Keirion M. Weiwyrdson's page

The way I look at it is the cultists are more like frontline troops at a Forward Operating Base. Sure there are smiths, cooks and latrine diggers. And every one of them is infantry trained and expected to pick up a rifle,er a sword, and man the lines against an all out attack. All of them.

IMHO that means that there are no noncombatants in this case, especially when you consider that this base has been reduced to what amounts to a skeleton crew to reinforce the war effort elsewhere. That means taking anyone actually good enough at what they do to be a noncombatant and moving them somewhere where they can be of better use. What you are left with is the company cooks and field smiths of the platoons not "worth" taking. In other words "we have to leave SOMEBODY here, we'll leave THEM." sure they're competent, but that's about all you can say for them.

What I'm thinking for doing with Drezen is anytime they want to start a new construction they make a Knowledge:Local or extended Perception check with a low base DC for something simple getting higher as the buildings get more comlex and if they make it they find a structure and materials between 10% and 95% suitable for what they want depending on how well they roll.

Ciretose, MrSin,
Girls girls, your both pretty (jk, just trying to defuse the tension :-) seriously though you're both right. The OP should begin with an open dialogue about the difference between a table top shared storytelling experience (liken it to writing a novel together) and video powergaming, if he refuses to get the point THEN move on to in game reality checks and LTDFWTM. Personally though I would jump on the opportunity to use him to start a Sandpoint Devil sidetrek. Also I would totally move to story based leveling instead of experience based, I started doing that about two years ago and have never enjoyed the game more.

Right on, another thing I would suggest is a liberal application of action/hero points, say two or three per level that don't roll over from level to level and extra bonus ones that do as GM awards for particularly good gaming. And frankly turning Sandara into a GM/PC is not a bad idea, just give her a couple of traits maybe boost a stat or two to keep her in line with the PC's and then have her stand back in most fights and act as a booster/healer and then pop in for the odd flanking bonus.

Also, as for the alignment question, while it is possible to be good aligned morally flexible is a lot less work, especially with the infamy/disrepute rules.

My brother and I are currently running through it together with only two characters so we went munchkin with it. Gestalt Sorcerer/Gunslinger and Witch/Gunslinger brothers with a superhero stat array, 13/14/15/16/17/18 arranged how you like. Overkill much? hells yeah but it's a gas, and while we are smoking most of the skill rolls we aren't just waltzing through every combat. Is it for everyone? Certainly not, but you could easily tone it down some and still help them a lot. For example simply allowing superhero stats would go a long way towards helping them out. I can give you other ideas but they get pretty munchkiny pretty fast.

No there is no statblock for her, she isn't expected to or planned for by the author to need one, most of the ships officers don't get one, pretty much just Plugg, Scourge and Ambrose. Plugg and Scourge because they are major antagonists and Ambrose because he goes with you on the Promise. A few others pop up here and there in future issues, like Caulky in the third one I think, and Harrigan himself near the end but I don't think Grok is one of them, though I may be mistaken.

1. Shattered Star

2. Skull & Shackles

3. Rise of the Runelords

4. Carrion Crown

5. Age of worms

These are my choices, in that order. Breaking them down in reverse order:

AoW is one of my all time favs, a hardcore classic "Save the World" game, which is why it makes the list at all, being prePF.

CC I really liked because of it's Gothic horror theme, a favorite of mine and also how it kinda plays like Pathfinder vs. the Universal Monsters. It comes in at number four because the last couple of adventures don't seem to hold together so well.

RotR F*****g ROOOOOOOOCKS! one of the best AP's of all times I'm actually getting the special edition for Xmas, and truly believe it will stand the test of time, so why not number one? Because it does it's job almost too well and it's job was to introduce us to Golarion and the Paizo's take on D&D, and that's not a bad thing, hell it has become my goto AP for introducing new players to both table top gaming in general and PF specifically, but it keeps from the number one spot.

S&S is number two because it admirably fulfills a number of things I've always wanted in an AP. Pirates YARGHHHH! because YES MORE PLEASE :-D lol, I have also always wanted a credible Evil campaign where being an SOB is a Virtue and this one is that in spades, and finally because I've always wanted a game where the Characters become rulers of a powerful kingdom in the end and this AP achieves this goal very well.

Finally, Shattered Star... now some may think I'm jumping the gun since only the first two installments are out but this is looking to be a major world altering AP and is the first one revolving around a Major Artifact. But the main reason it goes to number one is that it is the first AP that I believe is worthy of the reincarnation of my personal most iconic character as well as my brothers, and it will finally give us the opportunity to reincarnate them into Golarion and play them together.

