Craig1234's page

As I'm approaching the end of a decade-long run of RotRL (it's been quite a haul), I've been thinking of developing my own adventures for my players next. I have plenty of ideas stored up that just need to be organized and developed, but I don't know where to put it. My mind went immediately to picking up a world guide and getting to know it as the setting, and then I could use that as the framework for my story (and probably use a bunch of other hooks to pull it all together).

Therefore, I did a quick search and found several, but realized that they seem to overlap one another (for instance, "Campaign Setting, The Inner Sea World Guide" and "Campaign Setting: Cheliax, The Infernal Empire" - even though Cheliax is part of the inner sea guide).

Having never seen any of these books before, I was left wondering what is the difference between a campaign setting and a world guide (if there is one), and how do they fit together - I wouldn't think twice about buying one, but I won't be buying several.

I'd appreciate any assistance you can provide clearing this up.

Also, any suggestions for where to set it would be good. A key part of the story requires a nation where magic is illegal (not absent, just illegal, requiring the players to be careful about where and when they pull out the magic stuff).

Thanks again

I have been too lenient allowing my players to get their hands on magic items and ultra-high quality gear in this campaign (to be fair, it's my first campaign, so I didn't expect it to be a problem until recently) and the result is that they are almost untouchable. For example, this is a party of 3 level 16 characters who in our last session took on a CR20 fight and the PCs only got hit twice the entire battle, which was short because they never missed and did massive amounts damage every time with every hit.

They're just coming into Xin-Shalast now, so they just have to get through the city before the final battle, and I'm worried that the final battle will end up being anti-climatic, which would be a real shame. As such, I'm hoping to scale up the CR of the final battle (in the book its a CR22) so that it is very challenging but don't know how to do it. My guess is the final CR would need to be around 25-26, and I also don't want to add any other bad guys to the mix, so it would be a case of doing some leveling on the 5 monsters in the fight or adding defenses to the eye of avarice itself. Any suggestions for how to improve this situation?

Thanks

I have been too lenient allowing my players to get their hands on magic items and ultra-high quality gear in this campaign (to be fair, it's my first campaign, so I didn't expect it to be a problem until recently) and the result is that they are almost untouchable. For example, this is a party of 3 level 16 characters who in our last session took on a CR20 fight and the PCs only got hit twice the entire battle, which was short because they never missed and did massive amounts damage every time with every hit.

They're just coming into Xin-Shalast now, so they just have to get through the city before the final battle, and I'm worried that the final battle will end up being anti-climatic, which would be a real shame. As such, I'm hoping to scale up the CR of the final battle (in the book its a CR22) so that it is very challenging but don't know how to do it. My guess is the final CR would need to be around 25-26, and I also don't want to add any other bad guys to the mix, so it would be a case of doing some leveling on the 5 monsters in the fight or adding defenses to the eye of avarice itself. Any suggestions for how to improve this situation?

Thanks

My group is rapidly reaching the end of our RotRL campaign, and I've run an additional side story for each of the PCs. With the campaign coming to a close, it will soon be time for one of them to raise an army and reclaim his homeland (after fighting their armies of course). This is something he's looked forward to and I've encouraged. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the rules on how to do this (I know I saw them once). Can anyone direct me to where I can find out how he can build his army, and how I can build an army to counter it, and then actually do battle?

Appreciate it, thanks.

One of our players had to drop out of the adventure path about 1/2 way through. I doubt I'll be able to find another player, which leaves me with 3 adventurers (all experienced players). The AP is clearly designed with 4 heroes (currently level 9 if it matters) in mind, and I'm not sure what the best way would be to continue with only the three. Should I just give them all an extra level? Add an NPC (they don't particularly like that idea)? Something else?

The one approach I definitely don't want to take (cause it would be too much work for me) is to rebuild the encounters.

Any help with working this out would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I just did a fight this weekend which required 13 of the same type of pawn. Management of that fight was a pain because I could never remember which was moster2 and which was monster11. My thought for solving that in the future is to buy one of the brighter colored bases (yellow or red) and use a sharpie to write a number on the bases, making them unique. My only question with that is will the sharpie stick to the base or just rub off?

thanks

For a bit of background, I'm a fairly new GM leading a game (ROTRL) with a party of 3 very very very experienced players. The problem is that one of the players I just can't hit or damage, so there's never really a challenge to any fight. Let me give a specific example.

