Einherjar101's page

So, no. If you don't want a court, you don't get a structure. The Eldest provides the only structure and beyond that is chaos.

I personally would disagree that the only type of structure is a court structure.

I guess to phrase my question a bit better it would be alternative structures such as this I was asking if anyone had used for the fey.

I was wondering how other people have handled the non-corrupted fey of the Fangwood and what type of societal structure if any they have had in your games?

The impression I got reading through the AP was that the Fangwood is very much supposed to be a fey forest. While some fey are encountered here and there the main focus seems to be around the blight though, with no real detail on how fey society functions outside of this corrupted section of the forest. But it very much seemed that even the uncorrupted section of the forest is meant to be full of fey creatures.

However with all these different types of fey living their lives and causing mischief in one localized place I have been trying to figure out into what societies they would group. How would they interact with one another and what sort of disagreements would be present among them. Is there a leadership structure among then or even several more powerful fey who others flock around.

I know the default societal structure most people would place fey in are the courts (Summer, Winter etc.), but with the way the First World is ordered, around the Elder, this for me does not seem to suit the fey of Galorian. So instead I more imagined them as a patchwork of factions but am somewhat lost into how to fill out the details.

Has anyone built out the working of the fey in more detail or have suggestions on how fey society might look in the Fangwood?

Also happy to be recommended any other media interpretation that don't use the courts for the fey.

Every group I have run or played in has been unusually collaborative, based what I see in forum threads. We find stuff, we give people stuff they need, and we sell what’s left and divide the money.

Up until this point this has always been my experience with both playing and DMing. But I now have new players playing a campaign and this is the first time i've had this come up. Which is probably why im having so much trouble understanding the reasons behind this system being suggested by one portion of my players.

As a GM, I consider it my responsibility to make a somewhat balanced spread of loot available, including raw currency or trade equivalent. If someone feels like I'm not dropping enough stuff suitable for their character, I should endeavor to change what's available. I might not drop their extremely specific weird weapon specific to another culture if it wouldn't make any sense, but I'll drop something they can use, even if it's just enough gold to hire someone to enchant their current ESWWStAC.

That is the mentality I have had up until this point and definitely something I plan on bringing up to the players when we have our discussion around this.

For myself I like finding interesting magic items or creating ones myself and then offering these to my players. So I would probably be averse to needing to switch to the automatic bonus progression rules. But as was mentioned above, if no good solution presents itself and this sucks the fun out of the game then what have we got to loose.

But before we get to that stage im hoping we can have a mature discussion on the topic and hopefully address the underlying reasons why certain people in the group want this. At the moment it just doesn't make sense to me. Since the players have a roughly even number of items and they are only level 4 I can't see any current inequality that could have created this need.

I don't know if its just a lack of knowledge of how loot will become available over time - A melee weapon here a caster item there and a protective item at another point. Maybe some players are under the assumption that when there is loot there should be something for everyone but to me in world that just does not seem reasonable.

Or maybe some of the players have just planned their progression ahead and are worried they will not get the items they need to be useful and progress. But in that case I would have hoped these players would come to me and let me know they are worrying about this. I started the game telling everyone to let me know if there are any issues or topics they want to discuss and have also mentioned it several times though out the game. So beyond that im not sure what more could be done in that scenario.

I'll probably post here when we have had this discussion what tissues where brought up and what we'll try going forward just in case any future groups find it helpful.

But until then happy to hear other peoples experiences, especially if you've already had such a discussion with your group!

PS:

Einherjar101 wrote:

Im hoping that by coming at this from several angels I can help the group come to a resolution that everyone can be happy with.

If it's come to divine intervention, it may already be too late.

Ah completely missed that and naturally so did spellcheck. Well if Sarenrae suddenly descends and passes judgment on the situation that would certainly be one solution.

So looking around I don't think there have been any official mentions of Prana Ghosts in the world.
But that said I would imagine that there are several Ghost npc's that could probably be classed as Prana's from older releases before Occult Beastery was released.

One that comes to mind is Vesorianna Hawkran from the Haunting of Harrowstore book of the Carrion Crown. She protects the town from the spirits still imprisoned there.

