Kreniigh's page

Just checking.

The final Glory Hound power is mandatory, as it does not contain the usual "you may" language, correct?

That is: Merisiel and Alain are at the same location, and Merisiel encounters a monster that the party would really prefer to evade totally, but Alain steps forward and starts a fight. Or Merisiel finds a kickass ranged weapon she wants badly, but Alain shouts "Let me get that for you milady!" and kicks it into a chasm. Or Alain has so few cards in hand that discarding threatens to kill him next turn, but he still does so to fight the monster or grab the weapon.

I mean, it's thematic, but it's unusual for a role power to add complications/disadvantages like this.

Just checking to see if I am interpreting this correctly.

Alain has a lance, Donahan, and two armors in his hand, and he encounters Faxon ("While you act, before any character plays a card, that character recharges a card.") He wants to play his lance, so he recharges an armor. He wants to use the power on the lance to reveal Donahan for 1d8; revealing a card is playing a card, so he recharges the other armor. Now he wants to put Donahan on top of his deck for another d8.

Putting Donahan on top of the deck is still considered playing a card because it is using a power on the card, so he has to recharge a card first. It feels weird to recharge the lance while "in use" but since it has already been revealed, I can't see why it can't be.

If for some reason it can't be, then he can't put Donahan on top of his deck because he'd have to recharge Donahan first, meaning he didn't play a card, so he didn't have to recharge a card, resulting in a paradox and shattering spacetime.

Yes?

Some of the available rule books have been updated with errata up to a certain date, but not all.

Has anyone gone to the trouble of editing them with updated errata from the FAQs?

Is there any plan for Paizo to release updated versions of, for example, Mummy's Mask?

thanks

Am I correct in thinking that Gelderfang's "Combat check 25 or be dealt 1d4+1 combat damage" is not considered to be a check to defeat, and therefore Kyra's main anti-Demon/Undead power isn't usable? Dammit Kyra.

I'm choosing a role for Balazar, and while at first the Eidolomancer's "use Str skill for Con/Dex" and "get d12s for Str blessings" seemed to make that role a lock, I'm now leaning toward Tyrannomancer. I'd rather play with an interesting deck dynamic than simply buff up the same old mechanics.

I'm picturing streams of monsters cycling through my deck, and hands comprised largely of orange cards, and some chortling as the master of swarms of minions. But what's the reality?

Are the Knights of Kenabres used in any adventures after Sword of Valor?

(I have an opportunity to print their card on nice stock, but we've already finished SoV)

I did this to make it easier to compare the benefits of a character's two roles when deciding which role (or character) to take.

I just highlighted the powers from the basic character in both of the roles, so whatever isn't highlighted is exclusive to the role. A pretty easy thing, but it made it tons easier for me to scope characters out quickly. Maybe other people will agree, so here it is.

Feat-o-vision!

What are some tips that would be good to know when picking out characters for WotR, having previous experience with RotR and S&S?

(For S&S, the tips would include "armor is a bit more useful", "Survival becomes a lot more important", "get ready for more barriers", etc.

It looks like Knowledge is a bigger deal... But I'd want a better idea of how big a deal it is before deciding to play someone like Shardra.

It seems that Alain is the Jirelle of this set in terms of being best all-around? Is there a worst/least favorite/most difficult like Selytiel?

thanks
Karl

I seem to recall reading that the allies displayed by the Dreamstone can't use powers on their cards that require you to banish them. But for the life of me, I can't find that ruling anywhere. Is it real, or did I just... dream it?

A very basic idle question (I have unsuccessfully looked for discussion on it)...

We're about to start WotR, and for the first two paths we just added the add-on decks in automatically. It occurs to me now that essentially doubling the number of B-level cards in the box must pull down the average encounter level slightly, even after basic and elites start getting pulled.

We play with 4 characters, so aside from the new PCs in the add-on deck, we don't actually *need* extra cards. This time around, I'm thinking of being more selective and just adding the cards related to the new PCs, or even doing a quick 'draft' of which cards to add.

