Erik Freund's page

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.

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!

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!

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?

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?

I asked this before, but it was buried in a much longer post, and I got conflicting answers. So, just to pull out the essential bit:

If a character is mounted, and wants to be sneaky, who rolls the stealth check: just the rider, just the mount, or both of them?

And for purposes of getting the +20 vs the +40 bonus from invisibility: are both of them or only one of them considered to be "moving"?

(I would rule that some mounts automatically fail stealth, because horseshoes on hardpack is loud. But let's ignore that. In my scenario, the mount is a bonded animal companion monstrous spider in a cave.)

I know how Spell Sunder is supposed to be used, but in their classic style, my Wed night group is trying to convince me of strange things...

But I know that I can be wrong on these things, so please help me out here:

Benefit: Once per rage, the barbarian can attempt to sunder an ongoing spell effect by succeeding at a combat maneuver check. For any effect other than one on a creature, the barbarian must make her combat maneuver check against a CMD of 15 plus the effect’s caster level. To sunder an effect on a creature, the barbarian must succeed at a normal sunder combat maneuver against the creature’s CMD + 5, ignoring any miss chance caused by a spell or spell-like ability. If successful, the barbarian suppresses the effect for 1 round, or 2 rounds if she exceeded the CMD by 5 to 9. If she exceeds the CMD by 10 or more, the effect is dispelled.

Let's say an opponent afflicts a party member with a fairly standard debuff, like slow. Can the Barbarian punch his friend in order to cure him? I'm inclined to say yes.

Is there any reason why the Barbarian can't punch himself in the face to cure his own affliction? (and autosucceed)

Finally, what if an opponent afflicts a party member with a "stickier" debuff, like bestow curse or baleful polymorph? Can the Barbarian use Spell Sunder in order to "dispel" the condition? If not dispel it, can he at least "suppress" it?

The text of Spell Sunder doesn't say "as dispel magic", but merely uses the word "dispelled", which is the same word used by break enchantment and other high-powered spells in their writeups. So I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work by RAW.

Since the guy has dozens of rounds of rage per day, this make post-combat healing trivial, and the party Oracle is now planning on swapping out all of his remove curse and similar spells known and just relying on the Barbarian to take care of all such matters.

Is this right? Is this intended here? It "feels" wrong, but I can't find an actual flaw in the argument.

Regardless of the answers given, we'll be reading through your responses as a group before session tomorrow night. Thanks so much for your help!

Had a session this week, and I'm not sure I made the right calls. I'd like it if some people could weigh in on how this is supposed to work. If anyone's curious, we were playing Rappan Athuk, and this took place in room 8-16, but that shouldn't be necessary to adjudicate these calls.

Thanks in advance!

On 05/20/10 we held our first session of Kingmaker with 1st level characters. We played through books 1, 2, and 3, with copious additional material. Over the course of nine in-game years, the party founded a kingdom, conquered the Greenbelt area, and reached level 10. On 08/02/12, party TPK'd against Vordekai.

The following week, we rerolled new characters, starting at level 5, and advanced the in-game clock by 6 months. The kingdom was in shambles, the various cities independent or given over to bandits, and the remaining council squabbling over the scraps. The new party did not consist of rulers, but were merely adventurers, concerned citizens of the crumbling country. They played with these characters for eight months, and the new party gained 5 more levels. They eventually recaptured the imprisoned souls of the old party, returned them to life, and on 03/12/13, the combined two-characters-per-player party defeated Vordekai and his minions in an epic showdown.

However, in the time the king was gone, the inheritance passed to next of kin: his older brother of House Medvyed. So last night, on 04/11/13, in a deliberately brazen move, the king rode his horse into the throneroom of Medvyed, snatched the crown from his brother's hands, and placed it upon his own head.

Now, there will be war.

Trying to clarify the Powerful Justice aspect of Oath of Vengeance

First, let's clarify what normal Smite Evil does:
- CHA to hit
- CHA to AC
- level to damage
- 2x level to damage on first hit against special evil
- DR/all

Powerful Justice specifically gives you:
- level to damage
And specifically denies you:
- CHA to hit
- DR/all
Leaving ambiguous, does Powerful Justice impart either of these?:
- CHA to AC
- 2x level to damage on first hit against special evil

------------

After figuring out those details, I'm a little unsure how exactly the ability is used.

It seems to me that with one expenditure of the ability, the Paladin choses to either give himself "full smite" or to give the whole party (including himself) "lesser smite." Is that true?

Other possible interpretations:
- with one expenditure of the ability, only allies get "lesser smite", and the Paladin himself gets nothing
- with one expenditure of the ability, the Paladin gets "full smite" and his allies get "lesser smite"

Thanks!!

Last night we had a fun time trying out a recently released high level module. Please, if you can figure out which one it is, no spoilers, as I'm a PC. But it brought up some rules issues, and my GM asked me to post to the forum on the group's behalf.

There are four PCs:
- a Wizard with overland flight (me)
- an Oracle with a weird race that has physical wings (30ft, poor manu)
- a Monk and a Paladin, each on their own Carpets of Flying

We spot a putrid lake, and decide to fly 100 ft over it. As we are doing so, as expected, a huge evil thing bursts up out of it. The relevant detail: physical wings (40ft, poor manu).

We want to flee.

First question: can you "run" while flying? Please answer for each of the three movement types. (The GM ruled on the spot "you can't run while flying, only double-moves" to keep the game moving.)

Then I cast haste on the party to increase our movement rate. Second question: how does this interact with our three modes of transportation? (The GM ruled that the guy with physical wings got +30 move, but that Carpets of Flying and overland flight were not affected by that aspect of the spell.)

When it was determined that we couldn't get away, we decided to engage. At this point in time, the create had risen up 60ft above the surface of the lake. The Monk decided to make a charge attack. The creature (being huge) had reach. The Monk wanted to roll Acrobatics to avoid the AoO. (The GM ruled he couldn't, because the Carpet of Flying would have to be doing the weaving back-and-forth, and it is simply a command-word activated item. So the Monk was forced to suck the AoO.) Third question: can you roll Acrobatics on a Carpet of Flying?

Then the Paladin drew his bow and began firing. Fourth question: do penalties for archery while mounted apply here? What if the Carpet had moved that round? Can the Carpet double move, and the Paladin still take an action?

Later in the combat, we managed to stagger the big critter. "Stagger" means "can only take one standard action." It decided to use an SLA. On the prior round, the thing had been flying upwards at 45degrees. It has poor manu, which means that it must keep moving forward on its next turn (ie this turn). But it doesn't have a move action this round (it was staggered, and chose to cast an SLA with its action). (The GM ruled that it got the spell off, then plummeted into the lake on the end of its turn; this triggered AoOs, but otherwise allowed it to escape.) Fifth question: how is this situation supposed to work? Does it really "fall like a rock"? Could a flyer chose to do that normally? If it does "fall like a rock", then does it happen at the start of its turn, or end of its turn? (As various attacks would go in or out of range.)

Thanks for reading!!

Sword of Islam
Aura strong transmutation; CL 14th
Slot none; Price 75,500 gp; Weight 4 lbs.

Description
This +3 holy scimitar is the blade of Allah, most majestic, most honorable.

Whenever the wielder of the Sword of Islam recites the Shahadah as a standard action, he receives the benefit of protection from evil at CL 14. If he sheathes the blade, or hands it to another, the protection lapses. This ability is usable once per Salat; thus, a maximum of five times per day, but certainly only once per encounter.

The Sword of Islam can call a man to repent once per day. The wielder points the blade towards an intelligent target within 100 feet and denounces their sins before Allah, most glorious, as an intimidate check to demoralize with a +4 sacred bonus. If the target becomes shaken, then the visible judgment of Allah, most just, causes all non-Muslims that can see the target and hear the wielder to become shaken for the duration. Regardless of the success of the intimidate check, the Sword of Islam gains the bane special weapon ability against the target. Yet, if at any time, the target falls prostrate, confesses the Shahadah, begs for forgiveness from Allah, most merciful, and swears to submit himself to right teaching under the wielder of the Sword of Islam, then the oath automatically is sealed by a quest (no saving throw) at CL 14. The Sword of Islam loses the bane ability and will treat him as a pious Muslim (see below) for the duration of the quest.

The blade cannot cut the skin of a pious* Muslim. If the blade is struck against the flesh of such a man, the sword shall not pierce his skin, for it is the will of Allah, most peaceful, that no pious Muslim should ever shed the blood of another. However, Allah, most wise, knows that sometimes conflict must occur, and therefore permits the blade to be used to deal nonlethal damage to a pious Muslim, provided the wielder takes the normal -4 penalty to hit.

Muslims can prove their piety by running their open hand across the cutting edge of the blade and revealing an unbroken palm. Woe to the infidel who attempts such a ruse! If an infidel attempts to move his palm over the blade (perhaps by using Sleight of Hand to merely appear to touch the blade), the Sword of Islam detects the infidel’s trickery, and makes an attack roll with +18 to hit against him (if the infidel is not prepared for this, he is caught flatfooted, and likely does not receive his armor bonus either, as his hand would likely be ungauntleted). Allah, most vigilant, can see into the hearts of men.

*note: not all Muslims who profess the name of Allah and his messenger, peace be upon him, have the same devotion to the Qur’an and zeal for the faith. A “pious” Muslim is someone of Lawful Good alignment who is strict in his adherence to each of the Five Pillars, seeking to submit to the will of Allah in all things.

Construction Requirements
Craft Magical Arms and Armor, protection from evil, quest, creator must be a pious Muslim; Cost 37,750 gp

Orlovsky is the single most powerful house, (even more powerful than Surtova) but it cannot move on its own, for if it were to, the other houses would have a knee-jerk reaction to defend the throne (out of fear that "the throne" would be the winning coalition, and each house wants to be on the winning side). That being said, Orlovsky is trying to shore up alliances with other houses. It is on favorable terms with Medvyed (for historical reasons), and has been giving copious aid&support to the floundering Garess, and so long as Garess is firmly latched to Orlovsky's teat, their loyality will remain unquestioned.

