Harrowed Wizard's page

So high-level pregens would be very much needed, and frankly while I would hesitate to run 12+ PFS1 material at a public convention, it might be perfectly viable to run a 9-12 or higher at a public event. Any table where new players can't legally play is problematic in some locations.

Outside of specials, like 2-00. I would love to see some level 12 pregens so that if I run a table at my FLGS, where I can only run 1 table, and I get a walk-in and I'm running a Level 9-12 Scenario, I would much rather say to them: "If you'd like to try out some high level play, I have a host of premade characters ready to go!" or if I have a new-ish regular that might've been coming the last 3-4 sessions, I can say to them that it is a fun time to experience high level play, and since these don't happen very often, come have some fun with us still, and play a pre-gen!

Basically, in my opinion, level 12 pregens allow for more inclusive experiences, especially at the local stores. I would hate having to turn somebody away just because they aren't super invested in Society play yet.

The group I GM'd for chose to lobotomize, and succeeded.

This isn't a mechanical note, but more of a setting note.

Will we be getting any sort of setting information in regards to how Solarion & Vanguards interact in the setting? I feel like their 'power sources' are fairly similar what with "suns form and galaxies die" in the Vanguard description and the Solarion using Solar Manifestations.

I feel like, for instance a Vanguard could just as likely train at the Pradulex Monastery as a Solarion, but I may be off-base and getting that clarified on the final product might be good.

Really nice to see the instructions clarified for filling out the chronicle sheet, especially with the Faction reputation increases!

I'm thinking making my first character a goblin druid in the Animal Companion order.

In particular, I am thinking of taking the Rough Rider Ancestry Feat, which reads as thus:

ROUGH RIDER Goblin FEAT 1
Any creature that will bear your weight can
become your loyal steed, and you know how to coax even the strangest beasts into service. You gain the Ride feat, even if you don’t meet the prerequisites. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Nature checks to Handle a goblin dog or wolf mount. For more
about the Nature skill, see page 152.

My big question is, assuming an animal companion becomes Medium (which most will do at 4th level), will this allow a Goblin to ride an animal companion without the special Mount quality?

I'm looking forward to either myself or somebody in my group to give this a try!

Will Replays need to be done on different Character #s? I'm not seeing anything explicitly stating that. (Similar to Joe M's question directly above)

I anticipate Oracle Feats that represent sorcerer-ness being inflicted on somebody by something other than heritage. Feats that deliver potentially stronger abilities, but also carry hinderances in the bargain.

I like that idea. A feat (or Archetype, so series of feats) that provide a good bonus, but comes with an anathema as well.

I mean, given that the craft rules are devoted to making crafting no longer a financial multiplier, I don't see any reason that any game (including PFS) needs to ban it.

Item levels also gate access to certain items that low level PCs should not have or be able to make, so there's no need to restrict access via fame or anything, since level does this automatically for you.

But that's not a fix for PFS, that's just a fix of a problem PFS identified.

I'd like to also point out that while a different game and campaign, SFS allows for crafting now because they've done away with it being a financial multiplier as well. (Crafting just makes this have a higher hardness, and halves the time it takes to repair, which could be useful).

If we take that into consideration and if PF2E ultimately has something similar for crafting rules, where it is gated by level and proficiency and not financial multiplier, I feel there is a high likelihood of PFS2E allowing crafting.

Malk_Content wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Malk_Content wrote:

The counter arguement to that this is often brought up is that PF1 PFS isn't a useful area of comparison as presumably PF2E PFS scenarios will be designed around PF2E and not PF1.

I never understood why people use PF1 PFS as comparison for what you cannot do in PF2E. For example: In the Hunt Target thread it was stated most fights in PFS are < ~160 ft as a reason why range increment help was suboptimal except for thrown weapons. Yet we have no indication of what range will be used for PF2E.

I will admit however that PFS allows for a great base to measure some things like combat duration, average dmg, and effects of different composition/strategies on fights; under relatively controlled conditions.

The problem with the last part is all of those conditions are changing. What we need to evaluate those is for there to be PF2 Playtest PFS sessions. HP is changing, as is DPR expectations which will change combat duration and compositions. Even if we see similair compositions, the fundamentals of what those elements are has changed. E.G A PF2 Cleric is not equivalent to a PF1 Cleric.

