Erik Freund's page

I would also not shard off 5A as its own encounter. Implicit in the definition of an encounter is the ability to patch up wounds via slow methods, like repeated pokings with a Wand of CLW. Also implicit is for short-term buffs, like haste and displacement, to wear off.

Because of these spill-forward effects (for both good and ill), he's part of the extended fight.

FWIW, these sorts of mid-fight reinforcements are very common in 4E adventure design, and the 4E DMG encourages their use, and subsequently, has rules for building it. However, this is of little use to you, as the "CR math" over in 4E land is wildly different than in PF.

I'm only going to comment on the initiative part here:
Make sure you don't punish players for rolling high initiative. This is a common problem with reinforcements if they just show up unexpectedly in the middle of imitative rounds, as now only lower-initiative PCs can interact with them.

I would suggest this: you have predetermined conditions for determining the specific round a reinforcement will show up on. Cool. At the top of that round, before anyone goes, announce that a new challenger has entered the arena, and make them targetable. Once everyone at the table understands what he looks like and where he is, then roll the newcomer's initiative and slot them into the order.

If the reinforcer rolls high, then it's effectively an ambush, and he gets the drop on the party. On the other hand, if the reinforcement rolls more middling, then it gives the high-initiative PCs an opportunity to hamper his entry or get in some initial shots against him: as should be their right for being high initiative.

Total concealment requires you to guess the square of the target. The devilfish is large, so it's 4-squares large on a 2D tacmat. (And I would suggest that if you're in an underwater 3D environment, the GM should make the devilfish a 2x2x2 creature, thus 8 squares. Though this my extrapolation, and not in the base rules.)

Assuming your ally is small or medium sized, that means he or she would only take up one square. If the devilfish is grappling him or her, then that means that PC is sharing one of the devilfish's 4 (or 8) squares.

When Player B guesses a square to attack, if that square contains a devilfish, but not a friendly PC, then there is no chance of hitting that PC. Only if Player B guesses Player A's square is there a chance.

Now, what is that chance, assuming he targets the very square his ally is in? (For Player B, who doesn't have blindsense) By the rules, there isn't one. There's a printed optional rule that says you hit your ally on a natural 1. And I think the GM is well within his or her rights to houserule the situation. But you're not actually able to accidentally hit an ally in the Pathfinder rules. It's one of the things they dropped from 3.5.

I'm having trouble with the plotline in the middle of the AP.

The entire point of the gigantic research project that dominates adv3 is learn that Cisitek is relevant to the Forgotten Pharaoh, and to find where Cisitek's Tomb is. This was super-secret and lost information, and adv3 really puts the PCs through the wringer to find this out.

However, once the PCs travel through the Parched Dunes, they find out that the Cultists have already looted Cisitek's body. Huh? How did they know to do this?

(Oh, and furthermore, they've set up base just a few miles away.)

How were they able to find the Tomb?

Or when the Forgotten Pharaoh possessed (I forget her name), did s/he just remember where Cisitek was buried, and head straight there? If so, why did s/he only *just* recover the body? And why is he still in the Parched Dunes?

I'm both looking for the "behind the GM's screen" answer, as well as advice on how to handle the "WTF moment" my players will have after going through all the trials of adv3 to only discover "haha, got here first!", which won't make any sense to them.

If you're using a lot of printed materials (like an AP or somesuch), it's going to be very error prone.

The tricky thing it is that you have the same terms in the source as well as the destination. If you made up all new terms, it would be less error prone.

Something like:
10 brass = 1 copper
10 pennies = 1 silver
10 mithrils = 1 gold
10 gil = 1 platinum

That way, if you see an "old" word (or even 'say' an old word in your mind), you'll know that it's from the old system, and need to be converted. But if you hear a new word, you'll know it's converted.

Otherwise, you run into a situation where you get the phrase "2d6 gold" in your head, and you don't know if it's pre-converted or post-converted.

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Otherwise, potato potato, it doesn't make any difference.

The 'perfect' system search is for my home-brew world which started as a 3.5 customization but d20 can't cover it anymore. The World is unique and different in many ways, hence the whole patchwork idea and yeah generic systems don't cover it. I don't think.

What do you do in your homebrew world?

- Is it a lot of high-courtly intrigue?
- A lot of spelunking lost tombs?
- Commanding armies across the battlefield?
- Surviving the gutters and alleyways of the ghetto?
- Climb on the back of kaiju and rock out like Shadows of the Colossus?
- Struggle against the inner darkness, wondering if you are still human at heart?
- Invent and build new airships, trying to move the world into a new era of steampunkery?
- Struggle to survive, carefully counting rations in the bleak nuclear winter of the zombie apocalypse?
- Study ancient manuscripts searching for the truth while barely holding on to your own sanity?
- Do a lot of exploring of the wilderness?

And I don't mean "the characters do it", but I mean "what do you lavishly spend your tabletop time on?"

For example, in both Conan and Middle Earth, the group traveled a lot, traveled all across and over the world. But in the Conan stories, that was so inconsequential to the plotline, the travel would be over in two sentences (or less!) of Howard's prose. Yet in Middle Earth, travel is so important and fundamental to the tale that Tolkien spends page after page going over the finer details of camping, the songs that they sing, and the (otherwise irrelevant) legends of the places they pass. It's all a matter of emphasis.

What emphasis do you want your spent-table-time to have for games played in your homebrew world?

What tone do you take?

- Crime-drama-style grim-in-gritty?
- Greek-style methodologically epic?
- World-of-Warcraft-style modern high fantasy?
- Realistic to a specific earth-historical period?
- (this is not an attempt at an exhaustive list)

And, looking forward, what tone do you want to take, and what shortcoming are you most looking to overcome?