Surtova is the next most powerful house, and currently controls the throne. They maintain a firm grip over their northern (ancestral) holdings, but the grip over their southern holdings is weak (recently taken from Rogavaria). Many of the farmers within the old Rogavarian lands sell their goods at the PCs' capital rather than New Stetven (because it's closer, and their loyalties are weak). I have represented this mechanically as the PCs' Kingdom receiving bonus farm hexes without having to add to their Command DC. If Surtova ever notices that the PCs have been (ignorantly) stealing from them, there will be hell to pay.
To help keep a lid on Orlovsky's power, the throne has announced increased tax rates on all of the goods that historically come out of Orlovsky's lands (without explicitly referencing the house). The taxes have started to take a bite, and in a few years, Surtova may surprass Orlovsky in power.

Next in power is Lebeda, the rising star of the Brevic houses. Historically, it has been one of the weaker houses, existing mostly on the periphery, having only their robust cultural identity to fall back on. This cultural pride is so strong that even during the centuries where the craftsmanship of Brevoy was dominated by the Dwarves of house Garess, when all of the other Brevic houses shut down their competing industries, the fiercely proud Lebedans instead took to a "buy local" mindset, insisting that they would only buy Lebedan-produced goods, even if they were more expensive and of inferior quality. This uniquely positioned them for their meteoric rise, as Garess's downfall has been their great gain: with the flow of dwarven-crafted goods dried up, the artisans, jewelers and blacksmiths of Lebeda have eagerly filled the void, virtually redrawing the tradelines of Brevoy in the last couple decades.
As a GM, I needed a culture to model them off of (since culture is so key to them), so whenever an issue of food/dress/custom comes up in-game, I model them roughly off of the Rajisthan region of India (albiet Eastern-Europe-ified).

Defining the middle of the power-spectrum is House Medvyed. They are the hearty and durabe "heartland" of Brevoy. They enjoy a historical friendshp with their northern neighbor (Orlovsky). Much of Medvyed is rural or backcountry, and pockets of Erasil worship can be found there. All of my PCs are "from" Medvyed one way or another. The Ruler is the son of the vassal knight of Lord Medvyed. Our Treasurer is from the Mivon branch of House Medvyed (remember that the Brevic houses have corresponding houses in Mivon, depending on who fled when). And our High Priest is technically Surtovan, but has renounced her heritage and choses to identify with the common people, having grown up in rural Medvyed.

I haven't done much with Lodvoka yet in my campaign. They are the historically weakest house in Brevoy (however Garess has since sunk below them). They control the north, and are therefore allied with Surtova. They very loosely control some land north of the Lake of Mists and Veils (stuff I've pulled from the Crown of the World article in JR#3). Later in the campaign, I will reveal how Choral the Conquerer came to these lands first to do his final staging and preparations for the invasion of Brevoy, and how they, in great fear, betrayed the country of Brevoy to him, revealing all of Brevoy's defenses and weaknesses. In return, Choral gave them some reward of great power that I'll make important to the campaign once the PCs get to high enough level. Revealing this fact will essentially turn Lodvoka into a pariah state basically kick it out of Brevoy, leaving Surtova exposed with no real allies.

Finally, at the bottom of the totem pole is weak, pathetic Garess. They used to be so powerful, so dominant, virtually controlling trade across the country. Now, they are nothing. They were completely reliant on being the middlemen to the great and impressive trade with the dwarves. Their land looks like dried up earth.
GM note: the PCs visit the capital of Garess quite often, and in order to hit that "was once rich and is now impoverished" tone, I end up describing it a lot like Markarth from Skyrim. Lots of carved stone awesomeworks, but everyong living it is skinny.

---

The PCs have been dutifully holding Lebedan-cultural festivals in their capital every year since the country's inception. This has earned tremendous brownie points. Historically, it has been in form of gifts (read: GM-hand-picked magic-items from 3PP books.) However, just recently, Lady Lebeda proposed to the Ruler of the PC Kingdom that he should foster her son (and heir to the house) as a squire. (A la Theo Greyjoy from Game of Thrones.) "One rising star recognizes another." They see the growing factionalism in Brevoy, and want to create a southern-alliance to counterbalance against the Lodvoka-Surtova alliance as well as the Orlovsky-Medvyed-Garess alliance.

Orlovsky keeps their fingers in every pie, and was the first to recognize the PCs' Kingdom as a Noble House of Brevoy. They also provided far-and-away the most funds for when the PCs were first starting out.

---

Last night, the heroes finally opened the sealed gate that leads down to the long-last Garess dwarves, slew the evil inside (using a heavily modified Clash of the Kingslayers as an outline), and reopened trade with the outside world.

The political upheavel will be glorious.

I envision such a conversation between Adivion and the PCs in his townhouse in Caliphas, or perhaps his estate in Ardeal, over tea, sometime between the end of book 3 and the start of book 6.

-----------

I did not write the "Carrion Crown" poem. It was Petros that discovered it, almost nine years ago, back when he was putting together the Order's records on the Whispering Way. We studied it together, him and I, and concluded that it was written during the lifetime of Tar-Baphon. Or rather, during his undead years, but before his destruction, if you can call that a "lifetime." It seems to describe a way to constitute a new phylactery.

We decided that such a treasure would be immeasurably tempting to any members of the Whispering Way. So I took advantage of the role I previously held at the Quarterfaux Archives, and I had it published under my name. I even joined the Whispering Way during this time. Disgusting organization, really, if you can even call it that. It is a shadow of whatever it once was, a fully decentralized mess of necromancers and other wretches with delusions of grandeur. It is not run like a sophisticated, modern organization should be run. It turns out obsession with dead people doesn't translate over into logistical finesse with living ones.

I digress. My role in joining the Whispering Way was to fish out any real threats within it, and keep tabs on them. The Carrion Crown poem was the bait. Petros had affection for this sort of opposition research, as I'm sure you are aware. All manner of necrophiles sought me out to learn more, or try to coordinate work on assembling the ingredients. Some even managed to get quite far under my guiding hand. Petros and I didn't feel any threat from having the poem "out there", as it had been in quite wide circulation for some time immediately after Tar-Baphon's defeat, and it gave him no boon then. However, as an added protection, I was there to mentor the would-be reborn-Tyrants to "guide" their progress. Sometimes this was straight into the waiting arms of Pharasmin Inquisitors. *smug grin*

So, the case of one Mr Vrood. The Order, as you know, has its fingers in many pies, particularly in the northwest. It was time for a change of power in the Shudderwood. The details and motivations for this, are, how do you say, "Esoteric." I gave Mr Vrood an invitation to Ascanor Lodge so that he could retrieve the packlord's heart for me. This plan, as you are doubtlessly keenly aware, was a complete disaster. Not only did the fool Vrood fail to actually deliver the heart to me, but the only worthwhile mind in all Ustalav had to pay the price of his crude insolence.

Why didn't you tell the Professor about your arrangement with Vrood?
You must understand, my involvement with Mr Vrood centered around Ascanor and the Heart. He did not reveal his other ventures to me, and he moved quite quickly to enact them. I first learned of Vrood's activities in Ravengro from Petros via pigeon, but before I could encode a response, I was already being invited to his funeral. This is where I gave in to vengeance and sought out your services. Vrood had gone too far, and he needed to be eliminated.

What do the other lines of the poem refer to?
Petros and I came to the conclusion that the stanzas of the poem do not each strictly refer to a specific object, but more generally refer to abstract concepts that were key elements in the life of Tar-Baphon. However, I would imagine for the poem to be successful, the bar would be quite high.

Where are the components now?
Doubtlessly with one of Vrood's lackeys who escaped your blade. Likely hiding in a hole somewhere. A hole, no doubt, blocked by divination magics. I am anxious to discover where they have gone. Perhaps you can help me in this?

I understand Hawkrin's Ghost, the Packlord's Heart, and the Feldgrau Skull are all part of the poem, but how does the Seasage Effigy fit into this?
It is clearly not a component that the poem describes. The Way often Whispers mysteriously. It is obviously very important to them. I will reach out to Professor Crawl in Lepidstadt to see what we can learn from him.

So, maybe we're Paizo-fanboys, or maybe we were just *that* anxious to get our pirate-on, but tonight we decided to play a oneshot focused around the new naval-combat rules in the S&S Player's Guide.

We can into a lot of rules questions. If anyone knows clear answers to these questions, please chime in! Maybe we can turn this thread into a clearing-house for figuring out the rules.

Without further ado:

Our ship was on fire, then we grappled and began shipboard combat; how do we now put the fire out? Can we take the "uncontrolled action"? Or is the crew too busy fighting, and we're doomed to burn?

We had lots of momentum (4 squares/rd), and start only 1 square away from another ship, so we attempt to ram. We fail the CMB check; do we end adjacent? Do we "slip on by" the ship and end elsewhere? The text says our "movement rate is reduced to 0", which implies that kicks in next turn - but what about this one?

We are now perpendicularly adjacent to the enemy ship (from the failed ram). We then initiate a grapple (and succeed!), do the ships move to parallel position? The text seems to say so. If this is the case, on which initiative tick? The exact tick matters, as now shipboard combat is about to begin, and the spellcasters are itching to try out their short-range spells.

When you do a mass attack from the broadsides, what attack bonus do you use? We eventually picked +3, because we figured they'd all be warrior 1, with a dex mod of 1, and they all took weaponfocus(seigeengine). But what should we have really done? Are there rules for getting a better crew?

The text says the sails become broken if "half the squares of sails are destroyed" (sidebar, pg 11). The enemy ship had 90 squares of sails, but we didn't have any ideas as how to correlate the damage we were doing to the squares that the ship had. So we just went with "half HP" instead to make it consistant with how other things get broken.

We attacked the enemy sails, they got the broken condition: what exactly does this do? We ruled -2 to Prof(sailor) checks to accelerate/deccelerate. Is this right?

