Colonel Horace Gentleman's page

This is a plea from a GM and huge fan: I would be happy to see more material on dungeon planning and construction, easily an entire main book's worth if it has the same care and content of past products. I really like the Gamemastery Guide and I love, love, love Ultimate Campaign. UC gave us GMs so many nifty little subsystems to spice and crunch up our games and I try to never miss running a one to the hilt.

With all the great tools you've given us I feel like the material on dungeons is sorely lacking. The Corebook has those lovely environment and trap construction rules, as well as extremely well defined encounter and reward construction rules. The GMG has a couple of pages on dungeons, including that great symbology key and a few suggestions for including puzzles and riddles, but still definitely a short section. And that's it. We have four beautiful, brilliant, robust Bestiaries but all too little instructing as to how we should house these magnificent monsters.

PFRPG is a robust roleplaying system descended from D&D 3rd. That system is itself descended from a board game where you move around squares in dungeons, searching for traps and treasure while running into monsters. I know the game has evolved far beyond that but not so far that dungeon delving isn't still central to the game experience, as well as unique and interesting dungeon construction. There is a very old Knights of the Dinner Table that makes jokes about how one character's campaign is just him going through the Monstrous Manual (I said it was old) in alphabetical order. Great monsters are great but only if they are presented in fresh and interesting ways and the encounters don't feel forced, and I have yet to find a better way to do that than a well-planned dungeon.

But dungeon planning is hard! I feel like with the basebook and GMG and Ultimate campaign we have all these fantastic little tools and rules and subsystems that basically build our game for us except when it comes to dungeons. I still struggle with creating good dungeon maps, or keeping the terrain interesting or making the room layout make sense but still be explorable and full of hidden dangers. I think you could do a huge chapter on dungeon maps themselves alone. Also maybe some puzzle building resources as well as maybe a puzzle gallery section. Sample dungeons of course. Advice on making very mall dungeons versus very large ones, etc. I feel like everything in Pathfinder is so defined but dungeon building is so undefined. Alignments have a 9 point scale, downtime has turn phases, towns have size ratings and skill modifiers depending on town culture, but dungeons have nothing equivalent to rate or define them. I feel like so many new GMs fall flat because they have no idea how to organize the encounters of their game, and I think a book of step by step dungeon building advice and rulesets would go a long way to making all our games more robust.

I know you know how to make dungeons; you're the guys who made the Emerald Spire! Pass some of that knowhow this way!

25 + 9 = 34, so 34 is the Perception and Disable Device DC for a magical trap with a 9th level spell in it. It's also the highest DC for all printed traps in the CRB including the CR 20 trap.

So is that it? Is 34 the be all and end all of trap DCs? I mean, a creative GM can add circumstance penalties or a trap finder might want to bypass the trap without disabling it, but are these the only reasons a trap would need a higher check than 34?

Seems like an obvious combo, right? It does to me. I walk at full speed, pass withing ten feet of a trap, automatically take 10 and find the trap like clockwork, all the time. But now I've re-read the sections on these talents as well as the one on taking 10, and I'm not so sure it's legal. Bear with me:

From page 69 of the CRB

Trap Spotter (Ex): Whenever a rogue with this talent comes within 10 feet of a trap, she receives an immediate Perception skill check to notice the trap. This check should be made in secret by the GM

See that? Unlike deliberate, player-rolled trap spotting it's a secret, involuntary check, made by the GM. The wording even implies a roll. Can one take 10 on such a roll?

I'm not so sure. The first sentence of the Taking 10 section on page 86 of the CRB states "When your character is not in immediate danger or distracted, you may choose to take 10."

"Choose" is the key word here because in the case of Trap Spotter the player is not choosing to make the roll, and because it's a secret roll the player is not in a position to choose anything. It seems to me taking 10 on such a roll is impossible, even when it would be without any rogue talents at all.

Page 86 goes on to clarify: "Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10."

What this says to me is even if I have neither Trap Spotter nor Skill Mastery as long as I am spending a move action every round to actively trap search (as defined under the Perception skill) and I don't have a combat or other threat/distraction around me, I can take 10 all day. However, if I were to gain Trap Spotter and stop actively searching, I would find a loss in no longer being able to take 10, even when undistracted.

But does Skill Mastery solve the problem? Doesn't it let you take 10 no matter what? Nope. All this talent lets you do (page 70, CRB) is take 10 "even if stress and distractions would normally prevent her from doing so." According to my reading, this would be irrelevant to the Trap Spotter roll, as distractions are not what keeps the character from taking 10, but the special nature of the Trap Spotter Perception roll. Skill Mastery helps the deliberate trap seeker when under stress, but not the rolls being secretly made by the GM.

Quick, someone out argue me! I don't want to be right!

Has there been an official ruling on the definition of a "force effect?"

I can't find a definition anywhere in the book, and I know that we use common-sense and half-remembered 3.5 ideas of what they are in my group, but I would like to see an authoritative definition. Is there such a thing and my forum search just missed it?

Many abilities and spells are listed as being "language dependent" but this trait is defined nowhere in the book.

Does this work like it used to, where it means the caster has to have a common language with the target? If so, I am disturbed by this particular line in Bardic Performance: "If a bardic performance has audible components, the targets must be able to hear the bard for the performance to have any effect, and such performances are language dependent."

Does this mean that my fiddler Bard can only fascinate creatures who can understand Common (or whatever specific language) even if he is not speaking or singing a word?

What I really want is an official definition of "language dependent" which I am unable to find.