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You're overthinking this. Just make it 3/4 of the half-giant age limit in HerosBackpack's link and call it good. How likely is such a character to die of old age anyway?
Just remember that extra spells known is dependent on Intelligence still. "A scarred witch doctor uses Constitution instead of Intelligence when determining the highest level of spells she can cast, her spell save DCs, number of spells known at 1st level, and any effects of her hexes normally determined by her Intelligence."
Personally I wouldn't make a rogue with ranks in Sleight of Hand waste ranks on Profession (pickpocket), I'd just treat the Sleight of Hand as equivalent to a profession skill and allow her to "earn" money with it in her down time. If I were feeling mischievous I might even hint that the take could be increased, if the player were willing to risk a run-in with the law. . . Back in the D&D 3.x days there were skill synergies which granted a +2 bonus on one or more skills if you had at least 5 ranks in a related skill, but PF did away with them (I think wisely although I'm sure not everyone agrees) so I'd caution against house-ruling them back in without playing by RAW for a while. Pathfinder already made skills more accessible in many cases by combining formerly separate skills from 3.x into a single skill, e.g. Perception encompasses what used to be Spot, Listen and Search, Acrobatics encompasses the old Balance, Jump and Tumble etc.
Sorry, the familiar neither casts spells nor uses hexes. It can deliver touch spells that the witch casts, or use its natural weapons, but honestly it's usually best to keep it out of combat as it's very fragile and having it get killed is a moderate to severe inconvenience. For the most part it's just a walking spellbook with a few neat incidental uses.
May I ask why the creature wants to do that? If it has natural slam attacks but has chosen to wield a weapon, I'd assume it did so because the weapon is superior to it's natural attack. Otherwise, why would it bother? At any rate I don't really smell any cheese here so I think it should be possible. You'd just flavor the attack as striking with the pommel/haft of the weapon (but not claiming any special benefit from enchantment or materials), or the back of the hand, elbow etc. Heck, you could even call it a head-butt.
I generally recommend giving NPCs a small percentage of the loot found. While not as large as a share earned by a player, a small amount should be acceptable (5-10%) Why would an NPC accept such an arrangement, assuming they faced the same risks as the PCs did? Do they see themselves as inferior to the PCs? Do they have "NPC" tattooed on their foreheads? If a PC died and the player took over the NPC as his new character would the 5-10% deal continue? That sort of thing seems very metagamey to me.
If the NPC functions as a party member they should usually get a full share, unless there's some sort of extenuating circumstance (e.g. they're accompanying the party to repay a favor or because the party is acting on their behalf in the first place, or they've been hired or ordered to go along by an interested third party etc.). If the NPC does get a full share, however, the GM should adjust both the difficulty and rewards to reflect the party's power with the extra member included. If they're more of a guide or helper who accompanies the party but doesn't enter dungeons/encounter areas with them then they should just be paid a fixed fee for their services, either by the PCs themselves or by whomever the PCs are helping/working for. Of course if the party cares about their reputation they should also provide such NPCs with healing etc. as needed and, in the worst case scenario, make every effort to return their remains (and belongings!) to their families.
Unless you're compulsively stealing all that stuff you describe--in-game and IRL--you're not a kleptomaniac, you're a hoarder. I am not a psychiatrist or therapist but I'm pretty sure there are effective therapies and/or medications available if the hoarding is becoming an impediment to living the life you want.
Several of the more recent stories haven't actually featured a spoken line of any kind, which was what the OP was looking for. Just saying. . . Years ago our mostly evil party approachred a city that appeared to be half destroyed and abandoned while the other half seemed to be mostly intact and inhabited. We naturally chose to enter through a closed but unguarded gate (easily breached) on the uninhabited side. The courtyard immediately beyond he gate was filled with stakes, and upon each stake a person was impaled. Most of them were dead already, but as my character--a war-priest of Ares--rode through the grisly scene an old woman on one stake opened her eyes, looked at him and asked "my daughter. . . is she still alive?". Without missing a beat, my PC turned his head to scan the forest of impaled bodies and asked "which stake is she on?". At that, the old woman let out an anguished groan and expired.
The best example I have is that I was bullied for having red hair. I've only recently learned just how bad red haired people can have it.
In 1st edition however the amount of money was different so it did not take that long to be able to buy one. Really? In the 1st edition games I played in magic items were almost never available to purchase, and on those very rare occasions when they were you could only choose from a limited list pre-determined by the DM.
Herolab has bugs. True, but they're very good about fixing them if you submit a bug report through Lone Wolf's HL - Pathfinder Roleplaying Game forum. I've submitted several and they've all been addressed within the next couple of updates thereafter.
