Gluttony's page

I get the impression that goblin ability scores, or at least the Cha penalty, comes from D&D.

The Cha penalty (and lack of Int and Wis penalties) fits the D&D goblin quite well. They're nasty, unfunny cowards with very little force of personality, but they're not stupid. It's always felt to me like the Pathfinder goblins got those goblins' stats, and are now stuck with them because it's too late to change things.

Pathfinder's goblins always struck me as the Wis penalty sorts. Maybe Int penalty as well, but actually quite charismatic. Very strong force of personality.

I'm looking forward to humanoids too. First book felt like it played up the "All humans are bastards with absolutely no redeeming qualities" angle a bit too much, which was one of my only qualms with it. I'm interested in seeing it attempted again, and hopefully improved upon, because I've otherwise loved everything Ponyfinder has offered so far.

Good for you.

One extra line of "All infusions are wild talents, but not all wild talents are infusions" would have been helpful.

I don't think any other class up until now has used that sort of relationship between class features before (except maybe Shaman, but "All wandering hexes are hexes, but not all hexes are wandering hexes" is a BIT more obvious), so it was easy to miss.

Oh Kineticist, I didn't recognize you at first, but as I reread your class section today to make sure I understood your mechanics, I realized who you were.

You're Old Man Words of Power, back with a few tweaks, a new name, and better publicity than last time!

...Not that that's a bad thing. I thought you had potential last time that got wasted by the poor execution that's characteristic of a lot of the old optional rules systems like you.

I hope you do better this time Words of Power... I mean Kineticist. ;)

She's a great iconic, but...

Another human? Sigh.

Class 1 = 90 Warpriest
Class 2 = 42 Inquisitor
Class 3 = 59 Paladin
Class 4 = 25 Cleric

I've pretty clearly got a militant LG church here.

Check out the section here on The Soul Trade for your answers regarding prices. I believe this stuff is all from Book of the Damned Volume 3 (Horsemen of the Apocalypse). The gems themselves aren't described in detail, admittedly. I think "Small jewel-like objects" is probably the most descriptive line you'll find on them.

They are not, however, as widespread as you imply, except in Abbadon. Daemons and Souleaters are the ones who most frequently use them, whereas others dealing in souls (like mortal wizards not associated with daemons) are more likely to use other methods. You'll note that the section on the soul trade says that Soul Bind and Trap the Soul are the most common methods of capturing souls. Soul gems are more of a daemonic niche than something widespread.

Gluttony wrote:

I can only assume I've failed to notice something significant, but why does area A17 (the battle against the overlord robot) assume that the PCs have 10 Victory points by the time they reach it. Considering A17 is close to the dungeon entrance, and all sources of victory points (unless I've missed a fair number of them) are deeper within the dungeon, wouldn't it make more sense to assume the PCs will have 0 victory points by the time they reach A17?

Because it's very difficult to get into that room without having delved deeper. The doors are locked down, and the area is flooded with radiation. Both the controls needed to vent the radiation and lift the lock are deeper in the dungeon. Of course, if your PCs tunnel their way through early, there's not much to stop them from fighting the Overlord on their first excursion...

Yeahhh... My players pretty consistently demonstrate a "Each level of the dungeon must be completely cleared before moving on to the next!" attitude. They're going to be in so much trouble...

NEXT UP:

- Duergar Inquisitor, based upon force spells, unarmed combat and some custom inquisitions - one for grappling and abduction; one for reverence of the deep earth; and the last one for enduring the endless toil of life.

- Halfling Gunslinger, using slings - the hook of this one is less flavor and more mechanics, since as he is unable to have full iteratives with a sling, he clusters all of his iterative attacks in one big hit -- or is able to ricochet them against several enemies simultaneously. Being able to use several types of bullets is also a hallmark of this archie.

BUT I won't be able to sit down and post these for a while.

To tide you over until then, here's the ULTRA MARINE, UNDINE FIGHTER.
I'm planning to make a Undine Swashbuckler as it was requested, but I had this idea of trying to make as many puns as I could fathom.

How many of them can you see?

The Ultra Marine's proficiencies really should say that they alter the fighter's normal weapon proficiencies, not that they replace them. As-written, this archetype has no proficiencies with anything other than nets.

...Or if that was the intention, then you missed a huge opportunity to call the ability 'Nothing But Net'.

Pathfinder Races (that I know of) not yet covered:

- Android
- Drow
- Duergar
- Dwarf
- Elf
- Gathlain
- Ghoran
- Gillman
- Half Elf
- Half Orc
- Halfling
- Human
- Ifrit
- Kasatha
- Kuru
- Lashunta
- Monkey Goblin
- Oread
- Skinwalker
- Suli
- Svirfneblin
- Sylph
- Syrinx
- Triaxian
- Trox
- Undine
- Vanara
- Wyrwood
- Wyvarian

Many of my first APs are more to the middle of my list of favourites, though that's not a set rule. My favourite AP is Rise of the Runelords, which is the 4th one I came to own. My second favourite is Reign of Winter, which was my 6th AP. My least favourite was Shattered Star, which was my 5th.

My 1st AP is actually near the middle of my list of favourites; 4th place out of the 9 that I own.

...I have noticed newer ones (specifically the past three; Wrath of the Rigteous, Mummy's Mask, and Iron Gods) tending to be in the bottom half of my list lately, which worries me a bit. I'm not particularly excited for Giantslayer or Hell's Rebels either. They'll likely be paths I pick up for the content, but skip over at the table in favour of running something else.

Quote:

Shattered Star: Very linear, very disjointed, I'm biased against the Pathfinder Society (they're eeeeeeevil!)

But they are such a negligible part of the AP... just say their boss isn't a Pathfinder, don't change anything else about it and... poof! No more Pathfinder Society in Shattered Star. It's like, the easiest fix possible. It's easier than changing the name of an NPC...

Eh, I'd more likely take it as an opportunity to allow an evil party.

That being said, the society's presence is a minor gripe. As with Jade Regent's caravan combat, things that merit change, but are easy to change will still make the list, but they don't count hugely against the AP.

Shattered Star is at the bottom of my list not just because of the society; it's there because of the combination of all the faults I listed.

If you really think rogues are the worst class and that somehow they need some kind of help, rather than lament it, offer something constructive on how to correct the problem.

I would put that the best possible suggestions are those that are as short as possible and change as few words in the various rogue entries. A couple of tweaks or re-wording are far more likely to meet with approval than some massive rewrite will.

Everything else has been covered numerous times in numerous threads and another rehash is not needed.

Better rogue talents would help so much.

Of the ones I've got, I'll go in order from my favourite to my least-favourite.

RotRL: Excellent. Classic, fun, never stops being exciting and entertaining. My group is still in the middle of it, and it frustrates me to no end that real life has, as of late, been keeping my players too occupied to meet up and play more of this one.

Reign of Winter: Very linear, but that's not a bad thing if the players know what they'll be getting into. The rest of it is fantastic locales and interesting enemies, and I have pretty much no complaints about it.

Carrion Crown: I love the cycling through the various horror genres, and that it manages to stay (mostly) fresh and interesting through all 6 books in spite of the endless undead. My only real gripe is that the final boss uses a complex template, complex class, AND a complex archetype, and can be a nuisance to run, which forces a GM to prep very extensively for the finale (even more-so than usual).

Jade Regent: My only big gripes about this one are the caravan combat (which is easy enough to just ignore completely), and that the 4th book is basically one massive dungeon that serves no purpose other than to get the party levelled up for book 5. The actual plot-justifications for why any part of book 4 is necessary are pretty weak.

Wrath of the Righteous: You're either going to have to work very hard to balance this, or you're going to have to let your players smash through it like superheroes. I'd probably go with the latter option and not mind doing so very much, but the roughness of the mythic rules is still a fault.

Iron Gods: Complicated new rules at every turn, but quite cool if you've got enough patience to accept that all the technology rules are likely going to slow the game down very frequently. My biggest complaint is that the three arcs almost totally require the PCs to decide to keep investigating things on their own initiative. There's very little provided in the way of quest-givers, or motivational plot-hooks.

Skull & Shackles: Fun. Very fun actually. It requires a certain group attitude to not fall apart though. Add to that the the ship rules can be clunky and time-consuming, and (my biggest gripe) that this AP relies so heavily on what are essentially random encounters, and there are certainly flaws to overcome.

Mummy's Mask: I want to like this one, but it just doesn't jump out at me. That being said, I can't find too much in the way of glaring flaws, and my biggest problem with it is that both I and my players simply think it looks too boring to play compared to other APs.

