Goon-for-Hire's page

Truthfully, the class feels a little too scattered as it, and need a little more streamlining.

I think you'll want to start by taking a way the unarmed combat elements and related binus feats altogether. If the character has a mind blade, they don't need improved unarmed.

I'd remove the ability to make the mind blade into a two-handed weapon. It is not consistent with the theme... which seems to be mastering a sort of ultimate self-sufficiency through mental discipline.

I'd consider adding some psionic feats to the list of choices, and maybe shave off high jump and slow fall... the PC could simulate those abilities with psionic feats if they wanted them.

Maybe make still mind contingent on having psionic focus?

Thanks, both of you. It's put me on track with this undergoing!

Any more suggestions? Do you think the idea is a feasible one for an introduction to the D&D (Pathfinder) rules set? As the start to a campaign?

As an introduction to D&D/Pathfinder? I'd say yes with one caveat: be sure any new players understand the conventions of the game. Be sure new players know to expect monsters and traps, how important it is to collect treasure, and that they don't have to learn the hard way they can't sneak attack oozes and skeletopns.

Be really generous with knowledge check information.

You might want to give them a throw-away first floor where a previous student left painted warnings so they can encounter one living monster, one mechanical trap, one undead monster, one secret door, one treasure on a body, and the like.

Use it to set conventons for your dungeon... have blood-stained walls near traps, and make sure the living creature's lair stinks baldly and there is fresh-picked bones nearby. Use them again for the first couple of floors of the dungeon to ease the new players in.

Starting a them in a long, viscious dungeon is a really good idea, because it will help them get used to the tropes of D&D/PF, the site-based adventure, the dungeon microcosm, the idea of both good and bad monsters, etc.

As a start to a campaign it will be excellent!

I would keep in mind how it sets the tone: the PCs will be expecting dungeon crawls. The academy will have a harsh, darwinistic, and sinister feel to it.

With a full quarter of the campaign set in the dungeon, the PCs will expect all places they visit to be dark and full of suffering, their masters will be seen as cruel and authoritarian. Expect player-connected plots to be centred around rebellion or revenge once they really get into the swing of things.

Goon-for-Hire wrote:

On some levels the looser rules mean that the DM could choose whatever fit the story and mood, which was great for the hardcore role-players and storyteller-type DMs. But it also made abuse of power difficult, slowed down the gameplay something awful, and could lead to disputes.

I'm not sure I understand this point. If I read what you say correctly, actually Role playing in a Roleplaying game is bad, but blatent abuse of power is good. Is that correct???

Hahaha! I mistyped. It made abuse of power easier, not more difficult.

As to actual role-playing in a role-playing game, I am all for it! As I said, it was great for hardcore role players, but not so good for game flow.

Okay this attempt two to post what I think are some good bits of advice, based on my own experience designing and running a similar campaign.

You’ll want to plan the encounters carefully, randomness will probably leave you with a lot of trouble.

You can solve the safety issues with a wand of rope trick given freely near the beginning as part of a treasure hoard (fudge the identification early, or make the wand obvious). You might also want to make the spells arcane lock, alarm, illusory trap, magic aura, and obscure object available to the party wizard in a damaged spellbook early on.

Encounters

You’ll need 60-65 encounters. On a 20-floor dungeon that is three encounters per floor. It is not that tall an order to fill, really.

Ten of the encounters will probably be mechanical traps. Put at least six of them on the doors to small rooms with strong, lockable doors. The PCs can turn those rooms into stashes and hideouts.

Six to ten encounters should be with friendly creatures that will trade accumulated treasures for services. Some ideas might be:

A Jaani who brings merchandise in from an elemental plane and sells to PCs for a “favour” in the future… after all, if they get out alive, they will be powerful.

A mad alchemist living near chambers full of weird fungus and crystalline gowths who can sell alchemical goods, potions, and low-level disposable magic items. He was a student once, now he is a loon living alone with no hope of ecape.

An azer or salamander that has laid claim to an abandoned smithy and storehouse of unworked metal in one of the upper floors. He’ll perform repairs, sell crafting material, and offer safety in return for gems. And the players will need to be careful of their gear.

