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It really depends on what you think would move into the city? Also, how long ago all this murder and flooding occurred.

Most of the stuff they face should have a CR of 1/2 - 2. If its kind of a newer game, I'd feel them out a little with some easier stuff and then ramp it up. Owlbears are kind of notorious in my games for being party killers.

I'd personally mix a few different sources - naturally occurring, undead arising from such a large number of individuals killed, and toss in a couple aberrations for good measure.

You could have them encounter a wounded Undine Cleric who was trying to explore the ruin and encountered two Akatas, then set the fight up next to a pool of salt water. Have the Undine tip them off to the Akata's weakness against salt water, or require a check for it, whichever.

The following are all CR 1 equivalent encounters, so you can tack on another 200 XP of monsters to make them a little harder, as needed. Pretty easy to adjust on the fly too, if you think its going to hard or easy.
3 x Dire Rats

2 x Giant Centipedes

3 x Giant Botfly

3 x Skeleton

2 x Stirge

Straight CR 1 creatures
Reefclaw

Sea Snake

Clawbat

Amoeba Swarm

Any of these can have a CR 1/2 creature paired with it to push their challenge up, and still be appropriate. I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to expose them to cholera while they were swimming around in water that may or may not include corpses.

Hopefully all of that isn't too general.

Elven Druid. Bow proficiency and her animal up front. Notning in the rules about "prohibited weapons".

"A druid who wears prohibited armor or uses a prohibited shield is unable to cast druid spells or use any of her supernatural or spell-like class abilities while doing so and for 24 hours thereafter."

"Weapon Familiarity: Elves are proficient with longbows (including composite longbows), longswords, rapiers, and shortbows (including composite shortbows), and treat any weapon with the word “elven” in its name as a martial weapon."

"Believable" consequences could amount to paying wergild to the families. Especially peasants. Just sayin', no one has to apply modern law and morality to a fantasy game with influences from multiple eras in human history.

Thank you Vic, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to ask about this but . . .

Last week I came across some software sold on in the Paizo store that allowed you to make custom maps and then print them off as 3D. It printed the map sections out so you could fold everything up into 3D walls and things like that. I also think it was around $12.00 at the time.

I am completely unable to find it now, is it something that is still available?

I disagree with critiques on subjects like the included point-buy system. There are a few simple answers to your concerns.

A) Use your own method and ignore what is included.
B) Pre-gen your players characters for them if they can't be trusted to make characters in an acceptable way.
C) If you don't pre-gen them, tell your players not to min-max. Add rewards like better starting equipment if they choose to make decisions that are based in characterization and roleplaying instead of basic mathmatics.

These are simple and direct solutions. If my post seems snarky, its unintentional, but I feel like certain criticisms are baseless. If you don't like something or feel like your campaign is better off without it, change it!

Awesome, thanks Erik. This is something I'll look forward to. I can't wait for an adventure path straight from the pages of Burroughs.

I was watching an episode of "The Universe" on History tonight. It was about stars burning out, and I got to thinking about space travel in Pathfinder. Really, I'm just wondering if all the planets use the same gods or have different ones.

I think the answer is that different planets have different gods. I'm just wondering if there is anything in a product that discusses this yet.

In my mind this opens up space travel + species from different planets fighting under the name of their gods, but since they're not on their planet, their gods can't really help them, so they lose the ability to heal themselves and others.

Also does magic work in space? Can wizards teleport to moons, planets, asteroids and the like? This is a really really exciting premise to me.

Also, in Golarion, are the Hells and the Abyss another planet? I haven't read anything that clearly says whether all planes in other settings are essentially just different planets in the Pathfinder setting. Man I hope so. Even if the answer is "no" I'll probably just house rule it in when I run Pathfinder stuff.

Ultimately, whatever the canonized material says doesn't matter: everything being planets, magic working through space and Hell as a gas giant will all be the way I play D&D from now on.

However, something flavor related; the more stars in a galaxy, the younger it is. I think it would be awesome if this factored in. For example, a planet like Hell would be ancient, and the only stars you could see from it would red dwarves (apparently these will be the last stars burning). I love the concept of a hero waking up and looking into the sky to see only a dozen faint red stars after dying and arriving on a Hell planet. Also: Hell as a 9 planet solar system = fantastic. The Abyss as an asteroid belt or a collection of planetoids, a Heaven realm existing on a green planet next to a glowing nebula, etc. I really hope I'm not the only one who finds this to be an exciting idea.

Personally, I'm confused by what many people are saying. Maybe I'm the odd man here, but I have on several occasions purchased books that have only one or two systems I like. For example, I picked up Call of Cthulhu for sanity and d20 Elder Gods, Arcana Evolved for a fresh take on D&D, even though I only ended up using the Litorian race consistently, and MC's World of Darkness, of which I only really used the spell system as a basis for a home-brewed Engineer class. I love all these books for the fluff and the rules they have, but I play an amalgamation of sources.

I think totally writing off Pathfinder because you don't like the skill system, or the changes to spells, or any one aspect of the game, is sort of silly.

You can elect not to use the entry that bugs you and still use other parts of the game. I guess for me its more a matter of whether or not the Pathfinder RPG book will have enough interesting material to warrant a purchase. Of course, because Paizo has given so much of the book to me for free, they cemented my purchase. I don't really believe you need anything more than the free PDF to use the system.