How does "changing the heading of your ship" work? When we did it, there were three squares between our two ships. Then we successfully did a "hard to starboard" action. Because our ship was three squares long, this made us instantly adjacent. Is this correct?

Thanks!!

How does Flurry of Blows interact with the Power Attack feat?

Flurry: "A monk applies his full Strength bonus to his damage rolls for all successful attacks made with flurry of blows, whether the attacks are made with an off-hand or with a weapon wielded in both hands."

Power Attack: "This bonus to damage is halved (–50%) if you are making an attack with an off-hand weapon or secondary natural weapon."

Let's assume I'm fighting completely unarmed, and don't have any other special effects going on. I Flurry, and use Power Attack. Do I deal less damage with half my attacks?

I just finished running Feast of Ravenmoor in a Kingmaker context last night. These are my conversion notes and highlights.

The state of the campaign/kingdom for those that are curious:

In my game, I repeatedly emphasize that there are many hamlets in the kingdom beyond the few "royal cities" that they have established and exert direct control over. These little, podunk towns never grow very large or contain much wealth, and mostly exist as places for a few farmers to gather. They spring up in any hex that is "claimed."

The treasurer (a PC) was informed that one of her accountants had noticed an accounting error, and trying to cover her own butt, hired out one of the Knights of Erastil to collect the backpay. It's been two weeks, the Knight hasn't returned, so it was time to take the concern to her boss. (The PC Treasurer fired the accountant for having the nerve to go behind her back.)

The traveled to the hamlet (which I located in a hilly hex on the edge of the kingdom), and found things were fairly amiss there. The church of Erastil was in poor repair, and the people kept referring to him as "the antlered one" or "the field tender", but never by name.

Taking advantage of the fact that the PCs were the King and Royal Council, instead of a "Founder's Feast", it simply became a celebration that their lord had decided to visit them.

I made the cultists followers of Gyronna (since she has already been introduced in the campaign), and thus the Mayor and all elders of the town were female.

The module went along, and I mostly want to share some of the aftermath elements. But first I will say, that the aerial battle between the Blightspawn and the king's Wyvern was a truly epic sight to behold.

---

The PCs had to retreat after getting their butts somewhat kicked (said Wyvern died, for example). So they went back to their military city (Fort Stone Oak) and marched their army out to Moor to round up everyone and wipe the town from the map. I emphasized, strongly, that "soldiers" are not "guards", and there would be unintended civilian casualties (just in case they want to try this again), and they want ahead anyway.

It was a massacre. Half the town was slaughtered that day. Only one cultist was captured alive. Then, with the army guarding the surviving townsfolk, the PCs were able to explore the (now abandoned) town in peace. That's when they found the Misbegotten Villagers in the shed. (I took some hints from the "eww" parts of Hook Mt Massacre in describing these guys. I also made them mentally retarded.) They brought the one surviving cultist to the shed to explain to them what they had found.

"Who are these people? Were they born this way, or did something happen to them?"
"Why should I help you? I'm dead either way."
"If you turn away from your evil faith, and help us, we'll consider reducing your sentencing to exile."
"These men *spitting* have been cursed by Gyronna. It is her blessing that she has transformed them into what they truly are, what all men truly are on the inside. We keep them in here and use them we see fit. When there aren't enough foriegners visiting our village, they make acceptable stand-ins for sacrifices."
"..."
"Do not look so strong, King, Gyronna will see that you meet a similar fate."
"Men, kill her."
The soldiers did not hesitate.

Later, the treasurer (who was elsewhere, tallying up goods), asks the King, "I have some questions for her, where'd the cultist go?"
The King merely quipped "she didn't repent."

Afterwards, they need to decide what to do with these creatures they've come to simply call "the wretched."

King: "uh, High Priestess, what is the will of Erastil?"
High Priestess (a Paladin): "uh, what do you think we should do, my liege?"
King: "I think I just passed the buck. It's your job to determine morality in this kingdom."

There was a lot of back and forth with me as GM about what Erastil believes, but I refused to give the PC the clear answers she was looking for. I merely reminded her that as a Lawful character, whatever principal she comes up with, she was bound to stick to as official policy from thenceforth. There was much angst, but in-and-out of game, but eventually she decreed that the villagers should be forced to care for these men, as they must pay for their sins as a community, even if they individually took no direct part in it.

The entire surviving town was then rounded up (wretched in tow), and marched to the city for integration. Moor was then burned to the ground.

Anyway, just some notes. Hope it inspired or at least entertained someone. :-)

How does the Mute Hag work? She's... "mute" right?

How does she bargain with the PCs to get her body parts back?

How does she cast any of her Spell-Like abilities? She has "Blind Fight", but not "Silent Spell"...

Is she intended to be a joke of a caster, or am I missing something?

How are the PCs supposed to survive the final combat?

First, let's look at the lead up:

- The PCs are likely to have prepared spells to help them against human opponents (ie Charm Person), as those have been the only visible antagonists so far.

- They've fought through some of the Chernowitz (sp) Manor, and maybe some of the misbegotten behind it.

- There's a chance that one of the PCs starts off bound or otherwise missing gear (though unlikely).

- They just finished fighting a level 5 Cleric with high DCs on crippling debuffs such as Bestow Curse.

- And the PCs are expected to be level three.

So they're likely been roughed up as much as they can handle, and then they have to fight a Blightspawn?!

This sucker is listed at CR 5, and has some great opening moves available to it. An additional Bestow Curse is cruel, but bonuses like Blur also make for a tough fight. Add on to that +10 to hit and 2d6+7 damage, and you have a recipe for one PC death every other round. With the ability to threaten out to 10ft reach, the PCs can't even effectively heal/retreat if things are going poorly or they want to change up tactics.

The creature has DR 5/magic: it isn't a given that PCs can bypass that at level 3. Let's eyeball it that only half the characters in the party can, and they still get to deal with fast-healing and AC 18 on top of that.

How is this supposed to be doable at the party's level? Has anyone run it; how did it go?

In my Carrion Crown game, we're big into prelude cut-scenes. For example, before Harrowstone, we played a one-shot where all of the PCs were guards trying to stop a prisoner rebellion. They all died in a fire of course, but once they started playing their "real" PCs, they cared so much more about what was going on in Ravengro.

Having just put down the Aberrant Promethian last session, we decided it was time for the next prelude cut-scene. Given the fact that the political situation in Broken Moon is very complicated, and the PCs have very little ability to learn much of it until late in the module, I decided it would be great fun for them to play as werewolves in the oneshot. Only this time, we're going to break from Pathfinder rules entirely, and we're going to do it with the World of Darkness Werewolf the Forsaken rules. Minus anything that wouldn't work in Golarion's Shudderwood; for example, the Hisil.

I'm still figuring out exactly how I want to do this, and I'm looking for ideas. Here's what I know so far:

- I want some amount of time to take place in Courtrad, since the (real) PCs spent some time there, it will thus give grounding to the setting. And knowing that werewolves had infested the place is cool/creepy.

- I'll have to invent more locations in Shudderwood than just the Highthrone. Place the (real) PCs will never go. Conversely, I don't want to involve Ascanor Lodge for the werewolf PCs at all.

- I'm thinking of the PCs mostly being Silverhides, perhaps with a BrokenOne present in a priestly capacity.

- Some part of the quest should involve getting something from an ex-tribemate who has since converted to the worship of Jezebal and joined the Demonwolves, since that will doubtlessly cause good RP, and showcase that tribe's MO.

- The northern Shudderwood is mostly given over to spider-like creatures. This is reinforced in Broken Moon. Therefore I want an epic battle with a giant spider-beasts for my werewolf PCs.

- I don't want the PCs to be Kilveca Sain's assassins, but it would be great if they could do some mission that sets up for the assassination. In any case, it would also be good for the PCs to meet Kilveca Sain before she's killed.

- I don't want to do much with the Prince's Wolves since they are kindof the "good guys" (from the modules point of view), and thus need the least showcasing in a cut-scene.

Any thoughts besides?

I want a Brevoy AP.

Due to the amazing success of Kingmaker, to hundreds of Paizo-fans, the River Kingdoms is their "first home." Other fans feel that way about Varisia, but there's five APs out or announced that take place there. The River Kingdoms has only one.

And Brevoy looks awesome. George R R Martin's Game of Thrones series is clearly inspiration for this region, and the book series and TV show are hugely popular right now.

There's a hunger for urban campaigns. Curse of the Crimson Throne is possibly the highest rated AP on the boards, and people loved the idea (if not the execution) of Council of Theives. I think Brevoy would be a wonderful place to set the next urban campaign.

The Slavic/Russian flavor of Brevoy is a great place to unleash some incredible creativity, and really dig into a specific culture's creatures and mythos. I can see some really nice support articles coming out of such a location.

And besides, any and all support articles from the Brevoy AP would be used as good background and sidequests for the Kingmaker AP.

We care about Brevoy. We know about Orlovsky, and their machinations towards the throne. We wonder about the disappearance of House Rogavaria, and want to know what happened there. The setting is already known; the fan-base is built-in. We want to do this.

Just something to consider.

As an act of curiousity, I'm trying to come up with a list of all bossfights in Paizo APs where it would be reasonable to have the fight while mounted.

Let me do some definitions:

"bossfight" is loosely defined to mean:
- a battle (usually against a solo opponent) that has a CR significantly above the party's level
- the fight takes place at a transition-point in the story (a boss cannot merely be in the middle of a dungeon)
- note: a boss does not have to the the BBEG at the end of the book

"while mounted" I'm a bit stricter with:
- it was possible and reasonable to get your mount to to the boss without having to resort to summoning or other tricks (unless the PCs themselves were forced/assumed to use the same trick)
- "a mount" is assumed to be a large creature with limited dexterity (a horse cannot climb a ladder, for example)
- that there is enough space to run around, say to use the Ride By Attack feat most rounds
- the boss is either mostly land-banded, or the PCs are sufficiently high level to assume a flying mount (I'll roughly peg this at level 9, since that's when Wizards get Overland Flight)

If anyone saunters over to KQ front page today, my entry is currently getting featured.