Do most of you use the C decks in full even when playing with fewer than six characters? Was there designer intent that the add-on decks mainly be used with larger parties?

This is my half of the party in our second S&S playthrough, and they do collect a lot of junk in their travels. Ranzak can tear through a boon-heavy location in no time, and tonight Alahazra examined/found and acquired 4 divine boons in a row at the Sacred Spring, each one powering the next examination.

Plus they both have weird rules about encountering boons at unusual times, leading to this theoretical scenario: Ranzak's boon-streak gets interrupted by an annoying bane or a roll of 1 or 2, and he has no more explorations to keep going; but before his turn ends, Alahazra (at the same location) examines the top card of their location; it's a boon but she fails to acquire it (maybe on purpose); Ranzak is now able to encounter it, and he acquires it; and now he's off and running again on another book-streak. This is possible, right?

I am assuming that there is no way to start this chain of events after Ranzak resets his hand but before his turn ends...?

Just a little thing I whipped up in Excel to keep track of which characters had completed which scenarios in the digital game. Maybe someone will find it handy. The margins may need to be adjusted for your own setup.

A LITTLE THING

cheers

I love this character's design!

At first I thought that choice of Roles didn't matter, since you are always flipping the card, but on second look I'm thinking that you're locked into one choice of Role when it comes time to add feats. So if you choose Chief, you may play a lot of the game with Survivor up, but you'll never have access to the feats that are unique to Survivor?

I'm also wondering, under what circumstances you would ever lose a feat? I see that some people have house rules about losing feats when dying, but outside of that...?

thanks

I'm all for some tough scenarios, but this one -- my wife and I have played it 3 times so far and had some really lucky breaks (pinpointing the villain early, closing several locations quickly), but encountering the villain is such a shackstorm of cascading consequences that we've crashed ignobly each time.

The only positive point is that we've managed to improve our decks slightly, and booted a few Basic/Elite boons out, each iteration.

Anyone got any tips for getting past this one? We are a Valeros/Lini/Jirelle/Damiel pure S&S crew.

When you encounter a bane or boon, can you immediately use a Tot Flask to search your deck for the pertinent potion (ie. it's an Aquatic bane! Find that Potion of the Ocean. Or it's an Ally! Find the Potion of Glibness)?

If I encounter a bane that requires multiple checks, and immediately play a Potion of Heroism, does that prevent me from playing another item on the first check?

thanks
Karl

Am I correct in assuming that the summoned monster that you fight in place of Incutilis is not considered to be a villain for things like Valeros's anti-villain powers, Blessings of Achaekek, that Tome or Codex from RotR, etc.?

So I was practicing using Google Forms tonight, and whipped up a quick survey of ending feats for Jirelle. This is similar to the "Snapshot of Your Conquering Pirates" sticky thread, but without cards, and the cumulative results can be viewed by everyone.

If you've finished S&S with Jirelle, please consider taking a moment to fill out the survey and see the results.

Since I'm curious about which feats people gave priority to during the game itself, I'm asking that you leave out the two card feats that are given out at the end.

If people find this interesting/useful (and no one at Paizo objects to it), I may create more for other characters/sets; they're pretty fast to create.

Link to Jirelle Survey

Just idly wondering... I've never felt it was worthwhile to spend a skill feat to add +1 to a skill that the character has only a d4 in.

I'm sure someone, somewhere has done this. If so, why? And was it worth it?

We have a rule about not opening up the decks until we're ready to play them (helps control the urge to peek ahead) but I was wondering if anyone has made a list of what feats are awarded when in the different games.

