Lastly, the art so far is just... huh? That main promo image they have on the website - if it weren't for Amiri and that goblin in the shadows, I wouldn't have known it was anything to do with Pathfinder.
How come? Couple of iconics, recognizable artwork and even the main villain of the first chapter of Kingmaker, Stag Lord, is there. I would have known it was a Kingmaker CRPG just based on that image alone.
So it would be rogue 7/fighter (weapon master) 8/duelist 5. Is this a good build?
Curse of the Crimson Throne ends at about lvl 16, though. And since that's a PbP campaign, it will go very slowly, and in most cases won't ever reach the end, so planning that much ahead is not such a good idea.
Like I said, it's a monarchy so it doesn't really matter what you or the party wants.
Eodred and Ileosa don't have any children and the party will be the most powerful individuals in the city after the end of campaign, there's not much to stop them if they want the throne, really.
It seems to me that too much emphasis being given to political corectness. There's the same number of male and female iconics, so it makes sense they'd push the idea of enforcing it in other areas, whether it's skin color, sexual orientation or whatnot.
Personally, I think he came to our world as Nikola Tesla. He did a bunch of cool stuff and then faked his death to go on to other places and projects. *joking*
Even though it's a joke, I still find it flattering that one of my countrymen is enjoying a world-wide fame (since we're not very well thought of, usually) and being compared to Nex. Thank you for that.
Now, could I have done the Worldwound AP in a way that didn't involve direct encounters with a demon lord? Sure... but it would feel to me like a terribly missed opportunity and a let down and an anticlimax—just like if we say "This adventure sends you to Gallowspire" but then never lets you encounter the boss of that site, the Whispering Tyrant.
But... that's Carrion Crown basically. And there's been much debate over that, because the final boss never ever appeared in the AP and only the introduction of the 6th chapter made a suggestion to introduce him earlier (tough luck for those who played it as it was being published). Not only that, a lot of people on the boards were indeed disappointed with the end boss not being Whispering Tyrant.
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This may seem like a dumb question, but in my group, we've always played that Glitterdust practically dispels invisibility and never really thought about it that much. But reading the description again, Glitterdust simply outlines invisible creatures and gives them a penalty on stealth checks. It never states that creatures lose the benefit of total concealment that invisibility provides.
So, my question is, is everyone playing it like this and 'visibly outlines' means only that you don't need to make perception checks to locate the creature's square but it still gets its 50% miss chance?
My biggest problem is that a tech demo produced in 2012 looks not that much better than World of Warcraft pre-alpha videos. Not to mention that it's coming out in FOUR YEARS.
MMO is a dying genre. WoW still keeps strong, but only because he was #1 for a long period of years. Almost every other MMO went F2P (SW:TOR, recently) because they were losing subscribers drastically and that's basically the sign that it's doing badly. And all that because they don't offer anything new.
Now, Pathfinder Online will come out in 2016 and they haven't offered us anything never before seen. What I see is combination of WoW and EVE. While the premise is intresting, I don't believe it will be that good in four years.
So, they have a company that never made any other games, terrible release scheldue, no novel ideas, this is their second Kickstarter project for the same thing... Golarion is the only setting I play in PnP for the past 3-4 years and I can't see myself even glancing at this game.
Fortunately for you, it's available on PFSRD. Just google it a bit.
As for Ileosa, Bard makes sense to me, especially with the Court Bard archetype. But BBEG with NPC class levels? Well, that's just silly. I know it makes sense, on account her being an actual aristocrat, but it would also make sense for all those farmers turned adventurers when their village was destroyed by orcs to have levels of Commoner, but of course that doesn't happen.
That's not always so. The rate for parcels under four pounds is pretty reasonable
Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't call shipping cost of $21 reasonable. That's more than half worth of the book itself. And that's for a less heavy books, like APG, UC, Bestiary etc. It just gets worse with CRB and Bestiary Box.
Add in the fact that Book Depository sells the same book cheaper than the base cost of the book with shipping included, it's clear to me where will I get my books from.
Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore Pathfinder and I do buy from your site also (I think I have like 30 purchases of paperbacks and misc items, because price differs just a little bit in those cases) and try to support you whenever I can, but buying hardcovers from your site is like donating a bunch of cash to the postal service that you use.
I really appreciate all that you do, but shipping to Europe is not one of your strengths. If you want to expand your business in Europe, you should look into other shipping methods.
While I can't think of any feats as useless as Prone Shooter, I do nominate Cockatrice Strike for a waste of feat and action to use it.
Quote:
Turn a target to stone with a critical hit
Prerequisitites: Medusa's Wrath, base attack bonus +14
Benefit: As a full-round action, you can make a single unarmed strike against a dazed, flat-footed, paralyzed, staggered, stunned, or unconscious foe. If that attack is a critical hit, the target is petrified unless it succeeds on a Fortitude saving throw with a DC of 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Wisdom modifier. This is a supernatural polymorph effect.
So, here's a feat which has prerequisites consisting of:
Improved Unarmed Strike, Scorpion Style, Gorgon's Fist, Medusa's Wrath and BAB+14 that lets you as a FULL-ROUND action (meaning you'd have to within 5 ft of him in the first place), ATTEMPT to petrify an already disabled (or in worst-case, penalized) opponent with a really lousy DC.
No. Most of the times, every player has at least 3-4 ideas for characters they'd like to play. Before the campaign, we sit down and discuss. It's a thoroughly pleasant experience and one of my favorite parts of the campaign, since it's wonderful to witness the brainstorming of cool characters, roles and concepts.
There's an armor special ability (Comfort, it's in the PFS Field Guide) that reduces ACP by 1, so a Mithral (not Mitheral) Breastplate of Comfort has an ACP of 0.
I like reading them, but in most cases they don't feel like a natural continuation of the campaign. It's more like an extra season of a TV show that should already have ended.
APs usually take a LONG time to finish. In my experience, by the end, the players would be more excited about starting a next AP with new PCs than play further with PCs they've played for the past year or two.
Rasputin charmed the Russian Royal family I would think he would have some kind of powerful charming abilty and a very high Charisma. Also some kind of low level cure abilites due to the royal familys belief he could heal the crown prince. I would say a low or medium Wisdom since he did not seem to comprehend the consequences of his actions.
And Con 30 by the looks of it. Endurance and Diehard, too.
Diehard feat was possibly named after him, since I don't think anyone ever died harder than him.
Seriously for a change, the above is why Ignore feature sucks, kids.
Except that's not how ignore feature works on normal forums. You get this instead of his posts and you can choose whether or not you want to see their posts.
I started typing an answer and then realized this was the same guy who didn't allow a druid to turn into animals unless he had a PHD on that specific animal, and remembered sane discussions are for other threads.
They were just a quick reminder meant for me, so not very detailed, but taht's the general idea.
As for Daughters of Urgathoa - when my party reached the top, Adivion was stil human, waiting for them. He had four priestess of Urgathoa chanting in a circle around him. I used a speech that a fellow DM posted somewhere on these boards (can't remember the name, but credits go to him):
Spoiler:
Lightning cracks from the churning, corpse-gray sky above as the Bone Stair finally terminates at the vertiginous heights of Gallowspire’s roof beneath a massive crown of blades that cast dark shadows across the roof of Gallowspire. A wide, round portal of shining silver metal caps the roof, inscribed with arcane symbols and powerful magic wards.
Standing in the center of the pillar is a man, tall and handsome. He wears fine black robes embroidered in gold and silver. In his hands are a staff and a gold chalice. The souls of the dead and the damned rage around you all, their dance of destruction wrapped around the blades of stone that threaten to close in around you.
“They had it all wrong, you know,” the man says conversationally. “Everyone. Only I had the drive, the power to see what they could not. The Whispering Tyrant cannot be released. Those... pitiful mockeries that you call gods have warped all our minds. Not until they’re dead can he be free. But he can be remade."
“He was to be my greatest triumph. And you stole that from me.” Adivion smiles for opportunities past. “He was to be the vessel, a wondrous dark muse to make this world worth living in. He was to house the Tyrant.” He looks at the chalice in his hands and the blood red liquid inside that seems to be trying to climb out on its own. An expression of lust comes across his face as he realizes what he must do. He brings the chalice to his lips and swallows it all.