We're fighting Aldern Foxglove (Skinsaw man), Level 7 CR8. The 3 party members are all level 6, giving an APL of 4.5. By the book this should have been a challenging, if not down right hard, fight. It turned out to be extremely easy and took only a couple rounds to wrap up.

Here's what happened:

Round 1:
-Foxglove attacks PC. His weapon is +12, but the PCs AC is 25, so Foxglove has only about a 30% chance of hitting, which he fails to do (Note, if he succeeded, he'd have done a max of 9 DMG to a PC with 53 HP).
-PC attempts sunder on Foxglove's weapon. PCs Greater Sunder is +13 against Foxgloves CMD of 27. Unfortunately, my players have a habit of rolling inexplicably well (without cheating) and the sunder is successful. As Foxglove has a light weapon, it is shattered and gone.
-Others add armor buff to the PC

Round 2+:
-Foxglove can now only use his melee attacks at +11, which gives him only about a 20% chance of hitting (because of the slightly reduced attack and increased armor). Meanwhile the party pretty much just quickly chops him up.

Now, I could have ignored that PC and gone after the others, since I could definitely tear them up, but it didn't seem right to me that Foxglove would ignore the big guy bashing him with a sword and go after the others - maybe I was wrong there.

In the end, I'm not trying to kill the party, but in epic fights that are supposed to be very challenging, I should be able to at least hit the PCs - and that doesn't seem to happen now.

How should I deal with this?
Thanks

I've been looking through these forums for a solution to my situation, but haven't found anything quite like where I'm at. My group and I meet in person to play over the kitchen table and decided (since we're all old) to make it a no-tech game. After about a year of play though, I was finding the GM paper keeping to be slowing things down too much, so I added a laptop with combat manager and pdfs just to keep from having to switch between any of 5 different books (and normally being in 2 or 3 at any given time). What I've started considering is allowing one additional tech bit in to make map life easier for everyone. That is, sitting a TV face up on the table and displaying the map on it (probably using maptools), then letting everyone else just move their tokens on top of the TV. Has anyone tried this? I'm wondering how well it works and if the TV gets really messed up in the process. I've also considered using something like 3D virtual tabletop and letting the players move their digital pawns around it, in which case I could just stand the TV normal as a reference. Ultimately, since we like the old school approach and actually sit together to play, I'm don't want to replace the dice or paper or communication or anything else, just trying to ease the map/fog part of the equation.

Anyone have thoughts suggestions about this?

Thanks

Couldn't remember if an AOO can or cannot provoke a subsequent AOO and couldn't find it in the rules.

Example: NPC moves out of a square threatened by PC provoking an AOO. PC then opts to shoot NPC with her shortbow from a distance of 5 feet (which as a normal attack would trigger an AOO from NPC). In that case, does NPC get the AOO against PC or is there no subsequent AOO triggers?

Thanks, just can't remember.

So last night my party decided to rest in the middle of a goblin den (they were aware of the risk and did it anyway). They made it 6 hours before the goblins attacked. Since they didn't get the required 8 hours, the casters didn't get their spells back, nor did anyone get any sleep healing. That was all fine.

Here's the problem, immediately after the attack, they decided they wanted to rest again since they still have no spells. Now I'm thinking they've been up for 15 mins of heavy combat after a 6 hour sleep, so they're probably not ready for sleep. I also don't really want them to since I know that they've no cleared up pretty much everything in the stronghold, and there's really only 1 fight left before it would make sense for them to hold up for the night.

Regardless of what waits ahead of them, I'm not really sure how to handle it if they want to just sit around all day and night before moving on.

Suggestions?

Thanks

My PCs are about to go through an area with tons (literally) of loot, far more than they or their pack horse could carry. We don't really do much with encumbrance except to say that the overall would be too much (keeping it simple), thing is, I have no idea how much a pack horse could carry, so it's hard to say that this stack of stuff would be too much. Please let me know what would be a reasonable max weight for normal loading, then my group and I can decide what's reasonable based on that.

Thanks

My party is about to run into a NPC who has a few +1 Elf Bane Arrows. My party has no pure-blood elf characters, but does have 2 half-elf ones. do the arrows work the same on them?

Trying to help my sorcerer correct some mistakes in her character creation (she's now level 2) and as I'm looking at spells per day, I see no reference to a formula for 0 level spells. Does that mean she has unlimited casting of 0-levels?

