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In my opinion the best way to get players to seek revenge is to unambiguously betray their confidence. For example a close friend is the enemy, their loved one tries to kill them, their mentor is possessed by a demon and seeks their destruction, the man they just sold something to is really the enemy, they have been working against themselves the whole time, they have been setup for murder/crime. I think the trick is to think of where they feel the most safe and screw with it. Hope that helps.
Why not use a site like obsidianportal?
I got mine at 4AM. Luckily, I compulsively check the boards and saw this thread. It seems like Paizo even got late notice on this, which means they had to send out an email as quick as possible. With the size of the their database and server speeds, I'm shocked it got there even that fast.
Ha! I thought the same. I feel as if this is one of those situations that went something like this: WotC Peon 1: "Sir, the 3rd quarter sale reports are in for March. You... uh... might want to look at this..."
I agree with the approach that violence is the best way to get players on board. Here are two examples from games I ran... 1. Start at level 1. Everyone is in a village, the player had to figure out how they got there and why. Some were born and lived there, others were passing through with their wizard teacher. Others were abandoned there by a passing caravan. Village is attacked by a horde of orcs, and they are forced to flee. 2. Start at level 2. Everyone is on a boat destined for an island city where the game with take place. Players had to figure out how they got there. Some had just come back from a long journey, others were going to visit friends on the island, others were stowaways. The players have been attending dinner with the captain and other passengers every night for the last several weeks. During that last stop a strange man boarded and is now attending the dinners. He approaches the characters and asks them to "play a trick" on a friend of his on the boat (the characters were all rogue-ish). They agree and perform a series of seemingly banal tasks like stealing the hat of the "friend", leaving a note in his luggage in the hold, and forging his name in a log book. After its all done, the players return to their rooms only to discover a bloody dagger on their bed. An explosion suddenly rocks the boat and the players rush to the deck only to see the strange man, whom they were working for, toss the limp body of his "friend" overboard. He explains he appreciates the players help in killing a prominent city counsel member and vanishes. The boat sinks and the players are forced to swim ashore - deciding to keep the 50 lbs of the starting gold and equipment or sink and die. ... I still get bitter comments from my players about the last one :)
I like this tread and want to keep it going for future use, just encase another person comes around wondering what weirdo characters we all have to deal with ;) Vuutharak - A one-eyed, black dragon subtype lizardfolk rouge black dragon bloodtype sorcerer with a penchant for hording gems and various valuable art objects. Vuutharak is involved in various criminal organization, mostly specializing in trafficking and larceny. Faridoon - Ex-mercenary devil-haunted alcoholic human thug fighter with an unsettling grin and intimidating presence. Faridoon works for the Cod Row Blades as an enforcer, maintaining guild rule at the docks but constantly haunted by a devil who murdered is childhood friends which he represses with alcoholism. Jinx - An aesthetic half-orc monk of a death cult of Zyphus. Jinx's trouble child lead him to the path of nihilism and back... back to the doorstep of the House of Reaper where he now works as a devoted assassin to the god of tragic death. Dynff - An aspiring Drow rogue assassin in the ranks of the Hooded, the secret enforcer wing of the criminal organization called the Hangmen. On the eve of his execution for thievery, Dynff exchanged a piece of his soul for a piece of the shadow plane, securing his place as a devote worshiper of Norgorber. Variel -An elven wander turned cleric of Calistria. Variel divides his time between the working women of Calistria's brothel and gathering rumors that pass amongst the aristocratic clientele and the priestesses.
I was thinking about this too when I was making a dwarf NPC. I noticed the +1 for hated enemy only applies to orcs ad goblins - couldn't have dwarves been on the surface long enough to let the hate spread to other groups like gnolls, giants, drow, etc? :)
Great thread! I play mostly with friends from college/highschool, online. I'm pretty easy going as well. My only real rule is that you have to pay attention and remain in character as much as possible. As a DM I reserve the right to stop a conversation out-of-game, and request players continue as their characters. On the side: I think (the right amount of) alcohol, can make for great games! A little social lubricant and you'd be surprised how well people can roleplay.
Maybe I should phrase the question like this: What kind of things to rogue do?
