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My players are on the hunt for a pair of wyverns that have been troubling a local community. One of them mentioned selling one of the hides for a profit and using the other to make armor. What would be the value of these hides, assuming they could find a buyer? I know dragonhide armor costs double the price of normal masterwork armor but that tells me nothing about the price of just a skin.
In addition to the wyverns there is a tribe of kobolds. Now, the mayor of the town has offered a bounty of 2gp per kobold tail. But these kobolds have eggs. Would it be evil to smash the eggs? To eat the eggs (or tails for that matter)? To sell the eggs? To keep them until they hatch and rear the young kobolds?

My plan for an upcoming combat involves a heavily customized creature and I'm hoping to get an estimate of the CR both of him individually and of the encounter as a whole.

The boss is a giant fast zombie wyvern with no flight, no slam, and without the standard quick strikes; instead he has the ability to slam his head into the ceiling of the low cave the fight is in, causing a rockslide for 2d6 in 20' around him (Ref 15 half), and fast healing 5. He also has 4 skeleton minions.

When the boss's hp is reduced to 2/3, and again at 1/3, he flees to another area of the cave and summons 4 more skeletons, hoping they can hold the party off long enough for his fast healing to do it's thing.

My party is only 3rd level but they're min-maxed to hell and back. We're also using the "Armor as Damage Reduction" rules, so the group is likely able to ignore most or all of the damage from the minions, making them mostly a distraction and flank-buddies for the boss. Running the numbers, an unmodified giant fast zombie wyvern and 12 (4x3) human skeletons is a CR 7 encounter. Vicious, but my group has handled similarly overwhelming odds and come out bloodied but victorious, and as a rule we like that kind of win best.

Causes of death would have been primarily hangings but with plenty of burning. Lets say a handful of people, maybe 2 or 3 at most, would have had magical powers. Population primarily human, with dwarves as a secondary and a smattering of other races.

During a sidequest in Runelords my party suffered a TPK at the hands and teeth of an ettin werewolf barbarian, his witch crony and their ogre werewolf minions.
For the new game its an urban sandbox in a massive port city in a steampunk setting set against a backdrop of urban decay and political intrigue. The party is about to become indebted to a mysterious patron via a go between for saving their skins after they were unwittingly involved in an experiment/accident which took out half a city block.
The overarching plot is that this patron is pulling the PCs' strings and seeks to build a power base sufficient to allow the city to separate from the empire and declare sovereignty, with himself on top of the pile; or, failing that, to usurp the empress and take control of the whole nation.
So, any tips or advice for a Game of Thrones-esque urban sandbox in a steampunk industrial city rife with pollution and corruption?

For what its worth there's a bard, a cleric to a god of destruction, and a machine smith. And a rogue, I think; I can't remember the other one's class.

Is it possible for a deity to grant an alignment domain that DOESN'T match his own alignment?

I'm doing a homebrew campaign currently and one of the gods is a true neutral god of balance. He preaches a lack of extremnes and the pursuit of balance and fairness, even to the point of siding with the forces of evil if it seems good is winning and vice versa. I'm trying to decide on his domains and I though "Wouldn't it be interesting if, in the pursuit of fairness and balance, he offered all the alignment domains?"

For reference, here are the other deities, their alignments and domains.

Luciferus LG Sun, Fire, Law, Good
Argenta CG Madness, Water, Chaos, Good
Lignum NG Plants, Healing, Charm, Good
Inlustrea CN Luck, Void, Liberation, Chaos
Apicus LN Community, Protection, Strength, Law
Extulistim NE Darkness, Earth, Ruins, Evil
Sepulcris N Death, Repose, Rune, (tbd)
Truculenta N Animals, Air, Vermin, (tbd)
Cladiba CE Weather, Destruction, Chaos, Evil
Cognitus CN Artifice, Knowledge, Magic, Chaos
Cartamena LE War, Nobility, Law, Evil
Aurumus LN Travel, Trickery, Glory, Law

I'm trying to go for a balanced approach, where each deity has 4 domains and only the alignment domains overlap. So I suppose in addition to the balance god, I need to come up with domains for those 2 that are each missing one; one is the god of wild things, the other is the god of the dead.