I feel so proud. :-)

Thank you, army of kobolds, for flying my flag for a day. It's a real honor.

Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but this is the first time my work has been published anywhere as a standalone piece. You put sparkles in the eyes of this aspiring designer. I couldn't be more glad today.

Permalink

It's toilsome work, but I'm well on my way to answering my own feature request. I'm creating a massive repository of player-created stuff: searchable, sortable, and categorized, because a lot of awesome stuff has fallen through the cracks and that is a shame.

The domain is purchased, Joomla is installed, I've learned how to use the software, come up with my organization strategy, and I've gone through about 300 threads so far (only 650 more to go!). Not too bad for a week's work.

However, like I said, it's toilsome.

I haven't touched the GM Threads yet: the ones stickied at the top of the forums. They're just one bridge too far for me. So I'm requesting help.

It is true that the main purpose of the website is to present unofficial content. However, it would be a good idea to have an errata and FAQ section, with the developers' official patches and clarifications. But while I know would be good to do this, my heart just isn't in it. I'm (personally) only interested in the creative stuff.

So I want help!

Could I enlist someone (or someones) to go through those mammoth stickied threads and produce a document that contains the erratas and clarifications in consolidated format, without the discussion? (I'm not too particular about the format: I'll be converting to HTML in the end) If, in the process of going through those threads, you find cool house rules, please put them in a seperate document. Furthermore, "guides" or other "how to"s should be in their own document as well. The goal is organization. :-)

I'll handle the other stuff, but I would like to outsource this one particular piece.

Before someone jumps in and says "why not do a wiki?", it's because I want to use certain Joomla features that let users rate & recommend content, so as to help people find what they're looking for for their campaign. Besides, I don't see the articles being very interlinked, which is typically what you'd use a wiki for.
As for other questions about how the website will work, well, wait a couple weeks, and you'll see ;-) I'm not quite decided on every aspect yet, some things are still shaking out.

I'll suggest people respond to the thread with comments like "I've got Mass Combat covered!", and then someone else with "and I'll do Thousand Screams!", announcing intent ahead of time, rather than waiting until you're done, so there's no duplicated work.

Thanks so much for chipping in to make this community even better-er!

It seems Jade Reagent is breaking a few patterns.

The big dungeon with the McGuffin at the end is usually in book 5 (see: RotRL, CotCT, LoF, KM, SS). But in JR, book 1 follows this model. That's never been done before.
(Usually book 1s are pretty high on roleplay: RotRL, SD, LoF, CoT, KM, SS, CC)

The 2nd book is usually the "high concept" book that people have strongly divergent opinions about, either loving or hating it (see: RotRL, SD, CoT, KM, CC). But in JR, the 2nd book is just kindof holds it steady without breaking any new ground.

The 3rd book is usually the odd one out: either breaking with the AP's theme/plot or provoking GMs to ask what they can swap it out with as the poor reviews mount up (see: RotRL, CotCT, LoF, KM, SS, CC). But in JR, book 3 is the most on-theme and possibly most lauded chapter in the series.

Let's see what holds for book 4 (the sidequest), book 5 (the dungeon), and book 6 (the meatgrinder), and if any more patterns will be broken!

Yes, these are perhaps over-generalizations, and you can nitpick my choices; I know I'm painting with broad strokes

Fundamental question: who is this book marketed towards?

The Gamemaster's Guide and all of the Bestiaries are marketed as GM's products.

The APG, Ultimate Combat & Ultimate Magic are marketed as PC's products.

Certainly, people can purchase books that aren't marketed to them. PCs buy Bestiaries to find new mounts/summons, and GMs buy the APG to build NPCs. But the books are still marketed towards a specific role, because they are mostly intended for that role.

What role is the Advanced Race Guide marketed to?

This is very important in trying to give feedback on the product. I don't know what angle I'm supposed to take on it.

To use some simple/fundamental examples:

-if it's marketed as a GM's book, I think the restrictions on various traits is fairly pointless. Why should only elves be able to cast elven magic? Why not the Rune-Stitched Ones, who first brought magic unto the world, much like Prometheus brought the Greeks fire?
But these restrictions make sense in a player-oriented book

-if it's marketed as a PC's book, I think there absolutely needs to be two types of RP: a bucket of points that can only be spent on boring abilities, and a bucket for cool abilities. In other words, as a PC, I'm never going to shell out my precious RP to make my race able to speak extra langauges when I could be using those RP to boost my stats. Without two distinct buckets, this system will just generate a bunch of sillily minmaxed races.
But this open-ended approach makes sense in a GM-oriented book

So, what hat should I be wearing as I consider this PDF?

Hi, I would like to submit a request to the moderation staff (Gary, Ross, and to an extent James).

I can't speak for the rest of the boards, but I spend a great deal of time in the Adventure Path subforums. These forums really help "make" the APs for me, and for many other readers as well. I know you recognize this too, as you've started explicitly instructing readers in the print product to go online and log on to the forums. (I'm referring to the Forward of CC#6.) This is great.

However, the forums are a mess. A thread will start with one subject line, and then meander into another. Sometimes, threads that started off well get buried in dozens of posts asking for people to share email addresses. Othertimes, the same question is asked a dozen times in a dozen threads. This is how human conversation usually goes, and it needs a steward to help make it useful.

There are true gems in the forums. Entire adventures. New encounter tables. New NPCs. Guides for how to tweak or fix encounters or plotlines. Pure gold for running an AP, and a great part of using the Paizo product.

I want to be able to get at that gold. I guess my vision for the AP boards is less "a place to discuss" and more "a giant wikipedia entry." My vision might not match up to your vision, but I'd still like to share mine.

One proposal would be to be dilligent about Forking and Combining threads. I know you don't like to delete/ignore posts, that's fine. But if you could help us combine all of the "my Economy in Kingmaker is out of control!" theads (and put the already-described answer to that problem in front of people), and also peel away all of the "can I have your email?" posts from an otherwise useful thread, then would be a huge help.

Another proposal is to find a way to enshrine the gold. Currently we have two systems: stickied threads, and favorited posts. Neither really accomplish the goal. For specific posts (or specific threads) that have great community-created content, I propose that we can nominate it for enshrinement. Perhaps if the post gets over 30 Favorites (or some other mechanic) it gets promoted to a special "AP contributions and FAQ" section. Then this special forum can be a one-stop shop that contains answers to common questions ("what advancement track do we use?") as well as preserve that really cool model of the Vekker's Cabin that someone made.

I will suggest that by being a lot more proactive in your moderation, specifically to encourage organization, particularly in the Adventure Path forums, would help realize greater value from your products.

Thanks for listening!

I'm not finished analyzing CC#6, so I'm unwilling to post my review in the product section at this time, but I thought I'd begin to share my thoughts in the discussion forum.

Every CC module up to this point has roughly followed the following template:
- be led by the nose to an urban location where things have recently started to unravel
- once at said urban location, it is not immeadiately clear what the players should do, prompting open-ended exploration
- this exploration eventually leads to investigation, always with published tiers of DCs for various Knowledge checks
- the first half of modules are RP-intensive with highly conservative/xenophobic locals, and this runs in parallel to the investigation aspects
- with the exception of book 1, this RP&investigation always leads to some sort of moral quandry or ethical dilemma
- once the bulk of the investigation & RP is done, evidence leads to a dungeon that is always located "just outside of town"
- this dungeon features mostly above-CR opponents culminating in an endboss that requires some non-traditional tactics to face and overcome

This is a fine template to follow, and is what the PCs are accustomed to and expect. To the point where there's a selection-effect going: if you've played through long enough to be starting book 6, then you must really like the above format, or else you would have bailed a long time ago.

So why does this module break so severely from this format?

From a "cool, thematic dungeon-crawl angle", this module delivers, and delivers in spades. Easily 5 stars. Excellent writing, haunts, encounters, and creepy thematics. It evokes the same feeling I had when reading the Temple of Elemental Evil for the first time (and that's high praise). I want to play epic gothic battle music just when reading the damn thing.

However, from a "appropriate conclusion to the Carrion Crown adventure path angle", I have to say I'm a dissapointed, or at least feeling some whiplash. It doesn't "fit" with what's come before it. All along this adventure path, we've been enjoying lots of RP, some tough ethical quandries, and lots of head-scratching problem-solving. However, come this issue, while it will be great fun hearing the read-aloud text and experiencing some of the evils (esp. the Tyrant's Whispers; amazing ideas there), all of that is still receptive, ie GM-to-PC, with no interaction. It's one-directional. There is no chance for the players to meaningfully respond, like we've gotten in the other books.

Yes, there are the knight of Ozrem; I didn't overlook those. But they feel like a small part of the narrative, and are easily dimissed as a wandering monster or random encounter, and can't compare to the level of RP/dilemma that we've seen earlier in the path. But I am glad they are there.

This seems to be a bit of a trend in Paizo APs. The final book tends to be a bit of a hack-fest. (Which is sad, because final-books are always high-level, and high-level hackfests have their own suite of problems.) I wished CC was different. Alas.

Kingmaker spoiler:

And let me quickly restate: as a themetic dungeon-crawler, this thing really is top-notch. I would happily buy Brandon's work again. :-)

Taking context into consideration, if I were rating this today, I would give it 3 stars. Does anyone else feel likewise? Let me know if I'm off my rocker. I'm open to changing my mind.

Kendra has decided that she's had enough with the bigoted, backward yokels that live in Ravengro. With her father gone, she has no more formal ties to the little town. A family friend, a man named Adivion Adrissant, has offered her a place to stay in Caliphas. She's taking him up on the offer, and moving out of the backwater and into the big city, "Like everyone else in this country."

Since the PCs are on their way to Lepidstadt, she's asked to accompany them as far as Tamvirena, from where she can arrange for further transport to Caliphas.

