Deadalready's page

I'm curious how other games run with resting? Does your GM make it an interesting/difficult/special. Do you enjoy/disagree with how it's managed?

In my first game, resting was handled as a non event (you've rested-on with story). Unfortunately my first game as GM, I handled it the same way and began to notice the problems with hand waved sleeping.
By making resting so easy, it encouraged players to rest often, then nuke encounters, which is really annoying for encounter design.

In my current game as GM I've made it point to make resting rather involved, with players thinking about who's on watch, deciding on whether to wear armour, consider whether to light a fire and think about carefully about location. I like to make it a point that players really need to think about whether they need to really rest or not.

At this point in time I'm thinking about maybe a situational bonus for those who invest in comfortable sleeping equipment. Or possibly a roll to replicate getting a good night's rest.

Anyway curious how it's handled in other gaming groups!

So with monsters there's nearly a dozen knowledge skills to help identify who they are and what they are capable of.
My problem is I feel like players should not automatically know what class a humanoid is nor their abilities.

While I can imagine perception is a good way to identify what a person is equipped with, it would not tell you their skills.
So far I can't identify which skill I should be using to identify classes?
Religion could cover clerics
Nobility would cover Paladins?
Dungeoneering for fighters?

Help and suggestions would be appreciated!

I'm just going through my old session recap sheets and thought they were in need of an update.

Currently they have the sections:
Date
Absences
Days Passed
Experience
Session Recap

But looking for any other categories other GMs/Players have found useful?

This is a part rant but also a call to attention about Pathfinder's HORRENDOUS naming system. Too many times I've encountered names in various APs are impossible/clumsy/ridiculous to read let alone pronounce.

Either Pathfinder needs to try harder to make names pronounceable OR start including pronunciation breakdowns for all their names.
So fellow players what are some of the ridiculous names you've come across in Pathfinder materials?

For me I bear a special hate for the following:
*Sarenrae (clumsy to say and I feel like it should be SareNAE instead)
*Orik Vancaskerkin - so this is an HUMAN name???
*Demon Lord, Kostchtchie - Most of the demons in Pathfinder are unpronounceable
*Ardathanatus - Elven name from Shattered Star
*Volioker Briskalberd - A Dwarven locksmith name apparently

These are ones close at hand but I remember so many over the years that make me stop and scratch my head.

Hi guys, I have a player who's building a Ranger Shapeshifter with the idea of building a Werewolf who's losing control or has a chance to lose control.
I admit it is a cool idea with a few possible angles, the player himself is experienced and plays with the mindset of roleplay/interesting over power.

There's plenty of side effects so I'm looking for advice how to GM and balance this idea. What are some of the problems I might run into and how can I run this under pathfinder rules?

Hi guy I need some help understanding the Range archtype: Shapeshifter, several points which need some clarification on.

1: The ranger combat styles allow the ranger to select any feat without prerequisites, at level 2 the ranger must select "Natural Weapon Style" but it seems like most of the feats won't be usable till level 3 and/or because he needs natural attacks already?

2: How does a ranger acquire an actual natural attack because I assume that normal unarmed attacks don't translate into natural attacks. Furthermore using unarmed attacks requires the feat to even use?

3: Does natural attack attract an attack of opportunity, unless the character as unarmed combat as a feat?

4: Assuming a ranger has picked up Aspect of Beast: Claws of the Beast (gain two 1d4 natural attacks), does this count as dual wielding and as thus attack penalties?

Thanks for answers!

I'm starting a new custom campaign which will probably end about level 5/6, which will involve humanoid, animal with limited undead enemies. One of my players has asked to play a gunslinger, which I'm hesitant to allow as they seem extremely strong, based on my research on the class most player/gm response is they are too strong for most normal games.

So I'm looking for ways to allow this class without it outclassing the other players at the table (who will be largely new players). My major concerns on how to balance it's almost "always hit" bab/touch attacks.

What are some ideas or balances for the gunslinger?

I heard about how strong Color Spray was, long before I actually knew what it actually was.

Being a GM and also now actually playing my first arcane caster, I've been avoiding using the spell (because I consider it cheap) but I really have to wonder why it's heads above all the other level 1 spells.

