DarkWhite's page

William Ronald wrote:

So, is there any word if this is legal for Pathfinder Society?

Hi! After carefully weighing a variety of factors (such as the burden on GMs still grappling with a new set of rules), the Organized Play team has decided that it's not in the best interest of the campaign to have playtest characters participating in official Pathfinder Society games at this time.

If you're interested in earning Pathfinder Society credit for participating in the playtest, I highly recommend playing Fall of Plaguestone and downloading the free sanctioning document for it on the adventure's product page. You can play a playtest character through the adventure and then apply the credit to a Pathfinder Society character of your choice when you're done.

Red Pandas MUST be available as familiars/companions. Owlcats would be cool too.

I seem to have had the misfortune of any character I create, their faction gets retired - Shadow Lodge, Lantern Lodge, Scarab Sages.

If PFS2 characters could have a main faction but flirt with other factions ala SFS, then retired factions, or completely new factions perhaps in response to a current Adventure Path, could make cameo appearances for specific missions.

Minor factions wouldn't play any more than an occasional role in the ongoing campaign, but would throw a bone to characters who were built around these themes.

Endorsing a small number of major factions, while entertaining occasional minor factions, would support one of Pathfinder 2nd Edition's stated goals of "more customisation".

Thanks for sharing, Tonya.

Roleplaying Pathfinder in the Green Dragon Inn, Hobbiton - setting of Lord of the Rings - sounds like an amazing event! I wish I could have been there.

VCs Glen and Paul and the entire NZ Pathfinder community have definitely raised the bar, not sure how any future event can top this experience!

Cheers,
Stephen RVC Asia-Pacific

If there are differences between a creature's stats and the traits of a PC race, I'd encourage players to pick those up as feats or similarly themed character options that might become available as a character levels up, if appropriate for their character.

This interview makes a really good read! So much nostalgia about the various gaming interests that drew many of us into Pathfinder as a hobby.

[ Blog: Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer - Interview with Local Pathfinder Society Venture Agent CJ ]

Cris-Justin Masungsong is a great guy and putting a lot of energy into PFS in the Philippines. I also hear that John Obedoza is also starting up some PFS sessions. CJ and John can both be contacted via the [ Regional Coordinators ] listing - scroll down to Philippines listed under International.

[ Facebook - Pathfinder Society Philippines ]

It's great to hear how PFS is growing in the Philippines and other areas in the region. Whether a resident or travelling, be sure to look up the local Pathfinder community and drop in for a game!

Cheers,
Stephen
RVC Asia-Pacific

I couldn't agree more with MisterSlanky!

As someone who studied Indonesian language for five years in high school, I was really excited to see Wayangs included as a Pathfinder race. We're so used to seeing Japanese and Chinese cultural influences in our fantasy gaming "Oriental Adventures" (ninja, samurai, tengu, white-haired witch etc), but so rarely those of other asian cultures.

Wayang are Indonesian shadow puppets and have a long theatrical and storytelling history. Troupes would travel from village to village, with performances starting at sundown and continue throughout the night, telling stories of an epic nature until sunrise. And while some Wayang do appear as the hunched, twisted characters portrayed by the Pathfinder race, they can equally be strong and noble heroes. An Indonesian friend created a Wayang hero inspired by Arjuna.

Characterising Wayang as a differently flavoured goblin without doing some rudimentary cultural research (eg Google) into stories told by Indonesian shadow puppet shows, is missing the point of this race.

I'm really looking forward to playing (reading / GMing) this scenario.

I'd like to see Wayang, Tengu and the other "always available" PFS races receive more representation in PFS scenarios and Pathfinder Battles miniatures. These races should be as iconic to our campaigns as Warforged and Dragonborn are to others, and should take a step forward.

This looks interesting :-)

Any plans to release a Print/PDF bundle for purchase here on the Paizo store?

Maybe one or two. As there are already a range to choose from, I haven't found the need to produce them as often as I used to, usually only if I'd like to promote an upcoming convention with a fresh look, or usher in a new season.

I'll have a look tonight and see if I have any to upload.

Cheers,
Stephen

Is there a reason that Preorder Colour Softcover is available, Add PDF is available, but Preorder Softcover/PDF bundle is not clickable?

Hey guys,

I have a couple of Pathfinder contacts in Manilla, and I believe there's a local game store that one of them frequents. As is the case in most locations, there are Pathfinder players (or would like to be players) everywhere - it's simply a matter of finding each other. Announcing a Pathfinder Society game at a local store is a great way to get things started. I'll see if I can get you in touch with each other.

Cheers,
Stephen
RVC Asia-Pacific

I was was looking to see if any PFS might be in Hawaii when I visit, and I not only didn't seem to be able to find a PFS game for when I'm there (albeit, they may have one someplace I didn't look), but it doesn't seem to have any one in charge from what I could tell in the PFS lists.

Yet you have a TON of players there.

Hawaii has been allocated to the PFS Asia-Pacific region. If anyone is aware of PFS groups within Hawaii, please suggest they get in touch with me.

Whether Hawaii or any location world-wide where public PFS play appears hard to find, these actually present a good opportunity to start a new local group. It's pretty easy to run PFS sessions within game stores, classrooms, community halls or any suitable public venue.

For assistance, contact your nearest Venture Volunteer, we're here to help. Or check out Pathfinder Society's Get Involved page.

On many occasions, campaign settings have been released under the d20 licence based on already popular computer games or RPGS as Everquest, World of Warcraft, World of Darkness, and yes Diablo.

In almost every case, where a publisher has altered the d20 rules to fit the scaling of levels/bonuses/numbers within the computer game, such as you're attempting with 10% bonuses, I consider these games a fail.

To provide an extreme example, a computer game might level characters up to 30, does that mean you should rewrite the Pathfinder classes to level up to 30? How does that affect every other rule in the game - spell levels, monster challenge ratings etc? What if one of your players really wants to bring an alchemist into your Diablo campaign, but too many rules have changed for that to be an easy option.

The more successful mashups have been those that respect and work within the d20 rules, and simply provide new races, classes, feats, equipment, spells, monsters etc, that reflect those found in the source material.

Let Diablo provide the flavour, let Pathfinder take care of the rules. Don't break the system.

You'll find that Pathfinder already provides rules for many styles of play. For example, the Horaldric Cube expands your inventory space - this sounds a lot like a bag of holding. Gem slots work like ioun stones. There's a ton of equipment in Ultimate Equipment, a frightful number of monsters spread across 5 Bestiaries, archetypes to customise classes, and Mythic Adventures if you're reaching for an epic feel. Use these as a guide to creating your own, or simply reflavour as necessary.

Use storytelling to describe Diablo concepts in Pathfinder terms. You're now playing a role-playing game, not the computer game.

Also look at how other publishers use Pathfinder rules to bring their unique campaign settings to life without breaking the game.

It sounds as though this game is already in progress, so the horse may already have bolted, so I'm unsure how much this helps your current situation.

Hi Tar-Bafiar,

The good news is that anyone can purchase PFS scenarios and run them for their friends, either at home, at a local gamestore, public library, school college university, community centre, or any other appropriate place.

