Please help me understand the math for the telekinetic talents that allow you to perform combat maneuvers. The telekinetic maneuver and steal talents allow you to perform a maneuver at close range with a CMB equal to caster level-5 plus caster stat.
Why the -5?
Standard spells like hydraulic push that grant similar effects don't have that. I understand that you can use these talents all the time and with little risk since they won't be provoking AoOs due to the range, but being able to do something poorly every round is not much of an advantage.
We are looking for one replacement player for our campaign, The Book of Terniel
Character creation rules remain the same as stated in the beginning of the Recruitment thread in the above tab, but characters are now level 3, with starting wealth of 2400gp.
All submissions welcome, but I'd love to welcome an intrepid player who's up to the task of playing the blink dog that may soon be joining the party.
Okay lets imagine a situation where one character(PC1) is engaged in melee with a zombie. PC2 is standing 10 feet directly behind PC 1 and wants to take a ranged shot at the zombie. PC3 is beside and behind PC1 and armed with a reach weapon and wants to stab the zombie...
Relevant rules snips...
d20pfsrd wrote:
Shooting or Throwing into a Melee
If you shoot or throw a ranged weapon at a target engaged in melee with a friendly character, you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll.
d20pfsrd wrote:
Concealment
To determine whether your target has concealment from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target's square passes through a square or border that provides concealment, the target has concealment.
When making a melee attack against an adjacent target, your target has concealment if his space is entirely within an effect that grants concealment. When making a melee attack against a target that isn't adjacent to you, use the rules for determining concealment from ranged attacks.
d20pfsrd wrote:
Cover
To determine whether your target has cover from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target's square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover (+4 to AC).
When making a melee attack against an adjacent target, your target has cover if any line from any corner of your square to the target's square goes through a wall (including a low wall). When making a melee attack against a target that isn't adjacent to you (such as with a reach weapon), use the rules for determining cover from ranged attacks.
So, In a situation like the current one where PC2 is shooting directly through PC1 to attack the zombie he is fighting, a strict application of the above leads to a -4 to hit for firing at someone engaged in melee with an ally, +4 to the zombie's AC because it gets cover from PC1, and a miss chance because PC1 is partially concealing the zombie from view. PC3 would also suffer the AC bonus and miss chance because her reach weapon is treated as a ranged attack with regards to cover and concealment.
Now I know there are feats to mitigate some of the ranged penalties but it all seems rather punitive and restrictive, and I don't think I've ever played at a table that has enforced all those modifiers, but rereading the relevant rules seems that that is how it is intended.
I'm curious to know if I am interpreting the rules correctly and how other tables handle situations like this.
An eagerness for something more than your quiet lives in the Valley brought the five of you together and despite your obvious differences, or perhaps because of them, a fast friendship sprung up. Recently you decided to try your hands at the adventurer’s life. So far that life has proven far duller than the minstral's tales,and far less lucrative too. You've accepted a couple of contracts from Ebli's Images, escorting shipments of rare goods to and from Eiren, but mostly it has involved sleeping on cold dirt and watching you last few silvers slowly disappear.
But your luck may be changing. Your last escort job left you at a sleepy inn in Thraben Mill, and it was here that the courier found you, delivering a message from Rudolpho's old mentor, the wizard and scholar Silion Tuldaril. It asked your group to attend him at his tower in Eiren to assist him with a 'most urgent matter.'
You left at first light the next morning and so far the trip has been easy. You left the quiet village of Thraben Mill behind you and, after a long day’s journey, expect to reach Erien just after nightfall. As you’re passing through the Outer Homesteads, which is really a bunch of small farms just outside Erien, in the distance, you catch sight of a thick black plume of smoke rising into the sky.
Welcome everybody! Lets take the next couple of days to flesh out backgrounds and finalize crunch. I'd like to be ready to post the first gameplay post on Saturday.
The party starts together and already working as a team, outside of Eiren. I'll post more regarding background stuff later today, but right now I'm off to see if my computer's hard drive can be saved. :/
Legend holds that the Book of Terniel has the power to give each reader their heart’s greatest desire. However, there is always a cost, often dire. Now, the book has been opened and its power can be felt across the land. Four powerful factions compete for the artifact, and in the middle of those factions – you! Will you choose a side or claim the Book of Terniel for yourself?