The answers to these sorts of questions, in my mind, would strongly matter to determine which games (or systems from games) would be best to represent the sessions you want to run?

(And I would put the emphasis on "sessions you want to run in your homebrew world" rather than simply "your homebrew world")

I prefer game systems that are hyperspecialized into covering their specific material.

Therefore, I love Pendragon to play in Author's Britain.
Next on the list would be Artesia to play in that setting.
I also love me some Blade of the Iron Throne when I need to get my Conan on.
I haven't actually run a session of it yet, but from reading through The One Ring, I'm excited to run a Middle Earth campaign.

Any sort of "generic" game, for me, would have to scratch a thematic itch to which the game is specialized for:

So I like Dungeon Crawl Classics when I want a whiz-bang old-school blender-of-death full of randomness and weirdness.
I like Torchbearer when I want to experience the grind of a roguelike, and that drowning feeling that dungeon-exploration can give.
My favorite system for high fantasy one-shots where we just have some fun being awesome and then dropping the game? 13th Age

So, it really depends on what you're trying to do.

I think the "truly generic" systems (like D&D, etc.) compromise too much, and don't really solve any specific gaming situation very well. I'd much rather use the right tool for the job, rather than pretend my swiss army knife is the only tool I'll ever need.

Thanks!

To make sure I'm looking at this from the right side, let's come at it from two different angles:

Let's say a cleric with hold monster prepped. I see a harpy flying overhead. On my turn, I cast my spell.

Does the harpy fall on *my* turn? Or wait until her turn to fall?

Another example, with slightly different timing:

Now I'm a wizard with antimagic prepped. I ready an action to cast it on any aerial intruders.
(I'm picking antimagic instead of dispel magic because a number of flight spells have special trigger clauses regarding dispel that I'm trying to avoid in this example.)

A sorcerer, benefiting from overland flight or some similar effect, zooms overhead, having used up only one move action, so his turn's not done yet. My readied action goes off though.

Does the sorcerer fall immediately (it's my readied action, so timing is weird), or does he fall starting on his own turn?

I just picked up Ace Trip, and my table is divided on how it works. Namely: when does the creature fall?

Relevant text:

the target falls at a rate of up to 100 feet per round ... until it hits the ground. Upon impact, it falls prone and takes falling damage ... A falling creature is considered entangled until it hits the ground, but it can attempt a Fly check at the start of its turn to stop falling before it hits the ground ... otherwise, it is unable to move (other than falling) but can act normally.

Let's say we've got a Roc flying at-or-less-than 100 feet off the ground above me. It's a tough throw, but I hit it with my Ace Trip.

Basically, what we can't figure out is if this is designed to be a "one save" ability, or a "two save" ability. Giving the monster only one save (my CMB check) obviously makes it stronger for me. Giving the monster two saves (my CMB check + a Fly check) makes the feat a lot weaker.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

Has anyone put together a map showing where the PCs end up going on this journey?

Psionics is an exotic "other." The question is what type of other? Your player is saying that, in a vacuum of context, that is sci-fi. So give him something else.

In my games, psionics is the magic of the Orient. It's filled with Buddhist or Hindu imagery, and practitioners often look like gurus or yogis. That's my psionics, and it has its crystals and whatnot, but it's definitely not scifi. I've given it a thing to be.

You've got to give it a thing to be.

As a GM with a family, I finally have come to believe rules bloat is a real thing.

Back in college, or before I had kids, as a GM, I thought it was all fun and dandy and I was willing to stay on top of things.

And even now, when sitting in the player's chair, I like to buy books and try out new things.

But as a GM who has reached his 30s and sleeps less than 6 hours a night, and I've got my one night out a week with the guys, when a player or a published module says "I want to use weird thing X now", my only response is "ugh, I don't have time for this." Finding time to prep for game is hard enough. Staying up to speed on the latest whiz-bang and all the errata and tiering and forum-opinions on it (that my players will be leveraging) is a bridge too far at this point in my gaming life. I love the game, but I am sour on the meta-game.

Keep the modules coming. Keep the setting books coming. But please, for the love of sanity, stop publishing rules, and stop using them in your modules and setting. It really does cause GMs like me to refuse the run the game, and turn to other systems that are inherently self-limiting by virtue of fewer rule books.

- my 2 cents

The Zeitgeist adventure path (for Pathfinder) has an industrial tech setting. It doesn't start off with airships, but tech continues to move along over the course of the campaign (for example, PCs go through the transition from flintlock to rifled weapons). In the final 1/3 of the campaign, eventually airships get invented, and then there's some pretty cool aerial combats.

pict of a dude parachuting out of an airship from Zeitgeist

Whew. What an adventure path!

I'm currently GMing this beast, right now we're deep into book 4, but I've been reading along and hungrily eating up these issues as they come out. And now it's over!

This is truly the best adventure path that I've had the pleasure of running or playing. (My #2 would be Kingmaker, my #3 is Rise of the Runelords, and #s 4&5 are a tossup between Carrion Crown and Razor Coast, if anyone's curious.)

I know that a lot of people want to wait for an entire AP to be out before they run it (and for good reason, I'm usually like that) but now it's out! So anyone who was holding back, check this sucker out. It's gloriously complex, and not for the faint of heart, but for an experienced group, with an experienced GM ... Wow. Tremendous payoff.

Oh, and, from what I've read of this particular issue being advertised here: it looks like it really rocks. It is truly reality-shaking epic, in the finest sense of the word.

