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Thanks for that. I'll use that table

I'm not sure if I'm over complicating necrocrafts or not, but I want to pit my players against some large, and bigger, necrocrafts. Where I'm uncertain is how much do I adjust the base stats for increased size?

The necrocraft table only lists a hit die increase and construction point increase. From there I'm certain I should apply the size modifiers to AC and CMB/CMD. I'm not sure if I should apply a size adjustment to their stats. The only reference I know of for that is to adjust to medium or small before polymorphing, and then the various polymorph spells.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

I'll second the door and fog.
The door is both a choke point and cover if used properly. Of course whether he would do that while raging or not would take some justification, since it takes patience and intelligence. The best way to handle that I think would be to lay in wait and rage when they get there, you wouldn't have to move.
The fog would be the same deal, set it off before they arrive then rage when you run into one.
I think your big problem with challenging the players will be longevity of your barbarian. Depending how you build it the AC will be really low and soaking damage isn't a great long term solution against multiple foes.

Thanks for all the advice. The charnel hound sounds really interesting.

I fully intend to do interesting things with intelligent undead. This whole adventure is based around fighting undead, and I tend to use the intelligent undead as commanders directing units of mindless undead. It gives them something to hide behind while they monologue. Since they'll be fighting lots of mindless zombies and skeletons having non human and more powerful options would be really helpful.

I like puns and 80's cartoons, what can I say.

I'll have to check out the devourer.

I'm running an undead fighting game, so adding templates is exactly what I'm looking to do to add some variety. I'm looking for flavorful living creatures To apply templates to. Much like the displacer beast, which I'm definitely going to check out.

I'm looking for ideas on interesting creatures to turn into undead and where they would be found. The party is level 5, but they don't necessarily have to challenge the party or be for immediate use.

I'm specifically thinking of regional things. Like great ape skeletons in mwangi, or strix zombies in Cheliax. This is mostly about flavor, so they're not always seeing human undead.

Thanks,I didn't even know about necril

I'm running an undead fighting campaign, and one of my players asked what languages would be useful. I hadn't really thought about it. Before I give them ideas about regional languages I thought I'd look into what languages intelligent undead speak.

From a quick check through the bestiary for intelligent undead I'm familiar with it seems they all know common, and abbysal is pretty common. I saw one entry with draconic. Are there any other languages intelligent undead commonly speak?

Awesome, thanks for all the ideas everyone.

Misdirection looks like a good resource. Thanks.

As for the holy symbol issue, if they need the cleric to channel energy for them they're past the "investigation" phase of this scenario. So, I'd count that as an alternative means of outing the big bad.

I'm hoping to find some suggestions for how I can hide my necromancer NPC as a cleric of Saranrae. I'm aware of undetectable alignment, which mechanically is probably all I need. However, I'm not aware of a way to make them detect as good. I'm hoping you all may have some suggestions for good flavorful options. The cleric will be level 5ish if it matters.

Thanks for all the advice, I think I'll go with the battle aspergillum, it seems like a good fit for a just in case side arm.

I'm looking for suggestions on a secondary weapon to give to an undead hunter, that would be thematic. My original thought was a wooden stake, but that's really only for vampires. What weapon would be useful for the most types of undead?

Thanks for the advice,I was considering that, but wanted to see what people thought about using vanilla plus archetype first

A player of mine wants to build a monk. They are planning unchained monk because it's easier, but they are really interested in monk of the empty hand.

I'm running a 25pt buy with some eliminated feat taxes, most importantly they just get weapon finesse and agile maneuvers for free,as well as power attack. I know this would help with being MAD and get builds off the ground faster, but would it be enough to make vanilla monk of the enmity hand strong viable? I know vanilla flurry would still be more complicated and less powerful, but if that's the only issue we may be able to work around it.

I'm planning on running some very undead heavy one shots for friends because our gm wants to play a character.
One of the players really wants to play a witch, so I'm thinking of allowing him to grab the undead bloodline arcana as a trait and having it apply to hexes as well. This seems like it is equivalent to a feat, so I want to make a few other undead fighting feats available through similar traits.
The only other feat I can think of that is specifically for fighting the undead is turn undead. I don't want to offer command undead as a trait because that would be problematic for the story, they'll have to spend a feat in that if they want it. What other feats could I offer?