And I agree with you.

What I wanted to express was that PFS makes for a great debugging/comparison tool. Allowing people to judge based on actual numbers (if available) or expected (if something is planned to be play there). However, it is not indicative of all play styles or the "ultimate way to play X class".

In other words, after a few sessions PFS can tell you if X combo is overpowered and needs balancing (Ex: the Oradin).

Again, pulling from SFS, I agree that we have no idea how many rounds the average combat will take in PFS2E or Playtest. SFS combat, I see take 4-6 rounds and typically the Solarion gets use their 3-round abilities at least once in most significant combats (some combats admittedly are easier/quicker).

My group is starting to prepare and schedule what we would like to do for the Playtest. Currently we have 2 regular GMs (myself and one other). We alternate who is GMing weekly between 2 different campaigns.

My primary question is this: Is it possible to have each of us GM different Parts of Doomsday Dawn? (i.e. he GMs Parts 1,4,7 and I GM the rest or some other set-up like that)

This is partly because both of us want to play (and honestly I think both of us want to tryout the rules from the other side of the screen as well). However, it also allows us not to take a huge 3 month break from either one of our campaigns. Ultimately we've already conceded we probably aren't following the quick schedule, but we'll complete the surveys as we complete the parts - since Jason Buhlman stated they'd be open for some time after the 2 week window (3 for Part 1).

The Sacramento Pathfinder and Starfinder Lodge is excited to announce that we will be offering Starfinder Society Scenario 1-99 as our Saturday night multi-table interactive special at Midsummer ConQuest on July 21! This is a special early access offering during the blackout period from Origins in June to Gen Con in August.

Come and join us as Nominated First Seeker Luwazi Elsebo sends the growing Starfinder Society to try and breach the impenetrable barrier surrounding the Scoured Stars region that is sure to shape the Starfinder Society for generations to come whether it is successful or not!

You can purchase tickets to MidSummer Conquest here.

Once purchased you can register for games here.

If you would like to GM at all (3 sessions for free weekend ticket!), register on Warhorn and then fill this out.

Super excited to run parties through both of these! I bet they'll be a lot of fun!

Castilliano wrote:

So throwing uses Strength on attack rolls?

I don't think it really goes off of anything. I think it's just what the designer wants it to be. The ogre has +5 mod on str. +10 to hit with his ogre hook, +8 with his javelin and does 7 static damage with each. No current understanding of the math makes all that add up.

While I expect much of the back-end math is different, I think they are going to be working on a similar philosophy as they did with Pathfinder Unchained and Starfinder, which is: Monsters/NPCs work off of different math than PCs do.

This has many merits in that it is super easy to homebrew/create your own monsters. It also makes it easier for Paizo and other 3PP folks make monsters and stuff for adventures and what have you.

However, it does make it a bit harder for consumers to double check math on published material (especially early SFS scenarios), until the Alien Archive came out.

Can't say I'm a fan of bundling mechanics with background - it always seems to result in clumsy mechanics and cookie-cutter backgrounds. This is, probably one of the better implementations I've seen, but I do have a question - since all the Backgrounds shown thus far share a similar template, what's the intent behind having the individual Backgrounds?

I imagine that just like Themes in Starfinder, this background system will give them space to, in the future make more specific backgrounds for different products. Much like the variety of Int-based themes in Pact Worlds are similar-ish mechanically (especially pre-6th level), but they each tell a different story about the character and where they are from.

Just commenting on here saying I like what I see about the Paladin so far.

Excited to see that there might be some non-LG paladins in the future. Also, I really like the new Code.

Super excited for this!!

Absalom Station ia a wonderful place for Wayfinder to begin for the Starfinder RPG! Starting to already come up with ideas that will hopefully be submitted to you fine folks!

So I would like to go ahead and add my voice to the crowd and say that as a GM I am super happy with the slow roll-out of races. Especially of some of the more 'weird' ones being harder to get access to.

