Fair Strides's page

El oh el, was just brought to my attention that the energy drain ability can only be applied once per round, so nevermind on this one? I guess if the slam attack misses, you can always try with the other attacks in the same round.

What is the source on this? The ability in the bestiaries just says it's automatic when the listed attacks hit, and that multiple successful attacks stack...

For Nualia's statblock, I think the DC for Lamashtu's Mark isn't correct. The wording of the feat in all sources I can find online is NOT halving the character level/HD, so it should be a much more respectable DC 19.

And given Nualia's artwork and description, it seems the Intimidate and Diplomacy effects of Lamashtu's Mark aren't factored in. If you do, Diplomacy is at +3 and Intimidate at +14, but if you balance out the two skill ranks between them, you get Diplomacy +8 due to class bonus (Nualia is charismatic to gather followers like she has) and Intimidate works out to the +12 in the statblock.

Thoughts?

I am very confused how the Reborn Brothers in area D10 are able to fo a full Flurry of Blows and then also get their natural attacks all in one full attack.

I expect to convert the Ex-Monk 5 to Ex-Unchained Monk 5, but I just know some of my players will be very curious how this is happening...

Personally, I use this for scaling.

https://pathfinderwiki.com/maps/golarion-tile/#5/52.052/-21.357

It's pointed right at Varisia, and the scale there seems to be 1 inch = 100-ish miles. Granted, that's zoomed out.

What if the PC's never encounter the Drow?

It seems like the most logical progression for the players would be to explore the islands in the lake first and find the shaft to the next layer in the process, pretty much bypassing the drow entirely. What should happen if they do this? Should the drow follow them so that the party runs into them on the way back, or is that just it for the drow in this adventure?

It's mentioned in the Drow section (either in Developments if it's there, or in the sidebar quest stuff) that if the party skip the Drow, it's okay to have them find out about the PCs (remember that there's a Drow on the beach, right in front of the shaft entrance) soon after and follow them. In this case, they'd stay back and observe, waiting for a time when the PCs were weak to approach them. In that case, it's up to you what approach the Drow would take to start that encounter/talk.

Thanks everyone for the responses!

Reading through them, it seems the likely outcome is "No, the Doppleganger shouldn't have the soul, only the animation by the Alchemist's mental will". In that sense, and after having wrote that out, a parallel could be seen in the spell Projected Image, in which you can talk and sense and even cast spells through the created image of you.

The group is okay with a minor ret-con like that. The Doppleganger and the Magic Jar spell both have caused a fair bit of head-scratching and adjudication (such as whether Magic Jar on someone under a Mind-Affecting effect allows you to suppress/ignore the outcome of those effects, or what all buffs transfer between caster's old body and new). For the record, I think I found the magic item in question that the Alchemist uses.

I do agree that the Doppleganger Simulacrum seems RAI to be used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for a dangerous situation, so I'll probably bring that up. The player would very much like to know the outcome and has asked about potentially swapping it out since he wouldn't have chosen it if he couldn't use things like Magic Jar through it.

@Tacticslion: No need to worry about the tone. I wasn't going to take it negatively when I read it. :)

VRMH: That's where the question comes in about transferring your consciousness. The way the Doppleganger works is that it's a soulless duplicate of yourself, and you can project your consciousness into it. I'm just not sure if your consciousness includes your soul.

I have a really hard conundrum to adjudicate. I have a player that used the Doppleganger Simulacrum alchemist discovery to make a body and project into it to go on an adventure. This is fine.

However, the player has also taken to using Magic Jar, from a magic item (some sort of soul jar thing), on a Fire Giant while inside the doppleganger.

My other players are talking OOC about the logistics of this and wondering how they interact. Since you project your consciousness into the simulacrum, does your soul transfer to it as its new "home" receptacle? If your soul is in your Prime body and you project into Unit A, for example, can you still use Magic Jar from the location of Unit A?

Lastly, the Doppleganger Simulacrum says that you return to your Prime body automatically on death. What form of travel is this? Ethereal? Teleportation? Would a Forbiddance or Dimensional Anchor stop this???

A question that might be silly seeing as I haven't seen it mentioned at all and the search results didn't help.

On page 38 in area D8, there's a Larval Purple Worm Swarm. It mentions the Bestiary page for the Purple Worm, and then a template from Advanced Bestiary, page 45. However, the template on page 45 is the Blood Knight, assuming the reference was referring to Advanced Bestiary by Green Ronin. I see that there's a statblock to help, but here's my question, mostly for future reference:

Is the reference to a Swarm instead referring to the Creature Swarm template on page 62 of Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary?

For the seugathi encounter, I'm curious as to parties and Protection from Evil, because that seems pretty cut-and-dried to me.

Protection from Evil wrote:

...against any spells or effects that possess or exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment [charm] effects and enchantment [compulsion] effects...While under the effects of this spell, the target is immune to any new attempts to possess or exercise mental control over the target.

There's nothing there that says it has to be a spell or spell-like ability; the words "any spells or effects" to me include auras (an effect), even though they're an Su.