I found this on another site, but it seems to apply only to RotR, because in S&S the Power Feat comes after Scenario 2-2:

Adventure B: Skill Feat

Scenario 1-1: Skill Feat
Scenario 1-3: Power Feat
Adventure 1: Card Feat

Scenario 2-1: Power Feat
Scenario 2-3: Skill Feat
Adventure 2: Card Feat

Scenario 3-1: Skill Feat
Scenario 3-2: Card Feat
Scenario 3-4: Power Feat
Adventure 3: Role Card and Power Feat

Scenario 4-1: Power Feat
Scenario 4-2: Card Feat
Scenario 4-4: Skill Feat
Adventure 4: Card Feat

Scenario 5-3: Power Feat
Adventure 5: Card Feat

Scenario 6-1: Power Feat
Scenario 6-3: Skill Feat
Adventure 6: Card Feat

Adventure Path: Card Feat

Was this intended to be the advancement chart for all the games, with minor differences? Is the total number of each feat the same across games (6 Skill, 7 Power, 8 card)?

thanks

Finishing up RotR in a party including Meliski, Zarlova, and Melindra, I have some comments about Flenta.

Flenta was the group's muscle, the closer when we had to take out a villain, the wielder of Mokmurian's Club. And in that role she did pretty well, maybe not as well as some fighters, but pretty well.

Her scroll power didn't exactly work as I had expected, though.

At lower levels, a weapon in hand doing a d10 means at least 2d10+2 damage, plus extra if she can afford to recharge it. And that shoots up quickly as points get pumped into Strength. Low-level attack spells can't approach that, so the feat allowing her to use Arcane attack spells is nearly useless. If you want to use them anyway for flavor, or just to get them out of your hand, you're risking losing some combats you'd otherwise win.

Granted, it's fun to use non-Attack spells. It's weird to draw a spell from the box thinking, please don't be an attack spell.

At higher levels, as an Arcane Pretender, the higher-level spells she manages to obtain become too valuable to cast. That Disintegrate you were lucky enough to get could do 1d8+4d6+2, barely equivalent to a magic greatclub, and then get banished and replaced with some random low-level spell. OR it can be a rotating recharging +6 to any check you make. There might be situations where a Hail Mary play of one of your precious high-level spells would be appropriate, but my group never saw one.

Fun character to play, but mechanically predisposed to work sideways from what was intended. Here's my ending Flenta:

Character Name: Flenta
Role Card: Arcane Pretender
Skill Feats: Strength +4, Constitution +1, Intelligence +1
Power Feats: +1 hand size, Heavy Armor, use Arcane for Attack spells, recharge spell or item to add to all checks, auto-succeed at item recharge
Card Feats: Weapon +1, Spell +2, Item +2, Blessing +1
Weapons: Flaming Ranseur +3, Greatclub +3 (2), Mokmurian's Club, Shock Greatsword +2
Spells: Blizzard, Life Leech, Invoke, Raise Dead, Summon Monster
Armors: Magic Half-Plate
Items: Greater Luckstone, Headband of Inspired Wisdom, Magic Spyglass, Ordikon's Staff, Wand of Treasure Finding
Allies: Charmed Red Dragon
Blessings: Irori, Lamashtu, Norgorber, Torag

I've found the series of "Best Character" posts on the Paizo blog but not a lot of discussion of best (and worst) characters in a given set.

My wife and I are about to start S&S, having taken Valeros/Ezren and then Meliski/Flenta/Zarlova/Melindra through RotR, and we're having fun looking at all the new possibilities.

I guess the first question is whether S&S plays better with its own characters, what with all the powers involving Aquatic monsters and Ships and Plunder, than with the various class deck characters.

And which characters/roles (aside from the ones we've already used) were the most fun to play through S&S with? Which didn't work very well?

thanks for any advice!
Karl

How many generalizations can be made about these two deck types? All the others are tied to core combat abilities (Weapon/Spell) or are homogeneous enough to choose among easily (Armor/Blessings). If a new player needed guidance deciding between these two card types, what could you say?

Allies often give additional explorations.

Items sometimes give Skill boosts that can be held in-hand indefinitely.

...?

