Dosgamer's page

I just now saw this and am very excited by it! Our group has been playing in Golarion since PF1's release, but we moved to 5e when it came out. But we base our adventures in Golarion. We just really like the setting. Which means a fair bit of conversion has to take place. Seeing a Pathfinder AP converted for me is very exciting! Hopefully this product sells well and there may be more conversions done in the future. Thanks for this!

How did General Arnisant die in the confrontation with The Whispering Tyrant if the Shield of Aroden absorbed the wish that was to pull his heart from his chest?

If the dragon is extending an honorable transformation to a person who clearly doesn't want it, why can't the dragon just rescind the offer and cancel the geas?

It really sounds like the player was confused by the circumstances happening to his character, and some bad decisions were made all the way around. Agree with other posters that you should not have social dice roll affect PCs when roleplay is involved.

Time for GM and player to have a chat and decide if the game should pursue this if the player really doesn't want to change his character. If he doesn't, then have a roleplay session with the dragon (or its envoy, or whatever) where the offer gets rescinded. I don't know that the dragon wants these other people to choose for it who gets the offer or not. That seems weird to me. The dragon should choose who gets the offer. Maybe another party member is worthy, so the GM doesn't lose all the prep time for whatever adventure they had in mind? Good luck!

I think that the destruction of the shield is what actually killed him, though it took a while for him to die. The shield exploded and lodged a piece of itself in Tar-Baphon's hand; it's reasonable that a piece of the shield might have lodged itself in a part of Arnisant as well, which wouldn't have instantly killed him but could have caused him to die shortly thereafter. The magic repelling nature of the shield (and its fragments) that saved him from Tar-Baphon's wish could even have been the very thing that prevented healing magic from saving him after he survived the initial explosion.

It's as good an explanation as any I can come up with, even if it really sucks for Arnisant. His artifact shield saves his life only to cause catastrophic injury and prevent magical healing from saving his life leading to his demise. A tragic end for a heroic figure, but then he was always going to have a tragic fate.

The implication from the "sacrifice" mention would seem to indicate that he died in the confrontation with Tar-Baphon despite the shield taking the brunt of the wish spell. It could be that he lived through the encounter but was mortally wounded by it even so, such was the power of the Tyrant's magical ability (or the destructive effect of the shield's explosion, although that would be a serious drawback to the artifact), and eventually succumbed after witnessing the imprisonment. At least that way he knew he had succeeded before he passed. It doesn't entirely explain why he wouldn't have been saved (by restorative magic) in the meantime, but it's a story I can live with I guess.

I was just wondering if there was something else to the story that I wasn't seeing. Thanks!

I swear I tried to search for threads containing this topic, but I did not find anything that addressed the manner or cause of this heroic figure's death. The wiki says he sacrificed himself in order to defeat the Whispering Tyrant.

It is assumed that he died during the Shining Crusade when he confronted The Whispering Tyrant outside of Gallowspire yadda yadda yadda, but didn't the Shield of Aroden save him by rebounding the powerful magic against TB (and shattering the shield in the process)? Assuming the shield saved him from dying to the Tyrant's wish spell, then how did he die? Just curious what the story is. Thanks!

I played a 1e thief with a low CON score who had 2 hp at level 1. Somehow he made it to level 2...and then we stopped playing that game.

One time (still 1e) I had a character who was level 3 who rolled terribly for hit points at level 2 and 3. I kept offhandedly saying "I hope we meet some ghouls so I can lose my levels and these lousy hp rolls." We did and I did, only they drained me of all 3 levels. That was the end of him.

If you absolutely have to play a character with a 3 CON, I'd go synthesist summoner, but if you can get out of it I'd strongly suggest that instead. Good luck!

James Jacobs wrote:

It affects the entire multiverse, which is why time travel is something we don't do often at all. Used in excess, the result is "Throw out everything we've published for Golarion and start over."

No thank you.

THAT SAID: As established in Return of the Runelords, gods can still grant spells and get worshiped if a worshiper travels back in time before the god existed, or before the god in question changed alignment, or whatever. A cleric of Cayden Calien who travels back to ancient Thassilon 10,000 years ago doesn't suffer any ding to their power at all.

