Kildaere's page

For a city as important as Absalom is to the campaign Setting. It is surprisingly hard to find information about it. I see that there is a very old source book that does not have the information I seek. The new PFS guide has part of the block, but is missing the settlement stats. Where can I find a city stat block that lists things like purchase limits?

When something modifies Base speed does that effect all of the creatures movement types? Most things specify base LAND speed, but there are a couple that just say speed or base speed.

Ie: Does a dwarves "slow and steady" ability have any effect if the dwarf has a climb, swim or fly speed?

What about the cleric's Travel domain?

which says:
Granted Powers: You are an explorer and find enlightenment in the simple joy of travel, be it by foot or conveyance or magic. Increase your base speed by 10 feet.

That seems to imply that your base speed can be natural or by spell/item (ie magic).

SO if I have a Dwarven travel domain cleric who is flying in heavy armor....what's his speed? (I now have a flying dwarf in my game so this is coming into play)

40ft (slow and steady does not apply to fly, neither does travel domain)
50ft (slow and steady does not apply to fly, but travel domain does)
70ft (slow and steady applies, and so does travel domain.)

Something else?

With the news that the Advanced Class Guide is part 1 of a 6 part Adventure Path
link.

I think we should help the developers come up with the classes for the remaining 5 volumes.

Here are two suggestions.

Hexagone (Witch/Wizard)
A spell caster that just casts spells with none of those unbalancing slumber hex issues.

Singshot (Gunslinger/Bard)
The two most powerful classes now combined!

A little background. I am running a Rise Of The Runelords Campaign. One of my players is playing an archer (inquisitor specifically). We have just finished Book 2 and are moving on to Hook Mountain. He has saved up his money and before he left Magnimar he purchased a +1 Adaptive Corrosive Composite longbow (9400 gp) well within his wealth by level and available for purchase in that city (they are closing in on 8th level). We are not a super Min/Max group, although the players do try and find effective options. I have DMed an archer before and was able to challenge the player at higher levels with some windwalls/fickle winds and quite frankly I also just resigned to having the archer machine gun most encounters.

This time around, I don’t really have a lot of casters coming up

Given time to prep (buffs), most of my players will be doing around 20-40 points of damage a round, the archer will be doing about 50 - 70) in another level he will be doing about 140 round due to manyshot + iterative and he has taken a level of cleric to take advantage of Litany of Righteousness to burst for 1 round to around 280) ummm I don’t see anything coming up that can stand before that.

The player has not done anything too fancy (other than the level of cleric) and has simply progressed down the archery feats. We are paying attention to cover/concealment. He has a +2 equivalent weapon (not to unusual by 8th level). Not sure what to do. I will try and catch them unbuffed, but given the “assault” structure of books 3 - 4 that will happened only occasionally.

1) I can let the archer dominate combat.
2) I can add lots of casters with archery defeating spells.
3) I can change the core rules to nerf archery.

Currently he is just a very powerful force. In one more level he will so outstrip the other players in terms of power they will become nothing more than his support. From my past archer experience this problem gets worse at high level (except in highly magic boss fights).
Eventually I will be able to throw some casters at them, but I see A LOT of dead ogres and giants before we get there (and probably 10+ game sessions. Ie. 5 months of play). What do other groups do about archery? Archers in this AP? Perhaps I should let him shine, as something is coming up that I am not totally aware of (I have read it but don’t have all the encounters prepped yet). Perhaps their own party makeup will be their undoing (I have taken note they are VERY weak arcane wise.)

FYI the party make up is:
A Slumber Witch (yes, problematic too but can be challenged by high will, Improved Iron Will, immunities, helpers…etc..)
A Reach Cleric (a pretty good heavy hitter too)
A Goblin Monk (hilarious and fun as heck to have had in this AP)
A Tanky Fighter/Ranger
The Inquisitor Archer

Any general suggestions/comments are appreciated, but my concerns are mainly aimed at what to do about archery without resorting to a lot of magical shenanigans.