Shattered Star: Very linear, very disjointed, I'm biased against the Pathfinder Society (they're eeeeeeevil!), the AP is a ton of dungeon with only minor RP opportunity built in, and there's no point to it. If the heroes fail in any of the other APs, the world (or at least a local area) is in big trouble. If the heroes fail in Shattered Star (or at least in the first 5 books of it) there's no major repercussions. The big danger only exists in SS if the heroes succeed and unleash it.

I'd almost be tempted to go purple worm if they weren't so big.

Possibly an aboleth?

I've always thought of the rogue's main role as melee support. The one who plays nice with the fighter/barbarian/ranger/etc. and works in tandem with them to get lots of flank. Turn the melee advantage of the dedicated fighter into an even more unfair advantage by adding sneak attack, basically.

Rogue sucks if you try to go lone-wolf. You really need to coordinate with at least one other party member. Ideally with the whole party. The boards here generally don't like teamwork though, and classes are assessed mostly based on what they can do on their own.

I do wish we had better rogue talents available, admittedly.

Nothing says one-trick-pony like a blaster sorcerer focused heavily on a single spell.

I once did a one-trick-pony sorcerer (who was in fact literally a pony, thanks to the Ponyfinder campaign setting) who focused every resource she could get her hooves on into cone of cold. It was her favourite spell, she managed to get its DC about 8 points higher than the rest of her spell list, and she was almost completely shut down by anyone who knew what to expect from her and prepared themselves in advance.

It was actually quite fun, after putting all my eggs in one basket, to come up with clever ways to try and circumvent enemy defenses when they tried to counter my standard tactics.

I find that when somebody is significantly outdoing the others at the table it's usually not a matter of who built what, it's because one player is significantly more skilled than the others.

I'd bet that if you took a veteran player and asked them to build a rogue, and then handed the most optimized wizard ever to a newbie, the experienced player would still outplay them.

Usually when I have one player who's a lot stronger than the others, I ask the strong one to scale it back a bit. Try something creative with a tough build, deliberately make a few poor decisions (in build and in play) in the name of RP, and letting the others keep up. If possible, challenge your skilled player to make the best support character they can manage (One campaign's worth of my most-skilled player running support for the others and most of the others caught up significantly).

Ultimately, things tend to work better if everyone is trying to cooperate and function roughly on the same level as the rest of the party, which lets the GM put out encounters that are appropriate for everyone. Trying to out-damage each other is rarely a good mindset to have.

Part 59: The Haunted Heart

The fey man’s sobbing reversed almost instantaneously to a delighted chatter as he bombarded Lulu with questions in his native tongue, and though the others couldn’t understand the language, they judged from body motions that the conversation looked to be a reunion of sorts between old friends.

Nelipot quietly asked Atali whether Lulu was from around the Hook Mountain region, and the barbarian, realizing that the druid had not-yet heard the story of Lulu’s thousands of years away from the material plane, responded affirmatively, with an added remark that she’d explain in detail later on.

Lulu’s presence was able to calm the pixie at any rate, and after a few minutes of discussion she was able to turn back to the rest of the group and explain the details of what he had attempted to ask of them a moment earlier.

The pixie was named Yap—a fey who Lulu and her familiar Pix had known for a time in the First World—and it seemed he had come to them as a last-resort of sorts, to seek aid in what would have otherwise been a problem for the fey alone, and kept separate from the affairs of the humans and humanoids of the material plane.

Something had happened to a nymph named Myriana, of a place called Whitewillow, though Yap himself seemed to have gaps in his vocabulary that limited his ability to describe the exact nature of what had transpired. That something had somehow corrupted the larger fey was all that Lulu had been able to gather, and Yap had come to seek the aid of friends of a mysterious human lover of hers, though nobody knew who that might be.

The pixie was insisting that they leave immediately to help him out, and seemed to whimper at any hesitation or discussion of the matter that occurred in-lieu of action. Eventually though, a unanimous vote among the heroes came to the conclusion that a sudden outbreak of mysterious corruption in an influential fey woman—especially considering that it occurred so close in time and proximity to the influence of the lamia matriarch Lucrecia—was too serious to be ignored, and unlikely to be coincidental.

Lucrecia was still recovering from her wounds and blindness, or so they hoped, and so investigating Yap’s plea before turning their attention to Hook Mountain, where Lulu’s scrying indicated that she had retreated, seemed like a wise course of action.

To Yap’s dismay, Uriel paused the others before they properly set off, and asked to speak to Lulu. The witch agreed, though she first delivered one of the restorative scrolls she’d purchased in Magnimar to Nelipot, so that the druid might finally heal the mental wounds Lucrecia had inflicted in their battle.

Uriel admitted that he was indeed still torn on the matter of Kaven’s deliberately-engineered escape, but added that he’d been thinking on the matter during Lulu and Atali’s time in Magnimar. While he himself didn’t know exactly what response he was meant to give in such a situation, he did know how to fall back upon the teachings of the paladin code of Iomedae, which quite notably included the stipulation that faith in one’s fellows was a necessary aspect of what he believed.

The paladin conceded thus that while he didn’t know whether or not what Lulu had done was the right course of action, he knew she believed it to be so. He would trust in her judgement, so long as she agreed to avoid going behind his back again, unless of course she felt that doing so was completely necessary.

Lulu agreed, glad to be back on good terms with her friend once again, and with that the group set about making travel plans.

They would travel south to Turtleback Ferry, along with the pixie Yap, who they’d encouraged to remain invisible while in town. While there, mayor Shreed could use Erastil’s clerical magic to activate the restorative scroll for Nelipot that the rest of the group was having difficulty with. Then they would rent a boat, and use it to skirt the northern edge of Claybottom lake, crossing Skull River and then Willow River before arriving on the eastern edge of the swampy Shimmerglens.

All this went according to plan, and even their foray into Whitewillow itself—though the journey was beset with strange apparitions and ghostly haunts—was relatively free of danger.

It wasn’t until they arrived at the scene of what looked to be a bloody battle, and saw the mangled body of a dryad half-protruding from a broken tree, that they began to suspect something was truly wrong.

Yap mournfully identified the corpse as Myriana herself, but as he did so, gestured to a clearing ahead. She was there now, he claimed, and he dared not approach any further.

The group exchanged apprehensive glances, and then stepped forwards into the clearing, with Lulu in the lead.

Having Yap recognize Lulu was a tough decision, but ultimately I think it was a good one, especially considering Lulu is from the general area of the Sanos Forest. Yap's appearance comes across as a bit more natural when someone knows who he is than when he's a stranger, I think.

Part 58: A Desperate Plea

Lulu and Atali’s time in Magnimar was brief. They’d already taken longer than they’d planned by the time they arrived in the city, due to the off-target teleport spell of the previous day, and so they’d had to make their business of buying scrolls and equipment that couldn’t be obtained in Turtleback Ferry as brief as possible. Ultimately Lulu handled most of their shopping while Atali made her way towards Defiant’s Garden to speak with the lord-mayor.

Lord-mayor Grobaras was initially relieved to learn that it was just the barbarian woman from the Sodden Lands who’d come to speak to him, and that the paladin Uriel was not present. He paled a bit when Atali made it clear that she knew of Uriel’s order to the man to lessen his greedy tendencies, but ultimately—in spite of the mayor’s heavy sweating—Atali wasn’t perceptive enough to notice anything amiss about his still far-from-virtuous personality. She was, however, able to convince the man to send an extra platoon of trained men and women up from Magnimar to Turtleback to replace the fallen Black Arrows and re-staff Rannick.

Lulu was able to carry four people including herself, the witch had explained to Atali when outlining the specifics of her teleport spell, with the possibility that she might be able to increase her maximum load in the future. With that in mind, while most of the reinforcements for Fort Rannick would have to make the slow journey along the Yondabakari, Lulu could teleport at least two members of the reinforcements back along with her and Atali.

…Back in the Hook Mountain Region, Uriel and Nelipot worked with Jakardros, as well as with some assistance from villagers of Turtleback Ferry, on cleaning, rebuilding, and fortifying Rannick. It was difficult and sweaty work, but the seemingly endless rain helped them keep somewhat cool, and Nelipot’s still-addled spellcasting abilities were fortunately not particularly hindering her assistance at manual labour. Most-often, the halfling woman served as a go-between to speak with the villagers, who she knew best due to being a fellow citizen of Turtleback Ferry, or simply shifted into the form of a large beast to help pull supplies to the others while they worked.

On their second day however, they noticed that Lulu and Atali who were supposed to return early in the morning, were not yet back. Of course those at Rannick had no way of knowing the difficulties the two had experienced with Lulu’s teleport spell, and had no idea where the women were, aside from that the assumption that hopefully they’d made it to Magnimar, and something there had been delaying them.

