Click the "FAQ" link at the top of the first post in this thread. If enough people request a clarification from the Paizo staff, it sometimes happens. Don't hold your breath, though.
Done!!
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Hi James. I've opened a post at Rules Questions but we really need a settling by a dev about it, so I'm copying my question here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pbkw?Intimidate-language What happens when the creature you are using intimidate on--to DEMORALIZE it--does does not understand you language? Case one: You cannot speak the creature's language (Intimidating a Gnoll) Case two: You do not share a common body language (Intimidating a will-o'-wisp) Case three: None of the above (Intimidating a shoggoth, for example, and you do not speak Aklo) Case four: Animals / creatures with INT 1 or 2 Thank you!!
That would be also my idea, but we have a bit of a disagreement at our game, so I'd love to have a Dev settling the question. Is there some way to get it?
I'd like to have a simple answer to this one, preferably from one of the devs, since after parsing the messageboards I've found no clear ruling on it. What happens when the creature you are using intimidate on--to DEMORALIZE it--does does not understand you language? Case one: You cannot speak the creature's language (Intimidating a Gnoll) Case two: You do not share a common body language (Intimidating a will-o'-wisp) Case three: None of the above (Intimidating a shoggoth, for example, and you do not speak Aklo) Case four: Animals / creatures with less than INT 3 As I said, could we have a definite ruling on this? Regards,
Thank you!!
Hi all. Does the Merciful Healing ability from the Merciful Healer Archetype in ultimate combat replace the healing for the channel, or is it additional to it? The wording does imply that the healing is forfeit, since nothing is said about it, but then there's a reference to the Paladin's mercy ability: Feats and effects that affect a paladin's mercy also affect this ability.. And mercy clearly states that the effects stack with the healing from Lay on Hands. Can someone clarify this, please?
I was planning to have the party be asked to participate after the third module. Colorful dude teleports in, says that they have observed/heard of the party and want them to participate. Of course the question is what to do with the rest of the caravan, but that can be arranged via hired mercenaries and the like. Maybe I'll wait until the beginning of the fifth module, I have to rebalance the whole AP anyway. We'll hopefully begin Ruby Phoenix today. My players saw, as part of the Jade Visions, how the Amatatsus had to sell the Daikiu of Commanding Presence (in my campaing it's a second Amatatsu ancestral weapon) in Ordu-Aganhei to pay for the travel to Kalsgard, and later it was stored in the Ruby Phoenix's vault. They know that to make a rightful claim to Minkai's throne they need both Suishen and the Daikiu, so they'll have to win the competition to get it. They are now leaving the crown of the world, and will get to Ordu-Aganhei in this session, where they'll find that the tournamet is --no, really?, what a coincidence!!-- about to begin, and they might secure a place if they get there in under a week. After the nija attack, Miyaru will offer to guide the caravan to safety in the Forest of Spirits while the PCs teleport to Goka to retrieve the Daikiu. So, the PCs will be level 10 by the beginning of Ruby Phoenix, and maybe level 11 and a half or 12 by the end, which allows me to cut the endless dungeoncrawl that is Munasukaru's Penance to just the more interesting encounters. My plan is to make Suishen or an NPC point out to the PCs that their fight is not with the araneas, but rather with the oni, so it's in their interest to ally with Akinosa and their kin --fortunately there's no paladin in the group--, and wipe out the hobgoblins in a background battle while the PCs take care of the hardest foes.
As a matter of fact, Suishen will not only make the encounter easier for them, but also it will be able to warn the PCs of Kimandatsu's sanctum setting --it's been there when Kimandatsu stole it-- and of her abilities, since she knows a lot about oni. The encounter should be ridiculously easy for the PCs if they find Suishen, but then, IMHO, that's how it should be. Not every encounter has to be life-or-death, and in this case the fact that you've finally located the sword should play in the PCs benefit. Let them go against the boss fully prepared for her for once, and they'll get a sense of accomplishment: 'We really nailed the b!@~!, yay!!' My group went through that battle like a hot knife through butter, but they have had a hard time with several battles in the next module, Suishen or not. The lonely maiden nearly killed two of them, as did a Frostfallen Mammoth, and a Giant Pike actually killed one. Then, they fought the dragon and after several rounds of hide and seek and three breath weapons, they killed her with a simple Phantasmal Killer (3 and 5 on the die rolls). Suishen did nothing decisive in those three encounters. The sword is an artifact, yes, and some of its powers can unbalance the game --the ranger in my group who carries it can air walk most of the day, for example--, but at the end of the day, they still find the adventure challenging.
