Jubbly's page

I'm not encouraging Paizo to publish psionic rules, I'm fine with what Dreamscarred is doing.

Do you have psionics at your own tables? If so, do you run transparency? What do you like/dislike about it?

I'm finding myself to be a recent convert to psionics. Not saying I'll drop Paizo stuff, but I didn't use to like it.

I have a psionic player in my Pathfinder PBB campaign and I am not running transparency - we are using the Dreamscarred stuff. Magic and psionics are two completely different things in my game, and I can't say I have had a problem with it. I quite like the idea of psionics and how they work, but I always completely avoided it in the past because of what I perceived to be problems about not running transparency. It always seemed to me you could run a world with one system or the other, but both was asking for trouble. Running transparency for me just turns it into just another magic tree which seems pointless, but I understand why this option often gets taken. Running a PBB I have plenty of time to sit and think about stuff, so, I never have to suddenly split second calculate the implications of some unprotected NPC facing a psionic.

In general I am treating psionics as very rare in the world - the player is something of an aberration from a distant plane - magic is the norm, but in certain key cases I am giving NPCs a psionic edge to them where it seems appropriate. This is actually throwing up interesting depth that wasn't previously there as the psionic can sense things the magic users can't and vice versa, and certain situations are dangerous to one set and yet not the other. To me it also allows you to mix a nice borrowing of Lovecraftian lore into the weave of things that tends to be more psionic/insanity inducing than outright magical.

All in all it works for our group, it adds a rich seam of diversity that wasn't previously there. Its not overplayed or overpowered and is kept thematically rather special in a Gifted kind of way.

I would previously have been in the Psionics ? No Thanks ! camp, never really having played with them much more than a quick look in 3.0. After this campaign's experiences I am now all for allowing Psionics in, so long as it fits with whatever kind of world you want to run. I think there is much mileage to be had in various spiritual monk and psychic archetypes that are psionic based rather than magical.

If you're mostly looking for fluff, as Wraithstrike mentioned, there's some material in the XPH for 3.5 - although it's pretty limited.

We released Races of the Mind: Elan several years ago for 3.5. It's available here at the Paizo store. Link

Outside of those, I'm not aware of much else in the way of fluff material for the Elan race. It's something we're working on for our Third Dawn Campaign Setting, but that's campaign specific and likely several months out from release.

Thanks for that, dusting off my old 3.5 books, the 3.5 material is pretty much what I have already, but having just picked up the Elan race pdf, theres a bit more in there I can work with - enough to get me pointed in the right direction for creating an anti-Elan arch enemy. For every action there must be a reaction.

Can anyone point me in a direction that gives more background detail to the psionic Elan, the councils, motivations, adversaries etc.

I already have Psionics Unleashed by Dreamscarred Press, and I was just wondering if theres anything out there that adds more fluff.

I don't see much wrong with evil spells putting you on a path to evil, but conversely a good spell not putting you on a path to good.

Which some see as blatantly one way traffic.

For starters its a simplification so that every action doesn't get bogged down into some philosophical argument of whats good, whats evil, and turns the game into Lawyer Roleplaying.

To summon something evil to fight evil is stooping to their level - which is generally not taken to be a Good Thing, and depending who you ask is tantamount to becoming the monster yourself. On the other hand summoning something good ( to do an evil deed ), doesn't give you good karma just because its a good spell.

One of the differences between good and evil is that good ( in general terms ) tends to hold to its principles whilst evil will do whatever best serves its own purposes - even within a chaos and law framework ( for instance a good person is highly unlikely to kill an innocent, an evil person more likely ). Selfless vs Selfish. Hence its harder to stick to a doctrine of good than it is of evil. One is self imposed restrictive and the other is no holds barred expansive.

If a person murders a single person, but has cared for their mother for the ten years before it, in the eyes of society are they a murderer or a dedicated carer ?

Its easy to fall, its far harder to ascend. Easy to get dirty, harder to get clean. Hence for sake of simplification the slope tends to be one way, evil actions weigh more heavily than good ones, evil spells can make you slip a little down the slope, good ones don't register.

At least thats how I see it. If you want to be good, you have to maintain an example. Summoning demons does not maintain that standard. A chaotic good, you might argue would be less prone to worry about the niceties, and as a GM I would give some leeway, but misguided good intentions pave the way to hell. If summoning demons is your modus operandi, the dirt is going to rub off on you. And I think the simplified evil and good mechanic summarises that nicely.

A map depicting an ( larger than reported ) arena pit type thing for various goblin celebratory hijinks.

I found the idea of the pit compelling and wanted something more than just a skill check. I felt it deserved some love.

Ideas for all sorts of goblin 'arena games' spring to mind... complete with barely magical goblin games equipment, infamous/star players, dirty tricks, yada.

Goblin Arena Pit

Your rules seem pretty good to me, although the spending of hope points actually ends up equating to the loss of hope given the mechanics ( spend a point to increase a save, now your hope total is less, and your hope v dread is worse ). So by giving yourself that extra spurt to dodge the incoming attack - and succeeding - you now feel more miserable in general. Which feels a bit ... odd. But it works mechanically and has a nice I need to spend a hope point but I also dont want to spend a hope point dilemma.

Also, critical hits regenerating hope. Not sure what character builds are in mind, but is this exploitable by a crit optimised character ? I am no expert on builds ( pfft, play the story not the stats ) , but I know crit rate is one of the things you can tweak til it squeaks. Some scimitar wielding rogue type could be a hope factory... That they are already doing Crits is great, you further empower ( overpower ) that by adding in hope regeneration ? Might this skew players into going for crit generation feats / weapons etc so that everyone is running around with some improved critical falchion ( 15+ to get a hope point ) ? I don't know. It smells like it could be a problem to me. Depends on your players I guess - if there are no uber power gamers you are.. probably.. fine. But I think even the least caring of players will see the crit mechanic and start to think how to maximise their hope gain.

Regain hope on crit sounds like the right idea - it makes sense thematically - but mechanically I am not sure it works - it introduces a fairly easy overpowered exploit.

How about rewarding successful encounters with a possible hope point instead. Thematically it makes sense - your task is that bit more complete, now we feel all good about the future n stuff - but at the same time doesnt lend itself to being crit exploited, or almost demanding characters optimise in a certain way. Now if you play your character well, you may get rewarded. Mechnically, changing hope rewards from critical hits to encounter successes is equivalent once you do some math ( if you need to at all given you are writing your own rules anyway ).

In fact you can probably shorthand the whole dealio into an EL level = (n) amount of hope reward. Basically an XP equivalent - except given your linear hope scale ( 2x ) it doesnt want to be tied 1:1 with XP, as XP ( and therefore EL sum ) is non linear.

So -2 to all attacks, no AOO , -4 to dex. Most monsters that use grapple also do damage each round automatically.

Yeah I'm aware of the penalties, but between two grapplers it makes no difference ? Both of you get the grappled condition, both of you suffer the penalties, so sure your to hit goes down, but then so does the AC required to land the hit. Swings and roundabouts, small potatoes. Indeed assuming we have One Big Bad, and a party of PCs, the Big Bad gets to drop its defences against the whole party, whilst only one member of the party takes the penalties... but doesn't stop them from attacking. So, big disadvantage. Admittedly thats always been a disadvantage, but now, you don't even stop the person you are grappling. Grappling feels to me like a much more marginal, why do I even bother type task under PF.