Insanity is specifically listed as enchantment (compulsion) [mind-affecting], so I see my party (that never goes anywhere without a Magic Circle Against Evil up) as being particularly well-prepared for this encounter (and many others).

Is there a reason the Magic Circle wouldn't work against the aura that I'm missing?

I tend to lean towards the GM side of things, so I find that interaction to be disappointing, personally. From what I'm reading, the Magic Circle Against Evil/Chaos would indeed work against the Insanity effect of the Seugathi's Madness aura. I would also say that it prevents the Seugathi from using their Confusion Command ability to force the results of the Confusion roll.

However, I would rule that the actual confusion part of the aura does still apply, since that is called out as the confused condition and makes no reference to functioning like the spell confusion.

My group is playing through Shattered Star and I decided to have them each pick or custom-make a scaling item to help get their characters more integrated (half of this group has played through Rise of the Runelords with me, but some of the others are new to the group). This has worked remarkably well, except for one player that joined in late.

She's playing a Kitsune [voidkin] Psychic with the Aberrant discipline with a focus on debuffing and controlling targets; she was not seeing many helpful or useful scaling items. I'm attributing this to how close together Occult Adventures and Unchained came out, but I was surprised to not see any results from googling around to see if someone had thought up any items.

So, I'm here to ask you guys for ideas, see what your creativity can lead to. We're playing with Automatic Bonus Progression and Scaling Items on the Medium XP track and restricted to Bauble or Prize category scaling items. Right now, we're in Kaer Maga.

I was thinking maybe something for extra DC increases or recharging phrenic pool points at the cost of spell slots? There's a lot of moving parts for Psychics, so there's lots of options for a scaling item.

@Daniel Penfold 357: I'm not sure how fast your group moves, so this may be too late.

My party was terrified of the Fiendish Seugathi they found in the Lady's Light, but none of them died to it. They got pretty beat up, though. I knew they'd level up twice before facing the batch of 3 and they'd get better Will saves, so I wasn't worried about it.

When I actually ran the fight, though? All of the party was confused at one point or another, but some managed to break free through lucky rolls on the d100 chart. They were all rolling backup characters in preparation for this since I had ended the previous session when these popped out of the wall. In the end, they only lost one of their number, and Abra Lopati made a good showing of himself and his organization to help save them.

Though, the tension in the scene was helped out by something I did earlier. I had the party make it to the Halflight Path in the middle of a thunderstorm just at Dusk, so the Duskwardens were just about to pack up and take the last group of the day through. As the merchant was getting his cart through the door, one of his sons saw another late-comer in the storm and called out to the group. They turned and saw the Dark Rider (who only Abra knew) and Abra and the merchants were pale and afraid. The party detected the lethal intent as the Dark Rider approached menacingly on foot, the horse behind him and ready to charge. The party tried to engage him for a bit as Abra screamed at them to get through the doors. They beat a hasty (if unwilling in some cases) retreat after they identified it as a Dullahan and it called out the full name of one of the party members (who had never said her last name aloud).

So my party was already amped up and tense from that lovely encounter, after which Abra was able to give them a bit of lore on the Dark Rider and swiftly tell them to get through the path so that he wouldn't have to be near them if/when the Dark Rider showed up again...

A build like that will be amazing in this campaign, particularly in the mid-to-late levels when the build will really come online.

In the beginning, you'll face tight environments, but those will quickly fade away along with the shackles on your Druid's potential.

Running a suicide mission for the Sihedron Heroes sounds like a lot of fun, and, well, we all probably know which soundtrack is the appropiate one for that occasion. ^^

Pray tell, which soundtrack? I just want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row in a couple years' time. For starters, I plan to have Sorshen send the Sihedron Heroes on that suicide mission...

Lyrad the Strange: You are correct. I doubt this will help you at this point in time a bit over 3 months later, but this can probably help others.

When making her stat block, they forgot that the dagger was a +1 weapon. The melee line reads "+1 dagger", and the ranged line reads "dagger". She also doesn't have a second (or more) dagger in her inventory, so this is all an "off by 1" error from the lack of the enhancement.

Mmm, that's a possibility. For reference, my fight with Longtooth was with a 12th-level Paladin and Dragon Disciple (the Rogue/Fighter really didn't do anything to Longtooth) and I had allowed the Dragon Disciple to buy a Scroll of Form of the Dragon 3 (he had just asked about 8th-level scrolls and asked if he could find one; I told him as long as it wasn't a Demiplane spell, and I'd be charging an extra 50%). That fight did not last long, but it was close for the Dragon Disciple.

Here's my Longtooth:

@The Shifty Mongoose: Thanks for the reply! It had been so long that I wasn't sure anyone was going to see it. I'm happy Nualia switched sides, though that was partially GM fiat on my part because the player involved in that side quest (controlling a PC and being on a separate mini-adventure with Nualia) dropped the campaign about halfway through, but I'd already laid the groundwork and everything. And this was way away from anything the rest of the party was doing as they went about the main storyline.

