Gio's page

This is a draft for an attempt at rewriting/fixing the Monk without changin too much to the class or the system itself, I put this together while at work, so the writing should probably be improved quite a bit, and the abilities haven't been properly balanced yet, I apologise for that, I would still like any feedback though.

You will notice the table goes up to level 8 (I ran out of free time, that is why) and that I am only writing the abilities that were changed or added (abilities that were changed ara marked with a "*"). You will also notice a slight influence from Rurouni Kenshin (Namely, Yūkyūzan Anji).

Monk
Lv ---- Special
1 ------ AC Bonus, Bonus Feat, Flurry of Blows, Physical Perfection, Stunning Fist, Unarmed Strike
2 ------ Bonus Feat, Evasion, Enlightenment
3 ------ Fast Movement, Iron Fist, Maneuver Training, Still Mind
4 ------ Iron Body, Ki Pool (Magic), Slow Fall 20ft.
5 ------ Abundant Step* 60ft., High Jump*, Inner Peace
6 ------ Bonus Feat, Slow Fall 30 ft., Double Layer Fist
7 ------ Ki Pool(Iron Cold/Silver), Wholeness of Body*, Abundant Step 120ft.
8 ------ Slow Fall 40ft., Diamond Body*

Physical Perfection (Ex): At 1st level, the monk gains Endurance as a bonus feat and a +1 bonus on all three physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution). This bonus increases by 1 at 7th and 14th level.

Enlightenment (Ex): At 2nd level, a monk may use his bonus in Sense Motive in place of his bonus in Diplomacy and Intimidate. When substituting in this way, the monk uses his total Sense Motive skill bonus, including class skill bonus, in place of its associated skill's bonus, whether or not he has ranks in that skill or if it is a class skill.

Iron Fist (Ex): At 3rd level, the monk gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes. Additionally, the monk adds 2 to the Difficulty Class of his Stunning Fist.

At 7th level and every 4 levels thereafter, the attack and damage bonuses increase by +1 (To a maximum of +5 at 18th level).

Iron Body (Ex): At 4th, a monk gains immunity to poisons of all kinds and to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases. Additionally, the monk gains a natural armor bonus equal to ¼ his monk level.

Abundant Step (Ex): At 5th level, the monk may move at an impossible for the eye to follow speed by using 1 point from his Ki Pool. When using this ability, a monk can, as a move action, transfer himself and any items he carries anywhere within the range of the ability.

High Jump (Ex): At 5th level, a monk adds his level and his Strength modifier to all acrobatic checks made to jump, both for vertical and horizontal jumps. In addition, he always counts as …

At 7th and 14th level, the monk doubles the distance crossed or height reached by any Acrobatic Checks made to jump. For example, a 14th level monk who rolls a 40 on his Acrobatic Check crosses a 160ft. distance with a long jump, or reaches a 40ft height with a vertical jump.

Inner Peace (Ex): At 5th level, the monk gains a +1 bonus on all three mental ability scores (Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma). Additionally, he gains Improved Iron Will as a bonus feat even if he does not meet the normal prerequisites.

At 9th and 15th level, the bonus to the mental ability scores increase by +1.

Double Layer Fist (Ex): At 6th level, when using the attack or charge action with an unarmed strike, a monk can make a single attack roll using his monk level in place of his Base Attack Bonus. If the attack hits, the monk strikes his enemy twice with the same unarmed strike. The first attack deals damage normally, the second strike ignores any type and amount of Damage Reduction and the monk may roll the damage dice twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision-based damage, and other damage bonuses.

At 12th level, the monk may roll the damage dice for the second attack three times instead.

At 18th level, the monk may roll the damage dice for the second attack four times instead.
Double Layer Fist may be used in conjunction with feats like Vital Strike, but they stack additively. For example, an 18th level monk with Greater Vital Strike may roll the damage dice for the second attack 8 times.

Wholeness of Body (Su): At 7th level or higher, the monk can gain fast healing 3 for 1 minute as a standard action by using 1 point from his Ki pool.

At 14th level, wholeness of body grants fast healing 5 instead.

Diamond Body (Su): At 8th level, the monk gains Cold and Fire Resistance 5 as long as he has at least 1 point in his Ki pool.

At 14th level, the resistance to Cold and Fire increases to 10.

At 20th level, the monk becomes immune to Cold and Fire.

Hi ~

It has been a while since I last posted anything, but bored as I was at work today, I remembered how much it annoys me that the Rogue - the "Iconic Critical Hit (according to me, at least)" class - does not care about critical hits at all, so I decided to change that.