Their first visitor that day was not the other half of their group, as they’d expected, but an unannounced little fey man who looked to be in shambles, and fired through a high-pitched and rapid speech without so much as a single gasp for breath until reaching the end of it, after which he burst into tears.

Uriel, Nelipot, and Jakardros exchanged confused glances, having only grasped the bare-minimum of what the pixie had even asked of them. He’d mentioned a mistress they didn’t know, and a human lover that they supposedly did know—that he called them friends of, even—and a land sickening, and a place called Whitewillow, but the pixie was too distraught to provide them with much more information than that.

The loud crack of a spell interrupted the pixie’s blubbering and the debate between the other three of whether to help the fey when they didn’t even know what he was asking for help with, and to the delight of those who’d been wondering where the Magnimar half of their group had gotten to, Lulu and Atali—as well as a pair of young guards from Magnimar who were holding most of their heavy supplies—appeared before them through the magic of Lulu’s teleportation.

…The first to react, however, was not one of the adventurers, but rather the pixie himself, who squeaked out Lulu’s name in gleeful surprise and practically leapt forwards, breaking into another rapid-fire speech, this time in Sylvan!

I find that using a 15 point buy helps me to balance villains against the heroes.

If the PCs are too powerful, the villains get a bit limited, and I'm forced to stick to more powerful builds and tactics to keep them threatening, which is restricting of a lot of fun things I like to try.

15 point buy on the PCs lets me play the villains with weaker builds, flawed tactics, and as all-around not-completely-optimized NPCs, and still provide a threat to the PCs in doing so.

...I find that 15 point buy also tends to encourage player creativity, at least most of the time. It discourages min-maxing simply by making the max so hard to get to, and while some players still do try to maximize one or two scores by dumping everything else, I find that most try to avoid being so heavily dumped in so many areas, and instead adjust themselves into builds that are more balanced and less superpowered, which again, I like because it makes it easier to run threatening villains without being shoehorned into optimization.

I'm trying to calculate zombie lord CR (more specifically how it works) at the moment, and I can't seem to make it work, so hopefully someone can help me out.

First, the example human zombie lord monk 3 in Bestiary 4. Based on the formula that the zombie lord template gives, CR is 1 higher than the CR of a normal zombie with the same hd, plus CR increase for class levels. I think I've narrowed it down to three possible ways that this could work, but the ones that most-accurately follow the rules as written on how the CR works produce a different CR than is listed, and the one that does work results in ridiculously overpowered high-level zombies.

1) So, the zombie lord presented has 5 hd. That's a CR 2 normal zombie, +1 equals CR 3. CR 3 plus CR increase for 3 levels of monk should be CR 5, but that's not the listed CR, so that can't be right.

2) Maybe it only counts racial hd then? In that case the zombie lord presented has 2 racial hd. That's a CR 1/2 normal zombie, +1 equals CR 2. CR 2 plus CR increase for 3 levels of monk should be CR 4, but again that's not the listed CR.

3) In spite of the rules saying that class levels modify the CR, the method that works is to ignore class levels entirely and just base it off total hit dice. In this case a 5 hd normal zombie is CR 2, +1 equals CR 3. This presents problems at high levels though, and results in overpowered monsters. A zombie lord wizard 20 by this formula would only be CR 9, for example.

...Anyone else have any more insight into this than I do? I don't like that the third method is the one of these that's working properly, and I'm hoping that I'm calculating something wrong here.

Ran a one-shot of the Midnight Mirror module this weekend rather than another bout of Runelords, so no update this week.

Taking a look at Nidal provides an interesting view on this. The common people worship Zon Kuthon basically because it's the norm in Nidal. Most people aren't evil, but they go to church once in a while for some routine devotion, they get tortured a bit, because that's what everyone else they know does for their faith, and then they go back to their lives as basically-normal people.

...In short: "Everyone else was doing it, I just wanted to be popular."

Lulu's first major use of the Teleport spell rolls a nasty mishap, and leads off-target to the Mushfens, instead of the intended destination of Magnimar.

Part 57: The Lady’s Light

Atali could only shrug at Lulu’s explanation of events, commenting that the witch made a good argument, but that if Uriel was going to be upset about it, it would be best to give him a bit of time to clear his head.

To that end, the group would be heading back to Magnimar, or rather, half of them would while the other half dealt with the beginning of Rannick’s restoration. Lulu was a necessary member of the city group for her ability to teleport, and Uriel had asked Atali to go with her and check on Lord-Mayor Grobaras in his stead while Nelipot and Uriel himself did what work they could at Rannick and Turtleback Ferry.

Something went wrong, however, and though Lulu had a good memory of the Inn that they’d stayed in in Magnimar’s Underbridge for quite a while when they were hunting down Xanesha and the Brothers of the Seven, some stray thought threw her off at the last moment, and the teleportation spell scrambled, ripping the witch and barbarian apart quite painfully and then dumping them unceremoniously in an unfamiliar swamp.

The two took to the air to get their bearings and were met with an unexpected sight; a woman in flowing robes with one breast bared, holding a staff aloft. Neither one recognized the landmark at a glance, but the sight of the coast, and the assumption that Lulu’s teleport spell had (hopefully) dropped them off somewhere in Varisia was enough for the two women to decide on a heading, aiming themselves along the west coast, since it was closer than the south one, and hoping that they weren’t on some uninhabited island in the Varisian Gulf. Assuming they were on the mainland, the coast would eventually lead to a coastal city, after all, and from there they could get their bearings.

The two flew as far as Lulu’s flight spells could take them and then walked the rest of the day, disappointed that Lulu hadn’t thought to ready any magic that could summon mounts, though considering they’d teleported here, it was understandable that she hadn’t expected to need such spells. By sunset they’d still not reached a city, and so they established a camp on the beach, and divided a watch between Lulu, Pix, and Atali.

The night was mostly uneventful, and it was not until they’d all woken, as the sun was rising, that the heroes were thrown into action by an attacker from beneath the waves; a particularly advanced an deadly-looking version of an oceanic brute that Lulu recognized as being called a Karkinoi, who’d likely come to snatch up two unwary beachside travelers.

Atali was quickest to take action, and deigned to wait before letting her rage overwhelm her, instead opting to fire a pair of devastating rays of fire at their assailant, one of which was particularly devastating, and struck a critical blow to one of the monster’s beady black eyes, scorching the eye to the point of uselessness. Lulu on the other hand, being somewhat more cautious, opted to conjure magic armor around Atali before backing off further away from the short, leaving her barbarian ally to handle the aquatic monster’s melee attacks while Lulu herself stayed at range.

The monster charged and struck at Atali, only for its claw to deflect uselessly off of the mage armor that Lulu had conjured, and the barbarian woman grinned, shifting forwards in the sand to close what remained of the distance between her and her opponent, clicking one heel against the other as she did so to acquire a momentary burst of speed, and allowing herself a brief surge of anger as she swung her blades.

Her sword connected once; her axe twice. The crustacean monster staggered back and burbled in alarm. Clearly the human woman wasn’t as helpless as he’d expected.

Before the monster could flee however, it toppled, felled by the sheer overwhelming noise of a sound inaudible to all but itself; a spell from Lulu that brought down the monster in spite of its admirable fortitude resisting it.

Atali spared Lulu a questioning glance, and the witch replied that one less oceanic raider in the waters would likely be a small blessing to costal civilizations, and with a nod the barbarian woman agreed and finished off their now-unconscious attacker.

My first character was Chaotic Neutral, but was the only one of three CN characters in that party that didn't fall to CE. Sure, she would have burned commoners to death if there was a good reason to. She just didn't count 'for the lulz' as a good reason like her fellow CNs did.

I recall trying to keep a balance of using good methods to reach selfish ends (or vice versa), and ensuring that my character had lines they wouldn't cross.

...As for other players, two really stick out in my memory. Both picked CN characters for their first run through, and both handled them quite differently.

One was raised by fey and spent over 6000 years off-plane not growing up, barely noticing that the time was passing. She's a bit off from normal human morality, but she doesn't fling her lightning spells into crowds of civilians for fun. Her backstory indicates that she was CG before the start of the campaign, and she still tends towards heroic goals, she's just somewhat negatively affected by the fey influence, and is relatively willing to use unscrupulous methods to do what she believes is right. She's a lovely character to have in my game and the player is wonderful to GM for.