It's been a few sessions, but we ran one session using a big ambush with the Dragon Disciple bluffing and luring some Rune Giants and a lot of other giants out to go take down the Spared in their tunnels. So I rolled the groups of giants into 3-4 person squads and ran them that way for combat and initiative, treating them as a block of health that would get depleted and one of them die off when the health got to that fraction. I got that idea from someone's ideas about Vraxeris in the Community-Created Content thread. This worked out fairly well, though the party had the advantage of a Paladin with Angelic Bond and everyone had readied actions.

I ran another big battle when they went to cause a mess at the Giant Camp (no one had True Seeing or had any reason to disbelieve Gyukuk, so they helped him get away and I can use him as a side-quest around the time of next campaign or something). After that, the group was getting some fatigue from the big combats, so we all talked out how to handle a few in-game days of going around the city hunting for Rune Giants and marking off average or expected spells. I did run Ghlorofaex and Gamigin, and they discovered the tunnel with the Mountain Roper (this guy scared the crap out of them with six 50ft-range attacks targeting touch, but they did good on their saves).

Currently, they're letting most of the giants (except for 3 Storm Giants they brought with them and 3 Wardens of Thunder they just freed when encountering Viorian) handle the mop-up and assaulting the last of the Rune Giants off-screen. They don't know that the Pinnacle of Avarice is not the final area, so they're heavily debating whether to rest "in Karzoug's own house" or not, since I told them they could reach level 18 because of their prior sidequests, and the Dragon Disciple is down to 10 rounds of Bloodrage and all they've done is take out Viorian and 2 Karzoug images. (I intend to slam them with Khalib right at the beginning of next session, but that'll be mid-talk with a restored Viorian, or at least a recovering Viorian.)

As a side-note, they're also worried about their tag-along, Avaxial. You know, the pit fiend from Skull's Crossing? Ever since they freed him, he's been a pain in their side, but united in the goal of killing Karzoug. It doesn't help their bonds though when he has a deal with the Dragon Disciple (from when she got captured in Jorgenfist; this switched the Sorcerer levels to Bloodrager, which I treat like a Sorcerer for stacking with the Dragon Disciple) and a former PC that's now an NPC. OOC, some of them know that I've given him Antipaladin levels (but docked 3 HD and didn't give the Stat Adjustments from giving a monster a PC class, though I might add those in if needed) and he's staying 15ft from the Paladin at all times. We all know it's gonna be a fight at the end after Karzoug...

Well, he's a Dragon, and a Red one at that, so he's arrogant, hot-headed, and in this case, young. Could be reckless, especially since he's impatient and starts to head out early, if I recall correctly.

To really grasp his power, he can do flybys in the streets and burn citizens as they flee (might catch some giants). When he goes to land somewhere or take off to the air, he could grab a guard and chew through their armor, dropping the corpse a round later to fall at the party's feet.

I don't know your party, but my party uses rolled stats (standard 4d6, drop lowest) and had a Rogue/Fighter, Paladin, and Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple (and an asleep Witch). I upgrade Longtooth by a few age categories (I believe up to Adult) and it was a good challenge for them.

Ignoring the fact that this is a template for Constructs, this seems strong for a CR+1 template and I'd probably want to make it CR+2 in my home games.

I will warn you up front that that +2 untyped bonus to Saves against two schools of magic is really juicy for low levels and helps all the more at high levels. But it can be a bit much and I would expect the players to only be able to fail stuff on a Nat1 by the time they're level 11-13 for most things. (I have a Paladin player in my game that uses the optional Angelic Bond as his Paladin's Divine Bond, and in this campaign, it's scarily effective for giving people absurd saves...)

As for the Sin-based abilities, I'd also label them according to the Virtues, so as to be palatable to any goodie-two-shoes in the party (like my party's Paladin). And most of those Sin-based abilities are downright dangerous, especially since they're a free action each round, so there's no penalty to using them. Not to mention that the Wrath-infused ability gives a huge jump to damage output since it applies to every single melee attack that character makes. :/

Since these templates are being applied to player characters, I'd be wary of that scaling DC on the saves: 10 + 1/2 character's level + STR modifier can be deadly, especially if given to a Barbarian. Players can get their ability scores up into the low 30s if they try hard enough, and I shudder to think of a Goblin needing a DC15 Will Save vs Baleful Polymorph at level 1 (10 + 1 + STR of 18, so +4), much less a DC26 at level 16 (10 + 8 + STR of 26, so +8). This is doubly so for things like the Greed- and Gluttony-infused abilities, because if multiple people get them, oh dear for your encounter.

I legitimately like this template now that I've found it, but dang if it isn't strong as hell. It's one that I would not easily entrust to the players since it seems way too strong to give a party for the entire day vs giving it to a few enemies for one encounter.

