After a fun but difficult first year as VC I'm stepping down to join the illustrious ranks of VLs, specifically as VL of Copenhagen.

Replacing me is Leó Páll Hrafnsson, former VL of Reykjavík, Iceland. Leó has been instrumental in maintaining and growing Iceland lodge in my absence and his promotion is well deserved.

I wish Leó the best of luck and I'm confident that he will make Iceland lodge even more awesome than it is.

Iceland lodge is 1 year old today!

I don't know how but somehow the little lodge that could is growing up. This couldn't have been done without the help of my pretty damn awesome VLs, Ásgeir and Leó as well the core group of GMs, Þórarinn, Villi, Brynjar and Birita and all the lovely players... and of course Mike Brock.

And to celebrate we held a game-day (but of course!).

Black Chicken Studios is finalizing their kickstarter for Holdfast, an old school choose your path gamebook of Dwarves and vengeance!

From their kickstarter description: "Holdfast is an adventure gamebook for Print, Android, Mac and PC, following in the tradition of the old '80s and '90s greats: Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy, Tolkien Quest and Fabled Lands. Taking up your ancestral weapons, you'll choose your path to reclaim your homeland through orc-legions, hidden grudges, and nameless horrors from the Deeps. You will delve, expand your fortress and confront a mighty army, if you have the mettle it takes to hold the realms of old."

Additionally they are offering rewards that are fully Pathinder OGL compatible.

I want to take a moment to introduce the new Venture Lieutenant for Iceland, Léó Páll Hrafnsson. To begin with he will cover the metropolitan area of Reykjavík with VL Ásgeir Helgi. Later we will try and expand into the towns of Keflavík and Selfoss with him in the lead.

Leó is one of the "oldest" PFS players in Iceland. He was the first player to show an interest in our games aside from Ásgeir and my home group which I dragged to game days to play up attendance. His enthusiasm and support has been invaluable and I fully expect him to be a huge boon for the Icelandic PFS community as he has been until now.

Welcome Leó!

Pathfinders!

Tidings (and introductions) from the Icelandic lodge.

Hi! I’m Júlíus, the new Venture Captain for Iceland. Friends call me Júlli though and I’d encourage you to do so as well (us Northerners don’t stand on ceremonies). I’m a student, doing two Masters degrees: one in Scottish literature at the University of Iceland and the other in Library and Information Science at the IVA in Copenhagen.

That’s where I was introduced to PFS, in Copenhagen that is. I moved there last fall so that I could be closer to my son (who had moved there with my ex) but also to study library and information science. I didn’t really know anyone in Denmark; I left my gaming group of 11 years in Iceland when I moved (we started playing 3.0 back when it was first published) to Denmark which left me in a nasty predicament. I didn’t have anyone to roll some dice with!

I asked around in Fantask, arguably the best gaming store in Denmark, and they pointed me to PFS. After a quick email exchange with Diego Winterborg, then Venture-Captain for Denmark, I sat down with the local PFS group (with Diego as GM) and played Defenders of Nesting Swallow.

After that I couldn’t stop. I loved (still do) meeting new people, sharing crazy stories about characters and their exploits and most importantly I love the sense of community in the Pathfinder Society. I was accepted immediately by Diego and the rest of the truly awesome players in Denmark. They made me feel at home in a foreign city.

That’s why, when I had to go back home to Iceland for the summer I asked Diego if he could give me some pointers on how to set up the Society back home. He gave me some good advice (and posters) over a few beers and wished me good luck.

I figured that I would enlist my local (and only) game store to help, set up a few games and at most convince my friends to join me for a few games.

Well, things kinda snowballed. After a month of a few home games and a couple of store games (including a hilarious We Be Goblins Free RPG day session) I had a few people interested. Then a bit more, and after that just a little more than a few. Last night, my last PFS game in Iceland for a while, we had two tables playing Rise of the Goblin Guild (one TPK!), ten players in total.

What’s exciting to me though is that now I have GMs willing to step up and GM once a month. That means that the Icelandic lodge will have a steady schedule of at least two games a month. As soon as the new Venture Lieutenant, Ásgeir Hjaltalín, has settled down a bit he’ll start helping out as well.

Our plan includes a PFS stash box for GMs that includes printed scenarios (to encourage more players to GM), flip-mats, markers, a binder with rules for haunts and other more uncommon rules and Bestiary Pawns. We are also planning a PFS/Warmachine Con next summer as well as smaller game days (aside from the regular schedule).