Im sure there are a bunch of other ghosts like this though I have never heard of any friendly ghosts being tied to the development of an area. But maybe someone else here has

Thank you so far for all the input! Definitely agree with a lot of the comments that if all the players are happy with the system then just go ahead and try it.
The main issue in our case is that exactly half the players are for this system and the other half is opposed to such a system. So I feel like implementing something like this, at least in its current form, would cause a lot of strife and unhappiness.

What you're describing sounds like a DKP system.

I was not aware of the DKP system so thank you for giving this a name! I've started using this to find other discussions on systems like this so thats been very helpful. Also for the concise list of pros and cons.

Theres also been a lot of alternative suggestions here so far which im taking note. So thank you to everyone whos provided systems that have worked for them.

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Has there been anyone else who had a group where some of the players wanted to implement a system such as this but others did not? And if so how did you resolve it?
If any of these situations involved a detailed discussion about what the players felt required such a system would anyone be able to let me know what points where brought up?

Im hoping that by coming at this from several angels I can help the group come to a resolution that everyone can be happy with.

Given the description of what is required to make someone a fiend I don't see why one might not have the head of a cute animal instead.

They're personality is mostly tied to the 7 sins so all that is required is a link between one of these and the animal you want.

So the person have been a cowardly/suspicious individual in life and now in death they have a rabbits head and are always standing tall when they think they are being observed and refer to run away and hide when confronted and strike hidden from the shadows

Kenku is always fun! Can even play around with some of their feats to get them to glide.
Theres also the outsider mixed races like Oreads, Sylphs and Undines. For me these races are always located where there is a rift to their associated elemental plane and that just makes for some interesting story opportunities.
Also I just want to make waterbender using an Undine Watersinger

It sounds like you are using an unnecessarily complicated version of what my group does.

Yeah one of my worries with the currently proposed system is that it is too complicated to be practical for use.

For this post I am the DM and regarding restrictions I guess there would be some. The PC's are in the wilderness at the moment as part of TotH and so there have not been a lot of trader option. I have introduced 1 trader so far though and more opportunities will present themselves as the story continues.

Thanks for providing an overview of how your group handles this. I have never had a game were a loot rule system was used by the players so its interesting to see.

The system you're using sounds like it requires a decent bit of discussion and calculations. Has this slowed down the game at all or caused any arguments between people?
Also out of curiosity is this being done in or out of character?

In your game what prompted the use of this system? Was it something everyone decided at the start or did something happen that brought about the need for such a system?

I don't intend to make any judgments on gameplay or players here, I just want to get a better understanding of how such a system can work and what prompt people to want to use it.

One of the issues i'm having is that half the players want such a system and the other half are against it. So the options I currently see the group having are either to figure out why half the group want this system and see what can be done to address the underlying reasons or come up with a new alternative system that is not as restrictive and both sides can agree on.

Beyond the general single short skill challenge that makes up most games I have also once used a sort of mini game layout
Basically there is a job/task proposed, such as 'Find specific person and grab item x off them without being noticed' or like a mini ironman challenge like 'Run to the river, swim across it and then climb to the top of the tower and capture the flag'.
If you have it in a more rural setting you could also have the task be something the town or festival needs like Hunt a stag for the feast or race to the top of the hill/mountain to light the beacon to signal the start time of when the tavern can serve the special mead.

Looking for some opinions on suggestions that are being made by the players on how to distribute loot they find. Personally I get the feeling that there is a deeper issue here about players not trusting one another but I could use a second opinion.
Below is the context of what has happened.

___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________

The players recently started discussing how to distribute out items and what items should become part of general party items.
Within that discussion the topic quickly turned to some people feeling like there was a need to ensure everyone has an equal number of items and also that the worth of these items be equal amongst everyone.

I as the DM had tried to be somewhat removed from the discussion and mostly just act as referee. The way the party distributes items amongst themselves, I felt, was not something I should be controlling and instead be something the players decide themselves.

However the discussion has now spiraled to were a quite involved credit system is being proposed by some of the players.
The main points include:

1. When items are found they automatically go into the party loot. If any player takes an items that player is then in negative credit equal to the worth of that item. If more than one person wants the same item the person with the least amount of negative credit gets the item.