As a matter of fact, I'm tempted to encourage my group to try to trick her out of Bormurg, by using bluff (we have a bard with access to Glibness. Maybe Suishen can point it out to them, or just drop a clue. If they enrage Katiyana so that she tries to possess one of them, she would leave the host....
The only thing I've found is the 3rd level Inquisitor spell Cast Out. I did not know that Protection from Evil and Dispel Magic won't work until prepping for this encounter yesterday. Right now I don't see anyway for my group to force her out of Bormurg. The same happened to me. I thought that Prot from Evil would expel the ghost from the yeti until I began to prepare the encounter.
That might work, only that I seem to recall -- though I cannot find it-- that attacking Bormurg did not affect Katiyana in any way. In any case, the DC for the Spirit Sword's destruction is just 17, which translates in just a 15% chance of it working, if my math does not fail me...
^ It's still effectively broken from the broken hilt. Oops! Missed the description. Then, then answers to questions 1 and 3 are clearly: yes and lower than low. And the answer to question 2 is, well, what Gluttony said.
A question about Katiyana's ghost. Is there any way of driving the ghost from Bormurg's body? Protection from evil would block control for a time, but when it expires the possession continues. Short of killing Bormurg, I don't see any other way of ending a Magic Jar effect.
Quatar, you are confused about the Whispering Shrike. The sword is not broken. A broken item is listed as "broken", such as Tsutamu's "broken masterwork chainmail". The wakizashi just has a message hidden in a secret compartment in the hilt. Also, take a look at the definition of broken in the glossary. If it was broken, the sword would not have a critical range of 18-20, as listed in page 21. "If the item is a weapon, any attacks made with the item suffer a –2 penalty on attack and damage rolls. Such weapons only score a critical hit on a natural 20 and only deal ×2 damage on a confirmed critical hit"
A little too late for me, I'm afraid, as my players are going through the Storm Tower next friday. :-(
So, after dying at the hands of several angry vikings outside of Kalsgard in Night of Frozen Shadows, I've decided that I want to bring a new character, a paladin of Iomedae, into the campaign. The problem I have is how to justify why the heck this guy would want to come along on the journey to Minkai with a group of people he's just met, with no connections whatsoever to any of the NPCs. Well, with a wee bit of spoilers here, there's an evil band in Kalsgard who does not think twice before kidnapping people, so if your DM is willing, your PC may be rescued by the party and join them in their fight against the same organization that kidnapped him.
Hi all. I posted this on the APG's messageboard but I've gotten no reply, so I'm re-posting here, to see if someone can give me advice... Regarding "Saving Finale":
What is the intended level of metagaming for this spell? That is, how does the bard know that a save was failed? This would be evident for a disintegrate, say, since there's a ray that touches a PC and it turns into a bit of dust, but suppose one of the PCs is affected by a spell-like effect (no verbal or somatic components) and with an effect that does not immediately show, such as a charm person. Would the bard still be able to force the reroll, even though he has no way of knowing that a spell was cast, on whom, or if the save was failed? This would be metagaming, yes, but going the other way will end in discussions about when it's allowed and when not.