A bound imp or quasit sitting in a magicians atrium from before the dungeon was put to use by the academy who will teach magic and let the player use the item creation facilities, maybe even use commune… but he too wants favours.

A free-roaming kobold snitch who knows about at least 12 of the other encounters, and will trade rations coins, and the like for intelligence. He can also give the PCs recipes for the unintelligent monsters of the dungeon.

Of the remaining encounters here are some ideas:

The other monsters here need to eat, so rats or other pests should always be in evidence. At least one rat or bug swarm could help drive the point home.

This place should have lots of bad juju: one wraith, wight or allip formed from the madness and terror of dead students should be plenty fun.

Mindless undead, constructs, and bound low-level evil outsiders and elementals have a good reason for being there: they are part of the test.

Carron crawlers, gelatinous cubes, or grey oozes may be a good reason why the characters are not waist deep in dead adventurers and monster carcasses, but be careful, these monsters will wreck PC gera, use them sparingly.

There are probably at least one or two students who went crazy believing they would never get out… they ought to be lurking around ready to kill the PCs for their stuff.

Treasure

Aside from the aforementioned spell formulae and wand, here are some useful treasure planning tips:

Pick two magic or masterwork items per character per class level, and put them in treasure hoards… that is all the magic you will really need. At low levels this should include sets of three potions, wands of low level spells with only a few charge left, masterwork theives’ tools, masterwork medium armour, full plate, and masterwork weapons.

Save enchanted weapons for the last six or seven encounters. Save magic armour for the middle of the dungeon.

Include a wand of cure light wounds with a little over ten charges for the beginning of the dungeon, andplace another one in the middle. Don’t count these items against the aforementioned two per character.

In lieu of gold consider these ideas for about a third of the treasure: incense, spell foci, powdered silver or gold, holy water, arrows, the ink and material for writing in spellbooks, and the like that characters would normally spend a lot of money on can be placed as treasure. The explanation is simple: these were on students who didn’t make it.

A scroll of continual flame and a little ruby dust will eliminate a lot of logistics problems early on.

Dungeon Structure

Water sources should be plentiful: put fountains and pools at least one or two a level, so that the monsters aren’t killing each other for water. Poison a well or two as traps.

An alchemical lab, magic item lab, and a forge should be available at some point.

Edible fungus is always fun, especially when it is occasionally mixed in with shriekers, brown mold, or violet fungus, can explain a lot of the monsters’ eating habits and where some of the creatures get their potion materials.
A shrine with alters to two or three good gods protected by a hallow on a lower level might make the characters’ days. Include a holy water font so the PC cleric can do a little scrying.

Have a few doors the PCs can arcane lock for storage, hide a treasure or two behind arcane locked doors created by other PCs.

I've spent a great deal of time assessing spell lists, and I definitely disagree with you. When it comes to buffing (others), battlefield control and debuffing - the strengths of the Wizard spell list, the Cleric is worse at all 3.

This is replaced by offensive self buffs (only worthwhile to a martial capable caster) and healing. There are some alternate mediocre blasts, and that's really about it.

There are a few standouts - such as freedom of movement, but these are few and far between. Most of the Cleric-only spells that aren't offensive self buffs or healing can be duplicated or improved upon by equal or lower level wizard spells.

Very well said! I think it is important to point out that clerics do have one other, often-overlooked set of spells that wizards cannot duplicate until high levels, and then cannot duplicate well: the make-the-DM-give-you-hints spells. augury, zone of triuth, divination, commune, and find the path are ridiculously good and cheap spells for what they can do in the hands of a group of players who have any amount of deductive reasoning ability.

Sure, arcanists have contact other plane, legend lore, and vision, but the first is awully risky and prone to giving false intelligence, and the latter two are slow and expensive, respectively.

It is amazing what havoc a cleric PC can do to your mystery-filled campaign with 25gp worth of incense and a tarot deck. When I play a cleric I never head for a dungeaon without augury memorized and 100gp worth of incense to burn for the adventure.

I should also mention that not having to fill up your precious spellbook pages with speak with dead, scrying, and locate object and a few other choice divinations that a wizard might vascilate on has advantages,too.