It seems like more than a few folks are using these boards for pitching around adventure/campaign ideas I use to be a huge fan of "What's a DM to do?" on the old Glemmax boards. I wish Paizo would bring something like that back - just catch all DM/Player advice. Three words for you: So Pran Os My trouble is that I have trouble sometimes translating stories from the Sopranos into interesting fantasy adventures and encounters. It's one thing to have the idea, another to put it into a cool encounter/adventure... but honestly, maybe I just need to sit down with the box set :) Four words for you - Fafrd and the Grey Mouser. Okay, that's five, but the Lankhmar adventures have some good ideas for rogue type adventures Do you think the books lend themselves to adventures leaning towards an evil-aligned party?
It seems like more than a few folks are using these boards for pitching around adventure/campaign ideas, so I thought I would join in the fray with my predicament. I've been trying to brainstorm some new ideas for a very long running campaign which focuses on a group of rogue/thief/thug types. My games typically have a combination of Ravenloft creepiness and Riddleport like thuggery. Themes include robbery, murder, assassination, larceny, embezzlement, extortion, and spying. So my question: what kind of game would you want to play, if you were in a party of rogues? (Also, any references to pre-written urban adventures or favorite books, would be great.) Thanks!
Just a late side comment: What if the soul-trapping guillotines were LE intelligent magical items bent on devouring souls and using revolutionary committees to assist them? Although I like the ghouls too. Perhaps the guillotines and the ghouls have a certain "understanding" - they get the bodies, and "Madam" gets the souls. PS: I like Galt A LOT and if I were to ever run a different campaign, it would be there. Perhaps the group would be an insipid political party seeking to restore the revolution...
As far as I know, they are still there and you add them together to get the total level adjustment for a character. Although, in some cases one might want to consider lowering the LA, as the power of the base classes has gone up.
I wanted to start up a thread to post some different issues I've encountered while running Pathfinder RPG since Beta was released. This post will focus on my groups experience with Grapple and CMB DC 15 vs. DC 12 When my group first started playing, I had them use the DC for Combat Maneuvers at 15. We found that this made maneuvers much harder to accomplish, even at low levels against weaker opponents. For example, at DC 15 our level 2 Fighter (CMB6: +2 BAB, +4 Str) had to beat a DC 21 against a CR2 Choker (CMB6: +2 BAB, +3 Str, -1 Small, +2 Natural Bonus), which had a 25% chance to succeed. Players see these odds and are discouraged, effectively removing the point of special combat attacks to begin with. Unfortunately DC 12 still runs into some difficulties as well. For example when our level 4 Monk went up against a CR4 Giant Crocodile (CMB15: +5 BAB, +2 Size, +8 Str). The Monk (CMB7: +3 BAB, +4 Str) had to beat a DC 27 to escape the Crocodiles grapple, which had a 5% chance to succeed, while the Croc had to beat a DC 19 against him, which had a 80% chance to succeed. With a creature that can do 2d8+12 a round in a grapple such odds come off as a grossly unfair to players. Of note as well: The Croc in this example was fighting the most CMB oriented character in the group. If it had been the sorcerer, the Croc would have automatically succeeded and the sorcerer would need a 20, or 5% chance to escape. What I'm really hoping to see is Jason develop some of the suggestions of allowing all attack mods to be added against a CMB AC. If I could find a comprehensible write-up on this I would try it out. Escaping Grapple I was wondering if there was a reason why Escape Artist (which is an untrained skill) has a lower DC to escape a grapple then making a grapple check in general? Grapple, as we have it in our game, is DC 12 + CMB (normally DC 15 + CMB). Escape Artist, normally DC 10 + CMB, we ruled as DC 8 + CMB. My thoughts on this is: What I end up seeing is players with any Dex Mod at all (regardless of having Escape Artist as a trained skill) rolling the lower number. Maybe instead a bonus should be given to CMB if a player has Escape Artist trained? Or, just allow a player to use their Dex Mod in CMB rather than Str, because basically that is what a dex-based, untrained skill allows a player to do.