Hello, everyone! My players are masochists, I think. (Well, and the terminology of one player)

The party so far:
(They're slightly ahead due to some side quests, extra encounters in Runeforge, and they managed to kill Black Magga)

Sabinna, Suli Paladin of Iomedae 17
Kisara, Gnome Bloodrager [Infernal and Draconic] / Dragon Disciple 17
Nualia, Aasimar Warpriest of Desna 17
Fiorne, Halfling Sorceress [Elemental (Electricity)] 17

They powered through all of Runeforge with some issues and then took a few sessions to sell loot and deal with the Vekker Cabin (they loved it). They finally (after a good 64 sessions) made it to the outskirts of Xin-Shalast and managed to Bluff their way past the Krak Naratha guards due to the Sihedron Medallion they still had (currently held by the Paladin :D). Then they began travelling up the Golden Road.

I rolled a random encounter and it was quite innocent: a Storm Giant, which are normally CG. Since the group was bluffing as new recruits, they asked him for directions, then rolled Sense Motive as he was walking off and swiftly used a Break Enchantment to free him from the mind control. Oh boyyy, did they get a surprise when he told them about the Rune Giants and their ability to control other Giants to build an army. And the Storm Giant has agreed to assist them. Currently, they've encountered 1 Rune Giant after that (with 4 Stone Giants) that came to recover the Storm Giant that broke free. A few freed Stone Giants later, and the poor Rune Giant got absolutely bullied, though the players know next to nothing about Rune Giants because they barely made the DC.

They've just found the Spared and agreed to help with the Hidden Beast, but their current plan is as follows:

I figure this can stall us a few sessions while the 3D-printing gets closer to completion, but I want to make this realistic and epic, and am prepared to run them against a Rune Giant Company from the Bestiary 2 entry if necessary as the climactic battle to enter the Pinnacle of Avarice:

I'd probably group the enemies and friendly giants into groups of 5 for Initiative and keep that combat as few a round limit as possible to not drag on. But I'm not entirely sure how to get from here to that point and want to know what you guys would do:

There's about 500 Giants (Hill, Frost, and Storm)in Xin-Shalast, though I do not intend to use all of them. There's currently around 31 Rune Giants in lower Xin-Shalast. The group assumes the Hill and Frost Giants might be 50/50 on whether they'd turn on the Rune Giants, but I'd say it's more 10/90 (90% chance they'd stay allied).

So, how would you guys plan something like a counter-measure against a Resistance Movement if you were Karzoug, or the leader of the Rune Giants? Would you bring in other kinds of Giants from the Bestiaries for a group of high-level PCs to tangle with?

P.S: For planning purposes so you can take "losing control of Giants into account", the Paladin was quite happey when the Dwarves in Janderhoff were able to sell her a Holy Avenger, and Nualia and Fiorne have some Dispel stuff as backup.

I would like this sidequest as well, please! :)

This is a situation that I would both love and hate to be in, to be perfectly honest. On the one hand, "Yay! I get to live!!!". On the other hand, "What do I have to live forrrr?!" That, and a part of me finds it more realistic when the party gets split up and has to tackle things from multiple angles, because IRL, sometimes there isn't enough time to go running through town to grab your friend before you start a tavern brawl.

You know what the danger is, but not the where. And at best, you'll probably only be able to arrive at the clean-up phase. :(

Since I don't like metagaming and try to discourage it whenever possible, I see only a very few options your character would have:

1) Ask the nearest guard where your friends are (this might allow the GM to get you back in quick, since I would sincerely hope that the guards are keeping the party under surveillance of some sort...) and rushing with all haste to share your discoveries.

2) Go looking for them and use up a lot of time with Diplomacy to gather information and see if anyone's spotted them around town. Then head on over there to eventually try to get their remains.

3) Grab some of the town guard and head out after them. Alternatively, the players will roll up temporary or permanent replacement characters and be sent to find and bring back "the rogue criminals that assaulted Justice Ironbriar and vandalized a sawmill".

All three follow a basic thread, but the last two are more "attempt to retrieve their bodies to get them brought back" (even just a simple Reincarnate scroll is about 1280 GP). From a roleplaying standpoint, retrieving their bodies, regardless of whether you bring them back from the dead, can give your character closure. Bringing them back from the dead also allows your character (and you as a player) to take the high ground and lecture them that "THIS is exactly why we need to use our heads and not just rush in! Do you want this to happen again?"

My party is currently running through Rise of the Runelords, but we're fixing to wrap up Runeforge in a session or two. I've already been giving them some info for Shattered Star and getting their minds going on generating Character ideas. One player is planning to build a Dwarf Alchemist [Trap Breaker and Construct Rider] with a Construct Roc companion (he hasn't decided yet if he'd like to make it Clockwork right off the bat, or do so later on).

I've read through most o fthe first half of Shattered Star and seen a lot of Construct enemies. Most of them are impossible to control, but there's the Clockwork Servant in Chapter 1 and there's a lot of Clockworks in The Hanging Manse, so I'm curious: how would the player go about collecting the active ones?