I'm totally sold-out for Zeitgeist. :-p

Zeitgeist adventure path is super-duper cohesive and tells a very tight narrative, complete with recurring NPCs, and plot threads that mature over multiple adventures. If you get the whole thing, goes all the way up to level 20.

http://paizo.com/products/btpy99xp?ZEITGEIST-The-Gears-of-Revolution-Act-On e-The-Investigation-Begins

It's 3PP, but Paizo peeps have contributed to different parts of it (e.g. Liz Courts did adv #11).

I'm running it now for my home group, and I strongly recommend it.

Runelords is the only Paizo AP that I've finished. So long as TPK by Karzoug counts as finished.

Just because now I'm rambling ... how did my PCs recover Briar?

Well, Pitax was open about the fact that it was looking for a sword. They send in spies and thieves to plunder every bastard sword they could find in the kingdom.

After Irovetti fell, they recovered half of a bastard sword: it was split perfectly down the middle, lengthwise. It still functioned as a +2 weapon though.

Then they remembered that MANY MANY years ago, when adventuring in the Margreve forest (Tales of the Old Margreve by Kobold Press), they encountered a spider wielding many strange weapons, one of which was a the Half-Sword of the Margreve Knights. The party confronted the Spider Crone, and demanded the sword, and she offered "a broken love for a broken love." One of the PCs had in her backstory that she had an affair with Meager Varn, but broke it off before the campaign began. Well, didn't they trundle on down to Vordekai's tomb, find Varn's moldering, semi-decapitated body, and bring it back to the Spider Crone. Anyway, so now they have two halves of the sword, each functioning as a +2 weapon.

Upon investigation, the two sword-halves no longer perfectly fit together, as they have since "grown" after being sundered. So the party has take them back in time, to remember their youth, were they were once supple, so they can be reunited. Enter Armageddon Echo from the Second Darkness AP. (Which happens to be Gloss Nim's hometown.) While back in time, they meet Nyrissa, then just an nymph, and her boyfriend, Count Renalc. Well, things get testy while waiting for the meteor to fall, Renalc starts throwing around disintegrate spells, and long story short, they kill Court Renalc by stabbing him in the heart with both halves of the sword. This act heals Briar (who, being a shard of future Nyrissa, knows the betrayal Renalc will eventually do to her), and unites it into the proper +4 weapon that it needs to be. Then they work together with Nyrissa to flee the city before the apocalypse occurs, all the while trying to dodge questions about "what's that sword, and why does it feel so familiar?"

Perhaps this is why it's taken us 4.5 years to get to book 6...

Whew, it's taken us a long time, but last night, the blooms finally started to erupt across the kingdom.

The instigating incident was to cast a spell to grant the queen, an elf named Gloss Nim (look it up in Sindarin), the grace of ultimate beauty. Suddenly and unexpectedly, reflective surfaces nearby the queen warped and distorted, growing eyes to stare at her. A deeply jealous Nyrissa, watching from her Mirror On the Wall, unleashed her plan to consume the Stolen Lands.

The high priestess of Pharasma saw a vision of various blooms erupting through a map of the kingdom, and at the end of a month, the vines grabbed the map, tearing a hole out of the middle of it. (It allowed me to make sure the metagame rules and stakes were clear to the players as well as the characters.)

Meanwhile, the king, who had been imprisoned as a political prisoner of the Queen of Air and Darkness for the past three IG years (one OOG year), finally broke free as the Shadow Courts began to dissolve and be absorbed by the Fable. Falling through the clouds, he lands upon his wyvern and soars out to save the kingdom.

Meanwhile, the court magician (alt character of the player who also runs the aforementioned imprisoned king) notices a gigantic planar earthquake on his magical richter device while he's in the middle of teaching a class at the academy of magical arts.

I narrated back-and-forth cutting between the above vignettes while playing the opening song in Carmina Burana. A little overdone, but it got things started with a bang, and let the players know that things were about the get real.

...

We started playing this campaign on May 20th, 2010. Now, almost exactly five years later, the endgame is in sight. (Caveat: only four-and-a-half years of playing; had to take a 6mo break in 2014 for paternity leave.) It's been a long road, and now it's nearing the end. At the pace we play, I estimate wrapping up around Thanksgiving.

I decided to play up the blooms as of Biblical proportions. The whirlpool was 10 miles across, and I described the water elementals as being 5 stories tall with arms as long and thick as semitrucks. The mandoraga swarm was so rapid and self-replicating (inspired by swarms of locusts), that the only recourse was to hire out Corax's entire lumber company to secure a burnline, then use the mages to burn down two entire hexes of forest/farmland. That's 300 square miles! The Horned Hunter would go into small towns, slaughter 20% of the population, and use their corpses to make letters to spell out a mocking challenge to the king. We just finished up the Nightmare Rook (each PC jumped into a dream, and we ran them in parallel: some dreams were turning pretty deadly, but as soon as one PC scared the raven off, everyone work up). Now we're halfway through the month of blooms. The PCs believe that Nyrissa is sending the blooms in order to increase Briar's sharpness, so they are considering trying to dull the weapon or otherwise keep it away from the blooms so that doesn't happen any more. We'll see what comes next!

I made this somewhat rambling post because I don't see a whole lot of "book 6" posts on the forum, and just wanted to chip in and let people know that some groups do eventually make it this far. :-) It's a pretty fun romp!

In Ethiopian sacred art, which has a formal ecclesiastical foundation going back over a millennia, they usually depict Jesus with dark skin and other classic/stereotypical African facial features.

Virgin with Child

the washing of the disciples feet

Just sayin'

Yes, I did this quite thoroughly over the last year.