It seems to me that the automatic bonus progression system already sort of does what your thinking of. It grants the same bonuses that the big six would give, it just applies them to the character at a certain level instead of having to buy an item. It also reduces the characters WBL so you dont even have to do the math. Fluff those bonuses to be the standard issue gear and youre good to go.

Youre right about the players having to pay for their own special abilities for their weapons and armor though, ABP only supplies the enhancements. But thats the players paying to take them standard out of their standard issue equipment and making them their own.
Its important to talk it over with your players first though. Maybe theyll be ok with it, maybe they would prefer the regular system. All I can say is that it seems like a fine way to go if everyone opts in.

What I'm thinking of is giving them +x bonus to spend as they wish, rather than just +1 and gold too do more. I'm looking for advice when they should have certain bonuses so I can address it with the group. If there automatic bonus progression does that, ok, not if not I'm hoping for a better idea. The groups buy in is super important, I just want as much information as possible before suggesting it

I'm planning on running some one shots for friends, for them re try out new characters. Since these would be largely disposable characters I was considering having them be part of a paramilitary organization, allowing for mixing and matching characters, a reason for the one shots to start, and potentially where they get their gear.

To that end I was thinking of having the big 6 be standard issue and leave them pick what they want with the rest of their wealth by level that I'd calculate out. The first question is, do you think this is a good idea to speed up the process? The second question is, at which levels do they get boosts to the items? I was planning on going by the automatic bonus progression, but that didn't seem to be the whole story for armor and weapons as it seems to count on players to still by enhancements for the items just not the straight +x ones.

I think I miss explained this. I'm talking about having the temple give them potions as an advance on treasure. So the cost would be removed from future loot. They would still get the full level 4 starting wealth by level. I'd just like an idea of how many potions, if any, and whether I should count them at full price, half price, or not at all against their treasure.

I don't want to force them to build a certain way, concerning umd and celebrity perks, but they will certainly have access to wands and umd. I do like the celebrity perks idea if any of them take it.

one of the potential campaign ideas I'll be running soon is an avengers/justice league all vigilante group. I'm thinking they won't have any healing, since I'm not banking on anyone taking the only divine casting archetype I'm aware of.

I'm planning on having the group based in a calistrian temple and giving them access to "free" healing potions. My question is how many should I give them and how much should I charge their wealth by level for it?

I'm planning on starting them at level 4, so I was thinking 5 cure moderate and 10 cure light for a group of 5. Them charging them half the price to their wealth by level as if they crafted them.

I'm having a hard time deciding what would be appropriate, any advice is welcome.

I had an idea I thought would be fun for an upcoming campaign, but I need help implementing it. I want to make some home brew traits that will be assigned based on things that happen in the first session. I would start them with one trait, or two with a drawback.

Since these will be randomly assigned I'm hoping to keep them universally applicable. I don't mind if they're stronger than a regular trait, but not too much.

So if you have ideas tell me the trait name, it's benefit, and the circumstance that would lead to assigning it.

For example:
Watch and wait
+1 trait bonus on attack rolls, saving throws, armor class and spell DCs vs creatures with a higher starting initiative than you.
Assigned for having the lowest initiative in the first combat

I do remember reading about qlippoths linked to rovagug

Yeah,I planned to have them mix it up with the tarasque.

I'll look into the daemons, could be interesting to have two groups fighting to destroy creation

I'm wondering what kinds of creatures would make sense to use in a campaign based around fighting the cult of rovagug. Outside of humanoid cultists, orcs and trogldytes, would it make sense to use some aberations? Where there are evil wizards and clerics there can easily be undead. I'm just trying to avoid having combats become stale from always fighting the same things. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Pizza Lord, I really hope your name is a Dresden files reference.

I was planning on chaotic evil because I was going to tie the item rovagug. It's not strictly necessary, but I was hoping to get a side story to muddy the waters a bit and show that some of the bad guys are actually good people forced to do bad things. I'll definitely use your advice and work on building the back ground of the object. I'm not tied to making it a weapon either, that just seemed to suit my idea of the item.

I missed/forgot about the skill point options, so thanks.