With 15-20 players after just under three months we’re off to a roaring start and I have every faith that the groundwork laid down by me, Ásgeir and our fantastic players will ensure that the Icelandic lodge will grow and prosper while I’m in Denmark rolling dice with the Viking Lodge players.

And while I will not personally be in Iceland while I’m finishing my studies I will oversee the day to day operations via a complex network of underground spies. Like Grandmaster Torch, I have eyes and ears everywhere.

I'm excited about the future of the Icelandic lodge and I hope that I can roll some dice with you guys sometime in the future.

The title says it all. I played some Pathfinder with him and a few from my group tonight; he was my animal companion, Pooh Bear who went on a quest for honey (was successful too).

After it was done and he went to bed he asked me if he could look at the CRB as a "bed time story".

Awesome.

I was reviewing my chronicles to put them in order and I noticed that under the sessions tab I received two prestige points for We Be Goblins. When I tried to change it I couldn't find any way of amending the prestige total for GMs. Do GMs get two prestige points always despite what the guide says (in this case the guide says that We Be Goblins gives 1 PP)?

If I GM a scenario (after the new guide comes into effect) that I've previously played and apply that chronicle to the same character do I now get the boons as a GM as well?

Furthermore, if my character is now at a higher tier (was tier 1-2 now 4-5) does he then take the tier 4-5 boon?

I wanted to share with out how some of the names in the scenarios can be pretty hilarious here in Iceland. This isn't to come down on the names themselves but rather just for fun.

Sverrir, the chick in Frostfur Captives gave us a good laugh when we played the scenario and we couldn't quite keep that part serious. Why? Sverrir is a common male name in Iceland.

Akkuret in the Dalsine Affair. When pronounced it sounds remarkably similar to "akkurat" the icelandic word for precisely.

How about non-english speaking countries. Have you found names like this?

I have an interesting situation that I need some advice on. One of the regulars at the store games I run wants to bring his girlfriend in as a spectator. Or rather, she's visiting him from overseas and they want to spend time together but he wants to play as well.

So he told me today that he wants to play but that she doesn't, she just wants to sit there and watch.

Now I don't know this girl and don't know how she'll affect the dynamic at the table, so I'm hesitant to say no (also for the very real reason that it might encourage her to play), but at the same time I'm worried that she might prove a distraction, for him, the other players and me.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

I tried searching for an answer in the forums but I didn't find anything so here it goes: I have a 4th lvl character that I've been applying GM credit to (he also has player credit). Last weekend I GM'd the Dalsine Affair for a group at sub-tier 1-2. Now since the character I have (and would apply this credit to) is 4th lvl do I attach a sub-tier 4-5 chronicle to him?

As far as I understand the Guide you only apply credit to a lower tier if the GM character is between tiers, otherwise you apply it to the most appropriate sub-tier available to the character in question?

Once, eons ago, I found the PFS Fast Play guide here on the boards. I'd like to put it up on the PFS Iceland website for players to use, but obviously I want to attribute the document to its creator and if possible link it to the original website.

Does anyone know where it came from? My google-fu has failed my for the first time in a long time (I blame Kyle Baird, I don't know how or why but I suspect he's behind this).

I have a "novel" problem that I would appreciate getting some help on. A 14 year old kid with ADD and hyperactivity has just contacted me for an upcoming store game (Murder on the Throaty Mermaid) with a very sincere wish to play.

Now to make it absolutely clear I don't have any problem with letting a 14 year old play at the table. My problem is that I've never really GM'd kids before, not to mention kids with ADD. Do you fine GM's have any pointers? I really want to make it an enjoyable experience for the guy but I don't want to just focus on him (that is to say, I want the other players to get the spotlight as well).

Also, should I ask his parents to give me a ring/send email? I only ask this because, well, they might want to at least know who's running the game and so on.

So I have a question about the magus. Can a magus (say fourth level) use spell combat to attack once with his primary weapon, then use spellstrike to channel a spell through his weapon and attack, while casting the spell defensively?

I'm restarting an old 3.5 Faerun campaign and one of my players was a Fighter/Tempest. He expressed some interest in retaining the TWF progression from that class (i.e. he didn't like the TWF Figther archetype) so I set out to retool the old Tempest prestige class.