My party started flying last game, so I thought I would Read up on the fly skill. A lot of the rules seem to govern wings, which is odd since I would expect most PCs to gain fly through magic. Looking through past threads I don’t see a lot of consensus as to what happens when:

1) Someone with the flight spell fails the roll. I see everything from the PC stays in place (essentially hovering….which is its own action that they can fail, so what happens if they fail hover?) to, “they plummet to the ground” (again differing opinions on how to DM this…everything thing from they move their speed to the ground…to they fall all the way)

2) Someone with the flight spell is KO’s or slept. Do they float down as it the spell was ended early? or do they fall….Obviously winged flyers plummet, but what about spell users who have the Float down end condition?

Under the fly skill I do see: Avoid Falling Damage: If you are falling and have the ability to fly, you can make a DC 10 Fly check to negate the damage. You cannot make this check if you are falling due to a failed Fly check or a collision.

This seems to imply that a failed roll = Fall to the ground.

And then there is this:
If you are using wings and you fail a Fly check by 5 or more, you plummet to the ground, taking the appropriate falling damage (see Environment).

Which seems to imply that if you don’t have wings you don’t fall when you fail? Either that or a fly spell failed skill roll = fall, and winged creatures have to fail by more (perhaps due to the ability to glide?) I always assumed that Magical Flight is better than winged flight (and I think I remember a JJ post that stated that but I can’t find it).

Most mid level games have to contend with flight I would imagine. What do people think the official rules are (Like PFS for example). And what do people do for home games?

I am introducing a young person to Pathfinder society. They really want to play a druid (mainly because they come with a pet). They are not really interested in spell casting (I know...), they want to be good at combat. Looking ahead (throwing Wild shape into the mix) I see nothing but frustration and problems. I am trying to steer them toward ranger (imo way easier to play).

Incase I am unable to change their mind, any hints or suggested builds for a pretty easy to play PFS druid? I have read through the guides and the class seems pretty complex, albeit flexible.

They are looking for:
1) most importantly a combat pet (animal companion)
2) Fairly easy to play
3) some but minimal spell casting
4) Combat focus that is not too complicated

suggestions? I would like for them to have a good experience...

I am doing something wrong. When I look up old threads I see refence to a flat 1000 gp crafting a day? Where is this in the rules, as my craft speeds are WAY slower than that. I think I am missing something.

Take Larz Rovanky with his Leather Armor Crafting skill of +9.
He has an order for MW Studded Leather (a +3 armor bonus).

The Studded Leather Costs 25 gp
The Masterwork Component costs 150 gp.
Converted to SP that is 1750 sp.

If I let him take a 10 on his crafting skill check, he gets a 19. The DC to make the armor is 13. The amount of progress he makes in a WEEK is (19 x 13 = 247 sp worth of progress) if I divide the total cost of the item by 1 weeks progress it will take approximately 7.1 weeks to make the armor.

What am I missing? that seems WAY too long.

In discussing a recent game where I allowed a teleport into an anti-life shell, I was told that should not have worked as the PC was "entering" the area of the shell. The spell defines the shell as a "a mobile, hemispherical energy field that prevents the entrance of most types of living creatures." I always interpreted that as "entering" as trying to move across the energy field. As a hemisphere, a critter with burrow could always go under it, for example, so why would a teleport not work?

I saw a question in the general section about Monster Lore, and it got me thinking about application to PFS and experiences I had over the summer.

Is there somewhere in the rules where it says exactly how knowledge checks work, and what information is available about each monster? I have read the core rules under “Monster Lore” and the “Check” section which gives us the rules for getting “a bit” or “piece” of useful information. But, what does that mean, or is purposefully vague so each GM can interpret it differently? Are there PFS rules somewhere that standardize it?

If I am missing something and there are rules for it, please point me at them (because I do occasionally run PFS games), and if there are not (and I know we are loath to add rules) we should really codify this as it is something that happens EVERY combat encounter.