This is an open recruitment for up to 5 players for the Book of Terniel, published by Embers Design Studio Characters start at lvl 1 and should be lvl 4 by the completion of the story.
The adventure takes place in the Valley of the Kings – a non-Golarion setting. A brief overview can be found HERE
Player Expectations:
Once per day posting, more relaxed on the weekends. Communication is key. If you’re unable to post for any length of time, let me know. Keeping things moving is important for everyone’s enjoyment, so if you can’t post for more that 48 hours or so, expect to be DMPCed. Most importantly though - looking for players that are interested in contributing to telling a story. Selected players please create an alias profile for your character. I prefer roll20 for maps but understand that it is difficult for most people to access on mobile devices so will be sticking with google this time round.
Character Creation:
I’d like interested players to submit a brief character background and personality sketch, along with a rough outline of your crunch. Completed character stats and alias will not be required unless selected.
Level: 1; max HP (1/2+1 afterwards); average starting wealth
Stats 20 pt buy
Alignment: Any
Classes: Any core, base, hybrid or unchained. Sorry, no occult classes. See 3PP tab below for more options.
Traits: 2. Campaign traits available only from those listed in the campaign tab. No drawbacks.
Character Tips (excerpt from player’s guide)
Big and Small: You’ll be squaring off against lots of goblinoids and more than a few giants, too. Both are great choices for abilities such as the ranger’s favoured enemy class feature.
Brain Power: On more than one occasion, blundering forward with your sword first and your brains last is liable to land you in the dead book. Use caution; sometimes you run across things that are just bigger and badder than you are.
Deep Dark Bog: You’re going to spend some time in the swamp. Come prepared with someone trained up in Survival, and while you’re at it, familiarize yourself with the rules of aquatic and bog terrain.
Incessant Chatter: It might seem like everything is meant to be hit with a stick, but try talking to a few things. You never know which of your “enemies” might be willing to parley. You are not likely to go wrong with a bit of training in Diplomacy and Sense Motive.
It’s a Trap: Do your fighters a favour and bring along someone able to disable traps. Stumbling through them is always an option, but there are better ways.
Local Fare: Consider making a character local to the valley. Not only will your Knowledge (Local) skill be handy for identifying the strengths of monsters, but there’s a wealth of secrets available only to characters from the area.
3PP stuff:
As you may have guessed from my choice of adventures, I am a voracious consumer of 3PP, and I’ll accept character submissions drawn from the list below. I don’t want the party to be a crazy mishmash of impossibility either though, so I’m reserving 1 spot for 3PP race and/or class, and may accept others if their background is not too jarring to the setting or is really good. Here’s a list of stuff that I own and am most interested in seeing in play. If there is something not on this list that you’d like to try, feel free to sell me on it.
Alluria – Remarkable Races
Amora - Liber Influxus Communis
Dreadfox – Ritualist, Swordmaster
Drop Dead – Spheres of Power
Interjection - Ethermagic, Truename magic
Kobold Press – Adv Races: Centaurs
Purple Duck - Legendary Races: Sphinx
Rite Publishing – In the company of Gargoyles, Fey, Minotaurs, Dragons; Divine Channelling
Rogue Genuis – Armiger, Death Mage, Godling, Mosaic Mage, Shadow Assassin, Time Thief
TPK – Scions of stone, Deductionist
About Me:
I’ve been RPGing for decades, most of that time with the many iterations D&D and Pathfinder. I’ve run several successful long term PBPs and PBEMs. I enjoy diving into the numbers and stats of the game but never at the expense of a good story, and abhor getting bogged down in rules debates that usually succeed in nothing but slowing down the game.
I am sure I remember reading somewhere that adamantine weapons counted as +3 enhancement with regards to overcoming DR ( not that it was, it just counted as such)so it could pierce cold iron and silver ( and adamantine of course), but after rereading the relevant sections in the PRD I can't find proof of that.
Am I misremembering, or quoting from an older system?