There may already be someone doing this in your area, if so, you can help them out by attending their games, and offering to help GM a few sessions. Here are a couple of places you can look for local games, or your nearest PFS Venture organiser:

http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/about/regionalCoordinators

http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/events

If there doesn't appear to be anyone running PFS in your local area, you can get things started by approaching a local game store, or by advertising PFS sessions looking for new players anywhere gamers might frequent, such as online messageboards, store/cafe windows, school college university or supermarket notice boards etc.

If you're looking for some "Join the Pathfinder Society" flyers to print and display details of upcoming gamedays in store windows, you can download some from:

http://pathfindersociety.net/community/pfs-community-downloads/

Providing your contact details: name, email, facebook group, warhorn; on these flyers helps players looking for a game to contact you. You can also print these flyers four or eight to a page, to leave on the counter at game stores for interested players to pick up and take home to contact you later - this really helps!

If you're serious about being a local game organiser, contact your nearest PFS Venture organiser who may be able to help you out. If there's no current representation in Greece, have a look through the PFS "Get Involved" page, and if you think you can meet the requirements in your area, have a shot at applying.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/getInvolved

That's how most of us got started, simply by running public games, and becoming known by players and game store staff as the guy who runs PFS in my area :-)

Good Luck!

Spoilers?

Oooo, a +7 on a reroll. That's going to leave a mark.

So does Tonya get a +8?

;-)

Note the specific wording of the Reward:

"Treated as 2 stars higher for qualification to run Exclusive events."

Therefore, no additional bonus on re-rolls than you already receive.

As GM, I usually consider the motives of the opponents. Eg, if you have a group of adventurers threatening with weapons and spells, the opponents are likely to target them first, and only worry about "non-combat" pets if they somehow contribute to the combat, eg a Cavalier charging or ride-by-attacks on his mount, then obviously taking down the mount. Otherwise, they're not considered a threat - the opponents have more dangerous and immediate threats to deal with before wasting precious attacks on animals.

Nonetheless, this approach may not cover all situations, eg hungry non-intelligent beasts, or area-of-effect spells.

Any idea whether this Softcover is likely to be restocked?

Congratulations guys, well deserved :)

I pre-ordered the Strategy Guide back in July, along with a number of other products. This order has been "pending" since July ... it's now November. I don't know if the Strategy Guide is what is holding up shipment of everything else in this order. Will the delay of the Strategy Guide mean this entire order won't ship until February?

Note: I can't currently view my Order History, it keeps displaying the login page.

I've noticed some decline in Melbourne, Australia, in recent weeks due to a few reasons:

We've just run two large conventions within the same month.

PAX Aus was the largest PFS event ever run in Melbourne:
- 8 tables per session over three days
- between 200 and 300 pregen character sheets handed out
- over half of players were visitors from interstate
- most players were completely new to PFS and played a single 2-hour Silverhex quest
that's a lot of players.

This was a great result, and we have welcomed new players sign up for our weekly gamedays in stores. However, preparing for events like these takes a lot of effort. For example, to be able to run so many tables of 2-hour Silverhex quests, we had to slot-zero two tables of GMs in the weekends prior to the event. Similarly, we slot-zeroed GMs through new scenario releases leading up to Unicon. While slot-zero sessions are the fastest way to prep a solid number of GMs for new release scenarios, they take six GMs out of public play for those weekends. If you don't have the number of additional GMs required to keep public games running over those weekends, there will be player drop-off. It only takes a week or two with no scheduled games, and players find something else to do with their weekends - it can take a few weeks of scheduled games for attendance to rebuild.

This time of year is also leading up to exam time in Australia, then you have Christmas/New Year break, which slows things down considerably.

I've also noticed a sudden up-take of privately run Adventure Paths, which is actually great that players who met through publicly run Pathfinder Society sessions, now have the friends and connections to join privately run Adventure Paths. This is a success condition! even though it reduces the number of available players for our weekly public store gamedays.

Now that I've caught my breath from having run PFS at two large conventions in the same month, I GMed my first in store gameday again for a while. We all commented at how we used to run three tables per week at this venue, but after the con season, we're down to one. By scheduling more public games, more players will attend once more, but attendance often occurs in seasonal cycles, I've seen it happen year after year. It takes some dedicated effort to keep things running, but it's not something I'm necessarily concerned about - I'm looking forward to attendance building once again. I know the PFS release schedule isn't slowing down any time soon.

It's great to see Pathfinder Society organised play opened up to more regions internationally. Welcome aboard.

Organising a region can be a large task, and some of us have already walked down that road, so if you need advice or a hand with anything you're unfamiliar with or having trouble with, don't be afraid to reach out and ask. I think you'll find the VC community to be a friendly helpful one :-)

It's great to see Pathfinder Society organised play opened up to more regions internationally. Welcome aboard.

Organising a region can be a large task, and some of us have already walked down that road, so if you need advice or a hand with anything you're unfamiliar with or having trouble with, don't be afraid to reach out and ask. I think you'll find the VC community to be a friendly helpful one :-)

I think these are a high priority - they were being used at GenCon, so they're on their way. Just a little more patience may be required.

A few flooded dungeons come to mind.

Echoes of the Overwatched has a partially-flooded tower and might be the one Fromper is recalling?

GMT's hideout in the Puddles District, for which there was never a map provided in the scenario, might benefit from this flipmat to make the approach to his hideout and the encounter itself, feel more thematic to the players.

Wow, that's some praise. Congratulations Lucas, recognition obviously well deserved!

Congratulations guys. Coin well earned.

By my count, that's 68 reported complete, four part EoT sessions with the only remaining "large regions" left to report is Missouri, Boston, Ohio, Tampa, Virginia, two more regions in California and the handful of times it's been run in Austalia. By my estimation, there should be another 21-22 completed EoT that have been reported but not accounted for here, which leaves it short of 100 times as has already been mentioned.

Melbourne, Australia

• Eyes of the Ten (all four scenarios): 1 table
  
• Ruby Phoenix Tournament (10-12): 4 tables
  
• Siege of the Diamond City (12-13): 1 table
  

IIRC, we've had one table at high tier (11+) for each of the yearly Specials.

There's a second table of Eyes of the Ten waiting in the wings, while the first Eyes of the Ten table are about to schedule Academy of Secrets (12-14).

Over the last twelve months we've increased from one store running PFS once a week, to multiple stores running PFS multiple times per week. Players that joined only 12 months ago are already achieving Tier 7-11 characters, some of them have two such characters. I think it's only a matter of time (six to twelve months) before we see another wave of Eyes of the Ten tables.

Which is exactly why groups should use Warhorn ... everyone knows what to expect before they arrive, and can choose not to sign up if it's a game they've already played.

Public gamedays really should use Warhorn to help organise your events.

If players aren't consistently using Wahorn to sign up, try mentioning the signup process at the beginning of each game, or occasionally reminding players on your Facebook group, and even hand out cards with your Facebook group, Warhorn page, and a local PFS organisers contact email address (these could be those of the store you're playing in), so players can't claim ignorance.