2. Negative credit is removed either by paying gold into the party fund (buying yourself out) or waiting until everyone in the party has some value of negative credit - when this happens the lowest value of negative credit is collectively deducted from what everyone owes.

3. When an item is claimed it belongs to that player and they can sell it if they wish. But players who are in negative credit cannot purchase items until they have cleared their credit.

4. Players are only permitted to engage in a trade of equal worth either through items or exchanging gold - items cannot be passed to someone else for free

5. A tally of credit owed must be kept and updated at the end of each session
___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________

So this is the situation so far. The players recently voted on what to do and there was an even split between using this system and not using it.
I want to step in more before the start of the next game and have a group discussion about why players feel they need such a system in place.
My opinion on it is that this will slow down the game and most importantly remove the amount of fun people are having at the table as every time I introduce new items to the party it will devolve into a banking simulator.
Given the suggestions put forward in this proposed system it sounds to me like there is a distrust from some of the players that items will be distributed fairly, though I have not noticed a huge discrepancy in items people have so far. The group only just hit level 4 so they have only recently started seeing items such as a +1 weapon or +2 attribute item.
For me its natural that not all of them will have these items straight away at the same time but these are instead introduced gradually through play.

Looking around I have not seen or heard of other groups running into such issues and so would really like to hear other views on this and peoples opinion on the system and what the underlying reasons behind it could be.

Half right, yeah- the rationale seems to be that while the party is relaxed at their starting location, the Ironfangs are just arriving. Most people in Phaendar are still out enjoying the festivities. Once the army marches into town, people start to run for cover wherever they think is safe, which brings the numbers of townsfolk up. After that, they start dying off, and the numbers dwindle.

Similar with Provisions, I think the party's own food and drink are being left uncounted among provisions at the starting area, and folks ducking for cover are bringing what they have at hand, as well.

I had partially gone down that thought at one point too. But then couldn't explain away why these people would avoid rushing to the area the PC's had chosen. But if we where to imagine that the PC's location is one of the first to be hit then it would actually make sense. Everyone is running away from their location and to the other places.

Thanks for the answer, this had been bugging me for a while now.

So im feeling really stupid and like I've missed something everyone else got.
But for the Visiting order for the locations in part 1, why if there this odd dependency between the starting order and the first order?
The starting order seems to have a lower value than the first order and I can't seem to rationalize it.
Im guessing its some calculation based off replacing the first encounter with The Fangs are Bared and this would explain why the provisions are lower as I assume you add on the 5 you get from the replaced encounter.

But why and from where are we suddenly amassing additional people?
To my mind I would have thought the people that are there would be there whether the party starts at this location or not. In fact I would almost expect the starting order to have more people as I would have assumed some people might die in the initial attack without the party there, like in the Riverwood Shrine, where we are told a dozen bodies lie there when the PC's visit.

As I said im sure this has a simple answer that I've either missed or over thought :)
So could someone please enlighten me

There is a lot of loot being given out in the first book and it mentions that this is because there is little chance to go to a merchant in this book.

It is suggested that you customize the loot to best suit your party and take the written items as a guideline of value rather than set in stone

Would really like to get some more information on the rest of the world so:
Race to circumnavigate the globe
- there where some interesting mentions about the distant oceans in Skulls and Shackles and I want to see the city built on a giant turtle, at least I think it was a turtle

I've been trying to get some idea of the geography of the Padishah Kelish empire and the surrounding nations. Honestly very surprised Paizo have not come out with some additional maps or even some local maps within that area yet.

So far was looking at the fan map of Galorian but this appears to be a bit out of date now as new areas where expanded upon and added, like the kingdom of Karazh.

Guess it might be worth asking if anyone knows of any other more up to date fan maps?

67. You see a hand nailed to a tree by the side of the road.
68. You come across the remnants of a large bonfire. There is a huge stack of bones to one corner: horse, deer and other large bones you do not recognise straight away. Giant footprints lead away into a large opening path through the brush.
69. A small diverse group has made temporary camp here. They are eager to learn any local information on history, geography or nature. They would be more than happy to exchange information.