You have all gone to the inn (together or apart, your choice), the social centre of Swallowfeld, on this cold and stormy winter afternoon to hear what news you can of a stranger in your midst…
Its been three days now since the Drisol boy found her wandering up by Taran’s Run, declares Myghal the blacksmith to the others at the bar in his booming voice. She come stumbling out of the Tangled Wood, all dazed and dirty, and sick as a goblin dog to boot. The man now had the attention of most of the patrons in the The Wolf’s Head. Swallowfeld’s only inn and tap room was fuller than normal for the middle of the day. All anyone could talk about was the mysterious stranger and the ominous sickness she may have brought into town.
Myghal turns his chair around, warming to his audience. The sheriff’s got her “quarantined’ up at the church right now. Father Dobell says he ain’t seen nothing like it before and she’s sure for the grave unless someone takes her up to see Father Ruan at Cymer. Of course, who’s gonna take a plague carrying witchy elf girl all the way out to Cymar this time of year? Shame, really, she was kinda pretty too, for an elf.
Vilesse: Your zombie rot is in full swing. You start play with Con damage:1d2 ⇒ 1, and must succeed at a DC12 Fort save at the beginning of each day to prevent more. This particular variant can only be healed through magical means. It is mid day right now.
Vilesse:
You awaken stiff and aching to the sound of a man and woman arguing.
You can’t just turn her out into the woods, that’s inhuman! shouts the woman.
Well she can’t stay here! You heard the Father, he can’t cure her, and I’ll not risk an epidemic in my town! the man shouts back
Your limbs feel heavy, and sweat soaks through the thin wool blanket covering you. You try to sit up from the cot but the light streaming in through the church’s long windows hurts your eyes and makes you dizzy.
The young priest – you remember him from before but his name has flown from your fevered mind – notices you stirring and hurries over with some water. [b]Now, now, dear, don’t mind those two. The sheriff and the mayor rarely agree on anything. If you’re feeling well enough why don’t you tell me who you are and what happened to you?
First order of business is for you guys to create a profile and finish off your characters. Feel free to ask me anything thing you have questions about on this thread. We'll be starting in the village of Swallowfeld in early winter. This is also a chance for you to make any changes to your character’s background and talk to each other about how your characters might know each other prior to the start of the game.
For example:
Wilf, Mitran and Wulfric are all local, and likely know of each other or even grew up together.
How long has Tomi been here? How ingrained in the local culture is he? Has he been welcomed into the mainsteam, or is he on the fringes?
Lomenvilesse, the rumours of the lady all pre date your “fall”? How much do you remember of your life as a fey? Any specific thoughts about how you contracted zombie rot? My one concern with your background as written is that it doesn’t read like a 1st level character. Any thoughts? I’m fine with you not knowing any of the PCs initially – I’ve got a good “in” for you once the game starts.
Those of you with animal companions etc. nows the time to flesh them out a bit.
Finally, I’d like to take a vote on how you want to handle level advancement. I like using pre-set levelling points, with hero points used to replace story xp awards, or we could use regular the regular xp system.
There are lots of things to love about PBPs - the chance for players to delve deep into their character’s stories, for players from all over the world to meet and game together, and all the other benefits that come from that. One of the things it is not good at is moving things along quickly. It can take months to accomplish in a PBP what can be done in one sit down session, and years to even come close to finishing an adventure path. From what I’ve seen, most sadly never last that long.
I’m also a voracious consumer of 3PP products and, again sadly, never get to see most of them in action.
So I’ve decided to kill two birds with one stone and launch a PBP that is episodic in nature, allowing players to come and go between episodes as their interest wanes or waxes. There will also be an overarching plot linking the episodes and rewarding long term involvement as well. This “campaign-light” will utilize the excellent adventures published by Raging Swan and will be loosely based on their Lonely Coast mini-setting.
About Me:
I’ve been RPGing for decades, most of that time with the many iterations D&D and Pathfinder. I’ve run several successful long term PBPs and PBEMs but this will be my first via the Paizo forums. I enjoy diving into the numbers and stats of the game but never at the expense of a good story, and abhor getting bogged down in rules debates that usually succeed in nothing but slowing down the game.
Player Expectations:
Once per day posting, more relaxed on the weekends. Communication is key. If you’re unable to post for any length of time, let me know. Keeping things moving is important for everyone’s enjoyment, so if you can’t post for more that 48 hours or so, expect to be DMPCed. Most importantly though - looking for players that are interested in contributing to telling a story. Selected players please create an alias profile for your character. I’ll be using roll20 for maps.
Character Creation:
I’d like interested players to submit a character background and personality sketch, along with a rough outline of your crunch. Completed character stats and alias will not be required unless selected.
Level: 1; max HP (1/2+1 afterwards); average starting wealth
Stats 25 pt buy, but no more than one stat at 18 and none lower than 8 before racial mods
Alignment: Any non-evil
Classes: Any core, APG, Ulitmate Magic/Combat. Some 3PP allowed (see spoiler below). Sorry, no playtest classes.
Traits: 1 Campaign trait (see spoiler below) +1 of your choice.
Spells, feats, equipment: Same as classes above, but if there’s something else you’d like to bring forward, please do so.
Campaign Traits:
Finder of lost things: Whether you are an aspiring investigator or bounty hunter, newly deputized member of the Swallowfeld militia, or self sufficient woodsman, you’ve always had a knack for finding things and solving problems, and the people around town know you for it. You’ve accepted a job from the merchant Tryfena to recover a pair of silver earrings with three red stones in them that was recently stolen from her shop. She’s offered you 100gp for the return of the jewellery. She doesn’t care what happens to the thief. You gain a +1 to perception checks to search, and +1 to survival checks to follow tracks, and one of these skills is always a class skill for you.
Family Matters(Elves or half elves only): You have traveled to the lonely coast at the behest of the cruel elven mercenary captain Tahllian Liaiamne, whose son has fled from his duties. The concerned father has offered you 100gp if you can find his son and convince him to return, or at least get word back of his whereabouts. Your time among the mercenaries have taught you to watch your back and sharpened your reflexes. You gain +1 to Reflex saves.
Respect your elders: One of your parents was raised in the church of Darlen, and has sent you out to pay tribute to one of their old mentors. They have given you a finely illustrated copy of Darlen’s Book of Exalted Prayers with instructions to deliver it to Father Ruan, the Head Abbot of the priory of Cymer. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Knowledge (religion) and Knowledge (history) checks, and one of these skills is always a class skill for you.
Pilgrim: You are a devout follower of Darlen and have undertaken a pilgrimage to the priory of Cymer to pray before the high altar. You hope that this will provide some guidance or relief from the dark dreams that have troubled you of late. Your unshakeable faith grants you a +1 to Will saves
Infected: Something dark and unnatural has begun to creep forth from the wilds of the Lonely Coast and you have recently run afoul of it. You begin the game infected with zombie rot, and are hurrying to the priory of Cymer in the hopes that the monks there can cure you. You gain a +1 to Fortitude saves, and if you are cured, you gain a +2 to save vs any future diseases.
Last Ironwolf (humans only) : Your great uncle was Valentin Ironwolf, a famous adventurer who retired to the lonely coast to establish a keep on the frontier, and was never heard from again. Raised on stories of you famous uncle and his mysterious disappearance, you have gathered the last of your inheritance and traveled to the Lonely Coast to follow his legacy. You have determined that your first stop should be the archives at the priory of Cymer. You gain an additional 300gp at character creation, and a +1 on Knowledge(nobility) checks.
Local kid makes good: You have always been someone the other kids looked up to, known for always doing the right thing. Rumours of bandits and other, darker, things harassing the good folk of the Lonely Coast – your friends and neighbours – are becoming more and more common, and its about time someone stood up and did something about it! You gain a +1 to save vs fear effects, and +1 to CMB checks to one combat maneuver of your choice.
Student of the Tuath:You have been apprenticed to a sage who has devoted their life to studying the history of the Tuath The lost civilization that ruled this area long before the coming of modern man. You have been tasked by your master to visit the archives of Cymer and comb them for any new information on the Old People and their places of power. You gain +1 to Spellcraft and Knowledge(arcana) checks and one of these skills is always a class skill for you.