Regarding "Saving Finale": You must have a bardic performance in effect to cast this spell. With a flourish, you can immediately end your bardic performance when a creature within range affected by your bardic performance fails a saving throw, allowing the subject to immediately reroll the failed saving throw. What is the intended level of metagaming for this spell? That is, how does the bard know that a save was failed? This would be evident for a disintegrate, say, since there's a ray that touches a PC and it turns into a bit of dust, but suppose one of the PCs is affected by a spell-like effect (no verbal or somatic components) and with an effect that does not immediately show, such as a charm person. Would the bard still be able to force the reroll, even though he has no way of knowing that a spell was cast, on whom, or if the save was failed? This would be metagaming, yes, but going the other way will end in discussions about when it's allowed and when not.
Personally, I've included a look at most of the upcoming campaign as a part of the Visions of Jade at the end of Brinewall Legacy, and part of it was this vision: "You see a winged woman with blue skin. She's dressed in a white fur coat an looks at you with hate as a storm gathers behind her" I hope my players understand this as the foreshadow for what's coming with Katiyana.
Brandon, great adventure. I ran it for my players just like Uthak plans to, and they loved it. I thought I would share my experience running it. First, my players were level two when they begun the adventure, and leveled up to level three with the xps from the Cygnigot. I let them get their new spells but not recover the ones they had spent, so they had a really hard time with the final fight, even though there are six players in the party. The blightspawn and the aranea ended up escaping alive. This is not the case here, though. About the set-up with Jade Regent, I used the suggestion of another poster in the forums (See here) and had them meet Lute Haggersly in Wolf's ear. He was en route to Kalsgard for his appointment to the Rimerunners guild, but first he had to tie a loose end --that is, finding what had happened to his tax collector in Ravenmoor--. So he hired the PC's and went on with the caravan to Roderic's Cove while they investigated Ravenmoor. That way, I took Koya (the cleric of Desna) out of the picture. In any case, when the players found inconsistencies on Desna's cult they accepted Brandon's explanation of local variations of the cult in a remote village. When the party reached Roderic's Cove after the adventure, Lute paid them and traveled with them to Riddleport, where he took a ship to Kalsgard and sent news of the happenings in Ravenmoor to Magnimar so they could send a couple of real clerics of Desna to help the village. Then the party went on to Brinewall, leveled up and went back to Sandpoint to finish their business there before going to Kalsgard. When they passed near Ravenmoor, Koya asked the players to go with her to see the village, since she was curious, and there the PCs found that the blightspawn and the aranea had killed two villagers in their absence. So the party had to finish the work they had begun and set up a trap for the blightspawn --who I had advanced with the advanced template as Brandon suggests. Finally, the party killed the blightspawn although the aranea escaped again. Oh, well, you cannot always win. Some more roleplaying finished the adventure while the players and the NPCs in the caravan helped the villagers rebuild the Church of Desna and the Hollowitz place, including a fist-fight since I ran it in the spirit of the barn brawl scene in "Seven brides for seven brothers". All in all, a magnificent adventure which we enjoyed greatly, especially the first half, with all the roleplaying and the PCs interacting with the villagers and noticing, bit by bit, that something really was wrong in Ravenmoor. I particularly liked playing the young Ornigaard as I screamed "Applesauce!!! You've hurt him!!!" at the top of my lungs after the party put two arrows into the styrge in their first two actions. They had to spend three CLW spells just so the kid would stop screaming and crying (and boy, did they miss those spells later on ;-) )
That's pretty much what I've done. These are my changes: - Forget about the economics of caravans and trade.- Begin with 5 attribute points, and win 1 every level - The PCs can add an additional "Hero Combat" feat every even level. These are very, very similar to the ones you use: * Attack: PC attacks vs. AC, with multiple attacks for high BAB. Each one would add an additional +1d4. * Defend: PC attacks vs 1o+EL to add +2 to AC (+1 / every 5 points...) * Rally: My rules also add +1 to the caravan attack roll * Repair: Same exact rules However, my party is only at level three, so I cannot give indications about the scaling up. My PCs took the defend feat and so far have complained that the caravan combat mini-games are too long. They have a pretty high armor class so most enemy attacks fail, but they needed to hit about 8 to 10 times to overcome a 3rd level enemy. Next weekend we'll be leaving Brinewall at level four, and we will have the chance to see how they fare. I'll post something next week.