Comparing Colour Spray to Sleep for example (which I think is the closest comparison)

Colour Spray
Stand Action Cast
Stun and blind both require level 3 spells to cure
Can affect enemies of any level
Does not work on sightless enemies
Duration variable
Range 15ft Cone

Sleep
Full Round Cast time
Sleeping creatures can be woken with a stand action
Only works on 4HD or less
Does not work on elves, undead and anything that doesn't sleep
Duration of 1 min per level
Range 100ft x 5 squares

The only thing that Sleep has is range and duration yet I don't think they're nearly balanced enough vs stun+blind+no level cap

Why on earth is Colour Spray so good compared to all the other level 1 spells???

Do any books/guides/resources have prices for fines?

Considering how much time most games take place in cities and how the majority have some sort of law. Is there any paizo resources that have recommendations/tables for fines when breaking the law?

Just wondering what are some ways to improve my animal companion Wolf's tripping ability. In particular I'm looking at feat selection, items and passive always on effects as opposed to buffs.

He's currently level 2 and has Improved Iron will and Light Armour proficiency.

I've just started a Sylvan Sorcerer who is built and intended as a debuffer and party buffer. So far my spells are ear piercing scream and sleep and the early stretch goal is to buy a level 1 wand to lean on until my casting opens up.

Ideally I'm looking for something to spam every fight for constant benefits until I'm about level 4 or 5.

No Colour Spray!

One of my campaigns is wrapping up and we're rebuilding, so I'm looking to create a monster support that specialises in being lucky or boosting the saves/rerolls of my party.

Thinking of a bard ideally but all the options available would be helpful. I love the idea of the feat "lucky halfling" which is what I'm after but with more uses ideally.

I've just introduced my players to Magrimar and at this point I've decided to impliment Prestiege Points to give play tangible influence/reputation. The big thing is trying to work out a suitable progression and maybe what level they should be starting with.

Since the players are new to Magrimar they wouldn't have much if any Prestiege so that's appropriate?

How many points should I be awarding players per level and per story quest?
My players are level 7 and are beating encounters with few problems.

Our party has entered a tournament and the GM has given us an idea of what our opponents are. While the majority of them seem reasonable, the biggest problem is a gunslinger we encountered earlier in the campaign.

While I can't be exact on what feats the gunslinger has, he'll be vaguely level 10 and from our last encounter sitting on the overpowered side of life. Add to this the gunslinger will most likely be guarded by a strong front liner.

The tournament has several rules against obscuring vision because the crowd needs to see the entire fight.

The current party is also level 10 consisting of a
Two weapon Rogue
two handed Ranger
Bow Ranger
Sword and board Inquisitor
Shifter Druid

Litany of Weakness
Your litany proclaims your target weak, sapping its strength. The target is fatigued for 1 round. While subject to this spell, the target cannot be the target of another spell that has the word "litany" in the title.

Fatigued
A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a –2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.

This might be as simple as open and shut but:
If I cast Litany of Weakness on an already fatigued character, does that qualify as him becoming exhausted?

Basically if the character does anything that would normally cause him to become fatigued (while fatigued), he goes one step further into exhaustion. So by using Weakness on him it causes an already fatigued character to become fatigued again changing his status to exhaustion?

This is a genuine question as I'm planning to have it come up for my side quest building.

If I manage to paralyse someone with the Hold Person spell, then give him a solid kick in the groin. Will the character slump to the ground or just continue standing there? Am I right to assume that the pain is instant and the person would stand there suffering and possibly by the time the spell wears off, not actually collapse because it's no longer a current pain? Or would paralysis also delay the pain until the person's senses return to him?

The same sorta goes for being paralysed and being pushd over or in a more extreme situation coup-de-grae, would a person hold their position until the spell go off or would they assume a new position if they were moved?

On one hand there's many times I've been incredibly frustrated by house rules and on the other hand I've seen some cool stuff too.

One house rule that comes to mind that I don't like, my GM runs a natural 1 ends all further attacks in a full attack. So if you have 3 attacks and roll a 1 on the first, you fumble and end your turn (we don't run critical fails either).