Once the policy is in place, players can't complain if they're turned away from a table because it's full - that's what Warhorn is for! They'll soon change their habit and sign up if they're turned away more than once.

Waitlisting helps identify if another table is required. Assign an extra GM before the gameday arrives, if there are enough Waitlisted players to warrant a second table.

In our region, we limit low-tier scenarios [Tier 1-5] table sizes on Warhorn to 5 players max. This way, a spare 6th seat is always available at the GM's discretion for an unexpected new player who might not have signed up on Warhorn yet - because regular players should already know the signup system, but you never want to turn away a new player.

Setting up a Facebook group for your local PFS region is a great way of communicating with your players between gamedays. Contact your local Venture-Captain or Venture-Lieutenant, as there may already be one for your area.

This looks goood ... 160 pages ... 5-part series ... any chance there might be a print/PDF bundle on the way?

Is this race valid for PFS? ;)

Additional Resources page:

If a product does not appear on this list, then it is not considered legal for play. This list will be updated frequently as new products are released.

Pathfinder Society has been growing at a rapid pace here in Melbourne, Australia. Nowadays, there's hardly an empty day on our calendar in which a PFS session isn't running in a store somewhere across metropolitan Mebourne.

I'm very proud of our community, and even moreso of the GMs whose effort makes this possible.

One such person is Jena Wills, who has been an active member of our Society for 12 months now. Recently, Jena offered to check out a new store, Next Level Games in Dandenong. Although Jena regularly attends games at our other PFS venues, she has quickly made NLG Dandenong her home turf, which has been fantastic, because it extends our Society to a corner of Melbourne that neither myself nor VL Andrei could hope to cover ourselves. NLG Dandenong is now hosting up to three PFS sessions per week.

As Melbourne's player-base and scheduled sessions continues to grow, I know Jena will become a valuable member of our team. I hope some of you will have an opportunity to join Jena at a PFS game in Dandenong or one of our many other gamedays and events across Melbourne.

Pathfinder Society Melbourne: Warhorn | Facebook

Parents are often dubious about time their kids spend "playing games", but what you're achieving with these kids and their communities via Pathfinder/Kingmaker is truly inspiring.

Thanks for sharing your story with us. I wish this project, the changemakers and their communities every success.

Any gamer who reads this should forward this good news example to parents or others they know in a guardian or educational role.

Congratulations Simone, and welcome to the team! :-)

Congratulations Tom, very pleased to see you've joined the VC team :-)

Good luck building the PFS community across Scotland.

Assuming you have a venue (game store, library etc) you can play at, talk to the staff, place flyers on the noticeboard, wall or window to attract gamers and promote your gamedays. Schedule your gamedays on the same day/time each week, so local players fast associate that day/time as Pathfinder Society, consistency works.

Set up a [ Warhorn ] account, schedule your gamedays on Warhorn, so players have a fair sign up process and know when a table is full, can Waitlist etc.

Set up a Facebook Group (not Page) for players to join, ask questions, create discussions, share experiences, it's great for building a community around!

And don't forget to set up an ongoing [ Event ] for your gamedays, via [ My Pathfinder Society ].

Place these URLs on your flyers, so new players know how to get in touch and join your group.

Hi Stemboy,

I'm still surprised whenever I hear of some corner of the world where PFS hasn't taken off like wildfire. All it takes is a dedicated individual to schedule some regular monthly or weekly gamedays, and after some persistance, bam! you have your own local PFS gaming community!

You might like to check out the [ Pathfinder Society Regional Coordinators ] and [ Get Involved ] pages, where you'll notice Scotland on the Volunteers Wanted list.

As for Flyers to help promote your gamedays, check out my posts in threads [ here ] and [ here ].

Good luck with getting PFS running in Scotland. There's many of us here to help with advice, flyers and other support if you need it.

Cheers,
Stephen (DarkWhite)

The issue being Pink Dragon, the player needs to be responsive enough so that when a gm asks 'How did your Perception get to +9 at level 1?', the player can answer them just as quickly.

If you notice on a Herolab sheet it dosnt show the calculations made. You will have the player uming and arring to figure this out.

I've had this happen to myself. You notice a number that looks wrong, and your first response is "Oh, Herolab's got it wrong again!". But then you back-track and try to calculate everything manually, and you realise there's an obscure ruling you weren't aware of or forgot, and that Herolab's got it right all along.

Encumbrance due to weight

This is a very common situation for new users of Herolab, one you don't repeat once you're aware of it. I'm pretty sure there's a checkbox on the first screen that allows you to ignore coinage when calculating encumbrance.

Back in the days when players were allowed to temporarily level up an existing character to play sanctioned modules, we had a lot of problems with players not advancing their low-level characters to high-level properly, so we started requiring character audits before confirming a player's registration to high-tier Modules.

Example: we've run the Ruby Phoenix Tournament PFS sacntioned module for 11th-level characters three times now, and each time my (then) VL RyanK required a character audit before confirming a player's registration to the table. In almost every case, those who built their characters in Herolab were built correctly, while those who built their characters by hand were riddled with errors and incorrect rules assumptions.

The clear message here is that human error occurs much more frequently than Herolab error.

Based on this experience, I wholeheartedly recommend Herolab to all Pathfinder players. Just remember to bring your sourcebooks or PDFs with you to the table - Herolab on it's own doesn't qualify your character as PFS legal.

TetsujinOni wrote:

Recreating the maps (including recreating a version of a mappack map) from scratch would be OK, but using extracts is very specifically NOT OK.

Per the Community Use Policy...

Community Use Policy wrote:

You may use any of the text or artwork published in the Paizo Blog at paizo.com/paizo/blog, with the exception of excerpts of Planet Stories publications, Pathfinder Comics, and any logos and icons that aren't also in the Community Use Package. You may not use any photographs published in the blog (because those rights are usually not ours to offer). You may not use artwork, including maps, that have not been published in the blog, although you may create your own interpretations of material presented in our artwork and maps, provided that your interpretations don't look substantially similar to our materials.

This is something I have been warning local players about for a while now.

I have found a disturbingly large number of maps while going though the old files and have not been transferring them.

There are some talented creative people within the PFS community who could work to replace the GM Shared Prep drive maps with ones of their own creation, similar to these threads where members commission or share their character portraits:

Art of Your PFS Characters
Pathfinder Society Fan Art

Maybe someone could start a similar thread where the PFS community can show off maps of their own design and style, being original and creating new work (don't forget to include the Community Use notice on each map!), instead of simply copy/pasting a Paizo copyright map to the GM Shared Prep drive.

That's a pretty amazing feat.

500 Tables
You can keep GMing after you should be dead.
Pre-requisites: 5 stars, 500 tables of GMing, must have previously or currently been under the effects of Madness
Benefit: Once per day, you gain insane braggings rights, mad respectz from every Pathfinder within long range (400ft + 40ft/level).
Normal: You can't help but gasp in awe when someone with this feat walks into the room.

I live in Melbourne Australia, and Doug lives in Michigan USA, so I'm pretty sure mad respectz extends far further than long range, more like extreme range (9900mi or 16000km).