If my reading of the Clockwork subtype is correct, you can wind the key down if you succeed at the check while the Clockwork is still alive and kicking. So the player could spend the effort to pin a construct and then wind it's key down (I'd probably rule that each round they can wind down 1 day of use for the key). And my understanding is that the Clockwork will obey whoever winds it up, yes?

To be clear, I don't mind if he amasses a small army of constructs. They're fairly easy to kill off and they'll ruin most any attempt at stealth and a host of other logistics with handling them following the group around. I simply want to get a handle for how he'd go about doing it so that I actually have an answer ready when he finds his first Clockwork and asks me. :P

@Captain Morgan: Xanesha doesn't have to send Nualia to Lucretia for her to show up in Lucretia's journal. It's quite possible that Nualia could be travelling through Turtleback Ferry on the way NE to get to the Storval Stairs and eventually make her way to Mokmurian. It could even be an unforeseen thing that Xanesha doesn't know about. Or if you're giving Xanesha a diary or something similar, it could be a worry or idle thought of her's that Nualia might run into her sister.

@Travelerscode: Poor Dirks... He went to his death almost the exact same way as Malachi, the poor Druid of one of my players... He's the third or fourth post from the top of this page.

@HeftyUpTop:

I've just gotta say, I love the effort you've gone to to integrate the party into the campaign and setting! I'm already a bit late into the campaign (Chapter 5), but this gives me inspiration for when I run Shattered Star next! :D

I wonder... Could you PM me the conversion you made of Matt's stuff to Pathfinder? It sounds intriguing to say the least and I have a Paladin in the party...

@avr: Thanks for the confirmation. And that isn't all of his damage, that's just the Precision Damage itself. The normal hit would be something like 1d6+28 with Power Attack, then you add that 4d6+15... :)

Also, I'm legit not sure how Domino Effect works with Studied Combat's re-apply clause. I can only target someone with Studied Combat 1/day unless I spend a use of Inspiration in the same action I use Studied Combat.

I can use Studied Combat as a Swift Action because of Quick Study, but if I'm reading Domino Effect correctly, I could spend the Inspiration as a Free Action when I use Domino Effect's effect.

I'm building a Vampire Lord as the father of a Dhampir PC and the player described them as an "old as f**k dude who's super suave and civil, but super evil too", and someone that's a lot like an older version of Alucard from the Castlevania series on Netflix (which I have seen, thankfully). So, I went with Investigator [Empiricist] 10 / Swashbuckler 10 and ran into a few things.

Pre-facing the questions with a simple home rule I made: The Sword Cane has the same stats as the Rapier.

So, I took the Investigator Talent called Domino Effect, the Whirlwind Attack feat, and the Lunge feat:

So...

Question #1:

According to my reading of those two things, can I use the first attack from Whirlwind Attack to hit my Studied Target, use Studied Strike to do my 4d6+5 precision damage, use Domino Effect to designate the next target as my Studied Target, and then rinse and repeat for the rest of my attacks?

Question #2:

Does Whirlwind Attack work with the Lunge feat to allow me to make an attack against every enemy within 10ft of me? o_O

Question #3:

Do multiple sources of Precision Damage stack? My Vampire Lord has both the Investigator's Studied Strike and the Swashbuckler's Precise Strike, which would be a +4d6+15 precision damage...

I've written up some short speeches that I'd be saying before the celebrations begin (it's still two more days till the celebrations*):

Though, I think I'll start Chapter 5's opener during the celebrations on the Solstice, at evening. So I'm altering some of the details of the beginning to make it work with the party already being in Sandpoint.

*: So... I'm curious. I've never been the greatest with days and night-time (finding out when "Midnight on Oathday" was for Chapter 2 was a pain).

If you have the Candlemark holiday that lasts through the night and the Stardust Ritual that happens at evening, do these happen on the 21st itself, or on the 20th going into the 21st?

Well, I most certainly wouldn't say no to seeing what you came up with, Askar! :)

I didn't touch much from Chapters 1-3, but if I ran them again, I'd have definitely used some post-AE content. As you saw in your Winter Festival thread, I made Nualia into a Warpriest. I just wish I'd done that back when the party faced her.

Oh, did you see my last post in that thread?

@Askvar Avari: Well, my party didn't get to Sandpoint this session, but we'll get there next week! We still had an... eventful session though, thanks to introing a new party member, a dhampir skald with a rich dad.

So, the player's character is a female Dhampir Skald named Rinka Magalor, daughter of the Vampire Lord Magalor (and one of his slaves). She heard tales of the exploits of the party's Paladin, Sabinna Ronnova (the one who soloed both Mokmurian and the Black Monk), and wanted to invite Sabinna and her associates to a masquerade ball in the Naos District of Magnimar. Rinka even gave a blank check to go to Rinka's tailor.

So, the party got new outfits.

Shalelu got this one.

And Nualia got this one (but without the extra sheathes. She wields a bastard sword).

The masquerade went off to a great start with Sabinna, Nualia, the new Samurai Roshi, and the Dragon Disciple Kisara going off to the bar. Much to the staff's horror, they started a heavy drinking contest.