I had a situation with my friends when they came to Fort Thorn which was attacked by Red Drakes, and the Ranger asked for a perception check to is if there is someone on the main building ( Town hall which was 15 meters high) and he rolled a 20, but since in reality it wasn't possible to see Sir Tolgrith who was on the ground wounded off the Town Hall's tower, I told to the Ranger that he didn't saw anything or anybody on the tower of the Town Hall. That situation would make the PCs to think about, since a Paladin was in the group, if Sir Tolgrith really fought on top of the Town Hall or was he hiding cowardly. But unfortunately after the attack, the Paladin made a bad judgement and slapped and punched Sir Tolgrith because he thought that Sir Tolgrith was hiding cowardly inside the Town Hall, but in fact Sir Tolgrith was in the battle before the PCs came, and he was struck by a fireball and was badly wounded. And then the arguing about paladin code started... That paladin behaved dishonorably. Suspicion does not equal proof; if he suspected Sir Tolgrith of cowardice it might be acceptable to question him--privately--on his whereabouts during the battle, but if he says he fought and was badly wounded by a fireball (which, if true, should be abundantly evident from his injuries/burns and singed clothing) and the circumstances are such that he could be telling the truth then the paladin should be honor bound to take him at his word. Only if he caught Sir Tolgrith red handed avoiding combat would it be appropriate to accuse him publicly of cowardice. In this instance Sir Tolgrith would be well within his rights to demand satisfaction for such an insult. Whether it would be wise for him to do so is a different question, of course.
Maybe they really hate them.Cleave and Cleaving Finnish. You can potentially get 3 attacks at level 3 if you are human. Please note 'potentially'.Why would anyone ever choose a feat that affects only one nationality? Possible, although personally I've never met anyone who hates Finns. They say familiarity breeds contempt, however, so perhaps I would have if I lived in Norway, Sweden or Russia.
Sounds a lot like Erevis Cale from Paul Kemp's books based in the D&D FR setting. I'm not familiar with that one, but the thread title immediately made me think of Father Gomez from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, a priest who is granted "preemptive absolution" by his church before being sent to murder the trilogy's protagonist. Of course in that setting the priests of the Magisterium had no spellcasting ability so in Pathfinder terms he would probably have been a rogue or one of the spell-less ranger archetypes.
That sounds like an excuse to repost this, which many of you have probably already seen before. I really miss The Brunching Shuttlecocks, that site was excellent.
Aren't Zorses smaller than even a Pony? It's surprisingly hard to find that information online, but according to this a zorse's size is determined by the size of the mare that is bred to the zebra stallion, and will be about the size of a normal horse of her breed.
Or how about a friendly dwarven merchant and his simpleminded son (who just happens to have an uncanny knack for crafting), who show up with their wagon wherever the party makes camp, ready to buy unneeded loot, sell useful items, pass along rumors and even help the party upgrade their equipment. . .
. . . a town that was having a spring/summer festival where many games were being played. Unfortunately, he had not thought through a potential game list, and so just started rattling off different games going on. Somehow curling made the list. Needless to say, the PCs all wanted to go curling at the festival, and so he had to make up the mechanics for curling on the fly. Curling at a spring/summer festival? Magical ice?
I'd start by not looking up monsters your PC is going to face between sessions. Does your GM know you did that? Many GMs would consider that cheating. Making in-character knowledge checks, consulting sages, libraries etc. are all valid ways of getting that information. Searching the bestiary to learn things your PC doesn't know is metagaming.That said, I'd load up on things like protection from energy (acid) and other spells to defend or buff your party, since targeting the dragon with spells that allow saves and/or resistance is not likely to be very effective.
My bad, I thought you were the person advocating 1 hp minions for sentries, sorry. He was, but that was his approach #1 (cinematic).
It depends on the situation and the GM. Back in the AD&D 2e days we suffered a TPK in a long-running campaign and the DM decided to capture us instead. We woke up in a cramped underground cell only to be taunted by a feeble looking goblin jailer: "I am Cracktooth. You are my prisoners hehehehehe!" etc. It was a wonderful bit of comic relief bantering with this obviously low-status goblin who'd been handed a tiny bit of power over the pathetic captured adventurers and was letting it go to his head. Eventually we killed poor old Cracktooth, escaped the cell and animated his corpse to use as a trap-triggering scout. We slowly cleared the tunnels of goblins, at first using only our few remaining spells and Cracktooth's club to defend ourselves, and eventually found the storeroom where our gear had been stashed. Low on HP and out of spells, we started slamming unidentified potions (mind, this was AD&D where mixing potions could have serious consequences, but we were desperate). This garnered us a few HP and a couple of useful buffs, and eventually we found our way out of the goblin lair, a bit poorer and a bit wiser than when we fell in battle. I still tell the tale of poor Cracktooth to each new group I game with when the subject of memorable NPCs comes up. So, being captured can be a good alternative to death if handled deftly by a good GM.