The other one is wholly 'lolrandom' with no personality beyond "He's chaotic neutral", and is played by a player who definitely uses the alignment as a crutch. The player herself has weird views on alignments, and operates in extremes (i.e. she's a person who will declare that all elves must be nature-loving, elitist, pretty-boy druidic archers, and anyone who plays an elf as anything else is doing it wrong and must, according to her view of the rules, instantly lose all class abilities) with no real capacity for making a character's personality feel natural. Her CN character is still alive for now only because that group has massive schedule conflicts and can rarely ever meet up. Assuming the game continues to progress, he'll die, and I can all-but guarantee it'll be as a result of a bad decision made in the name of "I'm Chaotic Neutral". (Heck, I can pinpoint exactly where he's most likely to die and what's going to kill him. It's an encounter that involves fireworks, and it should be a relatively easy one, unless somebody stupid gets remotely close to explosives.)

First campaign I played, I was in a party with a kobold. We had a lecherous gnome sorcerer that never stopped hitting on his fellow party members (chaste paladin? Got hit on. Straight male fighter? Got hit on. Barbarian who punted the gnome whenever he hit on her? Got hit on most of all).

Well our GM had mis-read the elemental bloodline and accidentally granted the sorcerer the +30 to his land speed of the fire elemental bloodline at 1st level instead of 15th. He also had the fleet feat, so he was moving about twice as fast as the rest of us and had a habit of charging ahead.

At 3rd level, he ended up charging into a one on one sorcerer duel with a kobold sorcerer, and got killed before any of us caught up to him. We were so pleased to be rid of our first sorcerer that we offered the kobold a job as our new one, and he seemed happy that people were being nice to him, so he accepted. He joined the party as the new character of the gnome sorcerer's player, and was pleasant and wonderful and an excellent blaster mage.

In Jade Regent my players were a named party. The dwarven fighter came up with the name by asking everyone to give him a word (not telling them what he was going to use the words for) and then rearranging them into something he thought sounded good.

And thus the party was named 'Blue Streak the Unstoppable Vanity'; a name which all the other PCs insisted did not refer to them. Was pretty funny to hear the shouts of "NO!" cutting him off whenever he tried to introduce the group by that name.

Part 56: What She Did

Though the heroes didn’t have the time or energy to scour the entire fortress before their rest, they did find a single healing potion in the ogre sorceress Dorella’s possession, which they carefully administered to sleeping Nelipot, so that she would not spend the night as a bloody mess (or at least would be less of a bloody mess).

The druid was thankful for the potion’s effects when it brought her back to consciousness, but noted that the matriarch Lucrecia had done a number on her mental faculties, and that she lacked the magic to undo it. At best she was able to call forth her weakest orison spells, creating clean water for them to drink before resting.

Shalelu took watch overnight, since she was almost entirely uninjured, and spent the hours strolling through the quiet halls as the others recovered in the fort’s five guest rooms—enough for Lulu, Uriel, Nelipot, Atali, and Jakardros to each have one to themselves—and occasionally checked up on Atali, who was in the worst condition of any of them.

In the morning she had news. Kaven was gone from his cell! Uriel was the first to hear of it and immediately set about examining the dungeons for signs of how the ranger might have forced his way out, and inquiring as to whether Jakardros could find a trail of where exactly Kaven had gotten to.

He’d gone through the shocker caves, the older ranger ascertained, but with the excessive heavy rain that had been getting worse and worse the past few days, he expected that tracking Kaven through the Hook Mountain Region would be difficult.

Uriel went to find Lulu at that, and found the witch in her room, observing the silver mirror they’d last seen her use back in Magnimar, and the paladin inquired as to whether she was scrying. Lulu affirmed that in fact she’d been doing so for nearly ten minutes at that point, having been using the dagger Lucrecia had discarded when she’d drained Nelipot as a scrying focus to help pierce any mental defenses of the matriarch.

Uriel was distracted for a moment by this fact, and asked if the witch had learned anything useful, to which Lulu affirmed, commenting that their enemy appeared to have retreated towards Hook Mountain and regrouped with her allies there. Lulu had a fair bit of information regarding those allies of Lucrecia’s, but such a thing could wait until Atali and Nelipot were present to hear it as well. With the information she had, they could teleport themselves right to the lamia matriarch’s side at the heart of the ogre clanhold at a moment’s notice, she commented, and Lulu had readied a teleportation spell that morning for such a purpose just in case.

Uriel shook his head at that. They’d been able to heal themselves up from the beating they’d taken from storming the fort yesterday, but doing so had required essentially everyone who was capable of healing magic to expend it all first thing in the morning. They were in no position to charge headlong into another significant fight, at least until tomorrow.

Instead he asked hopefully whether Lulu had prepared a second scrying spell, explaining that Kaven had somehow escaped, and that if they could scry on him with Lulu’s magic, perhaps her teleportation could be put to use in recapturing him.

Lulu shook her head however, explaining that while she had indeed readied the magic for the purpose of scrying a second time that day, she would not cast it for the sake of locating and hunting down Kaven. She’d released him after sending her summoned celestial to aid the others in battle the previous evening, and to undo that action and recapture him now would mean such a move would have been entirely pointless on her part.

Uriel was understandably horrified at Lulu’s casual admittance of what she’d done, and quickly set about verbally reprimanding her, speaking of the consequences of what she’d done by letting someone like Kaven loose. Lulu waited quietly until he was finished before simply shaking her head in response, commenting that the situation differed between Uriel and most people.

When a normal person needed to atone for a misdeed, there was no special magic that they needed to make use of, unlike a paladin’s atonement, and that standards were lower. Kaven didn’t need to be held to the standards of a paladin, he just needed to be not-terrible. Lulu’s standards.

Uriel was quick to point out that such a judgement wasn’t Lulu’s to make, and Lulu shrugged. She’d known what judgement anyone else would have made of the man, given the opportunity, and suggested that to condemn Kaven for one mistake—even one extremely grave mistake as this—was to deny him the opportunity to try and be better. She’d let him free without asking Uriel so that the paladin wouldn’t have to choose between denying justice to someone who deserved it, or denying redemption to someone who might still earn it.

Uriel ended the argument in a huff. He was having difficulty coming up with an argument to the fact that Lulu had done what she had as a means of allowing him to avoid conflict with his paladin code even if it had meant going morally against him herself, and could think of no other option in regards to Kaven if Lulu—the only one among them who could scry and teleport—would refuse to use her magic for that purpose. Instead he stormed off, muttering something about going to find Atali.

Part 55: Retaking Rannick

The group led by Jakardros hit the bottom of the stairs at top speed and made a sharp turn to the right, aiming for the front doors of the fortress. They hoped to keep ahead of Jaagrath as long as possible and force him to deplete the energies of his rage, but found the fortress doors were blocked on the outside by the piles of corpses of the ogres they’d slain in the courtyard, which had been stacked in front of the door to hold it shut—one last spiteful lash at them from Lucrecia before she’d made her escape towards Hook Mountain with the lone ogre who’d been stationed outside serving as her eyes, though they didn’t know that yet—and the group realized they were trapped after their first few slams against the door failed to open it and free them.

Momentarily the group considered fleeing further to the south tower that was down the hall, hoping to lose the ogre pappy by moving through an escape path too awkward and narrow for him to follow through. They were too slow for it though, and with a bellow, Jaagrath rounded the corner to face them. It was all Uriel could manage to leap to the head of the group, his sword alight with holy smiting magic, and hope that a defensive stance could hold the ogre. Jakardros and Atali, both weary but determined to live, staggered back behind the paladin’s defenses, staying far back enough as to keep the ogre from simply reaching over Uriel’s head while they unloaded every shred of offense they could still muster, loosing arrows and rays of scorching magical fires respectively upon the Kreeg pappy.

Jaagrath was not alone however, and the sorceress Dorella moved to fight from behind him just as Jakardros and Atali fought behind Uriel, and subjected the three heroes to a mind-boggling enchantment spell. Uriel and Atali gritted their teeth and resisted this magic, but Jakardros was not so willful, and succumbed to the confusing stupor, seeming to become bewildered as to who he was fighting, and turning his bow on Atali at the worst of possible times.

The barbarian realized what was happened at the last moment, but had sheathed her weapons for the sake of spellcasting, knowing that unless she was enraged, she wasn’t much use in melee combat, and thus had no weapon with which to strike out at the ranger and snap his bow. Instead she could merely cry out in alarm as the confused man fired a volley of arrows straight into her chest, and she collapsed unconscious from it.

Uriel screamed in a panic as Atali fell behind him, and he knocked Jaagrath’s swinging hook aside, gritting his teeth and fighting the urge to run to the woman’s side. He knew he had no healing magic left in him anyways, having expended it all as the group had moved through the fort and fought ogre after hard-hitting ogre. All he could muster that would be useful at the moment was a dispelling spell, but such a thing would be impossible so long as he was holding fast against Jaagrath. He knew he could do no good for her by running to Atali’s side, and could only pray to Iomedae that the woman was strong and stubborn enough to cling to life rather than bleed out.

