That would work out well since he already has a belt of str +2, so I'm not giving anything up to switch to it.
I proposed a house rule to my DM for some changes to it to make it work for the concept.
Quote:
What do you think about tweaking it to something like this:
Move action to get it out and get it ready
Standard action to aim and throw, range increment of 50', but can't go beyond that (since you have to let go of the rope)
If you hit you deal damage and start a grapple. Each round you can make an opposing check vs CMD or Fly Skill + CMD or Caster level added to CMD. (whichever is better for defender based on situation. Standing on the ground, natural flying, and magical flying) If I win I move them X feet back towards me.
If you miss you spend your next full turn reeling it in and winding the rope for another throw.
Anything 2 sizes categories larger than me can win the opposed grapple and pull me off the ground. Gargantuan and Colossal auto pull off the ground, but still harpooned.
They can still sunder the weapon to break the rope. You could even throw in some kind of heal check to pull the harpoon free with no damage or make it a full round action to pull it free that deals damage.
I would like to point out that certain larger creatures are way more likely to pick you up and fly off with you than you drag them down, so be careful with this one.
That's actually what I'm hoping for at some point, I think that would be fun for me and the DM.
I missed that you only get to grapple on a critical hit and that it only had a 10' range increment. For some reason I pictured a harpoon always grappling when it hit since that would seem like the whole point of the weapon.
I'll have to see if my DM will let me tweak it for the fun factor but if not I think I'll fall back on the composite bow or those darts. I like the spear and the Hamatula Strike feat, but if I'm close enough to hit them with a spear I'm close enough to punch them.
Hello,
I'm playing a 8th level str-heavy Brawler in a game and struggle with being useful at range. I know that composite bows or crossbows, or something like that would be the most "effective", but I wanted something with some flavor that fits the character better.
I hit on the idea of using a harpoon. I figure that I've got enough movement that I can get to within 50' of most enemies to make the throw. Since he's heavy on the STR side and has great grappling skills it would really fit the character. I like the visual of dragging flying enemies back down into range or pulling someone off a cliffside. Or even climbing up the rope to get to that flying dragon.
Are there any paizo feats you can recommend that would go well with a harpoon?
I use Maptools for all my games. I saw a rig a guy had created over on the Enworld forums and copied his setup. It's a projector you hang from the ceiling and point straight down at your game table. You then hook up a laptop to it that is running Maptools. You then set your laptop to "extend desktop" mode. This lets you display one thing on your laptop screen and something else on the projector. I launch 2 instances of Maptools and set one as the server and the other as the client. Then I drag the client window over to the extended desktop.
The result is that the players can see the map with a grid and get the effect of the fog of war. While on my laptop screen I can control the DM side and reveal rooms. My players use miniatures so they just move their figures around on the projected image while we play.
For all my maps I use Adobe 7 to extract the images. It works out great.
Hopefully the Cap will be back this week, I will be gone the next four days.
Derro1 - Dead
Anju: 6 points
Owlbear: 18 points
Derro2 - Wounded
Liz: 6 points
Anju turns and hacks at the creature blindly, but has the satisfaction of feeling the weapon strike flesh. A rattle of bones and the sound of rending flesh nearby tells you that the owlbear has joined in. The derro lets out a keening cry that quickly turns to a gurgle, then is silent. You hear the skeletal creature continue to rend and destroy the remains of the derro.
Liz raises Caress to strike a lethal blow the Derro in front of her just as the lights go out. It spoils her aim and her blade passes through the flesh along the ribs rather than piercing internals. She hears the creature hiss in surprise and pain at the blow.
Arius moves back next to Hoskuld and casts a spell to protect him while the northlander tests the darkness in front of him for enemies.
Rheticus draws his crossbow and listens intently to the darkness as he tries to tell friend from foe.
Still need Keth and Branahm actions. Keth, being a half-orc, can still see normally. Arius, the darkness spell is preventing the dim light from the area above the trapdoor from reaching the room. Unfortunately, yes, anyone without darkvision is blind. I'll say you can still pinpoint who is in what square with a DC12 perception check.
Heh, figures, butchered the init this time around b/c I was in a hurry that day.
Know. Dungeoneering DC13
Spoiler:
Derro are small, dwarf-like creatures with pale blue-white skin, bulging white eyes with no iris, and drooping mustaches. The derro are a degenerate breed of subterranean humanoids created by the crossbreeding of dwarves and humans. They are afflicted with a form of racial madness that drives them to inflict pain and torment on surface dwellers. Derro favor ambush attacks and prefer to disable their prey to torture them later.
You know that any direct exposure to sunlight is excruciatingly painful to them. A derro exposed to light for extended periods will eventually die.
They often coat their weapons with poisons that can incapacitate their prey.