Indeed. Actually I've heard fellow gamers relate stories almost exactly like that, but I suspect they were apocryphal. That probably happened once, and the tale has been passed around the gaming community as a "friend of a friend" story ever since.
I don't know if you'd consider this powerful, but it granted a power that remained useful throughout a long-running AD&D 2e campaign: Early on, like second level, our party found an unidentifiable magic ring. Nobody had Identify (or it failed, I can't recall which) so we tried all the usual tests; tried to fly, jumped off a 10' roof, tried to become invisible etc. but couldn't figure out what it did. My PC took it anyway and wore it constantly, figuring it's function would eventually be revealed. At some point my character and one other were hiding in some bushes watching a group of enemies pass along a road. At some sudden inspiration she'd had, the other character whispered to mine "Oh, I wish I had the power of telekinesis!", to which my character replied "well I wish I had that power too, but. . ." and suddenly realized that he did, in fact, now possess the power of telekinesis. The ring had been a Ring of One Wish.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "funhouse dungeon"? Funhouse as in the sort of thing you see at carnivals? I'm not particularly worried about it seeming redundant. The campaign will be resuming after a hiatus of several months so the events of the Vivified Labyrinth will not be too fresh in the players' minds.
B.T.W., there is a forum for CotCT. :) I know, but what I really need is just any level appropriate module, preferably set in or relocatable to Varisia. I felt that if I put it in the CotCT folder some people who could provide useful suggestions might not see it. Edited to add: And ironically, after I posted that some mod decided to move it to the CotCT folder anyway. . .
When my group went through this the archer ranger with giants as his favored enemy absolutely tore through the opposition, but YMMV I suppose.
Both of these suggestions are bad advice IMO. The relative merits of blaster wizards vs controllers/buffers have been discussed to death here already (spoiler: blasters lose out), and ranged rogues suck hard. I do agree with those who suggest that the GM should allow/encourage the rogue to re-spec for greater combat effectiveness and survivability, however.
I've been GMing Curse of the Crimson Throne for a group of 5 players and they just completed Escape from Old Korvosa at 7th level. I haven't been using XP, I just tell them to level up when I see them starting to have a bit too much trouble with the encounters (which I adjust somewhat to account for the switch from 3.5 to Pathfinder). I was a bit concerned about how they would fare in the Vivified Labyrinth being somewhat behind the expected level, but they easily defeated the darksphynx and wisely avoided fighting Vimanda (who'd had to abandon her Vencarlo disguise as they'd already rescued him) or Bahor, settling instead for just saving Vencarlo and Neolandus and leaving town. Actually the escape was a bit more complicated than I've indicated; Vimanda tricked the party into teleporting themselves into the cells in the torture chamber but they quickly escaped, killed the Beatific One and freed the Seneschal from the rack. (As an aside: a neat thing happened while they were boarding the barge to leave the Arkonas' dungeon. The giant reefclaw attacked and badly wounded one of the PCs, but Majenko the pseudodragon--whom one of the characters had taken as a cohort--attacked it and got a crit with his stinger, and it rolled a natural 1 on its poison save and sank unconscious back under the surface, ending the fight in round one!) Anyway, the campaign is on hiatus now while one of the other players runs us through the first two chapters of Kingmaker, but I'll be resuming CotCT in a few months with the start of History of Ashes. I get the impression that even though they'll be 8th level by that point it might not be enough as 10th level seems to be the accepted starting point for that chapter. I'd like to find something to run them through to get them to at least 9th level before starting the chapter, and I'm looking for suggestions. I know the module "Seven Swords of Sin" is set in Kaer Maga, which would be a logical location for my side quest. Would it be a good choice, or is there something better I could use?