I have a player with -1 INT, his skills per level is 2 + INT. Does this mean he only gets 1 skill per level, or are negative values not applied to skills per level?

Thanks

Has anyone tried anything like this? And did it work at all?

So I have one of my PCs running a side quest to get the Super Sparkly Item of Awesome Goodness from a highly secured area. My plan is to have the party work their way through the usual barrage of guards and traps until they finally reach the vault containing it. Once they step in though, they can see the SSIiAG hovering in the center of a large cube (probably a few hundred feet in each direction), but through some magical spacial warping, they've entered a room that may as well have been designed by MC Escher, complete with stairways that you climb to reach lower levels, or side walls, etc. Of course, flying would be magically prohibited. I have some ideas on how to make it work logistically (though not entirely sure it would until I start figuring out the maps in ridiculously warped ways).

The big question is whether or not it would work or just be a really tedious pain in the neck that didn't really achieve any of its intended goals. Has anyone given anything like this a try before? How'd it go?

I had another post on rogues and the relative strength of sneak attack which pretty quickly got off the rails and was locked; therefore, I would ask that we keep this one very closely tied to the actual question at hand so that we can get the full answer without the need for locking this too.

Here's the question, how does cover, concealment, et al effect sneak attack. Specifically, can a rogue sneak attack an enemy with cover relative to him? Can a rogue sneak attack an enemy with concealment relative to him (at 1st level with no special feats). If he can sneak attack the concealed enemy, I presume the enemy gets the normal % roll to negate the attack?

Again, my group's rogue is very adept at sneak attacks, and I want to try to fully understand it and how other things effect it, so please be sure to stay on topic so that the thread remains open long enough to fully explore the answer.

Thank you

My group played a short adventure out of the beginner box that took us to level 5, then we started a larger campaign using the full core rules, and are now at level 2. One of my PCs played a rogue for both, and maybe he's just uncannily good at getting into position, but he has been pretty much always able to flank his target, resulting in his being able to conduct a sneak attack on almost every round of every fight. The result is that he has done probably 75-80% of the total party damage from the day we started (he doesn't hit more often, but that extra d6 bonus damage really beats up these low level NPCs). While no one has complained (they're just happy in their victories), I wonder if there is something I'm missing. It just seems that it's either too much bonus damage or that you can sneak attack too often. Has anyone else seen this, is there anything that can/should be done about it? I have no intention of changing the rules, but if I'm misunderstanding them, that's a different story altogether. Or maybe it's just sneak attack is super-effective at the start and becomes less so as the PCs get higher? Thought?

One other thing, can a rogue use his sneak attack as part of an attack of opportunity - my read of the rules says yes, but I want to be sure.

On a side note - I really think it should have been named something else, I find it hard to call it sneak attack when you're standing right in front of the guy who is taking swings at you, lol, but that's a problem for another day.

Thanks

Wondering how I would do this. Say, for example, a scene had my intrepid party of 4 adventurers jump off a boat and take on an army of 100 (or even 200) baddies. How would that be done? I just read through the mass combat stuff on PRD, but it is focused on army vs army (with maybe PCs having a little fight of their own), but has nothing about just the 4 of them taking on an entire army by themselves. I'm thinking as a big finale having them running around yelling "that's #49 for me" would be fun for them (and still be challenging). I just don't know how it's done. Suggestions appreciated. And yes, I realize that no matter how powerful they are, they would be killed pretty quick in real life, but that's the beauty of fantasy, lol.

I have a couple questions about how to make a side story for one of my PCs work well. Here's the jist, the people of his home town were going to kill him at birth, the result of a hideous prophecy that told of horrible things to come if he was around. Instead of being killed, he was stolen away and brought up by others far away, but is now returning to town to find his roots (he will be aware of the prophecy before going to town).

I've already arranged for his mother to have died just before he was born, so I think I can tie his presence in the community to the start of undead appearances on his arrival in town. Each night, the situation grows worse, until the party realizes that they can't beat this on their own.

They will then, hopefully, head out to find something or someone to help them save the town. What they find is an old tome that tells them of a ritual that will save the town, but requires that PC to sacrifice himself (the character really dies, then the player must roll up a new one). Should they then choose to return to town, they find its an all out necropolis, and he is left to perform the ritual to save the town. In so doing, he discovers that the prophecy requiring him to die really is just bringing the source of the necropolis to him, which the party can then defeat. Of course, if he chooses not to go through with the ritual, the town is wiped out and the necropolis continues to grow.