They have some minor spell casting abilities, as you have seen already.
The first Derro races forward towards the cluster of people at the entranceway. It leaps up with sword in hand and tries to slice Anju's face, but misses by centimeters. The second creature stops close to the group and raises both hands upward. Shadows from the corners of the room seem to rush into it, then flow outward, snuffing out your lights and plunging the room into darkness.
Spoiler:
Liz successfully sneaks around into position behind the second Derro just before it used its Darkness ability. If you have Darkvision you can still see normally. When making your attacks remember to roll a 50% miss chance if your character cannot see.
Well at the end of the 6th book there is an artifact called the Leng Device. The book describes it as a gate through time and that the denizens of Leng have been tinkering with the device to point it to when Mhar first tried to cross over to the mortal world. After the PC's take out Karzoug and depart the city, more denizens could arrive and re-double their efforts. Within a short time they might be able to stabilize the gate and send through whatever McGuffin they need to change the past so that Mhar can crossover and invade the world. I can see the PC's jumping through the portal after escaping the escaping outsiders and have to battle swarms of aberrations crossing over the weakened boundaries between Leng and the Material plane.
It's the storyline I plan on running with since my PC's have already expressed an interest in continuing beyond 16 or 17 or so, whatever level they end the campaign as.
I'd be interested in playing CotCT. My group started the first book but didn't make it very far before our DM dropped out. It was just long enough to whet the appetite!
It looks like you could use a martial type character. A human fighter would be good I think.
I'd be interested in playing a cleric. I'm fairly familiar with the Pathfinder rules, our group has been using them in our second darkness campaign. I'd setup a varisian cleric of desna and focus on healing.
The meteor hammer is listed as being a 2h reach weapon when used normally. You also have the option of switching combat styles from normal to either "fortress" or "meteor storm". In fortress you use one end to gain a +1 shield bonus and in meteor storm you use it as a double weapon.
Do you lose your 10' reach when using either of these alternative styles? I didn't see anything in the description though I'm inclined to say that you would lose it. Also in fortress style is it no longer a 2h weapon? Could someone enchant one end as a shield and the other end as a weapon?
I like the idea of a non-caster taking Magic item manufacturing feats a lot, but I feel the Master Craftsman Feat should still offer something on it's own.
I understand that it's a big thing to get acces to the other feats but it's still hard to take a feat that does nothing until you spend another feat.
I'm not talking about big things but the ability to fix broken magic items, resizing or reshape magic weapons and/or armor could make the wait worthwhile.
We house ruled it that taking the feat is equivalent to taking the "craft magics arms and armor" or the "craft wondrous item" feat. Our DM liked the imagery of a player's dwarf fighter toiling away and forging his own magic weapons and armor. Since the player was willing to invest in a feat and a great deal of skill points (DC is higher when you don't have the spells available for your enchantments) the DM thought that it would be acceptable to make the feat available to him rather than saying "Okay, now wait two more levels and you can take another feat then start working." I don't think they player would have taken it if the DM had said that; there is no reward for the feat itself. Though its not like a fighter is hurting for feats to begin with, but its a different story for other non-casting classes or classes with 1/2 caster level progression (ranger, paladin) who can't qualify for the feat until much, much later.
Our group has just started playing around with crafting magic items. One of the things we're trying to figure out is the Caster Level that is listed at the bottom of weapon/armor abilities, wondrous items, etc.
According to the Magic Items Web Enhancement:
"Note that all items have prerequisites in their descriptions.
These prerequisites must be met for the item to be created.
Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be
known by the item’s creator (although access through another
magic item or spellcaster is allowed). The DC to create a magic
item increases by +5 for each prerequisite the caster does not
meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item creation
feat, which is mandatory"
Does this mean that a player can attempt to create/enchant an item that they don't meet the caster level requirement for by adding a +5 to the craft DC?
If you can create an item for which you don't meet the CL requirement, is there a higher penalty for creating an item well above your CL? For example Seeking has a CL of 12, and only a +1 bonus so a character could build it at 6th level. Should the missing prerequisite DC increase based on how low your CL is compared to the CL you are trying to match?
Some wondrous items don't list a caster level requirement to craft them, but the item itself has a caster level. Does the player need to have the same caster level of the item in order to craft it, or in this case do they just need the feat, the spell, and gold cost?
Finally, in the weapons and armor section it mentions your caster level must be 3 times the enhancement bonus you are trying to create. Is this another prerequisite that could be skipped by adding +5 to the DC or does it trump the prerequisite rule?
Why not reanimate the victim as an undead creature? Resurrection and True Ress can raise the dead if the victim has been turned into and undead creature and then destroyed. But what happens if the undead creature isn't destroyed? If you're paying for an assassination and you are concerned with the person coming back to life, pay a little extra for the animate dead scroll. The assassin animates the target and buries him in a tomb somewhere. Or put the undead in a bag of holding and puncture the bag.