As for automatically doing damage, you still need to land that grapple maintenance, and tbh, if its stopping you from making a full attack, you are probably not doing your best output from a monster's point of view. Meanwhile, your opponent slashes you to ribbons . . . I think I even read that you can perform a full round action whilst grappled, assuming it only takes one hand. So the grappled opponent can really wail on you.

"This hairpin is just such a great match with your eyes that it would be a shame if you didn't buy it. Oh! It says here that you can also use it to cut your way out of some creature's digestive tract. Who knew?"

Lol, ok, so back to secondary weapons for being swallowed. Hmmm.

So, running a 3.5 AP which I wont name to hopefully avoid obscure tentacle spoilers - which I hand wave on the fly to run under Pathfinder. All well and good. To complicate matters things started largely in 3.5, and for the most part have transfered drip by drip to Pathfinder as things have gone on.

This sometimes - and rarely these days - brings up little rule changes that drop into the world like a lead weight. Thunk.

Grappling. Specifically the capability to now hack away with not just a light weapon ( and the rest of it ) , but now you can use your trusty one handed weapon of choice too. Fine and dandy, the rule is in, hack away with your usual weapon oh frontline melee fighter types who specialise in one handers.

The problem I see now is that monsters that kind of rely on groovy grapple attacks, and generally, the eating of people whole have been nerfed because of that subtle rule shift. This is of course especially true when trying to take a 3.5 grapple monster and use it under Pathfinder. But it makes me wonder if the whole tentacle beast grabbing you, locking up the fighter and his favourite one handed weapon - forcing him to switch to his sharpened hair pin has not now been totally chucked out - and a less dramatic hack away as you like series of events has replaced it. I feel this is a shame. I like tentacle monsters that pin your arms to your side.

My thinking follows the line that : Grapples now don't force a change of tactics on the part of someone being grappled. If they were happy hacking away before, they may well take the risk of being in a grappled state, and continue to happily hack away - they have lost none of their optimum hacking capability. A melee PC who has specialised on a particular one handed weapon can now freely use that, plus all their feat bonuses accrued for it et al, as opposed to switching to a secondary, less buffed, less optimal small weapon - or gasp, having no such secondary weapon at all to rely on.
Grapples now are a much riskier proposition for The Bad Guys. You better have a very good chain of events planned for that grapple - a good pay off, otherwise chances are you have probably done yourself a disservice - unless you are facing some two hander PC.

I understand the rules shift was to make a lighter touch grapple - holding hands as opposed to wrestlemania - but I feel it has penalised a whole bunch of tentacled monsters who enjoyed grabbing people and eating them.

Is it just me ? Are grapple monsters now less of a threat than they were ? Are they buffed under a Pathfinder system to counter it ( certainly the pathfinderised stats of the beast that I saw did not seem to take account of the grapple change ) ? Sensible suggestions other than just increasing hit points of the critter ? Was the consideration of grapple type monsters being less effective / less dramatic tested ?

Whilst I guess its not a huge deal, the rule change has made me frown whilst the lead fighter has made kalamari of the tentacle beast - and pretty much made zip all difference to the tactics employed. It seems something has been lost in the move . . . I preferred the desperate stabs of a pathetic little weapon whilst being strangled. Much more satisfying.

Think of the Tentacle Beasts !

On a related note. Whats the deal with cutting yourself out of the belly of the beast - is that open to one handed weapons now too, or do you finally have to fall back on your hairpin of sharpness +1. I was despondent about the whole one handed grapple hacking and just ruled you could continue to hack your way out with your weapon of choice. No need for hairpins.

Round 1
PC - Ill hack at it with my sword
Me - You have chopped bits out of it. It smacks you around the head with a rubbery tentacle and grabs you.... you are grappled.

Round 2
PC - Ill hack at it with my sword
Me - Bits are chopped out of it. It swallows you whole

Round 3
PC - Ill hack at it with my sword
Me - You chop your way out and stand in front of it.

So, the PC's subtle tactics were to hack at it with a main weapon, followed by hacking at it with a main weapon, before the tour de force of hacking it at with a main weapon. And round we go again.

Mmm. Yes. Does that seem wrong ? It seems wrong . . .

Interesting. As a former long time LotRO player I get what you are trying to do - could you perhaps not lean on the MMO some more for inspiration ?

Such as, for devastating dread effects - those above your threshold - make PCs roll a Will Save vs Fear, if they fail they cower or somesuch for a round or so - losing their actions - a la the MMO. More closer to pathfinder canon, you could perhaps make them save against fear to avoid picking up the Shaken condition. Possibly in a following round taking a save to then avoid the more serious Frightened, and from there the Panicked. Basically a one step increasingly deep fear reaction - depending how far you want to penalise them of course. Perhaps the level of dread relates to the level of fear you can suffer from. Minor dread you can only ever be Shaken. Major dread you can do the whole run for the hills routine.

A spending of hope would give you the capability of automatically passing one of these specific dread tests - dispelling the fear for a while. Thus you can spend hope to buff dice rolls - giving you the positive effects of hope in the MMO, and you can also burn them to offset pervasive dread - increasing your hope to offset other debilitating levels of fear as per the MMO.

Working on a theme, perhaps it would also be possible to spend a number of hope points, rather than just one, and give the *group* a hope buff - allowing everyone an automatic save against dread or somesuch. Say three points to give hope to (n) number of allies including yourself. This gives you a bit of community hope and dread play as opposed to all selfish spending - and rear support characters can possibly lend their upfront and dirty colleagues a hand in the dread department.

I would also check out some of the bits on Sanity and Madness in Pathfinder. Temporary bouts of things like Paranoia whilst under the effects of dread would be quite cool I think.

You could even factor in long term effects of dread on someone ( Gollum for instance ) as having picked up those insanities as a permanent effect - this would probably only really apply to NPC's or lackeys !

Other dread effects. As per its inspiration, drop hit point maximums whilst under the effect of dread. This is extra record keeping though - it might be handy to have preset levels of dread effect depending on the background level in play. Perhaps 3 levels of hit points - your normal, your dread hp, and your terrified dread hp. Simplified stat consequences to improve the bookkeeping - -1 to *all* rolls.

Personally picking up dread points I would think should be hard. Background aura effect dread is one thing - exit the area and instantly feel better. Always with you levels of gloom is another. Picking up permament dread ( which could be removed by spending hope, or better yet some specific counter - Athelas - plus hope ) would be from as you say, wraith wounds or curses, carrying cursed items ( the ring my precious or barrow treasure ), or even just a run of bad luck / weather in a miserable place. Depends how hard you want to make life and how gritty and miserable your version of middle earth is.

Conversely - permanent dread should also open the door to permanent hope. Very rare items that give a permanent hope level. If you dont like the idea of walking around with a constant buff, then only have them counter aura dread - as opposed to giving spam buffs. If you want a bit of tactical deployment for hope buffs, then force players to wield the hope items in their hand - galadriels phial for instance. So you must have a hand free to deploy your hope artefact.

If you want a progressively degenerating sense of urgency, I would go one step further, and have permanent dread get worse over time increments. Like a slow acting poison - and it requires a constant upkeep of hope to keep at bay. This is pretty tough however, and you would have to have your pacing spot on to get the right level of urgency without it being a game killer.