Now, here's the problems I'm having:

1) What would be a good "source" for the necropolis? Remember, it would need to be something that the party would have to overcome to save the town, and also something that can be tied into the "man from no woman born" thing. Perhaps some imbalance in nature or something? I just don't know.

2) The tome itself: It needs to absolutely sound like the only possible way for him to save the town is to sacrifice his own life. However, after he summons the source with the ritual, it should be clear to the party that they simply misunderstood its meaning, and that it referred to summoning the source of the necropolis. So really, doesn't seem like a bait and switch thing.

I'd really appreciate any help you could give. I've been wracking my brains over this, and think that this will work really well with my group in our big campaign, but just can't nail down these last 2 details.

Thanks again.

I've now led my group through the first 2 sessions with the core rules (we previously did the beginner book thing), and while we are progressing quite nicely, I find I'm still confused somewhat regarding cover and concealment and, as we're meeting again tomorrow, wanted to see if I could at least get clearer on it.

From reading the rules about 50 times now (core rules only), it would seem that cover and concealment are not mutually exclusive, is that correct? If I have a guy in behind a shadowy 1/2 wall, he would have both. In that case, the monster would have a bonus (+4, I believe) to armor class, plus a 20% miss chance. Please correct me if I'm wrong there.

Also, say I have an evil boss a distance away from a PC, and that evil boss has a minion standing directly between him and the PC, does the boss get +4AC because the minion is giving cover? And how would distances apply? Say, in one case, the minion is adjacent to a PC 30 feet away, and in another he was standing 1/2 way between them?

Finally, if that minion were instead a second PC, would the boss get cover from PC1 because PC2 was in the way, getting both a bonus to AC from cover and the benefit of PC1 suffering -4 to attack from shooting into melee?

I keep going round in circles on this and really appreciate any clarity you can provide.

Thanks

My group just started RotRL, and I had them all do a nice character background before we started so that I could create individual character side stories to tie into it. The problem is that I can't seem to get started, and I'm hoping I can get some help here (once I've started, I normally get on a roll, but I'm just drawing a blank for the starting point). My plan was to basically give each character a 6-part tale with one part taking place per chapter (although the first chapter part won't probably be much more than them gathering some intel that leads to part 2). I've reduced the back stories to the salient bullet points and would appreciate any feedback I can get to help me get these moving along - my best guess is that part one of their adventures will probably come up the next time we meet in 2 weeks. So here are their details:

45 year old half-elf Cleric
-Was sold into slavery as a child, then brought to Sandpoint (from Gruankus) where he was bought by a cleric who set him free
-He stayed in Sandpoint afterwards, working with and helping the cleric until that cleric disappeared a couple years ago while on a pilgrimage to a temple in the east.
-During their travels, they made several stops to buy herbs, at which time he met the herb sellers daughter (our Sorceress)
-He wants to see if he can find out what happened to the cleric and help, if possible.

36 year old half-elf Sorceress (may well be combined or substantially overlapped with the Cleric one)
-Grew up following her mother and learning the herb trade, father is unknown to her.
-Met the cleric a few times when he came to visit her mother
-powers have just started to manifest, causing her to seek out her father to learn more
-left home for the first time and headed to Sandpoint (nearest town) in hopes of learning who he was.
-Mother thinks that father might be from Mordant Spire, but wasn't sure and recommended that she not go there
-Mother suggested first step would be to find the priest that used to visit (referring to the one who went missing in the clerics tale)

20-something human monk
-Left at a monastery as a baby, taken in and eventually became a monk himself.
-Became a master brewer (every party needs one)
-After learning that his family was from Varisia, he decided to see if he could find out about them and perhaps meet them.

18 year old human rogue
-comes from a noble family outside of Goka which was wiped out when he was about 10
-after the family's death, he set sail for a better place, got stuck in a storm which destroyed the boat, and washed up on the shores near sandpoint.
-was taken in by a thief and taught the trade to survive until now.
-his mentor decided it was time for him to go off on his own, providing him with a looked book and the word "Revenge"
-His bio states that the book is full of a detailed family history, status of lands, etc, everything needed to avenge - but since it hasn't been opened I have no problem with making the contents entirely different. It could be interesting (to me, at least) if the family wasn't so good and the overthrow was for the best as he is a chaotic good character, and my strongest role player.

