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These are great suggestions! Thanks everyone!

Hey folks,
I'm running a nautical campaign and at some point down the line I want to do an Ahab/Jonah thing and have my players retrieve something from inside a giant whale. I'll be using the Swallowed Whole map tiles, which have a dead sailor in a rowboat inside the whale for the treasure.
My question is twofold -
The closest stats for a monster are the Great White Whale in Bestiary 2, but even that is sized smaller than the tiles. Should I handwave it, or scale it up using rebuild rules? A CR 14 is high enough - my players will probably be 10-11th level by the time we get to that. (Or maybe its insides are actually an extradimensional space? Maybe I'm overthinking this point.) And should there be any air inside the cavity? Some of my players are playing races with swim speeds and/or water breathing, and they'll definitely have access to Water Breathing (the spell) by then, too.
The other part I'm looking for ideas for is what kinds of monsters might be found inside its stomach. I can easily do some aquatic stuff - sharks, crabs, etc, but maybe there are some weird parasites or other things I'm not thinking of.
Thanks!

Thanks, that clears up what I needed to know!

I'm wondering if any dried blood of an Eidolon would remain on the sword that struck it after it had been dismissed and brought back again. Would it be a separate physical object after bleeding out of it?

I'm asking specifically because I need to figure out if the eidolon would be susceptible to the new spell Blood Biography in the APG, or even a physical tether for scrying or the like.

So I finally got around to resuming my campaign, and the issue did, in fact, become a problem.
Here's what happened.

Further compounding matters is the fact that if these two stubborn opponents don't figure something out, the player is at a distinct disadvantage and has told me he's willing to let the character die if it comes to that - he has another one rolled up and ready to go. That's not ideal for me - I'd rather not set the precedent of swapping characters out so readily when a little bit of self-preservation can avert a situation. (Not to mention the logical problem of introducing a new character in the middle of an infiltration mission.)

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!

The core rulebook says that NPC classes CR equals level minus 2, PC classes for CR is level minus 1. It doesn't really take a split into account for what I can tell - maybe I'll just average the difference. I'm sure I'll be fudging some stuff on the overall CR once I build the whole encounter.
And yes, the original published NPC does have a deckhand (levels in commoner!) Half the fun will be taking these two bumpkins and turning them into a threat.

So I had a bit of a funny idea to counter one of my players who had a funny idea of his own. I'm running "Masks of the Living God" which involves a river journey on a barge captained by a dwarf with levels in Expert. After killing a river crocodile and hauling the corpse on board, they managed to convince the captain with a series of huge rolls on bluff checks that the crocodile had magical powers (namely, invulnerable to orc arrows) and sell it to him.

My idea is this - after he's skinned the croc and cured the leather, he'll probably fashion it into some sort of leather or hide armor, and after parting ways with the PCs, do something VERY cocky in front of a bunch of heavily armed orcs, nearly get himself killed, blame the PCs, and come back steaming mad down the line as a viable threat.

Since the NPC right now only has NPC levels, I want to accelerate him a bit more to make up for that for when he'll eventually challenge a (fairly sizable) group of PCs. I was thinking I'd give him levels in Shackles Pirate from the Campaign Setting (I adjusted the numbers a little bit after comparing the 3.5 and PF versions of Pathfinder Chronicler and extrapolating by analogy). He's got a good start on the requisites since I built his Expert levels to be useful as a river captain. (I gave him a full build because I'm making the journey longer and more treacherous - going through River Kingdoms instead - and there will be instances he might fight or use skills.)

First question - how the heck would I calculate CR when splitting levels of PrC and NPC classes?
What if I dip a level of Rogue in there, too?
Or am I over-thinking it, since my players will never see the stats I gave him in the first place? Should I just rebuild him from scratch later when he gets reintroduced? And if I do, should I give him PC levels from the get-go?

Just finished running Crypt of the Everflame and 3/5ths of my group are classes from the playtest. Since I don't think "Masks" was written with them in mind, I'm anticipating a problem or two when the group will be put into a position to try to infiltrate the cult.

Suggestions and comments would be appreciated, thanks!

Stumbled onto a pair of applicable feats in 3.5 in the Races of Stone book. Fling Enemy and Fling Ally. They're both pretty much made for the Goliath race from the same book, which are Medium creatures for some purposes and Large creatures for others, including these feats.

Here's the math -
Creature 1 size category smaller has a range increment 5 feet, 2 categories smaller has increment 15 feet, can throw up to 5 increments. (Increases to 20/40 feet with Improved Rock Hurling, a separate feat in the same book, or the racial ability to throw rocks - i.e. some giants).
Creature and its gear may not weigh more than your maximum to lift over your head. Landing in an occupied square results in landing prone. Neither result for the creature thrown provokes an attack of opportunity.
To throw an ally - move action to pick up, standard action ranged touch vs AC 5 for designated square, miss is a random square as with a thrown weapon. Ally lands standing.
To throw an enemy - requires successful grapple check (these are 3.5 rules, not 100% sure how that translates to CMB/CMD) and for every 5 you beat that check, can throw 10 feet, up to the max range, as a standard action, to a square you designate. Enemy lands prone, no damage in RAW.