Which is all very cool, but my issue with this is of balance. How do you balance things so that the dread isnt a killer, or conversely hope buffs dont make things too easy, or something in between, all the hope gets burnt in the first 5 minutes, leaving everyone to run away at the end. I think the system has great promise in a pen and paper RPG, I'm just not sure that it doesnt open up a huge can of worms balance wise. Very tough. In the MMO if memory serves me right, you either rely on someone that knows what is going to happen in terms of dread, your raid leader basically gives you the low down - everyone make sure you have N level of hope - or alternatively you die trying, learn the specifics of the dread, and have another go. Not something you really want to be doing in an pen and paper RPG.

I think maybe to balance it, you need to factor in hope and dread into the CR of an encounter, and allow for any encounter to be Easy, Normal or Difficult depending on the hope vs dread in place - but never capable of being too easy or too hard. Also given that, you can total up the encounters for a given scenario / week / module / chapter / howeveryouaredoingit , take the dread vs hope for an Normal difficulty run, and make sure you give your players the required level of hope. If the players start hoarding their hope, decrease the level of hope give outs, or better, increase the level of future dread encounters.

Oh, and bards. Morale boosting songs should also probably effect hope levels / hope vs dread tests . . .

Sounds cool what you are thinking of. An interesting experiment !

This immediately makes me think of Galadriel's monologue when offered the ring -
"In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"
- so saying I would go with a similar theme. Someone who will presumably try to do the right thing - turning the gnolls into a positive force, good deeds, yada - but being thwarted / corrupted by their inherently evil and amoral ways at every turn, until your knight has inevitably been lead down some dark and dubious path - which may have some insane and tenuous rationalisation as to his actions being 'good' but in reality becoming a fairly twisted manager of evil.
Personally I would run it so that a good intention usually had a bad outcome - and try to instil an angry, vengeful, increasingly rules bound attitude into your lawful knight as he tries to 'control' all outcomes. A tyrant - unwittingly evil, and increasingly all encompassing with his rules - even to outsiders. Probably with over zealous punishments to try to curb the gnolls ( and the rest of the world's ) tendencies.
Some willing innocent mooks to provide fuel is a good thing here - captured miners, travellers, traders, villagers from a remote and isolated mountain settlement - anything that provides a good backdrop for doing evil things to unwitting people in the name of Good Intentions.

Depends how much time you want to spend on the matter.
For a short stay he would perhaps have delusions of grandeur and attempt to sway any surviving gnolls to his cause ( you can have some crawl out of the woodwork to give him a few loyal minions to play with ) - you could have some gnolls follow his natural authority ( and frankly crazy levels of self belief ). This would perhaps set up an internecine skirmish/battle/war between Zayfid gnolls and his own gnolls when they turn back up. Perhaps some rousing speeches to try to sway the gnolls to one side or the other at the beginning of combat. A mass battle on the mountain side ? The PCs could be out of the battle, on the periphery or in the thick of it depending on how you want things to go.
For a longer stay you can have that battle as well as play out the slow corruption of his Good Intentions, or even have him slowly descend into some kind of madness - possibly the exit of the PC entirely and a reroll of a new one - and the creation of a new arch enemy for the rest of the player group. It could create a dilemma for the other PCs in so much as when does a former ally and colleague stop being a friend and start becoming an enemy. Where is the line that is crossed...

I think bottom line is you have an unstable low wisdom good player who is going to set himself up as ruler and believe he can do the impossible and simply change evil intentions and nature by some divine mandate of being the king. It all adds up to a train wreck and the descent of the good character ( or a highly unlikely happy la la transformation of the gnolls en masse into peaceful do-gooders )

If you don't want to be as brutal as sending the character down into an abyss of torment you can snap the PC out of it at some point and have him realise the error of his ways / current path. A lesson learned. Move along.

Finally got back to this, after a month-and-a-half break. Damned multiple busy schedules....

Sounds like a memorable battle and really fun. I like the battle market and its setup, you can do lots of good things with it ^_^

Two maps for the one source warehouse from The Jackal's Price. I have extended the warehouse to a second underground storage level and added in a cargo lift, as well as putting some streets on the upper level.

Warehouse Street Level
Warehouse Level 1

The second level is designed to fit in between the two published maps - and provides an extra floor for you to plant encounters and the like.

The cargo lift is a simple device that allows items to be shipped between floors - either magical or a geared ratchet system.

Storage area below the offices are for the more important / personal items, whilst the second level storage space is for longer term goods or those that could do with being out of plain sight.

Is it just me or do the sizes of this map seem a bit off ? The doors feel like the scale should be 10' and the description implies the warehouse is bigger than depicted, yet the crates are about the right size, and at 5' a square the overall space is about right for a normal warehouse.

Ho hum.

Enjoy

Are any of the previous posters from in and around Norwich still active on these boards?

Yup... still here... still in Norwich... not far from the footie ground.

Oh - also, a PBP homebrew Alternity game is due to start in a week or so. Different GM. Similar looking for players requirements.

Hi there,
an existing Legacy of Fire campaign being played out on private boards could do with a new player or two. Currently coming to the end of part 3 which has taken roughly 2 years in real time to get to.

Players are all GMT based, over 21, and roleplay only when they have to.

Due to the length of time and life players are now down to two with a third currently struggling to get on regularly.

GM posts are once a day, sometimes more, weekends are often GM silent.

Rules are pathfinder and a pick and mix from 3.5, no real rules lawyering going on, more of a narrative drive. Narration often takes precedent over chronology just to keep things moving - but only ever to help not hinder players.

Looking for -

Any Class
Easy going players - total noobies welcome. Or if you like playing by the spirit of rules rather than the letter of rules you will likely fit in.
Preferably GMT ish time zone, but if you dont mind posting out of time then no problem.
Willing to commit long term - at least a few months.
Over 21's

Roleplayers are very welcome, the NPCs are all roleplayed, the players tend to talk more in practical terms, but sometimes indulge - roleplayers may get bored talking to themselves or just NPCs :)

If interested reply here with some contact details or drop me a line at meeples2070 at googlemail dot com and I will send you the URL details and you can take a look to make a better decision.

I am also doing this for fun, as I am trying to improve my Excel skills. I just put it up on good docs. here is the link... go to [url=https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9WikFyF-9SFNDMxNGM4Y2QtNjNmMS00ODg4LWIxYzEtYzE1ZjE1YTQ3Zjk1&hl=en[/url].

I get a...

Sorry, the page (or document) you have requested is not available.

Please check the address and try again.

Something to get you started, some simple vba - I have quickly written some code around the area you are looking at ( and tested it ! )

Public Sub grabcell()
Dim wb As Workbook
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim o1 As Object
' 1 based arrays
Set wb = Workbooks(1)
Set ws = wb.Sheets(1)
Set o1 = ws.Cells(1, 1)
MsgBox "Value is " & CStr(o1), vbInformation, "Info"
Set o1 = Nothing
Set ws = Nothing
Set wb = Nothing
End Sub

Public Sub copycell()
Dim wb As Workbook
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim o1 As Object
' 1 based arrays
Set wb = Workbooks(1)
Set ws = wb.Sheets(1)
Set o1 = ws.Cells(1, 1)
ws.Cells(1, 3) = o1
MsgBox "Value copied !", vbInformation, "Info"
Set o1 = Nothing
Set ws = Nothing
Set wb = Nothing
End Sub

Public Sub checkcells()
Dim wb As Workbook
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim o1 As Object
Dim i as Integer
' 1 based arrays
Set wb = Workbooks(1)
Set ws = wb.Sheets(1)
For i = 1 To 20
If ws.Cells(i, 1) <> "Bazinga" Then
ws.Cells(i, 2) = ws.Cells(i, 1)
Else
ws.Cells(i, 2) = "Boppity Bop"
End If
Next
Set o1 = Nothing
Set ws = Nothing
Set wb = Nothing
End Sub

Hopefully what they do should be self evident, and provide examples of interrogating cell values, copying etc. grabcell reads a value from a cell and pops a messagebox up. copycell will copy a cell value from one cell to another. and checkcells will copy the first 20 rows into column 2, unless the value is Bazinga, in which case it will put the value Boppity Bop into the cell.
You can mix this up by copying across worksheets - ( you would need a second ws reference, IE, dim ws2 as Worksheet, set ws2=wb.Sheets(2) )

Technically speaking you can use a shorter form for VBA and direct referencing of sheets and workbooks - its weakly typed and has collections ready to access, but the code above is a better way to do it.

