DM Jeff's page

What I'm looking for is a product that's added a lot of pre-made army stat blocks for stuff NOT covered in Paizo's Ultimate Campaign.

I have Ultimate War by Legendary Games, and while it's very good, doesn't have any new pre-made armies. I know I could make them but the work involved versus the simple game I want to run doesn't add up.

So, I'm looking for pre-made armies of things like demons, devils, dragons, giants, etc. Does anyone know of such a resource?

In Shattered Star we have a grand adventure set in Kaer Maga, and I hadn’t run anything there in a couple of years. While recently becoming reacquainted with this city and its sourcebook, I realized for quick lookup purposes during play I needed an index of locations. The following text places the numbered location on the map of the city in the Shattered Star Map Folio to the page numbers in the source book City of Strangers. It also has small notes to jog my memory thus possible spoilers. I thought it might help to share here.

Also, I got a huge kick out of the “seen on a street corner” sidebar in City of Strangers, but I’ve wore it out over the years and needed some more. Here are 20, does anyone have any other suggestions?

Enjoy!

I have never played in a PFS game at a con before. At GenCon I’d like to join a few games to get in on the experience. I run the scenarios all the time for my home game so I’m very familiar with how it works, but when I go to the con I’d like the challenge of playing whatever is needed to the best of my ability for that game – role and all. The Player’s Guide says:

Chapter 2 of the present guidebook contains step-by-step instructions to help you create your official Pathfinder Society character. Unless you plan to select an official pregenerated character, read these rules carefully, as they contain a few adaptations to ensure that characters are suitable for the organized play environment.

So should I assume that con GM’s have pregenerated PCs for their games available? Many thanks, can’t wait to throw dice with some of you!

My first GenCon was in 1989. From 1993 to 2007 my wife and I either went every year or every other year. 2007 was our last one. We had felt like we’d conned out, if you will, and the visits were not as fresh. This year when we got the news that Paizo was becoming a big sponsor we looked at each other and smiled. We must return!

So (for you long-time attendees), in a nutshell has anything changed or become better (or worse?) in the past 6 years? Any new traditions or shows? We always attended the art show, the auction, the seminars, Tracy Hickman’s breakfast, Ennies, and the other staples. And looking forward to see old friends and getting in some Pathfinder Society play. Any suggestions welcome!

I run monthly auctions but usually don't advert here because there's usually no Paizo material. But this month I've collected hard copies of the original five "Darkmoon Vale" modules.

Here's a LINKY. Thanks!

I’m interested in opinions. Here’s the situation.

You’re running a Pathfinder module for your group. To move the story along or unveil a vital clue that spurs on the next stage in the adventure, there’s a skill DC in the way. The player role-plays it really well, or has the tools to do it, and rolls a total of 30. You look down at the module and it says DC 32.

1) Do you just let them make it, or do you just announce failure?
2) If you do let them make it do you feel cheesy afterwards?
3) How far off the target DC would you be willing to bend to let them make it, as GM?

I’ll admit if it’s not vital and they blow it, even by 1 point, I’ll let them fail, maybe even giving them a hint that they are close or nowhere near the target. This also helps prevent the “wait in line, I’ll try it next” dice rolling circus. Additionally, if you DO play hard ball and let them fail, do you just let them linger around or help ‘steer’ them to a resolution?

In my opinion, running a game means just that. When you can’t bend a little to help the story move along then it’s stalling a game, not running it, am I right or bonkers? I would let them make it, as from either side of the screen, story apathy is pain. What’s your take?

Live in central/south New Jersey or the Philadelphia region? I have a group that meets 2-3 times a month but each session is episodic. You don't need to be at every one. It's an ongoing campaign but with folks with scattered schedules who still want to play.

Any interest? ocasek50 at hotmail dot com

My group doesn't like fiddling with the rules. Strange, huh? That's because in over 30+ years tinkering has been fun but doesn't lead to an understanding of the game everyone can grasp, especially newcomers.

We use one house rule involving the Swim skill. That's it.

But the time has come with Exotic Weapon Proficiency. In 12 years of 3e/PF play I think I've seen it taken 2 or 3 times and therefore tons of weapons never get used or sold off because no one thinks it's worth a feat.

I've looked over some threads here and elsewhere and can't decide how best to handle it. Give everyone one free? If someone doesn't ever want an exotic weapon will they feel it a useless gift and want something else? When you take the feat allow two or three exotic weapons known? What if they just WANT the one?

Players and GM's: what is the best alternate to this feat you have seen in play? What worked best and why?

Many thanks!