My only suggestion, and it likely goes without saying, is to make sure to take a keen eye to the terms used and for consistency. 3.5 had some stumbling blocks from them, and I'd hate to see PFRPG suffer the same fate. In other words, I would trade "new stuff" for a solid editorial review of condition keywords, bonus stacks, etc. I'm sure you guys will do a great job of this, but you asked what I would want. :) /2 cents
Wow. As someone who DM's pretty regularly, I'd say busting out the ol' "uh, the NPC casts a spell and disintegrates your whip" sound pretty passive aggressive, although, it's good your DM and you discussed it further eventually. ("But wait, I thought he was a fighter?" "uh... he cast it... from a potion...") I can see trip attack after trip attack getting annoying but not broken. Not by a long shot. Is a bard who trips as his "primary attack" really that different from a fighter who does two-handed power attack every round? Or a monk and flurry of blows? No, not in my opinion. Every character has his "thing". It's what makes them unique! Perhaps you could pitch the character concept as a challenge to DM? At least that's how I always see it. If a player makes a very unique or specialized character that I think is perhaps, a little difficult to deal with in normal situations, I just make NPCs who can go toe-to-toe with him. Of course, it would be cheap to have every NPC be impervious to the character's abilities, but at least one or two who could but the fear of death in the player would be fine... such as a huge fiendish spider. (Eight cheers for multiple legs!) EDIT: Abraham actually made the same point about the two-handed fighter above. Didn't see it. EDIT2: ...and Dragonchess made the same point about dealing with specialized characters, so... my post is really just repeating things that have already been said :)
In the section Additional Rules, under Dungeons/Doors it states: "Often the easiest way to overcome a
Then, under Dungeons/Hinges it states: "The break DC for
You might want to consider using the "smash" to mean "chop apart with weapon" and the word "break" to mean "force open with strength." Because right now the word seems to mean both.
If if could add to the questions on channeling energy: Do you roll the damage/healing for each creature effected or just once and apply to all?
And if not, would anyone be interested? I'd love to take a look it. I need a quick reference for dropping magic items on the fly too, and it would be interesting to see how you broke out the levels.
Wonderful! Ok, you get Sivanah. I call Ghlaunder. :) Between the two of us, I'm sure we could knock out at least a good chunk of the lesser gods.
Thanks Set! Now with spell-checked-goodness:
and: Brigh Positive - all affected hear the soothing sounds of hundreds of clocks slowly ticking in unison. A warming sensation overcomes the pain of their injuries as they become keenly aware of the graceful unison of the world around them and everything's place in it. Negative - those affected are immediately struck by an anxiety of being out of sync with the world. The sound of gears screeching and grinding echo in their ears, as a fire builds inside their chest like the mounting pressure of locked gears. Steam rises from the mouth of those slain by this effect and their bodies are often twisted and mangled.
Thought I would but this up and see what others thought. Besmara Positive – the feeling of a cool breeze and an invigorating open-sea air sweeps across the affected. The sound of waves crashing methodically on the haul of a ship fills the air, inspiring those surrounding the cleric with a conviction to continue on in the face of danger and calming their wounds. Negative - cannon fire and the battle cries of strife fill the air as the cleric motions his fist as if to call unseen forces to charge. Those affected being to feel that the ground is tossing below them like the deck of ship caught in a relentless storm. Final the terror of the unknown depths of the sea fill their minds as they being to experience the feeling of downing. Those are slain are often blue and bloated with sea water. Zyphus Negative – those affected are overcome with the feelings and images of loss which were principally their fault. The world seems to grow grey and bleak as hundreds of ghostly figures swirl around the cleric, passing through the affected, tearing and dragging at their soul. Those slain by this effect typically appear emaciated with grey skin, as their souls are said to have been stolen by the Grim Harvestman.
Great news from Necromancer Games! In regard to other folks jumping on to PFRPG, I'm thinking once the final PFRPG is released, sales numbers are consulted, and the game license is put side-by-side with WoTC's, we'll see some more announcements. A Green Ronin, PF Freeport AP would be sweet. Things I'd want to see from Necromancer: Tome of Horror, City of Brass, and I agree, a Necromancer AP would be great! I don't think that a 3rd Party AP would necessarily have to take place in Golarion. The only issue here is that the term "generic" shouldn't really even apply to what 3.5 was - it was Greyhawk with some tweaks. Paizo doesn't have multiple settings (yet), so they are faced with the question: what does generic really mean? If the PFPRG is considered the "base" and it has Golarion gods, weapons, and domains, what would one expect from a 3rd Party AP or module? It would seem that it would necessarily have some elements of Golarion. If it has some elements of official setting, what will be the diving line between a "generic" Golarion and a "cannon" Golarion?