This tweak is too small to fix the Rogue class (though, I would probably include it in my Rogue re-write once I decide/have time to do one :p), still, I am interested in what you guys think about it.

Sneak Attack(Ex): If a rogue can catch an opponent when he is unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage.

The rogue's attack deals extra damage anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), when the rogue scores a critical hit, or when the rogue flanks her target. This extra damage is 1d6 at 1st level, and increases by 1d6 every two rogue levels thereafter. Should the rogue score a critical hit, this extra damage is not multiplied but she may maximize her sneak attack damage ...

Hello guys,

I'll be running my last session of the year this Sunday, and as it turns out I'll have to come against one of my two greatest weaknesses as a GM, Overland Travel, in order to get the campaign to the point where I want it to get before our big break.

Now, let me explain, I LOVE overland travel, there is just a special place in my heart for moments where the party gets together around the fire, or has a hard time traveling across hazardous terrains and stuff. I guess that is what reading too many books does to you. In any case, I have tried many times with different techniques to achieve a good overland travel experience for the Parties I have GMed over the years, but I succeed only once, and not only was that a lucky shot, it did not succeed to the degree I wished it would. Being the type of GM who prepare any detail he can think of ahead of time, I have read what I have found, but to no avail, clearly this is not my forte.

I searched the forums for a couple of hours as well, and found a few threads addressing this very same topic, but I did not find what I was looking for. My current issue is a travel from Korvosa to Kaer Maga, and I would not like to just say "4 days gone, you arrive", specially since I have two players that are relatively new to the game, but, since I have this problem with any kind of Overland Travel experience I try to prepare, I'd really appreciate it if we could use this thread for all types of advice concerning this topic, it would really help me a lot.

Currently, I plan on something slightly weird - I'll split the day of travel in Riding Hours, and Total Traveling Hours. I'm using Riding Hours to describe changes on the landscape and what they come across as they move every hour; Inns, Caravans, Merchants, Road Wardens collecting taxes, Thugs, fork roads, packs of wild animals, difficult parts of the road, and other traveling hazards like a horse throwing a shoe, or becoming afraid. While, I plan to use the Total Traveling Hours for weather mostly, so that perhaps a downpour catches them at sleep time. However, it feels like It'll be just general descriptions about what they see once an hour, and if some kind of obstacle happen, they encounter it, so we zoom there, and then go back to a description per hour.

I also plan on asking them how do their usual schedule, like, how much they plan to ride a day, and how often will they take breaks, how will they handle cooking, camping, their night watches and hunting (if required).

Does anyone knows any useful techniques or tips to improve Overland Travel Experience?, to make the players truly experience traveling and have fun during these moments?.

So, I have been running a campaign the last few months, and we have had a great time up to now. The PCs finished the first adventure of the campaign more than a month ago, and they are about 3 sessions away from finishing the second one as well. Suddenly, we found ourselves trapped in a dilemma. Thing is, one of the players, the Paladin is going for a three-day vacation trip with a few friends and won't be able to play this Sunday. This would not be a problem under different circumstance, but the Sunday after this one, he will also be unable to play and the ranger will be gone too. Now, none of this would be a problem at all, I mean i wouldn't have a problem to just skip two weeks of play, might even come as nice break.

The problem is, after we lose both weeks, I will only have two weeks left before I leave the country for studies. As I already mentioned, they are just 3 sessions away from finishing this adventure, and as you might guess I definitely wish to finish it before I leave. I just can't picture it leaving the adventure on hold for 4 months and just finish it when I come back (interest will be lost, I know, and many important details forgotten, even by me), I can easily picture them all starting the third adventure after a 4 months break however, which is why i want to finish this part of the campaign before I leave (plus I really put a lot of work and a part of my soul into it).

Since none of my players can play any other day of the week, the choice is, we either play this Sunday or we don't finish the adventure at all. And I of course had decided to have the Paladin become NPC during this session, then, the player playing this character told me

"I really don't want to miss this session"

You see, the story has kind of built up to a really exciting point right now, last week we cut as they were about to barge into a pretty important and dangerous place, run by the evil npc disguised as good guy who was probably behind the death of an allied npc they were so attached to that they spent 5000gp to resurrect (which of course I am still rewarding every time we play), and of course, they were doing the Epic walk thing.

I thought about asking the other players, and I will do so.Probably today. But since the community has helped me a lot in the past, I also thought about asking your opinion on the matter, before I do the talk with them.

What would you do?, play or not?, risk a whole campaign or not?

So, I have been the default GM for about 5-6 groups of 6 players each(I never run more than two campaigns at a time though). Luckily I have made a really small amount of mistakes over the last 4 years, and most of these were small things that wouldn't really change the outcome of anything - until now.