I think there was a Tian Xia pathfinder lodge, but other than that, I suppose they just have people go out there and come back to report things.

Ah yeah I forgot about the Lantern Lodge.

Also managed to find the list of Lodges.
So this would then be where the main headquarters for the pathfinders are located.

So questions now would be:
* Do the pathfinders operate in any noticeable capacity other areas that are not relatively close to these lodges. Most seem to be in the Inner Sea region so curious about the other continents.
* Would there be areas where pathfinders would not be known for who they are. Not talking about the common rabble but if they introduced themselves to a minor lord or lady would they know what a pathfinder was?
* Are there areas where the pathfinders are forbidden or there influence is actively fought against? Again the Kelesh Empire seems like a place that wouldn't want the pathfinders to have much influence in their territory. Though to what extent they put up with the pathfinders I have no idea.

Was wondering what the reach of influence for the pathfinders was.
I figure they are quite influential and numerous around the Inner Sea but what about the rest of Golarion?

I know that there have been a good few adventures in Tian-Xai so would the pathfinders have a growing base of operations there or more a single district in a city here and there like the Europeans had in China/Japan?

And what about the Rest of the Kelesh Empire and Vundra and that entire half of the continent?

Are they allowed to operate there or is it more that they have a few scattered agents.

I realize most of this isn't officially documented but just wanted to know peoples thoughts on the matter.

Allosaurus is a fun one. It's got the same same attacks as a big cat, but higher natural armor and strength. Alternately, a Tyrannosaurus with the Vital Strike chain and Improved Natural Attack (Bite) + the Strong Jaw spell + Animal Growth = a whole lot of dice. (12d6 + double Strength at level 7)

Plus, they're giant friggin dinosaurs. The badass factor can't be ignored :)

Unless i'm missing something (which is very possible) doesn't an animal companion only have a BAB of +4 at lvl 7 and thus doesn't qualify for vital strike yet?

thanks found it, although still doesn't have a better map of the town hall :(

I have a subscription to the ap's and have all the CC books and pdf's but I can't find this new map pdf in my downloads. Is the download link somewhere else?

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1DB6sOfbAzFmKVPgcyLWipTVqvWFjfDSv6v _YiGQb5Yw

here you go

Thank you that works perfectly

Don't know if it's just me but I can't get access to the guide. It keeps telling me "You need permission to access this item" anyone know what might be causing it?

Ok so it does just use a lower level slot and not count as a lower level spell thanks for explaining it

I checked with our dm when I made the character and he told me the saurian druid was legal.

As for the template im still a bit confused.
The young template reduces the level of the summoning spell required by one. So if I apply the template to a Crocodile (which is a 3rd level creature and can be summoned using snaIII and above normally) what happens?
Do I summon the crocodile using snaII instead of III or does the spell just take up a second lvl spell slot but it still counts as snaIII?

Im playing a Saurian druid as part of the pathfinder society play and just leveled up to 5. As such I now get the saurians 5th level ability

a saurian shaman may cast summon nature’s ally as a standard action when summoning reptiles and dinosaurs, and summoned reptiles and dinosaurs gain temporary hit points equal to her druid level. She can apply the young template to any reptiles and dinosaurs to reduce the level of the summoning spell required by one. She can also increase the level of summoning required by one in order to apply either the advanced or the giant template, or increase it by two to apply both the advanced and giant templates.

Now I was wondering about a few things when applying this to the different summon natures ally spells.

Could I summon a reptile or dinosaur thats on the 4th level list (which I would not have access to yet) if I applied the young template to it using snaIII?

The next question I guess would only really apply if the above question turns out to be true.
Could I take a 3rd lvl reptile or dinosaur, apply the young template so that it becomes a 2nd level creature and then use snaIII so summon 1d3 copies of that creature?

As a little side question I was also wondering after looking through the d20pfsrd if the Venomous snake, which is listed in the 2nd lvl summons is legal in society play as its from an adventure path and thus not core material. Its just that its the lowest level reptile on the list.

I got this from somewhere else and applied it to this setting.