Any way we could get the minor gods too? Zyphus, Besemara, etc?
Any chance at a stat block? :)
If I have a player that does repetitive actions over and over again to try and gain some benefit, I try first to mix up the situation (like remove the door, make it jammed, make it a gate not a door, etc). The way I might handle the situation you described (beside what I mentioned above) is to make it so the creatures inside get listen checks. If they succeed, they also act in the surprise round. Somewhere SRD it mentions "both parties surprised" in the combat section.
See what is confusing is that gauntlet is listed under "unarmed attacks" right above "unarmed strike" in the PFRPG. So is a gauntlet a type of unarmed strike or is a special weapon that lets us make unarmed strikes. Even if is a weapon that lets you make unarmed strikes, the quality of being an unarmed strike is the whole ambiguous part. As per p 98: "Simple, Martial, and Exotic Weapons: Anybody but a druid, monk, rogue, or wizard is proficient with all simple weapons (although all creatures are proficient with unarmed strikes)." More so, it would work for flurry of blows, since you can use unarmed strikes in FoB. I agree that it is a weapon and not a monk weapon, per se, but I still think the rule is pretty ambiguous for gauntlets. And then there is this: An "unarmed strike" is described under the Improved Unarmed Strike (p. 29) as "A monk’s attacks may be with either fist or with elbows, knees, and feet." With flurry of blows, one can use "unarmed strikes" as a weapon. If a monk is wearing gauntlets, why can't a monk just use flurry of blows that are all kicks? Put another way: If gauntlets are unarmed strikes for the purposes of getting more damage from the Monk ability, then it should be an unarmed strike for purposes of flurry of blows, right?
I'm not sure it's a big deal, I just think it's a bit ineffective because you lose access to flurry of blows... Well, depends on what you understand the gauntlet attack to be. If it counts as an "unarmed strike" (as it says it counts as in the description) then as per Flurry of Blows (p 28): "When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham). He may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired." Therefore you would still have access to flurry of blows. See, unlike the monk weapons (which you can use with flurry of blows and have an enchantment bonus), the gauntlet problem lets you have flurry of blows, an enchantment bonus and scaling damage rolls (i.e. 1d6, 2d6, 2d10, etc).
So this is slightly more complicated than that. In the PRPG, gauntlets are listed as unarmed attacks (p 102), which everyone is proficient in. In the gauntlet description it says: (p. 104) "This metal glove lets you deal lethal damage rather than nonlethal damage with unarmed strikes. A strike with a gauntlet is otherwise considered an unarmed attack. The cost and weight given are for a single gauntlet. Medium and heavy armors (except breastplate) come with gauntlets." Under the Monk class features for Unarmed Strike it says: "At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk’s attacks may be with either fist or with elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may make unarmed strikes with his hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply his full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all his unarmed strikes." Also, "A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would, as shown on Table 4–8. The unarmed damage on Table 4–8 is for Medium monks. A Small monk deals less damage than the amount given there with his unarmed attacks, while a Large monk deals more damage; see Table: Small or Large Monk Unarmed Damage." So what's the deal? Monks hypothetically could use gauntlets with enchantment bonuses and still gain their improved damage for unarmed strikes. Is this a big deal? Not sure. Some fixes:
In the Pathfinder Beta, Gauntlets are listed as unarmed weapons. With Improved Unarmed Strike, a monk does bonus damage with unarmed attacks. My question: Can a Monk use gauntlets (for example Masterwork) to gain a +1 bonus to unarmed attacks and apply their bonus monk damage?
Worked and looked great, but it runs too slow to be of a practical use. Also, if I could vote for a feature it would be stat blocks. So few character generators have them, but as a DM it so useful to have.