I kicked off the events similar to how it is presented in that module. Shadow Fey showed up to their capital city, acting like they had taken over, etc. Did the whole conflict with the Hidden Ambassador, etc.

Then they accessed the courts via the lantern ritual: which is to say, I put the Courts in another dimension.

Lots of fun was had at the courts. My players *loved* the ability to will people out of existence that were below them in rank. They climbed the ladders of prestige, going through Winter Court, then Summer Court, did the feast, the hunt for the firebird, the full nine yards. It was great! I did severely reduce the hedgemaze and moonlit tower parts though, as I had a different use for the King. (see below)

What it also gave me the opportunity to do was create some good, findable backstory for Nyrissa. I took a cue from Akyshigal's (the roachlord) agenda. I said that in the past, Nyrissa was a courtier that rose up the ranks of the courts, and eventually caught the eye of the Moonlit King. The King was deeply in love with her, and was prepared to divorce the Queen and marry Nyrissa instead. This, of course, drove the Queen to great jealousy, and it was *she* who ripped out Nyrissa's capacity for love and cast it into the material world (as Briar).

So while the PCs are rising up the ranks of the Shadow Courts, they can learn about "the last courtesan of the King" and otherwise get to know Nyrissa ahead of time. At least, that's how I used it.

What's your goal with including the mod?

Maybe it's just my run of luck, but I'm seeing a lot of animal-motif'ed items. i.e. "[Animal]'s [Equipment]"

I'm frustrated by the overarching plot in this one. It's very "Sorry Mario, your princess is in another castle!"

I'm totally fine with a trail of breadcrumbs. Going up the lieutenant hierarchy towards the archvillian is fine to do. (Which is what books 1&2 did.) But,

That's not really a comment on the value of this issue as a standalone, just how it fits into the whole. Though it's also starting to suffer from Carrion Crown's lack of recurring NPCs or locations. Not sure what to do about that.

Also my daughter has been getting into her irish-swedish-german folktale roots so anything along those lines are welcome, it might be that getting book 1 of iron gods would fit does anyone know how horror-y it is

and thanks everyone, great stuff!

There are some dark bits and some scary bits as every Paizo AP tends to have. But nothing struck me as "horror" about it.

The second book (Lords of Rust) was a little spookier (more in the 2nd half), if you absolutely must go with Iron Gods.

If you want folktale roots, I had a lot of fun running Challenge of the Fang in Kobold Press's [/I]Tales of the Old Margreve[/I]. If you play up the PC's metagame expectations the right way, things can get real exciting. :-)

I always run a heavily thematic game for Halloween. The question I have to ask you is this: are you trying to run:
A) a fair/normal Pathfinder game that has horror/creepy elements, or
B) a game session that resembles a horror movies, fairness be damned, that happens to run in the Pathfinder rules?

Personally, for Halloween, I'm all about option B. But I also realize that's not everyone's cup of tea. Make sure your players are on-board with it.

Anyway, for option B, I'd heartily recommend Hangman's Noose, or Tale of the Seabear. Those are first-class horror-movie-emulating adventures perfect for Halloween-oneshots. As a second-tier, a streamlined Skinsaw Murders focusing only on the manor, or Carrion Hill, deliberately rigged to fail, would be nice fits. (Yes, rigged to fail: if you run Carrion Hill, the Shoggoth must come, otherwise this isn't a Halloween oneshot.)

If you're more of an option A sort of group, then Haunting of Harrowstone can be nice, but you'll have to streamline it a ton if you want to get to the good parts before the evening is up. Also a non-rigged Carrion Hill, or a (heavily streamlined) Wake of the Watcher.

If you're more into internal-squick-horror, consider From Shore to Sea, playing up the degeneration side of things (and making sure the PCs start to suffer as well).

Another recommendation (for either category) is Midnight Mirror. Less overt horror, but if you keep the pacing right, it gets really dark and interesting in the 2nd half.

Your biggest issue with any of the above is going to be finishing any of them as a one-shot. AP issues are designed for 4 sessions with a well-oiled group, and modules for 2-3 sessions with a well-oiled group. And a Halloween oneshot is pretty far from that. You have to pick roughly 3 or 4 encounters to highlight, focus on them, and throw out the rest. It's hard: take it from a guy who does this every single year. Keep a clock behind your GM screen and focus hard on pacing.

(And calling out once again Seabear: ran that last year to candlelight: amazing!)

Reading through the desert exploration (2nd half book 3, 1st half book 4), I'm a little concerned, and looking for insight.

The net output from Tephu is "Chisisek might know something; his tomb is in the Parched Dunes." If there's anything more than that, let me know, but I think that's all you have to start the hex-crawl with. It's not even clear which direction to go, or for how far. (Meaning, PCs could wander far off the map.)

Within the hex-crawl, I see only two ways of figuring out where Chisisek's tomb is. First at the salt lakes, if you find the petrified adventurers and restore them to flesh (which the module says would be a cruelty due to erosion), then one of them can tell you about the tomb. Second is when traversing the hex the tomb is in, the party is entitled to both a Perception as well as a Survival check (DC 20, both) in order to find it. Since many of the hexes are empty, if the PCs find yet-another-empty-hex (due to failing this check), they are likely to think nothing of it, and just move on.

This seems failure-prone. As a solution, I guess I'd have the party get attacked by cultists, and then let them get interrogated or have it slip. (Which is tricky given the established use of troth.) I'd prefer to leave bread-crumbs and make the hex-crawling itself meaningful. Any ideas of nifty sign-posts to lead the way?