The gods don't experience time in the linear way we do.

** spoiler omitted **

Holy hell I love this, especially the spoiler. That's amazing. Hrm, perhaps I can focus on a less of a time-loop and more of a small-scale location-based temporal gap. Maybe some sort of localized loop, a planar hiccup of sorts that affects only a small area.

Thank you so much for the reply!

I have to say, I really like this reply, too. Makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks for asking the question, and thanks to James for the reply!

It's super hard to find, but there's a note on pg 15 in the During Combat note for the Kobold Warriors that Mikra never left the room and is hiding under a table.

The Whispering Tyrant has wished away all images of his former living self, because he cares nothing about the living and that life was just a stepping stone to the true power of lichdom.

It would be interesting to see what he looked like before he became a lich. I'm curious.

We've only had 2 sets of high level heroes in the past 10 years or so of gaming on Golarion, but they are mostly still around. Having seen horrible things and fought off death on more than one occasion, most retire to a pretty cushy life.

One of our old characters even tried to take the Test of the Starstone. Some have gone on to die heroically off screen as climactic events happened in Golarion since that campaign ended, and a few have gone plane hopping to pursue special interests, but most are still around and make cameos in later campaigns.

The Onion Chopper.
A series of progressively more difficult and deadly traps with the promise of great reward at the end. What is really at the end is a bucket of lemons.

Stealing Arazni's body and turning her into a lich was a punitive action on Geb's part against the Knights of Ozem who dared to challenge his power. Not only did he transform the failed knights into powerful undead servants, he had them steal her body and bring her to him so he could raise her as a lich in a huge symbol of "screw you!" to the knights.

It really is up there on par with what Tar-Baphon did to her in the first place (killing a demigod) in the annals of cool stuff that bad guys did.

Sorry to bump this thread that has been dormant for a while, but I am very curious if anyone has run the final encounter and, if so, how it turned out?

Has anyone run this combat against mythic TB with level 18 PCs? I'm curious how it went.

I'm curious if anyone has run the final combat at the end of book 6 yet, and how that went if so?

So what’s your advice when the optimizer bullies his way to the best loot?

Bullies in character or in real life? Around our table we're all friends, so bullying doesn't happen. If someone physically or verbally bullied me, I would get up and leave (or ask them to leave if it was my house). That behavior isn't tolerated. Bullying in character also isn't acceptable, but requires an in-character response. Our group distributes magic items by group consensus with the party's best interests at heart. Bullying isn't necessary.

Is there a reason the other gods are silent about the connection of the Eye and the death of Aroden? Divination magic (such as Commune) doesn't reveal the answer? Do the other gods not know what Aroden was doing before his death? Pharasma doesn't know? His realm was Axis. Is everyone in Axis silent about what was going on? It's almost like the entire multiverse looked the other way right before "something" happened, and now everyone is just standing around going "what?"

My players have never pursued the path too strongly, but I'm curious about what deities would tell their most powerful (read, high level) servants when said servants inquire as to what they know about these mysteries? And if it is "Dunno" then that seems odd to me. And to answer "that is not for the likes of mortals to know" seems dismissive at best. I'd be curious to hear how others (James?) have handled divination magic (or outright discussions between high level PCs and celestial servants of the outer planes if not the deities themselves) around this subject.

Our core group has played together for 25 years or more. In that time we've had some players (spouses, friends) come and go from the group, but the core group of 4 has remained steady.

We played Carrion Crown all the way through and even extended the campaign to level 20 using the Paladin In Hell module. That whole endeavor took about 4 years.

I ran a 5e version of Giantslayer from start to finish that took about 2.5 years.

We haven't tried any other APs beyond those, but have played some very lengthy home brew games using Pathfinder as well as other, earlier systems.

I want to say that very thing happened when we first ran the module many years ago. One of the orcs got a solid swing in and dropped the PC who fell down unconscious from the shock of the illusionary blow. The other PCs roused him to his feet where he realized he was miraculously unharmed, much to his own chagrin at having passed out.