It requires a bit of creativity on the players part, but you can defeat those high level spells.
[Quote=]The Hook Mountain Massacre
Turtleback Ferry by Russell Akred
Our group uses digital maps and a projector to setup our battle grid. At the start of the third book, I handed out the map that Russell Akred did of Turtleback ferry. The players loved it and spent some time in the out of the way shops in town. Later in the adventure I knew that there would be some changes to the town for the section titled, "Down Comes the Rain". I modified a portion of the Turtleback Ferry map to show the flooding and wanted to share the picture for others to use. It won't win any photoshop awards but it looked decent.
I ended up not using all of her abilities or in the most tactically sound combinations that she was capable of due to the party not being very optimized. We had: Cleric5/Barb1, Cleric6, Druid6(PHB2 variant), and Wizard6. The wizard had already used up most of his spells on fly and invis for the party so I knew the arcane firepower would be low. I didn't use her touch attack wisdom drain since three of my players were wisdom based and this would have removed their ability to cast spells within 4 rounds with average rolling for the drain. It ended up being a very very close fight and I think was very memorable for them.
Fight details for the curious:
Spoiler:
The party split up at Aldren's mansion and the rogue encountered the two faceless stalkers solo. They took him into the negatives and the druid that was waiting outside bolted when the creatures came out, so they had no inkling that shapeshifters were involved (important later).
The party waited until midnight on Oathday and came across the cultists at the top floor of the sawmill. The room is described as being covered in sawdust up to a foot deep in places. The wizard wins initiative and fireballs the room...
They ended up with a cool battle in a burning building in which they saved the sacrifice victim and one unconscious cultist, along with Ironbriar's body. Problem is they burned the journal, the messenger ravens, Ironbriar was dead, and Speak with Dead failed (made the save). Soooo they questioned the cultist and learned he was going to meet with a divine agent somewhere in the Shadow. They check out the Shadow the next day and spy a sihedron mark on the clocktower. Then they decide to wait a couple of days while they buy scrolls, identify some magic items, and plan their attack.
I decided that Xanesha would not be idle during this time. She had three faceless stalkers in the tower and the two that survived the mansion encounter. Two of them had infiltrated the city watch and had worked their way in close to the guy who was handling the murder investigation. This gave her some info on who they were and what moves they were making. The remaining three stalkers took on the forms of: the missing party rogue, Shalelu (who the cleric/barbarian was sweet on), and a third random person they had never met. They sat around the support of the stone angel and let themselves be bound up with rope by Xanesha. Xanesha then found a comfy hiding place in the nearby bridge pillar so she could watch for the party's approach.
The party bought scrolls of fly and invisibility and flew to the top of the tower, neatly bypassing the encounters down below. When they got to the top of the tower and saw who was there, they abandoned caution, flew down, and untied their "friends". When the wizard untied the strange he asked him who he was, the man replied "Your death" and they all shifted back into their natural forms. The surprised looks, groans, and cries of dismay filled my evil dm heart with glee.
While they fought the stalkers, Xanesha spent 4 rounds buffing before casting major image. The wizard spent two big spells on it before he realized it was an illusion. Xanesha broke invis by trying to petrify the wizard. After that it was a combo of deep slumber, scorching rays, and some more meleeing.
They did manage to defeat Xanesha with several very close calls. The cleric/barb hit -9 and later 0hp. At 20hp she started to dimension door away but the players were so disappointed I had her blip to the room below to recover and buff up some more. They thought she was long gone, went down below and were nearly killed again before they took her down.
I'm only halfway through the second book with my group, but already there are some things I would do different. My players are largely power gamers with almost non-existent RP. It's hard to get them into the mode of thinking that this adventure path calls for. Not everything is an exp speed bump. Somethings are meant to be killed, others talked to, and others could be let go. Murdering everything that comes your way can be counter productive. Their attitude is largely due to the last few years of gaming being light on plots.
Burnt Offerings
Spoiler:
Make sure you players have good backgrounds and ties to the town. Most of my players made traveling adventurers with no living family members. The only one that made a good background is the one I forced to live in town as a trader for the local Shoanti tribe's goods.
Give out the map of the town and a legend of all the numbered locations. It will encourage them to check out a few other locations.
I wished I had spent more time on the various colorful NPC's in the town. I would recommend a lot of benign encounters in town. Flesh out the guards that work for Hemlock and when they go to buy/sell their loot describe shopkeepers such as the armorsmith, alchemist, and magic shop guy. While Hemlock is gone to Magnimar it can be a good time to introduce them to all the big name NPC's.