Additionally regardless of compatibility Paizo has me as a customer. They could choose to release an entirely new system that still involves rolling a twenty sided die but is mechanically completely different from "D&D." I'd buy it. The difference between Paizo and WotC is in how they treat the gaming community and their fans, and how they approach game and adventure design. That is to say, Paizo does all those things "better" than WotC.

. . . to come up with a connection for a character I'm going to DM over in the Rise of the Runelords AP.

Basically my player has an idea for a character who is a giant man-shaped homonculus (more or less). Think Roger, from the Hellboy comic. I know that his origin would stem from being created by a magesmith, but how do I tie it all together? Not being as familiar as I should with the setting, and not having read through the entire AP, what would be the best point to segue into a side-quest involving his origin?

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

I'm pretty sure I'd read somewhere that Monte felt like his time as an RPG designer was winding down. If thats true I'm doubly happy that he found a project to keep him excited in product development. MC is one of my favorite designers, from AE to the CoC book he did at Wizards, if there was any question about whether or not Paizo had become the true home for D&D, its answered now.

I had a western civ instructor who talked about homosexuality amongst the Romans, and how a common perception was that men could do everything better, which of course led to the belief that no one could do the deed like another man.

I think its interesting, because when compared to current (American) culture it seems on the surface to be progressive, the whole accepting of homosexuality thing. On the other hand its misogynistic. I think its a cool place to start for an adventure with a complicated social issue, if you have pretty liberal players.

Obviously not for everyone. I know its a little off topic, but its what came to mind.

I like what you're saying Sean. I think WoW has created a new breed of MMO reactionaries who want a return to story heavy roleplaying. I know some people call shenanigans on Pathfinder for being heavily WoW influenced, but I think that tall, buff elves =/= WoW.

I agree that tactical gaming doesn't need to be dumb gaming. After all, putting as much work into a BA (and I don't mean Base Attack) tactical encounter can be as rewarding and enjoyable as a massive plot twist.

I remember a ridiculous trap a DM used once that involved a giant undead squid, a water trap, and a simple dart trap that seemed like a solution, but was actually totally unrelated. Now, that happens to be one of my favorite D&D moments, and I think it falls into both a tactics and story realm. Ultimately solving puzzles is an awesome part of the game. Whether they be riddles or how to save such and such king from such and such plot, D&D is based a lot on solving simple or complicated problems.

That being said, my approach to class/race creation begins with either something I encountered from another source that I thought was interesting. A good example is Roger the Homonculus from Hellboy. Starting with that, I created a golem-like character, carved from sandstone and steeped in blood, then brought to life with electricity. I added elements like oversized hands and an oversized head (both techniques used by Michelangelo on his David).

The character spends his time trying to discover where he comes from, and fighting clerics who consider him a tool and deny the existence of his soul. That whole idea was inspired by this.

I guess this is just how I go about it. I'm kind of tired of things like warforged and ultraloths. I think D&D needs a movement towards fewer/simpler rules and more exciting ideas. I also believe that a class like paladin is should be balanced (to an extent) by the DM of a game. Use of the occasional miracle, direct connection to a god, followers, and rewards for maintaining virtue are all things I include when I DM and a paladin is in the party. I underscore the paladins relative importance compared to the party's rogue, on a metaphysical level. Demons know the paladin's name and have an interested in killing or turning him, angels look to aid the paladin if he needs it, etc.

Personally, I think the Bugbear entry was the best. It did the most as far as re-envisioning the monster and drawing on classic folk tales. And really, anything that has a pulp era feel, or a fairy/folk tale feel to it makes me want to buy it.

I think the druid needs to have a focus on shapeshifting option, like CD8D mentioned, and also access to more domains, but not all. I want to hear the case for the Glory domain. Personally I'd vote for Air, Animal, Destruction, Earth, Fire, Healing, Plant, Protection, REPOSE, Sun, Travel, Water and Weather.

Others might include Charm and Community. I could see them being used, Community is kind of an extension of Protection, but I don't really know that I feel its totally appropriate. Charm makes some sense as a "fey-like" druid.

Strength could also be used as a wild shape focused domain. I'm not advocating that as a substitute for just adding a wild shape variant focus. I realize the PHBII variant with different types of forms isn't OGL, but its my favorite alternative.

I like the druid revisions, I'm just adding my two cents.

Specifically, I know one of WotC's big selling points is that the classes in 4E have heavily defined roles, so you play a Cleric or a Warlord and inspire your allies with buffs and the like. The criticism is that this feels too much like World of Warcraft. I'm just wondering how people feel about this. Personally I'm torn; it seems like there are 2 ways to go about making a character. You either say: "I have this awesome idea for a hobgoblin whose father was murdered. He spent his childhood under the tutelage of an expert swordsman and now seeks revenge against the Ogre Mage who killed his pa." and then proceed to decide what combination of rogue, fighter and bard would be best for a swashbuckler type character (assuming you hate non-core classes). Or you say: I want to play a multi-classed fighter/rogue and so I can sneak and fight, then go on and choose a race like hobgoblin for the nice stat bonuses and the bonus to sneak.

I guess I feel like thats the difference between the people who are jazzed up for Pathfinder and the people who want to continue with WotC's abomination they call 4th Edition. However, I'd like others to opine on the issue of class roles, and where development should really begin; should it be a matter purely of a set number of roles, where you have class types A, B, C and D, where A deals damage, B soaks damage, C heals, and D runs buffs and/or debuffs? And then of course other classes spring out of this, where class A1 deals heavy physical damage in melee while class A2 deals magic damage over time. Should this really be the starting point, or should developers come to the table with much more open ended choices for players?