Thanks again for any help you can render, I'm still pretty new at this, and it may have been a bit too ambitious, but its too late now, lol.

Gotta guy who wants to do fire breathing as an skill, which is easy enough. However, he also wants to know about using it in combat as a distraction or such. I'm fine with it, and figure it should do about 1d4 damage if it hits the target, but not sure about how it fits in terms of actions. He has to drink the alcohol (well, just get it in his mouth really) and then do the spit bit. I'm thinking that the drinking would be a move or standard action and the spit would be a standard. So the result would be he can drink, spit, and take a 5' step for a given turn. Does that sound about right to you?

Thanks

I've been reviewing the core rules on spell learning and am a bit confused on one bit. I understand the casters get "free" spells when they level, but if they come across a written spell somewhere else, they can get those as well (presuming they have the gold and pass the check)? I ask because I thought the table for the class showed the max number of spells known per level and my party will be running RotRL soon where there's a library with every spell in the game - so if they want to spend the time and money, they can basically get every spell into their book??? Do I have that right?

About to start RotRL, and one of the PCs my players rolled up has a back story where he was born in the Asianish area of Golarion in the outskirts of a seafaring city. Not being a Golarion scholar myself, I'm not sure where this would be. Would anyone please give me a starting city for him?

Thanks

Spirited charge does 2x damage on a hit with a sword. Does that then mean that it does 4x damage on a confirmed critical hit with a sword?

The PRD says that a creature failing a DC20 FORT save against a slaying arrow takes 50 dmg. What I'm not clear on is that 50 dmg in addition to the regular arrow damage? Also, if the save is made, does the creature still take arrow dmg without the other 50 from the slaying ammo?

Thanks

My group is moving out of the beginner box into the core rules and I noticed something I'm not sure about. While I'm sure this is the case with many monsters, my example is just using ghouls to illustrate.

In the beginner box, ghouls have bite+3 listed as a standard action. It also shows bite+3 and 2 claws+3 as a "move and standard action." Whereas, in the bestiary, it shows both attacks as going together, the damage is identical between beginner and core (except that beginner doesn't have disease, which I don't think exists in the beginner rules). So when I play using the bestiary version, do I treat any attack as a standard action with the monsters having no move & standard or full round equivalent?

In this case for instance, could I move the ghoul 20' and then still do a bite and 2 claws? Also, I presume that if a sequence of attacks is OR'd, then I choose which ever I prefer as a standard action?

Thanks

Fellow adventurers, my group has decided that they want to buy their own miniatures for the characters (which I'm totally in favor of), but we're not sure the ones they are looking at are the correct size. We use the standard 1" square = 5 feet maps and flip mats and such. The miniatures they are looking at say "28mm scale" - is that the correct size for a medium PC? Thanks.

Folks, preparing to run my group through Runelords and, as a new GM, have been trying to figure out where all the stats and things for the NPCs come from (I've found figuring it out is really a great way to understand the rules). Anyway, after spending a couple hours trying to figure out Tsuto's stats in a variety of books, I'm left with one I can't see the math behind (fortunately, I've been able to figure out all the others). His CMD is 20, and every time I try to figure it out I get 18. I'm not sure where the discrepancy is, here's what I see:

10 base
BAB +2
STR +1
DEX +3
WIS +2 (because he's a monk)

That equals 18, where are the other 2 coming from?

Thanks.

So my group rolled up new characters the other day and one chose to be a sorcerer, and then while rushing through the creation we got confused on the bloodline part. After having read through the section again and gotten what I believe are the correct answers, I wanted to verify here before telling her what to change on her character. Note: She chose the elemental bloodline, though I suspect the question would be the same for any of them.

First off, table 3-14 (pg. 72) references bloodline spells in the special column. I presume that is referencing the "bonus spells" in the elemental bloodline description (pg.75) and not that she would get the bonus spells in the bloodline plus a bonus spell of her choosing (personally, I would have preferred if they had written "bloodline spell" in the elemental section to avoid any confusion).

Second, regarding the feats. The elemental bloodline has 8 of them, the table shows 3 bloodline feats (levels 7, 13, & 19). Based on that, I presume that she does not get all 8 of the feats listed as a bonus but rather gets to choose one from that list at level 7, a second at 13, and a third at 19 - leaving 5 feats on the list that she never actually gets.