I am currently running a campaign for a party of 6, and on our last session, we had one combat after 7hours of pure role-play. The party was split split in half before the fight started so only three of them were in the encounter. They fought a group of 4 Vampire Spawn, and while their rolls were really really bad, but they would've most likely defeated them, the paladin doing most of the work this time around, of course, and HERE comes my mistake.

I had one of the Vampire Spawns, walk up to the ceiling by Spider Climbing and keep attempting Dominate person on the Dwarf Ranger, then the Human Fighter until they both failed their saves. Since we were in kind of a rush, as one of the players had to make it to the last bus, so as a result of playing faster than normal, I forgot that dominate person allows a save at +2 if the command is against their nature. With both of them dominated, the paladin having been beaten mostly by his companion, defeated 3 of the four vampire spawn, and took a last hit from the fighter, falling down to -1. The vampire spawn then changed the his command to "bring the rest of your allies in an hour and a half" and we stopped before they left the place.

Now, If I hadn't done this mistake, this would probably mean that the now helpless vampire spawns would awaken after an hour and feast upon the paladin, gaining temporary hp on the process and await for the rest of the party. However, since I feel terrible for the mistake I made (It did cost a PC's life), I will handle things differently. I think I should tell all of my players that I did a mistake, and that this mistake cost them the fight, and as a result, I'll give them all a hero point, and allow one of the following options,

1) a save against this last order ("after seeing your companion fall down, your inner self attempts to break the power that is controlling your actions") at +8 (compensating for all the saves they didn't get).
2) re-do the fight - ("you just saw a glimpse of your possible future"), granting them a +1 insight bonus on saves and ac. Since we are heavily using the Harrow Deck this could be a plausible.
3) have the cleric who sent them appear and help. (I don't really like this one, but always an option).
4) Have Torag congratulate the paladin on his dying dreams, which heals some of his wounds instantly. Epic description of how he gets on his feet, which he would deserve after the heroic encounter he just went through.

I need advice on which would be the best of the four, or suggestions for another way to "atone" for my mistake, as well as general input on whether should a GM or not admit he made this kind of a mistake or would this could him the trust of his players.

So, I'll be GMing a curse of the crimson throne campaign soonish, and one of my rookie players wants to play a character that attacks with both shield and weapon. I advised him to build a Two-weapon fighting centered fighter. But then, we decided to take a look at the archetypes, and found the Thunderstriker.

My question regards the Hardbuckler ability, does this ability allows a thunderstriker to attack with both a Two-handed weapon and a Buckler Bash in the same round as if using Two-weapon fighting rules?. I hope it does, since that's how he pictured his fighter style.

Hardbuckler (Ex)

At 7th level, a thunderstriker may make shield bash attacks with a buckler as if it were a light shield.

This ability replaces armor training 2.

I finally got my hands on this awesome adventure path. I read through adventures 1 to 3 on Saturday and had a meeting with my group yesterday for character creation, however I told them not to make their background stories just yet. I also read most of the 10 pages of discussion around here, as I found most topics helpful and insightful. As a result, I decided to make a big deal out of this campaign, starting from the very beginning. I have been bewitched by the idea of playing a "Prelude Session" before starting this up, as a means to have my players experience the wrong-doings of Lam firsthand.

The purpose of this thread is to ask the community for feedback and input as I "craft" the different adventures in this path, but, for starters I need help with the prelude I'm planning.

The party consists of a Human Fighter(Thunderstriker), a Tiefling Magus, a Dwarf Ranger, a Kitsune Ninja, a Bard (Race still undefined), and a character that will be created next week, when the player finishes his military service.

PRELUDE
After spending a few hours lurking around the board, I was inspired by many of the community's ideas. There was one Idea in particular that I really liked though - having the characters as members of an orphanage that sells most of the kids to Lam/belongs to Lam. I'm definitely using the orphanage idea, specially since I've been itching to make a "Monster's Kinderheim 511" kind of feeling in a Pathfinder Rpg.

For the Prelude, I'll have my group play young commoners of their selected race and kick off the session a few years prior Curse of the Crimson Throne while they are still in the orphanage/Lam's Lambs. Based on MrVergee's idea, I'll prepare four additional NPCs to join the crew as well, a boy who will betray them and be part of Lam's gang when the adventure path begins, a girl who will join the Gray Maidens (Probably Sabina Merrin ~), a boy who will be killed after a failed attempt to escape, and one of the PC's sister (Who will be sold as a slave probably to the Rakshasas). The PCs will "gain" their specific traits based on what happens in this prelude, as well.