I should say now that I usually use simple rules for Drinking:

Sorry for not responding when you posted this originally.

I'm really liking where you're going with this, so I'm grateful for you posting this. When I read through this the first time, I opened up my campaign log and checked my dates. It's currently Kuthona 11 by my reckoning, so I'm hoping to spring some of this stuff on the group the session after next. :)

In my case, the group has killed the boss of Chapter 4 and the Black Monk (and opened his case and found the password), so they're in a good spot. I know they want to cast Teleport and go sell loot in Magnimar, but I reckon they'll return to explore the big area in the lowest level of Chapter 4, so I can make that an entire session.

I'm afb at the moment, but have a vague memory of some potions he is assumed to have used, heroism maybe?

Galenmir does indeed drink a potion of heroism, but it's mentioned in his Before Tactics section, so it should already be included...

Looking back at my earlier math and factoring in Large, it'd be +23/+18/+13 before the potion. So the Errata Document is indeed correct when you add in the potion of Heroism's +2 Morale Bonus.

But large size is a -1 to hit.

...That's right. So... what's up with Galenmir's melee full attack, then?

Shouldn't it be +23/+18/+13 because of the above math and him being Large?

------

In any case, my group didn't fight him. I interpreted the description of his attitude as "N, leaning towards LN" and started civilly talking to the party when he found them and Conna in the old shrine. It started with asking the names of the ones who thought to sneak in (along with some advice about how to not cause a fuss when sneaking into an enemy base) and the party managed some impressive Diplomacy into a duel.

So, I'm prepping for the session tomorrow, but I realized something when looking at the errata document that doesn't add up for me.

Bear in mind, my downloaded copy of the document was revised 09-28-18.

It says that in Galenmir's stat-block, his melee attack line didn't factor in Weapon Focus (Heavy Pick) and should be "+25/+20/+15". And there was a reminder that Power Attack had already been factored into the damage; the Tactics block says Power Attack was already factored in, so I can assume that was also the attack modifiers.

However, my math isn't adding up:

BAB: +13
STR of 32: +11 to hit
Weapon Focus: +1
Weapon Enhancement: +3 to hit

Sub-Total: +28 to hit

Power Attack with a BAB of 13: -4 for +8

Total: +24/+19/+14 to hit

Edit (7 minutes later): Nevermind, I'm a freaking idiot! I _always_ overlook the size modifiers!!! :/

I don't know this Lissala, but it's already too ingrained as Lamashtu with this group.

The Black Monk and Harpies as Unchained Monks, that I did do (much to the Sorcerer-Dragon Disciple's dismay when she tried to solo Fireball a camp to cause a distraction by the front gate...).

@Java Man: Can you post that Sinspawn Axemen build in the Community-Created Stuff thread when you're done? :)

My group's in Book 4 right now.

I would definitely not underestimate the post-2012 content, but by the same token, I'd use it to the hilt.

Remember a golden rule of GMing: if they players can do it, so can you. :P

I'd definitely re-work a few encounters and re-train levels for some bosses. You see a lot of Fighters early on and in Chapter 3, but you can definitely mix in ranged versions, Brawlers, or even have fun with Bloodrager.

One thing I did was re-train the main villain of Chapter 1 as a full Warpriest. Granted, this was after the party redeemed them and I realized Warpriest came out after the campaign book; the NPC was level 11 at the time. But she's originally shown as a Fighter/Cleric build, so... why not?

P.S.: If you're going to use newer books, definitely look at re-doing some spell lists...

My party actually sympathized with Nualia quite a bit after reading her journal (one player was E anyways, so he was kind of wanting to go burn the town down himself when he read the journal), so I can definitely understand why you want to delve into this.

I ran my version a bit differently for two reasons:

1. My gods and goddesses are slightly more active than one would normally consider them to be. I will occasionally have them appear in some form or another, but so far it's only been in one-on-one situations.

2. The party agreed to offered to let her go, taking two fingers and some hair as proof that they'd killed her, along with sending a Kitsune shape-shifted into Lyrie with her as a spy.

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How I viewed Nualia's situation:

1. She was completely devoted to Lamashtu, believing that Lamashtu had opened her eyes when she was in her coma, showing her what Sandpoint was really like. She was then trained and "groomed" for the purpose of destroying Sandpoint.

2. Growing up, she really didn't have the best examples of Desna worship to surround herself with when you consider her adoptive step-father Ezakien. I took a look at Desna's portfolio and read up on her entry in the Inner Sea Gods book. Desna is a deity that loves exploration, experience, and discovering new things. I applied these on a personal scale instead of the grand scale.

3. Nualia believes she's Lamashtu's champion, her chosen emissary. A person like that thinks they can't lose. After all, they have divine might behind them. She received a vision of Malfeshnekor in Thistletop, along with a mission to free him.

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How it went in my game:

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Ultimately, I view her as being quite redeemable, given her Goddess- and demon-influenced memories being tainted. It should definitely _not_ be easy or quick, though. It should take lots of RP and showing her that what she thought was right was actually wrong.

