JimmySC's page

With 6 players, the most frequent changes are just advancing everything and rebalancing encounters (almost every encounter with only one big thing to fight I generally change to have some friends, to balance out action economy). I'll also sub in hybrid classes for any multi-classed characters that it makes sense for (fighter/rogues or ranger/rogues generally become slayers, magi replace fighter/wizards, battle-oriented clerics become warpriests, etc)

Book 1:
In the first book I added a fifth member for the Scorched Hand; Khim-ali Seht, listed as one of the brothers that ran Threshed Souls Fragrance and heavily involved in the mumia trade. I retooled him as a front-line fighter (two-handed weapon) and had him charmed by Velriana into joining the group; backstory-wise he was a dockworker who had a strained relationship with his brother who ran the fragrance shop (and mumia trade) and had almost come to blows with Velriana in a bar before she cast charm person on him to stop the fight (he's not a fan of these damned foreigners coming into Osirion and stealing their heritage). He and Idorii ended up surviving the fight and were brought back to the Grand Mausoleum for judgment; Khim-ali was bailed out by his brother and is now fiercely loyal to him. That particular plot thread has been dormant since though...

Book 2:
I felt like Meret-Hetef came out of the blue here; I left that as her real name and identity, but she had also come into town about six months prior and set up a new auction house in anticipation of the Necropolis' opening by the Pharaoh, posing as Minnothet and opening the Canny Jackal. This would have allowed the Cult to examine goods on both the legal and illegal trade routes (with the smuggler's gang providing the in into the black markets) and helped locate the Mask sooner. This provided a bit of a twist at the end of the book when the party was ambushed leaving the Sepulcher with the mask by the Cult, with a masked Meret-Hetef at their lead. I also gave her the Troth of the Forgotten Pharaoh feat that pops up later in the series; they initially captured Meret-Hetef and turned her over to the Voices of the Spire. As she was being interrogated and the party was outside discussing matters with Nakht Shepses, there was an explosion of flame from the interrogation room... adding some more mystery to the whole cult thing. It also prevented the party from learning too much about the Forgotten Pharaoh at this point.

Book 3/4:
The party was fairly good about cleaning up loose ends in Wati and kept the mask hidden; as a result cult interference was at a minimum for quite some time into this book. Even after meeting the disguised Khabekh-Shu on the Mumminofrah's barge, and a reference to the party saving Wati, it took several weeks (until about the third library) before they realized this was the same party that Meret-Hetef had reported in her last missive. They chose to ambush the party as they returned from a bulette and hippo hunt, seeking information about the Mask (not realizing it was in their possession).

For the end of the book, after the party had spent three months in the desert searching for the tomb and the appeal of hexploration had waned, I had writings in Jamirah's possession, along with the insight of the sphinx Tetisurah, give them a rough map of the area north of the tomb and allow them to relatively bee-line their way north to the Sphinx (which still took an in-game month, albeit with about a week or two of downtime).

There've been some other added sidequests and arcs as well (the party of dwarven thugs from Shifting Sands were turned into vampires and attacked the party, setting up an interesting connection with the vampire lord that accidentally turned them, and I also added in a fairly major story arc involving a NPC from one of the character's backstories who is now a major player in the Cult of the Forgotten Pharaoh), but those aren't really related to the overall story arc of the campaign.

I'll second what Archmagi said - that's how I played it. The background I fleshed out there was that the Pharaoh had made their way to Eto after being awakened in Sothis and from there hired the girtablilu mercenaries and departed into the desert. While they were able to find the Sphinx itself easily enough (owing to Serethet's memories) the Pharaoh could not remember how to bring down the flying pyramid that held his body - knowing that the architect could tell him though he had his cultists begin scouring the desert for his tomb. Technically, the Pharaoh might never have known precisely where the architect's tomb was - Chissisek was killed after the Pharaoh's death and it may have only been known to the Akhumen where the exact location was.

As to why it took so long for the Pharaoh to find the body - presumably the cultists were delayed after running into fierce opposition within the Sphinx and then had to spend several months combing the desert searching for the pyramid (with less clues than the players). Keep in mind they aren't just 'a few miles away' - each hex is 12 miles across, the Sightless Sphinx is 100 miles or so north of the architect's tomb. My players have just now reached the Sphinx after four months in the desert (and a month of that was after discovering the tomb moving north towards the Sphinx), and that's with me cutting out the maftet/Sekhmet temple subplot by having Jamirah's notes include rough directions to their HQ (due to the players already being a level higher than they should be).

That should help with the behind the scenes answer. As for the 'WTF, why are they here?" moment from the players - well, why are the players after the body of Chissisek? That should provide some answer. Otherwise you can play it close to your chest

I noticed a peculiar thing about the Raging Song ability for the Skald class; namely, that when it affects allies, it only affects them during their turns, per the following rules text:

If a raging song affects allies, when the skald begins a raging song and at the start of each ally's turn in which they can hear the raging song, the skald's allies must decide whether to accept or refuse its effects. This is not an action. Unconscious allies automatically accept the song. If accepted, the raging song's effects last for that ally's turn or until the song ends, whichever comes first.

The text is actually pretty clear in meaning for once... but I'm curious as to whether folks are actually running it this way? Inspired Rage, you get extra HP and an AC penalty that go away at the end of your turn anyways? It feels quite peculiar to me, but maybe that's just me.

Thanks for the info! I don't see it being too big of an issue, but as one of the players had looked at a net build before I suspect they might notice. Given it's a pretty small deal, I don't think anyone will call shenanigans though.

Quicken SLA should not be a problem, that's covered under a CRB FAQ:
http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9o6x

Cleric domains, sorcerer bloodlines, wizard schools, and certain other class features give spell-like abilities that aren't based on spells. What's the effective spell level for these abilities?

The effective spell level for these spell-like abilities is equal to the highest-level spell that a character of that class could normally cast at the level the ability is gained.

For example, a 1st-level elemental bloodline sorcerer has elemental ray as a spell-like ability. Because a sorcerer 1's highest-level spell available is 1st, that spell-like ability counts as a 1st-level spell. A 9th-level elemental bloodline sorcerer has elemental blast as a spell-like ability. Because a sorcerer 9's highest-level spell available is 4th, that spell-like ability counts as a 4th-level spell.

In the example given, a 1st level bloodline power has a spell level of 1. This lets you determine how Quicken SLA would work with it (ie, 10th level or higher CL to take and apply Quicken SLA to Touch of Rage), which was the only reason you wouldn't be able to take Quicken SLA with that particular ability.

However, regarding the earlier item mentioned, the "Ring of Lingering Blood Magic" - What FAQ would allow that to work with a spell-like ability? As far as I can tell, there is a FAQ that in fact explicitly disallows it, as follows:
http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9ofm

Spell-Like Abilities as Spells: Does a creature with a spell-like ability count as having that spell on its spell list for the purpose of activating spell completion or spell trigger items?

No. A spell-like ability is not a spell, having a spell-like ability is not part of a class's spell list, and therefore doesn't give the creature the ability to activate spell completion or spell trigger items.

I bolded the important part - that a spell-like ability is not a spell. Due to that, I don't see how an item that extends the effects of beneficial spells would have any effect on beneficial spell-like abilities. I (and my bloodrager!) would be quite happy to be proven wrong on that count if possible though :D

They wouldn't gain any direct bonus, but there might be an indirect boost due to the creature losing it's Dex bonus to CMD. Otherwise, what SlimGauge said.