My hope really is that all but the races is sanctioned sooner rather than later and not boon locked. Especially the themes, because right now some of the new themes will fit character concepts much better than current themes (I imagine we will see less Outlaws and more Space Pirates, and also less Scholars as there are more Int-based themes). I also believe that if the Archetypes are allowed right away we might start seeing some more players picking up Archetypes (some of them seem pretty neat at first glance!). I think the weapons added in Pact Worlds fill a lot of the holes from the SFCRB and will hold many people over until the Armory Guide comes out (I'm looking at you Weapon Crystals!)

Races though, I would like to keep sort of the way they are. Some of the races need to be individually considered before releasing them into the wild. SROs most definitely and even Astrazoans have some pretty important racial abilities

Edymnion wrote:

The fact that they already have a print date of only a year from now tells me one thing.

The playtest feedback isn't going to be given much weight. It might revamp a skill or feat, or maybe get a class rewritten, but thats it. It tells me that they are hard set on the system as a whole and will not change it no matter what the feedback says.

If this 3 actions a round thing ends up pissing off exactly 100% of the tester base, a year is not enough to rewrite it (and by extension everything that relies on it, which is pretty much everything) and re-test.

For good or for ill, 90% of what they've got at this point is already locked in stone.

Unfortunately you are probably 100% correct in this assessment. Things like a special edition playtest book really tip their whole hand about this affair being a done deal and how this "playtest" will likely be little more than a great big preview.

They offered print versions of the playtest version of the 1st Edition of Pathfinder and there were plenty of big changes made between the playtest version and the final version. Paizo has realized that they have a market of people that will purchase special edition collectible level material from them when it is offered. As a business, why not offer something like a Special Edition Playtest version of a book they are already sending to the printers? That is just leaving money on the table, since they are first and foremost a business not a charity looking to design and develop a game for us to enjoy.

I already know of a handful of people that plan on pre-ordering that Special Edition book and at least one other book. What does that mean for Paizo? They've now just sold 2 copies of the book, instead of 1. Is it a money grab? Maybe, but we all get to vote with our dollars and people that make the decision to buy both do so know that.

Whoops. Thought I was in the GM discussion. Apparently 2:30am isn't a good time for me to be posting things.

Thanks for your response!

I ran 1-08 Sanctuary of Drowned Delight for the first time the other day.

Yah, my PCs were heading on the friendly route, so I only prepped the battle areas they would fight the siege battles in. I did not prep the entire castle (would've been crazy since I use Roll20's vision tool)

I have been awarding reputation like Alanya has suggested, however my biggest concern is that right now the reporting system here at Paizo doesn't really support awarding multiple faction reputation gain.

I've also talked with a couple of non-local GMs at a Con a few weeks back, and some of them were under the impression that you could only gain the bonus reputation if you had the Champion Boon slotted. They both expressed that is what their (different) area GMs had been doing.

I personally would like an example of how to award that bonus reputation or something.

So what exactly is the reasoning for GMs not to be able to get points for the Alien Archive Boon? Because GMs who run more games than they play get the short end of the stick, because GMs are not getting any points wouldn't they just want to play and never GM except at cons? Sure GMs get slightly more opportuinty to get race boons but not that much more, and sure its great for the players but there has to be some incentive for GMs to run because the GMs by the actual scenarios not the players. In my opinion it'd be fair if GMs get points toward the Alien Archive Boon because they're buying the scenarios and actually running them.

The Regional Support GM Boon does give access to the legacy races, however it is after 12 games GM'd.

I do think that they should look at future Regional Support GM boons. In the future, access to races via this boon should be on par with the Player Focused Boon. This coming from a GM that has yet to actually play an SFS scenario, and does not normally see the chance to outside of Cons.

Nothing prevents them from going three times their speed, no. Though, as many Solarian Revelations are Move Actions to activate, that's often gonna be a better use of the free Move Action.

That is true, especially as a campaign progresses to a higher level, however between 2nd and 4th level, it is a worthwhile tactic. Even at higher levels, sometimes that extra mobility to line up the charge can prove useful to many.

I'm currently a player in the Dead Sun's AP, and just hit level 2 with my Lashunta Solarian, and I'm also a Society GM that is curious about this in case I see it in play. I have a question about Stellar Rush, which reads as thus (emphasis mine):

Stellar Rush(Su)(Photon):

As a standard action, you can wreathe yourself in stellar fire and make a charge without penalties (See pg. 248).

