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cantrip called detect magic. If he has intruders that he has not discerned their having departed, he doesn't seem inclined to sit on his behind and wait for them to come at him again.

This assumes something has happened to make him aware of the intrusion. If not, they'd be off the hook.

I'm aware that detect magic would be able to find the portal, I just don't see how he would "discern" that they had not departed, particularly if he thinks they are powerful enough to have access to magic such as dimension door.

And even if he believes they have not departed, he has to go pretty far out of his way to walk through the entire complex checking every room with detect magic. It seems more like an arrogant move to just go about one's business, and wait for the puny insects to come to you so that you can smash them at your easiest convenience.

Dropping them out of a rope trick seems pretty harsh, and a potential recipe for a TPK. Especially with a party that has little experience in dungeon crawls.

Is it written somewhere that Vordekai can scry anywhere in his hideout? Just wondering how he would automatically know where the rope trick would be placed.

Derekjr wrote:

Since the entire courtyard is difficult terrain, wouldn't that effect Riggs Movement as well?

I am running it soon and want to make sure i get this part correct.

That's how I played it, but it doesn't really do a lot to him. He still has more than enough movement to spring attack in and out to hiding.

His +55 jump skill allows him to avoid actually moving over the underbrush as he can actually be jumping in and out for his spring attacks. With that modifier he doesn't even have to roll to make a standing long jump of 25 feet. He can average 30+ feet actually rolling.

Thought I should report back and say that in the latest session, the players seem to be acting more cautious and not so ready to head off to the Stag Lord's fortress immediately.

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions.

RunebladeX that's an interesting system and I am seriously going to think about implementing it.

Knowledge checks give an estimate of power as well as features.

Giving some idea of CR as you and Erik suggest is a good idea. But strictly speaking it's not RAW, I believe. "You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities." But still I may find some way to do that. Rather than a number maybe I may use a general read on table 12-1 (Easy, Average, Challenging, Hard, Epic).

I presume that they scout as well.

The group previously scouted but that was in the previous campaign when one of the players was DM and I was a player -- and I was the one who often encouraged the scouting. The mite lair isn't really setup for scouting, so I'm not sure what their standard operating procedure will be just yet.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

The important thing is whether or you really intend to let the game play itself out. If you don't, just be honest about it, but don't pull too many punches. If you do then let them deal with the consequences.

I'm ready to let them die, but I would prefer for sudden death to not be the main feedback loop. If they ignore warnings, information, hints that should be indicating they are about to face enemies that may be more powerful for them, I won't feel bad about it at all.

But maybe they simply need to burn their fingers on the stove a couple of times.

The centipede I'm not as concerned about, but since they are first level I think there is a good chance of a death if they push forward. But if they heedlessly storm the Stag Lord's encampment, we could have a TPK and I am not sure if the campaign would survive that.

We've just started Stolen Lands. As many of the players are not the type to run easily, I made a huge speech at the beginning of the campaign about how I'm not going to pull punches, and that this is a sandbox adventure, so that they could easily get in over their heads. So they should be ready to cut and run.

Now they are in the middle of the mite lair about ready to face the giant whiptail centipede and still only 3/4s through first level. And when I ask them about their long term plans they are saying after they work out the business with the kobolds and mites, they think they are ready to face the Stag Lord.

I don't want to tell the players straight out this is dangerous, but would rather subtly guide them or even drop broad hints this is a bad idea. Here is what I've done so far.

* When they took out Kressle's camp one of the bandits told them that any of the Stag Lord's lieutenants could have taken Kressle in a fight, and that the Stag Lord could take any of the lieutenants or even all at once. At the time they reacted "oh, I guess that means we are supposed to wait a while" but they've now apparently forgotten.

* I will point out to them that the Stag Lord's castle is outside the area under the remit of their charter to explore.

* They have met Davik Nettles so have his "quest", but I'm going to hold off on giving them the quest from Restov to take out the Stag Lord as not to encourage them.

* In the mite lair, I'm quite worried about the centipede. I had the rescued kobold be one of the four from the radish patch they encountered (who they healed, questioned, and eventually let go after they defeated him) to encourage them to trust him, and I just had him tell them straight up that there's a nasty centipede in the direction of the crevice.

Does anyone have any suggestions or practices that worked in their own campaigns to guide the players?

Thanks, RuyanVe. The whole description of the contingencies if the PC's are escorted by a Kobold and if they show up before retrieving Old Sharptooth, together with how he escorts them to Tartuk personally threw me so I had the PCs stop by Chief Sootscale first. Oh well.

Two questions about the Kobold area Y1 (pg. 38).

1) Is the intent for Nikpik to lead the PCs through Chief Sootscale's area or to bypass it and go directly to Tartuk?

2) The text reads "Tartuk takes care to lead the PCs around the pits to the south as he escorts them." That should be "Nikpik takes care...", should it not?

Because CHA is their dump stat.

He's not being played as a foolhardy character. To the contrary, he's very paranoid he's being manipulated based on his past history. He didn't trust Oleg or Svetlana's story and only when he heard Happ's crew threatening to throw fire in to speed them up if they didn't open the door, did he decide to fully support the effort.

Hi Alexander and Erik,

Thanks for the responses!

Sorry for not being more clear but I only received the background the night before we played our first session so after everyone introduced their characters and talked about how to link backgrounds, it was decided that one of the other characters helped him escape from the Barbarians.

Well, the 2nd half of book 4 is pretty geared for this character, though I doubt he'll survive that long.

