Kat_Man_Dew's page

There is a good bit on information on controlling extra characters in the ult campaign book if I recall correctly.

Thanks, I'll definitely look into that.

Summoned animals are animals. You can't talk to them unless you have 'speak with animals' or another magical effect that lets you do so. They attack your foes, because it says so in the spell, but in order to give them other orders, you have to use Handle Animal. If a GM is generous, she may allow you to assume they are trained animals and have the usual sorts of tricks an animal of their type would have if you purchased one from ye olde pett and workyng anymal shoppe. Otherwise you'd have to push them to get them to do anything.

Summoned elementals and other beings have the intelligence listed for them in the bestiaries. In order to command Earth Elementals, you have to either speak Terran or be pretty good at charades. The elementals aren't very smart so they will interpret commands very literally.

I was all excited to enforce this rule...until I checked this celestial commander page and saw the following:

Divine Tongue (Ex)

At first level, a celestial commander learns the celestial language. In addition, every creature they summon can understand, but not necessarily speak, Celestial.

So while I now realize most of his creatures can't speak back to him, am I correct in assuming he is otherwise perfectly capable of simply asking his creature to do something? As opposed to having to use Handle Animal.

Oh man. The whole "Emerald Spire essence prevents Earth Gliding because reasons" thing never even occurred to me! He really spams those things and it's super annoying (because 99% of enemies are earth-bound), but he's well within the rules of the game, so I haven't done anything about it. I thought about just outright banning them, but that seemed a little heavy-handed.

I always assumed summoned creatures were more intelligent than the regular versions. He's always talked to, say, the void-hyena he just summoned and asked to scout ahead. It will come back and I'll have it tell him basic things like "Big room. Smelly men with shiny skin."

@Kalindlara: Funny that you mention that book. He found out about it a few weeks ago and got so excited. He's planning on ordering it.
He's recently been talking about having his cohort be a 3.5 artificer who just stays in town and makes gear for them. So I won't have to worry about controlling him in a dungeon; instead, I'll have to make sure to keep the magic item generation under control somehow.

How do summoned creatures work? In this case, an earth elemental is intelligent enough to speak, but would the player have to dictate all of its actions, or can he just summon him, give him an overall objective, and let it go? It seems like there should be a limitation, like summons only being able to carry out very basic commands, or at least having the player walk them through each step. Otherwise, the player's turn is lasting much longer than everyone else's, as he now has multiple different characters to control, all with more or less free will.

How do you handle summons?

On a related note: this player is also looking to gain a follower soon, via Leadership. When this happens, does he control the cohort like a whole other character for himself?

@Rub-Eta: Correct on the time thing. Typing faster than I was thinking.
And actually the trap isn't, to me, as deadly as ability damage. It's a hallucinogenic gas which "creates synesthesia, crossing a victim's sensory input so she might 'see' sounds or 'taste' sights. The gas is invisible and odorless; characters in the area may not even realize that they set off the trap."

Onset: 10 mins
Frequency: 1/rd for 4 rounds
Effect: 1 Wis and target is fascinated and sickened for 1d4 rounds
Cure: 1 save
All targets in a 10-ft spread

Later in the level there is a gibbering mouther, about which the book says "to anyone under the effects of synesthesia gas, the crazy babbling of the monster produces spectacular colors and smells."

This left me wondering what the point of mentioning this was, since my PCs would have long defeated the monster before they felt these effects.

But thanks to Paladin and Reverse, I see I need to start keeping better track of time. I do indeed hand-wave most of those things. In fact, I only recently began following the "unlocking this door takes 2d4 rounds" rule.

So do you all keep track of everything like this all the time? Typically, if my players aren't in combat, it's free time and they move in whatever order they want and rounds aren't kept track of (unless there is a specific reason to, like how many rounds a summoned creature has left).

(As a side note, how does the above trap work, exactly? it says the frequency is once per round for 4 rounds, and the fascinated/sickened effects last 1d4 rounds, with the cure being 1 saving throw. So...they roll Fort saves 4 rounds in a row until they fail, and then are affected for 1d4 rounds?)

I have an initial question, which led me to another.

Getting ready to head through Splinterden in the Emerald Spire and was looking at the synesthesia gas trap. It says the onset is 10 minutes. Onset means how long it will take to affect the player. Does this mean the PCs don't experience the effects of the gas until 10 minutes later? What's the point of that?

Which led me to: For those of you who have played it, how long would you say an average trip through a level of the Emerald Spire is? Because if the gas doesn't hit them for 10 minutes, then they won't feel the effects until they're almost done with the level.

The way we have been figuring (because this subject came up on the first level): a round = 6 seconds. 10 rounds = 1 minute. 60 rounds = 10 minutes. 600 rounds = an hour.

So as far as my PCs are concerned, it only takes 10-15 minutes to clear a level.

Now, thinking a little more realistically, I feel it would take longer than this. But going strictly by how time works in-game, they seem to be correct

Thoughts?

Thanks, everyone! Maybe we'll just carry around a wand of Alter Self or something...

Now he wants to play a Celestial Commander Summoner, which still isn't helping their lack of space... le sigh.

Sorry for the absence; I thought I'd receive an email or alert or something when people responded, but apparently that isn't the case...

Anyway, thank you!

One of my players wants to be a synthesis summoner, but how does the size increase evolution work? If he takes the evolution that makes his eidolon Large, does he become large too?

On one hand, it seems that if he's "wearing" his eidolon, he would grow along with it. However, being a synthesist, it says your *eidolon* conforms to *you*. I mean, the thing basically becomes your armor, and you can't wear armor that's too big for you...

How would anyone else DM this?

(We're getting ready to do Emerald Spire, so being Large would be a pretty big inconvenience, hence why we need to know.)

First post!

Reason for the question: New to PF, longtime 3.5 player, bought Emerald Spire stuff and was curious what the stats (crime, economy, etc) meant for Fort Inevitable.

I downloaded the (awesome) PFRPG app on my iPad, which has a tab called Mastery and a subcategory simply called Settlements. This provides me with seemingly everything I'd need to make my own cities, but I was curious where it came from. I scanned through the many PDFs I have, and can't find it. It doesn't appear to be in the Gamemastery Guide or Ultimate Campaign, and I don't have a Cityscape for PF, if there is such a thing.

Thanks for the help!