenario I will take my list of questions that I have made for myself and check the rulings made during the game versus the rules as they actually are written.

It is, as I thought, the players responsibility to know the ins and outs of the rules that they character abides. And when this kind of thing happens, it's discouraging as a GM, because I feel cheated and disrespected because I've taken time out of my schedule to prepare and run a scenario for the PC's to find challenging and fun.

Another issue that I ran into was a Tower Shield Expert Cleric using total defense. They claimed that with their current set of feats, that when using a tower shield in total defense, even if something hit the character's AC with an attack roll, that they would receive no damage from it. I had no argument against it so I had all the damage that would be dealt, apply directly to the tower shield, which was futile because of some mending spell after combat.

I guess I need advice on what to do when I get the suspicion that I'm being cheated during a game?

What can I do to make sure that players are rightfully responsible for causing these breaches in the game's challenge and fun?

What are the options available to deal with problem players who abuse rulings multiple times?