If I ask for “resistances”, I have had a GM list all of them, and I have also had GMs tell the table “It has DR/magic” and upon asking if it is resistant to fire (they were a fire based caster), been told to “roll again next turn.” UGH! Not only does this slow down combat but is frustrating to PCs who one of their combat contributions is monster lore.

Monster lore treads very tenderly into metagame territory anyways so I am not entirely sure that numerical values are off limits. When I GM, I tend to steer players away from numerics and answer in general terms. As a player, when asking about saves, I have had GMs tell me it has a will save of +12, I have had GMs tell me “will is its highest”, and I have had GMs order the saves “Will, then Dex, then Fort”.

I see that there are old threads about this subject, but no FAQ or guidance from the powers-that-be. Is this one of those “expect variation” issues? That would be surprising, considering how often they occur. Honestly, when I GM, I tend to give players more information (if they ask for resistances I give em all). What do when the monster has class levels would be another good subject for guidance.

I suspect that these rules do not exist and “a bit” is all we have to go on. If one of the campaign goals is to have a mostly “standardized experience” then this is a part of the rules that could use some definition.

What are your experiences / opinions?

Quick check on how people would rule this.

If you have a ring of freedom of movement do you auto make swim checks? or do you simply have a swim speed (which per the skill gives you a +8 to make a swim check if there is an underwater hazard? For example: If a character wearing the ring gets caught in a whirlpool, can they simply move out on their turn? or do they need to make a swim check to get back to get out of the hazard and move normally with the ring underwater. Since the ring prevents hinderences to movement but not the character being forceably moved (ie bull rushed) I am thinking that they would need to make a swim check to get out of the constant current (with a +8 from the swim speed granted by the ring)?

We are closing in on the finish of our Kingmaker campaign and I have selected RotRL as our next game. Players are excited and asking questions about Sandpoint and proposing possible characters. So far I have:

Half-elf Inquisitor (archer)
Elf Witch (sleepy) or Elf Druid
Goblin Rogue
Human Cleric or Human Wizard
Aasimar Paladin

Take a WILD GUESS which character I have reservations over. The player does not have any idea what pathfinder goblins are like (and his character backstory is such that I can still introduce the scary little bastards properly). Nor does the player have any idea that the fist book is going to revolve around them. As a DM, I am salivating over the roleplay possibilities that having a goblin the party will bring. BUT I have not run this AP before and the character has the strong possibility of taking the game WAY off the rails. Anyone daring/stupid enough to have DMed this with a goblin PC? How did it go?

Honestly part of the appeal of the AP is how it takes “generic” D&D story setups and turns them up to 11 (goblins, haunted houses, ogres, giants, etc…). My group is new to Pathfinder (Kingmaker is it) but we are all D&D and RPG veterans. I welcome the possibilities that this PC brings but am worried about losing one of the things that make this AP so strong.

Our group is just wrapping up Kingmaker, and by far the most powerful characters were the archer and the witch (followed by cavalier). I found many ways of dealing with the archer and cavalier (fickle winds / tight quarters) to keep the fights fun for most, but if the group encountered a solo that was not immune to sleep (ie Slumber Hex in this case), it was a one round fight most of the time. There were a few times where the foe had lots of wisdom and a good save, but by and large, Slumber Hex stood out as being not just powerful but over powering. Also granted that by the later parts of Kingmaker there is a lot of stuff immune to sleep, but when I run my next game I don't want to have to deal with 4+ chapters of witch dominating encounters.

We are organizing for our next game, and the group wants to try Rise of The Runelords (no one has played it). Two things. First, a player has expressed interest in playing a slumber witch. Second, I bought the anniversary edition of RoTRL which I know is the first AP written long before the witch class existed (and even with recent updates, I am assuming does not take witches with slumber hex spcifically into account).

So, suggestions?