Furthermore, once the party gets to the ravine that Chisisek is in, they only need to go as far as to rescue the trapped sphinx, at which point she can tell us "I'm sorry Mario, the architect's body is in another castle". There's no need to crawl the rest of the ravine or clear out the nearby pyramid. Since the sphinx knows the desert well, and has an aligned MO, I see no reason why the sphinx would not become a GMPC for the entirety of book 4.

Is there a reason to finish book 3 after the sphinx is freed? Is there a way to prevent the sphinx from becoming a GMPC in book 4? Is there a way to make book 4 more than just "ask the sphinx to fly aerial reconnaissance until she sees the sightless sphinx, then beeline straight there"?

Also, I get that cultists cannot be captured/interrogated in the traditional fashion because of the troth, but what is to stop the PCs from casting Charm/Dominate (or traditional double-agent intrigue) in order to bypass all of book 3 (library + hexcrawl) and half of book 4 and jump straight to the sightless sphinx?

Really enjoying the art in this one. The technical skill of the artist seems much higher in this volume. Very detailed lines and expressions.

Exceptions, of course, but on the whole, the change is noticeable. Props to whomever you onboarded to this one.

Note: I'd say: looking is a form of interacting!

Every GM is entitled to do things their own way, but if "looking is interacting", then why does the book use the word "interact" and not "observe" or "see"? If that's the intent, wouldn't that just be a lot clearer?

(Aside: I think it's fair to say that having a conversation at range is interaction. Not all interaction has to be via touch. The essential quality of interaction is that the other responds to you in some way. If it just sits there ... you can hardly call it interactive.)

Erik Freund wrote:

Now, that's talking about illusions of entirely fake things. Let's say that I happen to own a red scabbard, but I use an illusion to make it look like a blue scabbard. Simply touching the scabbard won't let you get a free saving throw, because "red paint" feels just like "blue paint". You'd have to dig deeper to see through that one.

What? No, if you interact with the "red paint" illusion you get a save. That it feels the same is not important. You're interacting with the illusion so your will power automatically tries to overcome the magic.

We're getting into GM-adjudication here. As for myself, I would say that "touching" is not the same thing as "interacting". A quick dictionary search for Interact: "act on each other: to have an effect on somebody or something else or on one another"

I would say that touching the paint of a scabbard doesn't fit that bill. You didn't "have an effect" on it. (Assuming normal, dry paint, etc.)

With a creature, touching is pretty much always interacting. Or if the wall is fake, and your hand goes through it, that's clearly interaction.

Ghost sound is special. As per the last sentence of the spell, you automatically get a save to disbelieve no matter what. Without interaction, without noticing a discrepancy, nada. This is an exception to the general rule. (Hence why they have to call it out there, but don't have that text on other spells.)

Each illusion spell is different: I'm only talking about general rules and principles.

Now, in the case of your 5000-ft pit to lava, I'd call foul. I'd expect to feel overwhelming heat from the lava being so close, and I'd expect to hear my voice echoing like crazy from having a 5000-ft tube nearby. The GM should give me these descriptions (without a Perception check; they're pretty obvious), and now armed with these hints, I know to stop and be cautious. Maybe toss some coppers on the floor in front of me, see if they fall through.

(And even if I did start falling, 5000 ft takes a few rounds to fall down: I'd hope I'd get a few chances to grab a wall or something. At least ask a friend to attach a rope to an arrow and shoot it at me.)

Remember: low level illusion spells are limited, and can't hide/cover things like heat. That's part of where the balance comes from.

So if there's an illusionary floor do you just automatically fall through it?

If you are Wile E Coyote, then no. You only fall once you disbelieve. :-p

More seriously, yes you start to fall, but where it goes from there depends on the setup. If there is a real floor flush with an illusion (covering a pit/cliff), then you should be entitled to a Reflex save to quickly put your weight back on to your other foot and avoid falling in. If the character was running at the time, that character should be penalized. Either way, there's no Will save, we're only talking about Reflex saves. (You'd get a Will save if you prodded the floor with a pole, or tossed dust over it, or whatever.)

If you want to deny the Reflex save, then the illusionist needs to be devious. For example, take a situation where there is a horse-track with a small fence to jump. And on the far side of the fence, there's a pit covered by an illusion. Horse jumps the fence, and ... goes into the pit, no save.
(I've also seen this done with a rope hanging down a wall for easy rappelling. The rope is about 6 feet short of the ground, so you rappel down, then let go and drop the rest of the way. There was a black ooze under that illusionary floor. Bad times.)

So, am I only entitled to disbelieve an illusion by stating I do?

Different illusion spells have different rules, so this isn't universally applicable, but in general you get a saving throw whenever you notice a discrepancy, even if you don't say "I disbelieve"

So if you see (an illusion of) a little girl just standing there, you get no save. If that girl then proceeds to pick up a horse and lift it over her head, you get a saving throw. Likewise, if you were to try and touch the girl (interaction), you would get a save.

Now, that's talking about illusions of entirely fake things. Let's say that I happen to own a red scabbard, but I use an illusion to make it look like a blue scabbard. Simply touching the scabbard won't let you get a free saving throw, because "red paint" feels just like "blue paint". You'd have to dig deeper to see through that one.

Remember that by default, your character believes everything around him. He believes there is a floor, so he walks across it. He believes there's an orc in front of him, so he attacks it. Etc.

Simply saying "I disbelieve" without any associated action doesn't do anything. (i.e. doesn't give you a saving throw to disbelieve) You have to interact with the object. And you have to interact with it like you believe it doesn't exist.

So if you disbelieve a wall, that means you try to walk through it, which, if it's real, will cause you to bump your head and maybe tweak your nose.