This sort of reminds me of the Unearthed Arcana variant: spontaneous domain casting (see bottom of page) I always liked that idea, but it did cause a snag when you had a player who wanted to have more healing, but didn't want to pick a god with the healing domain. Of course, these clerics could still pick the spell cure light wounds, etc. and then drop them for their domain spell, but it didn't seem graceful. One solution might be to let domain spells be apart of the cleric's spell list. That way, if they wanted to pick burning hands X times, they could do so, but still drop them for healing.
Some cool stuff on NPCs... I think this is a step in the right direction. I would love to see streamlined creation rules for NPCs. I usually don't have much time to prepare all the NPC in any given game I run, and being able to have some simple guidelines would be a great help. Not that the current system isn't usefully, it's just time consuming and unwieldy. Why spend 30 min designing a 5th lvl commoner when I could spend that time tweaking my cool BBEG?
I've been running a conversion game for levels 3-5 and I've found the encounter levels to be a little misguided, as you suggest. I think it would be a great help if there were a few more pointers about how to scale encounters. I'm not suggesting more "rules" just advice. For example, my players tend to be stat heavy (40+ point buy), but with limited access to magical weapons and exotic equipment. I recognize this isn't the "standard" model for a party, but it's how we like to game. Thus, its a little challenging to think of encounters. A CR3 Incorporal undead could destroy them, but a CR8 beast might not (they are APL5). Perhaps a table or creature type recommendations for types of character might be useful. Then agian, perhaps I'm just fishing for advice to help me with the learning curve of making a good encounter.
How about a set of rules, classes, feats, and items for adding steampunk to a setting? I would be so down for that.
I think this is an exciting opportunity to weigh in on the direction of my new-found RPG home. I'd like to thank the folks over at Paizo for this chance, and preface this with: you guys are immensely talented and creative. I'm sure anything you guys come up with will be a breath of fresh air in the once stagnant swamp of D&D. Expanded Playable Races - I always thought one of the most ingenious books by WotC was the Savage Species. I'd love to see Paizo not only give us new races (with some twists) to play, but also rules for playing powerful races, preferably by using something like the racial levels system, but only works. Epic Level Handbook- We all get there eventually. I think you guys could come up with some really interesting ways of dealing with these upper levels that are often seen (at least in my opinion) as the most bureaucratic, slow, and unwieldy levels. Base Class Books - Someone already mentioned the spirit of 2e books that offered insight, rules and options to the existing classes over making new lame-duck classes. Its seems Paizo already started down this road of build options with the Gazetteer and Campaign Setting, options for classes from certain regions, orders, etc. This is exactly the direction I would like to see it go, but more systematized. Uncovered Paths (Unearthed Arcana) - I think this could be a super fun addition to the PRPG rules. I'm sure the team that worked on the project, those that contributed to it, and the community itself had tons of ideas that couldn't fit or weren't in the spirit of "backwards compatible." With the UP (Uncovered Paths) you guys could change things to your hearts content and I'm sure it would be a brilliant take on the rules. Templates - What build options are for classes, templates are for monsters and a great tool for DMs. I see them as the "all spice" of making encounters. Feats - I like the idea of including selective, interesting, and compatible feats into new releases (such as the Epic book or Base Class books mentioned above), but please, please avoid the classic WotC attitude of "newer is better". This killed D&D for me. Every new release was a stream of new feats, classes and prestige classes that were judged as: is it better than before? keep it. Is it worse than before? toss it. Thanks again!
I would say it's broken on the basis it pretty much voids the entire skill of "linguistics" as far as I can tell. I would like to be proven wrong on this.
Where did the traits on the right side above the Curse of the Crimson Throne header come from?
Those are good points. I never thought switching out the motive could turn it into a very different game. I think I might revise some of the urban adventures out there again. PS did I mention I'm excited about the Consul of Thieves AP? :)
Thanks for both the suggestions! I like the idea of the the gem. That's typically what I try and do with them, is let them act of selfishness (steal something, break into somewhere, work for someone, etc) and then force them to make a tough decision based on their actions. In terms of the mystery/intrigue. I'm sure I could get them into it, if I had a good story to tell. In other words, they aren't interested in, or have little experience in, investigation. They tend to take things at face value. So a deceitful NPC will pretty much always dupe them. I'll look into the book. The Iron Kingdom: Five Finger: Port of Deceit is large inspiration for the setting, unfortunately they never really did any adventures for it.