To get into this you need to get to the Visual Basic Editor from the Macros menu. As for how to run them, depends on the app, you could just add some command buttons from the Control Toolbox toolbar and place a call to them in the click event.

Feel free to ask about that hasty blitz of information.

I am not entirely sure what task you are trying to perform here, but personally I would just write a macro / piece of VBA for this. Cell manipulation is a snap to do - you can read, write and do pretty much anything you care to do. Automating excel is one of its most powerful features. If you can explain exactly what it is you need, or better yet give an actual spreadsheet example... I might be able to help.

I have a whole bunch of AP's - which I've read through, but have only run experience of Legacy of Fire which is halfway through.
I really like LoF, there are a couple of problem hooks mid point ish, but otherwise the environment and stuff to do is really good. My players were completely blown away by the first in the set HotCK and loved the setup.
As for the background story - my players by and large are hopeless at knowledge tasks and have missed almost all of the background going on - but I think part of the clever design here is that it doesn't matter - you have different smaller scale goals, and very slowly ( or more quickly if you are a knowledge master ) you are drawn into a wider deeper conflict that goes way beyond your initial small end points. Without even realising it you find yourself in the middle of something - perfect plotting in my opinion.
In fact, with a very slow drip feed of information, I have found it heightens the suspense when players realise they have heard a name before - whats the connection, without really knowing much more. Foreshadowing in this AP is just awesome and never fails to hit home. Depends on your players I guess.
On the other hand, Council of Thieves, I think is a neat idea, but I just know my players will be turned off at certain points - the theatre play for instance. I like the concept, but it needs a certain type of player I think.
Thats not to take anything away - I like that Paizo are clearly experimenting with the format and pushing boundaries. You get ups and downs, but its the only way to really improve.

Wow.... why the bow user hate? :-/

I like mixing things up - and this wasn't a no bows for you event, it was more of a, how do I get round this limitation. Sure its no fun if you spoil everyones party, but this wasn't an outright hate fest, just a problem to be overcome. Environmental colour. Plus I wanted an impending attack to sneak up out of the dark with little trading of yawnifying ranged combat and skirmishing - I wanted it quick close and brutal. The heavy rain gave me a perfect excuse to nerf bow fire - from both sides. And it is realistic, albeit to make it more interesting I vastly sped up the deterioating effects of the weather.

Strictly off the beaten track, non official rules but... bow use, and particularly composite bow use becomes a problem - composite bows can fall apart in prolonged adverse weather conditions ( not just rain ), strings weaken, arrows warp, wood changes.
Depending how mean you wish to be, and fun spoiling aside for bow using characters, you could place heavy penalties on bow use - and for fumbles have a chance of weapon failure - increased for composite bows.

Traditional pre modern glues for composite bows do not react well to water...

I had a heavy prolonged storm in my campaign and I imposed the harsh penalties above to bow users, cut maximum range down. One of the characters had a composite bow, and chose to sit inside buildings firing out rather than running about in the rain. Later they dared the rain, fumbled, failed a custom break test, I gave them a warning about the bow beginning to fail - rather than outright break it on the spot.

Late to this thread...

JB from London, now residing in Norwich. Currently running a PbP Legacy of Fire campaign in a hodgepodge of Pathfinder and 3.5, which has been tripping along for a year and a half.

On and off RPG'er since wayback, wargamer, scratch builder, collector of board games and related, but now apart from the daily PbP, mostly a non gamer (with a loft space full of boxes) !

Theres a difference between an intuitive, ordered layout like an office, and the chaotic looks different from a hundred different angles small woods. And its not just about a cluttered line of sight - its that it continues to look unfamiliar even though you might have visited an area already, because your perspective is different - where as in an office its very easy to order your perceptions even when approaching from a different angle.

I forgot to mention that also in my experience there is a world of difference between exploring somewhere safe or where you don't expect hostility, and somewhere where you get hit over the head. A combat, or even worse an ambush, has completely turned me around whilst LARPing, and you can kinda lose track of where you are as it all becomes about avoiding the sword in front of you, and nothing about which path you just skirmished down. Maybe I just have a bad sense of direction...

Its a combination of all these things that makes the basic rate of travel whilst exploring jar my sense of Correctness.

...and beating the crap out of any management you happen to come across?

Now, I admit that assumes you're not stopping to check every desk to find out if you can get that hot redhead girl in Shipping's phone number.

Lol, I like the office exploration. Yes I agree you could breeze through the place quite quickly if you are not being super thorough. It makes sense, but it seems to jar with my idea of what it is to be a doer of derring do.

Maybe my problem then is expectation - when you have a nice place to encounter my expectation is that it will take time and effort to explore it, when in fact a dungeon could just be a morning outing. It seems not so heroic, and more of a what shall we do before lunch kinda dealio.

Define "explore". If you mean "glance in each room once and move on", they'll be through in no time.

Tricky. Explore as in... move around until you see something of interest. Or in the case of an open/outside area, move from interesting looking point to interesting looking point. What do you rate that as ? Standard movement speed to get between points ? Assume they are looking around as they go ? I don't want to get hung up on the nuts and bolts of asking them are you looking at the sky, the plants, your navel etc everytime they move, and likewise I don't really expect them to say 'obvious' things - they only state specific exceptions. But even in a less touchy feely narrative type style, you still have to make a decision about how much time it takes to get from A to B. Basic mechanics seem to me as if... you are just hustling around without smelling the flowers.

If we're talking about actual explorers, not just monster murderers slash dungeon robbers, the average party speed will not figure largely in the time it takes to explore a place. Everyone stands still at the same speed (though some have faster eyes than others).

So given say 500' of travel across an outside location that has plenty to look at - foliage, trees, yada, do you think you should factor in a spot check every so often to slow progress ? Move and spot at the same time ?

You basically need to abstract the journey out, rather than picking at it, and demanding they tell you whether they will throw a perception test every 10' / round.

I feel like there should be a third type of speed - a table or something - something in between tactical and overland speed, a generally mooch around and take an interest in your surroundings speed. Or perhaps several categories of that speed depending on how much interest you want to take.

If they want to know what is in each building, calculate something like 2 full-round search actions per small room of each building + movement time between buildings.

This for me is still quite quick. They still end up clearing a place and packing up for tea. Again maybe its my expectations that need to shift. I just like important larger places having to be a more than one day affair. I think maybe this also feeds into the, everybody burns all their abilities in 10 minutes, and then goes to sleep for the rest of the day. The 10 minute activity day. The pace seems amazingly fast.