When you are attuned or fully attuned, you can substitute a bull rush for the melee attack at the end of the charge. Whether or not you succeed at the bull rush, the target takes 2d6 fire damage (Reflex half). This damage increases by 1d6 at 6th level and every 2 levels thereafter.

Then Charge says (emphasis mine):

Charging is a full action that allows you to move up to double your speed and make a melee attack at the end of the movement. You can draw a weapon during a charge attack if your base attack bonus is at least +1. Charging carries tight restrictions on how you can move. You must move at least 10 feet (2 squares), and all movement must be directly toward the designated opponent, though diagonal movement is allowed. You must have a clear path toward the opponent, and you must move to the space closest to your starting square from which you can attack the opponent. If this space is occupied or blocked, you can’t charge. If any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement (such as difficult terrain), or contains a creature (even an ally), you can’t charge. You can still move through helpless creatures during a charge. If you don’t have line of sight (see page 271) to the opponent at the start of your turn, you can’t charge that opponent.

Attacking on a Charge:
After moving, you can make a single melee attack. You take a –2 penalty to the attack roll and a –2 penalty to your AC until the start of your next turn. You can’t move any farther after the attack. Some classes, including solarian and soldier, grant abilities that modify attacks made on charges

Does that mean that a Solarian that takes Stellar Rush can first use their move action to move up to their speed and then use a standard action to use Stellar Rush, allowing them to move up to double their speed in the charge. Thus allowing them to effectively move up to 3x their speed in a round? Or is there something akin to partial charges (i.e. standard action only) like in Pathfinder that I haven't come across yet?

I think I'm gonna go with the Atonement route (there is a Cleric in the party) once the Insanity is taken care of. I'm excited for this RP chance in the published material we are playing through (details in the spoiler)

No, in the madness rules it states that if it is caused by the Insanity spell it is 1 madness per 5 Caster levels and this particular casting was with a CL 20.

I'm the GM and I have a Paladin of Sheyln that was afflicted with the Insanity Spell (CL 20), and the party does not have any of the requisite spells to get rid of the Insanity right away. Instead of just having the character be "confused" until the party can cure the Insanity, the player asked if we could use the Madness rules.

I randomly determined which ones he was afflicted with and they ended up being:

Amnesia
Mania/Phobia
Psychosis
and Multiple Personality Disorder.

My first big question is: Does the Will penalty from Amnesia and Multiple Personality Disorder stack? Off hand, I want to think so since the penalty is from two different sources and I have found nothing that states what penalty type they are.

Next question: If the party is able to get their hands on a Heal spell, would the alignment change from Psychosis revert back to original OR would the character still be Chaotic Evil?

So my party will probably make its first attempt at Artrosa tonight and I'm doing my prep work, when I realize that they want Erdija to follow the PCs until they basically tell her to go away.

How would she follow them during the climb up to the top of one of the cliffs?

Would the party need to either get her magical flight (which is possible) or jury-rig something else up(which would be hard to do since it is about half a mile up).

Or should I just handwave it and treat her climb as any other PC/NPCs climb ignoring the fact that she has horse hooves for feet?

I sort of want of picture of this couch that got mentioned, not once but twice!

Harrowed Wizard wrote:

Probably a question that has already been answered, but I'm on my phone on vacation and want to ask:

If we sent in a submission, would we get some sort of notification that it was accepted?

Thanks!

I get asked this a lot....so here's my answer: Sort of.

When I first took the reins, the standard practice was you found out if you were in when the issue came out. I know how that sits with people, so I emailed everyone who submitted to let them know if they had been accepted or not. Back then, only 50 people submitted, and nearly everyone got accepted, so that was easy enough.

That practice was short lived, however, when we started to get over 100 submissions. We are usually under a time crunch to get them all reviewed, picked, and assigned to editors ASAP. We got overwhelmed, and sending out acceptance/rejection letters was just one too many things on the list. So, we silently slid back to not letting people know until the issue came out.

Now, we've hit a compromise. When we make the selections for the issue, we post the names of all those who got something selected. I post it here, and on Facebook. If you don't see your name, you didn't get in the issue. We then follow up with those selected to let them know what article(s) were chosen, and to notify them that editors may contact them with questions or feedback.

That's how it rolls right now. We will likely make our selections by mid-January, so look for my post in the latter half of January 2017, OK?

Thanks for the thorough response!

Probably a question that has already been answered, but I'm on my phone on vacation and want to ask:

If we sent in a submission, would we get some sort of notification that it was accepted?

Thanks!

About to start Reign of Winter in about 2 months and I'm starting to look for any supplement material here on the forums and came across this. Can't wait to use these maps on Roll20!

Thanks everybody for your responses so far! It is greatly appreciated!

Hello!

My VTT group is going to be starting another AP in about 2 months or so and we have narrowed it down to Hell's Vengeance and Reign of Winter. As the GM, I don't have any particular preference over the two.

All of the players are willing to be in an Evil campaign and we have talked about consent and the like in regards to HV. I'm just looking for some input from folks that have played/GM'd at least one (if not both) of these APs to give me some insight into the pros/cons of each AP from a play perspective and/or a GM perspective. Thanks in advance!

Harrowed Wizard wrote:

Kerney wrote:

At least Cheliax will be headed towards freedom, true, civil war and all that but hey.

Well, with the exception of the Archduchy of Ravounel which would probably become free of Cheliax with its own Hell-bound contractual reasons, but still has a Thrune in charge, albeit he is now a Genius Loci on top of his own regular power.

I was under the impression that Barzillai's sphere of influence as a genius loci would gradually expand to include the rest of the country.

Possibly? But remember that Ravounel is not technically part of Cheliax as far as Hell is concerned.

At least Cheliax will be headed towards freedom, true, civil war and all that but hey.

Well, with the exception of the Archduchy of Ravounel which would probably become free of Cheliax with its own Hell-bound contractual reasons, but still has a Thrune in charge, albeit he is now a Genius Loci on top of his own regular power.

Harrowed Wizard wrote:

Curse of the Crimson Throne - Urban campaign after the death of the city-state’s king.

I would say, "Mostly urban...".

Harrowed Wizard wrote:

Kingmaker - Explore the vast wilderness and ancient ruins to clear space for your budding kingdom!

"...and then defend it."

Those are additions that make sense! Thanks!

Wrath of the Righteous only spends half the AP battling demons on the material plane, a third is spent on 2 separate demon lords' own sections of the abyss, and the last bit all over the place

The one sentence description doesn't say all the fighting is done on the Material Plane. Just says that they are fighting the demons streaming into the world. It doesn't necessarily say which side of the stream they are on ;)

Also, these are only 1 sentence descriptors to give a brief description of the AP. Do you have any suggestions on what WotR sentence should be instead then?

That is a pretty good idea! Thanks for the feedback!

So I am looking to get some newer players to play an Adventure Path. I'd like to be able to give them a 1-2 page list with a one sentence description of each of the APs. Below you will find what I've written up about each of them. I've only personally read/played/GMed 4-5 of the APs, so any help getting the best description possibly would be much appreciated!

Rise of the Runelords - Traditional high fantasy including goblins, giants, dragons and many other foes!

Curse of the Crimson Throne - Urban campaign after the death of the city-state’s king.

Second Darkness - Explore elven ruins & eventually deep underground, eventually fighting dark elves!

Legacy of Fire - Desert adventure including genies and planar travel!

Council of Thieves - Urban adventure that helps guide a city before it tears itself apart.

Kingmaker - Explore the vast wilderness and ancient ruins to clear space for your budding kingdom!

Serpent’s Skull - Explore ancient ruins, racing against other parties to be the first to explore them, hopefully preventing an ancient sleeping god from arising!

Carrion Crown - Horror adventure that pits the players against traditional horror themes.

Jade Regent - Travel from traditional European fantasy across a land bridge to the Asian-themed lands!

Skull & Shackles - Explore the seas as pirates, fighting sea monsters, other pirates and more!

Shattered Star - Seek all of the pieces of an ancient artifact, delving deep into the history of a land!

Reign of Winter - Fight the machinations of a reviled Winter Witch, and travel through time & space!