If you disbelieve an orc, and thus try to wave your hand through it, and the orc happens to be real, the orc clearly deserves an AoO against you for dropping your guard like that.

Another extension: if an archer is shooting arrows at you, and you try to dodge (i.e. add your Dex bonus to AC), then you are believing in those arrows. If you willingly let an arrow hit you in the chest, then are you disbelieving it. (Via interaction.)

So that's why you can't (or at least shouldn't) say "I disbelieve everything." Because then you'd bump into a bunch of walls and then get killed from not dodging any monsters.

Hopefully that makes sense.

If you're a new GM, I would recommend against the vast commitment and contextual effort of an AP. I think modules would scratch your itch much, much better.

To first take the pressure off: playing any Wizard in RotRL will be just fine. (Note: that's "Wizard", not "arcane caster") Beyond that it's all gravy.

If you are considering going partially ranged, I'll recommend Ranger->Arcane Archer. There are good opportunities to really get good mileage out of favored enemy, and other Ranger-tricks.

Also, I'd dial back expectations on level-cap. You won't hit 17 unless your GM is padding in sidequests or RP-XP. Expected play has you hitting 16 after winning the final conflict. So don't design past 15.

If you're going multiclass, the general advice of "guard the early levels" holds true here as well as anywhere. Beyond that, you won't get gimped for being a few levels behind the curve. You won't "miss out" on the cool Wizard stuff if your casting level is reduced due to multiclassing. You'll still rock the combats and be pivotal for the non-combat portions.

As far as what to focus on: bear in mind that RotRL is filled with manyvery high HP targets. Playing the damage-game isn't going to be your best option as a Wizard. As such, I'd recommend against Evoker.

Great book. I didn't really process beforehand how big it was going to be. Rivals the Core. That caught me by surprise.

I was always looking for good PF replacement to 3.5's Spell Compendium. This isn't it. At all. This book has dreamt so much bigger, and gone so much further. It was the gift I didn't know to ask for.

I really enjoy the art and overall feel of the tome. It was a pleasure to flip through and explore in a non-linear fashion.

(A bit of negative feedback though: I find the tables/summaries pretty hard to skim; I would have appreciated more of a font difference between headers and tablevalues, and slightly more generous indentation.)

But content is king, and I am very impressed. The sense of arbitrary whimsy is exactly where I'd want it to be. It's not at all "cookie cutter" and magic feels like it should. Most importantly, many spells paint a strong visual picture so you "get" how the magic is unfurling in your mind's eye. That's huge for immersion, and something I have been seeing increasingly lost elsewhere in gaming.

I think I just accidentally wrote a review. *shrug* Anyway, very happy with being a backer on this one.

Give them more to work with. You presented three options (the genie, the princess, and the dragon) which all look the same. Don't let them look the same. Because if there are truly the same, there's no decision-making even needed.

Make one of them the "right" answer, but don't punish them much for picking the "wrong" answer. Talk about how the dragon is shoring up resources for a larger assault, and if he's not stopped soon, other towns will suffer. Then they have to decide: deal with the dragon *now*, or get the genie's help first? That's a more meaningful decision.

Alternatively, work it into their backstory. I know what you're thinking: they don't have one. That's fine: they sound like the type that would be okay with you dictating it on the fly. Let them know that the princess is a cousin of theirs, and give them a memory about a time they met her at a family reunion. Or tell another player how his uncle died trying to get the lamp: and it would restore honor to his house if the lamp could be reclaimed. Keep it simple, so the player can go "rar! my lost honor!", the roleplay might be simplistic, but it's starting in the sort of small-sized bits they can be comfortable with.

Hope that helps.

And the reason I say Ulfen (Iobarian) is becuase, if I remember my Golarion History lessons correctly, Choral the Conqueror came from Iobaria with his 'House' and dragons.

Yes, but about 20 years ago, that bloodline famously vanished. Thus it no longer has any impact on the current ethnodemographics.

In my game, I made Issians more Ulfen so that they could contrast with (and be distinct from) the Kellids that operate very nearby.

The goal is to create an adventure that everyone at the table enjoys. That includes all established group members (though not necessarily transient/tryout members), and that specifically includes the GM. Make sure you're running a game you enjoy. You might not enjoy fully, due to compromises, but make sure on the whole, you enjoy it, and you're not just GMing as a service. That's all I'll say on the "social issues" side of this. And it'd be nice if the forum crusaders in this thread would stop telling others that they are having badwrongfun.

So dealing with the larger issue of "I've introduced a topic that the party hasn't taken well to": I agree with Changing Man, don't retcon, it creates a horrible precedent, and destroys seriousness and immersion.

Usually the best way to "deal" with it is it have it fade into the background. If it stops showing up in the PCs' face, they usually lose interest and refocus on the core elements of the plotline. In this case, I'd stop having the NPCs get defensive when they are questioned/attacked, and instead have them deal with the criticism passively. (Not giving in, just saying "sure, whatever" and getting back on whatever the prior topic was.) In most cases, the PCs will simply lose interest if you stop fighting them.

If, however, the PCs continue to show interest in getting involved, then you should remove one of the distracting NPCs from the equation. It seems your group has fixated on Anevia, so have her leave town. You can even have her "break up" with Irabeth to give some finality to it. The overall arc of the plotline won't suffer too much from simply writing her out of it. Keep Irabeth's role in the campaign intact, so as to preserve that half of the continuity.

My guess is that should put the issue to rest and let you get on with your game. Which is about being heroes that kill demons in the Worldwound. The AP is not supposed to focus on taking sides in opposing/supporting the interpersonal relationships of side characters.