The Presidential debates.

I think shoulders is your best bet since tabards are traditionally meant to be worn on top of everything else.

I once had a halfling rogue that had the old "quicker than the eye" feat that would allow you to sneak attack somebody you had just bluffed. His battle cry was usually one of three things "behind you!!" "your boots are untied" and my personal favorite "look at the birdie" while motioning with his offhand. Once he tagged the BBEG three times in a row, it was hysterical :-D

Wow, this has actually been a really fun thread to read, so for what it's worth here my two cents.

Number one, the BBEG is perfectly within his rights especially if he knows this final confrontation is coming in finding his own GS. It's actually a fairly common trope in movies and fiction. Example, in "Blind Fury" the BBEG had spent most of the movie watching his minions getting taken out by a swordsman, so he went out and hired the best swordsman he could find for a huge final confrontation. In my honest opinion completely reasonable, regardless of what the player might think, and that is exactly what I would tell the player when he starts to raise a stink.

Number two, fire is your friend. People have been talking about how wall of fire will break line of sight but nobody's mentioned the most obvious thing. I don't know about your world but in this one gunpowder is extremely flammable, and frankly anything that's hot enough to do actual fire damage is hot enough to explode gunpowder. Now if you have something that's hot enough to do actual dice damage and is also an area effect attack, especially something with a duration like oh say a "wall of fire" I for one as the GM would start making any player dumb enough to get close to that start making some seriously difficult saving throws for his equipment. say like DC 15 plus the damage dealt so if the GS were to get within 20 feet were talking DC 17ish, within 10 feet about a DC 20, and if he were to try to actually move through the wall of fire... DC 30 minimum and that is if you even let him after he was stupid enough to try to walk through a wall of fire carrying probably quite a lot of gunpowder on him at the time. Or hell, we are talking about an Efreeti, how about if he targets the guns themselves with those quickened scorching rays, can we all say boom!

Mine was a 3.5 LG half-ogre monk named "Donk" who had been left on the steps of a Sun Soul monastery when he was an infant. In the one game he ever played he never threw a punch. In a fight with a very young black dragon he adroitly dodged it's breath weapon, ran up on it, grabbed it by the neck and wrung its neck like a Christmas goose. Then in the boss battle while everyone else was tied up with minions he tumbled across the battlefield and grappled the BBEG into an unbreakable bearhug effectively removing her from the rest of the fight. I would still love to play him out someday.

Hal Linden
was in
"The Colony"
with
John Ritter

And I thought it was supposed to be movies only.

Joss Whedon
was in
"Serenity" (voice of bank guard)
with
Ron Glass

You know it's funny about this thread popping up, I just noticed that particular ruling just the other day and believe me it caused some lively discussions in my group. I had also been considering starting my own thread about it and what our final call on it was, so what the hey, here goes.

I don't think this actually qualifies as a Rule, it seems more like a Ruling, albeit by the most qualified DM you could find. That said, in this case I think he got it wrong and here's why. Yes the wizards spellbook is a class feature but it's a frontloaded feature, when a wizard takes a PrC it doesn't burst into flame or something. In the feature description it reiterates something that has already been stated as a part of his spells, to wit:

Spells
A wizard casts arcane spells drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list. A wizard must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time.
To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the wizard must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wizard's spell is 10 + the spell level + the wizard's Intelligence modifier.
A wizard can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Wizard. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score (see Table: Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells).
A wizard may know any number of spells. He must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time by getting 8 hours of sleep and spending 1 hour studying his spellbook. While studying, the wizard decides which spells to prepare.

Spells Gained at a New Level: Wizards perform a certain amount of spell research between adventures. Each time a character attains a new wizard level, he gains two spells of his choice to add to his spellbook. The two free spells must be of spell levels he can cast. If he has chosen to specialize in a school of magic, one of the two free spells must be from his specialty school.

And when he takes a spellcasting PrC say Diabolist it says:

Spells per Day
When a new diabolist level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class she belonged to before she added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain other benefits a character of that class would have gained. If a character had more than one spellcasting class before becoming a diabolist, she must decide to which class she adds each level of diabolist for the purpose of determining spells per day.

