Gentleman's page

In my current game, my players are level 11. While I throughly like Pathfinder, it still has the same problem of Save or suck spells, which are quite frustrating when designing encounters. It's fun when the players can pull a clever trick; a desperate banish on an enemy demon to save the day. But when you expect every encounter to go the similar way, it becomes very frustrating for me as the GM.

Witches are a particular problem here. Their hexes pass through spell resistance. Slumber has no HD cap and goes on will. Ice Tomb locks away an enemy until everyone else is dead, and goes on fort, with nothing what so ever that gives you immunity to it! Feats can make the witch drop several opponents a round, or try again should she fail.

The wizard is problematic as well. Pit-spells lock out opponents entire fights - those are a little easier to avoid than the slumber though, a lot of things can climb out, fly, teleport etc.

Does anyone have advice how to handle the abundance of save or sucks that my party has, aside from throwing nothing but golems at them?

A friend, and a player of mine has been hard at work coding a little app for Android, a spelldirectory which will let you easily keep track of spells memorized, as well as quickly look up spell descriptions imported directly out of the SRD.

This was originally built for our group, as we have a lot of casters(and programmers) with Android phones, so the mobility and ease-of-use really came in handy in our games and saved a lot of time flipping through books or fiddling with laptops. But I and some of the others urged him to release it on the market, so others could benefit from the work he's put down.

So he's done just that. I present to you the Pathfinder Spelldirectory, for Android version 2.2 and upwards. It will work on any Android phone as well as tablets, and is completely free with no strings attached.
It's an excellent resource for your games, if you have any android users I'd strongly advice you to tell them to look it up.
I can attest to that it's quite good for DMs as well, as it has features to let you keep track of several characters, which can be very nice for NPCs, or just to quickly look up spell effects.

Unfortunately, it's not available for Iphone or Ipad, as it would require a port, and we're not entirely sure if the Iphone market would even accept it, as it's quite restrictive.

Hope you and your groups can find as much use for this as we have!

My players have recently reached the mid-levels, and are a relatively caster heavy party. The biggest problem I've been facing as a GM is the amount of scrying that can be cast, and that combined with teleportation.

What precautions can villains and other NPCs take against scrying? I know it's possible to discover the scrying sensor, and the perception check is not too hard to beat. What exactly do they discover, and would they require spellcraft to recognize what exactly it is? Once discovered, I assume they can take physical precautions to hide, such as shutting off lights or stopping whatever they are doing.

What ways are there to combat scrying? Because the person scrying can just keep casting those spells, and eventually they will fail their saves. What methods / magic can be used in preventive measures(I assume most important NPCs would do something to prevent scrying, since it's so damn easy to use), and what can be done once they discover they are scried upon?

Right now I see few ways to actually put any kind of repercussions on overusing scrying. The person scried upon will not know who is doing the scrying, and thus can't scry back. I would like my players to use it more sparingly, as I imagine overuse of scrying against other powerful creatures/characters could lead to badstuff - but what exactly?

My entire party is filled with casters.

More specifically, we have a Paladin(I suppose that's just a semi-caster), a wisdom-focused Druid, a Witch, a Kensai Magus, a Transmuter Wizard and a blastermaster dragon-disciple Sorcerer. And me as the DM.

Needless to say, battles are very flashy, and a lot of spells gets thrown around. A lot of powerful effects, and we're now getting up to a bit higher levels(level 8 at the moment), and I'm really starting to feel how problematic running encounters are for them. We're currently doing the Kingmaker adventure path, and it includes a lot of singular encounters throughout the world map. What's mostly problematic is:

The transmuter and the sorcerer isn't bad. The sorcerer deals a lot of damage with his fireballs and breath weapon, but anything from broken. The Transmuter is fond of those annoying pit-spells, which can lockout combatants for pretty much the entire combat.

The Witch, has a lot of powerful mind-effecting hexes and spells. She can essentially slumber most big monsters such as giants and the like, or illusion-trick most more mindless beasts. She also has the fortune hex, which leads on to the next point...