Just a suggestion. This isn't min-maxed or anything.
Set stats however your group does them emphasizing STR>CON>DEX>WIS>CHA>INT. Make him/her a half-orc to get darkvision and bonus to Intimidate skill and take +2 STR.

You will have 10 rage powers, 10 feats, and 5 stat bumps. Use stat bumps to max out your STR. At the very least buy a belt of physical might with +6 STR and +6 CON (90k). Also look into getting +5 insight bonus to STR via manual of gainful exercise (137.5k). If you start with an 18 STR at level 1 (after racial bonus), you get +5 from leveling, +6 from belt, +5 from manual, and +8 from mighty rage for a total STR of 42. You could potentially stock up on potions of enlarge person, although I'm not sure it's worth the tradeoffs.

Save yourself a feat and just plan on grabbing a +5 keen (and something else) falchion for crits that threaten on a 15-20. Feats to consider getting: power attack at level 1, improved initiative, intimidating prowess (to add STR to intimidate skill), iron will, critical focus at level 9 (to set up stunning critical later), blind-fight, step up (to prevent casters from 5-foot stepping to avoid your AOO), toughness (for 20 hp), stunning critical at 17, and something else at 19 (maybe bolster ranged attack efforts with thrown weapons?). If you didn't care for stunning critical you could save yourself 2 feats and replace them. I stayed away from weapon focus (and improved weapon focus) since you likely don't need the additional bonus to attack.

Rage powers to consider taking: intimidating glare at 2 (to induce shaken condition as move action), powerful blow at 4 (for +6 to damage once per round), strength surge at 6 (to improve CMB/CMD), clear mind at level 8 (to reroll bad Will saves), increased damage reduction at 10, 12, and 14 (for total damage reduction of 8/-), superstition at 16 (for +7 to your saves), unexpected strike at 18, and surprise accuracy at 20 (for +6 to hit on your last iterative attack each round). Don't forget that at 20 you can rage cycle every round without becoming fatigued, so all of your once per rage powers function once per round.

This is just a basic half-orc barbarian who attacks 4 times a round fishing for crits with their falchion and smashing face. It can intimidate an opponent to debuff them in combat or interrogate them out of combat. Power attacking with a +5 falchion gives +36/+31/+26/+27 (+27 on last iterative thanks to surprise accuracy) for 2d4+39 + any elemental effects you have on your weapon, and once per round you add an additional +6 to damage.

Way back in the day we were playing Advanced D&D at very high levels using aides provided by the Masters Rules boxed set and supporting adventures. The end goal of that game was to have the characters advance to demigod-hood. As such, I had individual challenges planned for the characters. Advancement to the divine was not something I considered to be group oriented.

The adventures they faced were designed for the group, of course, but then each had side quests and challenges designed to test their aptitude for ascendance. We never fully explored all of the challenges (college got in the way), but it was a fun thought experiment. I consider the Test of the Starstone to be very similar to those old experiences.

We've been considering placing Dungeon of the Mad Mage in Absalom since it matches up as a mega-city near the water and mountains. There are also lots of ruins and dungeons nearby. I hadn't thought about Xanathar, but why not make him the local leader for the Aspis Consortium? Alternatively, he just leads a (massive) thieves guild that bears his name. Good luck!

P.S. You could potentially use Karamoss the Machine Mage and his Red Redoubt as the persona behind the dungeon. Karamoss has existed for more than 1,000 years and was never found at the conclusion of his failed siege of Absalom.

Holy cow! I just took a look at that map and fell instantly in love with it. Thanks!

Lazlo, I don't know if it's at all helpful, but you might consider having Lastwall be akin to Jerusalem during the crusades. The main point of Lastwall is to keep watch over Gallowspire and be a hedge against invaders. Think of it as a focal point for crusaders intent on coming in to either take the fight to Belkzen (or Virlych), with a rich tapestry of competing religions vying for control. Something like that. Good luck!