He lunged, forgoing defense. If they were going to live to see another day, he knew that he had to kill the ogre pappy now, he likewise knew that if Jaagrath had been injured enough by Atali to warrant retreating and drinking potions back when they’d been fighting him upstairs, that he must likewise be furiously fighting on his last legs just as they were!

Uriel’s allies had urged caution. Now they were unconscious, incoherent, on not present at all. It was his battle with Xanesha all over again, and this time it was time to act as a paladin.

Uriel held his ground, refusing to concede even an inch to the ogres, and smote with all his might!

…The sorceress was not so damaged as her husband, however, and while Uriel cut into Jaagrath successfully, she stayed uninjured behind him, calling forth the magic of a spell that made the paladin’s eyes widen in terror. He recognized it as one which would render him unconscious through means of a deep slumber, and one which would spell doom for all of them if she cast it!

Dorella never managed it, and cried out in surprise as an arrow slammed into her shoulder from the side, having come from the direction she and Jaagrath had chased the heroes from. It had sent her staggering, clearly having been deliberately fired to coincide with the timing of her spellcasting, and had disrupted her spell as a result!

The ogress barely had time to turn and comprehend her new enemy when another was suddenly upon her, lunging with a flash of brilliant orange among black fur and biting into her, sending her staggering further, though she managed to avoid tripping.

Jakardros momentarily came to his senses at the sight of the sorceress’ assailant, and called his animal companion’s name joyfully, firing a barrage of arrows into Jaagrath as he did. Uriel in turn made a further connection, realizing that if Kibb had come to battle, then the arrow which had disrupted the battle could only have been Shalelu.

Uriel called the elf’s name in thanks over the clash of steel as Jaagrath’s sword dug into his armour, and Shalelu responded with a profession affirmative, informing him that she’d handle the sorceress if he could manage the chieftain.

Both ogres balked at this insinuation, and Dorella thought to fire a blast of lightning at the elf in retaliation. The elf was nimble, however, and dodged most of the blast, and what she couldn’t avoid was resisted by her defensive magic thanks to Lulu’s prior warning. Uriel in turn defied Jaagrath’s expectations, sweeping his sword upwards and catching the ogre on the chin.

At first the blow seemed to do little to the overbearing onslaught of the ogre, and he caught Uriel in the chest with his hook, slamming him into the wall where the palaidn collapsed with a wheeze, just barely retaining the energy to keep his eyes open. Then however, all of Jaagrath’s wounds seemed to catch up with him at once, and the weary paladin could only slump to the ground with a sigh of relief as the ogre fell over, dead. It was what they’d been counting on, admittedly; Atali had nearly suffered the same fate and died of fatigue back at Thistletop, but unlike Jaagrath, had managed to furiously cling to life even after she should have died long enough for an ally to reach her with healing magic.

Here though, they’d almost lost hope of that plan succeeding. Jaagrath’s reserves of furious rage had seemed endless.

Uriel glanced to Jakardros, who beat himself over the head with his own bow in his state of confusion, and recognized that they couldn’t afford for the ranger to mistakenly fire at one of them again. Wearily, the paladin raised a hand to bring forth his final spell of the day, and dispelled the enchantment on the man.

He blacked out from the effort, and could just barely manage to breathe a word of good luck to the ranger, hoping that when he woke next it would be here, in a retaken Fort Rannick surrounded by living friends and allies.

…It was in fact but a short half-minute later that the surprised paladin awoke, and the sounds of battle still raged as Kibb gnawed the ogress and Shalelu fired another arrow to interrupt one of her spells.

Uriel raised his head in confusion, having thought that his allies had all depleted their healing spells as he had. Jakardros was standing protectively over him, bow trained on the ogress, keeping her pinned in the hallway corner with only a too-tight passage behind her, but it didn’t seem to have been him who’d restored Uriel to consciousness.

He looked to his right, and saw an unfamiliar elf, a man with long and silvery hair and eyes that swirled with a rainbow of colours. After a moment he realized who, or rather what his rescuer was, and his jaw dropped. This was a true celestial being, a Bralani Azata, kneeling here beside him!

The Azata inquired as to whether he could stand and Uriel nodded vigorously, feeling as though whatever magic he’d used to heal him had cured the most serious of his many wounds. Atali on the other hand still appeared to be unmoving on the ground, and Uriel glanced between her and the outsider worriedly.

The Azata followed Uriel’s gaze and informed him that he’d not tended to Atali yet, and would do so immediately, moving quickly to her side. Healing magic pulsed forth to his palm, and he glanced back at the paladin with a smile, commenting that Uriel certainly had a dedicated friend, for the small one who’d summoned him downstairs had denied healing for herself—in spite of looking as though she was on the verge of death—and instead insisted that he save all such spells for her allies up here. It was because of that selflessness that he’d had enough healing magic for both Uriel and Atali!

The barbarian woman’s eyes opened groggily and Uriel rushed to her side while their celestial saviour rose to his feet and drew a weapon, turning his attention to the ogress for what few seconds remained of Lulu’s summoning spell.

Atali, injured as she was, for she’d been far past the point of unconscious and has thus had more damage needing to be healed than Uriel, brushed the paladin’s concerns aside and glanced at the battlefield. Jaagrath was down, and she could see both Jakardros and Kibb fighting the lady ogre, as well as the occasional arrow coming into view from around the corner, being fired by someone over there. Shalelu, maybe? Then there was some white-haired elf she didn’t recognize, but he seemed like he was fighting on their side at least.

She didn’t see any other corpses than Jaagrath. That was good. A moment after coming to that conclusion however, the mystery elf raised a hand to fire one last bolt of magical lightning at their enemy, and then seemed to vanish on the spot!

The ogress looked hurt, and her eyes drifted over in their direction, perhaps judging whether she could get out the front door. Ultimately such a ploy would do her no good, but Dorella didn’t know that, and seemed to be considering it. Uriel rose quickly to stand against her, and Dorella called forth the magic to run all of them in the front hall—Jakardros, Uriel, and Atali herself—through with lightning!

The barbarian grunted and raised a hand to call her own magic faster than the ogre sorceress could manage, and fired two rays of magical fire straight at her, sending her toppling and ultimately collapsing in defeat. Atali sighed with relief as the woman hit the floor, and passed out once more herself.

They’d won. She could afford to rest now, right?

Narrowing it to one is tough, though I usually GM. I suppose if I stick to characters I've played the list is a lot smaller...

I'd have to say that my favourite character that I've played was a human fighter named Holly Hay, who I was inspired to make after seeing one too many optimization threads. She was a high-Int fighter with no dump stats, and I had a lot of fun with varying strategies and attack patterns from her. Holly also took part in my favourite villain battle that I've ever experienced as a player, which involved a battle with a serpentfolk druid on a tower roof. He got blasted off the tower, but survived the fall, and so Holly (because she'd read the party wizard's spellbook and had enough intelligence to know what the spells in it did) asked him if he'd prepared Feather Fall, then leaped off the roof to chase down the fleeing villain when he confirmed that he had.

...Nearly died against that villain. Turns out going one on one with a lone druid who's low on hp, but can still use Summon Nature's Ally is a bad idea. Took him out with a thrown axe in the end though.

Holly started out at 1st level in Tian Xia, in the country of Zi Ha, having crossed the Crown of the World with a caravan to visit a samsaran monk (fellow party member) who'd known her when Holly was a child. An earthquake opened up a nearby dungeon that had been sealed for years, they teamed up with a tengu wizard and a kitsune rogue, and the four of them ended up working together to track down and (repeatedly) thwart a villainous undead-loving cleric (our BBEG) who was trying to follow the success of the nation of Geb on the other side of the world. We eventually managed to stop her from seizing control of Zi Ha, which she was going to do by way of ancient magical artifact, and kept her from forming a Tian nation of undead.

:P

Lulu's a 9th level Witch. Only way for a witch to even get Planar Ally is with the Spirits Patron, and that's a 16th level patron spell.

...Personally I think it should be greater planar ally that gets granted by Spirits at 16th, since that's in-keeping with patrons normally granting a spell one level after the witch unlocks the requisite spell level, but Spirits isn't Lulu's patron anyways. Her patron is Deception.

What she cast was actually...

Stopping to do some roleplay while everyone else is in the middle of a fight? Well, Lulu did only have 1 hp left, so I suppose she's got an excuse.