@outshyn I wouldn't be so quick to come down harshly on Dracovar. Dracovar, theLorax, and everybody else here, is only working with the info you provided. If they down't see any info provided about the world's reactions or consequences that came into play, it's a perfecly valid and reasonable conclusion that there were none.

We can't help based on what we don't know, is what I'm trying to say. As for whether we need the info or not, it'd help to get a sense of what consequences you'ved tried so far, how the players reacted/dealt with them, and then we can probably get ideas on ways to up the stakes as it were.

Again, we can only help if we're on the same page as you, or at least in the same chapter of the book.

P.S.: While I agree with keeping post length manageable, it is possible to minimize things inside spoiler tags, which you can use from below by taking out the space I insert:

[spoiler=caption ]Whatever is in the spoiler.[/ spoiler]

Hello again, everybody!

Ever since the Dwarf Barbarian Urist died fighting Black Magga, the new character's been having a difficult time. The player brought in a Paladin of Iomedae (yikes!) and while it's been amazing to watch her Smite Evil, she's had a few... moral conundrums as we call them.

First off, she had to retreat from Skull's Crossing because the Sorcerer "broke formation" and went to investigate the scale model of Skull's Crossing and fell victim to the Skull Ripper (we all forgot about Blindsense 30ft...) and lost her head. This decision was made after they found and started talking with the pit fiend about the dam and his request to free him.

The Paladin sought advice from her adoptive mother (Tira Ronnova, from Magnimar, City of Monuments) and got the Sorcerer reincarnated. They returned to the dam and requested more information from the pit fiend about how the dam worked and what it would do with its freedom. To be fair, none of the party made their checks to know what he was, besides the fact that he was a devil.

The Paladin finally stepped forward and offered Avaxial a deal, taking Avaxial up on his offer of a Wish if they freed him: "Use your Wish to make the dam power itself, if you can. And then you and your direct influence will leave the Material Plane."

Avaxial wanted his freedom, and he saw a loophole in the Paladin's use of the phrasing "direct influence", so he agreed, adding that "if it is not within my power to power the dam, you need only summon me within a year's time to get your wish." Needless to say, he wasn't able to change the dam's operations, but the party used a Summon Monster spell to power the dam.

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All of that being said, the Paladin believes he now needs to pay the full cost for an Atonement spell, which I'm personally on the fence about. What do you guys think? From my and the player's view, the Paladin did it to serve the greater good and protect the entire valley from the flood (he has no idea how big the damage really would have been...).

Thank you for the reply, James! :)

I noticed the difference in DR between the Scarecrow and the Skull Ripper, so I was hoping small differences like that were attributing to the "low" CR I was seeing.

I was using the HD as a basis because of the usually-apparent correlation between the two with most humanoid monsters, but it's nice to know I should look at other stuff as well. I understand that the power level of things scales differently at various levels, so it can't be too linear with the "A Construct gains this many bonuses per CR point" style of monster advancement.

I've also seen some rather horrifying reports of the Skull Ripper fight in other campaigns, so I don't want to buff it too much.

The party is now:

Level 12 Paladin of Iomedae {Angelic Bond}
Level 11 Witch {Deception Patron} / Level 01 Druid
Level 05 Sorcerer {Draconic, White} / Level 07 Dragon Disciple

So while I'm one party member less than the typical expectation for CR, they are all level 12. I think CR10 or 11 should be fine, especially since the Paladin can't smite it...

Been a little while since I posted. My group's Dwarf Barbarian finally died when he tried to take on Black Magga to divert attention away from the church. This ended with half the church destroyed and a Looney Tunes style Enlarged Dwarf hole in what remained of the roof. Then the other party member that was present that session managed to get the killing blow on Black Magga (I tell you, the Dwarf Barbarian did a _hell_ of a job, getting Black Magga down to 17HP; I ran Black Magga as-written with no changes) and jumped up in XP.

The new party members joined in at an equal level 12 (they were already a bit ahead of the XP track due to previous things), so I have to advance things by 2+ CR going forward (it's rolled stats, but only 3 party members). I've already advanced most of the things in Skull's Crossing (still need to look up any good spear-/trident-based Fighter archetypes for Grazuul), but I had to scratch my head at the Skull Ripper.

From what I know, it's a Construct (so Full BAB and d10 hit die) and has 15HD, but it is only CR9...? I tried looking through the Monster Advancement section of Bestiary 1, but I'm not seeing any explanation for why the CR shouldn't be higher to match the HD. Even the guideline table in the Monster Advancement section shows that a 15HD Construct should be about a CR11.

At the bar minimum, I can slap the Advanced template on it and add 1 or 2 HD (+1 a feat), but I wanted to see if there were any other changes I needed to make.

@Lawrencelot: Perhaps re-build Habe as an Alchemist Chirugeon himself and have Habe be, at your choice, either:

1. the PC's mentor
2. an escaped/survived victim of the PC with a warped interest in "protecting" people from the PC or doing his own research to become better than the PC

What do you think?