Yep, that's pretty much it. Spell like abilities and magic item powers have a number of uses per day as listed for each one. The X/day as a pool only works for spontaneous casters, and only for their spells. Things such as bloodline powers or a Paladin's lay on hands ability also have individual limits.
Thank you, StreamOfTheSky. The fact that the player must spend his standard actions in concentration drives your point even further, also.
A quick question. Can a player use the Combat maneuver option of telekinesis on the round he casts the spell? I guess not unless the spell is quickened, since he does not have any available actions - the standard is spent casting the spell- , but my player says that you can make an attack when you cast harm, and that's also a standard. Any clarification, here?
Use "We be goblins" as a prologue. It's a riot and a very good intro to the AP. About the Brinewall castle exploration... yes, it's a dungeoncrawl, although you get some opportunities at roleplaying. If your party does not like big dungeoncrawls, I would recommend using "Feast on Ravenmoor" (a separate module) to substitute for the XPs in Brinewall, and play a reduced version of the castle. The same thing -worse in fact- happens with the fourth module. There's this big, big, big dungeon where the enemies wait reading a magazine until the PCs come knocking at the door of their room. It's about 30 encounters with no roleplay in between. But again, there's a separate module called "The Ruby Phoenix tournament" that you can play instead. Also, take a look at this thread about fixing the caravan rules, and this one about extra, more roleplaying-oriented caravan events. What else? Do not roll the caravan encounters as you play, but rather roll them previously (if at all) and order them so that they do not repeat themselves. This is especially true in the third module. Hope this helps!!
And it's in the Adventure Background of "The Empty Throne" (at the bottom of page 7), not on "Forest of Spirits". This happened to me, too, as I was reading the module. The wording leads to confusion, as it seems to imply that these events were described in FoS. The only way for the players to know about the poisoned cup would be to use divination (after all these are high level PCs, and something like a Commune with Shizuru or a casting of Legend Lore / Vision about the Jade Regent should be no problem to them).
Nice one, William!! I'll use it on my adventure just as you described. I'm sure it will make a big impression on my players, too. This is the stuff that makes gamemastering worth.
Hmmm, I just noticed I used "grievance" instead of "grief". Sorry. English is not my native language (I'm from Spain)
If you want to go by the strict rules, the haunt is just an eight-level spell, persistant (+2 CR), with a high perception check (+2 CR) and a reset of 1h (+1 CR), so, according to the haunt rules, the final CR is: 1+8+2+2+1=14 Just decide on a spell of 8th level you want to use instead of the compulsion, and replace it with a convenient descriptive text. "Symbol of Death" of "Symbol of insanity" might work in that both have a chance of damaging the party in a similar way to the one the haunt describes. Notice that all the PCs should save against a Symbol, though, and only once if they do not leave the area, so I would swap that with the original "one PC per round", and you can repeat them. All in all, "Symbol of insanity" seems to me like a good option. It fits into the mood of the scenario quite well, and you could change the descriptive text to something like:
to feel a sudden rush of sadness,loneliness, and regret to feel a sudden rush of shame,loneliness, and regret If the PCs feel like destroying the haunt, just edit the story of Yua so that it fits a grievance madness case.
Hmmm, by question here is why I do not have the option to download it, although I'm a subscriber too.Subscribers get their PDFs *when the corresponding print edition ships.* Thank you, Vic. I'm reading it already, and al least the plot looks very good!!
Hmmm, by question here is why I do not have the option to download it, although I'm a subscriber too. And as someone said: Ask, and it shall be given you. Here they are, ready for download!!
Hmmm, by question here is why I do not have the option to download it, although I'm a subscriber too.