Upon presenting themselves at the entrance to Tamvirena, the Wallguard was quick to notice that there was a Kellid in the party. He was immeadiately arrested and taken away, and the rest of the party was taken into the Palestone to have all their belongings thoroughly searched, as they were now suspicious by association. Unfortunately, that involved a cleric casting Detect Evil, and one of the books set off the spell. (Specifically, spacelard's Umbral Leaves.) When the party wizard announced that "yes, they are evil books, but we're returning them to Lepidstadt, so that they can study the evil", it didn't go over too well.

The whole trunk of books is now confiscated and sitting under lock-and-guard in the depths of Fort Vhiled. And the interrogator is coldly informing the Kellid "I have ways of making you talk." They have no idea what they're going to do next session. (And neither do I, but that's the fun of PnP RPGs.)

While the characters are totally freaked out, the players are actually taking it really well. I think the fact that Kendra keeps sticking up for them and telling them how rediculous she thinks the Wallguard is acting is really helping it not feel like "the GM is screwing over the PCs", but keeping the frustration solidly in-game.

Just wanted to share. Thanks for reading.

I'm having trouble getting over the mid-book hurdle in book 5.

At this point in the campaign, the PCs know that the WW are "bad news" and need to be stopped "somewhat urgently", and are thus not likely to follow up on sidequests just for the fun of it, but rather stick to the mission at-hand. (At least my PCs are.)

They show up in Caliphas without anything to go off of, but eventually learn that both Luvick and Ramoska have information for them, however, they won't give up this info until the murders stop. (Quinley, the other "quest giver", is also only interested in "killing the murderer").

So, assuming the PCs kill Radvir in Part 3 (which is the likely outcome since his coffin is on-premises), why would the PCs investigate the witches?

In either case, once Luvick is made aware of the role played by the witches in harvesting vampire bodies, he requests that the PCs put an end to them as well.

I'm imagining the scene from The Empire Strikes Back where Vader tells Lando "I'm altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." (Which seems odd given that Luvick is LE.)

But even if Luvick decides to jerk the PCs around, there's still the issue of Ramoska: even though the text for him helping out the PCs appears on page 58 (ie after the Witch's section), there is no particular reason he would have to wait until that point. The moment that Radvir (or his even his journal) is handed over to Ludvick, then Ramoska should be able to help out the PCs.

The Abbey seems like a neat set of encounters, but ultimately it seems like just another weird sidequest in a campaign that already feels littered with sidequests (and this one doesn't even have any plot-pay-off at the end). Anyone else feel similarly?

Anyone else have ideas on how to change things?

The easiest fix is to relocate Radvir's coffin and all-revealing journal to the Abbey (perhaps F24 and F15 respectively), thus requiring the PCs to go there. But I'm also looking for a way to tie things together more so that this doesn't just seem like a red-herring and dead-end from the PC's point-of-view.

I'm having some trouble figuring out what I'm supposed to do with this place.

I have Rule of Fear. There's stuff about "the rooms feel too small", and stuff about "a thousand suicides" and "stuff in the walls", and a map that, as far as I can tell, is utterly useless to me (unless I'm missing something). To top it all off, it says it's ruled over by the "Laughing Man" who is a Chain Devil...

What are people doing with this? Maybe my creative spring is running really dry at the moment, but I don't get what direction the authors were hoping we'd take with this. None of the teaser bits really fit together in any way, and I really don't see what we're supposed to do with that map.

I've had random ideas ranging from making the house a living being (and people get digested from going inside of it), to it being partially phased to another dimension and the PCs have to "turn it inside out" (by going into the walls) in order to escape, but nothing really concrete.

What are you doing?

Ascanor Lodge. The place is nice. It also has a lot of guests that don't nessecarily make for the best rangers and hunters. But what got me was the kitchen: describing all the imported and exotic wines, fancy meats, etc. It sounds like every night you eat like a king.

Which begs the question: where does all that come from?

It's imported, obviously.

Okay, so there's caravans that are heavily laden with all manner of fine foods coming in and out of the lodge once a month, and the werewolves are cool with this?

Basically, anything that allows all this wine and meat to be imported to Ascanor so easily, also makes the Shudderwood a tame place. My party hasn't gotten to Ascanor (I'm not running CC yet until a few more books are out), but I know this is the sort of thing that will break mood and disbelief for them. How do we explain the existance of Ascanor while still keeping Shudderwood scary?

I'm looking at mods to insert into the Carrion Crown path to make the campaign last longer, do some plotweaving, and not be so obvious that it's a monster mash road show. Has anyone that's played Hangman's Noose think this would be a good module to slip into Ravengro before the events of Haunting of Harrowstone? Or as fallout to deal with post-Harrowstone? (apparently many people think it's better balanced with a 3rd level party anyways)

I know that Absalom is a slightly bigger city than Ravengro, but does it require being in a metapolis? Finding a detailed synopsis of Hangman is pretty difficult.

I'm looking for thoughts or input.

Thanks!

So, I'm reading through my latest AP, and I'm reading through the article The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, the secret society that shows up a few times in the Adventure Path.

At first blush, the Egypt-themed gentleman's club looked like something out of Lovecraft or reminiscent of the Illuminati. But when I read their history, I get a very strong Mormon vibe. Or at least, what a critically negative person would say about Mormonism's early American history. With a side-helping of Scientology (for the wealth-for-secrets bit).

Aldus Canter = John Smith

Tabris = the angel Moroni

Elect Nine = Quorum of the Twelve

And many other parallels, including the running out of Illinois, ascending to become a perfect celestial, endless retranslating the original holy book, etc.

Again, not as Mormons present themselves, but as Mormons are criticized.

The front-and-center use of the word "gospel" is strange. The word "gospel" is a uniquely Christian word (being Greek for "good news"), and the idea of "lost gospels" is very much a Mormon idea, as they preach of the "restored gospel." I know this isn't an accident, as the word "paizo" itself is Biblical Greek ("to play").

Am I the only one reading it this way? Am I way off base here?

I didn't make the top 4. However, like all contenders this year, I dreamed of making it to the big show, and dreamed of being published. I'm not entirely sure what direction to take that dream in the weeks and months ahead, but for right now, I wanted to share my adventure proposal with you. I followed all the round 5 rules for this year, in an attempt to keep the challenge authentic. I wanted to wait a little bit so as not to distract from Sam's win. I know this adventure can't be published. (And it's too Golarion to do it as an indie product.) But I wanted to put it before the masses anyway. Please, comment on it. The more brutal, blunt, and honest the better. I'm guessing that most of the judges have "gone home", but if you have not, I would love for your feedback (though I expect it to be much shorter than what you afforded to the real top 4). Other voters? You've given some amazing feedback and criticism through this contest as well, and I heartily encourage you to rip my adventure to shreds. I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you everyone for all of your support and encouragement through the RPGSS process. It's been amazing to ride the dream. Thank you for given me a chance to have that wild-eyed hope, even for just a couple months. I'll never forget it.

Without further ado:

------------------------------------------------------------

Behold Your God

Adventure Preview (ie “Back of the Book”)
In faithless Rahadoum, a crisis arises of divine proportions. When a long-awaited ship runs aground, filled not with loved ones, but tales of a terrible curse, it’s up to the PCs to rescue the sailor’s imprisoned souls. Can the heroes track down the clues to lead them to the legendary ghost ship? And what are they to make of these rumors that Aroden has returned to Golarion? A sea-faring adventure for 4th level characters.

Audience (or “who am I trying to sell this to?”)
- Players of divine spellcasters: they get to be part of a secret cabal hiding from government persecution, then get to flex their powers against haunts/undead, and get excited about the Aroden hook.
- Pirate fans: there’s a lot of hunger in the market right now for pirate-themed adventures, and this module has just enough pirate to scratch that itch without having too much to make this a niche product.
- Skill/intrigue players: the majority of the encounters in this module can be bypassed through clever use of skills (social and otherwise), which is an underserved option in the Pathfinder line. However, combat remains a fully viable option (since that is what most players want).
- Golarion fans: this module is heavy with Golarion-specific lore, with Rahadoum, Lirgen, the Eye of Abendego all playing important roles.

Plot Hooks
The GM has to find a way to get the party to be at the dockside homecoming festival described in Part 1. Here are some ways for the party to show up at that festival and keep them engaged after the crash:
- The PCs are allied with the secret Iomedae cult in Botosani, and were invited to the festival: they might even know one of the sailors onboard and are looking forward to seeing him home. Once the boat crashes, they’ll want to rescue their friend.
- The PCs are hired out by the Botosani government to try and root out any followers of Iomedae and they have received a tip that there might be some present at this festival. Once the boat crashes, they’ll want to investigate these threatening rumors of Aroden.
- The party is in Botosani on other business (it’s a major port city) and they happen to notice the open-air festival and join in to grab dinner. Once the boat crashes, one of the sailor’s wives notices that they are armed out-of-towners and offers a substantial goldpiece reward for her husband’s rescue.

Adventure Background
Over a century ago, while Aroden was still a god, a cleric from Lirgen sailed through the Gulf of Abendego and pirates attacked and took control of his ship. Hidden below deck, he cast lesser planar ally to call the help of a bralani azata. The azata, in a foolish act of mercy, decided to waive the usual negotiations needed for the spell. Before the azata could battle the pirates, the century-defining event occurred: Aroden died, and the Eye of Abendego quickly formed and destroyed the boat.

Over the past century, the azata has gone mad, unable to comes to terms Aroden’s death. He now thinks of himself as Aroden. The entire boat (pirates and Lirgenites) became a ghost ship, and still sails the northern edge of the hurricane.

A few months before the module begins, the Shield of the South set sail from Botosani. It secretly doubles as a mobile church of Iomedae: a place for followers to put their faith into action and practice openly while out at sea. One night, while patrolling the Jagged Reach, they spotted the century-old ghost ship, and noticing the fighting onboard, joined the fray. The sailors eventually met with the ghostly cleric of Aroden, who considered worship of Iomedae blasphemous. The cleric captured the sailors and sailed the ghost ship towards “Aroden” for judgment, where he imprisoned their souls. Only one sailor’s spirit escaped, and his actions begin Part 1.