Probably due to extreme range, Doug has not yet GMed a scenario for me; however, I still feel connected to the Doug phenomenon. I'll let you all in on a little secret:

Back in Nov 2012, I received the following message:

Hey Stephen, feel free to decline to answer this but I am wondering what your PFS session count is at currently. I suspect that we are the two highest, but I took the better part of a year off and I wonder how we compare now.

Doug needn't have worried. I may have been in second place, but even after a year off, Doug was still somewhere in the vicinity of 100 sessions ahead of me.

Without realising it much at the time, I was a prolific GM, simply because we had a lot of players and few GMs, so I was running tables every week or players missed out.

Nowadays, I'm pleased to report that our community has not only grown in players, but also GMs. As a result, I find myself doing more support tasks now, such as helping my GMs with maps, advice, scheduling, slot-zeros, organising cons, new player enquiries, maintaining various facebook groups, Warhorn, RSS feeds etc, a VC's work is never done.

I know others have overtaken me in session count, as I recently read of someone GMing their 300th session, but I don't mind, I do whatever I'm needed most, and sometimes that's supporting others to GM scenarios to help grow the community.

Nonetheless, I still GM frequently, and I'm only a few games shy of 250 - but that's still only half of what Doug has achieved.

Well done and congratulations Doug, I know how much effort this has taken over a number of years, you deserve the accolades, you're the King!

Update: Rebooted my laptop, and the prices in my cart updated with the correct discounts.

I'm also experiencing this problem. Some product only, prices appear discounted on product pages, but not when added to shopping cart. Example:

Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding

I think there's an industry shortage of pre-painted minis for modern roleplaying campaigns or modern-fantasy cross-overs.

Perhaps an "encounters" pack to help fill-out Reign of Winter's modern figures might be popular, without raising concerns of too many modern figures in a standard Pathfinder Battles set.

That's what "dropped to ground" in Hero Lab is for!

Herolab also has an option to not count coin weight for purposes of encumbrance - it's the first screen with all the checkboxes, where you click Pathfinder Society Rules. If you don't do this, you'll find all your Dex based skills adversely affected by the weight of your coins (encumbrance penalties).

I had a player asking if the Kitsune in one book was an errata of the other, and if he had the boon and one sourcebook, could he use the stats from the other sourcebook? Answer: No. This is an option, not an errata.

If you have both sourcebooks, you have a choice at character creation, though if you only have one sourcebook but not the other, then that's the culture your Kitsune was born into, and that defines your starting language.

You only gain access to the features from books you own.

Join the discussion at the Pathfinder Society Melbourne Facebook group

Sign up to play at Warhorn: melbourne-pfs

Pathfinder Society Events around Australia in January 2014, include several conventions over the Australia Day long weekend:

• CanCon2014 Canberra,
  
• PsyCon Nought Penrith NSW; and
  
• Arcanacon 2014 Melbourne!

Hi Steve,

l recall running several PFS scenarios for you at PaizoCon Oz Brisbane 2010 and 2011.

Congratulations on your appointment as VL and welcome to the team!

I'm planning to give my GM a customized Iron Gods GM screen for his birthday. I have some nice art for the front side, but on the back I'd like to include some useful info specific to this adventure path.

Without getting too spoilery, are there any particular rules or tables that would be especially useful to have handy in this AP moreso than others?

So far I'm going to be putting on Concentration check DCs and the weapon hardness/HP table, but there's plenty of room for other stuff! Please let me know what you think would be useful to have for quick reference during this adventure path.

Thanks!

So, my party is just starting Island of Empty Eyes. One PC got the bright idea to buy a Lyre of Building to assist with construction on the island.

I think it's a fantastic idea, but I'm not sure how to adjudicate it. How many man-hours does it take to reconstruct the Fort? Should using the lyre to rebuild the fort count towards the Respect score at the end of the adventure, and if so, how much?

Any thoughts?

Good afternoon,

I'm hoping to give my normal Pathfinder gaming group a taste of Starfinder in the near future, and I'm looking for advice for a good scenario to use. I'd like something that is a one-shot, and gives a good taste of what Starfinder is all about, without getting bogged down in too much exposition. Can any of you recommend a good scenario to start with?

My players are all Pathfinder veterans, so I don't need something super beginner focused. But the world of Starfinder is different, so I'd like something that shows off the setting without overwhelming the players.

I'm looking for a one-shot scenario, since they don't want to commit to a whole adventure path or anything. I'm thinking that a SFS scenario would be a good place to start. But I'm open to other ideas.

Low level would be good, to keep things simple. But it wouldn't necessarily have to be level 1.

I'd like to have a taste of starship combat included, or at the very least have the players use a starship in the course of the adventure. I want to show that it's more than just dungeon crawling on a space station or whatever.

A plot that's fairly lighthearted and straightforward would be good as well, so that my players can jump right in and not get lost in the weeds.

Thanks in advance for your help!

We got confused about this last night. A monster has Greater Constrict, which on a failed save renders the subject unconscious.

All of the rules I could find for the Unconscious condition seem to assume that the unconscious creature has zero hit points.

When you’re reduced to 0 Hit Points, you fall unconscious...

If you return to 1 Hit Point or more, you become conscious.

So does that mean that a constricted creature immediately falls to zero hit points? That doesn't make sense. People don't wake up every morning and chug a healing potion because they only have one hit point left after waking up!

If it doesn't mean that you fall to zero hit points, do you immediately wake up, because you have "1 hit point or more"? If not, how can you awaken an unconscious creature?

Does anyone else feel like high level spells require rolling too many dice?

A player cast Meteor Swarm last night, targeting all of the meteors on a single target. Each meteor does 4d10 bludgeoning damage and 19d6 fire damage. All together, that's 16d10 + 76d6 damage!

The game completely ground to a halt for about 10 minutes while the player had to add up 92 dice. Not fun!

A data point from my game last night:

Players were fighting the Rune Giants. One of them got a 20 to hit the party cleric. It had the Rune of Destruction up:

The rune giant's weapon is a Gargantuan greatsword, which does 4d12 + 9 damage. On a crit, this doubles to 8d12 + 18. Adding three more sets of weapon damage dice from the Deadly trait brings the total to 20d12 + 18.

The cleric was dropped from full to dying in one hit!

I feel like having the deadly trait only add 1x the weapon damage dice would be more balanced.

This topic came up in this thread, but I thought it was worth breaking out and starting a new thread about it.

Suppose you are playing a Fighter, and you are grabbed by a creature with a long reach. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that it's a Kraken, which has a 60 foot reach. You get grabbed when you're 60 feet away from it.

Can you attack the kraken in melee?

On the one hand, by the Rules as Written, you are not within range to Strike the creature with a melee attack.

On the other hand, from a narrative standpoint it seems ludicrous to me that you wouldn't be within range to attack a creature that is literally touching you.

Thoughts? Do we need a rule for how to handle this?

So, obviously the design team is doing a whole lot of work on the death and dying system, given that they have released multiple updates changing/fixing that system. However, in my games, despite the players going down fairly frequently, they don't really care about the death and dying rules at all because of Hero Points.