His eyes are closed and he looks almost orgasmic for a moment before he tenses and he drops chalice and staff. His hands grasp at his throat. He’s brought to his knees, choking. He gives one last pleading look at the PCs as if he expects them to have answers or even help him. He falls, dead.
Adivion is thrown into a sitting position, blood flying from his mouth. His eyelids are open as his eyes burn out of their sockets. It appears as though his entire body is burning, searing from the inside-out by a terrible force. [This is his spirit rejecting his body and searing its way out of its prison.] He’s thrown into the air as the howling storm embraces him, ripping away at his clothing and his skin. The storm spits him back onto the Tower, rejected and Forsaken. But he doesn’t realize it. He lands prone in an ungraceful heap.
He hauls himself upright. His staff flies to him as if called. His beautiful robes are reduced to rags, the handsome visage withered and hatefully dead. What remains of his soul swirls around him in a storm of barely controlled arcane energies. He looks at his hands and laughs to the sky, the laughter of the insane. He levels his undead gaze at the PCs.
“You did this to me,” Adivion says. “You showed me what I must do. Only I can defy the gods. Of course. I am the only worthy vessel. And now...
“Now I will reward you for your service with your DEATH!”
So, when he drank the cup, it released a wave of necromantic energy that killed the priestess and on second round they rose as Daughters of Urgathoa and joined the combat.
Just another distraction and a thing to hinder the PCs and don't allow them to focus fire on Adivion. He had his Deflection spell up and running, so they were a bit reluctant to attack him head on.
Damn, I forgot about that. I fiddled a bit with my character sheets, so I moved Adivion's somewhere, totally forgot that someone might use it. But, here it is, good sir!
2:
Alter Self
Arcane Sight
Defensive Shock
Mirror Image
See Invisibility
1:
Dazzling Blade
Protection from Good
Read Magic
Shield
But, it seems that my math was off on his AC and Reflex Saves (that is, I forgot to take into account Haste, so just add +1 to both).
Also note, that this version of Adivion breaks WBL guidelines a bit. In total, he has around ~550k worth of equipment, whereas a PC of his level should have 410k - 530k. For my group it wasn't a problem, since they're experienced and work well together, but that's just a disclaimer for other people.
And a clarification for my round-by-round tactics, if someone intends to use them - In 6th round, he Dimension Doors away into the Undead Storm, where most PCs won't be able to follow him due to -12 penalty on Fly checks and needing a DC 25 to do it and 'summons' two Bone Golems. Of course, there's no such spell, but I just ruled it flavorwise that he does. They just appear on that round, nothing more. They had Giant and Advanced template on them, but in retrospect, I should have applied that template twice (an easy thing, when you use [url=http://combatmanager.com/Combat Manager[/url]), because they lasted only one round. While he's safely hovering in the undead storm, he casts two spells per round. I also ruled that if he's not using a swift action to cast Dimension Door in order to take advange of his Dimensional Assault line of feats, he (or rather, his soul which was merged with a part of Tar-Baphon's soul) can cast another spell as a swift action, so that's why he casts two spells per round in rounds 7 and 8.
I also removed the rule were Soul Lash backfires on him if he doesn't use it, because if I didn't, over the course of 10 rounds he'd suffer 28d6 points of damage from it.
In 10th round I assumed he'd roll a critical hit (and if he didn't I'd fudge the roll so that he did).
As for the AP itself, here are my changes and opinions on chapters:
Haunting of Harrowstone
Both me and my players enjoyed it very much. Maybe it's because first chapters are an entry to lots of new stuff or this was just an exceptionally written chapter. They took their time with investigations and making contact with Ravengro townsfolk. I didn't change anything of importance in this chapter, because we started not long after Carrion Crown was published, so much of the ideas that now exist in Adivion Adrissant topic didn't, at the time. But I totally would have make NPCs from later chapters appear (Daramid, Adivion, Galdana, Kvalca Sain, Rhakis Szadro and a few others). PCs were new to haunts, so they worked *great* on them (and they gave their party a name, The Haunted).