I run a homebrew Pathfinder RPG game set in a dense urban setting. The game boarders on a evil campaign, where the players are mostly LE/NE/CN. This makes it pretty hard to lift from published materials as 1) most material I've found is written from a LG/NG perspective and 2) most material isn't set in an urban setting, or is only briefly. Here's the problem: I have a pretty well developed setting for the campaign, but I'm lacking the inspiration for actual adventures. Unfortunately my players aren't really into the "intrigue/mystery" games, or at least I've had a hard time pitching it to them. Any suggestions on books, movies, tv shows, songs, comics, etc. that might inspire adventures, would be great appreciated!
The complete warrior states for the Tattooed Monk: Monk Abilities: A tattooed monk’s class levels stack with his monk levels for determining his unarmed damage, AC bonus, and unarmored speed bonus. I would say the Tattooed Monk levels count towards his ki pool total. Although I might abstain from adding special "spend a ki point and..." features to the tattooed monks abilities.
Traits and haunts and the like are likely to appear in a later rulebook akin to Unearthed Arcana, perhaps, but nothing's definite yet other than that they won't be in the main rule book."Pathfinder 2: The Path Less Traveled" "Pathfinder RPG: Unearthed Trails" The idea of a Pathfinder version of Unearthed Arcana just made my day. I love the Pathfinder setting, but more so, the way the guys at Paizo 'tweak' things. This would be an awesome product, and perhaps could even offer more radical changes to the rule system game that the PFRPG could do.
I can see the first list, except I don't quite get why Nex is in there.
This thread was immensely entertaining.
Hmmm. Interesting. I would retract what I said than earlier and rule (if it were my game :D) that they could do it, pending any abuse. This would allow for attacks with the primary hand while holding the weapon in the off. Of course some people will abuse, but that might just be their thing.
I would say, if they want to use the gauntlets, they have to drop (or sheath) the weapon they are using (free/standard action i think). And if they want to return to the weapon, they have to pick it back up (standard, provokes AOO).
If I'm a Rog1/Soc1 and I take level in Sorcerer, can I put points in my class skills from Rogue? I'm thinking: yes, since there are no limits on spending skill points, and the bonus from it begin a class skill for Rogue (+4) already applies. Just looking for a confirmation. Thanks!
I'd also add that areas of Golarion are more vividly defined. In forgotten realms I always felt like the world had different areas, but basically just a slightly tweaked map of Europe. The rulers were all more-or-less good, the evil empires were all more-or-less evil. But all pretty bland. Each area Golarion, from what I've read, is strikingly different and have a lot of well thought out flavor. The other thing: FR has (had maybe) dozens of gods, with tons of overlapping concerns and domains (again, rehashed greek-roman gods with a touch of Norse). I always thought this was a bit overkill and boring. Golarions gods are quite different and not the cliches of dark-evil-shadow god vs. overwhelming magic god vs. good-healing-moon god. Golarion has things like the childbearing-demon-mother of monsters, contract-signing devil-worshipers, giant-world-destroying monster gods, and of course clever gods of justice, law and order -- all with great background and real ideas for game play (like how their churches work, what their priests do, special domains and spells, etc). I'd take a look a the Gazetteer as a nice introduction to the world, or if you're interested in a deeper plunge, the Campaign Setting and Gods & Magic book.
I picked up a copy and have gone through bits of it that sparked my interest. I have plans to go through it more thoroughly, but from what I can tell it's a wonderful piece. I run a home-brew city-based game, and I already have plans of incorporating many aspects of the book. The street-trap are interesting, deadly, even humors at times and above all a great way to add danger to a city-setting. The clockwork domains/spells have a bit of a clever spin, but nothing earth shattering mechanics-wise - which in my opinion is a good thing. It makes it easy to incorporate with a few tweaks. Over all I think, it's an inexpensive, quality piece brimming with clever ideas that I'm excited to delve more into.
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