Let me explain:
Because anyone can spend 1 Hero Point to come back from dying, there's no tension in the death saves. If the party is doing badly, the player will spend a hero point to come back and take her turn normally. If the party has the situation in hand, she'll go, "Eh, whatever, I guess I'll roll. If I crit fail or whatever, I can just spend a hero point to come back."

Since each of my players has been getting 2-3 hero points per session, that essentially means they have to be taken out three times before actually being at risk of dying. And since combats are taking so long, there are only 2 or 3 encounters per session, so there's practically zero risk of any one PC dying unless there's a TPK.

I really do like Hero Points! But I am worried that the way they interact with the death and dying rules makes the latter irrelevant.

Personally, I'd rather swap the costs so that spending 1 Hero Point gives you a reroll, and two brings you back from dying. Or maybe make 1 point count as a crit success on a death save, and two points come back with 1 HP and clear the Wounded condition.

Any chance we could get these surveys added to the main playtest page? It looks like the PFS section there still only has the surveys about the four adventures, not any of the general PFS surveys. I think that would help people find them, rather than having to look through the blog history.

I'm a little concerned about the tables on pages 349+ listing both consumable and permanent items with wildly varying costs at the same level.

As an example, let's look at the 6th level treasure table. The cheapest item at that level is a True Darkvision Elixir, at 24gp. There are several items, such as the Eyes of the Eagle, that cost 250gp.

Why are some 6th level items worth 10x as much as others? That seems wildly imbalanced.

In normal play, I could see how this would be useful in some cases (e.g. when trying to decide what treasure to give out for an encounter). However, the GM would be very unwise to just pick a random 6th level item, since they could be worth such disparate amounts.

This is an even worse problem when rolling up a higher level character. For example, in Doomsday Dawn part 3, characters get one 6th level item, two 5th level items, one 4th level item, two 3rd level items, and some gold to spend on additional stuff. But a character who uses her 6th level slot to get a Potion of Quickness is going to be severely underpowered compared to one who bought, say, a Lesser Ring of Energy Resistance.

I've seen a few different people bring up the idea that there are too many traits in Pathfinder 2nd Edition. I think that's true, to a point, but the real problem is a little bit subtler than that.

The problem is not that there are too many traits per se, it's that some of the traits carry additional rules baggage with them. It's very difficult at the table to know which traits require additional rules and which don't.

For example, my Fighter player was completely unaware that his Furious Focus feat couldn't be used on the first attack of a turn, because it has the Press trait. (And that's with a sidebar right next to the feat description explaining that trait!) Because this important rule was "hidden" inside the traits list, he just glossed over it without looking up what all of the traits were and what else he needed to know about each of them.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that there are a *lot* of traits that don't have any "rules baggage" associated with them. For example, the traits list for the Fighter's Intimidating Strike feat is:
Attack
Fear
Fighter
Emotion
Mental

Let's examine each of these:
Attack - This indicates that the action is offensive, and that it will cause the multiple attack penalty to increase. This comes up often enough that it's probably safe to assume players will understand it after the first game.
Fear - No rules effect by itself
Fighter - Not listed in the Traits glossary. Presumably this just indicates that it's a fighter feat, but no rules by itself
Emotion - No rules effect by itself
Mental - No rules effect by itself

Many of these traits will be used by other abilities, such as a monster's stat block saying that it's immune to fear. I think those kind of traits are okay. They help streamline the game and make it easy to tell whether a certain rule will affect a given situation.

But sometimes, there will be a trait buried in the list that requires you to go apply a new rule that isn't obvious just from reading the description of the ability, like with Furious Focus. In those cases, I think it's very likely that players will just plain miss that there is additional stuff they are supposed to be doing! And with most of the traits not having any rules impact by themselves, it becomes very hard to tell when you need to go look up what the trait does in order to know what the feat does.

Air elementals have the following ability:

[Reaction Icon]Disperse

Trigger The air elemental takes damage from a hostile action.
Effect The air elemental disperses. Until the end of the current turn, it can’t be attacked or targeted, doesn’t take up space, and deactivates its aura. At the end of the turn, the elemental re-forms in any square within 15 feet of where it dispersed and its aura reactivates.

If multiple characters ready an action to attack the elemental when it re-forms, can it use the Disperse action as soon as the first attack hits? Or do all the reactions happen "simultaneously" and therefore it can't use a reaction until after all of the other reactions are resolved?

In the more general case, how should we handle the sequencing of multiple reactions occurring based on the same triggering action?

So, casting Summon Monster is now a 3-action spell, rather than taking 1 full round of casting. But does the summoned creature get to take an action when the spell is completed? Or does it need to wait until the next round when the caster Concentrates on the spell?

The spell says, "Summoned creatures have 2 actions per turn
(which they use when you Concentrate on the Spell) and can’t
use reactions." So it would seem that it doesn't get to act on the first round. But I could also see an argument that the creature should be able to act on the first round, because the casting of the spell itself counts as concentrating on it.

As the title says, is persistent damage doubled on a critical hit? I didn't see anything in the rules that specifies one way or the other.

I went with "no", because I didn't want my party to die. But I was curious what the intent is for that rule.

So, in part 2 of Doomsday Dawn, one of my PCs was a druid with a Large-sized bear companion. However, many of the passages in the Tomb of Tular Seft are only five feet wide.

The only reference I could find in the rules for how to handle this was the Acrobatics "Squeeze" activity, which on a success allows you to move 5 feet per minute of squeezing! That seems incredibly harsh to me, and basically meant that it was impossible for the druid to bring his bear into the dungeon with the party in anything close to a reasonable time.

I think that use of Squeeze makes sense if you are talking about a creature trying to fit through a really small space, like a human contorting themselves through a 1-foot-wide crack in a wall or something. But for a Large creature to take a full minute to move five feet down a five foot wide passage seems really out of whack.

Am I missing something? Or does this need to be addressed somehow?

Looking at the stat block for the Electric Latch Rune in the Playtestiary, I don't see an indication of the trap's reset time. Is this a one-and-done thing, or does it happen every time someone tries to open the door? Or does it need time to recharge?

This makes a significant difference for parties who lack a rogue (or whose Thievery-based character is rolling poorly).

I think the rules on this are pretty clear, but I just wanted to call it out because it seems a little surprising. If I'm reading this right, then you cannot command a summoned creature to ready an action.

This is because the Summon Monster spell states, "Summoned creatures have 2 actions per turn (which they use when you Concentrate on the Spell) and can’t use reactions."

That means they have a lot less flexibility because you can't do stuff like say, "ready an action to attack that quasit when he becomes visible again!"

Is this intended?

I was making a character for Doomsday Dawn Part 3 tonight, and decided to roll up an Elven Paladin. My concept was that she'd be an agile woodland warrior, focused on speed and dexterity, so that demons would have no chance to escape!

Unfortunately, it seems like the Paladin class kind of shoehorns characters into wearing heavy armor:

Armored Fortitude 7th

Your proficiency rank for heavy armor and shields increases to expert, and your proficiency rank for Fortitude saves increases to master. While wearing heavy armor, when you succeed at a Fortitude save, treat your result as a critical success instead.