Am I correct about this?

Found several variations of this and wanted to ask for clarification. Let's say that I'm rolling a character whose hit die is a d8. At first level, I give max HP, so he gets the full 8, but for subsequent levels, does he automatically get max or does he roll and maybe only have 9 HP at level 2 and 10 at level 3 (if he's a really bad roller). Also, looking through the core rulebook, it looks like there is a +1 to leveling class, so is the calculation actually d8+1? Finally, we're moving out of the beginner box into full rules, and in the beginner box HP was d8+CON, is that anything like it in the full rules?

Thanks

My PCs will soon find themselves at the stable to buy some mounts. I'd rather not say that there are a 6 light horses and a dozen ponies. Rather I'd like to say there are 2 mustangs, an Arabian, etc with various colors and such so they can choose the one they like and have an actual choice of horse. Problem is, I have no idea what breeds are appropriate or what they would look like in Golarion, nor have I been able to find any info on them. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm about to start our RotRL campaign and noticed the "Festival Fun and Games" section at the start and thought it'd be cool to have some of them running. I can see where weight lifting contests would be done via an opposed STR check, but things like the sack races and tugs of war seem to me like they could have an actual mini-game attached that would be more interesting and fun then just rolling A vs B. That said, I'm not sure how I would make that work. Anyone got any ideas?

thanks

While preparing a fight against some goblins, I noticed that they have the following skills:

Ride +10, Stealth +10, Swim +4; Racial Modifiers +4 Ride, +4 Stealth

I'm confused about two things on this line. First, do I add both values together, so ride and stealth check are each +14? Second, why does the sequence change, meaning for the skills its <skill><value>, whereas the racial modifiers are <value><skill>?

I'd appreciate any help here. Thanks.

Specifically, the book says "A strength penalty, but not a bonus, applies on damage rolls made with a bow that is not a composite bow." I've found a few other references to strength penalties in the book, but nothing that explains what it is. My own searching has led me to believe the following, please let me know whether I've got it right.

I'm presuming that the strength penalty is just a negative STR mod that results from a low strength roll (or perhaps a good roll temporarily reduced by other effect). In that case, when rolling damage, the PC would add the negative STR (which would lower the damage) even though he normally would not add STR to a ranged attack. This also seems consistent to me with the bit about it not happening when using a compound bow as the only purpose of the bow's mechanism is to allow the archer to hold the bow drawn with less physical effort.

Please let me know if any of this is correct (of course, if not, please also let me know what is, lol)

Thank you all.

Just rolled up a practice character before walking my group through the process and ran into one or two snags. First was figuring attack and damage on my gnome barbarian's weapons. I think I got it right in the end, but want to check.

First, I calculated the BAB. Since he's a barbarian 1st level, that's +1 and another +1 because he's a gnome for a total BAB of +2. Then I gave him a longsword which does 1d6 dmg (since the gnome is small). His STR is +3, which added to the BAB of +2 gives him +5 to attack and makes the damage 1d6+3, yes? Being a nice player, I also gave him a shortbow (1d4 dmg) so that he wouldn't get bored banging things all the time. For that, I added his DEX (+2) to his BAB and got +4 to attack and 1d4+2 dmg, is that correct?

The only other question I had was on a spot for the spell resistance. I found nothing in either the gnome or barbarian sections that explained that, and presume that they just don't have any - but when would that box come into play with a PC?

Thanks.

So I killed one of my players yesterday. I know it happens, and I'm fine with it. But it was near the end of the second to last session of the mini-training campaign I put them on. They're using the beginner box pregens and are anxious to roll their own characters and start RotRL under full rules after the next session. Because of all that, I didn't want to waste time rolling up a new character that would be used for 1 session only and arranged for the adventurers to find a scroll of resurrection on the corpse of the gargoyle that killed one of them (which, admittedly makes no sense from a story perspective). I also made sure my players know that after we start RotRL, there's really no chance that would happen, so they'd better be more careful. It worked for the night, but I also know that bad rolls happen and mistakes occur so I want to be sure that they have some recourse if dead. As such, I was thinking about having them find a cache of resurrection scrolls (I was thinking 4, one per PC) at one of the early loot piles in RotRL so that they at least have the ability to die once each and come back, but still have plenty of chances to die. I just don't know if that's too generous or unnecessary or what, thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated. Again, I'm fine with players having to roll up a new character, I just don't want them to have to do it often - there needs to be real death, but they shouldn't spend the entire adventure path mourning their other characters.

thanks

I've been putting together a couple modules of my own to use with my hearty adventurers and for one would like to recreate the effect of the Weeping Angels from the Doctor Who series, but I have no idea how I would achieve that. Anyone care to share ideas on how to make it happen?