Yep, definitely, they have a death wish, but it's a necessity if you do not want to leave behind a wave of recurring enemies of a level increasingly lower than that of the PCs. It's easier to assume that the BBG keeps on attacking the PCs until he's finally defeated than to force the gamemaster to keep track of possible enemies left behind. It's a trope of the genre that the evil guys are ready to die rather than stay and complicate things for the gamemaster ;-)
Hi all. I just wanted to say this is the best of the five modules in the AP so far. The way the different subplots interlace, the absence of a big dungeoncrawl (always a minus for me), the intensity of encounters such as the last, or the magnificient NPCs, make it my favourite with difference. Kudos to Mr. Leaty for the module. Maybe some will complain that the module is a bit short on XPs, but usually getting enough XPs is accomplished by simply adding random encounters unrelated to the history, or just extending the dungeoncrawls eternally. That's what happened in Forest of Spirits - Level after level of monsters waiting in their rooms for the PCs to get to them just to reach the XP cap. Not here, sir. A true work of art of an adventure. I sure hope the last one is half this good, at least.
Now that idea I like. I would still rather have a classic McGuffin for the PCs rather than this one, but if nothing else pops out, this is an interesting idea.
Where would you situate the tournament? In Hongal, in the Forest, on the edge of Minkai? Well, obviously not on Goka, since it's too far away. Somewhere on the east coast of Hongal would do, yes. It would break with the real geographic distribution of the country, but hey, the PCs need not know about it. That would mean the caravan just needs to make an affordable detour on its way to the Forest. Is your heart set on placing it during Forest of Spirits? Tide of Honor is all about gathering allies to fight the Jade Regent, and the Tournament seems like it would fit perfectly into that theme. You could either continue with the artifact idea, or have a faction (either replace a current one or add another) join you if you can win the tournament. Nope. Part of why I like the idea is the fact that my group dislikes long dungeoncrawls, so this is the perfect excuse to replace part of the Penance with a different approach. If you do go artifact, and don't like the idea of restoring spirits to the imperial weapons, how about controlling a terra cotta army? Maybe Lingshen gifted a unit of Terra Cotta Soldiers to Minkai long ago, and its control device is among the collections of the tournament? It is like a faction and artifact in one! That might be more a problem than help, since it might give the PCs an edge in the Forest of Spirits. I'm looking for something that is more a necessity for the players to proceed with their quest. Something like the Amatatsu seal, in that without it there's no quest, but it's not such a great artifact, if you get what I mean.
Where would you situate the tournament? In Hongal, in the Forest, on the edge of Minkai? Well, obviously not on Goka, since it's too far away.
Would it be in the best interest of the PCs to restore the Imperial Spirit to these weapons? As I said, I've just finished reading Ruby Phoenix and I'm beginning Tide of Honor, but these weapons would be associated with a different imperial line, wouldn't they? What I'd like to have is a motivation for the "quest", that is-The PCs will not be able to overcome the Jade Regent (or for that matter, to enter the pagoda in the Forest of Spirits, or whathever) unless they can secure a particular item. That's the insight I'd like to have from the devs, although if I have to go with your suggestion, I guess it would do.
Hi all. I just read The Ruby Phoenix Tournament, and it's a great adventure capturing the flavor of the martial arts tournaments in mangas such as Dragon Ball. I plan to incorporate it into my Jade Regent campaign, between Ordu-Aganhei and the Forest. The motivation for the PCs should be really easy, since the whole point of the module is to win a tournament to obtain a prize, so I just need the right prize for the PCs, and here is where I need your help. I need some kind of minor artifact (such as the Amatatsu Seal) that the PCs need to obtain so they can achieve their final objective of restoring Ameiko to her rightful place. It would be a bit like looking for Suishen in NoFS - the PCs investigate the current location of the item and find that it went into the Ruby Phoenix collection, so they obtain a place in it and try to win. Then I can replace the final enemies with some Five Storm agents, and all is done. Since the last part of "Forest of..." is just a long dungeoncrawl, the XPs obtained in the module are easy to compensate by shortening the penance. So I just need, as I said, the perfect item to integrate the module into the campaign. Can you help me? I'd love to hear some ideas from the developers, also, since they know how this is going to end (I still haven't read Tide of Honor, so if my answer is there in plain sight, sorry for the question...).