Glad you like it. I've thought of a few other plot elements need to be adjusted, and one other mission you should send your PCs on to introduce an important NPC. (Sorry, I was working from memory and forgot a few things). Spoiler:
In the original plot, the Seneschal flees the castle after confronting Ileosa about his suspicions that she is poisoning the King. She sends her Red Mantis associates to kill him, but he manages to escape and finds temporary shelter at the home of a friend in Old Korvosa. In this revised version, the Seneschal overhears the Queen plotting to unleash the Blood Veil plague on Korvosa with Dr. Davaulus, but is caught eavesdropping and flees the scene. Davaulus immediately sends assassins after him, but he escapes as above. Confident that the assassins will track him down and complete their task quickly, Davaulus and the Queen use Sculpt Corpse (via scroll, as they both have Use Magic Device ranks and that's exactly the sort of scroll Davaulus would keep handy) on the body of an unfortunate prisioner to mimic the body of the Seneschal, and then the Queen sadly announces his murder to the shocked public. Now she needs a scapegoat, whom she finds in the person of a young artist who had been meeting regularly with the Seneschal to paint his official portrait. From this point, run the Trinia Sabor capture mission as written, as well as the scene at the end of the chapter with her failed execution and rescue by Blackjack. So I guess now I'm suggesting that you run all the missions from "Edge of Anarchy" except the Fishery and All the World's Meat (but find a way to place the Raktavarna from AtWM in one of the other areas if possible; Devargo Barvasi would be a good candidate to have it IMO). Your fourth level party will blow through these quickly if you run them as written, but it really is necessary to run them to introduce a bunch of NPCs who will be important later. If your group is OK with a few easy jobs then you could simply play them as written and get them out of the way quickly, but if you think they will get bored at the lack of challenge you may have to increase the CRs to keep their interest up. I realize that doesn't precisely satisfy your goal of avoiding extra prep work but it will only be for the first book*, after that (assuming you don't let them level up any further) they will be at the right level to continue into "Seven Days to the Grave". *as CotCT is written for 3.5e, you will have to do some difficulty adjustment throughout the AP for a party of Pathfinder RPG characters, especially if there are more than 4 players and/or they have particularly good stats and builds. This will generally involve adding a few extra mooks and raising their HP or AC (but not both at once) and perhaps giving the bosses a few extra levels or the advanced template. If your group is just 4 (or fewer) players and not overly optimized, you won't have to change as much. There are threads in this folder that address these issues, including some with the various NPCs already converted to Pathfinder stats.
As Curmudgeonly says, it becomes pretty apparent by the end of book 2, but players will probably suspect sooner than that. Have the party heard anything about this necromancer from anyone other than the princess? The existence of the necromancer is a bit of a problem in my opinion. If all they have is her word for it, I'd suggest that it would be easiest to say the whole thing is a lie she made up to gain the party's sympathy and assistance. If you could work with that, let me run the following scenario up the flagpole and see if you salute: There was no necromancer. Instead it was the king who had his daughter sent away when he noticed her behaving strangely (actually, she was beginning to feel the influence of the Fangs of Kazavon buried deep below Castle Korvosa, but the king just thought she was possessed or going mad--or worse, beginning to be affected by the dreaded Curse that has haunted his line since it's beginning). With the help of a wizard from the Acadamae he had her whisked away to the place where the PCs eventually found her, to keep her safe while said wizard researched a cure for her condition. Unfortunately something went wrong there, the wizard was killed and the baddies your party eventually defeated took over the place. Meanwhile, back in Korvosa, the old King died suddenly and whispers circulated around the city that the Curse of the Crimson Throne had claimed two more victims. With no heir available the Seneschal of Korvosa has been ruling the city since the king's death. The mood of the city when the PCs arrive with the princess is somber and subdued but the place is hardly reeling under the tyranny of an evil necromancer as the party expects. When this becomes undeniably evident, the princess confesses to the party that her story was a lie but insists that it was the only way she could be sure they would help her, and promises to make it up to them when she is reunited with her father (whom she still does not know is dead). Now, about the princess--she has always been an entitled, greedy, self-centered and arrogant girl, but she is also incredibly charming and beautiful, so most people have remained unaware of her true nature and those who suspected were either charmed or manipulated into submission. When the party takes her to the palace the Seneschal (who knows her character flaws but doesn't begin to suspect just how deep they go or how great her ambition is) recognizes her at once, tells her of her father's passing (which she and the party will probably have already heard of, but he needs to follow protocol) and begins making arrangements for her coronation--he's a good man and knows his duty, so he has no hesitation about handing over the reins of power to the rightful heir. Not everyone in Korvosa is happy about the return of the heiress to the Crimson Throne. Her father's wasteful spending--and high taxes--had made him unpopular in some circles and many thought the Seneschal actually did a better job of running the city than the royal family had, so those factions were not thrilled at the idea of a royal restoration. Still