And if, for some reason, even after removing Anevia, the PCs still stay fixated on Irabeth's identity, then I would posit it's because of lack of anything else for the PCs to focus on. Give them other interesting NPCs as well, and give them other interesting issues that engage your players. You could be in a situation where it's the only thing they know to grab on to.

Finally, if need be, make Irabeth "fed up" with relationships, and say she's done dating anyone, male or female. She's no longer gay, but something akin to celibate. You could even cast the blame for that upon the PCs if you think that would send the right message.

Because the game isn't supposed to be about this. It's supposed to be about delving into ruins and freaky landscapes, killing demons, and getting awesome treasure.

I know I've run into this situation as a GM:

Players ask what is allowed in my setting/houserules, and I try and come up with a filter that best establishes the mood and powerlevel I want to give. Everyone plays ball except *that guy* who is obsessed about some particular concept or idea. I try and tell him no, but he tries to "compromise" with me, which mostly involves pointing out how great is backstory is, why it's not that broken, and why I absolutely must let him play it. I try to put my foot down, and tell him this isn't going to work and he needs to play by the same rules as every other PC. Then, next week, he shows up with that PC built in violation of all or most of the rules I put down.

Now, the guy's a friend, the group is established, there's plenty of other reasons to keep him around, but he's got a stubborn streak, and it's currently on fire. I tried to be assertive, I tried to do it above board. But, he's trying to escalate things into a position where I would need to be aggressive or harsh conversation needs to happen. So I have a choice on whether to escalate.

And sometimes the choice I make is that he can use the character, but I then engineer situations so that his wacky build (that he wasn't supposed to choose in the first place) can't be used effectively. (Throughout various methods, usually scenario-design, but sometimes including fudged rolls.) Eventually, he'll get bored and reroll. Is it passive-aggressive? Yes. But sometimes (rarely) that's the path a GM has to chart to keep the social clique lubricated and moving forward.

I did this earlier this month to a player. I'm sure he'd tell the story very differently too. But this is how the story unfolds from my side of the GM screen. I'm not saying that's the OP's GM's story, but it's something to think about.

Unrest becomes relevant once per month. The entirety of the bloom cycle only takes one month. And then you've either won the campaign, or your kingdom is bottled. So it's not really relevant.

Besides, stopping the action of bloom cycle to do a kingdom-building step (which should be pretty timeconsuming at this size) would result in bad pacing IMO, and as a GM I would try to make sure that didn't happen.

But in the event that your PCs defeat the bloom cycle, and then want to take a breather before assaulting The House, then I'd posit the compounded effects of the other events (like the attack of the High Folly, or the Jabberwocky) would have a much greater impact on unrest than "that nightmare thing that happened a few weeks ago." And the guidance for winning other major victories in the AP has been "reduce unrest to 0".

Hope that helps.

Just a theory: Perhaps the dropoff in difficult is an illusion, and perhaps all the AP volumes are indeed built to the same difficulty, and built with the "average group" in mind.

However, perhaps there's a strong correlation between "experienced players" and "persistent players", whereby a majority of players reaching book 6 happen to be the experienced ones.

Anecdotally, many low-experience players I know would quit a campaign if there was a TPK, and proceed to kick off a new one. If this bears through for many groups, then the only ones playing in the endgame are the players most likely to win combats.

Even moreso, I've found that low-experience players choose to end their campaigns when it gets too high level and the rules become too unwieldy for them. It's really only highly-experienced players that I see desiring playing double-digit levels.

All of this compounds the selection effect, and undermines the concept of an "average party" for any given book.

Therefore, perhaps it makes sense to raise the baseline skill assumption for higher level material?

I've often (tried) to use the same metaphor Torlandril, though I never elaborated upon it so formally. I view roleplaying/sports the same way as you do. However, also like you, I've found there's a lot of hostility to the idea. At best, I occasionally get on my soapbox when the laptop is out for the 3rd session in a row, and shame it away for a little bit. Always comes back though. *sigh*

I wish you all the luck and encouragement. (And, there isn't a chance you happen to game in the Seattle-area, is there? ;-))

Hi Alice. As an isolated event, being showcased for its uniqueness, is this interesting and acceptable to drive a plot around? Yes, that sounds very interesting.

But the purpose of the majority of the NPCs in my game are not to headline plotpoints. They're just backup and part of the setting material, and are not supposed to be stealing the show. And if my quota is that I'm supposed to make 10% of my NPC population LGBTQ, then this model becomes unsustainable. I either need to closet them all (and be done with it), or have them all be openly LGBTQ (and be done with it). I'm trying to be inclusive and include side flavor, not move it into the center stage and take over from the story I'm trying to tell.

My use of the term "LGBTQ race" was only to help make a contrasting point and help in my response to Jessica's post. It's not how I conceptualize the situation otherwise.

You indicate that I should "change what I think needs changing" and that would be "nothing; heteronormativity has served me well up through now", which I have been told by some well-reasoned points is wrong, which is why I am here.

And you hit one of points on the head when you said "doesn't affect you in ANY meaningful way". It clearly does affect me (or rather, my NPCs): if I am a king and a grandfather, and my come-of-age son is gay, and he decides not to take a wife, then that will break our dynasty. So I have every incentive, as a king looking to continue my dynasty's hold on the throne, to force my son to "take one for the team" and place familial duty over personal choice. Which is the beginning and essence of LGBTQ discrimination and closeting.

Since I see "duty over freedom" as an assumed component of most all cultural stories that I read (King Arthur, Thousand Arabian Nights, Viking Sagas, etc), and these stories are fundamentally what I'm retelling at my table, I seem to be at an impasse. One that I can't see a way across myself. So rather than give up and remain strictly heteronormative, I'm asking for help from those offering it.