If they are crushing encounters it probably means there will be other encounters where they will not fare so well (places where they cannot summon creatures, for example, or places with traps none of them can detect). Unless you plan on making those places easier, I don't think you should make the rest of them harder. But then, that's just my way of directing the game, and not necessarily the correct way for your party.
While I've never played with a summoner in any campaign, it seems to me that if the classes are balanced -and they mostly are- the advantages of having summoned creatures should be compensated by the lack of other abilities for the class, and therefore no adjust should be needed. It seems to me that one of the worst thing a DM can do is adjust the adventure to play against the PCs. I've played a gnome sorcerer specialized in compulsion spells only to find that most of the bad guys suddenly and mysteriously developed immunity to mind-affecting effects and really, it's disappointing. If your PCs notice that now that they have the extra field support suddenly there are more foes, they would have the right to complain, at least from my point of view.
I came up with a plan to have more little minions around that "tie" them up while combat occurs, which allows them to help once in a while, but for the most part keeps them from being a strong presence in the combat Thats about what we've always done when there were NPCs in a combat. Instead of the big bad guys and a couple of minions, place the BBG and 5-6 minions. Then just tell the players the NPCs are taking care of 4 of the minions and just let the combat play out as if they weren't there. If the combat is too easy for the PCs, you can always tell them Koya is in trouble, and add one of the minions to your main combat as the party takes care of it. If, on the other hand, they are having a very hard time, you can add Shalelu since she just finished her combat. For the most part, however, you should not mix the NPCs into your combat, since you are taking game time from your PCs. The fight ends, both parties (PCs and NPCs) have won, and you can keep on with the adventure.
Thank you, Jason!!
And that's really all that's needed. You are quite right, Jason. The players will like to know where they are going and how they'll get there, and even help take decisions on the route. Which brings me to my previous post on why is it better to follow the path of Aganhei than to travel near the coast, avoiding the high ice. Any comments?
That's right, but since the first round is a surprise round, the spirit just manifests and sits there doing nothing, waiting for a full-round action. If its victim passes the Perception check, she can just move away from it, no sweats. If she doesn't, she still has the chance of winning the initiative and moving away, and then it's over. In the best case, the spirit gets a single chance of possessing its victim. So I agree that the possession attempt must be a standard action. It just solves the problem. On the other side, I like the concept of spirits. It's a cool rule that gives the gamemaster not only to give the PCs a taste of something different, but also a way to motivate the group, such as Kuyasu's hunger for revenge against Munasukaru.
Hmmm, no answer from the developers?
A question about spirits: Maybe I'm misunderstanding how spirits work, but it looks like they select one opponent according to whatever, then must be adjacent to him and spend a full-round action trying to posses him. Is that right? So if the PCs figure this out, all they have to do is just keep more than 5 feet away from the spirit while they channel enough positive energy to blast it? I really don't see any way for the spirit to possess his selected victim if it's ten or more feet away, as it won't have a full-round action once it gets to its victim.
What is all this Who-Ha about poles and axis tilts? Everyone knows that Big Daddy Rov. chases that Sun Tyrrant Sarenrae across the sky every day . . . The Planet is flat, so it takes them a minute to get back on the other side, and when she flashes her goodies at us on the way around, we get light. . . Hear, hear!!!
I concur with most of what has been said so far. Great ideas and a very good AP. I also like, as always, the fact that you try new rules that make Pathfinder more interesting. Just a but: I would really like some playtesting and official correction of the caravan rules. I know you don't have all the time you'd like to do it, but bad rules are worst that no rules at all.
No, because higher scores are better, even if you're enemies. Negative scores are worthless. The part you are missing is that it's not a friend or enemy decision, but a friendly / competitive one. It's not that if your relationship score is negative you have an enemy, but that your relationship is weak (nonexistant, in fact). So, a score of 5 in a competitive relationship means you merely check what the other one is doing while a score of 30+ means you are obsessed with your rival. So the score measures the intensity of the relationship in an absolute value, not its type.
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