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.
Doppleganger Simulacrum:
Quote:
The alchemist learns how to create a simulacrum, a soulless duplicate of his body, into which he can project his consciousness. As a full-round action, he may shift his consciousness from his current body to any one of his available doppelganger simulacra, which must be on the same plane as the alchemist. If killed in a simulacrum, he transfers to his own body automatically; if killed in his own body, he is dead. Unused simulacra (including his abandoned original body) appear to be lifeless corpses, though they do not decay. Creating a duplicate costs 1,000 gp in alchemical materials and requires 1 week to grow. The created simulacrum is a creature, not a supernatural effect.
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.
Magic Jar:
Quote:
By casting magic jar, you place your soul in a gem or large crystal (known as the magic jar), leaving your body lifeless. Then you can attempt to take control of a nearby body, forcing its soul into the magic jar. You may move back to the jar (thereby returning the trapped soul to its body) and attempt to possess another body. The spell ends when you send your soul back to your own body, leaving the receptacle empty. To cast the spell, the magic jar must be within spell range and you must know where it is, though you do not need line of sight or line of effect to it. When you transfer your soul upon casting, your body is, as near as anyone can tell, dead.
While in the magic jar, you can sense and attack any life force within 10 feet per caster level (and on the same plane of existence). You do need line of effect from the jar to the creatures. You cannot determine the exact creature types or positions of these creatures. In a group of life forces, you can sense a difference of 4 or more HD between one creature and another and can determine whether a life force is powered by positive or negative energy. (Undead creatures are powered by negative energy. Only sentient undead creatures have, or are, souls.)
You could choose to take over either a stronger or a weaker creature, but which particular stronger or weaker creature you attempt to possess is determined randomly.
Attempting to possess a body is a full-round action. It is blocked by protection from evil or a similar ward. You possess the body and force the creature’s soul into the magic jar unless the subject succeeds on a Will save. Failure to take over the host leaves your life force in the magic jar, and the target automatically succeeds on further saving throws if you attempt to possess its body again.
If you are successful, your life force occupies the host body, and the host’s life force is imprisoned in the magic jar. You keep your Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, level, class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, alignment, and mental abilities. The body retains its Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, hit points, natural abilities, and automatic abilities. A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal. You can’t choose to activate the body’s extraordinary or supernatural abilities. The creature’s spells and spell-like abilities do not stay with the body.
As a standard action, you can shift freely from a host to the magic jar if within range, sending the trapped soul back to its body. The spell ends when you shift from the jar to your own body.
If the host body is slain, you return to the magic jar, if within range, and the life force of the host departs (it is dead). If the host body is slain beyond the range of the spell, both you and the host die. Any life force with nowhere to go is treated as slain.
If the spell ends while you are in the magic jar, you return to your body (or die if your body is out of range or destroyed). If the spell ends while you are in a host, you return to your body (or die, if it is out of range of your current position), and the soul in the magic jar returns to its body (or dies if it is out of range). Destroying the receptacle ends the spell, and the spell can be dispelled at either the magic jar or the host’s location.
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???
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.
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:
The Plan:
1. Free the Spared from the Hidden Beast's control.
2. Utilize the Spared as scouts and intelligence-gatherers (they don't know the Spared can buff their Initiative).
3. Go to the Giant Encampment (they skirted around it to avoid trouble while finding the Spared) and free some Giants.
4. Use the Giants as a diversion and to help hunt down Rune Giants so that they can rush the gates into Karzoug's domain while leaving Free Giants fighting Slave Giants in Lower Xin-Shalast...
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:
Rune Giant Company:
13–30 Rune Giants
2–4 Rune Giant fighters or rogues of 2nd–4th level
1 Rune Giant oracle or sorcerer of 5th–8th level
1 Rune Giant ranger or monk commander of 5th–6th level
10–20 yetis
1–4 cloud giants
8–12 frost giants
10–16 stone giants
4–8 lamia matriarchs
1–2 adult blue dragons
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.
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
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:
D20PFSRD Text:
Domino Effect wrote:
When the investigator uses studied strike, he uses his opponents against each other and sets himself up for his next move. Whenever he successfully deals damage to an opponent with studied strike, as a free action the investigator can apply the effects of studied combat to an opponent adjacent to the first.
Whirlwind Attack wrote:
When you use the full-attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your highest base attack bonus against each opponent within reach. You must make a separate attack roll against each opponent.
When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities.
Lunge wrote:
You can increase the reach of your melee attacks by 5 feet until the end of your turn by taking a –2 penalty to your AC until your next turn. You must decide to use this ability before any attacks are made.
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...
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.
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...).
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.
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???
If you are Aaron, Andy, Royce, Sam, or Tristan, TURN BACK NOW!!!
Hello, guys! You might have seen my recent post in the Obituaries thread where the Paladin got killed by a Faceless Stalker in the alley; the Faceless Stalker then took his place...
The group did the insane asylum (for the life of me, I can never recall if it's "Sanitarium", "Sanitorium", "Sanatarium", or "Sanatorium"...) the next day and used most of the day travelling:
Leave Sandpoint ~10AM
Get to Habe's around 1:30PM
Finish up with Grayst around 2PM. Party is contacted by Father Zantus via Sending to return to town because the Sherriff has some trouble. "Paladin" stays behind with Druid while the Druid prepares to attempt to use Remove Disease (Grayst dies while the Druid is preparing spells).
The party gets back to Sandpoint around 4:30PM and the Sherriff shows them the Paladin's body, along with the new Player Character that found it. They immediately borrow fresh horses and head back to Habe's, with Zantus again doing a Sending spell to the Druid.
Druid receives the message, wild shapes into an eagle, and then leaves the "Paladin" (they had started back to town and were about 30 minutes from Habe's). "Paladin" doesn't know his cover is blown, so returns to Habe's.
The party gets to Habe's around 7PM to find the place quiet and blood on the windows.
And that's where we had to end the session. The group never thought to even ask how many people were there the first time they showed up, so they only know of Habe, his two Tiefling helpers, Grayst, the "Paladin", and a former PC (a Dwarven Cleric who learned Terran and believed the Earth talked to him... *sigh*).
I want to see if you lot have any recommendations on how to proceed from here. The group is slightly over-levelled due to content in Chapter 1 (and originally there were only 3 players) at level 6 and there's now 5 players, so we can get afford to build big here. :) I thought about adding levels to Caizarlu and perhaps a few more zombies, but I still want to come up with some sort of "Who's Who?" cat-and-mouse game while they try to find the Faceless Stalker.
They only know of the areas A3 and A4 for Habe's place, so there's a lot of room to expand. What do you guys think?