Your best sources for information about Lastwall and Vigil are the Inner Sea World guide and Cities of Golarion. You've probably already perused those. The geography is largely flat plain, as you indicate, but it is bordered by rough wilderlands (or coastal areas) and it has a large expanse of forest. Government is headed by Watcher-Lord Ulthun II who has support from the military's Precentors Martial and civil Tribunes. Then there are the fort commanders out in the field. So the arrangement is feudal-like but based on elections and promotions rather than families. Lastwall is an interesting place in my opinion, and I would love to see it fleshed out even more. Good luck!

I liken Hermea to a mortal version of Heaven. However, given that it is a mortal interpretation it has flaws that are not observed in the real deal. The thought that there is something amiss just below the surface is intriguing.

I own a number of Paizo's flip mats (and love them). I don't know which flip mat is included with the Beginner Box, however, so I can't comment directly about that. I don't believe the one that comes with Crypt of the Everflame has any secret doors or traps shown on it. I used scratch paper and folded pieces shaped to the rooms and taped them on the map, removing them as the characters advanced through the dungeon. It didn't take much set up time. I've done that with two such dungeon maps, actually. Most of the other flip mats I have are outdoors or in towns where I don't feel like I need to hide portions of the map. Enjoy!

Hi Matrix, I'll send you a PM. Thanks!

This past weekend our group completed my 5e conversion of Giantslayer. It took 2.5 years to get from start to finish, but we did it! I greatly enjoyed running it, and I think the group enjoyed the adventure. It was our first (and only, to date) 5e endeavor. Converting it was a major challenge, and converting it for a 6-PC party was even more so.

The final battle against Volstus and Akazerath was as epic as I'd hoped for. The setting, the stakes, everything was as imagined. The battle swung from side to side, but of course the heroes emerged victorious in the end.

I used books 1-3 mostly as is (converted, of course), but swapped out my conversion of Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl (G2) for book 4 since Tales From The Yawning Portal wasn't out at the time I began the conversion. I also substituted my conversion of Hall Of The Fire Giant King (G3) for book 5. I really appreciated Redlake Fort in book 2 and felt it was very useful as a stand-in for the hill giant fort in G1.

I'm so glad we finished the adventure and had a grand time doing so. It was a great story, and one that I was happy to share with my players.

At the highest ranks you have mythic level 20 casters like the most powerful of the Runelords or setting staples like Geb, Nex, Arazni, Jatembe, or the Whispering Tyrant. These are the elite of the elite. Many are considered to be myths and legends. I tend to equate Tar-Baphon with Szass Tamm from FR, for what it's worth.

Then there are top-tier, level 17-20 casters (but not mythic) who have access to the highest ranks of magic like Echean Ansolandi from the Children of Steel adventuring group (out of Rival Guide book), Queen Elvanna from Irrisen, Razmir the Living God, still other Runelords, etc. These are people of great power who often have carved out realms for themselves (not the case in Echean's situation and Elvanna was handed her kingdom by Baba Yaga).

Below that are other, powerful casters like Alpon Caromarc in Ustalav, Ruby Prince Khemet III of Osirion, etc. who also feature prominently in their regions but do so without access to the top tiers of magic.

So don't feel that in order to make an NPC truly "powerful" that they have to be level 20. There are plenty of powerful casters in Golarion that don't have access to level 9 spells. But if you're aiming for an enemy to challenge characters of high levels, look to level 20 casters with mythic ranks. Good luck!

To be perfectly honest, sit back and listen while the players decide how they want to tackle the situation. This is something that is best left to player agency imho.

But bear in mind that the Consortium is a business first and foremost. They are motivated by profits, but also extremely protective of them, and they have controlling interests in many of the legal ways of protecting their investments. All of that is to say that your players should hit them where it hurts, in the coin purse. Good luck!

P.S. In my version of Golarion there is a definite undercurrent of "you mess with the Lumber Consortium and you could wind up dead or worse" due to their ties to the Aspis Consortium. *nudge nudge wink wink*

I ran a short-lived campaign based on a Middle-Earth-like world where the bbeg defeated the forces of good. The main centers of society were taken over by orcs, ogres, and giants and the humans lived in scattered groups in the wilderness. It was intended to be a very grim-dark world where the heroes had everything stacked against them but would strive to overcome things in the end. It was an interesting twist on a campaign from the DMs (mine) point of view.