The Kensai Magus. It's a real monster in melee. With mirror image, the highest AC in the group, and access to greater invisibility, he's anything but a glass cannon. This magus fights with a Scimitar and always puts keen on it - resulting in massive spellstrike crits(using mostly frigid touch or shocking grasp) that range up to 50-70 damage. With the fortune hex, he'll be critting about 50% of the time, so even the toughest monsters will stand little chance, provided they aren't status-effected by the others. I suppose his damage is not sustainable in longer dungeons, but I'm not a fan of long crawls, and the adventure module doesn't have that many of them either.

How do I solve this situation the best? Some of my players feel unhappy by the fact that the Magus is doing so well, they've asked me to double-check that he's playing everything by the rules. So far I've not found anything conclusive on that part. And I'm fast becoming unhappy my encounters are becoming pushovers either by oneshotting magic spells or too much damage, and I don't think my players are feeling terribly challenged either.

I've some questions regarding the use of stealth in combat. The rules allow you to make stealth checks as soon as long as you are within concealment. Would this mean that a rogue could move out of a bush, hit someone with spring attack, and then head right back into the bush, rolling a new stealth check?

Another thing I've wondered is that it states you need cover or concealment to be able to use stealth, but in above mentioned example, would the enemy be considered flatfooted against any attack if the rogue moves out of the bush on them? Or do you NEED to use a ranged weapon to get sneak attack out of stealth, provided your enemy does not walk up right next to you?

Hello boards, one of my players have decided to pick the leadership feat in our Kingmaker campaign, which is very suitable since he's also the king. And it's good being king, right?

We haven't yet decided what the cohort is supposed to be, some form of divine caster, oracle or cleric most likely. I am mostly concerned with the feat partly out of balance issues, so I have a few questions:

Since your cohorts are loyal to you and doesn't ask for much, you can pull them with you on all your adventures. Does fights have to be balanced for an additional party member, and does the cohort require part of the loot to remain loyal?

Are stats rolled, or used standard/heroic NPC rolls? Or is that entirely up to me as the DM?

I'm mostly concerned introducing an NPC healbot to the group would skew up the balance of fights mostly.

I have a question to various DMs and groups out there regarding avoidable encounters and XP rewards. I realize this can probably vary from group to group, but I'm interested in what other people tend to run with.

I've been primarily playing adventure paths with my group, so this situation crops up more than in perhaps my own designed encounters. The players entered a lizardmen village which had several encounters of it statted up, most of them they would have to fight if they assaulted the village head-on. They opted for diplomacy however, and only managed to fight the lizardman king in a duel, plus an additional encounter after that.

One could argue that, because they didn't fight the other lizardmen, they shouldn't be rewarded with XP for the remaining combat encounters. But you could also say that the challenge was the entire village, and because the PCs handled it smartly(by being diplomatic), they shouldn't be punished. Though the challenge is definately lower than hacking through every single lizardman, it did effectively "solve" the encounter.

Similar situations include dungeons/locations and simply missing out certain areas. You end up fighting the boss monster before some of its minions, the minions figure out/hear/see their boss go down, they escape the dungeon, taking their loot with them. Or secret areas completely missed. You could say that them rushing to the leader without clearing out the dungeon properly makes it their own fault for missing out on certain encounters and rewards thus. The same if you miss secret areas.

How far should one go to award XP for encounters that were avoided, either by approaching it in another way, or missing it for one reason or another?

I've always been a sucker for limiting the information my players(or at least their characters) should rightfully know, and enjoy using knowledge skills extensively, anything from identifying monsters to recall old knowledge, history, local information or lore.

But I've been at a loss for how to effectively use knowledge skills, and then how to spread that information around. For monsters in combat, I tend to rank them to a DC depending how rare they are, their more common abilities easier to know, rarer ones requiring a higher DC.