I attended a Beginner Box Bash here in NJ, USA over the weekend at a FLGS. It had a very small and unimpressive turnout. I saw some hope for the future in some of the kids playing, but the presentations were a little lackluster to be honest. I would like to get involved running some of these for my other brand new FLGS this coming weekend to spread the love, but I don’t know the deal.

Do I need to contact someone or does the store owner? Who do they contact? We’d like to get something for this coming Sunday Dec 18th. Are we too late to jump on board? Thanks!

So after one year and two months, playing near weekly for six hours at a pop, we completed the Kingmaker Campaign from start to finish! 325+ hours of high adventure, and it went down to our group as the most fun (if not, tied with RotRL) AP we’ve done.

I’m not really sure where to start without spoiling everything. At the last session I went back through the books and showed the players all the artwork (much of which was used during the game) and so we re-lived the whole campaign that night. To see where some throwaway NPC or situation became such an integral part of the campaign through player choice was fun. Remembering the battles that really stood out was a blast (and there were plenty).

I’ll say that using and mining the Guide to the River Kingdoms really helped this campaign stand out. Whenever there was a lull in the action or a month’s planning ended I’d occasionally have visiting dignitaries from other lands show up and spread news or gossip, letting the players know about what was going on around them.

I GM’d for four players, two men and two women who compose my long-time stable of dependable players. They portrayed a fighter, sorcerer, druid and zen archer monk. There were two near TPK’s averted with amazing luck and planning and three character deaths that suddenly didn’t happen thanks to Plot Twist Cards (another prop this game depended on). They ended the campaign at 17th level.

The girls painstakingly drew out the hex map as they crawled along to the point where the thing is huge and detailed and artistically rendered. The fellow who’s been playing D&D for over 25 years and always wanted to be a king finally got his wish.

From a GM point of view one of the things that made this AP great was the open spaces I got to toy with in both story and literally on the map. Of the five AP’s I’ve run this one left the most for me to work with and customize and my creative part relished that.

We’re actually taking a little break now because to start anything else so soon after PC’s they have portrayed so strong and for so long would be an exercise in futility.

If anyone has specific questions, feel free (it would help focus my thoughts on it all). I suppose we should spoiler-note much of it if it involves behind the scenes stuff!

"Once a week, its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, etc. The effect
produced in 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100
humans laboring for 3 days."

Anyone have some good stats on how many buildings, mines, tunnels or ditches 100 humans laboring for 3 days can make?

Thanks!

There was a discussion quite a while back in some thread...where I asked in Pathfnder Modules if maybe just a little 2x2-inch map showing the location in Golarion where it took place could be included. Small, so that it was useful but if you didn't play in Golarion wouldn't take up too much space.

Got my latest Pathfinder modules...and there they are. Fantastic! I certainly hope these are here to stay.

Thanks again, Paizo!!

Finally started our CoT group the other night. As has been the norm, we waited until the series was out before beginning for proper prep and foreshadowing and the like.

For the most part the group bought the opening hook although it was split in exactly what was going on as far as treason and trusting Janiven straight up. The first night they met up, got through the sewers, met other CoW's (the group's unflattering name for the Children of Westcrown) and rescued Arael from the hellknights.

For fun, here's images of the assault:

Bridge assault!

Here from L to R are Mathany the wizard, Greil the paladin, Aroden the cleric, Glennis the rogue, and Matea the Bard: Party Miniatues

Glennis frees Arael

Greil faces Shanwen

The Players

I recall back in CotCT someone made a Korvosa map with colorized sections denoting the different neighborhoods.

Wondering if anyone had one to share for WESTCROWN or if I should just crack down and make me own? :-)

Council of Thieves is awesome, and now that its complete I can start the campaign! In a bizarre twist, when I try copying the names of the NPCs of the back cover of #30, when I put it in notepad (for later coordinating into Excel) all I get is this:

������&am p;#56256;�����&# 56256;�����&#562 56;������ ������&am p;#56392;�����&# 56321;

Which is strange because all the previous books in the CoT series let me copy the text. Anything I might be doing wrong? I have Adobe full version 8 with updates. Thanks all! Now, back to typing... :-)

I first heard of these folks back on someone's podcast and I really liked what I heard then but never paid much more attention. This past week I've been indexing my Kobold Quarterly's and found that nearly every article I remembered fondly (and used the very next game session I ran) came from this husband-and-wife writing team. Their unique take on classic ideas really grabs me, and I find their overall writing style a joy.

This past Saturday I ran their Pathfinder scenario Black Waters, which not only terrified the living bejesis out of the players but was easily classed as the best PF Society adventure the group's done (and we've done nearly a dozen).

Make no mistake, I will actually be on the lookout for their work in the future, and Paizo and KQ, good job bringing them on board.