Dialog for the bad guys could have been better. Tsuto and Nualia didn't get a chance to say much during the fighting, but I would have liked to toss in a few lines to hint at their motivations.
Skinsaw Murders
Spoiler:
I didn't spend enough time with the players in town during the murders as I would have liked. The players figured out where the Misgivings were shortly after the Asylum and set out for it right away. If they had spent some more time in town I could have done a few more neat encounters I had planned. There was going to be a chase through the streets that ended with the bad guy diving into the bay to escape. Later there would have been some lynch mob type citizens patrolling the streets at night and causing trouble with their witch hunt.
As per this thread I changed the fight sequence for Aldren so that he talks first and fights later. I had about a page and a half of dialog ready to go but my players ignored him while he was trying to talk and just attacked. I even had him back off during the fight and try to speak. This is one scene where having your players on the same page as you is important.
When the players reach Magnimar, make sure they understand how big and busy it is. My players expected to waltz in and do whatever they wanted, but being new in a huge city makes things tough. They have to hire street urchins to guide them around and show them where all the good shops are. Pickpockets abound everywhere. Their hero status isn't nearly as useful in the big city as it was in a small town, so they have a harder time getting their way all the time. Crime scenes are unavailable to them, they have to report to the head investigator of the watch, and sometimes they're not consulted before a move is made.
The sawmill still to come. I added some short phrases the cultists will say while fighting to add to their creepiness.
Name of PC: Podao
Class/Level: 3 Rogue / 2 Wizard
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Split up from party. While the two clerics of the party were attending a Desna church service to see an evil item destroyed (good churches paying bounties for evil items), he and the druid headed for Foxglove manorhouse.
Spoiler:
Inside he encountered Aldren and Iesha who wondered who this intruder was in their house. He thought they were illusions until he touched one and the other one shut the door he just entered the room through. They changed back into faceless stalkers and attacked. He fled outside and rallied with his druid buddy. The FS chased him, and setup flanking positions. A crit and a sneak attack finished him off. The druid fled once he went down. The FS carried him off and stabilized him later.
I gave the player the option of being a sacrifice at the seven sawmill that the surviving players could rescue in the nick of time, but he decided that he wanted to make a new character that was straight wizard. His new wizard is the brother of Takis, the first of his characters that I killed back in Burnt Offerings.
Has anyone had Ameiko brought to Thistletop instead of rescued at GW? What was your experience like?
Yes, my players didn't pursue Tsuto when he attacked in the GW with the goblins. He snuck Ameiko out through the smugglers tunnels to the beach and took her back to Thistletop. I ended up putting her in room D9. She was there nearly a week before they finally discovered her. It became a good way to detail some of the sacrifice rituals taking place nearby as Nualia and Tsuto argued about using her in one.
After my players rescued her they armed her and she followed them through the rest of the dungeon. They were impressed with her competence during a few battles and she is now a goto person for them when they need information.
Name of PC: Takis
Class/Level: Wizard 2
Adventure: Burnt Offerings - Catacombs of Wrath
Catalyst: 20^3 or a 1 in 8,000 chance
In the showdown with the Quasit, the group largely ignored a sinspawn to focus their fire on her. The sinspawn went after the wizard (who was still wrathed from the bite of another sinspawn). Both claws missed, rolled a 20 for the bite, rolled a 20 for the confirm, and finally the third 20 sealed the deal. It's a House rule, if you roll two 20's in a row, then confirm, you instantly slay whatever you're fighting. Even without the rule, he wouldn't have survived the crit.
So poor Takis lost his head. They retreated, dragging the body of their dead buddy. I plan on having him return as a special undead horror since he was affected by the wrath bite more than once. >:)
My party tried almost the exact same tactic. They searched the bridge and discovered that it wouldn't handle the weight, so they decided the cleric would hike across the bridge with a rope and secure the other side (despite me hinting that they could secure the bridge on this end instead). They knew the goblins were on full alert after failing to stop several of them from fleeing some battles. When he got near the end of the bridge he was ambushed by goblin commandos and scouts in the tower. The druid cast obscuring mist, then later shapeshifted and ran across the bridge, but then lost his balance and nearly fell. Finally, our other cleric started running across the bridge to help. I was allowing them to to get away with it until the druid shifted out of his canine form (small) and back to human form (medium) and sent them all tumbling. Except for the first cleric, who was tied off with a rope, and smacked like a pendulum against the cliff face. The second cleric in heavy armor sank like a rock, the druid was barely keeping his head above water, and the first cleric was at -9 hit points. Miraculously he stabilized while our 4th player rappelled down the cliff to feed him a healing potion then cut the rope to free him.
We ended the night at the base of the cliff with the tide coming in and a small army of goblins up on the cliffs hooting and laughing at them. =)