There are two ways I can see you rolling for knowledge, especially if you have several people with the same knowledge skill. The first one is the regular, everyone rolls a dice and whomevever rolls high enough knows this and that. I find this way to be somewhat lacking when several people have the same knowledge, one player rolls low and another rolls high, or perhaps one rolls high and another higher. Two experts in magical knowledge gets two different results, both are no doubt confident their training is extensive, the natural reaction isn't to bend to the roll of the higher dice, but I'd imagine the two would come to a twist of who's information is the accurate one. Imagine two wizards arguing over the weaknesses of Devils and Demons.

So the other way I thought could represent them putting their heads together and figuring out an answer would be an aid another roll, and the highest skill making the actual roll. I thought this would be a good idea to keep consistency of information, but it does take away the option to actually roll another dice. Two persons with the same skill is essentially two chances to get it right after all. And having aid another rolls would not work in combat encounters for example, when you make a roll to see what this sudden monster that jumped out at you is, and have no time to stand around and discuss.

Would an idea perhaps be to let them chose? They roll separate, but extensively low or widely different rolls can produce faulty information, or twists on who is right. Or they decide to think it through together, use aid another and get only one roll on it, which is guaranteed to be accurate(if they roll high enough).
The DM would have to do the knowledge rolls then. The problem of a stressful situation such as a combat remains, where three people can roll knnowledge religion to figure out what this strange decaying wizard is(a Lich), and all three get widely different results, potentially causing a LOT of misinformation being yelled out in the combat.

So how do you handle knowledge rolls?

I have a few questions regarding making magic items:

1. You can ignore certain requirements for an increased DC, but can you ignore the CL requirement?

2. If no, on items such as the cloak of resistance states it's a CL5 item. However in the requirements it says that the caster must have a CL of 3 * the enchantment bonus, thus a +2 would be CL 6 and a +3 would be CL 9. Is this a hard requirement(provided you couldn't just ignore the CL for a higher DC)

3. It says you can use spells from magic items to meet a requirement. I remember in 3.5 it stated you needed to cast the spell for every day you were making it, though I've found none of that in Pathfinder. So, can you use a scroll to make a magic item? And will you expand that scroll upon completion?

I'm having a bit of a conundrum in my Pathfinder game - the Summoners Eidolon is currently outclassing most of the other characters in the game. With a strength of 22, bipedal body, 4x 1d6 attacks, pounce and flight it easily outclasses both our Paladin and Inquisitor, whom are melee powerhouses with two-handed weapons. Not to mention the 26AC it will receive once Mage Armor has been cast on it.

While it doesn't quite reach up to the burst-damage that our pyromaniac dragon-sorcerer can duke out, or the battlefield control our Transmuter can lay out, it's only one part of the Summoner, whom can sit back and cast spells through wands as well as cast very powerful buffs(Haste right now).

The players are level 5 and haven't yet gotten the more optimized magic items, but this thing easily outdamages most, and can fly AND pounce to boot. My players are getting a little annoyed at it and the summoner, and I don't have any answers to them other than "apparently it falls off in later levels", but that's a small comfort.

Greetings Kingmakers!

I'm sure many of you have gotten to book 2 of Kingmaker or even beyond that by now. As we all know, large swaths of time can easily pass in Kingmaker, and the fun is usually what you(or your DM) makes of it. Just going through the turns without events can be quite boring in the long run, so its up to random events to make the years of metagame kingdombuilding far more exciting.

But the ones suggested in the book is far from enough. So I'm making this thread to discuss potential events that can crop up, or have already cropped up in your games, to fill out the gap a little bit.

Few I've pieced together myself:

First of all, I tend to throw in the occasional loyalty check, which is a stat not used nearly as much as the others in the normal Kingmaker(at least not until you come to Mass Combat I understand). If they are out adventuring too long, does not listen to their peoples wishes so on and so forth. Just to spice things up a little and make the kingdom feel more alive.

Another event I had in mind was a River-Kingdom noble coming to the Greenbelt with a small force of either mercenaries or monsters. The son of an established family but far down in the line, he's heard of the newly forming kingdom and have hoped he can bully the colonists to give him power there. He'll come in and declare himself lord, and the PCs will have to deal with him in a way that works out well. If they fight him, he'll probably surrender and demand them to ransom him back to his family. If they kill him(intentionally or accidentally), they will earn the ire of that particular house.