Why is this ability restricted to heavy armor? It seems to me that the AC bonus from choosing heavy armor should be its own reward; if I want to build a dex-based paladin, it seems strange to me that I would be expert in heavy armor but not in light or medium. Is there a particular reason why this ability doesn't just apply to all armors?

My group wanted to go buy some holy symbols in order to get past a certain encounter. However, I didn't see any listed in the Equipment chapter! Looks like it was left out for some reason. That's probably something that people are going to want to buy :-)

So one of the Quasits in Wolf form used an attack that included "knockdown". But it doesn't say in the statblock what that actually does. I searched the rulebook pdf and the only reference to Knockdown there is the level 14 Fighter feat. Is a level 0 creature really supposed to have such a powerful ability? Or is the description for this power missing from the rulebook?

Thanks!

First off, let me say for the record that I really like the background system. I love how your background not only gives some history to your character, but also grants you stat boosts and abilities!

That said, I'm a little worried about players not getting to use the "default" backgrounds. The playtest adventure includes backgrounds specific to the adventure, and I presume that upcoming Adventure Paths will do the same. I really like that. It's great to tie characters into the story!

However, if you only have one background to pick, and you need to pick one of the specific backgrounds for the adventure you're playing, then you'll never get to pick any of the other backgrounds. That seems like a big missed opportunity.

With the old trait system, you had two to pick, so one could be from your own character's background and the other could be setting you up for the campaign you're playing. You can't really do that with the new system.

Thoughts?

I tried building an archery-based Ranger last night. He was an Elf scout who wields a shortbow... a classic character concept, I thought.

Unfortunately, none of the 1st level Ranger feats deal with bows. As much as Harsk might take offense, I think bows are more of a classic Ranger build than crossbows. It seems that the Ranger as presented is kind of forced down either the animal companion route, the crossbow route, or the two-weapon fighting route.

I'd like to see more support in the final rules for a short/longbow-based ranger.

tldr: my party was stymied by very limited healing resources at 1st level.

I ran my first playtest game last weekend, and overall I think it went pretty well. I wanted to give some feedback, particularly around healing or lack thereof.

Character creation was a bit rough, but I will let my players provide that feedback.

Party composition: half-orc barbarian, human monk, human bard, human sorcerer (imperial). (Yeah, I know, we need to work on having more diverse ancestries! :-P )

We started out with some great die rolls on my part; the sewer ooze critted once and hit twice on the first round! Fortunately I decided it was dumb enough to split up its attacks, so I didn't just insta-kill the barbarian.

After that fight, the party realized that none of them had healing magic. We kind of assumed that the Bard would be the healer for the group, but we didn't realize until we started play that bards don't actually have heal on their spell list anymore. We also looked through the bard's powers and didn't see anything healing related, at least not at level 1. This probably needs to be addressed, especially since the class description says that "You can alternate between helpful spells, attacks, and healing as needed."

The party pooled their money and were able to afford a single 1st level heal potion, which the barbarian drank.

They proceeded on to fight the goblins in the second room, taking minimal damage, but they decided to drink the goblins' healing potion as well. The barbarian was out of resonance, but fortunately made her check. Then in the fight with the centipedes they again got unlucky die rolls and got quite beat up.

With no more healing resources and everyone quite badly hurt, the party retreated. By selling the goblins' gear, they were able to purchase a single healing spell from a local temple of Erastil. But they were very disappointed to learn that they could only get a burst heal of all of them for 2HP (I figured the NPC had a Wisdom of 15), or one of them for 1d8+2. That seems like not very much for 27sp. They begrudgingly paid and spent the next two days healing mundanely. The lack of a "Treat Deadly Wounds" option in the Heal skill was also a pain point.

Finally, they decided they needed to press on, even though only half the party was at full HP.

Overall, the game was pretty fun, though a bit rockier than usual with everyone needing to learn the new system. But it definitely felt like we are back in "mandatory cleric" territory, with very limited healing options available at level 1. I know this is always an issue in low-level games, at least until the party can afford a wand of cure light wounds or something. But since heal isn't on anyone in the party's spell list, they won't even have that option. Potion-only healing gets expensive really fast!

We were also disappointed that having an NPC cast a healing spell was only 3sp cheaper than buying a potion. We really think that NPC spellcasting needs to be much cheaper, especially at low levels. In PF1, an NPC spellcaster is only 1/5 the cost of an equivalent level potion; in PF2 they are nearly the same price. This makes "retreat to the temple and heal up before going back in" not a viable strategy at 1st level.

So in my playtest game a couple of characters got confused, and the other PCs wanted to restrain them until they came to their senses. I read that Grapple is a usage of the Athletics skill, so I suggested that they try to do that. This led to a couple of questions:

1) Grappling only takes a single action. If you fail the grapple and try again, do you take any penalties to the roll? It seems like you ought to, similar to making attack rolls, but I didn't see anything about penalties for making the same skill check more than once a turn.

2) The confused condition states that you will attack the creature that attacked you since your last turn. Does someone grappling you count? Again, it seems like it should, but grappling isn't actually an attack, so...

3) How can you pin a creature in PF2? I see that on a critical success the creature is restrained, which is pretty much like pinned. But I don't see anything about "upgrading" a grappled creature to restrained other than by a crit on a grapple check. It seems like there ought to be a path to restraining an already grappled creature, like tying them up or something.

4) How can you move a grappled creature? I ended up letting them roll Athletics to "drag" the other PC, like a Shove but in the opposite direction. But there doesn't seem to be an explicit rule for accomplishing this. I think there probably ought to be a "Drag" or "Reposition" skill usage for Athletics that accomplishes this.

I ran the Mindfog Fungus encounter last night, and it seemed to me that there was some information missing from the stat block.

1) The Trigger says that the fungus rolls initiative, but I couldn't see anywhere listing what skill the initiative roll should use. I ended up using Stealth because it was the first line on the statblock.

2) The statblock lists AC, TAC, and Hardness, but not hit points. So I wasn't sure how much damage it was supposed to be able to take.

Fortunately, after attacking it once and seeing that it released more spores, my party just left the room (dragging the two confused PCs with them) and didn't end up trying to kill the thing after all.

I know there are already a whole bunch of threads with people bashing or defending the resonance system. I don't want this to turn into another of them. But I would like some clarification on how exactly resonance is intended to function, to make sure that my playtest feedback is accurate.

I'm a bit confused about what things require spending resonance, especially when it comes to invested items.

For example, take the following item:

COLLAR OF INCONSPICUOUSNESS ITEM 9
Traits Invested Primal Transmutation
Price 625 gp
Method of Use worn, collar;
Bulk 1
Activation Focus Activation
This leather collar’s worn and almost threadbare look defies its magical nature. When you invest the collar and attach it to your animal companion’s neck, it grants you the ability to change your ferocious animal companion into a more inconspicuous form. While touching your animal companion, you can activate the collar to transform your companion into a nonthreatening Tiny creature of the same or a similar species (for instance, a house cat instead of a tiger or a puppy instead of a wolf). This has the effects of pest form (2nd level, or 4th level if your animal companion can fly). The effect lasts until you dismiss it with another Focus Activation action that doesn’t cost RP.