Trial of the Beast
First part of this chapter was my favorite part of the campaign, because the premise is fantastic. Not to mention that there hasn't been a trial in any of the previous APs and it reminds of what Paizo has done with Sixfold Trial. It took us 7 sessions to finish it, mostly due to amount of time spent on gathering clues, connecting them, discussing them etc. Memorable part was battle inside Vorkstag and Grine's factory - when they alerted the mongrelmen inside (although I switched from CR 1 Mongrelmen to CR 2 Morlocks) they retreated outside and went to other part of the factory, thus informing every inhabitant inside of the attack, so when they came back inside they faced 8 more Morlocks, Vorkstag, Grine and two Snapjaw Homunculus. The battle itself was really dynamic with lots of climbing around the rafters and lasted for 27 rounds (longer than battle with Adivion).
During the trial, I introduced Adivion in the AP, who made contact with the players and informed them that he was a former colleague of Lorrimore and offered his assistance (in game terms, he made a few Diplomacy (Gather Information) checks for them and they chatted a bit).
Second part of the chapter I didn't like because of the non-existant hook. Beast goes there (it's not explained why) and asks PCs to come (also not explained why) and then doesn't go with them (also not explained why), but when they're fighting the Aberrant Promethean, somehow he's 1d4 rounds away (also not explained why). That's too many plotholes. And the whole Schloss Caromarc was a tad too long for my taste, so I scrapped most of the Drowned Menagerie. Although every variant flesh golem was awesome, there's no dennying that.
I didn't think of this when I ran it, but my suggestion is to have the authorities of Lepidstadt cut off Beast's hand. The fact that he broke into the University and stole an artifact hasn't been adressed on the trial, and it's a fitting punishment for theft. Once they do that, Beast can go into rampage, kill a few guards and run into the swamps (towards Schloss in order for Caromarc to fix him). Since it doesn't tire, it can run faster than the PCs. Then they'd have to track him through swamps, but also hurry since tracks are getting older and they have to move at half speed and something could attack them while they do that... As written, it doesn't have much sense. Wish I thought of it earlier. But everyone agreed that controling the Beast was a neat idea and the player doing it enjoyed it, so it went well after all.
Also, Auren Vrood was the black necromancer that was mentioned in backstory of Jan Jozef Morr.
Broken Moon
A fantastic chapter. Murder mystery, werewolves, lots of different werewolf clans (all of them were awesome). My players enjoyed it, too. I really put an effort into giving life to NPCs, so they were annoyed by Duristan, suspicous of Estovion, respectful of Delgros Kroitzcer... It worked really well, and they were really into investigation stuff.
Estovion fled the battle on Stairs of the Moon (I replaced his levels of Aristocrat with more levels of Wizard). My players would later find out (through visions of Auren Vrood) that he fled to Feldgrau and begged Auren for help with Lycanthropy. Auren promised that they'll make him all better. More on what happened to him later.
I gave Mathus Mordrinacht a sort of Half-Packlord Template (since he got a bite of Kvalca Sain's heart), giving him a few boosts here and there to impress upon my players that there's real power in a Packlord's heart.
Also, one more thing I wish I had remembered at the time, but sadly didn't, was to make visions gained through the ritual more personal. As written, they just see themselves fighting bosses of remaining chapters. But, it would have been better if each of the PCs saw themselves getting killed by one of the bosses. I recommend future DMs to do so.
I think Ice Titan said that in his campaign, while the players were approaching Feldgrau they could see Adivion flying off on Marrowgarth, but since at the time my PCs were in Feldgrau, I couldn't do that, so I just added as a one more vision of Auren Vrood. I also recounted his history, how he was there went Count Neska rampaged through Furrows and how he was found (in my campaign instead of Yryssa Nine-Eyes or whatever she was called, Socorro found and trained him). In the vision, they also saw Adivion (with his face hidden behind a mask) land in Feldgrau and order Auren Vrood to die in battle with PCs in order to delay them, but in truth he did that because Auren killed Lorrimore (once again, I took this from Ice Titan, whose Adivion also did that). I wanted to portray their relationship as Magneto/Xavier, and like Magneto, Adivion mourned the death of Lorrimore.