There are a lot of spells that mechanically really don't fit their description or underlying theme. It's something of a necessary evil. Back in the OD&D through AD&D2e days the spells often had vague descriptions. There was a little case logic and a few examples given but it was up to the DM to decide when something weird came up, like trying to grab a gaseous formed opponent (or grappling at all, for that matter.)

On some levels the looser rules mean that the DM could choose whatever fit the story and mood, which was great for the hardcore role-players and storyteller-type DMs. But it also made abuse of power difficult, slowed down the gameplay something awful, and could lead to disputes.

In a case like gaseous form and grapple, I would advise you do what every prudent player of the 2e days did, approach the DM with your concerns about the spell. Ask for rulings ahead of time, and help him or her create a written, houseruled version of the spell that includes the ruling if it is different from RAW.

If the DM rules that RAW stands, and yes, you can grapple a gaseous sorcerer, ask if you can invest some time and treasue into developing your own spell that does what you want it to do to learn at 8th. Take gaseous form at 6th, use the hell out of it, then swap it out as soon as you can learn your own invention instead.

AD&D2e had a necromantic wraithform spell at 4th level that made you incorporeal. Maybe your sorcerer will be the one to return it to your campaign world. Your character can make back her investment pretty quick by selling the formula to NPC magicians, I'd reckon.

Finally for what it's worth, the barbarian can't grapple what he can't reach, and the fly speed of gaseous form while sluggish means one move action and grappling is out unless your barbarian friend can sprout wings.

So I just ran an adventure with two cavaliers as NPCs. I found on a whole they were pretty good as combat tanks although they were outperformed by other combat classes when they were on foot.

I used them both as allies for the PCs for a couple of battles, and then had one dominated into becoming a villain so that I could see how they performed as an NPC combat encounter.

One thing I did want to mention that flummoxed me a bit using them as NPCs was that it is hard to keep track of oaths. As a player character I'd imagine that making and using oaths would be imperative... rather like memorizing spells, you don't want the DM to forget.

But as an NPC... there are so many things to keep track of, especially with a large cast of characters. It was really easy to forget about or lose track of that free floating and mutating bonus. It was one of those numbers that kept "disappearing" on me. There is no really easy way to keep track of it unless you rule that the NPC cavalier has one oath that he just constantly re-swears.

I'd say that this class on a whole is more workable as a PC than an NPC. I'd probably use a paladin or a fighter with a lot of flavour instead for my villains, the same way it is much easier to use a sorcerer NPC than wizard.

Step 6: Don't be Afraid to Ask: Once you have the Paizo account you are free to post on the PFS message boards. There are running threads for rules FAQs, adventure module critiques and discussions on style play. If it has to do with the organized play, they are happy to discuss it.

(thanks to Thod.)

Goon-for-hire

I think this is great - thanks for doing this. In my mind this is what the community should be about - helping others.

Just my 2p worth to add to your list:

a) The finding a game/event near you should work world-wide. At least here in the UK it works fine (technically). There aren't many postings right now - I think there are three (in a radius of 300km from my home) - one in London, one in East-Kent (that I posted and didn't get a single reply) and one in Birmingham.

b) You should add a paragraph - Step 6) optional - if you run into any problems - just post your questions at the friendly message boards. Someone tends to pick it up pretty quickly.

As I said - great work and I hope it helps someone and spreads the word.

Thod

You are very welcome! I agree with you, this is the sort of stuff I love to see in an online community, along with a little light humour, of course.

I'll add that step 6 right away!

As to finding games, for soem reason my coordinates keep coming up as the middle of Lake Ontario. I'm lucky that I live in a town with one of the most ridiculously dense comic shops per capita ratio in the country. It just took asking.

This is the link for the PFS 2.0 rules:

click here

I have tested this one and it works.

Thanks! That is very helpful!

I partially put this beast together to suss out my own understanding of this process as I derived it from reading tonnes of other threads. I have spent hours looking for something that might help me out.

I fear in my own case, either this understanding is very flawed, or automation has failed, because I can find the PFS Rules 2.0 document nowhere, and none of the emails I have received from Paizo have directed me thereto. Please, let me know if the system has changed.