Maybe this is relevant - I have 'explored' new office buildings, and sure, you can get the lay of the land pretty quickly - 10 minutes. But I have also wandered around small forests and abandoned pits in my former days of LARPing, and its taken me an entire day to begin to understand the location - even though you could probably walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes. Theres a difference between an intuitive, ordered layout like an office, and the chaotic looks different from a hundred different angles small woods. And its not just about a cluttered line of sight - its that it continues to look unfamiliar even though you might have visited an area already, because your perspective is different - where as in an office its very easy to order your perceptions even when approaching from a different angle.

Hmmm.

Unfamiliar vs Familiar territory. Territory Type Factor ? Perception Quality factor. Combine together = a distance travelled over time ?

I have a recurring niggle with the passage of time whenever my PCs go exploring that just feels off to me.
The group can wander around a fairly large site, a half mile wide, and frequently they will ask what the time is - and when I work out how far they can travel over what time - without running - , the answer should be something like - five minutes since the last time you asked. Which results in being able to completely explore a complex site in a very short space of time. Which always feels wrong.

By default I take their speed as the slowest member, which is 15' a round. For normal walking around and taking the time to look about as they travel I usually end up multiplying the distance they walk by half or double again, thus slowing their effective travel rate down to 10' or even 7.5' a round. Even so, they can cover huge amounts of ground with this, and end up completely exploring a place and coming back before lunch !

I end up ignoring such times so that the passage of a day instead whizzes around, and am often vague about the exact time, other than it being early, mid, late morning etc. I am playing PbP so the issue is heightened by the fact that it doubly feels like a lot of time should have passed when a couple of real time days have gone by, a location has been travelled to and explored, and yet its only been 20 game minutes !

Am I missing something with the time and motion ? I almost have to come up with my own guidelines for how long something should take to walk around and explore based on a feel rather than hard mechanics. If I did a strict interpretation, including combats, they could romp around a site in 20 minutes. It seems off... yet... the distances and times seem fine at a tactical level.

Does anyone else struggle with this ? Any suggestions ?

Thanks so much to Demiurge 1138 for this highly useful set piece and to Jubbly for the most useful maps. Again the Paizo community comes through. This will come in very handy.

Now, I only need to find a good reason to have my PC's head there before the Battle Market. This may not be easy, as they have already been lectured once by Almah for worrying to much about the hills north of town and not doing the job they were contracted to do. Any suggestions?

You could have the PC's or anyone else on guard duty notice some kind of activity coming from the fort - and Garavel uses that information to fret about what other threats are in the surrounding area, not wanting a surprise third party force turning up behind the PC's to take Kelmarane from them. Basically its an intelligence issue - you have no intelligence on whats going on at the fort other than there's activity there. Which of course may impact the plan of taking Kelmarane back. No good commander passes up an opportunity to gather intelligence, especially when it can impact The Plan ...

Alternatively you can have the problem of security bubble around the camp, have Garavel or others think its a good idea to scope out the threat, but Almah digs her heels in, obsessed by taking back Kelmarane - you then have an opportunity for the PC's to "do the right thing" and scope out the fort, but cause conflict with Almah for disobeying her.

You could also split the mercs here as well, perhaps the mercs dislike what the PC's do, and think they are causing trouble and making the job harder by creating a ruckus at the fort.

Depends what kind of strife and complexity you want to have at home plate.

If the PC's are reluctant to hoof out to the place, make sure you drop some hints about seeing gnolls creeping around the ruins, and float the doubt in their head that this may be another outpost of hostile gnolls that are supporting Kelmarane. Play up the fact any such outpost could pose a flanking threat, or rally forth to defend the town in time of need. See if the player's figure out it may be an idea to neutralise it first before Kelmarane.

Finally, if none of that floats your boat, if Dashki is still around, have him followed out to the Fort, and then kick off a round of suspicions, finger pointing and a skirmish at the ruin. And Or, have one or some of the mercenaries overcome whilst out on patrol, and their tracks lead back to the ruined fort...

Glutton for punishment, I have ended up making two battle maps for the set piece. This second one is slightly larger at 20x30" @ 300 dpi and depicts the ruined temple.
Hit the download Image button to get the full detail full size version.

Ruined Temple of the Dawnflower

Another map I made for my group - this ones a little rough however. A small battlemap based on a small section from the set piece.
Hi res available from the download - should print to A2 @ 300 dpi if thats your thing.

Battle map

As for actual sequel adventures... we're a bit nervous about those because the more you present an adventure as a sequel, the better chance there is folks won't buy it because they haven't yet played the original. That said, next year we'll be doing a bit of cross AP/module experimentation; we'll see how that works.

Cross AP/module experimentation ? Sounds good ! Count me in for that kind of content... I just don't have time to lovingly build worlds and nicely threaded campaigns ( running them is time consuming enough ), so if theres a gap - I tend to do without. Having the option of slotting modules easily into an AP setting ( at their conclusion or otherwise ) is fantastic for me, I can run it as part of a continuation of the campaign, or just as easily run it as a one off elsewhere. Whilst I understand the complications of the set piece additions that were curtailed in the AP series ( from a publishing POV ), I still *really* liked them for the modularity / non linear bit of adventuring they could provide, sticking them in where I/ the players chose. To my mind modules with optional hooks for an AP are just this kind of set piece thinking writ large ( without the management headaches of publishing deadlines yada ). Which is a thumbs up from me.

Depending how much attention you are going to pay to the environment as a GM, a desert based ranger, or similar survivalist can be useful - maybe a barbarian. There are several possible sojourns into hostile environments, and if you are filling in the travelling with storms, desert heat, side treks and the like it can be a real problem for a group that isn't prepared or has zip wilderness capabilities.
Desert based cleric - and Sarenrae is the real obvious choice given the amount of hooks in the AP for her - is also pretty much required imo - the hostile environment and being in the boondocks for quite a while makes self reliance more important than otherwise needed.
A character with background in outsider knowledge / summoning / yada is also obviously helpful and can provide nice hooks for a GM to spin into the group - a desert / nomad bard could be a very nice soft skills driver given the whole story telling feel of the AP, as well as providing those useful clues from the scattered bits of lore discovered in the locations.
Sensible paladins can also shine, quite a bit of core evil smiting to do...

Cool map. Thanks.

Any chance on getting a high res version?
Also, where did you get the sphinx? (link?)
What program did you use to render it?

High res - no sorry, thats the res I created it at ( I just use them online rather than printing them out ), its not a downscale of some monster.

The sphinx was located via a google search, picked it up from here http://archive3d.net/index.php?a=download&id=25031

Rendered with 3dsmax 2010 using a basic sand texture and some old school lighting ( I always fiddle endlessly with the photometrics and am rarely satisfied ). The sphinx has then been drop shadowed and patterned in photoshop. Sphinx is the only rendered bit.

I have created an Oasis Map for my pbb group. Thought I'd share it for anyone else that may need one - or a different one to the map supplied.

My group has just gone through this - out of the box there is no great archer love to be found.
Depending how your GM does the supporting bits of the campaign, you also might not get a good opportunity to purchase interesting items until mid point into the next part - The Jackal's Price.
Personally I have been mean with treasure availability for the party - given them only whats listed and had very few interesting items on merchants stuck in the boondocks that they are.
I gave my group a year off between 1 and 2, and let the ranger wander abroad for the sole purpose of finding a bow to buy ! He really wanted a nice bow above any other concern, so I let him go find one, whilst everyone else busied themselves more productively. Other than that excursion its been lean and mean.
Of course, now they are all excited and motivated about getting to a decent city with lots of shopping opportunities, no bad thing.