Part 54: Lulu’s Musings

Lulu reappeared with a gasp of relief alongside unconscious Nelipot in the fort’s dungeon, startling Shalelu and Kibb there, and she quickly panted out details of the situation, hurrying the elven ranger and big cat on their way to assist the others and offering to take up watching Kaven herself. Almost as an afterthought, she remembered to warn Shalelu of the sorceress’ lightning spell, and Shalelu nodded in understanding, casting a spell upon herself to resist electricity before bounding up the stairs.

Lulu sighed and relaxed for a moment, having no more healing magic for herself, but knowing that she couldn’t risk going up to join the others as close to death as she was.

For a moment she resigned herself to having done all she could, and began to muse aloud whether fleeing was the wisest course of action. She didn’t want to leave her friends behind, but knew that they ran the risk of losing the entire group in this endeavor. Simply dying alongside them would serve no more purpose than escaping and improving her magic.

For a moment Lulu considered that if it came to it, she might escape and strive to hurriedly learn the magic necessary to raise the dead. She wasn’t too far off from being able to cast the spell, after all, and if she could learn it in a week or so she might get back to retake Rannick, perhaps with the aid of hired mercenaries or a friend or two from Sandpoint, and do so fast enough as to be able to raise any fallen allies.

The witch was interrupted by the voice of Kaven, who asked from his cell in the next room how it felt to weigh the risk of her own life against the lives of her allies. Lulu pondered the thought silently for a moment before moving to the prison block to speak with him directly.

Was it really the same situation? Lulu posed the question to Kaven calmly as she sat down on the floor, leaning tiredly against the bars of the cell opposite the one the young ranger was in. Had he gone to all lengths that he was capable of to save the Black Arrows? Had he aided Lucrecia knowing that his allies might die for it, but put forth all effort to revive them in such a case?

The ranger somberly averted his gaze and Lulu sighed. She didn’t really blame him, she commented. Death was a scary thing, and she’d lost her closest friend to it less than twenty four hours ago. For Kaven to attempt to escape it was understandable enough, and Lulu confessed she was of similar morals to the man. Even she hardly considered herself a hero, much less a good person like Zaru or brave Uriel was.

Kaven glanced back up, asking her if that was truly the case, whether they could really use her help at all. What the others could really use in this hour of need was a hero, and he’d already heard the witch send Shalelu up to them shortly after she’d arrived. He implored her to set him free, that they might escape back through the shocker caves together. He even offered to carry Nelipot, who’d he’d heard Lulu comment was unconscious.

The others had their hero now. They didn’t need Lulu, right?

Lulu’s eyes widened at that, and she broke out in a massive grin that did little but confuse the ranger. No, she commented, they had one hero coming to them, but that didn’t invalidate her. They needed her as much as she needed them.

Kaven stammered for Lulu to wait as she leapt to her feet. She would die if she ascended back to the main floor to fight the ogres, and if all of them died there would be nobody here to set him free. The ogres would find and slaughter him in terrible ways!

Lulu shook her head and gave the ranger a capricious smile. She knew better than to try and be a hero herself, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t send another one.

The witch raised her hands high, chanting the incantation of her most powerful summoning spell, which until that moment she’d not thought to consider as an option, and Kaven’s eyes widened at the being that appeared. Lulu, for her part didn’t blink, and instead conveyed one simple request.

Her friends were surely just upstairs and locked in combat by now. Lulu begged her new champion to help them.

As a GM, it depends where the campaign is going to be. A campaign set far from civilization, or with only the tiniest settlements around isn't going to have great access to the supplies that anybody wants, and you're more likely to have to work with what you find in such a case.

In a big metropolis (or once you've got the resources to teleport to a big metropolis for shopping), yeah, you can expect to buy basically whatever you want, short of outright artifacts.

That most reliable of strategies: "Run like hell".

Part 53: Overwhelmed

Jaagrath himself had been wounded by his battle with Atali and the attacks from the rangers that had followed, and was not yet eager to charge back out into the fray once more, which gave the others a brief moment to recover, though it was indeed only a moment, before Jaagrath sent his favourite son Harlock Kreeg, who the ogres called Hookmaw for his vicious iron jaw, into the hall in his stead, blocking the way while he consumed his healing potions and the sorcerous Dorella cast defensive magic upon herself.

The few seconds it took for Hookmaw to arrive were enough however, and Pix was able to relay to Uriel the specifics of Lulu’s self-polymorph spell, which she could not dismiss on her own. Uriel took the moment to dispel the magic from the witch before turning to face the charging ogre, and then was saved from any attack by that foe when Hookmaw collapsed, asleep and harmless.

From behind them Lulu—newly restored to her gnomish form—panted, but raised her chin defiantly, commenting that in spite of being one good tap away from death, she wasn’t down yet. Atali nodded, acknowledging the witch’s determination before finally breathing a calm breath, her furious rage subsiding, and agreeing that she was in a similar predicament.

Uriel insisted that they would need to stand and fight, pursuing the ogre pappy into the final dead-end room into which he’d fled, where they could end things once and for all, hopefully before anyone else succumbed to the icy grip of death, but Atali shook her head, denying the battle in a rare and lucid moment of tranquility and swinging her cloak back over her shoulders.

Jaagrath fought like Atali herself did, the barbarian commented, but he was larger and stronger and better at it. With Atali fatigued, Lulu inches from death, Nelipot unconscious, Jakardros skilled at ranged combat, not melee, and Vale dead, only Uriel could truly stand against the ogre.

Uriel would die, Atali commented bluntly, and then the rest of them would as well. Only Lulu, who could fly and was still conscious enough to do so, stood any chance of escape, but even so there was a risk of the sorcerous ogre accompanying Jaagrath simply blasting her out of the sky before she could get clear.

Dismayed, Jakardros asked what could be done, and Atali smiled knowingly. She knew her own weakness, and so she knew how to fight a fellow barbarian in turn. With a glance to the far door Atali noted the ogre pappy cast aside his final potion and suggested that it was time they turned, ran, and led the ogre on a merry chase.

Uriel protested at the thought of abandoning their unconscious ally Nelipot, but Lulu cut in, warily watching the far door as she commented that while she couldn’t muster enough magic to teleport them all, she could bring herself and Nelipot down to where Shalelu hopefully still waited in the dungeon, and could then have the fresh and nearly uninjured elf meet them at the landing on the main floor to join in the battle, but added that if there was to be any hope of getting down there for such a fight that they needed to start running immediately.

Reluctantly, Uriel nodded and gestured for the others to hurry to the stairs, Jakardros leading the way—for he was uninjured and could handle any lesser ogres in their path if they’d missed any—and Atali following him, with Uriel himself guarding the rear of the pack.

Jaagrath roared in fury at the sight of his enemies turning to flee, and barked for Dorella to stop them. Lulu didn’t flinch at that, and instead merely raised her hand in anticipation of the sorceress’ next move, seeming to catch Dorella’s lightning bolt spell in her palm and force it backwards, countering it with an identical spell of her own and smashing both of their lightning spells to bits before Dorella’s could strike any of Lulu’s fleering allies. Jaagrath seethed at this, and charged past his wife, aiming a death blow at the small witch.

Jaagrath’s ogre hook thwacked uselessly into the floor, seeming to move straight through Lulu as her form wavered like mist, and his second strike at her as she rounded the corner back into the chapel where Nelipot had fallen was deflected by the cover provided to Lulu by the doorframe.

The witch made it safely into the chapel and brought forth the magic of her spell just as the ogre pappy moved to pursue and kill her, and before he could, the spell took hold. Both Lulu and Nelipot were whisked magically to safety.

Jaagrath ground his teeth and snarled for Dorella to join him as he turned his attention back to the stairs. The others hadn’t fled by way of any fancy magics, and he knew well enough that he could catch the fragile heroes on foot.

Not a PC, but a relatively-major allied NPC:

Name: Vale Temros
Race: Human (male)
Class/Level: Fighter 4/Ranger 2
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: 'Pappy' Jaagrath Kreeg

Story Time: The party's barbarian Atali figured out that Jaagrath was another barbarian, and thus that using her decent CMB to grapple the guy and prevent him from using the big two-handed weapon he was swinging around was probably a good idea. She didn't know that it was a human bane weapon, but didn't take a single hit from it because she grappled successfully. Atali did get some of her face bitten off, but she took it rather well (i.e. stuck a sword in the ogre's face in return).

...Vale did not come up with this strategy. When Jaagrath got low on health and decided to fling Atali at the paladin Uriel, knocking them both over so that he could run past and escape, it was Vale who was standing between the ogre and his backup, Dorella. Vale got a good strike in with his battleaxe, then took a human bane ogre hook to the face from a high Str ogre barbarian who rolled well. Vale was at single digit hit points when this happened because he'd been the one holding the rear and fighting two generic ogres from elsewhere on the floor, who'd come running when they'd heard fighting.