While gearing up to get involved in the PFS Organized Play, I had some trouble finding all of the resources I need. There was no easy introduction in the forums or in the message boards, and so I thought it might be a good idea to put something simple together.

I started to get really frustrated, and one post really stood out at me as a scoured the 2.0 Rules FAQ thread:

Do I need some sort of secret handshake to get the new guidelines? I clicked the link from the email, from the locked thread with other questions, and directly went to my downloads, and it's not there. All of my other PDFs show just fine though.

It is a bit overwhelming in places, and very frustrating in others. I figure something like a step-by-step guide for people not familiar with OP could be very useful.

I hope some of the PFS veterans will be kind enough to correct me where I am wrong, and fill in the gaps.

Step 1: Get a Paizo Account: This would seem pretty much self-evident, but I am trying to set a tone of something well-parsed and sexplained.

Step 2: Join the PFS: Use the Join the Pathfinder society link on the homepage (http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety) to get to the basic form you need to fill out. It is pretty simple.

You will be issued a PFS membership number and directed to your shiny new "My Pathfinder Society" page (https://secure.paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/myAccount). There will be a downloadable PDF witha personalized card with the bumber, your name and an affiliation emblem (which is essentially meaningless at this stage in the game.)

Step 2b: Set up a Character Account: The "My Pathfinder Society Page" also has a form that lets you set up characters... these are little more than a name and an affiliation, but each one has a unique number derived from your membership number. As you play the character you associate with that number the GM will load up session reports that allow you to keep track of campaign events, gear, xp, etc...

Step 3: Get the PFS Rules: In order to play, it will help to know the rules specific to the campaign setting and the Organized Play mechanics, The Pathfinder Society Rules 2.0 is the current standard. It is available in PDF format.

Once you sig up as a member of the PFS, you will be sent an automated email with a verification link. Once you have made the verification, you will be able to download the PDF from you account's "My Downloads" page (https://secure.paizo.com/paizo/account/assets).

Your "My Downloads" will also have a document on campaign-legal character traits for download, official character sheets, etc.

Step 4: Get a Character: If you like you can download PDFs with pre-generated Player Characters from the PFS homepage. Theroetically, these characters are all you would need to play. However they will not progress or keep rewards from those sessions.

Step 4b: Better Yet, Make a Character: Ideally, you will want to make a PC of your own. You will need to build him/her according to rules you can find in the PFS Rules 2.0.

Step 5: Find a Game and Play: At this point all you need to do is find a game to play. If you are in the US the "Find a Game Near You" link off the PFS homepage will probably do the trick. Keeping a eye on the message boards and checking with your local comic shop being the options for the rest of us.

Goon-for-Hire wrote:

I'm an Oshawa-based gamer myself, and just picked up the PFRPG manual at WC. I was unfortunately in at a busy time, and so I couldn't get many details from the staff aside from that "yes there was a regular PF game at Worlds Collide, usually on Thursdays and/or Firdays." Where can I get some details about your group or schedule?

We are currently playing on Thursdays/Fridays we are averaging 4-6 players per table. Each week there are two of the same Scenarios being run so not to grind thru and play all of the scenarios at a super speed rate. Rules for the Pathfinder society stick as per the current 2.0 rules. Any questions about it as well please ask for either Cyril or Ross they will have more information on it in the store.

Thanks. I'll try and drop in this week.

Hey all,

I am involved with starting a PFS group at my FLGS in Oshawa: Worlds Collide at 86 Simcoe St N.

We are meeting tomorrow night - Thursday, September 3rd, 7pm - to get acquainted and create characters. I will post here when we have established game nights, but I think that we will be running scenarios starting next week (probably start with #4 - Frozen Fingers, cause it lingers in my mind like a bad smell).

I apologize for the late notification, but it all came together at the last minute.

I'm an Oshawa-based gamer myself, and just picked up the PFRPG manual at WC. I was unfortunately in at a busy time, and so I couldn't get many details from the staff aside from that "yes there was a regular PF game at Worlds Collide, usually on Thursdays and/or Firdays." Where can I get some details about your group or schedule?