Interesting thread.

I run a play by post game thats been ongoing for about a year and a half ( Legacy of Fire ). Grid referenced tactical maps are often used for combats unless its trivial or obvious.

My group seem to not be sure what they like - when combat pops up, its obvious that excitement and interest increase, and based on that alone, combat seems to fill the most important role in the game. However, at the conclusion of LoF1 when asked about whether they wanted more or less combat, what they liked and disliked, they said they preferred the story over melee, and that melee could be a bit dull. Given that LoF2 is basically a dungeon crawl, this lead to some concerns over how well it would go down. But, LoF2 is now complete - and everyone enjoyed it, despite being melee heavy ( although they talked their way through some of the factions... )

As someone else has mentioned before I think its about how the melee occurs - if its an interesting unusual setup then my players really get into it, and love playing through the tactical consequences. On the other hand, mundane combat with say a wandering monster turns them off. Its got to the stage now where I don't bother with wandering monsters at all - and try to put some TLC into some cool feature monster from the random tables ( IE Chupacabra in LoF1 ), or add extra NPC's with some character dimension in to spice things up.

I think without combat, half of our game would become pointless, even though the group likes the story, they got heavily kitted for war ( there are almost no touchy feely skills / classes ) - the story wants to be king, but it needs the contrast of some melee to really show itself off. Sometimes you have to reach for weapons... I guess its something about needing a little dark to really appreciate how great the light is.

My group are not roleplayers - about the only time they will interact in character is when speaking with an NPC, intergroup chat is by default OOC - but they get a lot of satisfaction from debating how to handle situations, or trying to figure out who is up to what. Rarely a player will insult or smack down another in character ( although it can be hard to tell ! ) , the players arent a 100% group think entity, and there can be little doses of real friction.

As its a PBB I get time to write up nice NPC interactions and fill out the story - which is what the players like the most.. so they say.

Personally I would really enjoy running or playing a low/no combat game, but I am easy either way.

Have they met Kezurkian yet ? From your description I suspect they probably havent, and they havent seen him either. Depending on the group's capabilities you could have them bump into him before they hit the market - or the mercs get decimated by him if they want to take a scouting role in front of the inept PC's ( depending on what kind of standing the mercs have with the PCs ). Might make the players think twice about rushing in headlong seeing the mercs get shredded, or themselves a bit dinged up. If the group is highly capable make Kezurkian a bit more hardy... They may fight him, and decide not to press on immediately.

Also the mercs may not be very happy themselves about a frontal assault - they are not supposed to be a confident gung ho willing combat team - and may argue and be surly about being sent in as cannon fodder. Or the mercs may possibly devise an alternate attack that you can use to put unease in the players minds ( IE, "Sounds like a plan, but you fella's can go first eh ? We'll cover your backs..." *greasy grin* ).

The mercs can run at the first sign of serious hardship, or trigger an early response from the gnolls by blundering into a patrol, and in turn setting off the warning horn in the guard house...

My group encountered all these things - the mercs were split with regards to the players - one bully type merc was openly hostile after getting into a brawl with a player at the caravan fire start, some were neutral, and a couple were friendly having been aided when hurt. Thus depending on the internal arguing, sometimes the mercs were helpful, sometimes they were a hindrance, but at all times they were cautious, and not at all interested in fighting to the death.
The players also managed to set off the guard house warning horn, and fled the town loosely pursued by a large posse of gnolls. A stand off across the river ended in the PCs staying out in the wilds for the night.
And lastly they also hit Kezurkian, got somewhat roughed up, and came back to the monastery to think things over.

Just my wacky unhelpful vague hand waving opinion, but I think Gods given what they are, are perhaps beyond being fully perceived and understood by mortals - and therefore tight analysis of their exact histories is futile, as it can alter. Or in other words they can shift and change around, and dont have to particularly follow anything trivial like logic, given that the various laws of the universe, time et al may be more like suggestions than laws to those with the right power or right position ( but not enough to say, wipe every other major entity out to become the one and only god ).
Personally I am happy with thinking something along the lines of Neil Gaiman's Sandman Endless beings. Its more of an idea / force / belief that manifests, and whilst it can be very personal, and you can talk to them, they can sulk, have an opinion, like to wear a particularly kind of hat - and demand all their followers wear the same funky hats, at the same time they can be very vague, change, and yet still be the same thing - a representation of something greater.
The long and short of it, gods are gods, they are intimately connected with their myths and those that believe in them, and yet at the same time, they can embody ideals which are timeless and amorphous - they can split into seperate personalities, or combine into one.
Many faces, or just one.

Great work Jubbly! Can we include this on PathfinderWiki?

Of course, do as you will with it :-)

A map of Kelmarane that I used in between the first and second parts of the adventure path.
This was used to stage a full on assault against the town ( during the night and a rainstorm - part of the short desert rainy season ) , town guards and "civilians" were placed working around the map ( securing the building works from the ferocious weather ) , and the players job was to organise the defence(s).

The gnolls, led by a Kulldis leader who had fled the players the first time, assaulted the town making a beeline for the battle market hoping to oust the humans and take ownership. Aided by a mountain troll, brought to specifically counter the players, the gnolls failed in their attempt, and turned to petty arson instead - which also ended up failing. A chase into the night of torrential rain split the party, and nearly ended in tears, when the troll - regrouping with the gnolls - found half the PCs and launched a savage attack. The players limping back to town - one of their number carried bodily back - managed to avoid detection by other regrouping gnolls - and made it back to be safely healed.

I had planned to write up the whole encounter, but I have become swamped with stuff to do... so I thought I'd just publish the Kelmarane map, as it may be useful to people.

Kelmarane Map

Assuming you're talking about noncommerical use, the answers to all of your questions are in the Community Use Policy and the OGL.

With specific focus on your questions, you can use any of the non-setting material under the OGL, and you can use "trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), locations and characters" under the Community Use Policy. So you can't republish the existing encounters, but you can design new encounters using the locations and characters.

As far as the maps, go, no, you can't repurpose our maps, but you can create your own interpretations of material presented in our maps. (In short, redraw 'em, and you're fine.) And it's fine if they look professional—just so they don't look exactly like ours!

Ok thanks v much :)

I am not sure this is the right place for this question - I've eventually decided to pose it here as its about LoF.

I am going to run a large skirmish in Kelmarane, and for my group I have taken the Kelmarane map, overlaid a grid, notated defences and the like, and in the GM notes I have indicated where things will happen, where they are likely to progress to etc.

My question is, if I possibly maybe wished to release the work as a free encounter for the ppl on the paizo boards, what can and can't I use ?

Can I use Kelmarane content at all ? Its layout, its buildings, whats where. Also can I draw a map of it and include it ?
Can I use the actual Kelmarane map present in the pdf ?

If a map is drawn is there any sticking point about what kind of quality it can be ? If it ends up a professional quality map, would this be too much of an infringement ? Is there a quality cut off ? Pencil drawn map is fine, a professional artist rendering that may or may not be better than the original is not fine.

Whats the score with using the already published material for Kelmarane, and effectively adding an expanded piece to the story ( or a piece that was hinted at but never fleshed out ).