Part 1: the Homecoming Festival
The module starts at a dockside festival for the homecoming party of The Shield of the South. Colored lanterns decorate the wharf, street vendors sell greasy food, and many families are gathered. Eventually, they see the ship and cheer. People panic as the ship rams full-speed into the docks. The PCs have a chance to do some crowd-control skill checks and rescue people knocked into the water.

The party will eventually explore the ruined ship. The danger of exploring its damaged hull will be handled with the rules for mechanical traps. Eventually, they discover a haunt who pronounces a curse upon them: that great ruin and death will befall them in six months’ time. This is both to set the mood, as well as communicate a timelimit for the module (which is probably longer than the PCs were expecting). The haunt will then go on to tell them the story of what happened to his comrades and how their souls were ferried away by a ghost ship and delivered to Aroden. The ship’s log can help point the party in the right direction for where to begin searching the Jagged Reach.

Part 2: the Voyage Out
This is an interlude section. It serves two main purposes: to introduce the players to the “sailing mechanics” subsystem used in this module, as well as chance to let the PCs interact with their NPC crewmembers to gain information on the lost sailors, the region, and the legend of the ghost ship.

Every player will be given a “sailing role”: this is a combination duty and skill check that will make each of them feel like they are part of the team when it comes time to operate the ship. There are 5 roles, (examples include “crows nest -> perception” and “man the sails -> climb.”) The subsystem is very simple (merely counting number of success and applying blanket results), but the party should have one or two easy “sea encounters” as an in-game tutorial. These roles will be relevant in Part 3 and Part 5.

The NPCs are all level 1 commoners, and the GM should make clear that they are just there to fill extra roles on the boat and aren’t fit for adventuring. They exist to infodump, and to provide a mouthpiece for giving hints if the party gets stuck in the next section.

Part 3: Searching for Signs
This is the most freeform part of the module. The PCs’ goal should be to get enough information that they can locate the ghost ship. It sails through the islands in a predictable course over the course of a month. It resets its journey each new moon. One of the inside covers of the module book should be dedicated to showing the path that the ghost ship takes through the archipelago, and the dates it can be found at each location.

It bears repeating: for a given day of the month (and thus a given phase of the moon) the ghost ship can always be found in the same location. This is important because the ghost ship is dependent on the level of moonlight for how physically substantial it is. Therefore, it is not enough to simply encounter the ghost ship and board it at the first opportunity: the party must be careful to choose when and where along its voyage they want to make their assault. This is why “mapping the ship’s path” is an important goal. This described more fully in Part 4.

The following islands may be encountered in any order, and revisited any number of times.

Barren islands: Many islands off of Jagged Reach are barren. They exist primarily to create patterns on the map for NPCs to reference, and to fill out the region. A wandering monster table will be provided for these islands.

Ruins with carvings: At least two islands have some stone ruins with cryptic carvings and odd stone formations. One set of ruins has no inhabitants; the other is the home to a grauhir. These puzzles can be solved to reveal what were the safe waterways a century ago, before the hurricane changed the location of the reefs. This is thus the path the ghost ship takes now. The ruins will be presented as a puzzle that the players could solve with their out-of-game wits (inspired by the Myst games), or for groups uninterested in such old-school puzzles, there will be an optional sidebar describing the use of skill checks to provide the answers instead.

Haunted ruins: One island has some scorch marks and remains of building foundations if visited during the day. At night, the foundations spectrally reach up to form a tavern and brothel run by a murderous pimp and his terrified girls. A century ago, when both were still of this world, the ghost ship stopped by this brothel before heading on. The ghost ship still docks here on the corresponding night (which is too early in the moon’s phase to be boarded: see Part 4). This will be handled as a series of interconnected haunts, and a chance to use social skills.

Tribe: One of the low-lying, reef guarded islands is home to a tribe of boggards. Their chieftain is currently engaged in an extended ritual using his nightflame orb that he hopes will bring an everlasting darkness to Golarion. It will do no such thing, but for his efforts, he has managed to make the area surrounding Jagged Reach much more overcast, which is enough to conceal the nighttime moonlight. The boggards know nothing about the ghost ship, but stopping this ritual (either through violence or diplomacy) will be key to finding it. See Part 4.

Smuggler’s hideout: A group of smugglers have converted a washed-ashore shipwreck into their hideout. The smugglers themselves don’t know much about the ghost ship: they provide meager hints at best. The real advantage is that they have a map of the Jagged Reach, and have clearly labeled the ruins as well as the boggard tribe. The players could barter for this map, but it is just as likely that they will kill the smugglers to take both the map, as well as their store of plunder.

Sea hazards: A shallow reef. Unexpected waves. Chased by a large sea monster. There will be a few encounters that take place on the water. These are to break up the pace, show the area is dangerous, and give the party a chance to exercise their “sailing roles” from Part 2.

Part 4: Aboard the Ghost Ship
The ghost ship is a minidungeon with three stories: deck, main hold, and storage hold. One of the inside covers of the module should be given over to its map. The PCs goal is to make contact with the ghost of the cleric of Aroden who is hiding in the storage hold.

Ghost Ship properties
The ghost ship phases between the material and ethereal planes based on the amount of direct moonlight shining upon it.
- New Moon: the ghost ship is entirely on the ethereal plane and beyond the ability for the PCs to observe or interact with in any way.
- Crescent Moon: the ghost ship is mostly on the ethereal plane, but projects slightly on to the material: it is visible, but wholly insubstantial and cannot be interacted with.
- Half Moon: the ghost ship straddles the planar border. All walls are visually transparent, but are solid if interacted with (however a difficult Escape Artist check could be used to penetrate the walls), and all native passengers gain the “incorporeal” subtype.
- Gibbous Moon: the ghost ship is mostly on the material plane. It looks and functions mostly like a real ship.
- Full Moon: the ghost ship is entirely on the material plane and the light empowers the spirits on board: all native passengers gain the advanced template.
- Cloud cover: persists over the region until the boggards are dealt with. The ghost ship’s presence is muted: treat all phases except for new moon as crescent moon instead.
- Darkness spell: supernaturally concealing a section of the ship from the moonlight will shunt that section of ship back to the ethereal plane. This does not hurt the ship’s structural integrity, but it does allow the characters to perform some interesting tricks. For example, a darkness spell cast on a wall essentially creates a hole in that wall for the PCs to step through. (This bit of extra rules will require a sidebar to fully explain.)

Throughout the ship there are battles against the pirates that have taken over the ship, battles (or truces) with soliders of Lirgen, and a few haunts. The boss battle of the ghost ship is against the cleric of Aroden cowering in the very bottom of the ship. He is paranoid and aggressive. He opens with a monologue where he reveals what he did with the sailor’s souls. He attacks immediately after he’s done ranting about how the PCs’ souls will be taken as well. He no longer receives spells from his dead god, but he can manifest spell-like effects. One of his trickier tactics is to cast darkness at the feet of heavily armored PCs: causing them to fall through the bottom of the ship and into the ocean.

Part 5: Into the Storm
For the conclusion of the module, the party points the ghost ship straight into the Eye of Abendego for a cinematic battle against wind & rain. The motif here is that the spotlight shifts from player to player, focusing on their personal battle against the storm. This section should be played out as a series of response-based vignettes, rather than the traditional game flow.

This section is broken into six “legs”: a fuzzy unit of time that can be roughly equal to an hour. Each character will have the spotlight on him or her once per leg.

Leg 1: Here the storm is strong, but navigable. Each character receives a moderate check relevant to their “sailing role” as described “Part 2: the Voyage Out”.

Leg 2: The storm comes in full force now, making it so that it is difficult to see from one end of the ship to another, and the sky is now dark. Each character makes a higher DC check according to their role.

Leg 3: Monsters attack! Every character gets into a 1:1 fight with a CR 2 monster. There will be a small encounter table provided, mostly with water & air elementals, and some small sea monsters. At the end of the fight, make the sailing check again. For every round they spend fighting, take a cumulative -2 penalty to their “sailing check.”

Leg 4: Something breaks. Each player is faced with a dilemma such that they have to make a choice, and then resolve with a skill challenge. For example: the jimmy holding the anchor in place gives way, and the anchor begins falling: you can either attempt a Strength check to haul it back up, or cut it loose with your weapon. (There is no “sailing check” this round.)

Leg 5: The storm reaches extreme heights. Each player faces an effect similar to a haunt as they perceive horrible omens and shapes in the rain. (Each with its own evocative and horrific read-aloud text.) At the end of their haunt, each player does a “sailing check”, with a possible negative modifier for failing the haunt.

Leg 6: Suddenly there is a bright light! The wind & rain remain at peak intensity, but the whole sky is filled with a white light, brighter and more stark than the sun. A voice booms louder than even the hurricane.

Who are you, that you would seek the face of Aroden? Why do you seek my broken soul amidst this throne of wind and rain?

The white silhouette of a man is visible through the storm as the source of the great light.

The PCs have a chance to parlay with “Aroden” for the sailor’s souls. No matter how loud they speak, Aroden can hear them through the hurricane. If there is a character specialized around religion and social skills, it should be possible through a series of extremely difficult skill checks to convince the bralani that he is not Aroden and to cease his charade, thus defeating the final encounter and “winning” the module without resorting to combat at all. However, most parties will be itching for a final showdown, and Aroden will gladly fight them to “punish them for their insolence.”
Aroden is brash, and despite his superior mobility, chooses to swoop on to the deck and principally engage in melee (though he is not shy about using his Sp and Su abilities if he sees a good opportunity). He stays in Wind Form the entire time, hovering just inches above the deck of the ship, as he moves from opponent to opponent.

Epilogue

The module ends upon returning to Botosani and receiving their reward from the widows, who take solace that their husband’s souls have moved on to be with Iomedae. At this point, the party should have enough experience to reach level 5.