Short version: where can I find more information about Loper the werewolf ghost, and how do werewolf ghosts WORK exactly?

Long version: My players are doing Rise of the Runelords and are traveling to Turtleback Ferry by mount. Pendaka is on the way according to the regional map in the map folio and my players are a few experience shy of where I want them to be. Looking up info about the adjacent Ashwood I find it to be haunted by werewolves, ghosts and a werewolf-ghost named Loper (apparently first mentioned by JJ here).
My idea is that Lucrcia has charmed or otherwise taken control of the alpha of the largest werewolf pack in the Ashwood, causing major problems for the little hamlet (and eventually for Turtleback Ferry but this is a VERY recent development and the pack hasn't moved that far yet). Loper, being a sort of guardian of all the Ashwood werewolves, takes offense, and is driven berserk (somehow). The players will encounter and (hopefully) defeat him, and in a series of encounters he will try to steer them towards the pack's den so they can kill the alpha and free the pack, thereby saving the town.
To facilitate this I need more information on Loper, if any exists, and I need to know how the ghost and werewolf templates interact, specifically as regards the DR since its not keyed as Ex nor Su.

Like the title says, I need some specific themed maps. I'm running a mythic and highly customized version of Rise of the Runelords and my players just got sucked into Vorel's phylactery. They wound up in a demiplane in the phylactery where he keeps the souls of the creatures he killed as part of the process. Each is in its own dungeon, connected by a sort of hub (in case Vorel, himself, ever needed to visit them and extract some tidbit of knowledge).
I've modified them with various undead-style templates as well as the elemental infused template based on how he killed them; the treant he burned alive, the aboleth he held out of the water until it suffocated, the roc he crippled and through from a cliff to its death, and the sphinx he mummified and buried alive (like Imhotep from The Mummy).
I was hoping y'all could help me out with some dungeon maps. Specifically I need:

Some sort of forest maze, ideally burning, for the treant (in my game a fire-infused shadow treant).
A watery dungeon, either partly or wholly underwater, for the water-infused ghost aboleth (I know the adventure originally mentions a kraken but I figure my party would have more fun against a creature that isn't brute force).
A short and simple dungeon leading to a mountain-top or cliff (air-infused skeleton champion roc).
And an egyptian-themed dungeon for the earth-infused mummified sphinx.

So my group just went up against Malfeshnekor last night and I gotta say, he is unreal.
We're running a mythic game and the players had slaughtered everything else I had thrown at them. They basically just walked through Nualia (whom had been given a mythic rank and an extra cleric level) and her mythic Yeth hound. It was sort of last minute so I didn't have time to apply an actual mythic tier to him, so I gave the big guy the Invulnerable mythic template and refluffed him to be the demi-god offspring of Lamashtu and the goblin Hero-God Hadregash, imprisoned by Karzoug long ago with the intention of running experiments to try and extract his divine spark.
It was insane. Even without the mythic, he would have been more than my group could take on. He almost one-shotted the party magus, and would have done so to the druid if I hadn't decided that in his madness he would split his attention between two "morsels" and attack both the druid and his companion (his bite missed).
At this point I knew I had to get them to run away, so I had them receive hear a voice in their head (Desna, their patron and the one who originally gave them their mythic power) tell them to get the hell outta Dodge.
And this is all with one player playing a psion and blasting for upwards of 40 damage; ole' Mal made his reflex save to halve the damage, and reduced it to almost 0 with his energy resistance.

So I'm sticking this in Homebrew because I'm quite sure there's no written rules for it.

Long story short, one of my players (a summoner) wants to use his Summon Monster power to summon an Awakened animal. How should I handle this? Should I treat it as a template? What would be the CR, and thus the spell level required? Can he even DO it; I know at higher level he can summon outsiders, which are intelligent, but he's only level 1.

Side note, a hypothetical: a society of awakened animals. Would they simply lived as normal animals do, or would they have towns and buildings and tools? How would you guys handle such a society?