I do have a few issues though,
1) I can't decide if PCs should start in the Orphanage, then be sold to Lam and become Lambs, then escape. Or, have them start as Lambs, then interned in the Orphanage, only to discover it belongs to Lam anyways, then escape after another orphan awakens Sorcerous powers, and burns the place down. Or have them always on the Orphanage, and make them work for Lam from there (Who uses the Orphanage as a facade).
2) I need to somehow make them love the city, so this adventure path works right?, or at least give them more reason to do so. I was thinking, adding the Gold Goblin from Second Darkness somewhere around here, maybe even play some of the events there, but have the place belong to Lam, and have the PCs own the casino at some point during the first adventure. OR, keep looking for a module that may help me make them want to save this place. Dunno, Maybe I'm worrying too much about this, but I do tend to over-worry about possible holes.
3) The age thing, some of the races have different ages than human, so would a, say 35years old Dwarf be in an orphanage?.

Once I clear up a few things, I'll post again with a clearer view of what to do, but any input would be welcome ^^.

I am GMing a campaign for a party of 6 players. Last night they were fighting this CR9 BBEG on the top of a tower's roof, now, the monk attempted to close in with acrobatics, her check was not enough to overcome the BBEG CMD and so she opened an AOO. Long story short, BBEG scored a critical hit on the monk, and the monk died.

I have seen many deaths before. Most of the time I use this opportunity as a character hook for most of the party and have a whole quest thing prepared for next session in order for them to "pay" that Raise Dead.

The session ended as they ran towards the temple of Sarenrae in Magnimar, one of the clerics in the party is a Cleric of Sarenrae, they arrived there with her body on their hands, asking to revive her.

I took a look at the spellcasting services table, it says that any spell with a component worth more than 3000gp might not be available though, the party says that Magnimar is such a big city that surely there are strong enough clerics as well as clerics with this gem in town. What do you think?, should I simply have them pay 5450gp and get the Raise Dead, or use my method of a simple double quest with a smaller cost? (one fpr the living party, and a small experience for the dead monk in the other world - I'm even planning on this experience to have a few effects on her character in general).

How would you make it believable for there to be or not to be a Cleric with the pearl and the level to cast Raise Dead around?

I don't really know if this is the right place to post this, but as I am asking for advice here i thought the advice forum would do it.

Now, i have a "pleasant" problem, I am forced to spend 260$ on online shops in a month or so AND this is where i need you guys.

Hey forum, good afternoon!

First I'd like one or more boxes to keep my flipmats, spell templates, Pathfinder books etc... I was looking at Amazon but it seems i am not a great searcher when it comes to generic stuff like this. My question is, where can I find such a marvelous thing?

Second I'd like some advice on what to spend a part of it (some of the money is supposed to be spent on clothes, and a hard disk probably), but I was thinking to improve my battlefield options, with either new flipmats, map-packs, or nice stuff for 3D dungeon maps. I need help to decide which type of terrain to buy!

I like the 3D dungeons a lot, they seem expensive but my real concerns are:
-Do i have to cut, paint, and build from scratch? or they come in pieces i can align as a puzzle and form my dungeon?
-Do they give enough options?, I mean would 2-3 sets of these allow me to build many different dungeons?
-How do you deal with it in play?, you show the whole structure to your players even though they haven't explored the dungeon 100% yet?

I also like the flipmats (i own one, the most generic map), and the map packs seem decent (even though i don't have any).

Which would you suggest and why?

As for books I have Pathfinder Core Rule Book, I ordered the Bestiary but it has not arrived yet, and I may order Bestiary 2 & 3, or Advanced players Guide & Dungeon master guide next, haven't decided yet!

I don't plan on buying figures, as i am pretty pleased with the bestiary box and expecting the release of the npc box! But I am open to any suggestions, where do you think a GM should throw his many to improve the quality of his adventure?!

Finally, Even if this is not PF related, any good Fantasy Board Game out there? - I have Descent, Dracula, Citadels, and Talisman but I am not 100% pleased with any, I need more fantasy D&D esque- awesomeness on the table!

So, One of my players just became a lv.3 Witch, and she is planning ahead her build right now. I was under the impression she could use Accursed Hex to make two uses of the Healing Hex on each target, but, upon reading the feat she can not.

I kept on reading the hex and the feat however, and cure light wounds does actually provide a will save, and ally are supposedly to fail this save on purpose... so, is the following sequence of ability usage posible by RAW?

-She targets Ally with healing Hex
-Ally makes a will save, and heals for half the amount of Hp
-As the ally did save against her hex, she targets once again this same ally with her healing hex.
-Ally fails save on purpose, and heals normally.