So, you invest the collar and put it on your animal companion. 1 Resonance spent so far. Then you activate the collar to turn them into a nonthreatening creature. Does that cost a second Resonance? Or do you get it for free because you invested the collar? If you activate the collar later in the day, would it cost a third Resonance?

If it does cost a resonance to activate, why is this an invested item? Is it just a stealth way of making it cost at least two Resonance?

Another example:

CLOAK OF ELVENKIND ITEM 10+
Traits Illusion Invested Magical
Method of Use worn, cloak;
Bulk L
Activation Focus Activation, Operate Activation
This cloak is deep green with a voluminous hood, and is embroidered with gold trim and symbols of significance to the elves. The cloak allows you to cast the ghost sound cantrip as an innate arcane spell. When you draw the hood up over your head (an Interact action), the cloak transforms to match the environment around you and muffles your sounds, giving you an item bonus to Stealth checks. If you activate the cloak, you pull the hood up and are affected by invisibility for 1 minute or until you pull the hood back down, whichever comes first.

It's invested, so it costs 1 resonance at the beginning of the day. But I'm unclear what abilities you get for free, and what you need to spend resonance on.

Casting an innate spell sure sounds like activating the item to me, and using an item to cast a spell matches the developers' descriptions of a thing that would use resonance. But it doesn't specifically say it is an activation action, so does that mean it's free? If so, how often can it be used? If it's not free, where in the rules does it say that such a thing costs resonance?

If you draw up the hood of the cloak to become invisible, that clearly costs Resonance. But if you do the same thing to gain a bonus on Stealth checks, does that cost resonance? It's not a "constant ability", so by RAW it would not seem to be powered up merely by investing the item. But if so, why is gaining the stealth bonus an Interact action, while going invisible is an activation action?

Again, I don't want to discuss the merits or problems with the resonance system as a whole in this thread. There are other threads for that. But I would like to gain a clearer understanding of how it's supposed to work, so that I can run it correctly at my playtest table!

Thanks!

In Pale Mountain's Shadow, under the Tracking Time sub-header in the Tomb of Tular Seft, it says:

On average, a group of PCs should have time to fully explore areas C1-C6 of the tomb before the Night Heralds make it through the labyrinthine eastern reaches of the complex. Remind the PCs how long they have left when they enter the tomb so they know whether they'll have any time to rest before or during their explorations.

How are the PCs supposed to know in-character how much time is left? All I can find in the adventure is that the PCs know from the briefing that the Night Heralds are on the way, but nowhere does it state where they are coming from or how long the PCs should expect them to take. They don't encounter the Heralds until that group arrives, so they don't have any way to tell what their adversaries' progress is before they arrive.

Am I just supposed to tell the players, "Hey, your characters have no way to know this, but you have 2 days to explore before the bad guys get here, sound good?" Or is there some in-character way that the PCs are supposed to know how much time is left, and I just missed it?

Obviously it's the McGuffin that the PCs are supposed to retrieve, but I don't see anywhere in the module that describes what the Star of Desna actually is. I'm sure that's something that my players will ask about when Keleri asks them to retrieve it.

I'm guessing that maybe it's a special magic Starknife? If so, does it have any special properties? If not, what else might it be?

I participated in a playtest event at Gen Con, and I realized yesterday that our GM never asked for our PFS number. From what I read on the blog, the playtest rewards require GM reporting in order to track the playtest points.

Has that changed, or did our table GM just forget to gather the reporting info? If the latter, is there any way to submit my information so that I can get PFS credit for the playtest scenario?

Thanks!

Hi, folks

Recently in a treasure horde my group found a word bottle. It sounds intriguing, but I'm not sure what would be the best use for it.

Do any of you know of a particularly clever or useful targeted language-dependent spell of 3rd level or lower that would be worth putting in the bottle?

Thanks!

I know that one of my weaknesses as a gamemaster is narrating travel scenes or otherwise making them interesting. I'm just not very good at getting the players from point A to point B without either giving the players a pretty bland description of the trip, or having a random encounter.

Do any of you know of any tips/resources for how to make overland travel interesting without bogging down the game?

I always think of this scene from The Gamers as something I aspire to, though I feel like in a non-visual medium it would take a bit more description to give a sense for the journey.

I would also like to know how you make things interactive for the players without just having them roll Survival checks or the like.

I'm looking at making a Witch character for my next campaign who uses a firearm (probably a rifle) as her weapon. However, looking through the rules, I'm not seeing any options designed to support this particular combo.

Right now, I'm thinking of foregoing Gunslinger levels entirely, and instead taking Witch (and later Winter Witch) as my class levels, and using feats to learn the gun stuff. I've gotten my GM to agree to let me take Exotic Weapon Proficiency at level 1 even though I don't have a +1 BAB yet. I was also considering skipping Gunsmithing and relying on Mending spells to repair misfired guns. Then I could spend my feats on things like Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot.

Any thoughts or suggestions for bringing guns into the Witch class?

Thanks!

Hey, folks!

I've been playing Pathfinder for years now, but I'm going to be running a D&D 3.5 game for my old gaming group next weekend. I really want to make it feel 3.5ish, not like Pathfinder.

What are the most memorable things about the D&D 3.5 system to you? What seems the most "quintessentially D&D"?

Right now, I'm working on pregen characters with lots of prestige classes and multiclassing. I want there to be undead, because those changed a lot with Pathfinder. Any other suggestions?

Good morning,

I've been listening to the PaizoCon 2016 seminar coverage (thanks, Know Direction Podcast!), and one of the things that was mentioned was that 4 and 5-star PFS GMs would be getting free subscriptions to Syrinscape. I'm eager to start adding this to my games. Is there anything I need to do to claim the benefit? Or should I just be waiting on the Paizo and Syrinscape teams to coordinate?

Thanks!

Hi, folks!

Sorry to bring up another download issue -- I'm sure you all must be sick of those by now. I'm eagerly attempting to download the PDF for the new PFS scenario, Faithless and Forgotten Part III. I'll be running the game for a convention this weekend, so I would really like to read it ahead of time. However, it seems to be stuck somehow and isn't downloading for me.

When I click the download link, the page refreshes and scrolls to the link for the scenario. However, at that point nothing happens. It doesn't actually start to download, nor does it say "personalizing". It just does nothing.

Here's the link I'm using, for reference:
https://secure.paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wo/11.StandardPageTem plate.1.29.3.1.1.2.5.1.1.2.1.3.4.1.1.MAAssets.2.9.1.13.1.0.2.5.1.1.3.0.1#v5 748cbhctfkyv5748q6o1pt2p

I have tried with both Chrome and IE, on a Windows 8.1 computer. I did leave for about 15 minutes just to see if it was a temporary glitch. That caused my session to time out, but the download still didn't work.

Thanks for all your hard work, and thanks in advance for looking into this!