Imagine the following:
Your an intrepid adventurer romping through a dungeon. You kill the half-fiend ogre and claim his treasure hoard, then head back to town. Your saving up for that nice new +2 flaming burst bastard sword, so instead of shelling out for a really nice room you toss the innkeep of a smaller, less clean establishment a few coppers to sleep in the common room.
A couple of days later you find yourself suffering from fever, headaches, nausea, swollen lymph nodes and a blackening of the skin. Uh oh! You've contracted bubonic plague!
What do you do? Why you rush over to the local church and have the first priest you meet cast a Remove Disease spell! Good as new!

How threatening can diseases actually BE in a world where a 5th level Cleric (3rd level if he has the Restoration subdomain) can cure all but the most virulent (or magical) diseases? The illnesses that threatened our medieval world, like plague, dysentery, tetanus, tuberculosis and rabies, can be healed by the town priest in fantasy worlds. So, why bother at all?
Taking into account that most resident priests wont be 5th level, there's still traveling clerics (like the PCs), or the local priest could appeal to his church to send a more experienced healer. Even failing all of these, any witch or alchemist worth his salt can brew up a potion of remove disease, or at least a dose of antiplague.
So how can you make contracting an illness more pressing than "Oh, just got tetanus, better make a quick stop at the cathedral"? Sure, removing such spells is viable, or upping the DCs of the illnesses. Can anyone think of anything else?

I have a reason beyond theory to ask this, honestly; one of my players in Rise of the Runelords just contracted tetanus from the trapped chest in Thistletop. Their 4th level and by the time they defeat Nualia (or allow her to escape, they have a foolish habit of that) they'll be 5th, high enough for the druid to cast the fore-mentioned miracle spell. I'm trying to up the ante for my group as they've been mowing through every encounter (including the tentomort, which I had even slapped the Advanced template and a Mythic rank on), so I want to give them some out-of-combat reason to fret.

So, my players in ROTRL are in a short downtimish period. Its right after the meeting with Shalelu and I want a few days to pass before the events in the Glassworks. The party gnome decided it'd be fun to prank folks into thinking the theatre is haunted. I thought it'd be fun to turn the tables and make it ACTUALLY haunted by the spirit of a young woman who was brutalized and crippled in the theatre, then consumed by the fire.
I know its gonna be more powerful than they can handle at their level, but I want the event to feature a ghost and a haunt that consumes the theatre with illusionary flames. Men in the area would be subjected to a fear spell, women would feel intense sorrow and anger. The ghost wouldn't attack except to defend herself; instead, she demands justice against the man who killed her.
My players are smart enough not to attack things abviously beyond their power level and have been perfectly willing to resolve things through peaceful means, so I'm confident they will try to investigate and appease the ghost rather than get themselves butchered.
While I've read about haunts I've never actually faced or used one before so its entirely new to me. Ditto with ghosts for that matter. Would a ghost or some other incorp undead be best for the tormented woman? What should the CR and other mechanical details be?

Two questions in this one. First, if a Magus loses his blackblade (not has it destroyed, but simply loses it, ie it gets stolen or thrown down a bottomless chasm) how is it replaced? The Unbreakable entry specifies destruction but is otherwise identical to the Wizard's Bonded Item rules for the replacement; is it safe to assume that it applies?
Secondly, lets say a I have a Blade Bound/Soul Forger Magus who chooses his Black Blade as his bonded weapon. The FAQ states that Craft Magic Arms and Armor cant be used to enchant a blackblade, but can the character use his arcane bond to add enhancements to it?

Lets say say I have a character carving or chiseling the body for a contruct hes creating, or just an ordinary statue. Time is not really an issue, but he does want it to look good; that statue of a manticore should LOOK like a manticore.
The rules for taking 20 state that the character just keeps trying till they get it right, failing many times and accruing any penalties for failure. In this case, that might mean wasting the block of stone he was chiseling. My question is; would the character be able to take 20 and just assume he takes his time and works carefully, rather than wasting resources?
Second question, what are all the ways to repair a construct? The lowest level spell I've found is Make Whole (Mending specifically states it cant be used on creatures, including constructs, which is too bad). Are there any alternatives?