I don’t really want to disallow the class (the player is really excited about it). And Slumber Hex should maintain approprate utility, but I am thinking of nerfing it slightly. What have others done? Or am I best leaving it alone?

One of my baddies this week has corrupting gaze. I was reading through the description when I came across some bits I was not familiar with. When I had this ran against me, I swear I could “avert my eyes” and could make a fort save to negate the 2d10 damage (albeit giving the creature concealment against me). However upon reading the effect I see this:

Corrupting Gaze (Su)
The ghost is disfigured through age or violence, and has a gaze attack with a range of 30 feet that causes 2d10 damage and 1d4 Charisma damage (Fortitude save negates Charisma damage but not physical damage).

Do you see the last line! So when you fort save the gaze you negate ONLY the Charisma damage and take the 2d10 regardless?) Is that right? It seems contradictory to the general gaze attack rules. So I figure I would check. Are there 2 saves (one for the gaze and one for the Chr damage) or is it really 2d10 auto damage within 30’? No smoked goggles, no eye aversion, just 2d10 no matter what?

Also side question: in re-reading the Gaze rules I see that there are only 2 times a gaze attack can have an effect. If you are within range at the beginning of your turn (in initiative order). And if the creature actively gazes as an action on its turn. What if you are out of range at the beginning of your turn, but you move within 30 feet? Do you save immediately when you come in range? Or are you safe until the beginning of your next turn?

Here are the relevant Gaze rules:

My group begins war of the River Kings this week, and Ultimate Campaign arrived just in time with some new options for Mass Combat (but it looks like the rules are mostly the same as what is in the AP).

So, a question for DM's whos players got this far.
How did you let them raise their armies?

The players kingdom has plenty of BP to raise a few good armies. But it seems that there are NO RULES (or even suggestions) for actually raising the army, just rules to maintain it (via consumption). So what worked for your groups? If they want to hier elite Kobold warriors (lets say warrior 5 or what the heck warrior 8+) did you let them? The highest class level in the sample armys is 4 (is there a reason for that?).

If the PCs have the BP to keep a collosal army of 10th level fighters (2000) with an ACR of 18. Consumption of 9 (or 36 a month) Does this sound out of line?

Trying to wrap my head around the rules...and logic keeps getting in the way. In my mind there are simply not 2000 level ten fighters running around the area. I would guess there are maybe 10-20 or so (and that is a number I literaly just made up). But if I say you can only hire Fighter 4's am I gimping them, unnecessarily? Do the rules assume the PCs will raise what they can afford? Is the fighter 10s that comprise an army, an abstract concept in the way that BP is? Maybe they are not really 10th level fighters, and that is just a representation of the army's strength? Not sure what concepts to hold and which to let go of?

I guess my real big question is: "In order to run a fun and exciting war (not tactical, as rules are not set for that) what restrictions did you other DMs impose upon your players as they were assembling their armies?"

Suggestions please.

Any ideas (or points to rules) on closing a rift to another plane?
Bacially I have your generic rift to evil nightmare realm of the great beyond, and my players want to close it (pretty high level game - they are closing in on 14th level). Before I create my rules, I thought I would fish for existing rules or ideas that others might have.

Suggestions? Costs? Spells?

I am pretty sure I ran this correctly, but I thought I would check what the general consensus was:

I have a Roc Riding cavalier in my game armed with a lance. The cavalier and roc both posses the feat “paired opportunists”.

**

Paired Opportunists (Combat, Teamwork)
You know how to make an enemy pay for lax defenses.

Benefit: Whenever you are adjacent to an ally who also has this feat, you receive a +4 circumstance bonus on attacks of opportunity against creatures that you both threaten. Enemies that provoke attacks of opportunity from your ally also provoke attacks of opportunity from you so long as you threaten them (even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity). This does not allow you to take more than one attack of opportunity against a creature for a given action.