Poor schmuck didn't stand a chance, really.

Here's an alphabetical list of all the names (given names, surnames, and place names) that I've used so far in my homebrew world, Malendev. Whenever I name something or somewhere new, I check this list to make sure I haven't already given that name to some other god, person, country, province, or city already:

A

From bad to worse...

Part 52: Not Without Sacrifice

Though the two ogres accosting them in the hall fought surprisingly well for brutes who seemed to have no formal combat training (and who suffered for having to squeeze in the narrow hallways in order to fight side by side), one was eventually cut down by Uriel’s blade as the other bore down on Vale. Jakardros was having trouble shooting past his allies from behind them, and so Vale was suffering in the battle, having been fighting against both ogres himself until Uriel joined him.

Vale was fortunate that Lulu, after having been smacked aside in the battle against Jaagrath, had not been taken down entirely, and the witch, having used magic to take the form of a tiny scarlet spider and escape the fight against Jaagrath unnoticed, descended from above, landing on the ranger’s back and pumping the magic of her healing hex into him, granting the ranger an extra breath with which to weather a smack from the ogre’s club. A moment later it was Lulu’s familiar Pix who scooped her up from the ranger’s back and neutralized the other ogre, blasting him with a spray of colourful rainbow light and stunning him, making him an easy target to cut down.

With that Uriel turned to hurry to Atali’s aid only to return and find both the ogre pappy and the human barbarian badly damaged. Seeing reinforcements had come to his enemy, Jaagrath flung the naked warrior at the paladin, sending them both crashing into the hallway wall opposite the door, and leaving him room to charge past.

Jakardros fired a barrage as the ogre pappy came into the hallway, but the head ranger had taken up a position back by the stairs, and could only prick the formidable ogre rather than bar his path outright as Vale did.

Vale was the unfortunate one in that regard, for unlike Atali he was not restraining the larger ogre, and did not restrict the use of Jaagrath’s main weapon. The ogre suffered an axe from the ranger with a grunt, and struck back hard, slicing into Vale’s face and leaving him a bloody mess against the wall.

The ogre moved on, rushing into the far room to regroup with allies, and the heroes rushed to Vale’s side only to arrive a moment too late. Lulu had moments earlier used up all the healing magic she’d had available to him, and Uriel’s attempt to stabilize the man failed. The ranger died in their arms, their second victim of the Kreegs, after Zaru.

RAI trumps RAW.

GM trumps players.

GM allows most things as long as she gets to read them before approving. Don't try take advantage of that.

Here's your chart

(I didn't compare the chart to your analysis)

EDIT: I don't know anybody who says Rogues have a really hard time hitting in the first few levels, but as levels rise the Rogue tends to fall further and further behind. In a separate thread, someone presented a fairly well optimized 10th level rogue (albeit without any to-hit ioun stones) and before haste it had a 50% chance to hit without flanking, 60% chance to hit with flanking. [Those numbers go up to 55% and 65% respectively, due to the 'Haste bonus' to hit] So... on a charge into flanking while hasted that Rogue gets 75% to hit.

Ooh, not bad, looks like I wasn't far off. A few jumps in AC faster than I'd anticipated at 4th, 9th, and 12th level, but that's not overly game-changing. Just means sneaking a few extra sources of +1 bonuses in, which again isn't particularly hard.

At 10th level it's an average of 24 AC for your average enemy, so you need a +14 to hit for a 50/50 chance, right? So... 7 of that is covered by your BAB, 2 by flank, let's be modest and say only another 1 by a magic weapon (though at 10th level a +2 weapon isn't unreasonable), 1 by something like weapon focus, maybe, and let's say another 1 from a 12 Str (or Dex/weapon finesse), and a final 2 from something like Bull's Strength or Cat's Grace.

I low-balled the weapon modifier and ability scores there (and skipped out on my favourite rogue feat), but that's an easy 50/50 chance to hit an average CR 10 enemy with a 10th level rogue who's not been particularly optimized at all.

Speaking of my favourite rogue feat...

Nice simple way to compensate for some to-hit bonuses without needing to work too hard at optimization: Take the Outflank teamwork feat as soon as possible, and convince your resident Fighter/Barbarian/Paladin/Ranger to take it at the same time you do (6th level for a rogue/fighter team, 7th level for the other pairings).

If they've already figured out that flanking with you as much as possible is a good idea, then they're probably doing that already, and should realize that a +4 bonus to hit for both of you (and also critical hits that give your buddy a free AoO) when you do that is a wonderful thing. Especially when the 'catch' (the teamwork part) is nothing but a requirement to keep doing what you've already been doing.

Of course getting Sneak Attack requires hitting, and even on their best attack rogues rarely get better than 75% chance to hit. (Thought I'd throw that out there.)

Ehh, I'd call that a bit pessimistic. Or a lot pessimistic.

Average AC of enemies at each CR level seems to be along the lines of CR + 13 until you start getting to high level play...

(Note: That's just my estimate from a glance at the four bestiaries. PLEASE correct me if you have an actual chart of the average AC at each stage of CR, as it would be really neat to see such a thing.)

...and it barely takes any effort at all to get a +2 to hit at 1st level, which is all that you really need to hit the average foe 50% of the time based on that average (assume you're flaking on the majority of attacks, because you should be).

Your to-hit bonus scales up at most of your levels after that, and it's not hard to keep up with what's lost at levels 1, 5, 9, 13, and 17. A masterwork weapon here, a weapon focus there, a magic weapon once you can afford it, etc.

Heck, unless you're deliberately ignoring upgrading your weapons and are taking absolutely nothing but non-combat feats (or unless you're a primary arcane caster), your to-hit bonus should easily be scaling faster than your level is, whereas average enemy AC seems to scale at roughly the same rate as their CR does.

...Also the secret to having fun with a rogue lies neither with any particular build, nor any style of roleplay. It's all about whether the other people in the party understand that it's in their best interest to set up flanking opportunities for you.

If they get that, then unless your GM is absolutely brutal you'll have fun. Sneak Attack is awesome when you're getting it every round.

If they don't get that, good luck with your feint build, but it might be wise to change classes while you still can.

Basically a rogue is terrible at pulling off the lone wolf (stealthy stabby slit their throats, they're dead before they saw you) playstyle that its theme might make you think it's meant for. That's an assassin's thing, or maybe a ninja's. I find the rogue works much better as a melee supporter who transforms unfair advantages into extremely unfair advantages. Call that what you will; thug, dirty fighter, opportunist, etc.

A general rule for enjoying the Paizo forums if you're not fond of the optimization arguments:

Do not under any circumstances enter a discussion that has any of the following words in its title: 'Monk', 'Rogue', 'Fix', [Variations/synonyms of 'Fix'], 'Need', [Variations/synonyms of 'Need'].

'Alignment', 'Evil', and 'Paladin' are also on my list of words to avoid, but for different reasons.

...Surprisingly, the word 'Optimization' itself doesn't seem to cause threads to become optimization arguments as regularly as those other words do, though it still does so at times. I'm thinking of adding 'Fighter' to the optimization argument list though, especially based on recent discussions.

You'll avoid most of the stuff that you're complaining about by staying out of threads that have such things so blatantly advertised in their titles. This contributes to an environment where people who do enjoy such things can continue such threads in peace without bothering you or getting bothered. When you do happen to stumble into one such thread anyways (it happens), the correct solution is to quickly exit it the moment you realize where you are so that you avoid getting mixed up in an argument that you're not fond of.

Shayliss approached my party's barbarian for that encounter, mostly because Atali (the barbarian) has a habit of getting naked as part of her battle prep. The two had some fun, but Shayliss' dad caught them.

The DC to get Shayliss' old man to settle down is rather high, so Atali was lucky that she was planning to multiclass into Barbarian/Sorcerer and had a decent Charisma score in preparation for that. She didn't exactly calm him down properly (just tripped him and ran), but was able to talk herself out of that later on, with some help from the more diplomatic party witch.

Atali and Shayliss started a relationship, and when Atali manifested her first sorcerer level during Thistletop, Shayliss also got a level in it, both of them being pit-touched sorcerers. They didn't immediately know its origins, but later found out that Atali's parents had been diabolists.

Later, after Shayless' sister was killed, she tried to summon a devil herself to get revenge. Atali talked/intimidated her out of it, and then vowed that Shayless would need no fiend, for Atali would hunt down her sister's murderer personally. She did so, and because Atali was also Aldern's crush, she found a gift from Shayliss that she thought she'd lost among his things.