On cool house rules, one friend runs a fortune deck, where everyone draws a card at the beginning of the game and it has various effects from good to painful. You could possibly get something like +1 AC, Will Save, attack, etc and that stays with you for the entire session or inversely -1 to one of your stats. Additionally it also contains special 1 time use powers or abilities that can be activated through the game session.

Personally I regularly run a week's downtime between chapters and use a modified profession system to encourage players to take up professions. Basically a day's effort (12 hours) is a d20 + profession = gold. So a player with +7 in Baker would earn +7 gold on top of his d20 roll for a day's effort. A natural 20 lets them roll a % they add that percentage on their earnings.

I'm running a module where in one of the rooms there's a lonely wraith who was apparently a consort to a prince but now roams the dungeon looking for companionship. The module says she tries to "caress the pcs of their souls".

Considering nearly all of the dungeon is fight encounters, I've decided to make this encounter into a diplomacy based one where the wraith wants a companion and the PCs have to weasel themselves a solution. However with each sentence the PCs trade the wraith, she moves closer and closer until she jumps into someone's body.

For the majority of the time I plan for her to be a passive observer in someone's body. What I do want is for a good bonus/trade off for a PC to gain having another spirit cohabit their body.

Honestly I'm not sure where I'll go with the possession just that it'll make an interesting personal story line for one of the players.

Suggestions comments?

Originally I built my Inquisitor as an Intimidator using the Cornugon Smash but it was ruled out as an option by my GM. No real problems there but now I'm trying to decide where to go from here, what to pick for my next feats?

My preferred build would be to incorporate Intimidate debuffs as a regular action once in a while. While I love using Blistering Invective casting limitations reduce my use to a very small amount per day. Also due to cash problems I haven't focused on a single weapon, switching between several as the situation needs.

Suggestions as to what feats I should consider from here on.
My GM is allowing feats from the major Paizo books like Core, Advanced, Ultimate Campaign, etc.

Level 7 Human Inquisitor/ 1 fighter
Str 20
Dex 13
Con 16
Int 13
Wis 14
Cha 8

Current feats:
Dodge
Power attack
Additional traits
Mobility
Judgement surge
Cleave

Precise Strike
Duck and cover

I've noticed that one of my Pathfinder games (going through Shattered Star) feels very poor, while my group going through Rise of Runelords feels very rich in comparison.

In SS we've only been able to purchase small items and rely heavily on items dropped from our enemies to survive. Our weapons and armour are pretty much what we've owned since level 4, now at level 8 we are taking huge amounts of punishment because the highest normal AC is 23 (we get plenty of item drops) that we tend to keep and very little liquid treasure.

In my RotRL run we've been receiving heaps and heaps of liquid treasure and occasionally magic items that tend to be sold more than kept. Most of the players go out shopping for their items of choice and nearly every player has 20+ AC at level 4 already. The general consensus in the group is they all feel well off.

I sat down and nutted out the maths and both groups are actually fairly close to their recommended wealth balance levels. The only real difference between the two campaigns is one group keeps drops, while the other sells them.

Do you find it more satisfying to purchase your own items or find them?

I've toyed with the idea but really have come up with nothing, knowing there are better people at it, is it possible to make a level 0 spell crazy powerful using metamagic feats and traits?

One of my players has just pointed out something interesting and upon investigation more interesting questions have come up.

Sling staff Small weapon damage 1d6
Sharpstones small weapon damage 1d3

1. Does the staff do 1d6 at both ranged and melee?
2: If the staff does 1d6 ranged damage, do sharp stones add 1d3 damage?
3: How do I properly calculate special damage on ammo (with reference)

Thanks!

Bit of Luck (Sp): You can touch a willing creature as a standard action, giving it a bit of luck. For the next round, any time the target rolls a d20, he may roll twice and take the more favorable result. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.

I've been using this power a heap lately and the way I've been doing it is declaring that I'm using bit of luck for a particular roll and simultaneously rolling two die for a result.

On closer inspection I'm rethinking/considering how many other ways it's possible to use this, some seemingly more dubious than others.

So what would be the correct way to interpret, bit of luck's rolling?

1: Declare bit of luck on roll, roll twice simultaneously
2: Declare bit of luck, only roll again if first roll unfavourable. Can use bit of luck on saves in following round if unused.
3: No need to declare bit of luck, anytime in following round roll again on a unfavourable roll.

