Quoted from the NPC Gallery entry for Hakotep in Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh:
"...Hakotep was afflicted with a recurrent disease of astonishing virulence, and he eventually succumbed to the malady in -1611 AR."
Spoiler:
Were there no 5th level clerics around back then?
Okay, it says "astonishing virulence." Fine. Were there no 13th level clerics around that could cast heal? I mean, he's the Pharaoh. Summon the highest-level cleric in Osirion, have him cast heal and Hakotep lives to a ripe old age. My players will notice this plot hole and I'd like to provide them with a plausible reason why a simple disease could lay low a Pharaoh. Or maybe a way for Hakotep to die that isn't so mundane.
The Osirian culture believes that a person's essence is divided into three parts:
The ba: The personality, or psyche
The ib: The emotions, will, and thoughts
The ka: The "vital spark"
If all three pieces are intact at the time of a person's death, they are ready for the journey to the afterlife.
This brings me to a question regarding the main plot of Mummy's Mask:
Spoiler:
When Pharaoh Hakotep died, his ib and ka were stolen. The ib was trapped in an artifact called The heart of Hakotep, and hidden in Sothis. His ka was similarly trapped in an artifact named The mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh, and hidden in Wati. Hakotep's ba remained undisturbed and left within his dead body.
When the priestess Serethet stumbles upon The heart of Hakotep, she is possessed by Hakotep and now housed two intellects within her mind: Her own and Hakotep's. When Nebta-Khufre locates The mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh, he gets to be a super-necromancer, thanks to the powers of the mask.
Here's the crux of the biscuit: When Netba-Khufre is defeated by the PCs, Hakotep's ka returns to the Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh, and the PC that wears the mask gains some of its abilities. However, when Serethet is defeated, Hakotep's ib returns to Hakotep, and he awakens as a mummy. Why does the ka return to its prison when the ib is free to return to its owner? Shouldn't the elements of the soul all behave the same way? Both return to the owner, or both return to their prisons? Either way, the AP is significantly changed if both behave the same, but I'm looking for some reasoning why the ka and ib behave differently.
I'm creating a green hag sphere caster with 5 levels of druid. A green hag has spell-like abilities under the vancian casting system, including at-will invisibility.
How are these abilities affected by using Spheres of Power? Does the hag need to take the illusion sphere so that she can use invisibility? Or do the spell-like abilities function as normal under vancian rules?
I will be moving my campaign world for future campaigns from Golarion to Midgard, but I still want to use Paizo adventure paths in the campaign. Nuria Natal is a no-brainer for The Mummy's Mask, and some AP's don't transfer well due to their deep connections to Golarion lore (I'm thinking that Rise of the Runelords, Shattered Star, Return of the Runelords), and Midgard doesn't have an Asian-themed location to place Jade Regent.
With those exclusions in mind, where would you place the remaining AP's in Midgard?
I'm starting to prepare for Feldgrau, and have noticed that maps for several encounter areas have not been included with the adventure. The locations lacking maps are:
F4 - Homestead
F6 - Glassblower's shop
F7 - Buther's shop
F10 - Tavern
F11 - Apothecary
F12 - Gravedigger's shed
F13 - Town square
F14 - Armory
I understand that it was probably impractical to include maps for all of the Feldgrau locations. So I ask the community: What alternate maps have you used for these locations? Preferably from other Pathfinder or Dragon Magazine issues, but all suggestions would be welcome.
My group just finished investigating the Sanctuary, and found the evidence that would lead them to Vorkstag and Grine’s Chymic Works. However, the group contains a paladin who refused to break into the factory on the grounds that there simply wasn’t enough compelling evidence to warrant an unlawful entry.
I don’t want to get involved in a discussion of the validity of the paladin’s choice. What’s done is done, and I believe the player chose the correct option for his character. Be that as it may, there is evidence inside the factory that will not be uncovered, and not introduced at trial. Without this evidence, the players do not have enough successful Diplomacy checks needed to win an innocent verdict. In short, the paladin’s choice to not enter V&G’s factory results in a guilty verdict, as written in the adventure.