There are other ideas of course. Smuggling rings that try to smuggle goods through the kingdom and its trade-routes, criminals trying to establish drug-growth or other various illegal substances(which will turn a lot of foreign anger towards them if left unchecked), and such forth.

What other ideas for events and happenings can you think of happening in the burgeoning Kingdom?

I have a quick question regarding potion-drinking and the use of focus for spell(not the feat, the material component).

Potions are a move action to drink, and provokes an attack of opportunity. Is drawing the potion a part of drinking it, assuming it's somewhere accessible? Or do you require a full round action to draw one, and then drink one?

Similarly, using a focus component for a spell, I'm reasonably sure you need to hold it in your hand. Does drawing it require an action like drawing a weapon, or is it part of the action required for casting the spell?

I have a question regarding Brewing Potions, more specifically which spells that can be brewed into potions. I've gotten into my head somewhere that you cannot brew potions out of spells with the "Target: You, Range: Personal" spells. For examlple, the Stonefist spell from APG. This is a handy spell for a wizard, but could become really powerful at the hands of someone else. Are you allowed to brew it?

Also, how would brewing a spell such as burning hands or fireball into a potion/scroll work? Is it allowed at all?

I really liked the idea of Nyrissa's continual hand behind many of the troubles for the adventurers along the span of this campaign, and will be strewing a few hints and clues of her machinations across the span of the campaign.
As my players will be fighting the Stag Lord, he will be wailing at them of "her" beauty, the dreams he has had and how he will make her queen of his kingdom. They'll also most likely find the lock of hair given to him by her.

Speaking of which, what colour is Nyrissa's hair anyway? I haven't purchased all the books yet, and I assume actual contact with the Nymph won't occur before the later ones.
I'm also interested in hearing how others have used Nyrissa's touch in the troubles for the fledgeling kingdoms, what hints that have been dropped, or other cleaver ideas to make the PCs heads run with theories and forebodings ?

I've recently started up a Kingmaker campaign with my group, and have so far been musing over whether to include the Hero Point system from the APG or not. I know there's been older threads on this, but it's been a while and I'm looking for some more recent opinions on this, perhaps even from someone who've used them in Kingmaker?

As an additional resource for the players, it adds some extra fun for them I reckon. Has anyone been experimenting with the frequency of the points? I've been toying with the thought of only letting the have them if they do something cool or roleplay well, as an additional reward. Or does once per level in addition to that give a bit of further fairness to the players who might not be the star roleplayers?

Additionally, I'm a little concerned about their effects. Gaining an extra standard or move actions brings them very close to 4th editions Action Points, but they do more yet! Not as frequent as the APs, but I dare argue that being able to pull off two spells, or a move action + full attack is far more powerful in Pathfinder than it is in 4th edition D&D. So I'm considering striking that all-together. Thoughts on this?

And the acting out of turn, how does that work exactly? Say you do your turn, go a few other characters/monsters down, and then you decide to act out of turn. Does this mean you pretty much skip forward in the line, getting your turn faster?
Then again, you only get to do a move or standard action, and have to wait even longer before you get a full round again. But would this be handled as an interruption to the enemies action, or just you choosing to go before / after an enemies turn?

The reroll and bonus to rolls are a-okay by me, but they seem a bit redundant. Why allow a reroll if you can already get +4 after a check, and +8 before that? I like the flat-out bonus to the roll, it challenges the players to consider whether its worth the risk, to try and play safe to get the +8 bonus or take the risk and then realize they need a bit more, adding the +4. To me, the reroll takes away a little of that, where players might just take the risk and if they roll bad, they'll rather take the reroll than the +4.

I'm a bit hesitant on the recalling used spells. I still got nightmares of the silly things casters did in D&D, and while Pathfinder certainly seems to have improved it... I see little reason to add further to their power. This part is mostly useless for classes that are not spellcasters.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on Hero Points, and my thoughts on them.