Using that as an opportunity to bring the class more in line with the flavor of the campaign (Weeping War, Mythals, lost weapon shards, demons, elves etc) I decided to rename the class Mythal Tempest and have the flavor closer to that of an elite elven warrior band dedicated to defending the Mythals (and perhaps somehow affected by the Mythals).

I did a quick conversion here, and would like to hear some suggestions, advice and critique.

Any takers?

So, I'm a new PFS GM and with a few games (store and home) under my belt now I feel confident that things are moving in the right direction. My rules-fu is getting stronger with each game, I'm finding ways to be better prepared and overall my GM-fu is stronger than it was before I started PFS GM-ing. The various GM threads here (Painlord I'm looking at you) have been particularly helpful.

But the biggest problem facing me today is that the games usually run longer. In fact most games run over by an hour or so. While that isn't such a catastrophe for home games it is problematic for store games, though so far the store games I've run have been held where time isn't such an issue.

Now however, the games are moving over to Sundays when my local store is only open from 13-17, meaning that the games simply cannot run longer.

What can I do to speed things up without ruining the game experience?

Just got word today that I was accepted as a tenant in my sons neighborhood. Now I can finally share custody, equally, with his mom!

*whoops with joy*

So I ran the scenario yesterday and one thing popped up that's confusing me to no ends. In the scenario after each encounter there's a listing of the amount of gold the PC's get. When you tally that up it adds nicely to Max Gold amount, but only if they didn't find the pouch containing 30 gp on the kobold in area 11 and the pouch with mixed coins (worth 100gp) in area 5. If they find that pouch they go over the max gold limit to a total of 549 gp.

Additionally there are gems and other valuables (I'm thinking the opal Maurit Zergo carries and the gold crown on the skeleton in area 5, both of which add up to 500gp) that if the PC's find them and then sell for half price increases the Max Gold value in the scenario to an additional 250 gp making it seem to me that the total treasure value is actually 380gp more (30 for kobold gold pouch, 100 for skeleton pouch and 250 for selling value of the two valuables).

I'm very confused by this. Should I have let the players get the additional gold (and/or valuables which they could've then sold) or? How is additional treasure/valuables/gold handled?

Signed,
One confused newbie GM.

I have some questions about what happened at tonight's We Be Goblins game.

Unfortunately the party suffered a TPK. A misfired Skyrocket, a hard hitting swarm and Lord Longtongue were all particularly devastating. To make matters worse this was the first PFS (home) game for two players and the second one for the other two.

In all honesty I tried to avert it. Vorka stayed out of the fight, using only summon swarm for that one time and then two summon nature's ally to summon ponies (which did next to nothing, but scared the players because they were horses) and a single dart. Still they went down rather quickly.

Fortunately they were all cool with it and enjoyed the session, but after sleuthing around the forums for a bit now (mostly to see if WBG is really this lethal) I saw a number of posts encouraging GM's to award xp, pp or gold for player deaths if said player was new. All done in order to encourage players to come back and not leave with a sour experience.

I personally don't have anything against that. In a home game I'd be tempted to do it that way. But I didn't give them xp, pp or gold because they all died. And because as a new GM to the Society I'm particularly sensitive to trying to follow the rules so everything is fair, and indeed fun. Now I'm not so sure if that was right, "morally".

So, am I right in awarding nothing (except obviously the chance to buy the items they found for the character they select to receive the chronicle sheet)?

Also, when reporting the module, do I mark the "character died" box after putting in the player's Society number and associated character (the one that will receive the chronicle sheet)? Searching for answers on pregen character permadeath and what happens afterwards just confused me.

Just wanted to let anyone interested know (especially those who know Icelandic and are able to play in Reykjavík) that the PFS website for Iceland is up.

For those who don't speak Icelandic there's always google translate for added hilarity.

Edit for linkage.

Hi there,

I'm trying to introduce the Society here in Reykjavík over the summer and I'm looking for ideas for scenarios that can really hook new players.

I'm aware of the First Steps and do plan on running them at the local game store but I'm stumped for others ideas.

I have a sticky rules question that I can't for the life of me find the answer to.

If an summoner selects pincers for his bipedal eidolon, instead of the free claws evolution, are the pincers then classified as primary attacks instead of secondary or do they still count as secondary?

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm a bit too far down in the rules bog to see this clearly.

Halló!