**

I have an enemy that moves adjacent to the roc mount from 10’ away (not a 5’ step) so he would draw an attack of opportunity from the lance wielding cavalier (he threatens 10’ away because of reach). The player was stating the roc also gets to take an attack of opportunity also, once the enemy moves adjacent since his partner also got to take an attack of opportunity. That totally seems wrong. The opportunity attack was triggered when the enemy attempted (it interrupts right?) to move out of the threatened square. The roc would need reach too to take an attack since the enemy is still 10’ away. Or is this one of those “even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity” situations covered by the feat. One of his arguments is that they both get to attack because the feat does not say they both need to threaten to gain an attack only that they gat a +4 if they both do. The feat already seems very powerful, I am not sure it works this way and grants reach to your partner.

Or is this not even a feat mechanics question and is his misunderstanding of the movement rules and when the attack of opportunity occurs.

I said that the Roc would need to threaten the square in order to trigger the opp, but he made the valid point that then the roc would be able to take the opp anyways. And what kind of situation would trigger the feat…..good point.

I have already told him that I will not allow the feat to work the way he wants, but I might soften my ruling if the rules support his position.

What say the masses….

Ok, here is an interesting thought. Does a ring of Freedom of Movement prevent you from needing to save vs Paralysis? or do you auto succeed? This is important for creatures that have a "IF you succeed on the save you can't be effected for 24 hours" like power.

If it allows you to auto succeed, you could take the ring off and run over and put it on a friend...right?

Hey folks,

I have a high level witch in my game with slumber hex and VERY high Hex save DCs (well I think a DC 24 will save is high). Most of the time I can sprinkle in critters that are immune to sleep to give her a challenge, but my BBEG for the game coming up is a human Barbarian. To prevent him dropping the first round, are there any magic items that give immunity to sleep magic or abilities?

Stating him out, strong will, Improved Strong Will, and Superstition do not seem to be enough.

Suggestions?

I recived an "extra Trait" boon from a convention. Am I correct in assuming that I can apply it to an existing character (say for example level 3) and pick an extra trait? Someone told me that since you pick traits at character creation it has to be applied to a new 1st level character. But there is no such language on the boon. I figured I should ask, before I make a mistake.

I am helping guide some new players to PFS. These are VERY new players with no knowledge of the world or even RPG experience in general. The concept of picking a faction and doing missions for them is new and exciting, but they don't come with a lot of heavy character concepts outside of "I am a druid!" or "I am a fighter!". I do realize that if they don't like their faction anymore that there are mechanisims to change it later, but I don't want to dampen their enthusiam because the faction they pick gets killed off. Because I know that they will spend a great deal of time carefully reading each group and then picking their favorite.

So I am curious if I heard wrong. That some of the less popular factions are going to go away (maybe this year). I honestly do not play enough PFS to know which Factions are popular (unless other players make a big deal of it at the table I sometimes don't even know which ones I am playing with).

Any suggestions? What factions should I help guide them toward or away from? Or is this something that is no longer happening?

Or is it only the other way around (Wizards share spells with their familar.) This will come into play with a witch in my game who now has a Fairy Dragon Familiar. The Fairy Dragon can cast Shield (not on the witch's spell list). Can the Familiar share it with the witch? Rules as written I would say no. As the description for for "Share Spells" only mentions the wizard as the caster, not the familiar (granted most familiars do not cast spells). What is the consensus?

BONUS QUESTION: when we added the Familiar (witch is level 8 with improved familiar) in Hero Labs, the Fairy Dragon ended up with an INT of 23? This seems wrong. By all accounts it looks like it should be 16. Did we make a mistake adding it, or did Hero Labs reveal some bonus to INT that we missed (which happens some times).

I like telling players "Yes! that is awesome", so before I tell the player that his Dragon can't cast shield on him and actually has an INT of 16...I thought I would double check.

NOTE: MY PLAYERS STAY OUT!

I am a new DM to pathfinder, but have been DMing other games for years.