Is this kind of stuff only ever doable with your own private group, doomed to never be shared with anyone else ?

From reading the Community Use I think that taking the original map(s) ( and also editing them ) is not allowed - a great shame as I think the Kelmarane map is great - and as for the content of Kelmarane itself, I am not sure.

Anyone enlighten me ? Copyright sucks, I know why its there, and I agree with it, but I hate having creativity forced to jump hoops.

My group have just gone through this - they are on the last fight with Zakhan Map in Action and have enjoyed it so far. They were utterly mistrusting of the treasury - they deemed it too obvious a trap and simply walked away !
As there are six of them I beefed up the gnoll numbers above ground and threw in a lieutenant. The halfling barbarian ( with spider slippers ) and halfelf rogue went on a stealth assassin mission, and ended up climbing the back wall, and up the tower unseen, whilst everyone else waited for the go signal. A slaughter in the tower, chasing the last gnoll down the stairs, and straight into.... Narg. Party hopelessly split, the (weak) rogue smack talks the gnoll boss, badly fails a diplomacy check, and with some smiting ends up dying to Nargs axe ! The halfling barb decides grouping up would be a good idea and runs off where the full party quickly clears out the upper levels.
They went home to bury their dead, and came back to tackle the lower levels...
The drinker has caused them to be somewhat jumpy. They spotted it sneaking up on them and tried engaging it in conversation - they werent sure what it was or what it was doing. It fled off into the darkness only to reappear during a battle with Jawcracker, and managed to almost pick off the groups cleric standing at the rear who succumbed to its paralysis. When the tables turned the drinker fled again, this time up the well. They have been on the lookout for it ever since...

Thanks for writing the adventure !

I found that the key to the pugwampis was their environment - at the beginning its the cactus patch, in the monastery its the difficult terrain kitchen, and the chapel its treacherous rafters.

All these things give the pugwampis unluck lots of room to flower - because the PCs have to work to engage them, and have ample chances to test just how difficult that unluck can be.

With a little space to breathe, and the creatures content to sit and jeer and fire their arrows at the PCs ( and run away if necessary ) it can be quite frustrating for the group to tackle them, especially if they are short on ranged firepower. Jeering definitely helps. Rude displays. Spiteful laughter. All from a safe high point. The chapel is especially good for this. My group struggled with the chapel, and were actually beginning to hurt from the numerous tiny arrows being fired ( I upped the number of pugwampis ). They realised they were outgunned, and couldnt get to grips melee wise because of the rafters.

To increase the pugwampis impact with annoyance, why not turn some areas into difficult terrain - rubble, broken windows and the like, give the pugwampis more areas to 'play' in, the PC's less chance to charge into battle, and more chance to land on their butts.

Or perhaps make more areas of the monastery have rafters - or an upper network of pugwampi rat runs - ledges, boards, tattered hangings, holes all of them allowing the pugwampis to engage from afar and bathe the PCs in their unluck, but not get into devastating melee. At its worst you could connect every single room with a mouse hole and a pugwampi walkway that runs around the edge of rooms near the ceiling...

If outside could make the terrain difficult again, or have ample hiding places for them to pop in and out of - like whackamole.

Adding the shaman gnoll in was my attempt at trying to inject some magic into the mix to give them something to think about - but he had trouble being effective, the group was too smart to let the odds turn against them, and made good use of cover.
Apart from chasing them around the locality of Kelmarane with a group of gnolls after the guard house alarm went off and the PC's panicked, he had a short attempt at trying to subdue them in the Great Guard Room Stand Off in the battle market - but to little use - ironically the only one he knocked briefly out was the sorceress.... the least likely to be affected. After firing a few spells off the barbarian got annoyed with him standing at the bottom of the stairs and leapt over the barricade to attack him... which he promptly ran away from.

Xulthos came crashing down at the end - without landing a single blow. His attempt to summon in a horde of dretch was thwarted by a well placed arrow, and a very nasty round of magic missiles which broke his spell concentration and ultimately killed him. The bard's countersong ran out eventually, but it was too little too late.

The gnoll shaman and ranger escaped together with a couple of surviving gnolls at the end ... so theres a possibility for them to come back with a better idea of how to thwart the PC's and "learn from their mistakes". I am toying with the idea of having them plague the PC's as recurring enemies.

Are you adjusting the monsters to compensate for 6 people? If not, that may play an even bigger part in why bosses are falling hard. I would have given both Xulthos and Kardswann at least a hit die or two each, maybe some extra mooks instead.

As for Blindness/Deafness... yeah, it's a rough spell. :) It's still a Fort save so I'm kind of surprised that Fort heavy guys like Kardswann and Xulthos are failing vs. it, but if they do, well, lucky for the party. :)

I am not adjusting the monsters much other than taking their hp to the maximum indicated, and in some cases adding an extra feat. I think the melee heavy mass damage nature of the group is really making short work of those that mainly rely on their melee to kill the party - at the other end will saves across the group are pretty low for the most part. But Lady luck has been with them so far, and they tend to make crucial saves when they need it.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will add more hit dice to the bosses and consider throwing in some red shirts with them. Xulthos... on his last 20 hp, the party holding the door against him... and still without a single hit against a PC... ( although the barb just turned her confused axe on the sorc for a nasty hit ) is summoning in a group of lesser demons to help. I think the poor lad needs it.

So, this is more of a question about the usage of the Blindness/Deafness spell - but in context to the first part of the LoF campaign.
For several months I have been running this with a boards group of 6 people, and they've just started the Xulthos battle at the end.
Group consists of :
Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue/Bard, Sorceror, Cleric
of which both the barb and paladin have big nasty two handed weapons - the paladin especially with overhand chop + smite evil can dish out hellish damage.
In encounters with "difficult" boss mobs, the combat goes something like this - Sorc blinds them, the melee'ers wade in, and do horrendous damage. Combat quickly over !
In the Xulthos fight, in two rounds they have stacked up 92 hp of damage against it - and they are only 4th level, figuring they were punching above their weight, and there being six of them, I didn't worry too much about their being a level off of what its aimed at.

As there are six of them I up all the encounters, add in extra bosses and generally maximise the hp range of a creature rather than take an average. In some cases I also up the levels.

I am finding that the Blind spell has been extremely effective at taking out high status individuals, and basically halving their difficulty by making them blind. Kardswann got the same treatment in the battle market and fared badly - I had him turn invisible and fly away, to seek aid with a gnoll shaman ( an extra leader ) and the infusium to remove his blindness ( some GM hand waving ). But he was promptly blinded again during the full scale assault.

The PCs barricaded the stairs to the top floor of the battle market, and held it against all comers, 2 of them skirmishing on the balcony to remove any threats trying to fly or scale up to the level. 4 boss gnolls (2 fighters 1 ranger 1 shaman), a genie, a host of cannon fodder, gnolls, bugbears, and human bandits failed to crack the position. ( They had allied with Undrella earlier, who took her leave and left them to their messy fight once Kardswann figured out she wasn't helping him remove his blindness )

With Xulthos much the same has happened - the first round, some of the party succumb to the buzzing affects - no one is fooled by the confusing whirl of colours. The sorc blinds the demon. The bard strikes up countersong. Paladin casts protection from evil, cleric casts bless. The melee'ers - now including a reunited Haleen - charge the beast and beat the living daylights out of it, including a crit ( from Haleen of course ) which reduces it to only one (blinded) action next turn.
Half dead already, the demon takes to the air, blows out the sole source of light and everything plunges into darkness - the ranger crit fumbles previously and wounds his bow fingers, stopping him from using his bow for the next 4 rounds. A few passing blind attacks by the demon - to no use - and the magical lights go on.