-DM Jeff

Back in my Forgotten Realms days, early on I read something, somewhere about magic items resizing to match the wearer. This meant magic rings, boots, gloves, headbands, cloaks, robes, belts, vests, monacles, eyeglasses, and whatever could go pretty much from pixie to storm giant size when donned.

We played pretty fast and loose and didn't stop too long to give it much thought, it even carried over to my Eberron and homebrew campaigns.

Now we've been in Golarion since Rise of the Runelords, and the other day someone finally suggested it was getting kinda cheesy. I mean, I can still see rings resizing. Maybe even boots and gloves, but cloaks and robes?

Anyway my group is going to share some thoughts on this over the week's email. I know, do whatever works. But I'd still like an idea of what others think. The group just got a run for their money by a halfling bandit gang and now they have 2 or 3 items no one can wear!
:-)

Point of the post: in your Golarion campaign do you rule that magic items resize to fit the wearer? Do you have any special guidelines? Thanks!

Cool, I can post links to stuff I'm selling on ebay? OK..

LINKY

Take a peek, it's quite a load of Forgotten Realsm Greatness, collected over 20 years, plus there's a link to the other stuff I have up there. Thanks!

This is a playtested review of AEG’s TOMB board game.

They supplied me with a copy to try out. Figured I'd share the experience.

The game emulates the carnal basics of Dungeons & Dragons: build a party, kill things, and take their stuff (edition comments not necessary). You win by making good choices in your adventuring party makeup, strategy when facing off against monsters and other players, and a whole lot of luck. You accomplish these tasks by delving into crypts in the tomb and facing the challenges within. When all the crypts are empty, the one with the most XP value of items and kills is the winner.

The game aesthetics are really good. The box itself is strong and sturdy and would hold up to wear and tear. There is a poster showing all of the character cards you can use to build your party. There are two game boards; one is the Inn, where all the players start. The other is double-sided: one side is a basic play introductory tomb and the other is a more convoluted, advanced version. There are hundreds of game cards of different types. Most use art recycled from a plethora of AEG products. There is a big game bag with drawstring to hold the ton of full-color character tiles. There are also a bunch of plastic stands to hold up the character cards during play to help organize everything. A plastic tray has individual slots to hold everything in place during transport.

Outcome of actions is determined with three differently colored 10-sided dice. Green dice have just a couple of axes (successes), blue have half axes, and red dice have mostly axes. When you want to accomplish anything you check the ability of the character card who’s trying the activity against a preset difficulty number. You roll all the dice (usually a combination of colors) and count up all the successes. If you get equal to or higher than the number needed, you succeed. If not, you fail.

The basic rulebook is just that, basic. To try and keep things quick and clean (and to dive right into playing) the book used large type and topical boxes to call out references to rules without loads of detail or examples. The book is only 16 pages long, so it’s not a chore to find anything although a little index would have helped. The rulebook is also short because most of the game is what designers like to call “exception-based”. The rules set everything up, and then during action in the game you promptly break every rule as you go.

I will not duplicate the instruction manual as the review; after all it’s available for free HERE. What follows is the game we played using this set. Everyone rolled the dice for initiative and the one with most successes went first, continuing clockwise around the table.

First, we built the tomb. The map is of a tomb with various rooms called crypts. Each crypt door has a number showing how many cards need to be in the crypt to fill it. There are three types of cards to go in a room: traps, monsters, and treasure. Each player gets a hand of these cards and you take turns going around the table placing cards face down to populate the different rooms. There is some semblance of strategy to this, but for most of us it just felt like a busy exercise. For example, if you put one card in a crypt with a 1 on it, you might opt to just put a treasure in there, and hope to be the first one to go get it. Conversely, you could put a trap in there and remember to avoid it. Any room with a number higher than 2 (most of them) became a random jumble as we all added to the rooms and no one could really remember what was in any of them anyway. To be perfectly honest and to speed play the next time I might just randomly dole out cards per crypt with no one knowing what’s in them.

We all began with a party marker at the Inn, and took turns. The first part of the game is where you make direct decisions in building your party. Characters come from four basic class types: fighter, mage, cleric and rogue. You can have anywhere from one to five members in your party. You want to make sure you have a mixture of the classes to best overcome the different obstacles within the tomb. I like to consider the fifth member as the defining strategy of your party. A group with two rogues wants to get by traps and pickpocket treasure from other players. One with the extra cleric wants to stay alive. Two fighters are good for overcoming monsters and two wizards lets you bust all sorts of rules and really mess with the whole game. During your turn, you can recruit one character. If it’s a wizard or cleric, you also get a prayer or spell card to get them on their way. During your turn you could also select extra spell or prayer cards and attach them to your respective classes. Or you could take an item card and equip it to any character (like a hardy weapon or good piece of armor) or a strategy card to mess with other players during game play.