Maben’s Irregulars: You are in service to the Locher family that rules the Lonely Coast, moving from town to town, keeping your ears to the ground and reporting issues back to the constables. Some might call you a snitch or spy, but you like to think of yourself as someone who solves problems before they become problems. You gain +1 to diplomacy checks to gather information and +1 to Knowledge(local) checks, and Diplomacy or Knowledge(local) is always a class skill for you.
3PP stuff:
As mentioned above there’s lots of 3PP material that I’d like to see in action, and I’ll accept character submissions drawn from the list below. I don’t want the party to be a crazy mishmash of impossibility either though (Lonely Coast is pretty traditional human centric middle ages), so I’m reserving 1 spot for 3PP race and/or class, and may accept others if their background is not too jarring to the setting or really good . Here’s a list of stuff that I own and am most interested in seeing in play. If there is something not on this list that you’d like to try, feel free to sell me on it.
Alluria – Remarkable Races
Dreadfox – Ritualist, Swordmaster
Kobold Press – Adv Races: Centaurs
Radiance House – Pact Magic
Rite Publishing – In the company of Gargoyles, Fey, Minotaurs; Divine Channelling
Rogue Genuis – Armiger, Death Mage, Godling, Mosaic Mage, Shadow Assassin, Time Thief
TPK – Scions of stone, Deductionist
I'm trying to build a 2 handed weapon bruiser of an inquisitor but I'm hung up on feats. Most of the combat feats I want require +1 bab, so it seems like I'm wasting my bonus human feat on something irrelevant.
I want Power attack and Dazzling display as soon as I can get them, and I'd like cleave and something to help with positioning like step up or lunge. After factoring in prereqs like weapon focus and martial/exotic wp ( mandatory god gives a poor weapon choice) I'm looking at a looong wait to get the character to where I envision him!
Would a 1st lvl fighter dip be worth it? Is gaining heavy armour, martial weapons and the ability to select three combat feats out of the gate worth the delay to all the inquisitor powers?
If I am making an acrobatics check to jump as part of a move action, is my toatl movement:
a) my base speed plus the result of my acrobatics check
b) my base speed, with the result of my acrobatics check representing how much of that distance is jump distance. In which case I can never jump farther than my base speed irregardless of the success of my acrobatics check.
I'm assuming the answer is b) or else everybody would be running and jumping everywhere for the free extra movement, but its not stated in the acrobatics skill description, so I thought I should check
I was reading through the ARG and saw all the alternate racial traits to overcome light sensitivity/blindness, and I thought I remembered reading a feat long ago that also dealt with the weakness. But on combing through D20pfsrd I couln't find any such feat.
There are so many requests on the Beginer Box forum for additional supporting material, it got me thinking - would there be a market for 3PPs to convert some of their most popular works to a BB compatible format?
For example: 10-20 items from the Loot for Less series in BB format, or "Godlings for Beginners"
So I may have played up the red herring of the plague samples being shipped off to Korvosa a tad too much.
The players have just wiped out Ironbriar and his cult at the sawmill and are bound and determined to hop the next ship to Korvosa to prevent an epidemic. They know that a "mysterious woman" hiding out at the clocktower has been pulling all the strings in Magnimar but figure they dismantled her operations enough with the destruction of Ironbriar's crew that they can afford to let her stew for a week or three while they go off to prevent an even bigger atrocity in Korvosa.
I'm very much into letting the players take the story in their own direction, but this is a BIG departure. Some of the ideas I'm kicking around:
1)Retool Gedron Lam for a 6th lvl party - he is the contact the diseased rats are offloaded to and from there to the cult of Urgathoa. PCs bust up Lam which leads them to the hospice, and they foil the plot before blood viel is ever invented, then return to Magnimar.
2) There is a Lamia Matriarch working in Korvosa, using the plague to gather souls - go from Lam's to a re skinned clock tower encounter in Korvosa - Xanesha has fled by the time PCs return to Magnimar.
3)PCs don't return to Magnimar. Rework plot of COTCT to have Ileosa trying to rewawken Runelord Sorshen rather than the blue dragon. Puts the plural back into ROTRs!
4)To heck with free choice! Have a POed Xanesha ambush the PCs at the dock before they leave Magnimar. With the flesh golem and faceless stalker backing her up and the element of surprise this would almost surely be a TPK which leads nicely into the excellent scenario presented in another thread that has the PCs rewaken as prisoners on the Paradise gambling boat, and I can launch into Hook mountain from there.
Any suggestions or assistance form the forum would be most welcome...
The party faces a group of nine thugs down a 15' wide passage. The monk wants to use acrobatics to move through the three occupied squares to get past the thugs and attack the evil cleric behind them.
We understand how to calculate the DC checks, and the six or so AoOs he will provoke. But if he fails the 2nd or 3rd check to move through an occupied square, where does he end up? Does he displace one of the thugs? Occpupy the same space? Or does the entire movement get nullified from the point he started crossing enemy squares?
1)Swarms are immune to spells that target a specific # of creatures, but a spell that effects a specific # of HD, like sleep, should still work, right?
2) Party is facing two rat swarms, one immediately behind the other. Wizard casts, and puts the first one to sleep. 2nd swarm moves through the first and into party. Does the movement of the 2nd swarm wake up the first?
Detect evil allows the caster to experience the haunt as the haunted player does, but what about detect magic. Assuming the caster had two or three rounds to study it ( like the dancing parlour haunt in Skinsaw), what would he see?
So I was thinking about opportunities to use the new APG classes in my current ROTL campaign. Heres a short list of substitues that I figured could be easily made from the first three chapters.
Chp1: Ripnugget is an obvious swap for cavalier. Eryillium would make a fantastic summoner, with her bipedal eidolon being an indistinct remembering of her former master-great opportunity for forshadowing.
Chpt2: Couldn't come up with any good ones here. Ironbriar could swap out cleric levels for inqusitor I suppose, but it doesn't feel right.
Chp3: Mammy Graul becomes a witch, or possibly an Oracle of bones
Can we expect to see any more of the iconic prestige classes making appearances in the APs as sample PCs? It would be great to learn the names and backgrounds to go along with those great illustrations, and its always fun to see a sample progression of the prestige classes, especially for players who are newer to the hobby.
I'm just wrapping up my first play by post game, ch 1 of RotRL, and the darned thing took over a year to complete! I've been trying to figure out a way to make my next stab at pbp run much faster yet still tell an epic, meaningful story, and I think my answer might lie in the Second Darkness AP.
If I split the path into three seperate arcs, with three seperate mini-groups I can theoretically move through the path at three times the speed.
I'm thinking group one would be a couple of urban adventurers running through chps 1&2, group 2 would be played by Crying Leaf elves (possibly the leaders) running chps 3&5. The third group gets to play some Drow infiltrators trying to take down the opposition. They would play through chp 4. All three groups would then move to chapter 6 and start exploring there concurrently, crossing each other's paths and hopefully allying up in time for the dramatic conclusion.
What do you think? Too ambitious? Too much plot revision required? Obvoiously I'm struggling a bit with how to keep the leveling fair too.
Also, any general advice any PbP veterans out there can give me on how to keep these things running smoothly would be greatly appreciated!
I'm just wrapping up my first play by post game, ch 1 of RotRL, and the darned thing took over a year to complete! I've been trying to figure out a way to make my next stab at pbp run much faster yet still tell an epic, meaningful story, and I think my answer might lie in the Second Darkness AP.
If I split the path into three seperate arcs, with three seperate mini-groups I can theoretically move through the path at three times the speed.
I'm thinking group one would be a couple of urban adventurers running through chps 1&2, group 2 would be played by Crying Leaf elves (possibly the leaders) running chps 3&5. The third group gets to play some Drow infiltrators trying to take down the opposition. They would play through chp 4. All three groups would then move to chapter 6 and start exploring there concurrently, crossing each other's paths and hopefully allying up in time for the dramatic conclusion.
What do you think? Too ambitious? Too much plot revision required? Obvoiously I'm struggling a bit with how to keep the leveling fair too.
Also, any general advice any PbP veterans out there can give me on how to keep these things running smoothly would be greatly appreciated!