Ms. Vinder hasn't had any real significance since then. Hook Mountain Massacre doesn't afford much opportunity for Sandpoint NPCs (sans Shalelu) to be important. She'll be back though.

...Alright, so the fight against Jaagrath took a lot of space to write up. I was considering just putting them all up next week in one big post, but it's probably more fun to post one a day for the next several days, so I'm gonna do that instead.

Part 51: Not All Bark

Ascending the stairs to the second floor of the fort brought the heroes into a hallway of wooden construction in comparison to the stone of the ground floor. It was here, in the first room that they opted to check—the chapel, for it was nearest to the stairs—that they met the large and terrible Jaagrath Kreeg, who smacked aside the druid Nelipot as she lunged for him in serpent form, sending her sprawling into unconsciousness in the first blow of battle, and then lunged for the human Atali, ignoring the efforts of Uriel and Lulu as they cut him and bathed him in arcane fire respectively.

Jakardros and Vale could do little to help the main force in their battle against the Kreeg pappy, for another pair of ogres came smashing through the doors of the tribunal just a short distance down the hall, and the rangers were forced to turn to hold them off.

Lulu cried for Uriel to aid the rangers and leave Jaagrath to herself and Atali, knowing that they needed to get Jakardros and Vale back and fighting alongside them, and realizing that with no healing magic remaining save for her healing hex—which would no longer restore Nelipot that day—they would not endure a prolonged fight against the ogre. Jaagrath struck much harder than they’d expected.

Lulu directed the magic of slumber at the ogre, attempting to subject him to her hex, but failing and only drawing his ire. For a brief moment, Jaagrath turned his attention from Atali, bearing down on the witch with his ogre hook and slashing across her shoulder, leaving her crying out in pain and staggering back as he turned his attention back to Atali herself.

The human barbarian glanced aside at her ally, seeing that Lulu was alive and conscious, if barely, and understanding her next course of action, summoning sorcerous magic in the giant’s language and commanding that he ignore the small ones and fight a proper warrior like herself.

Jaagrath almost smirked at her use of his language, and her brash confidence at standing before him unarmoured and with weapons drawn, and some terrible thoughts of what to do with the woman must have at that moment crossed into the ogre’s mind, though he knew that to disarm and maim her a bit first would be prudent.

Atali and the ogre pappy leapt into battle, the smaller barbarian moving to grapple and restrain the larger so that he might not use his mighty ogre hook weapon against her, and knowing that to limit him in such a way would prolong her survival in the solitary fight, giving Uriel and the rangers enough time to rejoin her in battle and aid her.

Jaagrath took to the grapple eagerly, and lunged with his horrid maw towards Atali’s face, hoping to hear her screams up close and reverberating in his skull as he chewed on her face. Instead the human only snarled, and slammed the tip of her own short sword into the side of his face in return!

A critical hit for max damage from an ogre is painful to someone with d6 hit dice and a racial penalty to Constituion. Fortunately, Lulu lived.

Part 50: Tiny Man Clothes

The heroes had little reward for their defeat of Lucrecia, save for the non-magical dagger she’d tossed aside, and a bound and nervous-looking Kaven Windstrike, whom they had little idea of what to do with. Fortunately they needed not decide right away, as they’d come into Fort Rannick immediately adjacent to the fort’s holding cells.

Vale, who’d done shifts guarding an occasional prisoner or two down here before, was able to dig up some cell keys, and the group opted to toss Kaven in one such cell for now rather than attempt to drag him around the place with them while they fought ogres. Shalelu, though she was reluctant to split off from the main group, was put in charge of guarding him.

The elven woman objected at first, but Uriel stepped aside with her for a moment and explained that he would rather not leave the young ranger in the hands of his fellow Black Arrows, to whom his betrayal was personal. Shalelu was also more agile and stealthy than Jakardros and Vale, and if trouble came to her in the dungeons while they were absent, it was she who had the best chance of slipping away to safety through the caves they’d entered through. With a sigh, the elf agreed that the paladin’s logic was sensible, and so in the basement she stayed, guarding the prisoner. Jakardros opted to leave his faithful firepelt Kibb with her as well, both for the sake of strength in numbers, and because the ranger informed the group that the halls and rooms of Rannick were going to be too cramped for an extremely large group anyways. Kibb was also more than capable of outpacing the lumbering ogres if escape became necessary, and could rely on his speedy sprint to carry him to safety through the caves in lieu of stealth.

The rest of the group moved up into the fort itself, ascending the stairs to the second floor and finding themselves in a long hallway, with stairs leading further up not far away from the landing on which they’d arrived. Assuming the ogre leaders would likely dominate the largest rooms of the place—those on the second floor, according to the rangers—the group opted to move among the first floor’s rooms first, hoping to eliminate threats here so that when they did reach the upper levels, those ogres couldn’t call for aid from below.

Moving from room to room, the heroes faced a terrible slew of horrific ogre antics. An ogre with a face of mangled gore posed a bloody corpse in the infirmary, a ‘poet’ ogre who painted his verses on the walls in blood and gore (Atali and Jakardros were the only two members of the group who could read the language of giants it was written in, and didn’t have any particularly positive reviews for the poetry), and even and entire cadre of ogre grunts, who small Lulu manipulated into fighting each other through her invisible theft of a horsey mask the ogres quarreled over. The only enemy group to give them any trouble on the ground floor (surprisingly) however, consisted of a pair of ogres who’d stuffed themselves into Black Arrow uniforms. The two came running at the sound of the battle for the horsey mask, and lumbered straight into the midst of the heroes’ group, who’d hidden themselves out in the hallway while the other ogres fought among themselves. Though the two stuffed in clothes too small for them had difficulty swinging their weapons properly, they struck still-serpentine Nelipot quite hard, and attracted the quarreling ogres in the other room out to fight as well, one of whom tripped over invisible Lulu on his way, discovering her and nearly caving her head in with a well-placed blow from his club and an overbearing advance that the witch had difficulty backing away from or casting spells effectively within.

By the time the others got to her, Lulu was unconscious and badly bleeding, but not gone the way of Zaru. Atali barreled recklessly into the witch’s large opponent, ignoring the ogre’s attempts at retaliation, and buried her axe in his thick neck. Lulu was brought back to wakefulness by what meager bardic healing magic Uriel could muster, and healed herself further once she was back on her feet, though the damage from the unfortunate blow to her head required the expenditure of most of the healing spells she’d readied that day.

Fortunately, with Lulu healed and the ‘horsey mask’ ogres dead, there were no further enemies remaining on the ground floor, and the leaders above had either ignored the racket of battle, or had opted to wait for the enemies to come to them.

They knew where the stairs were. It was time to meet the ogres’ pappy.

My group (who also couldn't decode the journal at first) recognized that slaughtering Ironbriar in his own corrupt city probably wasn't going to go over well for them unless they could find concrete proof of his wrongdoings, so they set themselves up with a home base in the Underbridge district, where the hand of the law was weakest. They didn't actually know at that point that their final destination for the adventure was also going to be in Underbridge, so it was lucky for them that they made that decision.

They basically finished the rest of the book while on the run from the law and hiding out in Underbridge, and managed to decode the journal just before the final dungeon. The fights in that dungeon ended up alerting the local citizens (crashing bells are loud), and so they had quite an audience for their final fight of the book.

With the fighting out of the way, the PCs (backed by basically the entire Underbridge district) marched right up to the head justice of the city with the journal as proof of Ironbriar's misdeeds. Had they not been able to decipher the journal, I probably would have given them a contact capable of it as a member of the audience for their climactic battle.

...Of course your adventure probably won't go exactly the same way as mine did, but maybe point them in the direction of the Underbridge as a place where they might hide out and evade the law until such time as they can get some concrete proof of their enemies' wrongdoings. If they have any allied NPCs around one of those might suggest it, if not a pair of easily defeated guards and a bit of dialogue could do the trick:

i.e.

Guard 1: "Halt, you four/five/six have gone on rampant murderous ways for long enough, we'd like you to come with us for some time in the courts!

Guard 2 (to guard 1): "Lucky for us that they were just wandering around out here in public, eh? Woulda been hell to track 'em down if they'd hidden in the Underbridge."

Jade Regent's fourth volume has a really neat section involving fancy cuisine from Hongal. My players were simultaneously grossed out, and impressed by how neat and exotic it all was.

I'm not the biggest fan of natural armour, mostly because it seems to increase based more on CR than on how armoury the monster actually is.

Why does the Bandersnatch have +20 natural armour? I don't see anything that looks remotely armoury on that thing!

...But unless they're going to give it random dodge bonuses or something (which would just be natural armour by another name), that +20 to AC is really quite important to the monster.