Let there be an old abandoned little house on the outskirts of the town, which has been abandoned since its last owner, one of the prison guards, died in the fire. Anyone who has tried to live in the house since then was driven out by horrid nightmares and a terrible sense of unease. The house now stands there decaying and crumbling with parts of it collapsed.

Give the PC's some reason to investigate the house, maybe the guard left a journal or something. Anyway the PCs enter the old bedroom in a great state of decay. The roof has collapsed and the beams from the ceiling have fallen in and punched through the floor in one place.

A faint scratching sound can be heard from below. Anyone adventurous enough to peer down into the gloom can see something small and pale moving near where the beam ends. With additional light, a human corpse lies at the bottom crushed firmly beneath the beam with much of the rest of the body coved with other debris. All you can see is the head, shoulder and one arm. The arm slowly reaches out and claws at the ground as if trying to drag itself free. the fingers are worn nearly to the palm with only polished stubs of bone protruding. It claws outwards again and you notice that that there are five deep grooves in the wooden floor where this creature has been trying to escape its sad fate.

I had it so that the guard had been an abusive husband who had beaten his wife to death in a fit of rage and placed the body under the floor boards the day before he died.
Now with the dead now rising in the wake of the evil released from Harrowstone, so has the corpse under the floor, filled only with anger and a lust for vengeance. However it finds itself trapped under the the collapsed beam. I used this as a haunt in the town for the PC's to lay her spirit to rest.

You just cleared up one worry for me in preparation to running this, thank you for these!

Wow these both look really handy, thanks for making them. Stealing both.

Hey thats great, but the first episode seems to have disappeared. Any chance your able to put it back up? I only managed to watch half of it yesterday and I was also hoping to re watch it in preparation to my own game which im starting in 2 weeks.

Hey watching it now and it should definitely be helpful for people like myself who are planning on running the adventure path. Anyway I was wondering, the dm said he had a lot of material prepared and I was wondering if it would be possible for someone to maybe post it up? Im currently trying to come up with my own material to help me run the game so I would be very thankful for these :)

Oh I guess that makes sense. I just thought it meant something more complicated than that. Thanks though.

Wow those where some really good ideas. Although I can't figure out how you would "force players to commit to a course of action before they fully understand what they’re committing to". Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Ok haven't read through all of this thread yet so I don't know if its been mentioned yet. But im just after re-reading the old kingdom trilogy by gareth nix and so would love to see some monsters inspired by that.

Now while most of his undead can be summerized as zombies, perhaps instead think of them as long dead souls that, either through their own willing power or by the forcefull power of a necromancer have forced their souls into some form of body. Now this can be anything from a recent dead human, which in the books would be the hands or one soul placed into a large number of crows (say 100 or so) that where killed for this purpose (http://oldkingdomwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Gore_crows).

You could also have the shadow hands, which are the souls brought back into the living world without a body but instead by infusing them with magic. As a result they are unaffected by physical weapons (unless specificly enchanted) and certain magic only slows or stunes them.

Of course the older the soul or the more powerfull it is the more it consumes and decayes the body it is in. Therefore the mor it needs to find the living to feed upon their live to sustain its own or to kill them so as to transfer to a new and fresh body.

Id also love to see something like the greater dead and freemagic creatures. Thease would be creatures who are either partly or completly constructed of horrible destructive magic housing a horrible transformed and possibly insane soul. They shape themselfs as what they think of as beautiful and normal, but due to them being dead for so long this is now a horribly twisted image to witness.
In the books these creatures tend to change themselfs slightly depending on the situation. For instance one moment they might seem almost human(maybe while somewhat elongated or stretched looking) but then when suddenly angered turn into
Examples: http://oldkingdomwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Mordicant
http://oldkingdomwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Stilken

Right im going to start this game in a couple of hours. Im going to increase the perception check of most of the traps by 5 to 10 and probably will include some concelment stuff as we go. Im probably going to be doing a lot of changes on the fly but we'll see how it goes.

But anyone know how I should deal with the rogue? With the trap find ability he gets to roll everytime he is within 10ft of a trap, although im going to be doing the rolling. He also gets to add half his level to perception for finding traps. So should I do something more to make it harder for him to find them or should I just let him get away with it?