I don’t really feel right penalizing the character for making proper in-character choices, but I also want to stay true to the weight of evidence presented at trial, and have a verdict rendered based on how much evidence the group presented at the trial.
Which side do you feel is a better outcome for the adventure: stick with rules as written and a guilty verdict, or don’t penalize the paladin for being a paladin and an innocent verdict?
My group is getting ready to tackle Hergstag and Sanctuary at our next game, and it appears to me that the evidence available at Sanctuary is rather thin:
Spoiler:
The group finds burnt letters mentioning the Chymic Works. They also find a bottle of bleach from the Chymic Works as well. Karl confirms that Vorkstag and Grine were occasional visitors to the Sanctuary.
Additionally, the players can find the head of Dr. Brada, and if they cast Speak with Dead, the Doctor can tell them the whole story. But if the PC's don't have access to a speak with dead spell (they are still only 4th level), then all that they have to go on is the references to the Chymic Works. Now, the players can certainly metagame this information, realizing that if the adventure makes two references to a place, then the adventure probably wants you to go there. But I really discourage metagaming, and the two mentions of the Chymic Works are meaningless to the players.
Any suggestions on adding evidence that clearly exonerates the Beast, or that definitively points to Vorkstag and Grine as the likely culprits?
That utilizes The Book of the River Nations: Complete Guide to Kingdom Building, by John Brazer Enterprises. I've tried searching the various threads, but haven't found anything yet. Can Dale or any of the faithful assist?
My group is getting ready to start Rivers Run Red, and we’ve been given the kingdom building rules so we can familiarize ourselves with them. I’ve run several different simulations with our fledgling kingdom, but so far, every scenario ended with negative BP and rampant unrest within 18 turns.
From what I can see, the main problem is that consumption always equals or exceeds income. For example, each turn my consumption cost is between 4 and 6 build points for a kingdom of size 1-4, and my income is roughly the same. But consumption occurs 100% of the time on each turn, whereas income only occurs between 45-55% of the time (Economy bonus of +11-14 against a DC of 21-24). So my average consumption is 5 BP, but my average income is only 2.5 BP. At this rate, even without any development at all, my kingdom would be bankrupt in 20 turns. Add development and kingdom growth, and bankruptcy occurs within a year and a half.
I must be doing something wrong, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is. Help is greatly appreciated!
I recently allowed my 13-year-old niece to sit in on our Carrion Crown campaign and play a wizard she had created earlier that afternoon.
Instant addict.
She really enjoyed the game and wanted to know when she could do it again. So, I went ahead and bought her the Pathfinder Beginner Box for Christmas.
That gets her the rules, but she's a little too young to participate in our ongoing campaign full time (all players are 30+, and we do handle some fairly mature themes in-game). I don't want to just hand her the box and not help her find resources to find other players.
Can I ask for your suggestions on how to help her find other players her own age (more or less)? She's presently in 8th grade.
I've recently moved away from my gaming group, but want to continue playing using a VTT like MapTools. I am a complete idiot when it comes to virtual gaming, and have already hit my head against the wall a few times. Can someone get this noob through the initial learning curve?
I'm running Savage Tide, and have downloaded the maps from the online Dungeon supplements. I have used Photoshop to convert them into 1" square scale. Now I'm ready to import them into MapTools, but can't figure out how in the world I do that.
I'm running SWW, and last session I whacked three out of four characters with the first vine horror encounter. The group hadn't reached the Thunderer yet, this was just the first of the "Relentless Horde" flavor encounters.
It seems that the animated assassin vines caused HUGE problems for my group, grappling all of the tanks, and allowing the vine horrors to pummel them mercilesly. Only the mage managed to escape with a Fly spell.
The group isn't wimpy by far. They took out the blue slaad in a single round, made short work of the seven-headed hydra, and made Sutolore look like a consumptive kobold.
Did anyone else run into this? Was it just bad tactics on the group's part, or is this a much harder encounter than it appears?