I'm a big fan of scenarios that have a lot of roleplaying, such as The Immortal Conundrum and Merchant's Wake. However, it seems like the scenarios always start with the roleplaying and devolve into combat at the end.

This is often a problem, as when I'm running the scenarios I don't know how much time to allocate to the roleplay section and still have enough time for combat. Particularly if there is no "warm up" encounter early on to get a feel for the group's playstyle and how quickly they will get through fights. I do enjoy the combat aspect of the game, but I sometimes wish that scenarios with less combat would spread it out better throughout the scenario.

Do any of you know of some good scenarios that have strong roleplay sections at the *end* of the session?

If you have an ability that lets you use a particular skill in place of another skill, and you have another ability that grants you a bonus on the second skill, does it apply?

My current build that prompted the question is the Asmodean Advocate cleric archetype from Dirty Tactics Toolbox.

At 1st level, an Asmodean advocate learns to choose her words so carefully that even when she says something designed to deceive listeners, the words are phrased to be technically true. She can use her Profession (barrister) skill for Bluff and Diplomacy checks.

Part of the archetype also grants a familiar.

Master gains a +3 bonus on Bluff checks

In a similar vein, could I take the Deceitful feat and gain a bonus on my Bluff checks?

You get a +2 bonus on all Bluff and Disguise skill checks.

I know that this archetype is pretty niche, but I imagine that the same sort of thing would apply to other skill-substitution abilities, such as the Bard's Versatile Performance.

Thanks in advance for your replies!

Hey, folks!

I have a witch NPC who is joining my party. She's significantly below the level of the rest of the group, but I'd like her to still contribute at least a little bit to the party. However, the PCs all have mythic tiers, so the spellcasters can cast pretty much any spell in the game.

I'm wondering if you all know any good witch-only spells that would not otherwise be available to the party. That way the character can contribute something unique.

Currently I'm looking for 2nd or 3rd level spells, but advice for any spell level would be helpful.

The party consists of a barbarian, alchemist, wizard, and druid. So if there are any non-alchemist, druid, or wizard spells that *are* on the witch list, those would be the ones I'm most interested in.

Hey, all!

I'm toying with builds for a Wrath of the Righteous game that will hopefully be happening soon, and I'd be interested to hear your advice for my character. Sorry for the length!

Note that I didn't put a lot of effort into choosing spells or equipment, since I imagine a lot of that will depend on how the campaign goes. But if you have any suggestions for either of those categories, please feel free to make them!

So, what do you all think? Thanks in advance for your advice!

...and with that I just started my subscription to this again... This is a cool spell.

Would have been a cool investigator spell too...

My card gaming group is just finishing Rise of the Runelords this week. We are considering doing Wrath of the Righteous next, but I am hoping to play that Adventure Path in the RPG.

Will playing the organized play scenarios spoil the Adventure Path for me? Should I stay away for the sake of my future enjoyment of the RPG (which I do consider to be more important)?

Thanks!

Hi folks,

I'm curious about the rationale for the decision to irrevocably switch characters over to the non-Core Campaign once they have played in a non-Core game. As long as the character doesn't have any options from non-core sources, why restrict a player from moving back and forth between the two play "modes"?

I'm envisioning the following sort of scenario: a new player joins a group, playing PFS Core. She plays several games and enjoys it. Then she goes to a local convention, sees "Pathfinder Society" offered, and plays a game. Then she happily takes her character back to her local group after the convention and is told that she can't play their games anymore because her character is "non-core".

I totally understand restricting characters from rejoining the Core campaign once they have taken non-Core options. But I'm curious why, if a character still obeys all the "Core Only" rules, it would not be allowed to play another Core game after earning a non-core Chronicle sheet.

Thanks!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope you all in Customer Service are still sober enough to check on this for me ;-)

According to the March 2015 New Release Shipping Thread, the March subscription orders should now be shipped. However, my order #3421433 is still showing a state of "pending".

Would you mind checking into this, please?

Thanks very much!

My PCs are playing through The Frozen Stars right now (they are currently Level 11/Mythic Tier 3), and in order to tie the events of TFS more closely to the rest of the AP, I have decided to place a Winter Collector somewhere near Yrax's palace. (Thanks to Jeven on the GM reference thread for the idea!}

In my version, Elvanna created a series of new Winter Collectors in order to spread Irrisen's winter throughout Golarion. One of these was on Triaxus, and she paid off the white dragon Yrax to guard it. So it should be somewhere in or near his palace.

I'm looking for ideas on what exactly the Winter Collector is, and how it can be destroyed. I was thinking of something like a D&D-style skill challenge, but I'm open to suggestions. I do want its destruction to be more involved than just "hit it with the adamantine warhammer!"

(If it matters, I'm also having a simulacrum of Elvanna in the palace to keep an eye on Yrax and guard the collector. My players will be facing her next week, which should be very exciting!)

Hey, folks!

I'm wondering about the interactions between haste and chaos hammer.

You unleash chaotic power to smite your enemies. The power takes the form of a multicolored explosion of leaping, ricocheting energy. Only lawful and neutral (not chaotic) creatures are harmed by the spell.

The spell deals 1d8 points of damage per two caster levels (maximum 5d8) to lawful creatures (or 1d6 points of damage per caster level, maximum 10d6, to lawful outsiders) and slows them for 1d6 rounds (see the slow spell). A successful Will save reduces the damage by half and negates the slow effect.

The spell deals only half damage against creatures who are neither lawful nor chaotic, and they are not slowed. Such a creature can reduce the damage by half again (down to one-quarter) with a successful Will save.

An affected creature moves and attacks at a drastically slowed rate. Creatures affected by this spell are staggered and can take only a single move action or standard action each turn, but not both (nor may it take full-round actions). Additionally, it takes a –1 penalty on attack rolls, AC, and Reflex saves. A slowed creature moves at half its normal speed (round down to the next 5-foot increment), which affects the creature's jumping distance as normal for decreased speed.

Multiple slow effects don't stack. Slow counters and dispels haste.

(emphasis mine)

So, my question is: multiple PCs are affected by haste, and then the BBEG slaps a chaos hammer on them. If they fail the save, they are subject to the slow effect.

• Does the slow effect dispel the haste on that PC?
  
• Is the haste dispelled completely, or only for the 1d6 rounds of the slow?
  
• If the haste is dispelled, is it only dispelled for the characters who were lawful and failed their saves? That is, are other PCs who are under the same haste spell still hasted? (And does it make a difference whether the caster is one of the affected characters?)

Thanks!

So, my party is currently exploring Artrosa. They are about to encounter Caigreal, and if all goes according to plan (I know, this rarely happens when PCs are involved), she will pretend to be a captured maiden and join with the party as they continue through the dungeon.

Shortly after that, it's likely that the PCs will encounter Jadrenka in "The Maiden in the Field".

I assume that Jadrenka will recognize Caigreal even through the disguise, so how would this affect their interaction? Would Caigreal and Jadrenka both be attempting to turn the PCs against the other? Would Jadrenka blow Caigreal's disguise?

If any GMs who have run this encounter have any advice or stories, I'd greatly appreciate hearing it.

Thanks!