Finally do people think the dungeon will still be too easy even by increasing the dr by 5 to 10 for finding traps and having a 60 to 75% chance that the character will fail to regain spells when resting? Or is it perhaps now to difficult?

Sounds good, will probably implement that in some fashion.

Ok so I just looked over the module and the pathfinder classes again. Most of the spot checks are dc 20 to dc 25 dor the traps. Now considering most of my players are going to put the max number of points into perception which will be 9, then add to that the plus 3 some of the players get for having it as a class skill and we have 12 points in perception. Now this means that the players only need to roll between an 8 and 13 to spot the various traps and thats without any feats or other items to increase their chances. This is also discluding the rogue who can add half her level to perception and disarm device checks.

Now as it stand it sounds like my players will be able to get past the fast majority of the traps easily enough. So im wondering, the people who have played or dm'd this before, was this true for you? Or should I increase the difficulty of finding and maybe disarming the traps?

Well in relation to the bit about spells I was actually thinking of implementing something I had just read earlier today. What someone else had done was that everytime the players rested they where haunted by demonic nightmares and didn't regain any of their spells. Considering that to me this seems a bit extreme I figured I'd roll for it and the players had a 60-75% chance of this happening, just to make things interesting. Personaly
I want it to be a bit more like the original.
The main reason im running this is to teach my players to play more carfully and not go charging into everything head first as they normaly do.

We're going to generate characters between tomorrow and sunday and I definitly wouldn't put my players campaign characters play in this dungeon as its just one giant death trap.

While I know they didn't tweek traps themselfs much I was more thinking that since they redid the skill point by system, some of the skills themselfs and some of the class hit dice that maybe I might have to change cr, damage or something else for the traps.

So im going to dm the Tomb of Horrors for halloween but im going to be using pathfinder to generate characters and for general rules. I currently have the 3.5 revisited edition of the module which I downloaded here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051031a

Now I know how to convert monsters from 3.5 to pathfinder but considering that this is a trap orientated dungeon I was more wondering, do I need to do anything to convert the traps to the pathfinder system? Like do I need to increase or decrase the cr for finding traps, change the damage dealt?

Also considering that this is my first time playing one of these old modules, is there anything else I should know or do? Any and all advice would be gladly accepted!

For instance if anyone has played or dm'd this module already is there anything that you can suggest to improve upon the game. Anything that in retrospect you wish you had done differently when you first played or anything that you or someone you played with did that really worked for this module?

I was trying to find out what benefits you get from picking a region that a character is from (Verisia, Cheliax ect.) but only found extra feats for Varisia and Traits for Taldor and Katapesh characters.

Are those all the places that currently give benefits if you chose to have your character come from there?
And im assuming that the ultamate goal will be to have traits and feats for all the regions in galorion?

Also does anyone know of a book or website that lists the regional benefits other that all the seperate adventure path player guides?

This is the first time i've posted here so I hope this is in the right section.

Anyway im a relativly now DM and as such figured i'd do a few modules and scenario's to get used the the rules and such.

This was how I found Carrion hill and I loved the feel of it. So I figured i'll dm this as its simple enough and my players are sure to enjoy it (they all really like lovecraft).

The problem however is that a lot of them want to play higher level characters than 5 level for which this module is designed. And seeing as a few of them are playing classes they haven't played before, mainly the sorcerer and the wizard, I don't want to put them off these classes by making them feel weak.

So I figured I'll put everyone at level 8 and increase the cr's of the encounters.

Now there are 6 players at level 8 so I figure the average cr for the party would be 8 or 9. Is this right?

I've currently just been focusing on the spawn of Yog-Sothoth which is meant to be cr 10. Now considering that at its full power its APL +5 for the normal game I was thinking of making it cr 12 for my 8 level party. Is this about right or too powerfull?

In increasing its cr should I just give it hit dice or add a huge template to it?

I also have another few questions but I shall ask those after this has been resolved as this post is starting to get a bit long.

I will really appreciate any help and advice people can offer me.

Thank you.