If I'm houseruling either of these feats in for my players, I'd do them both as one feat, since the mechanic is essentially the same and I don't think either would be used often enough to justify spending 2 feats on them. Additionally, I think the prereqs are a little steep - STR 19 isn't bad, but size Large or larger and Rock Hurling feat eliminate the possibility for a lot of characters to use this. The Rock Hurling feat is essentially proficiency with rocks as a thrown weapon (50 lbs, 2d6) rather than an improvised one, and I might replace that prereq with Throw Anything, which takes away ALL improvised thrown weapon penalties. The weight alone of the rock/creature will be restricting enough that it simply won't be useful to just anyone. But I could see a Medium fighter or barbarian boosted up to Large with an Enlarge Person getting some decent use out of this, and I don't think that should be taken away just because Large isn't your natural size. Plus, even at Medium you might still want to chuck a halfling around a little bit. (Going even further, perhaps allow for throwing a creature of your own size category as long as there is a vertical drop as well? Think of dwarf tossing in the LOTR films...)

Check out this thread. It handles similar mechanics questions, albeit under the presumption that the character thrown is willing to be chucked.

If a character trips or otherwise falls prone into a square covered in caltrops, would he or she be susceptible to damage from multiple caltrops? Stepping on one assumes just one caltrop, one attack roll, one point of damage. How would you resolve landing face-first into a pile of them? Multiple attack rolls? A damage roll? Percentile? Could they get through thick armor? Would a small creature suffer less damage because of less surface area?

I suspect that I'm among the first of a new batch of fantasy gamers to come to the hobby by way of Pathfinder and NOT by way of D&D. I learned the system for cheap on the Beta test, and from there I was hooked. The free stuff I'd downloaded was enough to get me to bite and drop the money on the hardcover rulebooks.

I've played in groups with a homebrew setting, and recently a Greyhawk campaign, but gradually I've been picking up bits of Golarion published material. I'm now preparing to run my first campaign, and I decided to stick it in Golarion, so I bit the bullet, dropped the $50, and bought the Campaign Setting HC from the local comic shop (spurred on, incidentally, by the notice on the homepage here that you were running out of copies).

Now, I absolutely love the book, and the rules stuff in there is easy enough to convert without much hassle, but I primarily wanted it for the flavor, and on that count it passes with flying colors. Would a new printing or expanded edition using the new rules be neat? Sure. Will I buy it? Probably not.

As I'm sure some of you have noticed, gaming can be an expensive hobby, and for me to pick up this entirely new hobby required some serious commitment. One of the big appeals to me about PF and Paizo is that the business model is about making the core books last and publishing new adventures rather than constantly releasing more and more "primary" sourcebooks. (I realize that after a huge launch, there's bound to be some duplication of existing material.)

But, it's only because of that that I felt I could finally get around to indulging in a hobby that had held my curiosity for some time. I'm really hoping that the initial investment is going to have long-term value, because after the APG and GM Guide come out, that'll probably be it for hardcovers for a while with me. I'll probably pick and choose at modules and Chronicles and Adventure Paths and accessories here and there, but the big books, I'll go back to over and over.

Now, if the added material for the Campaign Setting re-release is available as a download from the website for $10 or less, I'll probably get it, but I'm in no rush. In the meantime, I've got my ragtag little group of absolute rookies and 2nd- and 3rd-ed. vets who haven't played in a decade, and I'm pushing Pathfinder on them. They're learning the rules for cheap, but hopefully they'll get hooked like I was, and if they do, it'll likely be in large part due to Golarion.

My point, and I did have one, is: don't screw around too much with a good thing. Giving customers the option to get more more more, new new new, is fine, but take care of the ones who ponied up for the big books to go back to over and over. I think, hopefully, that I'm in good hands on that count.

My first campaign EVER, playing a stout dwarf fighter, not much nuance - swing my axe at orcs and learn the rules a little at a time. Built to be a tank - spiky armor, big gauntlets, the works. For a couple of encounters a mysterious gang of slavers are hounding the party, repeatedly trying to kidnap us. Nets and combat don't work, we fight them off; sleep spells fail on the elf, who wakes us up and we fight them off. Finally, a disguised sorceress posing as the musical act in the local tavern nearly gets us with a charm spell of some sort, but the cleric makes the save and starts going to town.

The noise and violence of the fight rouse the rest of the PCs and the bar's patrons as well, and all of a sudden the rest of the slaver group ditch their disguises and decided to fight. We're off to the races, and my fighter has something to do! Of course, the big burly wereorc singles me out as the threat as I'm about to take down the rogue villain harassing our hapless wizard.

