Driftborne of Almas's page

Ah, light dawns! I had not perceived that and the replacement of regular Backgrounds by Legacy Backgrounds isn't explicitly stated. It makes perfect sense when you say it like that, though.

This question is about the Legacy Backgrounds. I don't see anything there and if it's been posted here I apologize for missing it. The backgrounds give bonuses during character creation to abilities, skills, and some skill feats. Do these stack with the bonuses that are a normal part of the ABC creation process?

I'm assuming the abilities must since they are phrased in the same way as any other ability boost given in the Core Rules. The skills and skill feats are less clear to me. If you're already Trained in a skill, does the legacy mean you're Experienced or do you have to apply the skill to one you're untrained in? The same with the skill feats. Thanks in advance

Just played through this at ConnectiCon and, frankly, it was a very frustrating experience. I expect and can totally understand some errors, but this module doesn't seem to have been play-tested or even edited with any thoroughness.

Things like obvious wrong creature types on enemies and suchlike is acceptable and can be easily corrected by the GM but undermining the entire premise given to the players is not. When the in-game scenario briefing promises a second, more detailed briefing but just skips over it completely, that's just sloppy writing and quality control.

When the entire primary success condition is based on utterly deceptive criteria, however, then it looks more like maliciousness. After all was said and done, our GM and players alike went over the in-scenario briefing multiple times and agreed that it did not so much as hint at the myriad things we were "supposed" to be doing.

Definitely recommend avoiding unless you like frustrating your players.

Driftborne of Almas wrote:

Thanks! That's a great lead!

I've sold stuff to NKG several times and always been satisfied. Note that they just today ended a massive inventory reduction sale, as they're in the process of moving.

Good to know. By the time she and & get around to preparing it, I'm sure they'll be in their new place. Thanks for the information.

For the games? Noble Knight Games will take them off her hands. Tell them you want to sell, send them a list and condition and they'll give you a quote for cash and one for credit.

I sold my entire GURPS/4th Ed CHAMPIONS and assorted TSR and WOTC books to them just last year and working with them was pretty smooth.

Thanks! That's a great lead!

I'm helping a friend in New Jersey who has a large set of comics (mostly single issues and trade paperbacks from the 80's to 2000's) and a bunch of unused gaming materials (primarily GURPS, I believe) that are taking up space in her attic. The person who originally bought these can't use them anymore for medical reasons. The local game and comic book stores don't seem interested in them. Throwing them out isn't the best option and neither she nor I have the time it would take to sort through and eBay them individually. Anyone have any suggestions about how I can advise her to dispose of them?

Thanks in advance.

In real life, every single person and organization is at the center of overlapping networks of connections, influence, obligation, power, etc. Fictional people and networks should be the same. The links between these people and organizations are your plot threads.

It doesn't take much to let plot threads be linked in this way and this also means that the plot threads tie themselves up. E.g., the fish people are the favorite munchies of phase spiders so their deathly fear means they wouldn't go into town if their lives depended on it, which means the townsfolk have subbcontracted the extermination of the spiders to the Adventurer's University and the University Facilities Department's success at that leads to the University provost taking the council seat, etc., etc., etc.

If the Master of the Fallen Fortress is still available, I've added myself to the sheet. Katsu Hinata Slayer 1

As a barbarian, I can't think of any.

Thanks to Hmm for running this and I'm flattered to be selected. I had fun with this character concept and will probably attempt to stat him out soon

They're kids and while they understand the difference between in-character and OOC they really don't play characters, as such. Another reason I should let him "break" alignment I guess. I doubt the gain in trying to teach the difference between IC and OOC will be worth the loss in fun. No need to be a hard-ass about rules in a home game, after all.

I DM a game for my nephews and the youngest is playing a chaotic evil half-orc barbarian. I allowed an evil character at first because I assumed that his playing style would be pretty much "Hulk Smash!" in answer to every situation, combat or not. I envisioned dead NPC's strung across Kaer Maga.

In actuality, he's letting his older cousin and brother help lead him in the non-combat situations and has been really a much more considered player than I'd anticipated. It's a pleasure to game with them and I have no OOC problems with how they're playing.

My issue as a DM is that this character is moving quickly towards Chaotic Neutral. Most of the instructions about alignment drift seem to assume a good character drifting into evil or neutrality. I don't think warning the youngest player at my table to play more evilly so that he matches the alignment written on his character sheet is a fair or wise thing to do.

I'm very tempted to just let it ride and not mention it. Any other advice or suggestions?

So, just because an "experienced" forum participant thinks they know what an anonymous person really means, we're going to report them for moderation? That's neither possible nor necessary. I don't know about you, but I've yet to achieve psychic divination powers with people I share a house with, never mind those half a world away whose only representation to me is a collection of pixels. At the very best, this is a way to increase make-work for staff and at worst it is a way to passive-aggressively mark another forum participant as requiring a virtual slam on the fingers to "win" an internet argument. Any post that truly is there to start fights will break other guidelines, as others have pointed out already, and for any one of us to decide that that's another poster's intent is foolhardy at best.

That makes sense. Thanks again to you both.

Thank you both for the answers. One more question, if it's not too obvious I've seen many, many posts on this forum say something like "crafting isn't allowed in PFS" but I see nothing in the PFS Roleplaying Guild Guide (vers. 9.1) that states that. In fact it says:

In a circumstance where crafting is allowed and used to craft an item with a purchase limit...

So it seems that crafting is potentially allowed. The character I'm using now is not craft focused so it doesn't change anything but it seems odd that something posted over and over isn't reflected in the Guide.

In honor of Season 10, I’m giving away a complete mermaid boon.

I have all the parts:

** spoiler omitted **

I don't know if this is consistent with established canon or completely contradicts it or what, but I had fun writing it and I'll throw it in for consideration:

On a world as diverse as Golarion, every race has opinions about the other creatures with whom they share the planet. As in many things, there is usually a spectrum to these views. On one end, for example, there is little agreement about what makes the notoriously diverse gnomes so quintessentially, well gnomish. For the majority of races, however, there is a sort of general agreement about what makes, say, a drow a drow.

And then there are the merfolk. Ask an elf about them and they may call them “irresponsible”. Ask a human and they may say “capricious”. (Well, the second thing they’ll say, that is, if you pick a human male to question.) Ask a gillman, who might just know them best, and they may call them “flighty” (if they don’t first call them “stuck up”).

The point is, just about every non-merfolk inhabitant of the world thinks they know what to expect from each merchild. There are no mermaid accountants, for example. While the actuarial sciences are unknown on Golarion if they were, you can be sure that there would be large buildings of busily-calculating dwarfs and humans yet you can be equally certain they would not take lunch breaks with their mer-colleagues (presumably in some sort of half-cafeteria, half-aquarium arrangement). As for a merman podiatrist, well, that sort of goes without saying.

What strange coalescence of genetic and environmental and perhaps even arcane forces produced Cerulean, then, will probably forever remain a mystery. For starters, Cerulean liked other races, particularly the air-breathing ones. For most of his fellows, this would be as if your child started making pets out of, say, foot fungus.

But the oddest thing about Cerulean was the way he would sit on a sunny rock above the waves just, well, breathing. None of his fellow merfolk understood when Cerulean tried to explain what he was doing. He called it “rumination”, which most of his family and friends thought was a thing sea-cows did with their eelgrass.
Cerulean was, in fact, the first merfolk monk in Jehyseel. Having no-one to teach him, Cerulean has had to largely make up his practices as he went along. This single-minded determination and commitment to his goal of achieving what he calls “omnipelagism” has made him a complete outcast from merfolk society. As for his stated goal of becoming “one with the entire ocean”, well, the explanations of that were condemned as heretical by several authorities.

Deprived, therefore, of fellowship below the waves Cerulean has instead sought it above. He even has started calling himself a “Triton-Avistani” instead of a merman. He trolled for inspiration through the religions of the air breathers in deep conversations with mystics, oracles, wise men, shamans, clerics and holy women. Cerulean now professes to follow the tenets of Irori. Privately, however, considers even the Master of Masters to have not quite yet mastered himself enough. A truly perfect seeker would not be satisfied with mere (or even mer-) godhood, but would transcend the Great Beyond itself, he says.

This unique worldview has driven Cerulean towards seeking ever-increasing sources of knowledge about religions, planar matters, and perfection of the material form of creatures. When a Pathfinder agent told him about the stores of knowledge deposited at the Grand Lodge, then, it was a very short time before Cerulean presented himself to the rather confused gatekeepers of that place begging admission. Although the Society prides itself on not discriminating on the basis of race, some of the tests for applicants were simply not applicable to Cerulean’s physiology. He was told that the Society might not be the correct place to pursue his quest for knowledge. Taking the news with apparent equanimity, he went off towards the harbor.