Obviously a very powerful ability, making fails very hard to do. Additionally with the domain's 6th level power:

Good Fortune (Ex): At 6th level, as an immediate action, you can reroll any one d20 roll you have just made before the results of the roll are revealed. You must take the result of the reroll, even if it's worse than the original roll. You can use this ability once per day at 6th level, and one additional time per day for every six cleric levels beyond 6th.

It also implies a failed bit of luck, can be rerolled too!

When doing an full round attack, does rolling a natural 1 end your action? Just trying to find the text book entry on this.

Normally our group doesn't do critical fails so this threw me off when the GM said this.

My table consists of 6 give or take players whom I'm really happy with.

Due to commitments my two least experienced players often missed sessions leaving the other players to surge ahead in gaming experience. This in itself isn't a problem until my less experienced players pretty much delegated their decision making to the other players. A lot of meta gaming was happening and lots of "back seat general" play was happening.
To try and rectify this I've put in a trial of the following combat system: There is no I in team
"all discussions of strategy must happen in character, and in combat order if initiative has already been rolled.

This accomplishes multiple goals at the same time. On the one hand it lets everyone know that all interactions must be done strictly in character. On the other hand the role play can lead to back and forth between characters, and get everyone involved in the game. Ideally what it will do is allow the party to develop a battle rapport, with allies calling out to one another in the thick of it and adapting on the fly to the changing scenario."

There's been an overall good response from my players but I have noticed some inherent flaws.

Pros:
*Players are now more invested in learning their own characters/classes
*Little or no metagame
*Players are now making their own decisions
*Combat is no longer being dominated by one or two players ordering others.

Cons:
*Massive drop in table/player interactions with each other
*Still little role playing
*Players are now tuning out until it’s their turn
*Less teamwork as players are no longer co-ordinating their attacks.

Now the lack of teamwork comes from players concentrating on only their character, tuning out during other's turns (nearly dead silence and no banter between players) and seemingly avoiding in character speech.

One of my players has pointed out the speaking system is quite awkward now as questions and responses now take an entire round to get a response. Additionally there's really little difference between "giving orders in character" and giving orders out of character, which was one of the major things it was supposed to fix.

Multiple problems but essentially in a nutshell:
What can I do to encourage role playing and teamwork of my players?

Or how can I further refine and improve this system?

I haven't read through the entirety of the book, just a few chapters ahead of my players but right now my players are very close to assaulting Thistletop.

One of things I noticed was a lack in a strong central plot line or a strong villain for most of the campaign. While I'm not a writer I made the assumption that it would leak in more through the book but recently one of my players confirmed my suspicions and asked me about the seeming lack of direction.

With that I've been convinced to create stronger plot hook. So how have other GMs have given their players better plot motivation?

It never really came up before this point and it never seemed useful before so I kinda ignored it but just recently there have been times when interrupting a mage's spell has become critical.

The rule book seems a bit vague in how to actually *perform* an spell interrupt merely what the concentration rolls after being hit are. It seems to me that it's far too easy for a mage to 5 foot step out of any threatening attackers and avoid any attacks of opportunity/readied actions that would stop their casting. Unless a mage is surrounded then there's really no chance to interrupt a standard action spell???

So how does a melee player interrupt a spell?
Rule book reference page would help too.

As an inquisitor casting any magical melee touch attack, am I right in deducing that I can add my Bane ability to my touch attacks? Logic being that Bane lets you enchant your weapon, in this case a FIST gaining +2 attack damage as well as +2d6.

Furthermore it would seem possible to use the Justice maybe even other Judgments!?!

In particular I was going to use this in tandem with the spell CAST OUT, for some seriously brutal debuff+damage.

Legal?

Now I'm hoping for this to be a learning experience as to what not to do and that we keep things nice as we all appreciate our GMs for their work.

My friend was telling me about an encounter his party experienced where they were in a hallway and someone stepped on a pressure plate, making everyone roll for reflex. Everyone who successfully saved jumped away while the one person who didn't, stood on the spot. Turned out the trap was a "reverse trap" and the floor around the pressure plate dropped away killing everyone except for the one person who failed his save.