I try to jump across one of the bar tables to get between the wereorc and our wizard, and fail the acrobatics check by a mile, boom, I'm prone. Attack of opportunity, GM rolls huge damage, and I'm unconscious and bleeding out. Huge constitution score, though, so I have a few rounds before I really need to worry, right?
Wrong.
Cleric was played by another rookie, who kinda lost track of the whole "party healer" role thing and keeps on brawling. Twelve rounds go by and I fail every check to stabilize, meanwhile the enchantress has turned invisible, doubles back, and resumes trying to kidnap us by dragging my unconscious body out the door. Finally the cleric and the rogue notice I'm out and come over to help. On my last possible chance to stabilize, my kind GM passes me a note saying that the invisible sorceress has stabilized me - they want us alive, in any case. Still out cold, though, and now the rogue and cleric are having a tug-of-war with the invisible sorceress over my unconscious body halfway out the door, creating, from the perspective of passersby in the alleyway, an unconscious, levitating dwarf in spiked armor thrusting in and out of a bar entrance.

At this point, the rogue decides to shoot a crossbow bolt at full penalty at the invisible sorceress (the player being the "shoot first, ask questions never" type). With zero margin of error re: my neg HPs, what happens? Fumbles, of course. Crossbow bolt to my face, no more dwarf.

(The worst part? The party decides the cheapest way to bring me back to life is not a resurrection but a reincarnation. Bad-mutha stompy spiky dwarf with a huge STR score? Yup, now I'm a kobold...)

I know it's a WoTC product but I can't reccomend it more. The Players Handbook II and Dungeon Masters Guide II are just chock full of incredibly helpful information for playing and DMing. I would say fully half of those books are insights into gaming groups, philosophies, play styles, and people skills.

If you can get your hands on a copy of those I think they can really help a lot.

I did at one point get the chance to skim through a copy of the 3.5 DMG II back when I worked at the comic shop, and thought it especially useful for the abstract stuff about player personalities and narrative style as opposed to mechanics and building economies of cities and whatnot.

I think what I'll do, then, is get the group together to finish up characters and play around in the sandbox of the town the PCs will be from, maybe even roleplay to go shopping for adventuring gear. Again, planning on using the Crypt of Everflame module for this, with some tweaks and plot points to tie into later adventures. Hopefully I can get something from them then to later customize NPCs to fit both whatever backgrounds they come up with as well as the campaign-driving McGuffin. Depending on how long that all takes, I'll probably have an encounter or two ready to go if they should get their PCs out the door. More likely I might just run a practice combat to flex the mechanics (although, Everflame is pretty nonlethal to begin with anyway should it go straight into story...)

You might want to try the PDF version, which is only $10. It's a great option to give them a different option.

If they don't like using it on computer, you could run down to Kinko's and get some of the pages printed off in black and white. I reckon you could get the classes, feats, and skills chapters printed off for $5, depending on price per page.

That had occurred to me, but that'll be more applicable once we actually get to the table. It seems like the free databases online should have everything for rolling up a character (and levelling up in between, too) but after they expressed the initial interest in joining my game, some of them have been procrastinating on doing the preliminary work.

The games I've played in have done both ways - rolling up on our own before the first session, or using the first session to roll up as a group. I personally had no preference either way, but maybe I ought to try getting the group together to build their characters? What have other GMs seen?

Hey gang-
Been reading the messageboards for a while to delve for ideas and try to anticipate the kinds of problems, rules questions etc that normally come up, then figured I might as well just address things directly.

I've been gaming for about a year now - learned on the Beta playtest because my then-gm saw it as a good way for a few of us rookies to pick up a new hobby for cheap, and now I'm hooked. Huge nerd otherwise, and after my first session I actually said, "I don't know how I got through 24 years of my life without ever doing this!" (I actually used to work at a comic/hobby store and didn't really even start gaming until I was practically out the door.)

I've got some materials to get started and a few ideas for adventures hooks down the road, but for now I'm planning to use the Crypt of the Everflame module for the first session or two (anyone run it before? how far did it get you?) and build from there. I've got some maps, I've got some minis, I've got my Bestiary and Core books, plus a bit of 3.5 stuff and PF miscellany for future ideas.

My bigger concern, though, is getting all my players on the same page, rules-wise. I'm also playing in two groups that consist entirely of experienced gamers, and all those dudes were happy to shell out the $50 for the hardcover, but the group I'm going to run I'm running SPECIFICALLY because they don't have a ton of gaming experience and were all having a hard time finding a game to join and/or a GM to help them. Two of them have the Beta rules, three of them have some experience with 3/3.5 but are a few years removed from their last games, and one is an absolute rookie. So far I've been trying to help them build their characters with the stuff on the d20pfsrd.com site, the PF wiki, and Adv Classes playtest (one guy is gonna run an Oracle), but it seems that these options aren't really holding their attention.

I should probably have a pre-encounter session with them to finish rolling up and selecting options, shouldn't I? But I also want to give them the time to think about their choices ahead of time before they get stuck playing something they don't like. It really feels like starting a new game with a new group has to overcome a lot of inertia before things really get fun.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated!