Hugo Rune's page

There have been countless threads about Paladins, why they should fall and how they are often a problem at the game table. So I thought it would be worthwhile collecting ideas on how to play a Paladin as a constructive and collaborative member of the party. I'll start:

The Paladin should lead by example and not by instruction. The Paladin is a representative and champion of a deity. This means their code should be tweaked so that it represents the ideal of their god. It also prescribes how the Paladin should conduct themselves. It does not give the Paladin the authority to tell others how they should live their lives.

Respect others who have different beliefs and opinions. In the real world, different communities with different beliefs can live alongside each other harmoniously. This should also be true in the game world and it is certainly not a lawful and good activity to create discord between those communities. The Paladin should only act against an obscenity to their God. Turn the other cheek if it is merely an annoyance and rise above the provocation.

Revenge and vengeance are chaotic motivations, the Paladin must not act upon them. Delivering justice may require the same actions but the motivation and roleplay is different.

If you as a player are caught in an impossible moral quandary (e.g. kill an innocent to save others), ask the GM what your character would know to be the best options in their game world. Unless the GM is trying to screw you over, there will be at least one choice that keeps your Paladinhood intact. Note, your character may feel terrible for having made the choice and may spend the rest of their days seeking out the perpetrator and seeing justice done (note: not seeking revenge).

Closely related is the pointless self sacrifice. It is just that, pointless. If your GM has engineered that to be the only moral way out then consider taking it and leave the game. To keep the game running, one could argue that if your only options are self sacrifice or let the bad thing happen, then let the bad thing happen and seek to bring the perpetrator to justice, your God will be pleased that you haven't wasted your life and are able to continue being their champion.

When roleplaying a Paladin, try to act like the kindest, considerate, honourable and helpful version of you that you can be and you are unlikely to fall into the Lawful Stupid trap. If that version of you wouldn't do the lawful stupid thing then neither would the Paladin.

I've noticed that there are a lot of threads discussing how to optimise a character. Many of these seem to focus on how to maximise one or two aspects for level 20 characters. I'm wondering whether doing this actually means the character is sub-optimal for the majority of their playing career.

Is a character following a design path for an optimal level 20 character actually suboptimal at level 15 compared to a character optimised for level 15? What about levels 5 and 10? Would a character actually be better for more of the game by picking a feat etc that was actually suboptimal in the long term but is a better choice through the middle of the game?

Would you find an official blog post on how the rules around TWF, multi-weapon fighting, non-handed weapons, non-handed weapons, iterative attacks with different weapons (is that TWF but without penalties?) and extra armed creatures are meant to interact helpful?

Having trawled through the last 1500 posts in the rules forum and then done a search on the 'Armor Spikes FAQ' and gone back through the last 10 pages ordered by date it seems there is still a lot of disparity of opinion. There are multiple FAQs on the related subjects which can interact in conflicting ways, several developer comments and a lot of discord with the discussion ending in deleted posts.

In total I found 34 threads with a total of 2,437 posts and 107 FAQ requests excluding two meta threads.

For reference the thread trawl found:
Does having extra arms grant extra off hand attacks. 84 Posts (and counting) 13 FAQs
'Hands', Two Weapon Fighting and Unarmed Strikes 9 Posts 0 FAQs
Flurry of blows + 2 handed weapon = 1 attack a round, and other problems. 8 Posts 0 FAQs
"Free Hand" and Improved Unarmed Strike. 18 Posts 0 FAQs
Kasatha grapple questions. 3 Posts 0 FAQs
Multiweapon fighting 39 Posts 0 FAQs
Unarmed attacks while holding a weapon? 26 Posts 0 FAQs
Two Handed-Fighting Question 5 Posts 1 FAQ
Multiweapon Fighting, 2-Weapon Fighting, and Off-Hand Attacks... 2 Posts 0 FAQs
Monsters with a melee touch attack: can use two-weapon fighting? 41 Posts 1 FAQ
Slam Attacks and Hands 20 Posts 6 FAQs
Two weapon fighting using four arms. 7 Posts 0 FAQs
Can you legally TWF with 2 lances while mounted?168 Posts 2 FAQs
Claws and their redundancy(or lack of)? 73 Posts 5 FAQs
Whirlwind Attack questions 29 Posts 1 FAQ
Multiweapon Fighting (Combat Feat) 152 Posts 4 FAQs

Search for 'Armor Spikes FAQ' found:
Do armor spikes count as being wielded? 4 Posts 0 FAQs
Multiweapon Fighting (Combat) and a 4-armed Eidolon 38 Posts 0 FAQs
Order of using attacks when full-attack? 49 Posts 1 FAQ
Off-Hand? 24 Posts 0 FAQs
Monk threatening while armed 12 Posts 0 FAQs
two-weapon fighting armor spikes 3 Posts 0 FAQs
Two weapon fighting and natural attacks 16 Posts 0 FAQs
Some questions about Armor spikes 9 Posts 0 FAQs
Armor Spike and Reach Weapon > Threaten 5 and 10 feet? 172 Posts 0 FAQs
Petition to Change / Clarify the Armor Spikes FAQ 147 Posts 28 FAQs
TWF w / Weapon and Armor Spikes while wielding a Shield 494 Posts 13 FAQs
Question about Wielding a Guisarme and a Cestus! 11 Posts 0 FAQs
Kasatha, TWF, and 2 handers 105 Posts 17 FAQs
Elven Curve Blade + Unarmed Strike 54 Posts 0 FAQs
Off Hand Longbows 352 Posts 18 FAQs
Two-Handed Attacks or TWF and Shield Bonuses 90 Posts 20 FAQs
Do you threaten at both 5' and 10' when using a reach weapon with a Brawler / Monk? 127 Posts 1 FAQ
TWFing a two handed weapon and kicks? 46 Posts 0 FAQs

Excluded meta-threads
2016, what are the big unanswered rules questions? 152 Posts 8 FAQs
FAQ: Does the word 'hand' equate to a weapon slot in game mechanics? 4 Posts 3 FAQs

PS It was a wet and miserable Sunday

You can run for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score, but after that you must make a DC 10 Constitution check to continue running. You must check again each round in which you continue to run, and the DC of this check increases by 1 for each check you have made. When you fail this check, you must stop running. A character who has run to his limit must rest for 1 minute (10 rounds) before running again. During a rest period, a character can move no faster than a normal move action.

As a houserule I am considering extending this so that run is replaced with a strenuous activity e.g. clearing rubble, felling trees, excavating etc. But excluding combat and other activities where there are specific rules, such as swimming.

There have been a large number of threads that have turned heated over the discussion of whether a normal general character can threaten with a two-handed weapon and a non-handed weapon simultaneously. This appears to be used most often to threaten adjacent and reach squares simultaneously.

There is text to support both sides of the argument. The argument against highlights

Unarmed Attacks: Striking for damage with punches, kicks, and head butts is much like attacking with a melee weapon

which highlights kicks and head butts as unarmed strikes that do not use hands and also highlights the High BAB/Multiple weapons FAQ as being able to use different weapons simultaneously without incurring two-weapon fighting penalties as long as the character is not gaining extra attacks.

This leads to the scenario where a dwarven fighter could wield a longspear and wear a boulder helmet to threaten adjacent and reach opponents simultaneously, or any character with improved unarmed strike could wield a longspear and threaten to kick simultaneously.

The argument for refers to

Armor Spikes: Can I use two-weapon fighting to make an "off-hand" attack with my armor spikes in the same round I use a two-handed weapon?

No.
Likewise, you couldn't use an armored gauntlet to do so, as you are using both of your hands to wield your two-handed weapon, therefore your off-hand is unavailable to make any attacks.

and the Paizo developer/designer comments that preceded that FAQ such as

Armor spikes are treated as light weapons for the purpose of threatening adjacent squares. Light weapons require the use of limbs, so you would only be able to make attacks with them if you have a free hand. Thus, wielding a two-handed reach weapon would negate your ability to "wield" (and thus threaten with) armor spikes. This isn't necessarily clear in the rules, but I just discussed it with Jason, and we're both on the same page about the intent.

and

We are currently looking into the whole armor spike/misc non-hand weapons and how they threaten. This was a slightly bigger issue than I first thought when I gave an off the cuff opinion.

which indicate that the intent was to clarify that generally a character cannot threaten with a non-handed weapon at the same time as a two-handed weapon.

However, the Armor Spikes FAQ explicitly mentions two-weapon fighting and those against the idea of a limited number of weapon slots argue that the ruling does not apply unless the character is trying to gain an extra attack, using the High BAB/multiple weapons FAQ as evidence.

A clarification from the design team on whether characters can simultaneously threaten with more weapons than available hand slots would be welcomed.

I've been theorycrafting over some significant changes to how PCs, NPCs and monsters level up. It started with Commoners and Experts not getting HP or BAB increases when they level, just feats and skills. This means your average journeyman basket weaver can't outfight the young hero fighter who has been practicing with all manner of weapons since boyhood. But said basket weaver has far more skill at his craft than said fighter.

I then wondered about extending this idea to Wizards and Sorcerers. Why would a level 6 wizard be better with a dagger than a seasoned level 2 veteran fighter, and be able to take about the same amount of punishment?

The answer of course is because all the stats scale with level. But what about if the monsters BAB didn't scale either. A giant would have a lot of hit points because they were big and could take a lot of damage, but a young adult hill giant shouldn't be as good at fighting as a 10th level fighter who has killed hundreds of foes just because he is bigger.

I have done any serious number crunching yet but I'm wondering about giving full BAB classes full BAB. 3/4 BAB classes, 1/2 BAB instead and 1/2 BAB no advancement. Hit points would remain as they are for the full and new 1/2 BAB classes but the 0 BAB classes would only get 1HP per level.

Monsters do not get racial levels but instead class levels but they keep their default HD. AC for the higher DC creatures should probably drop (I read a previous thread questioning why fur on a high DC creature gives better natural armour than steel for example). It would also seem prudent to use the wounds and vigour rules and the damage absorbing armour rules as HP and BAB bonuses have been reduced.

These changes may also mean that the need for the magical Christmas tree is diminished. Has anyone already tinkered with this or had similar ideas?

Cheers

I'm working on some ideas for creating organisations of different types (military, churches, noble houses, guilds etc) and have come up with the following framework.

All organisations have up to 5 tiers

1. Initiate/congregant/recruit/apprentice
2. Member/veteran/journeyman/Acolyte
3. Manager/Master/Priest
4. Executive/Minister/Guildmaster/Bishop/General
5. Lord/Head of Church etc

Each tier has some universal benefits and restrictions
Level 1 gets a +1 diplomacy bonus with other members, free access to somebody at level 2, restricted access to level 3, 5% service time requirement.
Level 2 gets +2 diplomacy with other members +/-1 diplomacy with allied/opposed organisations. Free access to level 3 and restricted access to level 4, access to any prestige classes, restricted feats etc, 10% service time requirement.
Level 3 gets +5, +/- 2, free access to level 4 and restricted to level 5, permission to build/run a building relating to the organisation, 20% service time requirement, limited minor magic item access
Level 4 gets +10, +/- 5, free access to level 5, limited access to other associated organisation's level 4&5 (good roleplay opp), granted noble status if organisation is officially recognised, limited (to role) executive/realm/kingdom management capabilities, limited moderate magic item access, 40% service time requirement
Level 5 gets +20, +/-10, access to other organisations leaderships, full executive/realm/kingdom management capabilities, full access to organisation's magic items, 80% service time requirement

Some organisations only reach level 3 e.g. a city's thieves guild. They have no influence over a kingdom or other realm. Some organisations, e.g. a nation's army, only get to level 4 because they take orders from the lord of the realm and only have limited realm management capability. The head of the army is also a minister in the realm's council.

Movement through the ranks is dependant on desire and points based on point systems already found in various D20 resources, notably the rules in v3.5

I'm intending to use this framework to simplify building organisations and thought it might be useful to others.

Noting the many, many threads on the arcane/martial imbalance, rogues are useless, the ideas behind the MCA archetypes and the hybrid classes in the ACG. I've been wondering whether an alternate system might be to do away with all the classes and levelling up and instead have individual skills, feats, class abilities, to hit scores etc instead worth an XP amount.

E.g. a skill point might be worth 100XP, a feat 500XP, the ability to cast a spell once a day, 1000XP per level etc.

As characters gain experience they can choose to spend them and get cheap but minor incremental improvements or save them for a more significant ability. In some ways this goes back to the 1e idea that weaker classes level faster than more powerful classes but provides flexibility for the player to choose and customise their character to be exactly who they want.

Rather than starting from scratch has anybody else thought of anything similar?

Following on from my recent post on the NPC classes I had a think about how to make the craft skill make more sense from a world economic perspective and how it fits in with the different experience levels that NPCs would have.

The basic premise is that every point in a craft skill check above the minimum DC is worth a set amount for a given item. The harder something is to make the more each point is worth. Higher level craftsmen have a higher skill bonus, make more difficult items and have a higher standard of living. Rather than rolling a craft check, the crafter picks their roll. Above 10, the crafter is taking more time than standard and below 10 the crafter is taking less time than standard.

I have a houserule that the profession skill bonus gets added to any relevant skill check. So a carpenter would gain their profession skill added to their craft skill when making wooden objects, to their knowledge check when deciding on the appropriate tree and to their appraise check when valuing a cabinet.

Somebody who works as a craftsman would start as an apprentice, become a journeyman and be a master around middle age. Taking 2XP per day and medium progression, a human should reach 5th level by middle age. With my houserule, an average (all stats 11) NPC should be able to get a craft bonus of around +10 at first level, +20 at 3rd and +30 at 5th level. These levels fit nicely with the three grades of crafter. At 10th level +50 should be possible.

At 1st level an NPC crafter should earn 3GP per month and should earn 10GP per month at 5th; 100GP for 10th level also seems reasonable. This corresponds to the standards of living in the GMG.

There are four classes of item, ranging from simple, typical, high quality and complex, each has their own DC and their value per skill point:
Simple – DC10 – 1cp
Typical – DC20 – 2cp
High Quality – DC30 – 4cp
Complex – DC40 – 2sp

In place of the skill roll use the following table as the time multiplier:
+0 – x0.5 (add 0.05 to)
+10 – x1 (add 0.2 to)
+15 - x2 (add 0.4 to)
+20 – x4
The overall formula is Daily income = (Skill Score – Item DC) x (Value/Time)

With this system apprentices make the most money making simple items but can make typical items. Journeyman cannot make complex items but earn approximately the same (within 80% peak) for simple for typical items and less for high quality items. Master craftsmen make approximately the same making any kind of item. True experts with a skill bonus in excess of 30 makes more money on complex items.

I’ve still to work out masterwork, but I think increasing the DC by a multiplier of 1.5 and requiring a skill roll pick of 15 or more to simulate the extra time required. The earnings per day number should be slightly higher than the best normal item to make it worth the craftsman’s while to take on a commission over making their normal goods.

Working out how long it takes to make an item is a case of reversing the formulae so that the craftsman’s labour cost equals the item’s labour value (which is 2/3 the cost of an item) and then seeing how long it would take the craftsman to earn that much for making that type of item.

Inspired by this recent thread on levels compared to XP I've been considering reengineering several of the NPC classes for my campaign.

The basic premise is that Commoners=Peasants and Experts=Townsfolk and village craftsman and in both cases they earn on average 2 xp per day but their class increases do not increase their HP, BAB or saves. Effectively their skill ranks go up and they collect feats but their CR should remain unchanged. This should provide a greater skill range than then 1XP per day and consequently allow for the DCs for crafting etc to be higher.

Peasants should be tougher than townsfolk so peasants have 1d8 HP and townsfolk 1d6 HP. Peasants should be competent with one simple weapon and townsfolk with one light simple weapon. Townsfolk should only get 4 skill points instead of 6 and possibly a smaller range of class skills

Either class can also train as a militia, the XP rate halves but they gain levels as a warrior for BAB and saves but keeping their class skills and gaining either d8 or d6 for HP

Professional soldiery, such as town guards follow the fighter path instead of the warrior path or perhaps the rogue path using the extra skill points and class skills to make more of an investigative policeman watch style guard than a military force.

Aristocrat should be modified to be a more formidable class with good social skills and combat ability, maybe with some low level arcane or divine casting ability. Perhaps it should be recast as a prestige class requiring land ownership as a prerequisite?

I'll put some more thought into this but thought I would share and bounce ideas off of the community

Partly inspired by the forthcoming Advanced Class Guide, I've been considering banning multiclassing except for prestige classes and considering creating hybrid classes instead.

One of the more interesting ones is a Monk/Rogue hybrid with a little bit of barbarian thrown in. It would seem to be a good replacement for the 1e Thief-Acrobat and the D&D cartoon Acrobat as a thief replacement

Monks and rogues share the same HD, BAB and reflex saves, so that's easy. Then give the monk's Fort save (acrobats have to be fit) and the rogue's will save. Skills should be easy to identify as well and 6+Int seems a reasonable balance between the two.

Armour would probably be the same as a rogue's with mostly rogue weapons also used.

All of the rogue's specials are kept except for the sneak attack and the monk's fast movement and slow fall are added in. The rogue talents and monk bonus feats are merged and replaced with a set of feats/talents that are athletic in nature. Finally the barbarian's damage resistance is added in to simulate the acrobat's ability to roll with blows as a replacement for the monk's ac improvement.

The end result might be interesting as an adventuring character but would be weak in combat. To boost this I was considering a first level ability of an extra movement action being allowed. This would be constrained so that a character couldn't spend three actions moving but could double move and perform a standard action (like a spring attack)or move and do a full attack or do a double move and another move action such as getting something out of a backpack. I was also considering allowing their level to be added to their acrobatics rolls. This class would then still be weak in combat but would be expert at getting to enemy spellcasters.

Maybe as a 20th level capstone ability the acrobat would be able to feather fall or blink several times a day as an immediate action.

Thoughts, feedback, discussion most gratefully received.

It seems that Pathfinder is designed with characters accruing a certain level of wealth that is then traded for access to magic items which ehance the character's abilities. This in turn leads to well stocked magical department stores appearing in every hamlet and village.

I find the whole idea of 'ye olde magic shop' jarring. To me, magical items, particularly permanent items should be rarities and prized possessions of the elite few. The sale of such an item should be as significant as the sale of a major piece of art. If a character obtains one, they should consider themselves fortunate and a boon rather than consider their character unplayable without items x,y and z.

Similarly , is constraining the character's wealth so tightly a good thing? If they cannot routinely buy magical items, they will look to spend it on something else tangible. This could be an army, castles, churches, towns, or influence. These are expensive undertakings that bring the player's attention into the wider game world rather than just their own character's development as a monster-destroying, treasure gathering powerhouse.

If the financial shackles are loosened and the access to magical items is restricted then it becomes the GM's responsibility to ensure appropriate magical items are available during the course of the adventure/campaign.

As a GM, I find it rewarding when the players take an interest in the wider game world and put their decisions into context rather than just a personal score and I believe the players find the game more immersive and enjoyable as a result as well. Am I wrong? Are most players primarily interested in developing their characters and the game world is just abackdrop, do most GM's just prefer to play the adventure and are uninterested in developing the world?

PS Sorry if the title and the subject are different, I think I digressed slightly

My campaign has an evil 5th level cleric with uber stats (straight 18's) and plenty of magical items, so I'm estimating him at CR8. He runs a small army including a pack of ghouls. He has the command undead feat and magic items to supplement his ability but tends not to need them as he keeps the ghouls regularly fed and they appreciate the easy meals, healing etc.

A day's travel away there is an abandoned copper mine, which is the home of a wraith.

When the (large low level) party encounter the cleric I expect them to win but I also expect the cleric and few of his followers to escape. I'm tempted to have them head to the wraith's lair and seek refuge there but I'm not sure whether this is in-game realistic.

Would the wraith tolerate or cooperate with an evil cleric or would its hatred of all living things override any form of willing cohabitation? If it did willingly cooperate what sort of bargain would need to be struck? My thought was that the cleric would have to provide many sacrifices, but this would in turn produce many wraithspawn and suddenly my campaign is overrun by wraiths (which is highly undesirable). If it didn't willingly cooperate the evil cleric could command undead it with about a 50% success rate (DC16 v Will+6), which would be a somewhat risky proposition (and I don't fudge rolls for plot convenience).

What are your views?

Whilst I understand how bards work, I have a real difficulty visualising bards as part of an adventuring group.

I imagine a group walking along relatively quitely, exploring their way around an unknown dungeon/building/forest etc and occasionally entering into situations where all the party members are fighting for their lives against foes who are equally committed to living. Having one member of the group standing to one size singing an encouraging ditty or playing his flute does not really sit well with that image.

In fact every time I think of a bard the lyrics to Monty Python's 'Brave Sir Robin Ran Away' spring to mind.

How do other people see them?

A low level (levels 1-2) party is searching a ruined fort on a small island in a reasonably fast moving river(the fort effectively fills the island) and have distrubed a group of bandits. Rather than risk combat the bandits have snuck out over some stepping stones formed from a collapsed wall in the room they were in and are crossing the swamp the other side.

The party have seen the bandits escaping. Movement across the swamp is slow as it is difficult terrain and there are several areas of quicksand in the swamp, also the bandits have trapped the stepping stones so that most will tip, dumping the pursuer in the river.

From this pursuit isn't really an option unless the bandits can be slowed which given the party level is most likely through missile fire. I'm expecting the PCs to use missile fire from the fort and the bandits to use cover to snipe in return. One or two PCs may attempt to sneak into the swamp to melee with the bandits.

Given stealth and concealment will be a major part of this encounter and it will be over quite a large scale how would you run it? In particular how would you handle the characters not knowing where the bandits are and avoid metagaming? The same goes in reverse for the GM not metagaming sneaking players.

There have been many threads on this forum that boil down to the Wizard is the best class, rogues suck, spell casters are better than martial characters etc.

Spell casters in particular and some of the other classes have powerful abilities that can only be used a limited number of times per day and are generally weak when those abilities aren't used. Whilst the martial and skill based classes have abilities that can be used whenever required, but those abilities aren't as powerful as the limited use abilities.

The guidelines for structuring encounters seem to average on 25% of the party's resources being drained in an average encounter, which follows that there should be an average of 4 encounters a day. Knowing and expecting this (i.e. metagaming) allows the limited use abilities to be used relatively freely. But if there were a lot more weaker encounters then the limited use abilities would have to be carefully rationed in case there's a hard encounter next. This would allow the martial and skill based classes to shine more. This could be further enhanced by setting the overall sum of expected daily encounters to be 120-150% of the party resources. The players would need to play smarter, conserve their resources and pick and choose which encounters they engage in and which they retreat from.

I really like some aspects of the kingdom building rules in Kingmaker but hate the magic item economy and with the help of some other 3rd party rules have been creating some alternatives. This is an outline of what I've been doing.

Each 12 mile hex can have one settlement and each hex has four natural resources.

The Kingmaker 3x3 city grid is a good way to represent a city and its buildings, but for me I changed the population per square from 250 to 100. Each square can have up to 4 buildings (as per kingmaker rules) but also, each populated square represents 1 unit of Human Resources.

A human resource unit can be allocated to work a natural resouce, build improvements, be the watch, patrol roads or be the army.

The basic economic considers that a natural resource is extracted, processed and then crafted into a finished product that is then consumed. Taking a single city grid square as a self supporting entity, the population harvests the resource [lets assume it is wheat grain], one building processes it [e.g. a mill turns it to flour], a second building crafts the processed goods [e.g. a baker bakes bread]and a third building consumes it [I've repurposed houses as this building, but contradict this example with food later]. The fourth building square can then be used for something else, such as a chapel or an inn. Each building can convert or consume 1 unit per month.

Back to resources - a natural resource may be worked to produce more than one unit, in fact this is necessary to enable things other than food to be produced. For my purposes I divided the resources up into Common, Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare and then gave an abundancy for each resource ranging from 1 to 5 units per month. With common items being more abundant than rare items. The resulting tables are then balanced so that 1 unit of human resources produces on average 300GP worth of natural resources. 300GP is based on 100 workers earning 3GP, enough to live a poor lifestyle. The cost of the natural resource can then be worked out (I don't have my notes with me unfortunately) but say the average for common goods was for 3 trade units to be produced per month then the cost of a trade unit of common raw materials would be 100GP.

I consider the average craftsmen to live an average lifestyle, 10GP per month. According to the craft skill 1/3 of the cost of a finished good is the raw materials, assuming no wasted material. This would mean to earn 10GP he would need to to buy 5GP of processed material and sell it at 15GP. Now the labourer who gathered the raw material has sold it for 3GP to be processed. The labourer doing the processing should also earn at least 3GP, so the processed materials cost the craftsman 6GP instead of 5GP. This extra GP can be assumed to be material wastage but the price is added to the cost of the finished goods, which are now 16GP not 15GP, but to keep things simple on a macro scale a striaght x3 multiplier of the raw material cost is simpler, so the goods are worth 18GP. Scaling the individual income out into trade units, our 100GP common raw material was processed into 200GP worth of grain and became 600GP worth of bread.

Each city grid square required 1 unit of food per month so a house isn't required to consume it. This frees up houses and similar buidings to consume non food goods (this was my earlier contradiction with hosues and food).

With this model, small settlements - up to 4 city grid squares - will be able to work the land and produce a raw material surplus but they won't have the building space to process and craft all that they produce. Larger settlements will be able to convert resources but won't be able to support themselves.

Building materials and human resources would be required to build additional buildings.

Other finished items would be required to keep the population happy. More on this later .

Goods tend to travel from small settlements to larger settlements. So a group of settlements are expected to form around a city. To simplify things a city and it's surrounding settlements should be considered one entity to work out the overall supply and demand of goods. This sets the market price as opposed to the base price. Again I don't have my notes so forget the formulae used to stimulate prices.

Cities within two week's travel may trade [two week's allows travel there and back in one month]. Merchant shops and similar buildings (as opposed to craftsmen) are required to import goods from neighbouring cities. If a neighbouring city has a good then a demand for 1 unit is created in the city.

As well as supply and demand, trade is affected by the capacity of the roads and the safety of the road. E.g. a track could carry 10 units a month, a road 100 and a highway 1000. Similarly water travel could be accommodated with a wharf, jetties and a port coping with 10, 100 and a 1000 units per month. Each hex has a safety rating based on the settlement size, frequency of patrol and area safety, which declined thre further away from the city (and civilisation) a hex became. The profitability of the trade multiplied by the risk factor gave a likelhood of the trade happening.

Taxation can be set against any of the income and this is what is earned, produced resources are spent feeding the population, creating and maintaing buildings and supplying the watch and army. The rest of the produced goods are consumed by houses. Unless a good is consumed or exported it cannot be taxed.

The lower classes would be unhappy if there was a food shortage and if there was a loss of control then the human resources would not be available.

The middle classes would always be able to get food but would be unhappy based on taxation and if there was a loss of control the buildings would stop working.

The upper classes would always be able to get food and pay tax but would be unhappy if they were unable to get the variety of goods and a loss of control would prevent edicts or executive actions from being passed or actioned.

I know it looks like a lot but my eventual aim is to setup a computer program to run every month, which will give a fuller game world without requiring a lot of effort on my behalf.

Scenario: A party of 8 is travelling through a swamp and are surprise attacked by a group of desperately hungry giant frogs. There are 3 small characters in the party and there are 2 medium size frogs and 5 small size frogs. The small frogs have a higher initiative score than the medium size frogs.

Given that the frogs have an intelligence score of 1 I believe they would be largely instinctual, to that end:

Q1: Would the small frogs wait for the 2 larger frogs or go as soon as they saw an opportunity?
- Is there dominance in the frog family/army?
- Would the ambush be triggered as soon as one party member was in range or would they wait?

Q2: How would you decide which frog attacked which party member?
- Would larger frogs attack the same target as smaller frogs?
- Would smaller frogs attack the same target?
- Would a weaker frog (size then HP to determine) cede prey to a larger frog, or would they attack together or would they fight each other for the prey?

Q3: If a party member that was too big to be swallowed whole was killed what would the frog do?
- Would it leave it's meal and attack a new one or consume it's prey there and then or drag it's meal to a safe distance and then eat it?

Q4: How would you adjudicate it eating a creature it couldn't swallow whole?
- I would take biting off and swallowing a chunk as a full round action similar to a coup de grace and provoking AoO from others. A small frog could bite a tiny chunk, with there being 2 tiny chunks to one small chunk and two small chunks to a medium chunk.

Q5: What would other frogs do if one was eating a meal that was too big for it?
- Would they try and take the whole meal for themselves or would they share?
- Would they disengage from their current target to eat the easy meal?
- If they have already eaten would they keep eating new prey?

Q6: What would change if frogs were vermin, with an intelligence of 0 instead of animals?

I'm allowing a player who is playing a 3rd level serpentine sorcerer to rescue a king cobra and for that creature to become his familiar in place of the adder they gain at 3rd level.

I've required the player to take Boon companion as their 3rd level feat and require Improved familiar to be taken as their 5th level feat. There was an excellent suggestion in a previous thread about allowing the sorcerer to take leadership and having the snake become their cohort. If I allowed that then the creature would have class levels, if you were the player how would you build the creature up?

To start the creature is a giant advanced venomous snake, except it is also a magical beast with an intelligence of 6, an additional +1 natural armour bonus and has the other abilities associated with a 1st level wizards.

A Serpentine sorcerer is approaching level 3 when the party is asked to kill a King Cobra (a Giant Advanced Venomous Snake). The player wants to rescue the king cobra instead and in the interim gains enough experience through one minor encounter to level up.

The snake encounter could now be easily resolved through the sorcerer's serpentfriend ability and high diplomacy skill. The player would really like to adopt the snake as his familiar that he also gains with the serpentfriend ability. The player is willing to spend the feat on improved familiar and will work with me to make it work.

By RAW and game balance the King Cobra is far too powerful to be a familiar, especially at level 3 - by level 7 it might be more reasonable but still debateable. On the other hand, by the rules, the sorcerer could handle animal (he has taken ranks) and can speak to the cobra and it would be friendly. So it would be reasonable to allow it to be trained and for it to be handled as a free action as it can be spoken to.

I would like to find a way to make it work, because in terms of the story it's very cool and it is a great fit for the character, any suggestions?

I tend to run campaigns where magic items are something special, largely relics from a bygone era, the technqiues for creation having been lost and are slowly being rediscovered. The existing item creation feats didn't feel that they gave any flavour to the world so I've started creating some new ones.

Essentially there are three branches to the tree, covering charges, single or multi-purpose and power level.

The feats are:
Personal Single Use (replaces Scribe Scroll): allows the individual to create single use items that are activated through spell completion or spell trigger, the item is consumed on use.

Universal Single Use (replaces Brew Potion)[Prerequisite:Personal Single Use]: allows the individual to create single use items that can be activated by any means but is consumed on use.

Charged Use (replaces Craft Wands) [Prerequisite: Personal Single Use]: allows the individual to create items charged with a single spell or effect using the trigger mechanisms learned in the single use feats.

Permanent Effect Binding [Prerequisites: Universal Single Use, Charged Use]: allows the individual to create items with a single spell or effect using any trigger mechanism.

Multiple Effect Binding [Prerequisite: Charged Use]: allows the individual to create charged [or permanent if Permanent Effect known] items with multiple spells or effects. Prior to unlocking this secret, the creator was unable to bind more than one effect to an item.

Medium Item Creation [Prerequisite: Charged Use]: allows the individual to craft medium magical items, before this only minor items could be crafted.

Major Item Creation [Prerequisite: Medium Item Creation]: allows the individual to craft major magical items, before this only minor and medium items could be crafted.

There's obviously still some work to get through to assign apprporiate levels and to sort out some of the differences - I know Scribe Scroll could be used to scribe 9th level spells, which this system won't allow (but I don't intend to prevent Wizards who choose not to create items from scribing 9th level spells).

The intention is to give more variety in low power one shot items but make the crafting of powerful items something that a wizard should dedicate themselves towards, I may consider giving the feats as bonuses as the result of adventure or navigating through organisations (from v3.5 PHB2)

Thoughts, ideas etc most welcome :-)