Well, I'll be running a Session which might turn into a campaign tomorrow. I'm doing the story and the adventure by myself but I am still using Golarion campaign setting, and decided it will start in Carpenden - Andorian.

I need something that looks similar or could be used as a Keyed Map for Capenden !

Thanks beforehand !!

I have been GMing for most of my D&D time (say about 9 out of 10 sessions my group plays), mainly because most members of my group are lazy (to the point where they don't even research their own characters' abilities)...

Next week i will be GMing for a new group, and a group with no D&D experience to this day. Now... the thing is, I want D&D to make a really good impression on most of them, have them get that classic Epic feeling D&D has, and make sure they enjoy the game, to the point where some of them stick!.
I will of course be running this on Pathfinder D&D, but since I've never GMed a group composed of 100% first timers I'd like some advices on the subject.

This Monday we gather to create their characters, I will sit with each one of them during the process, prepare some cofee and snacks, download a movie to enjoy after we finish and explain to them slowly and clearly some of the most basic rules, and their class/racial abilities in detail, I will only allow the corebook for this one since I don't want them to feel overwhelmed with the enormous amount of options available. As for attributes I'll have them either roll for best out of 4d6, or 18-14-10 and roll 3 attributes for best out of 4d6.

As for the adventure itself, It must be quite small (must end in about two 8hours session), I'll also make sure each of them has enough screen/shine time, I'm thinking about heavily editing (according to their background and whatever plot i might come up with), and adjusting to Pathfinder "The Sunless Citadel", but thought that any advice from the paizo community about a classic, fun, and interesting D&D adventure for first timers would be quite helpful. I want them to experience both battle and role-playing on balanced levels, so much of the editing for any adventure will be focused to secure that, and to make their background stories matter of course!.

Finally I'd like to point out that I've Gmed enough to know some of my strong and weak points, I know I'm not as good with oral storytelling,(specially since we play in Greek which is not my native language), I kind of make up with lots of preparations, a few interesting plots (I come up with sometimes), tactical or exciting encounters, and non-lineal npcs, (though most of these give about 50% of the fun it possibly could, because of my oral story-telling problems >_<).

I would appreciate any sort of advice ^^.

I am currently running a Campaign, and one of my players decided to play a gunslinger. I helped him during character creation, but unless i missed something or i am reading the rules wrong, the guy's character is quite underpowered, which makes me feel kinda bad for him as he is one of the best role-players in the group. I want to help him improve his character at least a bit so he is somewhat useful and enjoys playing his Gunslinger.

Al other players are 3rd level, so he created his PC as a 3rd level Gunslinger.

His ability Scores (22 point buy system; +2 Human Racial Bonus Included) are:

7 Str
18 Dex
14 Con
13 Int
16 Wis
8 Cha

He wants to play with 2 Pistols, so his feats are:
-Two Weapon Fighting
-Quick Draw
-Rapid Reload

I house-ruled that loading a two-handed firearm takes the same action as loading two-pistols (1 Full round action, 1 standard with rapid reload)

So, unless i am missing something, he would deal 2d8 damage on round 1, 0 damage on round 2 (as he needs to reload), and 2d8 damage con round 3, 0 damage on round 4, etc... which results on a mere 1d8 damage per turn. When compared with a 20str, Two-handed Fighter, with power attack, (2d6+10 damage per turn), it seems quite disappointing. I'm not saying he should rival the fighter on damage output as he can hit touch AC, and has some deeds, but the difference (1~8 vs 12~22) is way too overwhelming.

Can you guys help me?, did i understand any firearm rule wrong?, are the feats and/or ability scores badly chosen?.

Hi! Nice to meet you all!

My name is Giorgios, Gio for short. I'm from Greece and i have a hard time finding a D&D group around here, or to be accurate, a DM (I'm the only one around willing to do the work). I have been dying to play a well prepared Campaign for like... 3 or 4 years now, and have had no luck at all. I discovered this forum's section recently and I'm interested in trying PbP, but i can't find where do we join a campaign or create a character.

When it comes to grammar, my English isn't really great, but i hope it isn't that much of a big deal, i speak Spanish and Greek too, in case any campaign is being run using any of these languages, I'd be willing to join too.

Thanks for your attention.

I bought my Advanced Player's Handbook copy recently, and after reading it i just got a question about oracles.

Some oracle's revelations have a level requirement. For example, Fire Storm says it requires a character to be 11th level, however it does not say "11th level Oracle".

If i had for example a 6th level Oracle / 4th Level Fighter, and she gains a level, i decide to make her 7th level Oracle / 4th Level Fighter. As she becomes a 7th Level Oracle she gains a new Revelation, but does she qualify as 11th level for this purpose? could i get Firestorm at this point?