I submit that adding two spells per level to your spellbook is a function of the spells class feature that is, ostensibly being upgraded by the PrC. If someone were to argue that that's not what the Spells per Day PrC class feature explicitly says, I would counter-argue if you are going to espouse an utterly RAW reading of the above, as I see it NO spellcasting class gets any actual new spells, it says Spells per Day, period, not Spells Known as with the Sorcerer or however any other class accesses new spells, and that my friends is patently ridiculous.

Honestly I would stick with Paladin. I'm starting a two person Council of Thieves game soon and I will be running a paladin for just that reason, good fighter, and plenty of available healing as you get to higher levels. It's already been mentioned but between the Heal skill and a liberal sprinkling of potions of CLW, getting thru the first few levels should be no problem, that's what I like about Bastards Of Erebus, it's lousy with them.

CW what I'm wondering is why you started this thread? I mean you asked for opinions and got an overwhelmingly negative response, and the responses were generally well thought out and argued (and btw for for as much as it matters I agree with them). When it did not go the way you were hoping, you seemed to throw everyone a figurative raspberry with a "well imma do it how I want anyway". so I guess what I'm asking is, if that was going to be your atttitude why did you bother to bring it up. My group makes house rules all the time but we don't bring them here unless we need input to settle a conflict, or are particularly proud of it (got one coming btw).

I would love to the cesta, you could call it something like a halfling battle sling. The Pelota, the rubber ball used with it in the sport of Jai Alai is called the most lethal ball in any sport. I imagine that's in no small part because it's being fired at over 170 mph. Imagine the damage a half pound lead or silver sphere would do. Heh heh, it actually makes that x4 crit on the old 3.5 halfling warsling seem reasonable.

well there is the Dhampir in the Beastiary 2. It's not a zombie but it is RAW. If that doesn't do it for you, you might consider just giving the character all the base undead abilities/weaknesses and call it the "zombie" race since I assume he would be free willed and not mindless like most zombies.

Dude, honestly I think your over thinking it. I recently included an efficient quiver in a dragons horde specifically for our wizard because his collection of magic sticks (7 wands 2 staves and a rod, so far) were just getting to unwieldy to manage. And I did tell him that if he took quickdraw he could change them out without penalty. It hasn't broken my game so far. It seems to me like your missing this point of the text, Once the owner has filled it, the quiver can quickly produce any item she wishes that is within the quiver, thats sorta the definition of spelling it out. It also says explicitly that in the bow slots you can put whatever you want so long as it has an approximate shape and size to a bow, I don't see why that wouldn't apply to the other slots as well. Again it just kinda smacks of over thinking. And if what your worried about is breaking the rules, well, BFD it's YOUR game and you make the rules. Trust me the player is not gonna gripe cause you didn't make him jump through hoops for it.

1. Alright I'm going to have to jump on the bandwagon too, pirates, yeah that would rock. A good Ole Errol Flynn, swashbuckling, swing in on a rope and save the girl (or guy, whatever) adventure. And it would be a good way to showcase some of the new classes because pirates rock, ninjas rock, pirates AND ninjas, rock the house man. It could also give the gunslinger a boost, get all the gunpowder haters to back off the vitriol a little because pirates isn't pirates without cannonade broadsides and a brace of pistols in your belt, I don't care WHAT you say, and ya'll know I'm right.

2. A well written massive dungeon crawl would be excellent, maps, maps and more maps, man I love maps. A chance to really explore your underdark. Maybe your own mines of Moria or Mithral Hall, with the adventurers helping to reestablish an ancient dwarvish kingdom or some such, yeah that would be pretty cool too.

3. All the new planar critters in the B2 plus the great start you got in the Beastiary have had me increasingly chomping at the bit for something that would allow me to interact with all those neat beasties, most of whom have almost no place in the average campaign. Frankly a game where both they and all the templates are almost commonplace would be great. Plus, I love the idea of all the exotic locales that the characters would be exposed to. It would be a great locale not only to adventure but to base characters in.

Heh, my players are still griping about those wolves in AoW the Whispering Cairn. The first combat of the game and three freaking wolves get the initiative and knock the paladin and the mage flat and then proceed to tear into those guys like fresh hamburger. Still makes me laugh.

I'm testing out the Magus right now and I'm leaning twords the falcata and exotic weapon proficiency. The falchion and elven curved blade are poor choices in my opinion because making use of the class's three main abilities, spellcasting, spell combat and spellstrike, generally require having at least one hand free. I like the falcata because it's got the same damage and critical threat range as the longsword and a x3 multiplier which just doesn't suck, plus, it looks cool ;) heh heh.