I'm something of a horror buff. I like my horror games and movies to instill a sense of dread and paranoia that lingers for days. Amnesia comes to mind.
Back in the day, Ravenloft was the closest D&D came to true horror. From cult classics like ghosts, vampires and werewolves to more disturbing concepts, like a demented woman who guts her guests and turns them into clockwork dolls, it was a campaign setting that had something for everyone.
So, what do YOU do to bring horror to the game? How do you give your players lingering nightmares? From lighting and atmosphere, to music and sound effects to the stories and foes of the game, its self, what techniques do (or WOULD) you employ to terrify your players on the deepest levels?

OK so, like it says on the tin, I need some advice for building a tinkering gadgeteer-type character. At first I was going to make a cleric of a homebrew dwarven god of invention, with the domains Artifice (Construct) and Luck, but clerics dont really get any skill points and Craft, Disable Device, Knowledge and a few others are going to be very important.
So what I need is something with at least a modicum of spellcasting (especially healing and spells similar to those from the Artifice domain) or some way to mimic spells, but plenty of skill points. Anything Paizo is acceptable, 3.5 material MIGHT be, but 3rd party is right out.
Our other characters are a gunslinger 1/kensai magus 1 (though he might go full magus instead) and one as-yet mystery character.

OK, so, the Buckler Duelist Fighter archetype gains several abilities related to using a falcata and buckler. And ONLY a falcata and buckler. However, RAW states that the Buckler Duelist doesnt gain falcata proficiency, meaning in order to even use the archetype's special abilities you have to spend a feat on Exotic Proficiency just so he can use his signature weapon without penalty.
Is this intentional? Or an oversight? Should he gain proficiency with falcata as part of the archetype?

So, I'm making a video game of Rise of the Runelords. Nothing big and NOTHING that will be sold. The system I'm using allows me to assign a special ability to each character. The characters are a barbarian, a bard, a cleric, a fighter, a paladin, a ranger, a rogue and a wizard.

The barbarian obviously gets Rage, the bard gets Sing, pally gets Lay Hands, Rogue gets Sneak Attack and I'm giving fighter Power Attack. What should I give the wizard and ranger?

So, I need to provide some setup for this question first.
Our party consisted of a human oracle 8, a half-elf (I think) spellslinger 8, and myself, an orc barbarian 4/oracle 3/rage prophet 1.
We're in this temple being given a major quest when it gets attacked by this invading army or something. We rrun out the back as foes beginning streaming in. Several follow us out and engage. During the battle, spear-wielders mounted on flame drakes fly over the building and land to attack us. I manage to crit against one rider, drag his tattered remains off his mount and INTIMIDATE IT INTO LETTING ME RIDE IT.
Now, comes my questions. First, my curse is Tongues and my first language was Ignan. So, is intimidation a universal language? Would I have been able to use body language to cow the drake into bearing me as a rider?
Second, and more pressing, can I teach the drake Ignan so I can speak to it in battle? Me learning draconic wont fix anything as, thanks to tongues, I can ONLY speak Ignan in battle. I'm also dual-cursed with tongues as my "locked" curse so I cant take more languages for that, either.

I'm talking about printed adventures specifically, either modules or APs. Do you use any programs, do you take notes on encounters, traps and treasures? Or do you guys just read the adventure and go from there?

Say you have a baseline, run-of-the-mill orc. Orcs have the racial trait Ferocity, which, basically, prevents them from falling unconcious at 0hp. Their still staggered and still bleed out.
Now, examine the feat Diehard. This feat, among other things, STABILIZES you when you hp are at or below 0.
What happens if our orc has Diehard? Is it the same as Ferocity with the added bonus of auto-stabilizing? Does Diehard's penalty of inflicting 1 damage with a standard action negate the effects of Ferocity?

WARNING: This thread, and the subject matter it may end up discussing, may be offensive to some readers. This is not my intention; my only intent is to discuss ways to bring these subjects into the game in a serious, meaningful, tasteful way. That said if subjects like genocide, rape, child sacrifice, animal abuse and worse disturbs or offends you, please navigate away. This first post is a bit long winded and I apologize in advance.