We all had good times during this phase of the game. Building a party is always fun. The names of the characters are evocative and because of play not all the tiles are available at a time, you have to select from the limited possibilities of who is in the Inn at the time waiting to be recruited. You examine the tiles and see what the characters have to offer. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses and seem comparably balanced. There are no ‘loser’ characters that we saw in play. Each character tile has four different abilities: Attack, Skill, Magic and Holiness. Attack is for fighting creatures, skill is in disabling traps and other noncombat accomplishments, magic is for empowering spells and holiness effects prayer power. Each is represented by a number of dice in green, blue and red colors. For example, a fighter may have an attack score of 2 green, 2 blue and 1 red dice. When you attack you’d roll 5 dice: 2 green 2 blue and 1 red. When they fall, you count up the axes that show face up to see if you succeed. Different characters have different settings. Adding items or treasure can enhance these scores (as an example, if our fighter there was equipped with a halberd with 2 red dice, the character would add those 2 red dice to its total when attacking a monster).

Once folks started getting 3, 4 and 5 character parties we started moving out into the tomb. We had 6 players for this review (maximum for the game), and turns went pretty quickly outside combat. Once you knew what you could accomplish within a turn, game play was fast and easy. When you enter a crypt with cards, the person to your left or right (designated on the map) takes those cards and become the Cryptmaster for the encounter. The Cryptmaster’s job is to make everything as tough as possible for the acting player. And as a word in general, don’t get too attached to your party members, they die on a fairly regular basis.

A typical room might go like this: let’s say one with four cards in it. The Cryptmaster player picks them up and keeps them to himself. Let’s say there’s one trap card, two monster cards and one treasure card. The player must make his way through, in turn: traps, then monsters, to get to the treasure. You overcome traps by selecting one or more characters with good skill scores to defeat a target number set by the trap. You overcome monsters by attacking them or casting spells at them and causing them wounds during combat. The Cryptmaster gets the fun of choosing monster attacks and also harming your characters.

Encounters took the most time. Everything came to a halt while the delving player and Cryptmaster squared off in larger crypts. Of course, this is still entertaining to watch but when they grind on can be annoying. Some rooms just contained treasure. In that case there’s nothing for the Cryptmaster to do but turn the cards over to the player! Combats with monsters can take some time. Monsters frequently have exceptions built into them, and can also equip spell, prayer and item cards just like characters. In a room with multiple monsters, this can quickly overwhelm the Cryptmaster trying to quickly learn a whole strategy based off his new, many options. By the end of the game the combats were running smoother; it certainly takes some practice to get a hang of how they play out during the game. We had some difficulty working out the turn order when you had character and monsters with powers that let you act first, specifically calling out “if the other guy goes first, you go first instead.” Well, OK, this went round and round a few times if both players had such a power and we wound up houseruling it.

Strategy comes into play in a number of ways. Many of the treasures you unearth are magic items you can attach to your characters to make them more capable in their die rolling. But, if you do this they don’t count toward that XP pool you are trying to collect. You need to return to the inn map to “bank” treasure tiles for them to count. Overcoming monsters and traps also has a XP value you can bank immediately upon defeating them. Your buddy just got a treasure you want? You can try to have one of your rogues’ pickpocket another player’s party member! Opposed dice checks help decide the outcome, and we saw plenty of successes and a few failures during our play as items went back and forth between player parties!

Luck does have plenty to do with the game and helped make sure the game was sufficiently “swingy” enough that no one player continually dominated play except by virtue of the dice. One fellow had good luck to roll only three green dice and see all successes, and we also saw players roll up to eight dice of all colors and not get even one success from the bunch! My personal game play was skewed by having the dumb luck to walk into a crypt with pretty much the hardest trap in the game. After my first move and delve, my entire party was slaughtered and I had to start again at the Inn building a new party while my friends continued exploring their crypt rooms.

The last portion of the game comes when there’s only one or two crypts left to delve. Parties race through the tomb or hold up at the inn waiting to play their strategy cards to mess with the game. Here’s when a lot of the pickpocketing took place. One player used a strategy card to set the inn on fire and no one could return there for a number of turns. There was a lot of laughter as parties tried running out of pickpocket range to keep their treasures because they could not return to the inn to bank them! And when it came to that horribly deadly trap that killed off my entire party? Everyone left that room till last. My wife tackled it, and even with her potent party still failed. But she had the special strategy card called “send in the bard”. If she fails at a trap, play the card and the trap kills a bard not affecting any of your actual party!