Wrath of the Righteous - In this mythic adventure, players will fight off the hordes of demons streaming into the world!

Mummy’s Mask - Delve into ancient tombs and uncover the secrets of a cult to prevent the rebirth of an ancient tyrant

Iron Gods - Barbarians and robots collide in this adventure to bring a dash of high-tech into this fantastical game!

Giantslayer - Fight orcs & giants, preventing them from overtaking the human lands!

Hell’s Rebels - Rebel against an evil Hell worshiping empire to free a region from its grasp. (Not directly influenced by Hell’s Vengeance)

Hell’s Vengeance - Play as the villains, helping the evil empire put down a divine inspired rebellion (Not directly influenced by Hell’s Rebels)

Strange Aeons - Madness has grasped the players and they must discover not only their own past but also stop the madness of cults from spreading across the globe!

That is great to hear! Both as a potential player, but most likely a GM trying my best to get all of my players playing these great sounding PCs.

Most adventures are designed with 4 players in mind, however you are building an adventure with the assumption there will be 6 PCs.

(1) Will many of the encounters be designed to be more difficult than a typical adventure due to there being 6 PCs?

(2) If you have only 4 players, will you have advice to GMs out to tone things down to to make that accommodation?

Great interview with Know Direction!

In the interview you mentioned that the characters might not start at the same level. Is there going to be some sort of incentive to play the lower level characters mechanically (beyond Class selection)?

Hello,

I'm running my party through Hell's Rebels and they are currently 8th level. One of the players is playing as a Promethean Alchemist. In the early levels if/when the homonculus died, I didn't worry too much about the cost of 1 pint of blood/Hit Die of the homonculus.

However, now the party is 8th level and the homonculus has 6HD. Meaning if my players wants to bring back the homonculus after it is 'killed', it would take 6 pints of blood. (In the real world with current donation guidelines, this would take a full year to safely donate)

I have been unable to figure out how this actually translates into a mechanical consequence. Off hand, I was thinking of 1 point of Con damage/pint of blood.

Meaning that in a safe environment there is a good chance that the Shaman in the party can cast Restoration spells to off-set the Con damage as it happens so that at the higher hit dice the homonculus can still be brought back. This would make bringing her back mid-adventure/dungeon crawl a lot more difficult, but allow downtime to be used to bring her back fairly easily.

Thoughts?

Alternately, you could run the section as-is, but have the aged leader of Acisazi use some sort of one-shot ritual or the like to grant the PCs combination freedom of movement/water breathing plus a swim speed to more or less negate the parts of underwater combat that made things a slog. It'll make some of those encounters less dangerous, but it'll preserve the story.

That is actually a pretty neat solution! If I hadn't already prepped No Response from Deepmar over the last week, I might've used it! I actually got excited with that Module when I read it, and started prepping it the same day as my OP. Thank you though for your response! I love how active Paizo staff is on these messageboards! :)

That part of the Lucky Bones is coming up and I'm planning a huge amount of prep to try and make sure that it goes well.

Maybe a small white board with a grid on it to mark depth. Print out individual copies of important underwater rules to remember.

Throw in some key points of the swimming rules. I actually got a really decent grasp on the rules during Skull and Shackles but every one of the characters had a ridiculous swim check on top of having traits that increased their ability to breathe underwater.

Lay it on really heavy that they shouldn't sell that cloak of the manta ray. In addition it would probably be fair for me to tell them that if they buy equipment to do the underwater stuff it will be useful again.

I made sure my party didn't sell that Cloak of the Manta Ray either, and it was helpful but it felt like not quite enough.

Just for reference, my party was:

Human Slayer (Stygian), with Dervish Dancer and some archery feats (so the scimitar was not very effective since it is not actually piercing damage, only treated as piercing). He was wearing the Cloak of the Manta Ray

Human Shaman (Life), thankfully he was our easy access to Water Breathing, he also has Augment Summoning, other focused on his Channel Energy

Elf Hunter, focused on archery with a Raven animal companion

Elf Alchemist (Promeathan/Chirurgeon) with a kick butt homunculus. Most of his extracts are used to buff the homunculus and feats are for crafting.

With most of the damange coming from the Slayer and the homunculus, both had issues getting through the DR of some of the monsters, especially after the underwater rules were taken into effect.