So I finally got a group together and I'm running them through Jade Regent (which I'm going to have to take up the power level a bit as they killed the Soggy River Monster in three rounds, and the faceless stalker in the halfling's house in two.) But the entire group cant always get together as one of our players works nights and sometimes cant always get our gaming night off. So I'm prepping a secondary campaign for just the other players. It was going to be a standard epic fantasy campaign, starting with The Godsmouth Heresy and running to The Moonscar, with servants of Nocticula tying it all together, ending with a climactic showdown with an avatar of Nocticula. But then I was made aware of a game by Black Dog Games Factory called Charnel Houses of Europe, a modern fantasy epic putting players in the roles of holocaust victims.

Still with me?

So, with that work (and other Black Dog games) in mind, I'd like to run a Pathfinder game that delves into the deepest, darkest parts of the human psyche. Something that makes games like Call of Cthulhu and Amnesia: the Dark Descent look like Candy Land. My players have agreed that, if I do it right, it'll be an interesting break from our standard light hearted fantasy games. But I need some help, both crunchy and fluffy.

First, I dont even know where to start. I'd like to stick with daemons as the major antagonists but some eldritch horrors would be good too; I really wanna play up that hateful, careless evil. Is there a World Wound-like area with a heavy daemon presence? Or can someone recomend a good region for a setting?

I'm going to ban a normally common race and kick off by explaining that something horrible has happened; That race was driven into extinction by the peresecution of other mortal races in an event that (true to the inspiration) draws on the horrors of the Holocaust. The first few games will likely take place in areas where these tragedies occured, and will be rife with hauntings. Can anyone recomend a race that would be perfect for this? It should be something sort of unexpected; niot tieflings, for example, because Blood of Fiends makes a show of how even good tieflings are persecuted. Im thinking like elves or something. Can anyone recomend some appropriate foes for this part of the game?

Players will be 5th level and I'm going to be taking liberties with their backstories (with player permission); the memories they have now are fabrications, and their true history is linked to this holocaust event, probably as perpetrators. This is something they wont learn for some time, so the (hopefully) good deeds they've accomplished since will keep them from being crushed by the weight of the horrors they visited upon their fellow beings.

So after watching a series called Silverwing, I've decided to make a race of batfolk called the Chaeropteran. But I need some advice.

My plan was to use the strix as a base, dropping hatred, darkvision and suspicious and giving them 60ft blindsight activated as a free action. Cant use it if they cant hear, cant "see" things in an area of Silence.
Problem is theres no point cost for blindsight. Thoughts, opinions? Other abilities appropriate to flying, chiefly nocturnal, anthropomorphic bats?

As the title says, I was hoping to discuss the languages of the different races, particularly the core race languages: Dwarven, Elven, Halfling, Gnomish and Orcish.
Starting with Dwarven. I imagine it to be a language with lots of rolled r's and heav consonant use, especially k, c, z, t and p. Words with similar, but different, meanings (wound/kill, friend/lover, learn/master), would have similar spelling and pronunciation, and the language as a whole would emphasise context over content.
Thoughts? Ideas on sentence structure?

Do the human ethnicities of Golarion have any weapons or other equipment unique to their culture? Like how the Shoanti have bolas that do lethal damage. I'm especially interested in examples of Shoanti and Ulfen gear for a character I'm working on.

Rhoka or Bastard Sword? Rhoka has a super crit threat, bastard sword deals more damage on average.
Its for a bladebound hexcrafter spellblade magus, so I need to take the proficiency regardless, though I may take the Heirloom Weapon trait instead. Starting with max gold, first level.
If neither of these can someone suggest an alternative? It has to be Core, UM, UC or UE. I plan on dual wielding black blade and force athame.