Wake of the Watcher
I didn't look forward to DMing this chapter, since it was too unconnected with the rest of the AP, but to my surprise my players loved it. Two of them are fans of Lovecraft, so it worked really well. They grew to hate insanity checks (I think three of them went bonkers, some of them multiple times) and they loved the weird monsters were.
Minor change I added was presence of Adivion here. He used Alter Self/Polymorph to appear as Mayor of Illmarsh (who was dead for some time in the Mi-Go caves) in order to keep tabs on PCs and because he was intrigued by them.
Biggest change I made was to the Raven's Head mace. I wrote about it here (once again thanks to Ice Titan and Nebulous Mistress for their assistance). Here's the correct link to the picture, the other one is outdated. I changed its name to Ravenbeak (it rolls off the tongue more easily) and adjusted its history a bit. In my game, Ravenbeak was wielded by Prince Virholt, who was killed in battle against General Sey'lok (Nightwalker from 6th chapter) on Isle of Terror, who also wielded an intelligent sword called Corpselight (the name was taken from Rule of Fear). After his death, the battle was lost, but another soldier knew of the importance of the weapon and tried to get it back. Even though he reached the ship, it was destroyed by magic and Ravenbeak ended up on the bottom of the Lake Encarthan.
After that, it was found by the Skum of Avalon Bay and given to the Dark Rider in exchange for Seasage Effigy. Dark Rider performed a ritual on Ravenbeak (obtaining the Chronicles of the Raven's Tongue and extracting a bit of its power), but was later caught by the Skum (after he managed to inform Adivion about the knowledge gained from Ravenbeak, via Sending), once the Mi-Go were controlling them, because Mi-Go thought that a spellcaster might have a better chance to hatch a Dark Young once he was infected. My players found that out by simply talking to Ravenbeak, since it's an intelligent weapon. It also speaks in 4 voices at once, and those voices are voices of his original creators.
Ashes at Dawn
I couldn't wait to DM this chapter, but sadly, my players weren't that thrilled. Vampire Underground and vampires themselves didn't impress them that much (or maybe I didn't RP them that good, who knows) and they kinda felt that if Luvick Siervage is that powerful he doesn't need some mid-lvl PCs to do their work for him.
In Haraday Theater, they once again met with Adivion and also were introduced to Galdana. Rhakis Szadro was also present, who was trying to get Palatine Eye to help him to artificially gain Packlord template (by casting a number of Permanent spells on him) so that he could gain control of the clans and end the civil war in Shudderwood, which threatened to spill outside its borders. I did that just so PCs could see what happens in other parts of Ustalav they visited.
Once they activated the Whispering Gargoyle and trap activated - creating a programmed image of 4 liches - in my game those 4 liches were Nalthezzar, Socorro, Urca Namat and Gray Friar. Just a bit of foreshadowing.
At the end, they found out that Adivion was the leader of the Whispering Way (until then, he was mentioned as Lord Deathborn) and the sped off to Renchurch.
Shadows of Gallowspire
Aside from the final encounter itself, my PCs weren't that impressed by this chapter. Not because of quality of writing, but simply because every final chapter in every AP so far is basically the same - PCs storm the boss's stronghold. Since this was our third AP, by now that's getting old.
But, very cool liches helped and those were memorable encounters. Particulary the one with Nalthezzar, where the Sorcerer used Maximized Thanatopic Vampiric Touch (his favorite spell) to hit him and rolled a crit! 96 damage and 96 temporary hit points for him don't happen that often.
Remember I mentioned Estovion? Well, here he was. Whispering Way transformed him into a lich and since he was infected with lycanthropy, he ended up as a Werewolf Lich. I, of course, used the artwork of Lucimar the Lich-Wolf. It made more sense like this, since there's no way the PCs can learn about who Lucimar was and how he became a Lich Wolf.
It felt weird to me that Socorro wasn't mentioned at all in the AP, since he survived Tar-Baphon's fall and was around here somewhere. Since my players expected that he should appear somewhere in the AP, I thought of an idea how to, at least, explain his absence. I mentioned before that in the programmed image of the Whispering Gargoyle PCs saw the four undead leaders of Whispering Way (at least, they were in my game). I named them the Council of Whispered Dead (once again, I'm bad at naming these things, so feel free to use whatever name you can think of).
It was mentioned in Adivion's background that he spent several years seducing leaders of WW to his cause, so in my game, he succeeded with most of the Council of Whispered Dead. He succeeded with all but Socorro. Socorro didn't want no upstart human to disturb the hierarchy of the organization, so he they dueled and Socorro lost. Adivion then put his phylactery in Temporal Stasis and surrounded it with Walls of Force so that Socorro couldn't rejuvenate, but kept it as a trophy (he was arrogant beyond reason).
Rest of the chapter went as written, although I removed some repetitive encounters. I wrote about my version of Adivion and the combat here.
Combat lasted for 20 rounds and 4 hours of real time play. I think there were 7 heal spells used by the party (4 regular, 2 Reach Heals, 1 from a scroll) and even then two of them died - one was brought back to life via Breath of Life and the other via Wish from a Ring of Three Wishes.
In the end, Inquisitor killed Adivion and Ranger killed the Greater Shadow that was left as Adivion/Whispering Tyrant's soul.
I'll check with the bosses and see if I can't post a few discarded elements of AA from my original turnover. In particular, his stillborn lich template added some since-removed elements that might help you guys level-up the toughness of the encounter.
Any news?
We just finished the pentultimate session and my PCs killed Marrowgarth (though not before she killed one of them), before she got the chance to Dimension Door to safety. My original plan was for her to retreat when she was on low HP and be included in the final encounter. Unfortunately, she did not succeed.
Since I don't want Adivion to face the party alone, I'll give him four Daughters of Urgathoa (with another 3-4 levels of cleric, so they'd be lvl 10 in total). 5 of them versus 5 of the party (4 PCs + animal companion) will be the first stage.
Second stage will be Adivion retreating into the undead storm and summoning two advanced and giant Bone Golems. This stage is intended for him to harass the party with spells and give them a bit of relief from his full assault (far more deadly than spells), while keeping them on their toes by Bone Golems.
I obviously respect your opinion, so be as honest as you can.
Wow, that's so nice to hear! Thank you, you've made my day. :) I also enjoy reading your additions to Carrion Crown. Too bad you didn't post here earlier, could have used some of your changes.
Back to the question. Well, you should definitely get rid off Hasted Assault. Here's why - Lingering Pain is really, really good way to spend a swift action. It basically means forbiding the caster you hit the ability to cast spells on his next action, since given the amount of damage Adivion can dish out, makes that Concentration check next to impossible. Second of all, there are many ways to gain Haste. Aside from the obvious of just casting it using spell combat, you can also quicken it, or my prefered method, get him Boots of Speed. They activate as a free action, and even if they dispel it, he can just resume being hasted on the next round, since all they did was dispel the effect for that round. So, you can be hasted AND use Lingering Pain. :)
In preparation for DMing Curse of the Crimson Throne I bought a miniature of Ileosa, for use in the final encounter and painted it, using the color scheme provided in the last book. Here's how it turned out:
I get that. But there's FIVE APs that start in Varisia. Three of them wholly center around Varisia. I just think that Golarion is big enough of a place so that we don't need that many APs based there.
What's the best way to handle TPK? Pretend it didn't happen? Everyone makes a new character? Something else?
Thing is, with TPKs, they don't just happen by themselves. As a DM, you choose go through with them or not. If you don't want them to happen, don't kill the PCs. If they're all into negatives, once the last one of them goes unconciouss, end the session and think about how you're going to handle the situation.
Or, if the most of the part reall died during the fight, make a suggestion to the standing PCs that it might be a good idea to retreat, if they want to avoid a TPK. Yes, it's breaking the immersion, but it's a far better idea than ending the campaign or coming up with an unplausible idea of replacement PCs.