I ended up having Lictor Octavio go down with the party after clearing out the skum and a near death expierence with the shell sentinels (their DR AND fast healing make long lasting against my party). Octavio's Great Weapon build made pretty easy work of the Shell Sentinels (especially since he critted on a power attack).

Thanks for the suggestions! I will definetly try and take a look at No Response From Deepmar and see how that'll work with this group.

Hello!

My party plays on a VTT and we only get 2-2.5 hours per session to play every week (and sometimes even less). The end of Turn of the Torrent ended up taking us 4-5 sessions to complete because the current party is woefully not built for aquatic combat and we just slog through it. So much so, that my players are becoming more frustrated with the adventure than actually having fun.

With that in mind, I want to reach out and see if anybody has any ideas about replacing the Acisazi village & Menotheguro. Ideally something that still makes sense for the Silver Ravens to make alliance with that would help against Cheliax's navy much as the aquatic elves would.

I have just started reading book 4 and plan on finishing it this week, but I don't know if the Acisazi have a strong role to play in the AP after the alliance is secured.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Who's going to enforce it, and what kind of training do they have?

An interesting way to go about it, is that the City in question is ancient and has magic's that help the local government enforce this law (and by this point long tradition) of monitoring magic use (think CCTV, but for magic in a city). Obviously this would be artifact level device and could be the hook for a number of possible adventures (removing, protecting or retrieving said device).

Ideally, that would then limit the number of wizards necessary to enforce the actual laws.

Seeing how this would likely be a Lawful city, it could have a major magic school/university. The School has an agreement that each Staff Member, student and employee capable of casting magic must spend X days/year (or pick a time frame) assisting in monitoring and working with the city guard to enforce the laws of the city. The city could also "Call Up" the School (or Particular members) in certain circumstances (say "Call Up" the Headmaster when a high level magic-user goes rogue).

For this to work, the school would obviously also need to get something out of this deal beyond just being in the City.

EDIT: OP Posted right before I did, figured I'd add my thoughts to my post.

Finally, there are powerful and influential groups in the city who are invested in the idea of having LESS magic restrictions (Mage Academy, Church worshipping Goddess of Illusions, etc.)

I think that what some of those organizations would like is a more restrictive measure, but they are the few that can use magic within the community and that gives them standing, as the more freedom the organization is to use magic, the higher its standing is with the Local Government maybe.

As for the merchant and trade portion, most(in a generic Fantasy setting) of regular trade is mundane. Magic trade, while lucrative takes a lot of start-up capital and time so most merchants do not normally deal in magic.

Adventurers and the like could still be offered large bounties, luring them out to the city, but then when selling magical items might need to do it through one of the official magical organizations in the city.

I'd go a different route - what specific spells are allowed? They might just go with a very small list of allowed magic instead of a very long list of banned magic. Healing magic, abjuration, conjuration(creation), and non-damaging cantrips are fine.

If you want to go the route of the banned list, I'd imagine the city banning basically all divination, necromancy, evocation, conjuration(summoning), enchantment, and illusion magic.

Was just thinking along those lines basically.

Also what you could do, is ban all magic unless the practitioner has a some sort of Writ from the local government that will expressly list the types of magic or specific spells. I think this would allow some of the "trusted" citizens to use some of the more destructive spells or divinations and the like.

Harrowed Wizard wrote:

Honestly, you'll want to talk to your GM about the Order of the Torrent and the role that they have in later books. From there he can pick and choose what information you know about the Order of the Torrent and from there you should be able to hopefully pick out what you need for Roleplaying a Paladin Hellknight of the Order of the Torrent.

we are currently in the second book and have saved the amrigers and this character has already made an enemy of thrune and if this order can help put a thorn in his side im all for it XD

I'm at work right now so I don't have any references in front of me, but off hand I would say that a Paladin Hellknight of Ragathiel that is a member of the Order of the Torrent would be interested in getting righteous vengeance for those that were kidnapped (i.e. Taking "care" of the kidnappers). Beyond that I'd need to reread the Ragathiel entry and the Order of the Torrent info in the AP when I get home tonight (which is convenient for me since I'm running my HR campaign tonight)