The rest of the players all had a good time. In the end the XP totals for the players came out to 67, 55, 43, 39, 15 and 7. Yes, I was the 7. We didn’t come even close to using or exploring all the possibilities of the crypt cards of traps, monsters and treasures and look forward to another try. Everyone agreed the game was fun and look forward to playing again. The game play promised at 2 hours doesn’t remotely count for your first game. Learning the massive exceptions that can come up in play takes some time, as does running multi-monster combats but we all agreed future games would run quicker.

If you also visit the link above, you will see AEG has completed work on a sequel/add on game called Tomb Cryoptmasters. I am told this version can either be played alone or mixed with the maps, cards and character of the first game to create a really massive experience. They also heavily updated the rulebook making things clearer and easier to reference, especially the exception situations. They also make inter-party full-on combat an option. They say it’ll be available at GenCon. I look forward to checking this out as well.

Looked all 'round for somewhere to post this, if it's in the wrong place, scold me now!

Kramer: Standby, Striker. We're going to the tower, good luck.
Johnny: The tower, the tower . . . Repunzle, Repunzle . . .

So anyway I don't DM over the summer, or so I thought. No, I'm actually playing in a friend's Halls of the Mountain King campaign and having a blast.

But my "family game" has been on hold for a while. This is the one where I DM my wife and my 12 and 16 year-old daughters through Keep on the Borderlands under 3.5. Well, we finished that a while back and then the whole "waiting for Pathfinder" thing happened and we went on our own hiatus.

What a crime. So, as one of "my" birthday presents on Monday, I said I wanted to run a session for them. I quickly updated their PCs to Pathfinder and we went a-delving. A quick battle with a small Black Dragon and his cohorts later, and they found this book. They opened it, and it transported them away.

It took them about half an hour (and a second session last night) to figure out they had been transported to a finite demiplane created by a mad wizard to emulate his favorite childhood stories.

What results is them trapped here and they can't activate the gate out without a lock of Repunzle's hair and a boot from an old woman who lives in a shoe.

Now, normally I'd never run something like this but it seemed the perfect venue for the "kid's game" and it's turning out to be such a hoot. More than likely because they'd run me ragged if they could. If the kids had it their way I'd run a 3-hour game every night of the week.

I have never heard such lamentation over a cliffhanger stop in my life. It's like I killed their pet or something. On the other hand, enthusiastic players rule, eh?

So they start fighting Repunzle's guardian the black knight while sending their only male henchman up the tower invisibly with a ladder. They defeat the black knight, and their henchman leans out the window to proclaim in a freakishly enchanted voice "infidels! none shall approach the tower of Repunzle!" and I cliffhanger stop, and once again I have to run for my life.

Tonight I watch a Phillies game! :-D

For those familiar with Paizo's Darkmoon Vale setting sourcebook, are there any adventures from our favorite magazine, Dungeon, that would really fit right in the theme of the area?

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Well, it seems my wife and I are the only ones watching this show, so I don't expect it to make it to season 3, but...

We have a writer on the show into our hobby it seems. Two weeks back the 'test dummy Terminator' John Henry was painting D&D miniatures...plastic peices immediately recognizable as D&D miniatures.

Friday's episode had his handler GMing John Henry through a D&D adventure, complete with dice, Dungeon Tiles, Miniatures, and stat cards. He fought and killed an Umber Hulk with a natural 20 to crit it.

Best line of the night: "I am ready to confont the Mind Flayer now...*rolls*...20"

Just thought that was interesting. As for the show itself...yes, it rambles on sometimes but when the writers decide to focus, and toss in lots of candy for us old-time Terminator fans, well, they roll a 20.

Using "Pathfinder Beta RPG" rules throughout, our group finished "Curse of the Crimson Throne" tonight, Sunday Feb 22 at 10pm EST.

We logged 34 6-hour sessions. It was quite a haul. Overall, I think the group enjoyed it over RotRL by a small margin, but all still vote "Hook Mountian Massacre" from the frist Pathfinder camapign to be the best over-all module.

The group had loads of fun, and agreed CotCT was very cool, being mostly located in the same vicinity.

A Warlock, Cleric, a Noble/Rogue/Assassin and a Monk over all took Korvosa for all it was worth and made great contacts, friends, and threads to follow. So much so, that I'd wager we have 3-4 weeks left just picking up the pieces after the final book.

A great campaign Paizo, thank you!

-DM Jeff

I'm seeking a dungeon crawl featuring vampires for 3.X D&D, for character levels 13+, no more than 20-30 rooms or so.

I've got Vampires & Liches by Necromancer Games, and it's a good start. If anyone else has a good lead to steal from, please let me know. I have all issues of Dungeon magazine.

THANKS!

-DM Jeff

So we finished Skeletons of Scarwall on Sunday night. One character died (only to be saved a round later by a handy spell), and the others were beaten silly and horrified beyond belief. One of the players in the Korvosa Korsairs adventuring group, Amanda, was inspired. And she wrote this, to the tune of Billy Joel's "Piano Man".

And, it's spoileriffic, so...

I love my players.

-DM Jeff

Maps may go unnoticed as background to the flavorful text and crunch of beasties and foes, but here is a THANK YOU and Three Cheers for cartographer Rob Lazzaretti.

In everything from full big Adventure Paths right down to little Pathfinder Society modules, he always provides a good, clear idea of where the action takes place in more than just functionality; they're fascinating to delve into on their own.

Thanks for all your good work sir!

-DM Jeff

Each year the Paizo Golem picks the most sincere game store in which to appear. He then rises out of the game store, and flies around the world giving game products to good boys and girls.

-DM Jeff

For the life of me I hope I'm not making this up.

I could have sworn I read somewhere that Pathfinders are outlawed in Cheliax and that they have their own group mimicking the Pathfinders.

Does anyone have a page reference for this? I checked the Cheliax and Pathfinder entries in both the Campaign Setting and Gazeteer and can't seem to find it.

Any help would be appreciated!

-DM Jeff

*sigh* Been round and round "teh google" today and cannot find any list of the monsters WotC did not allow in the last updated SRD. I used to have it back when I was writing, but seem to have misplaced it.

If anyone has a link or a list I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

-DM Jeff

I hope I'm not making this up, but were there not a small set of feats or a prestige class you qualified for only if you had been raised from the dead in 3.5? It was a WotC book, of this I'm certain.

Any help would be appreciated!

-DM Jeff

Sunday I ran my first full Beta game for Curse of the Crimson Throne.

Cleric, Warlock, Monk, Noble.

Warlock from WotC, Noble from Black Company campaign setting. Both ported really easy to PF's skills and HP system, no trouble at all. This was important to us and showed PF did it's job so far with backwards compatability in mind. Eventually the Noble will multiclass into Rogue. So far everyone else intends to go career in their classes, this is partially from PF's upping the core classes with interesting features.

Cleric. First, to truly test the way we intend to game, I opened up the ol' WotC and Paizo 3.5 library for PC creation (with my approval). This caused no problems of compatability whatsoever and created a lot of smiles around the table. Her positive energy blasts were just what the group needed. Last campaign I gave everyone a "Second Wind" quick partial heal ala Star Wars sage edition for heroics. This took the place of that.

Monk. No trouble. Took the old Vow of Poverty from Book of Exalted Deeds (this is a player I can easily trust with this) and he's quite happy with his effectiveness so far.

To be perfectly honest, there really wasn't too much difference in play at all. The PF rules were basically invisible for the most part except when we used skills (Perception vs. Stealth is smoother and requires less thought) and CMB was a big hit.

CMB helped us through two grapple atttempts, a bull rush and a sunder, and they all went smooth as pie. The players all thought the DC's were fair.

As for me as DM, easy stuff. I already take the stats from my PF PDF's and print them out to mark up during play. I just ran through and updated the Grapple's to PF's CMB, and combined listen, spot, search and move silent and hide into Stealth and Perception. I did no other conversion and just winged the rest. Easy.

Two things. Two of the players were not overly fond of the new skill point allotment at 1st level. They both were dissapointed they got so few points at first level, points under then old system they'd put into a rolepalying skill like craft, profession or knowledge. I relented by allowing everyone to have one "roleplaying skill point" to put into one of those skills, and all were happy.

Second, we didn't use ANY of the optional "extra hit points" rules presented, because our whole group is old school, and we enjoy starting off as normal berks and working up to heroism. That worked fine too.

Overall, you don't get a lot from just one game, but so far the group is very positive about it and look forward to trying out more as we go.
Thanks for listening!

-DM Jeff

Some Spoilers, please bevare!

Well, my group finished Rise of the Runelords! We began January 7th of this year and played 32 6-hour sessions. The campaign consisted of (in order):

PF1 Burnt Offerings
Homemade Boggart Side Trek
PF2 Skinsaw Murders
D0 Hollow’s Last Hope
E1 Carnival of Tears
PF3 Hook Mountain
U1 Gallery of Evil
PF4 Fortress of the Stone Giants
PF5 Sins of the Saviors
PF6 Spires of Xin-Shalast

The players had a complete blast. Golarion has totally hooked them, and most of them now have Companion subscriptions as well as scooping up the Guide to Korvosa, Campaign Setting and Gazetteer.