There's an enormously large violet musk creeper (I think, or something reminiscent of that?) in Nystra. I don't know that it was ever given stats, though. That's the closest I can come to what you are describing.

We played Carrion Crown in about 3 years, iirc, meeting generally every other week for 5-6 hours per session. We have a steady group of 6 players. If we miss a session we try to make it up. We extended the campaign out a year by adding on A Paladin In Hell on the back end.

Currently running an adapted (to 5e) version of Giantslayer that we've been playing for 2 years and are almost finished with book 5. Figure it will be done in another 6 months' time, or about 2.5 years altogether. Same group of 6 playing roughly every other week.

Kobold ninjas. They were a variation on Tucker's Kobolds, but, y'know, they were also ninjas. This was back in 2e, though. The mid-level PCs thought they were just going up against a bunch of regular kobolds. Boy were they surprised!

Worst player I ever had was a relative who cajoled me into letting him join our ongoing 2e campaign for a session. Played an arcane caster and as soon as I introduced the character to the group (in an inn, of course!) he turned invisible and started flying through the inn breaking into all the rooms so he could steal their stuff. The other characters discovered what was happening and wound up killing him as he flew off to escape. He spent the rest of the session making up a new character that he never got to play.

Be wary of forcing PCs to resort to out-of-character solutions in order to defeat the big bad (BBEG). Part of the fun of making it to high levels in a campaign is getting to use those powers and abilities. Nothing wrong with making PCs solve problems and look for clues on ways to defeat the villain (maybe they have to find the ancient weapons or relics that will allow them to bypass the impossible damage reduction or regeneration), but let them use their abilities to defeat the enemy. Good luck!

I would second the suggestion of looking into the Pathfinder Beginner's Box. Also, look up stat blocks for the level 1 Pathfinder Pre-Gen characters for your players to use. Use the Pre-Gens as guides on how to create characters. Otherwise, you are liable to get very confused on how to make characters and that can be off-putting to new gamers. Good luck!

I did what you are envisioning for a homebrew campaign I ran in the River Kingdoms. I grabbed a Golarion calendar, identified a geographic area I felt closely represented the climate of the River Kingdoms, and looked at historical weather reports to track the weather day by day.

In the end it was a decent amount of work and only provided marginal benefits to the atmosphere of the campaign. I haven't done it again since, as there are more pressing demands on my time as GM and I just felt this much specificity wasn't being worthwhile. My suggestion is to just go with the random weather generator or make it up based on your understanding of the local environment. Good luck!

Castles of the Inner Sea contains information about Castle Everstand on the border of Lastwall and Belkzen.

Dosgamer wrote:

I was thinking a chaotic good Invulnerable Rager barbarian with Come And Get Me would be a good counter.

Not a bad choice ordinarily, but the paladin build is set to use righteous might or enlarge person which will definitely mean he's going for reach (plus Lunge). Come and Get Me probably won't help if you aren't threatening the attacker, as you can't make an Attack of Opportunity (a kind GM may allow you to attempt a sunder on the weapon, but by the rules you probably couldn't unless you readied such an attack). It's the same reason a Crane-wing monk wouldn't work, their ability to deflect an attack (and it seems like he'd be going for the one attack per round power-attack-lunge-vital-strike whenever possible) would be great for laughing in his face, but he just wouldn't be close enough to trigger the free AoO and ripostes that would be required to drop him.

Good point. Couldn't the barbarian just drink a potion of enlarge person (and have a spare on hand in case it gets dispelled) and use a reach weapon themselves?

I was thinking a chaotic good Invulnerable Rager barbarian with Come And Get Me would be a good counter. Beat him up before you ever get to attack, then "Finish Him!" on your turn. Don't forget to do the Matrix-Neo hand gesture before you roll initiative for extra style points.

Dosgamer wrote:

The only high-level Pathfinder campaign we had was Carrion Crown. I don't believe there are any CR 20+ enemies in that book, but I could be mistaken (I was a player not the GM). We continued the campaign into a PF version of A Paladin In Hell where we fought many CR 20+ monsters including the Arch-Devil Geryon. We were level 20 at the time. Six players: barbarian 20, fighter/bard 5/15, life oracle 20, rogue 20, wizard 20, cleric/holy vindicator 12/8 (not sure of the level split).

That is awesome. Sounds like a solid party.

We played Carrion Crown for 3 years and then spent a fourth year playing through APIH. No one switched characters once. It was a good group to be sure.

The only high-level Pathfinder campaign we had was Carrion Crown. I don't believe there are any CR 20+ enemies in that book, but I could be mistaken (I was a player not the GM). We continued the campaign into a PF version of A Paladin In Hell where we fought many CR 20+ monsters including the Arch-Devil Geryon. We were level 20 at the time. Six players: barbarian 20, fighter/bard 5/15, life oracle 20, rogue 20, wizard 20, cleric/holy vindicator 12/8 (not sure of the level split).

We started using minis ("lead figures" to us oldtimers) way long ago, and still have quite the collection of old, metallic, hand-painted minis. I try not to use them now because I don't want to damage them. These days I have a slew of plastic, pre-painted minis (I never liked painting them, although several friends came to be quite skilled) that I sift through before every game session and pull out the ones needed.

As others have said, if there are a bunch of homogenized enemies then we have numbered pogs that we use (keeping the minis for key NPCs), including a set of giant pogs (huge size for 5e) for hill, frost, and fire giants. They are even graphically styled with different images of giants on them. So, yeah, lots of minis.

Giantslayer would be a good one to jump into starting with book 3. You might want to take a look at book 1 and see if you can figure out a way to introduce a certain treasure item from the end of that book into the adventure, but otherwise I think you're good to start at book 3.

I would advise against starting with book 3 using Carrion Crown. Most of the character motivations and immersion happen in book 1 and carry forward from there.

I don't have any personal experience with other APs, sorry.

Present 5e campaign is level 12-13 and still going. Plan on taking it up to 17-18.
Prior Carrion Crown game was extended all the way to 20.
Homemade campaign prior to that went on indefinite hiatus at 9.
Homemade 3.5 campaign prior to that went up to 20.
Before that I don't remember very well, but most games ended up in high teens if they ran their course or died in flames still in single digits.

I would second Crypt of the Everflame for several reasons:
1) it's a fun and good adventure
2) it has an accompanying flip mat (if you use miniatures) link to map
3) it is the initial module in a trilogy of modules if you want to piece together more than just a one shot

Good luck!
Edit to add link to flip mat.

I have a fortress of screens I hide behind. I use two Pathfinder screens because one just isn't big enough to cover all of the, ah, junk I have behind them.

1) Printed custom combat sheet in Word with PC details such as name, race, class and archetype, max hit points, AC, stats, Perception, and any outstanding notes (such as status effects). It gets heavily marked up over the course of an adventure, so I reprint it fairly regularly.

2) Dice, lots of 'em. And I don't even put out all of the dice I have. I only use a fraction of the dice that I actually own. No idea why I have accumulated so many of them!

3) Beverage of choice.

4) Pencil and eraser.

5) Hard copy source book (if using one) such as module or adventure path.

6) Miniatures for the monsters I expect the PCs to encounter. Sometimes I print out custom pictures of cool NPCs or enemies and I keep them handy for when I need them.

7) Notes and scrap paper. My notes generally include the planned encounters and I pre-roll their initiatives. If I need any custom monster sheets I have those premade as well.

I don't list my hard copy rulebooks as those stay on a shelf next to the end of the table I sit at. All in all I have a lot of stuff close at hand. Oh, and I have even more stuff not close at hand that I dash off to rummage through as the need arises. It's crazy.

I do find it interesting that there is no question that 10 Sky Citadels were built, yet some are disputed and others are lost entirely. Curious, no?