Diamondcat's page

I would consider myself a high int low wis person in real life, so I prefer to play characters of that sort. I was a cliche knowledge hungry wizard who encountered a Chuul. My intelligence told me that it would probably speak Aklo, maybe some related language, so I asked if it could understand me in Aklo, then Aquan, then Draconic, then Infernal and Abyssal... I kept prattling off languages to the GM. One of my fellow players walked up and said, "could you please let us pass?" The chuul said something along the lines of "mmk." I forgot to try asking in common (the common sense answer). THAT is high int low wis playing.

What is a Slayer? Is it an archetype, or third party? Can you provide a link? It sounds interesting... sorry for not really answering your question.

I always make sure my characters have a religion, or at least a specific reason for being an "atheist" (though as the article indirectly points out, it's often more of a "shunner of the gods" than a true non-believer). It definitely makes me feel more immersed in the world. My favorite part of Pathfinder is character creation, and I feel religion is an important aspect of this.

That said, I do tend to agree with Titan. I feel the Pathfinder gods are too specific in their creeds and tend to limit characters, at least divine ones who should theoretically exemplify their god's creed. In my games, I use homebrew gods with a large range of things in their portfolio. Different sects of each god pay attention to different parts of the portfolio. I also kept these gods alignment free, so each sect is aligned, and the gods help all of their sects and followers. I also made a specific religion devoted to following all the gods equally, just for the extra flexibility it offers.

That's... incredible! Looking at the rules, I don't see any problems with it. I'm not the most rule-savvy person in the world, but... as a person who LOVES familiars, I am definitely checking back in in a bit to see what others say.

We have two campaigns going on at the same time, one to try new things and another for serious role-playing/story. In the one where we try new things, we have a rule that says we're allowed to change our characters as much as we want in between sessions. The players don't know what's coming up in the next session, so they can't optimize for the next session in specific. We keep track of the money we've expended in consumables and spells and we can re-spend the rest as often as we want. It keeps people happy, allowing them to try out all sort of things, and they never get bored.

In game the character is just treated as though its always that way, even when it doesn't make sense (the halfling was the only one qualified to squeeze through the hole to get the key but has since changed into a 400 pound orc. He still has the key, and everyone remembers him squeezing through the hole). Character development still occurs because it's really the same character. Friendships hold and enemies remain.

If you don't like the style of this game (it certainly isn't for everyone and all situations, and goes against a lot of the nature of the game) you obviously shouldn't use it.

Another option, which I implement in the more serious campaign, allows characters to rebuild their characters every X levels (we use 5). They must keep track of the amount of gold spent in consumables and spells, and they can't change their race, physical description, back-story, or class. It prevents players from being stuck with terrible decisions, allows new content, and never leads to very many in-game problems. Again, the characters are treated as always having been that way.

Hope one of these helps!

I need some random encounters. I am running a campaign for approximately four players, and they like to be kept busy, as any players do. I need ideas for random encounters that are not simply combat, though they may involve combat. They can be for any environment or location (swamp/road/tavern/inside a castle...).

Examples:
-A disfigured man steps into the road and challenges the party to a duel, which the party would clearly win, and makes a really high bet. the players talk it over, and if they agree they discover he was disguised.
-A man runs up to the party screaming for help very frantically. All the party can make out is "explosion," and then he rips off his coat and you see a ticking clock on a powerful-looking alchemical bomb strapped to his chest.

I just need short not-all-combat encounter ideas.

Thanks in advance!

1. I have found that sword and board works well only if you shield bash. If you want to be an extra bit tankier I would go that route, following the shield-bashing feat path, TWF feats, and getting some shield spikes.

2. There are also about a million magic items to increase AC (armor enchantment, bracers of armor, ring of protection, amulet of natural armor...), so I think the extra LoH would be more helpful in the long run.

3. If you do, I would pick the greatsword, because it's classy and it has the highest damage die.

I think it's fine. The AC is kind of high, but coupled with 5 hp it shouldn't be that bad. I would also add DR 5/Slashing or Fire.

I have a friend who wasn't that into this game, but he created an inquisitor. The character was a dhampir, with the day-born trait. The priests in his temple found his pregnant mother, and so after this character was born they used her to create more dhampirs. The temple created an army of dhampirs to do their dirty work from the woman. The character knows none of this, and ran away from the temple because he believed they were straying from the true path of the religion. Because the people at the temple always told him he was un-pure and he worships a god of hunting and nature, his goal is to hunt and kill all "abominations of nature" (magical beasts, undead, and aberrations). His niche in the party is to identify monsters, their weaknesses, and then exploit them (he's the guy with scary amounts of holy water and silver).

If you're planning on doing a level per session (or even a couple levels per session, I'm not sure), because the system wasn't really designed to be used like that there are a few things I'd like to warn you about.

Players don't spend as much on consumables (like health potions) and therefore have more total money. It doesn't seem like much, but at later levels they may have a lot more money left for armor and the like than they should. Just keep an eye on them, and if they seem to powerful adjust with the next level's earnings.

They will have difficulty buying and selling items (because they get lots of spending cash nearly every session) if you don't give them access to a market frequently. I always make sure to end every session in a city so they can buy and sell between sessions.

Lastly, there is less in-game time between level-ups. Things like item creation, and other abilities based on in-game time, may be slightly skewed. I haven't really seen a good fix for this yet other than giving lots of down-time in game between sessions, but you can figure something out.

Since you stated that you want a medium/slower paced game don't take the specifics, but the group I play with throws all concepts of xp and standard leveling techniques out the window. We like fast games (and we don't have much time) so we level up at the end of every session. Yes, that's ridiculously fast. Having each level the same length (in your case, as mentioned, you can extend the time) may not be quite standard, nor is it how the game was intended to be played, but it allows players to feel like they're getting somewhere and eliminates a lot of pointless book work.

I wanted to have very little content he was NECESSARY for; he is really just supposed to be a fail safe. The problem is exactly what's been mentioned: I don't want players to rely on him (so by extension I need a mechanic for or philosophy about how often and to what degree he should intervene), and he isn't supposed to do everything for them (which means I need a reason he either can't or won't do everything in half the time and chooses to make the PCs do everything). These are problems I need solutions to (the suggestions so far are helpful; I may use a combination of what's been said and my own ideas).

I am GMing a campaign with about six PCs. An NPC wizard (not the class "wizard", just a general magic user who has no stat block yet) is traveling with the players on their adventure. His role in the game is to save the PCs every once in a while when they REALLY need it and to have a way to give the players hints in-game. I based him on Gandolf in the sense that he is extremely powerful but holds back, contributing only in small ways when its VERY important (this thread is not about whether Gandolf actually fits that description...I realize there is doubt concerning that subject, just bear with me). He is a member of a council including a very powerful cleric, druid, and sorcerer whose goal is to protect the world from great evils. I need advice on two things: first, I need an in-game reason he doesn't simply blow all enemies to pieces and chooses to make the PCs do everything (my current half-ideas are the council limits themselves for some reason or he can only cast so many spells during his life), and second, I need advice on how often and to what degree he should be allowed to intervene (Maybe a spell cap: so many spells of each level? - or advice on what constitutes REALLY needing help).

As a side note, I am very liberal in my rule usage with this NPC. This wizard doesn't need to prepare his spells or anything. This thread shouldn't be so much about rules, more about role-playing-logical ideas.

Thanks guys!