They ended at 15th level Sunday Night while fighting (and defeating) Karzoug in his lair. Misha the Ranger/Scout Pathfinder, Aidan the farmer hero and Paladin of Erastil, Leland the Binder/Sorcerer and Kitara the Shoanti Spirit Shaman have saved the day!

These are all old-time hacks who immediately felt my enthusiasm for the setting and adored feeling like they were playing anew again with the fresh takes on Goblins, Ogres, Ghouls, Stone Giants, and the new monsters that returned wonder to their game.

Leland the Binder successfully co-produced a play at the Sandpoint Theatre with the book of Ancient songs he recovered from the ship in the swamps near Turtleback Ferry. Misha married Belvin the Shipyard guy and got some journals posted in the Pathfinder Chronicles. Titus Scarnetti is going through massive legal wrangling in Sandpoint. Aidan helped open a new shrine in Magnimar. Kitara was a very antisocial Shoanti who nonetheless won over the hearts of many of Sandpoint during their adventures. I should also mention how Leland, while bound with a particularly horny vestage, wound up sleeping with Justice Ironbriar’s wife disguised as the old elf himself.

Did they have a favorite adventure? It’s pretty much Hook Mountain and the adventures surrounding it. Fort Rannick, in particular, was a real highpoint for the group (and Shalelu stayed behind with her adoptive father figure to restart the Black Arrows).

Now, they have crafted PFRPG characters to tackle Curse of the Crimson Throne, our next game beginning in 6 days using the new rules set as our playtest game. Good times indeed. Thanks Paizo!

-DM Jeff

Since I haven't seen any other aesthetic comments, here's my basic first impression.

The BOOK itself is a real beauty. Look at the quality put into just the BETA, for crying out loud.

A strong, sturdy, superb binding.

Full color with some of the best pieces of fantasy art around.

It smells good.

You can open it just a few pages in, and it stays open.

The stupid ink doesn't smudge off with the slightest of finger touches.

The borders are clear, the font easy to read and the page layout friendly to navigate.

THIS, friends, is a darn fine BOOK.

-DM Jeff

Frinds, I'm having a hard time remembering an item I swore I saw in my WotC 3.5 books.

Basically, my player wants an item that, when activated by another, will let her know he's in danger so she can go to him.

My mind is spinning, with the deathwatch spell always on, or a "braclet of friendship" I thought I saw somewhere, but I am drawing a blank. Any ideas?

-DM Jeff

First let me say I trust Paizo plenty. They've never done me wrong. Still, back in the day Bruce Cordell also tried to

Darkness Gathering, Dawn of the Overmind, and Masters of Eternal Night. Only that time it was the mind flayers. And while I also trusted Mr. Cordell, I couldn't swallow most of the plot without a healthy does of cheese (since I don't do drugs). I ran it for my Forgotten Realms group 2 years back and literally reworked/rewrote nearly 75% of the thing. Then promptly sold them on ebay. Yeesh.

So while I'm trusting Paizo will do this cool and give us reminders of D1, 2, 3 and other underdark classics, my conscious (and players) might squint a bit at the overall plot.

I have no idea why I'm writing this except to mention this isn't the first time in fantasy gaming it's been done, but I trust Paizo to do it gritty and right. Who came up with the concept for this series?

-DM Jeff

Just went to my shopping cart. Long story short, I plan on changing my payment methods for all Paizo stuff. The oval "Remove" button there doesn't seem to do anything. The browser thinks for a moment, and then refreshes the page, but everything is still there.

For whatever reason, I'd like to make sure that info is OFF before I add a new credit card to the system. Any suggestions?

-DM Jeff

Anyone know or used a good urban 6th level mini adventure? Thanks!

-DM Jeff

I just started reading CotCT (my RotRL campaign is still going on). And I noticed something really great. Except for one map, all the others have the room numbers fitting neatly in a single 5-foot square.

I don't know if it was Paizo listening (I and others requested this shortly after RotRL came out) or it's just coincedence, but I wanted to say thanks. I blow up these maps to scale to use with minis, and it's so much easier editing out the numbers when they in a single square.

And, what a great adventure so far. Loving it.

-DM Jeff

Last night I ran a Pathfinder Alpha 2 playtest using Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale. Spoilers are marked as such.

My purpose of the playtest was twofold. Did the players have fun creating and playing their new Pathfinder characters, and how did the power level stack up against regular 3.5 adventures, of which we all still have a multitude of.

My conclusions are that the party of 6th level Alpha 2 characters were more powerful than their 6th level 3.5 counterparts or the module’s assumed 6th level challenge. They creamed through most of the encounters, and many never took more than a handful of points of damage all night. When we finished, we all agreed, if a 3.5 adventure calls for 6th level PCs (as an example) that 5th level or even 4th level Pathfinder PCs should have no problem with it.