others--gossips and conspiracy theorists--don't believe that the princess is who she claims to be, but rather an impostor seeking to usurp the throne from the true princess (whom they further speculate to have been done in by the very woman now claiming the right to rule!). Finally there are those who do believe the princess is genuine but have heard the rumors about her self-serving nature and fear for the city's fate once she takes the throne. The friction between these factions and the equally large group of Korvosans who are pleased to welcome a legitimate ruler back to their city grows daily, and by the day of the coronation the city is erupting into unrest and scattered rioting. Allow at least two weeks between the return of the princess to the palace and her formal coronation as Queen. Use that time go get the PCs settled into the city (give them a nice large house--or smaller individual houses--as a gift of gratitude from the Seneschal). Play up the growing unrest and the beginnings of the rioting as coronation day approaches. During this time throw two of the random encounters from "Edge of Anarchy" at them: the otyugh attack (for a little Korvosan flavor) and the encounter with Grau Soldado (this one is especially important as he returns with a big plot hook later on if they help him). Once on the throne, the princess makes a big show of honoring the PCs for saving her and restoring her to her rightful place, but secretly worries that they may know more than is good for her so decides to follow the old adage about keeping one's friends close and one's enemies even closer. At the coronation ball she introduces them to Field Marshall Cressida Kroft and essentially presses them into the city's service as "special agents" of the Korvosan Guard. Do whatever it takes to manipulate them into accepting if they're hesitant, but I'd recommend a carrot (or bunch of carrots) over a stick at this point. If you've played things right the party will still think of the princess--now Queen--as a friend and ally at this point. From there on out you're pretty much on track with the AP. The Queen finds the Fangs of Kazavon under the palace shortly after taking power and the Seneschal flees as per the standard plot. I'd recommend running the Eel's End mission (to introduce Vencarlo Orisini, who will be pivotal later on) and the body retrieval mission (to introduce Thousand Bones who will similarly reappear later in the AP) but you can easily skip the rest of the missions from "Edge of Anarchy".The only major plot thread this doesn't address is the Harrow deck haunted by the ghost of Zellara, but that can be written out of the story without losing too much. How does that sound?
Which is why I'm asking for help to do so. It would be easier to help you if you were at least a little bit familiar with the AP so we could refer to plot elements that need adjustment without having to explain them first, but I'll give it a try. . . First, to echo and expand upon r-Kelleg's question, how much of the plot you described above has already been revealed to the PCs? If they're still in the dark about some (preferably most) of those details--or your players are the sort who'd be OK with a bit of retconning for the sake of a good story--it would make it easier. Second, what is the source of the information the PCs do have? If it all came from the princess herself that would be useful as some or all of it could turn out to be false. This part hinges on your willingness to turn the princess into the main villain of the AP; are you OK with doing that?
hmm... replace the evil queen with an evil court wizard who's using magic to pose as the queen, scamming the populace into believing the princess died, wham bam thank y'ma'am? Or is there some subtext I'm missing? I'm currently running CotCT for two different groups, one of which has just finished chapter 3 while the other has just gotten started. It is my opinion that adapting the AP to work with the plot descriped in the first post would require A LOT of extra work. So without going into exhaustive detail about the back story and plot of the AP I'll just say yes, IMO there is indeed some subtext you're missing. Others might disagree. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, just that I don't think it would fit with the OP's stated goal of reducing his GMing workload.
I think it would be fairly easy to get into Curse of the Crimson Throne... just modify what happens once your group returns the princess to Korvosa to align with whats going on in the AP. Unfortunately the very existence of a princess is incompatible with the plot of CotCT as written, which hinges on the fact that (at the very beginning at least), the king and queen of Korvosa are (a) alive and (b) childless. It would take a substantial rewrite to reconcile the events described in the OP's first post with the plot of the AP--but the OP is looking for less work, not extra work.
The plot you've described is not very compatible with the plot of CotCT. You could probably make it work with serious revisions, but that isn't really compatible with your stated desire for less work as GM. spoiler for CotCT: The AP starts with the death of the king of Korvosa, whose young queen then ascends to the Crimson Throne. She begins a reign of terror, empowered and influenced by an artifact of a long dead blue dragon/warlord of Zon-Kuthon, and it falls to the players to find a way to stop her.
Slippery Slope arguments are not fallacies because they're always false, they're fallacies because they're not always true. In this case, it's not false. ETA: And setting that part aside, the first portion of my original reply is still true, and sufficient for the proposed weapon to be labeled cheesy.
IMO that's pure cheese. Since in most combat builds base damage becomes far less significant than static bonuses to damage as the levels increase, the 1d2 isn't really an issue. It would also set a bad precedent; if today we can have a 1d2 weapon that is 18-20/x4, tomorrow someone will use its existence to argue for a 1d4 18-20/x4 weapon and so on.
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