In my own games our GM never lets our plans successfully carry out or seemingly all our diplomacy attempts to backfire in our face. Essentially we've realised "let's not bother with plans or trying to be diplomatic, lets walk in and kill them".

In one example we had successfully tracked down a group of bandits to their hideout and captured one to find out they were doing a "beer run" to celebrate. So we ambushed the carriage with a sleep spell and drugged all the beer with slow acting poison. From there we stole all their worthy belongings to make it look like a robbery and were about to leave them to wake up, when a patrol team discovered us and it became a fighting entry in the end.

In another game I've heard of players who were away for a few sessions and came back to find out their character had lost an arm or a leg...

Originally for PFS but now for as an npc, I'm looking to create a halfing druid as a memorable character. Originally I wanted a panda but due to horrendous synergy decided to abandon the idea.

Essentially I want to create a druid that is hilarious first and strong second but finding a big problem with building anything that synergies well as a mounted build.

Has to be a druid legal mount

Asking for both mount options and build ideas.

Hi guys, early on in the RotRL campaign I introduced a npc who likes collecting swords and gives a slightly better price than market value for them (60% instead of 50%).

Now I want to find the ball park of dropping interesting, useful and creative swords for the party as side quests/treasure drops but I certainly don't want to throw out the delicate economy balance.

So what I'm asking is for low price swords made of different materials, with different descriptions and histories behind them.

Max price 8.500 GP, ideal price range 300 to 4000 GP.

Current party (Lvl 2) consists of:
Dual wielding Ninja
Monk
Cleric of Desna
Druid
Evoker

Hi guys I was planning on building a Cleric for PFS who was focused on doing offensive channels as his main attacks. More or less he'd invest in as much AC as possible then walk into the middle baddies and AOE them all until they gave up.

Firstly I'm really trying to weigh up the pros and cons as he'd most likely only reach level 5 or 6 at the end of the day.

~

Human Cleric
CN Negative Energy
Domain: Luck and Protection

STR 7
DEX 14
CON 12
INT 12
WIS 14
CHA 18

Feats
Lvl 1: Selective Channel, Extra Channels
Lvl 2:
Lvl 3: Versatile Channel/Command Undead
Lvl 4:
Lvl 5: ?
Lvl 6:

I've been playing around with the classic system of ability scores where you roll 3d6 dice and are forced to apply those scores in order rolled STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA.

Being a player who rolls hilariously low I thought it'd be funny to run a short 1-2 day module where everyone rolls their stats and is forced to build a character around their mismatched stats.

For example: I've rolled 8 STR, 11 DEX, 10 CON, 9 INT, 10 WIS, 11 CHA and would have to somehow build a level 1 char and survive a dungeon with him.

Since this sort of play requires experienced players and most of the players I have in mind have GM experience, I wanted to run a system where every hour a new GM takes the reigns of the module and adds the dungeon.

~

What I wanted is any thoughts and ideas, that could make this system workable, not to mention fun!

My own GM will just ask us "everyone roll perception" and honestly I never paid much attention to it. Most of the time I don't even roll as our ranger has +19 to his perception rolls.
Now as a GM running my own game it's become apparent that when a module mentions "DC xx perception check reveals~" when 4 players roll for perception it's almost impossible for a team to actually fail a perception check.

So in order to save time I'm wondering whether to:

1: Assume PCs are always paying attention and have them roll perception as normal. Even though it wastes time.
2: Assume the team is always successful in finding the hidden details not bothering with the rolls.
3: Only do perception rolls when players ask for it. Possibly resulting in constant "I roll for perception" in every room.

What are player's experiences with this?

Hey guys I'm trying to build a Druid (ideally) with a Panda for a mount, that's legal for Pathfinder Society Play. At the moment I'm having an incredibly tough time trying to work out ability scores and general build. Not to mention complete unfamiliarity with mounted combat rules.

The aim is to be semi decent at melee combat/charge attacks at level 4 when a small character can ride the medium Panda. While the build is just as much about flavor, there's not much point playing if he can't offer anything in a battle.

Current thoughts are to go a Halfling with STR13 DEX18 CON12 WIS14 INT10 CHA9 not sure about initial feats but working towards a wand of enlarge person for my first big item.

Suggestions and ideas totally welcome