The demon is in trouble. Blind, half dead, and no one has taken a hit yet.

Blindness. Its less showy than big flash bangs, but boy, it can instantly halve the difficulty of a creature.

Any thoughts or experiences with this ? Am I missing something ?

Everyone is enjoying the campaign, so its not a problem, its just beginning to dawn on me what a game winning spell blindness is...

Personally I don't like the idea of a cure wounds spell having the capability to mend disfiguring special damage. It makes it somewhat mundane to have a limb chopped off - don't worry about that Bob, Father Zebediah will have that regrown in no time ! Plus, none of the pirates of the world would have eye patches, peg legs or hooks for hands - anyone with a cure light wounds would be growing those hands back for you. That can't be right !
I am more comfortable with the regeneration spell - as its fairly serious magic, it follows that commoners, brigands and similar are unlikely to have access to such power - so the norm is to live with a disfigurement. And then to leave the cure wounds series as general level cure alls.

As far as my players are concerned it also means that debilitating wounds are serious - plenty to worry and fret about - but are not irreversible. Usually. Which feels right to me.

As far as max hit points and the like are concerned, I am steered by the crit cards. Generally its a skill point loss, possibly an ability drain/loss and so on as opposed to outright hp loss.

I am currently running the LoF campaign with mostly Pathfinder RPG - its the first point of reference, but within reason anything from 3.5 is also fair game.

The rogue player's reaction so far has been one of utter despair... but I will leave it up to them what path they want to take with her - a fake magical eye, a simple eye patch, or a replacement. Or they may change their mind about it and switch. As they are coming to the end of the first part of LoF, they are due to hit the big town of Katapesh in the next part, where I am sure all manner of services can be found for someone searching hard enough ( assuming they all survive the current large scale skirmish )

* I also love the idea of magical eyes being something to be wary of...

Remove blindness/deafness(3rd level cleric) will repair damaged eyes/ears as long as the eye/ear hasn't been removed, which I would go with since the eye itself was not pulled out but pierced and ripped.

Alternately there is the 7th level cleric spell Regenerate that covers any lost stuff including heads of multi-headed people/creatures (it don't work on the dead so a one-headed dude without a head don't qualify).

Oh well, thats simple, ha ha, cool thanks ! I think I will go with the regeneration - I reckon an arrow skewering an eye would more destroy it than anything, unless someone is instantly on hand with the right spell... plus it gives the player something extra to quest for.. a new eye !

I don't think the disfigurement should come up too often - I only use the custom criticals against the players for boss type creatures. So its rarely used against them, and when it is, the chance of getting a critical against them is fairly low, and it being disfiguring fairly low again. But, its bound to come up again at some point. Hmmm.

Hi there,
I am currently running the Legacy of Fire campaign - and one of my player's - the rogue - has just had her eye taken out by a very accurate arrow from a gnoll ranger boss that has plagued them with his surprisingly good (lucky ) archery.
I am using the GameMastery Critical Decks - usually only against the enemies, unless the players go up against special bosses and the like ( I apply the more harmless critical fumbles to players at all times however ).

My question relates to the healing of serious injuries. Arms lopped off. Eyes taken out. Serious disfigurement. What kind of healing could restore such an injury - if any. Is it commonplace - such injuries in a magically fuelled healing industry are simple to fix ? Or is it more than likely a life changing injury ? I am looking for opinions, suggestions, guidance.

On the one hand having the player have to employ a false eye or an eye patch adds a certain level of gnarly cool with a tale to tell. On the other hand its a downer that the character now has a permanent penalty. My gut feeling is that perhaps the injury is too severe for mudane magics, but theres a possibility that a really skilled, expensive, rare treatment can restore such injuries.

Or maybe theres even room for having a magically crafted false eye that does something... odd....

I can see that this level of disfigurement may come up again - a fighter that loses an arm. So it would be good to get it fixed in my head how I handle it..

What do you think ?

I think this has been much discussed - my take would be that its a lot of things - perhaps first on the list would be lack of body language and conversation marks. When you are face to face with someone, much more attention is paid to how your comments are being received, and theres also the if I'm really offensive I may get hit in the face thing going on - but all i would say second nature, not something that you really think about. Its a deep down hard wired human nature dealio.
Theres also an element of the unreal about typing away at a keyboard - its almost like an internal dialog as opposed to an external conversation - so your thoughts are less guarded / well behaved / obey the social nicities. Its just you, a keyboard, and a rambling brain whilst you stare at the ceiling, so to speak.
In the same kind of way, emotion is also important - typing is very poor at conveying emotion or worse, nuances of emotion and meaning, and so something thats taken as a throw away comment or debatable, may be seized on by someone else who takes serious issue with the particular. Lack of correct emotional context is a notorious problem with things like email, but its not just the real obvious things - like taking a joke as a serious comment etc - but there are also a myriad of nuanced sub texts going on as well. All of which gets lost between author and reader. A typed missive is very much more dependent on a) the mood of its author and b) the mood of the reader - both of which can be in entirely different time zones and so get a completely different feeling from the message.

And lastly, the transaction length of an online conversation is much longer - its more like two or more people lecturing each other than a give and take conversation - which is important. Given enough steam people can work themselves up into a fine hand waving lecture from on high ( no feedback, lets keep going ) - which can inflame their own point of view, as well as having the reverse effect on someone else who basically has to sit there and become more and more agitated as they wait to have a say. Cue lecture response. Rinse and repeat. In a face to face conversation the give and take is much shorter and much faster - a lot of information and balancing goes on very quickly. Part of the basic nature of human evolution, learning to communicate quickly and efficiently -, so you dont get hit over the head by a possible competitor, and everyone knows that today, is banana hunting day. Or something like that. Social groupings lending themselves to better survivability, but requiring excellent communication ( and by implication increased intelligence ). And by that I dont mean correct usage of language, but communication overall, body language, choice of words, intonation, ad nauseum.
Back to conversations - try a conversation where you speak long monologues at some one. Possibly whilst holding your hand up to them and telling them to shut up its your turn everytime they want to refute something. Even better, do it with a chess clock - a minute each to talk at the other. Its going to raise the temperature of the conversation. Annoyances and anger build over time - proper anger takes a while to build. Apparently. Conversations are less likely to do that, than a delayed - extra time built in - forum conversation.

Bottom line : Lack of body language / social feedback , lack of emotion, correct emotion and intent identification, and slow feedback / size of message transaction.

Lastly I would like to apologise for going off on a long lecture ha ha. :P

Demiurge 1138 and Jubbly, do you mind if I translate this set piece and the maps and make them available to French-speaking Pathfinder fans? You would naturally be credited - my goal is only to make it possible for DMs who do not speak English to use your work.

Thats fine by me - its Demiurge's baby tho, I just made some pretty illustrations !

When I click on your Players unannotated version of the upper levels, a small version of the map appears. This part is fine. However, when I click on that small version of the map, I get a blank page. When I right click on the "red x" to display the pic that would have been an enlarged version of your map, I get a file not found error with a link to the homepage that website.

Hmm, ok thanks, I will see if I can kick start it by uploading a new save.

Edit: Done !