I'm just curious: is this going to be dealt with in any sort of mechanical sense? Other horror-settings have done so (for example, in Ravenloft, they replaced "fear immunity" with "bonus to saves versus fear"). I would have expected the Player's Guide to have some sort of sidebar along the lines of: "the mists of Ustalav erodes even a Paladin's sense of self: after being exposed and for 24 hours thereafter, Paladins lose their fear immunity", but I didn't see that.

Or are we going to encounter a number of fear-like-but-isn't-fear effects like "make a Will save, if you fail, you are under a compulsion to run away from the altar and not look at it."?

I'm just curious how it's going to be handled, or if we have to start cooking up home rules for it.

because while "fear immunity" is a fine ability for a standard campaign, I think it would destroy too many themes in this one

Also, is there going to be any info on the fluff-aspect of fear immunity? For example, is a Paladin unphased by the idea of a killer taking her friends hostage?

Tellasara, Princess in Repose
Portrait: 8
Description: Twenty years ago, Tellasara Morgethai was found mysteriously murdered on the streets of Riverspire. Her grieving father, unable let her go, interred her in a private crypt below the city.
Yet Tellasara still clings to life, suffering the hell of unremitting nightmares as her imagination plays out what the assault might have been like. Perhaps through a latent sorcerous talent, or perhaps through the fermenting of a poison on her assailant’s blade, in recent months Tellasara’s broken mind has somehow begun to project the dreams of her death into physical reality.
Motivations/Goals: At night, a nightmare-born assailant stalks Riverspire, searching for female companionship with which to act out an imagined past.
Schemes/Plots/Adventure Hooks: The party receives a worried message from an ally in Riverspire: several of her friends have been murdered recently, and now she herself is being followed at night.

Tellasara CR 6
Female elven aristocrat 3
NG Medium humanoid (elf)

===== Tellasara’s Abbreviated Statistics =====
AC helpless
hp 10 (3d8-3)
Fort +0, Ref +3, Will -2
Defensive Abilities feverish mind
Special Attacks project assailant (DC 18)
Str 9, Dex 15, Con 9, Int 12, Wis 8 (currently 0), Cha 12
SQ dreamspeaker
Gear cloak of elvenkind, masterwork mithral dagger with Morgethai emblem, +2 ring of protection, ring of sustenance

===== Tellasara’s Special Abilities =====
Feverish Mind (Ex) If Tellasara succumbs to a mind-affecting effect, she carries it out through the assailant (who cannot otherwise be affected). Tellasara's mind is unstable: every day at sunset she automatically reattempts the applicable save (if any).
Project Assailant (Sp) Most nights, 1d4 hours after sunset, Tellasara unconsciously creates a new assailant in Riverspire above her. This functions like greater shadow conjuration with a CL of 11. The assailant persists for 1d6 hours, but never past dawn. The assailant’s appearance is different every night, but an opposed Perception vs the assailant’s Disguise check reveals the face of Tellasara.

_______________

The Assailant CR --
Male elven rogue (ripper, R2) 5/assassin 1
CE Medium humanoid (elf)
Init +3; Senses low-light vision; Perception +9

===== Defense =====
AC 15, touch 15, flat-footed 12, disbelieved 11; (+2 deflection, +3 Dex)
hp 19 (6d8+5)
Fort +1, Ref +8, Will +0
Defensive Abilities unbound +5 1/day, uncanny dodge; Immune mind-affecting effects (but see Tellasara’s 'feverish mind')

===== Offense =====
Spd 30 ft.
Melee mwk mithral dagger +7 (1d4+3)
Ranged mwk mithral dagger +7 (1d4+3)
Special Attacks death attack (DC 12), sneak attack +4d8

===== Tactics =====
During Combat The assailant uses his Stealth skill or charmer talent to approach his chosen victim, then uses blitz attack and death attack in tandem. If the victim survives his initial assault, he tries to finish her off quickly.
Morale If the assailant is ever outnumbered, immobilized, or has his cover blown, he can take one more round's worth of actions (typically spent escaping), at the end of which his conjuration ends for the night.

===== Statistics =====
Str 16, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 12
Base Atk +3; CMB +6; CMD 19
Feats Quick Draw, Skill Focus (Disguise), Sly Draw
Skills Bluff +9, Climb +11, Diplomacy +10, Disguise +13, Knowledge (local) +10, Knowledge (nobility) +6, Perception +9, Sleight of Hand +12, Stealth +14
Languages Common, Draconic, Elven
SQ blitz attack +2, butchery, fast getaway, poison use, projected equipment, rogue talents (charmer 2/day)
Gear (see 'projected equipment')

===== Special Abilities =====
Projected Equipment (Su) The assailant carries any equipment interred with Tellasara, as part of the greater shadow conjuration. If an item leaves the assailant’s possession, it fades away after 1 minute.

Moon Shaman (Druid)
There are druids who exalt the moon as the greatest aspect of nature, revering its power to bring fury and madness. Some act as priests to werewolves, giving them blessings and spiritual guidance. Others act as prophets of the night, shedding the wonder of the moon before beast and man alike.

The Profanity of Silver (Ex): Tying himself to the energies of the moon comes at a cost. If a moon shaman ever carries even an ounce silver for more than a full round, he is considered to have violated his druidic vows, using the same rules for wearing prohibited armor. This includes coins; when shopping, moon shamans ask to receive their change in copper pieces. Even being bound in silver manacles counts as "carrying silver" for this purpose.

Call Forth the Furious (Su): Each creature a moon shaman conjures with any summon spell ferociously rages, as the barbarian ability, for the duration of the spell that summoned it. Starting at 2nd level, and at every 4th level thereafter, a moon shaman selects a rage power that he imparts to each summoned creature, using the moon shaman’s level in place of the barbarian level.

Wild Shape (Su): A moon shaman can only use wild shape to transform into animals. He cannot use this ability to adopt the form of elementals or plants.

Lunar Howl (Su): At 8th level, a moon shaman can howl as a standard action, compelling animals and magical beasts to participate: all such creatures within 15 ft. of him become confused. A successful Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 moon shaman’s level + moon shaman’s Wisdom modifier) means the target cannot be affected by this lunar howl. If a participant in the lunar howl rolls "babble incoherently" for its behavior, instead it howls that round, and all valid creatures within 15 ft. of it must make a Will save or become likewise confused. The entire lunar howl effect ends for all participants simultaneously: after a number of rounds equal to the moon shaman’s level, starting from his initial howl. The moon shaman can initiate a lunar howl a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Wisdom modifier. This is an audible, mind-affecting effect.
At 12th level, lunar howl can effect humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and fey (other than himself).

Ritual of Becoming (Su): At 15th level, a moon shaman can transmute afflicted lycanthropy into natural lycanthropy of the same type. The ritual requires 24 uninterrupted hours to perform. The moon shaman can only target an affliction that he carries within himself. Once successful, the effects are permanent, and the moon shaman is immune to further afflicted lycanthropy.
This ability replaces timeless body.

Corsage of the Captured Voice
Aura faint illusion; CL 4th
Slot neck; Price 8,300 gp; Weight -
Description
This white silken corsage, worn on the lapel, initially takes the form of a tastefully ruffled cocoon.

Once per day, as a standard action, the wearer of the cocoon corsage can attempt to capture the voice of any creature within 560 ft. that is capable of verbal communication (Will DC 13 negates).

The targeted creature loses the ability to use its voice, including any effects that require verbal components, until it is the subject of a lesser restoration effect (this method does not have any effect on the corsage), or the corsage is crushed (see below).

As it captures a voice, the cocoon unfurls into a silken purple-and-black butterfly. The wings’ pattern is different with each voice. Some Varisians claim the pattern is useful in fortune-telling, seeing the unfurled corsage as an image of Desna, goddess of song.

The butterfly corsage grants the wearer the ability to communicate in the language last used by the voice before it was captured, as share language with a continuous duration. Additionally, regardless of the language spoken, the butterfly corsage grants a +10 bonus to Disguise checks made to emulate the captured voice.

The corsage is delicate in butterfly form, and if it is crushed (as a swift action; either by the wearer, or by anyone else that succeeds an opposed grapple check), the captured voice is suddenly released, as a sound burst (DC 13) centered on the wearer. The voice is then returned to its original owner, who immediately regains full verbal capability.

A crushed butterfly corsage is useless, but reforms into a cocoon corsage the following nightfall.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, disguise self, share language, silence, sound burst; Cost 4,150 gp

The way Paizo listens to community feedback is incredibly heartening as a consumer.

And it causes me to be drawn back to these darn boards over and over again.

Thanks Paizo, and thanks Jason. The new Magus looks really good.

The subject more or less says it all. Can these two stack?

The juxtapositioning makes it vague:

This ability counts as the Arcane Strike feat for meeting any prerequisites. Multiple uses of this ability do not stack with themselves.

I could see it going either way.

To expound, briefly:

Setting Breaking

Why can't a Wizard do this? For the Magus to be able to one-up the Wizard in the Wizard's core shtick is too weird.

It also takes away some of the mystery and allure of arcane spells to have all of them at your fingertips at once. It erodes the line between them and divine spells. I want my spells mysterious, not cataloged.

Finally, it hurts the campaign world: if the GM was writing plots around various spells being hidden or only known by certain cults, etc, those plots are destroyed, or require weird house-rules about how "common" a spell must be before they are able to be used by this power. What if I run a setting where all high-level spells are uncommon? I feel like this breaks the guidelines being posted over on RPG Superstar, which I know isn't totally applicable here, but they're good guidelines.

In campaigns where spell-creation is the norm (which is bound to increase with the release of Words of Power), I could see this creating a few weird headaches. "So, in theory, someone, somewhere has probably invented a 5th level spell that involves doing X, Y and Z... since that would be so useful in situations like the one I find myself in now... so I Greater Spell Pool that."
Yes, you can drop the rules-hammer on such a player, but for homegames where this sort of thing really is normative, it would seem artificially limiting (especially since you can do it to Mage's X spells).