Why is that? General high lethality?

Long-story short: some priestesses of Gyronna pretend to be priestesses of Gorum and to bring about the prophecized reincarnation of one of Gorum's ancient heroes, so they can use this legendary hero for their own ends. In the process you kill a lot of Gorum-barbarians, and you raid some catacombs sacred to Gorum.

Wow, that should fit in nicely. I knew there were some Barbarians but wasn't aware that they had the Gorum connection. That's perfect.

As for the character: have him come from the Gulshkin Mountains in Brevoy, just to be a little more tied together with things. And have the Barbarians come from Numeria; again, to tie him to the setting.

The Barbarians in the second half of book 4 are from Numeria?

Also, regarding his class it is indeed as Alexander guessed. He's simply a first level fighter and will work back up as a Fighter/Cleric.

Hi all,

One of my players who is new to Pathfinder and Golarion presented me with the background below for his PC. I've warned him we may need to make some adjustments but I'd like to try to keep as much as possible, even if just the broad outlines, and even if I have to change up some plot details.

I've glanced through the entire campaign but as we're just starting am really only familiar with Stolen Lands and Rivers Run Red. I was wondering if any of you experienced Kingmaker DMs who know the background well can help me out with suggestions for how to fit this into Kingmaker.

====

Surtr is a dark and brooding dwarf hunted and haunted by his past. A scion of the rich and powerful dwarven mining clan, Jotunar, in Brunderton, Surtr had set out as a youth to stake a claim to the gem mines in the Stolen Lands, desperate to distinguish himself amongst his great family. However, his only true skill lay in swordcraft, a skill he fine-tuned as a violent and perpetually bullied youth. His frequent brawls, not to mention his vocal preference for the sword over the axe, brought shame and dishonor upon his clan, pushing him both further away from his family and even more to prove himself.

Somewhere along the way, Surtr lost himself and his grand vision, and become little more than a brutish sellsword who fought to forget the burdens of his clan name. It was during one of his early mercenary campaigns that he came under the sway of a barbarian cult dedicated to the wargod, Gorum. Already a wayward soul with no sense of self, he was an easy target for the proselytizing warpriests of Gorum, who promised him glory in bloodshed. Thus did Surtr become a cleric of the Lord in Iron, and in so doing, he severed all ties to his old dwarven family, hoping to create a new name for himself through deeds in battle.

However, as he did the bidding of the barbarian warpriests of Gorum, he came to participate in ever more cruel acts of violence done for no other reason than greed, lust, and evil. He could never muster the throaty and ruthless howls for blood and flesh as fervently as his half-orc brothers-in-arms, and he soon became sick of what he had become and what his god stood for. His dwarvish upbringing reclaimed its hold on his spirit and he rebelled against the teachings of Gorum, becoming an apostate of the God of Battle and his church of wanton violence. As he renounced Gorum, the god stripped Surtr of his divine spellpower, and the young dwarf was suddenly bereft of all but his own innate fighting skill. He was branded a traitor and the followers of Gorum declared that they would hunt him down for his betrayal of their god. But luckily, his martial skills were enough to defeat his pursuers and escape from the encampment of the barbarian cult.

Surtr fled his one-time kin and ventured south to the borders of the Stolen Land, hoping to escape the barbarian cult of Gorum and the shame of his own evil past. Today, as his gaze takes in the Stolen Lands from his humble shed hidden in the foothills of the wilderness of Rostland, his mind has once again rekindled his quest to conquer the Stolen Lands. But this time, he does so not to impress his parents, but to escape the certainty of death awaiting him in Brevoy and perhaps even to find a power within the Stolen Lands to give him the strength to defeat the followers of Gorum who stalk him still.

As someone fluent in Japanese and with intermediate Mandarin, I hope the team are going to be very careful with the approach they are using for place and person names.

The good thing is that at least to me _Tian Xia_ and _Minkai_ are very workable as names. So whatever Paizo did to come up with those names, I hope they go in that direction.

Just as a note of caution, L5R totally flubbed this up by using comical names by apparently going through a Japanese dictionary and picking random words.

_Ameiko Kaijitsu_ and _Tsuto Kaijitsu_ aren't horrible but do seem like they suffer from the randomly selected syllable syndrome a bit.

Also, the only reason the charter reads Calistril is because that's when this AP began (i.e. February). I'm starting my campaign this month, so my charter says Lamashan (October) instead.

Interesting. Didn't make that connection. Personally though I'm going to keep mine in Calistril so that the players are heading into Spring and Summer with plenty of time to explore rather than feeling they will be heading into winter soon.

Thanks! So I guess the means the party arrives at Oleg's on 30 Calistril (the last day of Winter) and faces the bandits on 1 Pharast (the first day of Spring).

I'm about to start up a Stolen Lands campaign. The charter reads that it was granted on the "24th of Talistril" but I am unable to find which month this is on pg. 238 of the campaign setting. Am I missing something obvious?

I bought the 34.5 x 48 Chessex vinyl battlemat from Paizo. It came rolled and squashed.

I just received one from Paizo to replace one a friend never returned. It was bent to fit into a box that was much too small for it, and as a result I have the same problems with wrinkles and an uneven surface. I'm very unhappy and wish I had seen your post and realized Paizo sends them this way before I ordered from them.

Another possibility is using Prestigitation or berry juice to write "Smelly Biggens", "Clumsy Biggens", etc. (whatever cruel nicknames the fey have given each PC) on the horses they are using.