Started questioning myself last night as I (perhaps) over read the stat block. Was using the Gargoyle out of the beginner box books and it states:

2 claws +7 (1d6+2)

My take on that has been to do two attack rolls, one for each claw with each claw that hits doing 1d6+2 damage (so 2d6+4 if they both hit). Is that correct? My confusion has become is it one attack with 2 claws for 1d6+2 dmg - or is each claw its own attack with their own 1d6+2 dmg?

Thanks.

I'm just reviewing the stuff I expect to get to with my players today and saw something I hadn't noticed before that's got me confused.

The stat block for the goblin boss has Burning Hands (DC 12) and Sleep (DC 12). As I understand it, it should be an attack roll against a touch attack for BH and regular attack for Sleep. If so, what does the DC have to do with anything?

Thanks

I've been wrestling with the flat footed condition since I first read the rules and now think that I have it figured out - but want to check here to make sure I got it right (I understand how it affects attack and ac etc, just not how to determine when to apply the condition in the first place).

Let's say that the initiative order is as such:

14 Trixie
12 Bob
11 Ogre baddie (the only monster in the battle)
9 Fifi
2 Dead Ted

In this case, am I correct that in the first round of battle, Trixie and Bob would being attacking a flat footed ogre; and Fifi and Dead Ted would be attacking a normal (not flat footed) Ogre. Also, when the Ogre gets his turn, if he chose to attack either Trixie or Bob, it would be a normal attack, but if he went for Fifi or Dead Ted he would be attacking against their flat footedness? The with the second round, everyone is normal?

Thanks

I started my group with the beginner box (the included adventure plus several that I added to complete the story), and I'm thinking I didn't get the loot right there (I feel like it's far too much even considering consumption and 1/2 value sales, etc). So I wanted to post here and make sure I'm getting it right as we're about to switch to the core rules and run the RotRL AP. I'm also trying to preroll as much of the treasure as possible as I get really bored as a player when the GM has to stop the game to roll up the horde, and I'd like to avoid that in the games I run.

So, as an example, the first combat of RotRL pits the players against 3 Goblins (CR 1). As RotRL uses the fast track, that equates to 400 gp for the encounter. So far so good, now here's where I get confused. According to the beastiary, the goblins are carrying:

Leather Armor (10 gp)
Light Wooden Shield (3 gp)
Short Sword (10 gp)
Short Bow w/20 arrows (31 gp)
other treasure

So do I give 3 of each as loot and then deduct that from the total gp for the encounter? I ask because there are other encounters with as many as 8 goblins, in which case I'd be awarding 8x leather armor, which I'm not sure the PC's could even carry. Presuming that I do give 3 each, that brings the total awarded so far to 162 gp, with "other treasure" equaling 238 gp. As I was trying to work this out for the beginner box bit I did, at first level, that's a lot of gold to account for unless you start adding magical items, which I don't think should be common (at least not at first level). In the end, I found it very difficult to even give out that much loot without falling back to "x, y, z, and 500 gold" for every encounter.

At this point, I think I have a pretty good handle on most of the game mechanics, but this one I just don't get, please help.

Thanks

I'm seeing a bunch of NPCs with SQ stuff, but not sure what it is. I suspect its from one of the books that I haven't read yet, can anyone give a brief answer of what it is, and if it requires some reading, let me know which book at least its in?

Thanks

I just started prepping for RotRL and don't understand what the damage stats for the torch is. In the AP, it says:

torch -1 (1d2+1 plus 1 fire)

My question is what is the "plus 1 fire" part? Does that refer to an additional point of damage from the fire, or does it mean it starts a fire that might do some other damage and, if so, does it start an additional fire each turn?

Please someone, clarify that. Thanks.

A quick question about handling the buying and selling of loot. Naturally, my PCs want to haggle to get a better deal on the price, and I believe that a PC with higher charisma should be able to negotiate a better price than one with lower charisma (a little better, not hugely different) - I just don't know how to do that. I presume its a skill roll, CHA against something, but am not sure. Help please?