Table Breaking

I can't help but imagine the game grinding to a halt here. You can't really "plan ahead" for using this power. If you could, you would have bought a scroll for it or found some other solution (you're 19th level afterall). I imagine this being used most in "oh s***" situations, (rather than ones where the PCs feel in control) which is where it is hardest for a GM to enforce timelimits on a character's actions. (Because then you run into the interpersonal stress of "the GM is trying to kill my character" that's not there for most rounds. Every GM I know removes their normally imposed timelimits when the party is about to die.)

This power gets even more difficult as new books are released and players will have to comb through more to find the effect they are looking for. I can see how this goes down: a player skims over the abbreviated spell descriptions at the beginning of the chapter looking for goodies to save his butt, then he flips to the actual description, finds out it's not what he hoped it would be (doesn't have the range, etc) and he goes back through the list. Rinse, repeat, halfhour passes while the rest of the party wrings their hands, hoping the Magus will bail them out.

Anyway, I doubt it will get terribly much use, since many games don't go to 19th level, but there is my extended feedback on that one line-item.

I also think the lesser versions of it are a bit "too good" compared to Arcane Bond, but not enough that I feel the need to bring out the ban-hammer.

One thing that I haven't seen brought up yet, so I toss it out there:

How does a Words-of-Power character deal with spontaneous substitution?

Say I'm a WoP Druid (yea, it's not covered yet, I know, but I'm musing). Can I swap out my prepared slots for Summon Nature's Ally spells? (Thus allowing me to summon multiple creatures at once - something ordinarily not possible for me.) Or can I hot-swap in any WoP spell I make up, so long as it contains the Servitor Word in it?

I see some balance implications here.

First off, thank you Jason & Paizo for advancing us into this new space!

You asked for feedback, I would like to talk about how this would go down at "my table."

I play with gamers that have a range of talents and abilities. Some are good at math, some are there because their friend plays. Some are fast, some are slow. However, one principle we all hold to is fairness. That is, the same rules must apply to everyone, no matter what. I don't nessecarily agree with this rule, but that is strongly the culture of my table, and I suspect many others.

Some of my players would be able to "do the math" on all the point-requirements for Words of Power. They would type everything up ahead of time, and it would be grand. Some would not. The excuses would be numerous, and it is pointless to list them or argue them, but there are some players that would not even begin to think about how to spend their word-points until their turn comes up. Please note that I am not musing about hypotheticals, but I am thinking of specific people in my gaming group. (Check out the "Advice" or "Kingmaker" forums on this site to see me complain about them.)

There is only one solution to all of this: ban Words of Power from my table. My friends that are good at math and do their homework would pout, but they would "take the bullet" in order to keep Words of Power away from the problem players, and save the game from everyone.

Please do not post saying "Erik, you're doing it wrong." I'm giving honest feedback to Jason, et al, about how his product would interact with my groups.

---

The culprit for all of this is the point-based-system. Exacerbated by the Word Burning feat. While I fully understand why it exists, from a game-design perspective, it still causes extra math.

Please, eliminate the "point system" from Words of Power. If it was one pool (like 3.5 Psionics) that would be one thing. But it's a dozen small pools, that must be individually managed. Squeezing in the "right effects" without "waste" is just too much trickery and math.

And I know right now, that if a player is trying to put together a 4th level spell, and it only comes to 11 points, she'll feel like she's "wasting" power and has to find a way to cram 2 more points in there, taking up precious table-time as she rebuilds.
(No, dropping it down to 3rd level and Word Burning it up is not always an option. Not every caster will take it, and maybe all the 3rd levels are used up.)

---

The current system of Metamagic might be a good solution. It scales up and down entire levels of a spell at once. That math is simple enough, and preferred over points.

What about something like:
A 4th level slot can hold:
- a 4th level spell
- a combined 3rd and 2nd level spell
- a combined 3rd and two 1st level spells
And just have that be the rubric for all spells.

If we need granularity, can we find it in sacrificing Caster Level? Temporarily drop your CL by 2 in order to squeeze in an extra effect?

---

Basically, I urge you to flee the idea of points, and lots of small "point pools" to fit things into. If it snarls one gamer at the table, it snarls all gamers at the table.

Thanks for taking time to read my post.

My characters hired a mentor from Restov to teach them how to be good rulers. I don't want to show them the kingdom building rules, but I want them to have a clear idea of how to interact with the system. This is the guide I am giving them, so I thought I'd share it.

Gregor Diemen’s Guide to Running a Kingdom

At the beginning of the month, there is a four-step process:

1) Upkeep Phase

Once you get a country, this is basically the “find out what you lost” phase. How much food the peasants ate, how many supplies they consumed, and figure out just how much unrest there is in town. It’s also your opportunity to set your agenda: manipulating tax rates, scheduling festivals, etc.

If, Abadar forbid, you should need to alter the seats in government, or realign the country’s agenda (alignment) this is when you would undertake such a change. Be warned that the people do not respond well to such disruptions. This is also when you’d discover the shock to your populace for you not being in there to lead them. Please, sirs, do not get captured in a dungeon or otherwise take leave: it would crush the morale of the people; you need to spend at least one week a month in a city in your kingdom in order to effectively govern. If you need to schedule an extended absence, I would suggest assigning a steward.

However, before you get a country, this is your opportunity to give inspirational speeches to try and keep morale up. Otherwise you’ll start bleeding resources as people give up and go home. I estimate the people have no more than a season’s appetite for camping, so try and build homes for them all in the first three months, or else they could start deserting.

2) Construction Phase

First things first: we have to get land! It’s not enough to have a map of a place: you have to Claim it. You can only Claim plots of land that you’ve fully explored. Claiming land means you set up regular patrols through it, and you’re letting people go off and settle their own small villages and farms in it. Claiming it makes you responsible for it.

But who cares about “small villages”? We’re here to make cities! You don’t have much control over the hamlets that will start sprouting up in your claimed plots of land, but you directly control exactly what is built in your royal cities.

Most buildings can only be built in a “city district.” So first things first: you have to clear the land, pack down the soil, and otherwise make ready for stuff to be built. You don’t want your royal cities on soft foundations. How long this takes depends on what’s around you: I feel sorry for the Sword Envoys: preparing city districts in the swamp is quite a different thing from plains! A district can hold a fair number of buildings, but once you outgrow it, you’ll have to create new ones, so plan ahead!

We only have enough coordination at this point to oversee the construction of one building at a time. Once our kingdom gets a little bit more established, we’ll be able to oversee more construction projects at once. The exception is houses: if we give people the go-ahead and assign them a location for it, they can make those on their own. Still eats up our resources, and still limited to one-a-month, but we don’t have to watch over their backs while they do it.

Anything else you’ll want to “create” goes on in this phase. Things like the farms, roads, watchtowers, or other “non-city” creations happen now. (Again, the people will generally be creating all manner of small trails and self-sufficient farms on their own, but these are the royal farms that will feed your cities, and the royal roads that will connect your kingdom!)

3) Economy Phase

As rulers of the kingdom, you have a responsibility to keep an eye on the economy. The various shopkeepers should send you a monthly list, letting you know what their wares are. We don’t really do anything with this list, but it keeps them accountable. I guess if they ever find a magic sword, that might particularly interest you. But be warned: there is an implicit trust between merchant and ruler, and if you take advantage of that relationship too often, it might damage that relationship.

If you feel the need to personally apply any economic stimulus (and let’s face it, what else are you going to do with a dragon’s horde?) this is when you would do so.

4) Event Phase

We typically take care of the first three phases all within the first few days of the month, and know the results immediately. This phase is the exception. This is where the fickle hand of fate determines what strange curses or blessings may befall our kingdom over the course of the next month. More often than not, nothing will happen at all. Or perhaps fate only deals us a light hand. Whatever the outcome, it will be revealed to us later.

The favor of certain deities can forestall particular unlucky events that they have purview over. The exact nature of these blessings is certainly beyond my realm of expertise: I encourage you to ask the priests about that.

However, I would exhort you not to rely upon the gods, but your own presence. You mean the world to these people, and only you can shepherd them through these previously Stolen Lands.

Let me know if you require anything else my lords. I am your humble servant,
Gregor Diemons

Yes, I'm creating another epic thread. Apologies to those that consider this spam.

Given:
- players want to be able to continue playing their same characters from before 20th level to after 20th level
- the rules at high level play are cumbersome for a number of reasons (huge statblocks, slow combats, etc)

My solution:
Transition towards a simplified rules system as naturally as possible.

The way I do this is to introduce epic-only class abilities that are unilaterally better than pre-epic abilities, enough to render them obsolete. I believe there is precident for this: the capstone ability of the Fighter removes the need to ever roll to confirm criticals. My system would be a series of class features that essentially feel like capstone abilities.

So as an example, I'll look at the Barbarian's rage:
At level 21, you can take all of the advantages of the "clear mind" ability and rage at the same time.
At level 22, you no longer take -2 to AC due to rage.
At level 23, you gain the ability to rage for an infinate number of rounds per day.
At this point, rage is "auto on" all the time, with no need to ever turn it off. You can now erase your "non-raging stats" from your character sheet.

Similarly, a Rogue's Sneak Attack could be replaced with an attack that deals infinate damage to an enemy (thus isn't truly a "death attack" for purposes of creatures immune to it). Never roll that huge pile of d6s again!

Again, the idea is specifically to make it so as to render other rules completely obsolete. And frankly, these sorts of abilities "feel epic."

These abilities would primarily take place during a "demigod tier" with the goal of simplifying all classes by the same point. Let's call that point level 25.

From levels 26-36 (or however high epic goes) characters would be in the "godhood tier." Here the character are gaining new and bizarre abilities, the sorts seen the Greek myths and Hindu scriptures. (Probably the WW game "Exalted" will be cribbed for ideas.) But the point is that groups that want to avoid the complexity of high level play can create characters that start at level 26 and avoid all the headaches of complex math, etc, while still playing out an "epic" storyline.

My goal was to appease both camps. Be honest: how did I do?