Thanks Jessica and Ambrosia.

To follow up with that: I think you make an interesting point on race v culture. And maybe that's where some of my roadblocks lie. As far as I understand history and our great cultural stories, it's clear that the "LGBTQ race" has existed for millennia. However, from as far as I am aware and from the cultural stories that I read (and these stories are fundamentally what I'm trying to recreate when I run my games), there was no "LGBTQ culture".

Meaning, that to varying degrees, throughout history&stories gays were mostly closeted. And the modern concept of "openly gay" or "gay pride" (not to mention the medical breakthrough of post-op transsexuality) did not exist in any form.

Now the gist I've picked up is that only having closeted gays is discriminatory and tantamount to racism against the LGBTQ community. (Because the need to have a closet implies a largely discriminatory setting.) But I'm having trouble figuring out how to write openly LGBTQ characters into my world and have it many any sense, and to be appropriate. Hence my Latino analogy.

Or am I mistaken, and "closeted only" is a fair goal in all of this?

Hi, new to the thread. I'll admit, I've only read the first page and last few pages. But in the interest of keeping stuff in the same place, I'd like to ask some questions here. Feel free to throw links at me if this is a bit redundant.

Background: myself and my gaming groups consist only of traditional genders, and are only white and non-LGBTQ. In the years I've been GMing, in my campaigns, sexual identity was handled as strictly heteronormative (though I certainly didn't use that term at the time), and only included gay aspects if I was making a particular plot point around aberrant behavior (a la Game of Thrones). So I'm here to learn.

I've never included gay material otherwise because "it didn't make sense" and "people didn't openly do that in medieval Europe". Now, in light of recent politics and this thread and whatnot, I'm willing to reconsider, but I need someone to walk me through that doorway, because I don't see why/how on my own.

Most of my objections boil down to "nowadays, we have technology that allows for a LGBTQ lifestyle, and back then, they didn't." But to elaborate:
In my games, there isn't much of a middle class. There's commoners and nobles. But both have the same need: perpetuating their family line and having someone take care of them when they are older. From what I've read of the medieval era (and is still true today in Asia), if a person showed LGBTQ interests, they were told "knock it off, deny yourself, do what's right for your (extended) family, and get a spouse and make babies." Basically, dynasty and obligation trumped happiness and personal freedoms. Now, once a person is married, they can certainly have additional sexual relationships, but that's adultery, which should generally remain a cultural taboo.

So how do I include openly LGBTQ characters given this paradigm? I see a couple ways forward.
1) mimic technologies such as IVF and sex-assignment operations via magic (and make available to the masses)
2) adultery is culturally permissible
3) get rid of things like "birthright" and "inheritance" and let everyone in the setting be comfortable with adoption supplanting birth

I'm guessing the answer is #3, which saddens me, because that undermines or eliminates many classic plotlines and stories (for example, King Arthur). And as a Crusader Kings II player, I greatly enjoy those intrigues. It also begs the question as to where all these adopted kids are coming from. (Assuming 10% of the population is LGBTQ, and that's a lot of orphans to adopt.)

My other objection (that I'm looking for help to overcome), basically boils down to "how far do we go with this inclusiveness thing?"

Here's how it plays out with me: first we noticed all our heroes were men, so we made women heroes too. Then we noticed all heroes were white, so we made some of them black. Then we noticed all heroes were straight, so now we're making some of them LGBTQ. How far does this go? Specifically, in America the Latino/a population is currently growing, and I'm having a lot more Latino friends in my life. Surely, they will soon ask "I see white heroes and black heroes, where are the Latino heroes?" And then I'm stuck. Because my response is going to be "well, there's no Catholicism nor tacos in my campaign world, so you'll have to settle for another brown-skinned race that is otherwise utterly unlike what you're looking for." Obviously, that's the wrong response. But I include it here because when I think of including LGBTQ for inclusiveness's sake, I feel the same way: "Nothing like that is in my world, so settle." I'm looking for someone to help me with that.

Thanks!

Does the suppress feature of Spell Tinkerer work on any magical effect without a roll? (That is, effects where no creature is directly targeted.) In other words, can I use it to bypass a Wall of Force, Prismatic Wall, or Anti-Magic Field without any risk of failure?

That seems ... strong.

They are both right, but it requires some careful splitting of hairs and lawyer-like reading.

Specifically, when you are mounted, it never "says to treat a weapon that is normally wielded in two hands as a one handed weapon", it merely says to wield the two-handed weapon in one hand.

Without the word "treat", the second FAQ entry is not invoked.

I have a two-tiered question with regards to dancing+smite:

A paladin in my party has four abilities worth noting:
- Smite Evil
- Aura of Justice
- an intelligent bastard sword
- an amulet that lets him make any weapon dancing once per day

He wishes to declare smite evil, then grant his intelligent weapon the dancing ability, then wreak havoc. Does this work?

If this does not work, he wants to put dancing on his intelligent weapon, then use Aura of Justice so that the weapon (being an intelligent ally) can use Smite Evil.

Any thoughts?

Wow, what a book! I'm really excited about that Masquerade Ball adventure where you have to kill Juliet, and then have to rescue her soul from a netherwordly prison. That up-and-coming author really seems to have some neat ideas in there. I'd definitely buy it just for that one alone. ;-)

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Now that I've gotten that shameless plug out of my system,
One thing I really like about the Midgard Tales compilation is that quite a bit happens in each adventure. Things just keep moving. There's very little grinding or filler, and the across the board, the pacing stays very high.