I'm looking at this as a potential fun thing, dice rolls will be involved, but for cursed items if you fail just slightly you detect the item as a non cursed magic item. They could avoid it at that stage. I'm not too concerned with player agency, because our group let's the player control house their character reacts to compulsions and rewards a good job with hero points, so I'm looking at this as an opportunity for the lucky player to perform a bad role well and possibly be rewarded.

Having it cursed may be a bit much, I wanted the curse mainly to prevent the player from saying "hey this weapon is talking to me." The domination is supposed to be a small chance and just ties back into the story arc, essentially allowing the item to be a second antagonist. All of this can be avoided, if they're careful.

I'm toying with the idea of allowing them to cleanse the item after the story arc it's involved in, for an interesting reward.

personally i would just avoid intelligent items all together they are generally a bad idea. don't touch them as a player and when i gmed i banned them as an option.

Why, in your experience, are they a bad idea?

I want some advice on building an intelligent item, but first I want to make sure my understanding of them is correct.

An intelligent item is essentially just a regular magic item that gets the ability to perceive the world around it, communicate to it's owner, bestow negative levels on those who don't have a matching alignment, and potentially compell the host if they fail a will save. I don't recall anything about skill ranks, so I'm guessing a perception check would just add the items wisdom bonus and it couldn't use any trained only skills like knowledge, correct?

I'm wanting to build an intelligent weapon for a potential side arc to a campaign I'm working on. I want the weapon to be chaotic evil and bent on destroying religious shrines. So I figured I'd make it a cursed +2 ominous or vicious weapon, not sure the type yet. the curse would not allow the player to rid themself of the weapon or speak of what it is trying to make them do. As for the intelligent part I'd make it telepathic for sure, so it can whisper into the players head, then add some flavorful abilities until I get to an ego score of around 8 so that it would require a bad roll on the save to end up dominated.

The real advice I'm looking for is whether you think this is too much. I'm thinking this would give some opportunities for good roleplay for the character that picks up the weapon, possibly resulting in some hero points. Of course all of this could be avoided with a good spellcraft check. Would you enjoy the role play opportunity, or do you think a negative level is too high a cost for an interesting non-combat encounter?

A city based campaign for Vigilantes could be interesting. Personally, I would play up the pulp angle to the hilt, but I am in love with that genre.

I'm actually working on designing a campaign like this. I'm planning on using absalom, and have each vigilante be from a different district and have a sort of watchmen meets justice league scenario.

Vigilante is probably the most diverse one-class party, covering arcane, divine, front-liner, and sneaky with archetypes/options.

This is my thought as well, the only downside to the vigilante, and it's a minor one in most situation, is the lack of full casting.

I'd ask your GM, it seems to me that it should work that way, but it lacks the wording of the double hackbut, as I'm sure you noticed. I'd allow it for a home game, assuming i was allowing guns

Good to know, thanks

I had an idea for a campaign where the PCs would be common people elevated to mythic power levels.
So my question, before I put to much thought in it, is whether you think having a 10 or 15 point buy before going into mythic would be too punishing to the PCs?

Honestly? That part made the least sense of 3.5 half-dragon. A big problem I foresee is non-martial characters(like wizards) dropping strength down to 7 in point buys.

The energy immunity can be a big deal, yeah, but on the other hand... let them revel in it. A rogue pyromancer is committing arson? Send in the red and gold to shut him down.

This is a fun game idea I'd love to be in, by the way.

Thanks, I'm hoping it comes to fruition, I'm laying the ground work for this along side a couple other ideas for when our current campaign is over, I offered to take over for our current GM since he wants to play on the other side of the screen.

I'm not too concerned with the flight, there are ways to make flying dangerous with a low fly skill, and when it's not dangerous any more they probably would have had flight anyway.

Thanks for all the help so far, you've all given me points to consider.

If I wanted to apply the half dragon template to the PCs using PC races and classes, how should I handle HD and APL?

For HD I'm mostly looking at the breath weapon, it grows based on racial HD, which the PCs won't have. Should I allow the breath weapon to scale with class level, considering it's a once per day ability?

I'm concerned with balancing encounters also, should I consider my party as having a +1 or +2 to APL?