I'm heading home (Reykjavík) for the summer from Copenhagen, and I want to see if there's any interest for Pathfinder Society Play in the Reykjavík area. Either home games or perhaps, if Nexus is interested, at their store in Hverfisgata.

I'll most likely GM, and I can handle all book-keeping that's involved with reporting/creating an event. It would be easiest to start with the "First Steps" series that introduces players to the Society but I know of a few cool scenarios that we could play as well.

Anyone interested?

I'm making an Ulfan character for a friend's campaign this summer and I want to make a Loki-like trickster but I can't really decide on a class or even a proper theme.

I'm considering a bard, but really any trick-related controlling magic user is fine.

We start at 1st lvl and the my stats are (in no particular order btw): 12, 16, 15, 9, 16, 7.

An interesting look at Wizard's view on the 5th edition.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for a fantastic time yesterday! Especially the organizers, our trusted Venture Captain and my table's GM Johnny.

And to the Horde of I(J)orion I'll say this: For the horde!

Hey,

I'm looking for a bi-weekly, or something to that effect, game in Copenhagen. Any system welcome. I can DM as well.

Yesterday I moved out. My gf (26) and I (26) have been going through a really bad year (2010) and we've reached the end. I moved out with the understanding that we are trying to fix the relationship, that it's only temporary. But I'm lost, I don't know what to do.

I'll give you a little background.

Up until little over a year ago we were doing good. We were proud parents (our son is 18 months old now), just moved in to a new apartment... life was good.

Then I started to feel disconnected from everything. I became very introverted and got easily pissed off if anything dragged me from my shell. I stayed up late, slept in, didn't help around the house... I was a ghost.

My gf had enough last February (of 2010 that is) and told me that she wanted to postpone our planned marriage indefinitely and was considering leaving me unless I made some drastic changes. We talked things over and decided that I should go see a therapist. I might be depressed.

Well I went and was diagnosed as being bi-polar, or manic-depressive. I immediately started therapy and gain some considerable headway. This summer was fantastic and in October I re-proposed and she said yes.

The trouble started this fall though. I lost my job and as a consequence we lost out apartment and were forced to move in with her mother (not the nicest of ladies). The stress, humiliation of losing my job/apartment strained our relationship and I, little by little slipped into ghost-form.

The depression really hit me and has plagued me seriously since late October. I considered suicide in November, but through some fantastic support I weathered that storm. But the damage was done. We had built a fortress around each other and were emotionally distant. She told me that she can't find within herself the empathy to help me through my ongoing depression, and because of my depression I can't really help her effectively with her panic attacks.

I did manage to land a new job and we moved into a good apartment just in time for Christmas but it was too late.

Like I said, we hope it's only temporary... and we both still consider ourselves in a relationship. But it's hard. Really damn hard. I love her and miss her immensely, not to mention my little boy who asks for me throughout the day.

I'm trying to use the time that I now have to better myself, to show her that I can be the man she fell in love with and not a needy ghost.

But I could really use some help.

I really need some help. According to ABC news the population of my country (Iceland) just droppped from around 300 thousand to a mere 2655. I don't know what happened to the rest of us but they're gone, just gone!

This is all the evidence that I have for what happened. It happens around 58 seconds into the video.

I'd really appreciate all the help I can get. I have to find the rest, the Viking language can't die!

Anyone?

I need some help. In my campaign, which we recently converted to Pathfinder from 3.5, my players are at 9th lvl.

According to the PHB 3.5 characters need to reach 45.000 xp in order to advance to 10th lvl. However, using the fastest xp progression in Pathfinder you need 71.000 xp to advance to 10th lvl.

I simply gave them an xp boost to compensate for this but I wonder if it that simple. I feel like I'm doing the encounters wrong now, that they should scale faster than before because the xp gap between levels has widened. Any thoughts?

I have a player in my game that wants to play a Paladin/Monk/Fighter. He's going to get Evasion that only works if you have no armor or light armor. However, he wants to wear full plate and is planning on getting Insightful Reflexes (can't remember what book that is in) which replaces dex with int for reflex saves.

Now I'm wondering if I should allow him to use evasion if he gets the feat. The reasoning being that he knows where ot place himself in order to avoid damage, instead of being quick enough. But really I'm not sure if that's justification enough, but I'm willing to be convinced which is why I'm asking for your advice.

No ideas? Anyone?