@World's Okayest DM:

I've had two groups run through the Skinsaw Murders so far.

The first group had an LN Monk and wanted to go meet the Mayor as soon as they got to Magnimar so he'd be okay with the authorities. Since the AP makes mention of rumors and various talk among the guards about the serial killings that have been going on for the past year or so (as opposed to the Cult's occasional death every now and then), I had the PCs arrive at the Mayor's office to find him arguing and yelling at Ironbriar for his incompetence. That resulted in the party being the goody-goodys and telling the Mayor who they were, why they were there, and everything they'd learned in Sandpoint and the Misgivings, hence what they planned to do next... It was such a surprise when they encountered Ironbriar later that night. :)

The second group arrived in Magnimar in ones and twos, having taken care of business in Sandpoint, so the investigation of the Foxglove Townhouse was a solo adventure for the Dwarven Barbarian (after making friends with a beggar, who watched, waited, and then came to get him when the guards weren't around). However, one of the players, the Rogue, knew all about Ironbriar and the Cult due to backstory and childhood, so getting the party pointed towards the Sawmill wasn't an issue for them.

For your group... You know that Ironbriar's one of the head judges and in charge of the Law, as it stands. He's got a secret network of cultists, but he could always have other helpers. I would not put it past him at all to have a few corrupt guards on his payroll.

And since he's the one who put the Faceless Stalkers at the house, he'd want to keep an eye on them in case things went wrong. If I were you, I'd put one or two guards from the Watchtower on Ironbriar's payroll, with the possibility of them taking the party's Cleric Watch friend for the next Oathsday ceremony (since by now, she knows quite a lot that she really shouldn't...). After all, I imagine the party would notice if she suddenly isn't around. :P

Well, it's been a while since I came here, eh? I hoped so dearly to have a death or two between the Seven's Sawmill and the Shadow Clocktower (along with the week-long trip by boat to Turtleback Ferry), but the party has been exceedingly lucky. Until the Graul Farmstead, that is. :)

Name of PC: Saraphina, Female Tiefling
Class and Level: Arcanist 8
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Crowfood's Surprise!
Story:

When we have our next session, she may well be back with her Male Elf Monk.

Geez, I just double-checked and yeah. I don't know where I was looking...

Maybe I shouldn't be messing with this stuff on lack of sleep? :)

Because evil cheats.

Hahaha! That's the best answer. :P

*sigh* Thanks guys. As it turns out, I had completely missed that she had it anyways until I was levelling her up (I know... I ran it for the boss fight and then forgot it existed after that), so no harm. I just need to replace it with something else is all. I'm thinking Vital Strike...

Before other comments on the matter: I am aware that she doesn't qualify for Power Attack and have already swapped that out for Improved Initiative.

I didn't notice this before when I was running Nualia against the party, but then they let her live and even let her go (minus some hair and a few fingers as 'proof' of her death). They had a new party member who was a Kitsune with the Realistic Likeness racial feat take the place of Lyrie to go with Nualia and act as a spy.

This hasn't panned out the way the party was expecting, but that's something I could discuss in a more appropriate thread (on that note, where would you recommend I post about it? It's quickly developed into a redemption arc involving Desna). Suffice to say, Nualia's earned enough XP to level up, so I'm doing that as a Fighter, making her a Fighter 3 / Cleric of Lamashtu 4.

I had forgotten about the Power Attack and swapped it out this point, but then I noticed something: Nualia has Weapon Specialization (Bastard Sword), which has a prerequisite of "4th-level-fighter". But Nualia only had 2 Fighter levels when the party faced her. I was led to believe that because the Bonus Feats class feature of the Fighter did not say that the Fighter could ignore the prerequisites, that this was not a way to get the Weapon Specialization feat early.

So... Can someone tell me how Nualia is able to have the feat???

Name of PC: Jayla, Female Human
Class and Level: Monk [Drunken Monk] 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Catacombs and a Raged Barbarian

Name of PC: Starlight, Female Aasimar
Class and Level: Cleric 2
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Catacombs and a Raged Barbarian

Story:

(I want to preface this with a complaint: the catacombs underneath the Glassworks Factory have a terrible layout that makes it too easy for a party to go straight to the boss fight room...)

I didn't want a murder spree in Sandpoint, so I let the effect end as he was leaving the Glassworks Factory. He ran back to the Catacombs, mourned the fallen comrades, tried to comfort the Rogue (who retreated further into the corner), and then buried his comrades. He left his greatsword by their graves and the Rogue threw it in the ocean.

This was a hell of a session that none of us could have prepared for. I'm having the Barbarian pick up the Redemption story feat and the Rogue gets the Feral Heart story feat because of her race (kitsune) and general reaction to all the trauma. The Barbarian has sworn off drinking, but we'll have to wait and see how the two will change and develop after this.

(As a grim bit of humor, the Barbarian made it to level 4 by killing his two comrades...)