The next morning at dawn, he was again waiting at the gates to the Lodge, again requesting entrance, only to receive the same answer. He accepted the answer he was given, but did not leave the forecourt until nightfall, when he again returned to the harbor. For the next week, every dawn found Cerulean at the gates of the lodge where he remained in the baking sun until dusk. This display of persistence (and being able to endure no small measure of discomfort) eventually served as evidence that Cerulean was fit to join and he was admitted to start his journey towards becoming a full Pathfinder.

Low-lyin’ haze all ‘cross the sea
Is what sailors can expect to see
High of forty, but I don't know why
‘Scuse me while I check the sky

Low-lyin’ haze all around
Later showers should be comin’ down
After midnight, increased humidity
Whenever it is, tonight you’ll get wet at sea
{barometer solo}

I didn't see answers in the FAQ's or stickied threads, but I'm sure these have all come up before and I apologize in advance for any retreading.

I've been running a Pathfinder core campaign for years but I'm new to PFS. I've done three games so far, two at a local con and 1 at a regular weekly game. I registered for PFS in between games at the con, so my learning process has been a bit haphazard.

I) My "first" character has been used in two PFS sessions, but I only see one listed in the "Player Sessions" tab. I guess the GM is responsible for posting this information? What's considered a "normal" time period for the delay between the session and when it shows up here? What's considered rude for prodding to make sure it's credited? If it doesn't show up, what are my options? I have a chronicle sheet that the GM signed.

II) The PFS Roleplaying Guild Guide says, "You can rebuild 1st-level characters..." does this mean at any time? The character I've used in those two sessions is an Inquisitor and I admit not really understanding the class at first. It also says, "...make a note on your most recent Chronicle sheet..." What kind of note? Do I have to do this when I'm at a PFS event?

III) When I said my "first" character was this Inquisitor, I had a browser/website issue when I tried creating it. This means that, by the time I figured out what was going wrong, I had created this as my -3 character. I then edited the empty -1 and -2 characters to create two others but my understanding is that the "Welcome to Pathfinder" boon is permanently tied to each player's -1 character. This is correct, right? Even if I never wind up playing the character with the -1 and the -3 is my "real" first character, she can never use that boon, correct?

IV)Speaking of boons, am I alone in perceiving that there's something of a weirdness in how those are distributed. I've seen it made very clear that boons are not to be bought or sold, but I think I've also seen that some boons are distributed to purchases of certain books? I don't see any clear listing of that, though. The other way boons seem distributed are through being at the "big" conventions like Gencon. I'm a solo entrepreneur, I don't have time or money to go (literally) halfway across the country for cons. I go the the local one once a year and that's it. That seems to mean that boons are not going to be something I see often. On the other hand, some of the more experience players at the table in my first PFS game had literally notebooks full of them so they can't be that hard to get. Is there a definitive listing of boons and how/where to qualify?

Thanks in advance for any help.

You're specifically looking for Combat feats. Under General I found Scrutinize Spell that lets you add Wis to Spellcraft checks if you ID an enemy's casting class, then you can also make Intimidate checks to Demoralize and add Wis to that roll in place of Cha if desired.

Thanks. I'll look into that.

There are several Style feats that let you either add or sub your Wis modifier for something, but I suspect these are the ones you're saying are "Monk" feats. They aren't; you can take other classes and just meet the pre-reqs, but they are most advantageous to a Monk of the appropriate level.

From what I can tell, they all build off of Improved Unarmed Strike, which I tend to think of as a Monk thing. Brawlers too, of course.

Erastil's Blessing uses wis to attack for bows.

Thanks for the link. The character I have now is an Iomedean Inquisitor, so the feat isn't applicable. It definitely is what I was looking for and it's something to keep in mind for another character.

There are a lot of feats that allow you to substitute one ability score's modifier for another one. Weapon Finesse to use Dex instead of Str is probably the most common but there are lots of others.

There don't seem to be very many ones that allow the use of Wis instead of other scores, though, except for the ones specific to the Monk class. The only one I've found is Guided Hand.

There are other Wisdom-based classes, e.g., Clerics and Inquisitors, that could benefit from such feats. Is there no interest in this type of feat or is there some other issue that prevents such feats? Or (a strong possibility) maybe I'm just missing something?

Thanks.