I’m happy to report the players all enjoyed character creation and playing their PCs. We had an elf conjurer wizard, a human shoanti barbarian, a halfling rogue, and a human Chelaxian fighter.

Picture: The Party

The fact that they each had a little something extra special was a novelty, and proved quite useful. The classes just seem a little extra colorful and have a few more options available, which was nice.

The elf wizard bonded with his wand, which we all agreed was much more open and cool than the 4th edition thing we heard of all wizards needing a wand. Foregoing his familiar, he told me he could have bonded with an amulet, staff, or whatever. As a conjurer he also had an acid dart spell he could cast at will. At first it sounded very 4th edition, but he reminded me this was a feature of the conjurer and not all wizards had such a combat ability. It didn’t get used often but was good in a pinch.

The human barbarian player had an easy time with rage points and the abilities in combat. He thought they gave you enough and the pricing on powers was fair. He mentioned he would not be surprised to see a feat in the future that offers more rage points.

The human fighter and halfling rogue both had a blast, but that was because pretty early on we nixed the whole “can only use one combat feat per round” rule. My whole table just couldn’t wrap their heads around why this was implemented and everyone asked that I write they don’t like it at all. Both characters had multiple combat feats that worked best together, and that it was a shame this was in place.
The human fighter’s player found that the small changes to existing feats all made sense and were a good choice. The halfling rogue’s player enjoyed having a suite of abilities to choose from to customize his burglar.

Two of the players made mention they hoped that a really good proofreading went through before the hardcopy comes out in August. They found a few incidents where there was a cut-n-paste situation. As one example, barbarian rage now works differently, but some text later on referred to the way rage used to work in 3.5. I’ve asked him to forward that to me. Another player said he found similar incidents.

As a DM, running it was a snap. It really does work pretty much like any 3.5 game we’re already playing. Our group already knew grapple and had no issues with it, but this new CMB thing is just lightning fast. We were all very impressed with how it worked, and so folks were trying grappling, bull rushing and the like with ease and smiles. In particular the new grapple and pin conditions and exactly what you could do with such an opponent was elegant and met with success. Being able to maneuver or drag a grappled foe was also a huge hit. We found the DC’s and success rate were fair and had no problems.

In all a very fun time was had by all.
-DM Jeff

Not sure if this belongs under "Skills & Feats" since it's regarding a class...

Making a rogue for the first time. I was wondering if there was any reason given for giving the rogue to have Survival and Swim but not Sense Motive? It just seems to me Sense Motive would be one skill that wouldn't be cut from the list. Thoughts?

-DM Jeff

Howdy. So anyway what I do for my players and games is I grap maps without tags, and enlarge them to 1-inch square scale and laser print them out for use at the game table and miniatures. I've started collecting a few around here that are taking up room, and I no longer have the original digital files but I do have the printouts.

I contacted Paizo customer service and received specific permission to offer these to anyone who needs them, for no profit whatsoever. The first person to respond to this thread with contact info (an email address will do fine), I will mail them to you in the United States free of charge. You'd have them within a week.

Isn't this earth day or something? Well, that's the main idea of this, I was going to toss them but it seems such a waste. The maps are as follows: The Foxglove Manor House, Fort Ranick, Skull's Crossing Dam, and the little keep from module D0. Already blown up to 1 inch squares and taped together.

Links to images:
LINK
LINK
LINK
LINK

Good luck! Providing this all runs smooth I bet I could do it again in the future.

-DM Jeff

Hi. Remember back in the ancient days AD&D modules would have a little "this module starts in hex 1138 of the World of Greyhawk" or something similar?

Once the Golarion Campaign Setting comes out can the individual modules have a small visual sidebar placing the adventure firmly on Golarion?

I love the Gamemastery Modules and have used a few to great effect. Most of us only know Golarion from Varisia, and I'd like to get a clear cue where some of the other adventures are taking place in relation to places like Magnimar, Absalom, The Sodden Lands, etc.

Just a quick que to ID where in the world (literally) the adventure takes place would be cool. Thoughts?

-DM Jeff

This is a nice sculpt. Might even be the one that snaps my wife out of mini painting retirement.

A little Google-fu tells me Nocticula is a Queen of the Succubi in TSR's Planescape setting (but no exact book refreneces), and she also appears in Green Ronin's Book Fiends. So I guess she's a member of the demonic pantheon drow worship as hinted at by James Jacobs in a Second Darkness thread. Cool!

I wonder if Malconthet will sue for title infringement?

-DM Jeff