Just coming out of book 2, and my seem PC’s extraordinarily powerful. I think I have done a pretty good job keeping them challenged up to level 6, but the last few games (level 6 to level 7, and now part way to 8) they are just seem to be combat monsters. I have been relatively careful with money and items, they are not dripping with powerful items (only the ones in mod plus they have each scrounged up enough gold to buy either a specialized weapon or Stat bonus item.)

The party consists of a mounted combat focused cavalier, an archer ranger, a witch, and alternating sometimes a cleric or wizard. The cavalier off his horse is just ok and is quite manageable (as one would expect) on his horse he destroys things. He does not get to use his horse all the time so I feel like he does not dominate every encounter. My real problems are the witch and ranger.

The witch makes liberal use of sleep magic (sleep for low HDs and deep slumber for higher) and also has slumber hex. Looking ahead in book 3 (I see some undead and some spell resistance which helps with the spells) but a lot of the encounters are going to fall to her (non spell resistance) DC 19 will save at-will slumber hex (will be DC 20 by the time they are dungeoning). Even swaping feats and adding Iron Will is not going to help things very much. Now granted the end of the mod will be tough for her, but…

…if the witch doesn’t sleep them the ranger is just destroying encounters with gobs of damage. I have checked to make sure we are running it correctly (I think we are but it just seems crazy) but if he full rounds with the wizards Haste on him he is getting the equivalent of 5 attacks (Iterative for (2), Manyshot for an extra (1), Rapid for (1) and Haste for (1). Not all those are full bonus but still a lot of attacks. Against the trolls there were a few rounds where he crit and was doing well over 100 points of damage. I had a few mobs advanced template and they were all max HP. Still, they were not much of a challenge.

So like I said, just finished RRR, The lady was a challenging encounter, but the trolls and the epic owlbear for my climax were a joke (and I had expected them to be tough). Hargulka got to flick one bead and then was down before the second round. For Nagrundi (I foolishly followed the given tactics and had him intimidate….he never got an attack off, as he rolled a 2 on his check). Regen doesn’t do much when the PCs can get you to zero before your second turn.

I plan to add my own sandboxy things in part 3. But anyone have any suggestions or will book 3 be challenging enough as written that I should not worry.

Trying to figure out if prone stacks with helpless. I am guessing that it does.

1. A melee attack on a helpless target is + 4 to attack. Target is - 4 to AC (prone) and an additional - 5 to AC (zero DEX) for a total -9 to AC. Coup de grace available.

2. A range attack on a helpless target is +0 to attack. Target is + 4 to AC (prone) and - 5 to AC (zero DEX) for a net -1 to AC. Coup de grace available if adjacent and using bow or crossbow.

Do I have this correct?

I seem to be missing a treasure generation table somewhere. Where are the directions on how to place “magic items” from the generation charts.

I see how to roll randomly for item availability in towns (so many minor items, so many medium etc...) but if I am rolling a random encounter (where I haven’t picked everything out ahead of time)…how exactly am I supposed to use the item generation charts?

For example:
If a medium advancement CR 6 (or hard encounter for APL 4) awards 2000 gp in treasure what do I do from there? What is the trigger to roll for a magic items? When do I use the minor table? When do I use the Medium? When I do roll, I see that some people subtract the item value from the reward (and the online generators seem to use this method)? But I also see other rules that I am supposed to “purchase” a roll? If I assume that a minor item has an approx 1000 value (per the charts) that would purchase 2 rolls for my 2000 gp reward? Would that mean that I don’t use the medium reward until I have a CR 13 encounter or am able to purchase a roll at 10,000 gp?

I am very aware that I can hand place equipment and have the PCs find it when I want (and use the core rules chart on page 399 as a guide). But how do the rules say I am supposed to use all these awesome random charts for encounter loot?

I see that there are quite a few random loot generators online. They must have a trigger, where are they finding the rules for what they automate. Surely such a key aspect of the game is explained somewhere?

So many questions.