I need some help building some evil NPCs for a Circus of Shadows.
The boss of the circus is a Half-Fiend Fetchling Shadowcaller Summoner 5. I'm not sure about his eidolon yet but I was going to base it on the Thing From Beyond model: some horrible mass of tentacles and teeth (and tentacles WITH teeth).
A little backstory: the PCs are in a caravan and during their journey they come across a circus set up on the side of the road. Unbeknownst to the group the circus is made up of a gang of psychotic cannibals who use a circus as a ruse to lure in new victims to terrify and kill, packing up and moving on every few days.
I need 13 more NPCs: I'm basing them on the earthbound spirits of Th13rteen Ghosts.
The Firstborn Son is a trickshot archer,the Bound Woman is a contortionist and escape artist, the Withered Lover is a fire-eater (one of the only 2 non-evil characters being forced to work for the circus), the Angry Princess is a knife-swallower, the Pilgrimess is a witch/stage magician, the Jackel, Great Child, Dire Mother and Torso are part of the freak show and the Juggernaut is the strongman. I'm not sure how to cast the Torn Prince, the Hammer and the Broken Heart, though the latter is the other non-evil character. Thoughts as to what these 3 should do?
I know I want the Bound Woman to be a choker with the giant template, the Pilgrimess to be a changeling witch and the Great Child to be a demodand-spawn tiefling, but I'm not sure about the rest. Ideas on what race/class or monster they should be?
I'd like the Torso to be able to take its body apart somehow, kinda like Chopper from One Piece only more gruesome; any thoughts as to how to do that?

Like the topic says, I'll be running a solo Jade Regent soon. My player is a snow elf Water Elementalist wizard 2. To balance things out a bit she has a Soulbound Doll companion and a pet dire wolf. She chose to be Shalelu's sister.
I made a random encounter chart with an average CR of 3 (2.4 before rounding): 1 CR 1, 4 CR 2s, 3 CR 3s and a single CR 4 encounter.
Does anyonehave any tips as to how I should modify the adventure to be more accomadating to a solo player but still remain challenging?

The lycanthrope template states the following (bear in mind I'm paraphrasing):
1. A lycanthrope's base animal must be within one size category of its base creature
2. A lycanthrope's size in hybrid form is the same as the base creature or base animal, whichever is bigger
3. A lycanthrope gains the natural attacks of its base animal

The werebat seems to violate these. Either the werebat entry is wrong and it becomes a dire bat, not a bat (meaning its hybrid form is large, not medium), or it violates rule 1 by having a diminutive base animal. It also seems to violate rule 3 by having claws, when no bat has claws.

The claws aren't a problem for me, though I am curious. So my question is: do werebats become dire bats (meaning a large hybrid as well), or some sort of advanced, small-sized bat?

So I know this is an issue that has come up before and its really a matter of preference, but what should I take as my animal companion?

I'm playing a Mad Dog Barbarian and want a companion that can serve as a flank buddy, but is also a good combatant in its own right.
My first thought was allosaurus. Comparable to a big cat but with better armor, and I have no problem bundling it in furs to keep warm if we ever go to a cooler area.
But here comes the fluff. My character was abandoned in the wild and raised by whatever species is his animal companion: his current companion is sort of a sibling/broodmate. I would like it to be a carnivore. Would this limit my choice to social predators like lions, or can I take allosaurus and still be within the fluff? I dont know much about how social or solitary allos were or this would be a cinch.

I was hoping to get some advice on a campaign I'm planning. Basically I want to make it less combat focused and more focused on PC-NPC interaction. Trading, negotiating and investigating will be major activities. In fact, I plan to limit the first few levels (say, 1-3) to NPC classes. Profession is going to be more important than class, and skills are going to be as important, or more important, than feats. I'm hoping to use a sort of staggered progression system, where NPC classes develop using the normal progression but PC classes develop using the slow progression, to represent that these are regular people trying to learn talents and abilities that are beyond what the average Joe can do.
This is the first time I've ever run a campaign like this so I'm not sure where to begin. How do I plan out "encounters" when the encounter doesn't have anything to do with CR? Or give experience and gold rewards with no guideline as to how much of a challenge a given encounter is? Do I just play by ear and estimate based on how hard of a time the players have negotiating a given transaction or doing a job given by their employer? Any help or advice would be appreciated.