I have the chance to pick up some of the class decks from a local retailer who's (sadly) closing and selling off his stock. Currently my wife and I are playing through RotR for the second time, using 4 characters instead of 2 this time, and we'll be playing S&S next.

It looks like a good number of the cards in these decks are not in RotR, and we're eager to add them to our game, but... are most of these new cards going to turn up in S&S? How many cards are unique to the class decks? Does anyone have a master list of all cards and which sets they're in? (I could make my own from the released deck lists, but the sale ends soon and I'd rather not spend time on it if someone else has already).

I did pick up the fighter class deck, and there are a few new blessings, but only one copy of each. Given the massive size of the blessing deck, I could see playing most of the game without seeing these. Maybe it's time to weed out all the C deck blessings?

thanks

Lacking appropriate miniatures for the characters in our second playthrough of RotR, I got out my Lego minifigs and did my best approximations.

If I did my job right, it should be easy for people to name the characters... They're all from the class decks.

GROUP PHOTO

First person to guess them all correctly gets to explore again.

It says "for your combat check", use the highest difficulty of the drawn monster.

What if you're using it against a monster like a harpy, that has a Wisdom check to defeat, not a Combat check?

thanks

"Rod costs are difficult to determine." - CRB 552.

If there is an underlying adherence to formula in either cost or caster level for rods, I can't spot it. I'm betting that half or more of the existing rods would be disqualified almost immediately from Superstar if submitted:

- Rod of Ruin: Requires a 6th level spell to create but has a caster level of 7 and a mere 8,000 gp cost.

- Rod of Rulership: F'cryin' out loud, the price isn't even 2x the cost! What kind of rookie mistake...?

Maybe these are grandfathered in from early edition D&D. Even newer rods seem pretty inconsistent with this stuff, though.

How much are people actually going to scrutinize these aspects? It really seems like just a matter of weighing against roughly similar items and guessing...?

Just some thoughts as I am about halfway through running this one...

Due to the sandbox nature of the path, there's no 'rails' guiding the party along from point to point. But it should be possible to get a sense of the probable structure and contingencies, especially if you know your group well enough to anticipate their approach. I wish there had been space for more of an exploration of this within the module, though.

Is it really likely that any group of players is going to sit back and fight off the blooms without trying to do anything to find Nyrissa? The module covers this contingency with its "second round of blooms" idea, but it seems far more likely that they'll make a beeline to Thousandbreaths as soon as possible. (Granted, this makes the encounters there more dangerous.)

As the GM, your control over this part of the plot hinges on how much information you give them. How much does Evindra tell them? How soon can they figure out how to find the gate and use the trophies? My group headed straight for Thousandvoices after the first bloom, but was frustrated by the gate and felt like they were missing something; it's a puzzle that can only be solved by doing nothing other than waiting for the next bloom, and I eventually had to just explain it, which was satisfying for no one.

There's also the consideration that, once they get in, players are likely to keep hammering at Thousandbreaths until everything is dead. At this point, the main factor is stopping to rest vs. having blooms occur, but as published, the blooms are too far apart for a determined group. Even killing one guardian per (15-minute work) day lets them clear things out well before the last half of the month.

Here the GM needs to again decide how much info to give out. Does the party know about uprooting the realm? If not, they'll probably go straight to the House. If so, they will avoid it and systematically eliminate the glade guardians one after the other.

Throughout all of this is the question of how quickly things come back to life in the First World. It would be a huge shock to spend a lot of resources killing Ilthuliak only to come back after resting and have to do it all over again. I wish the module had explained this a bit more than just a mention in the backmatter -- is it even supposed to come into play?

If it does, you have to let the players know how to stop it from happening, and then they will focus exclusively on uprooting the realm. If I were a player and I knew that my impending boss fight with Nyrissa was going to be wasted effort, I'd absolutely put it off until I had uprooted the realm. So this begs the question, won't most groups end up doing that first, and facing a severely depowered Nyrissa? My players are on a course to uproot, and poor confused post-uproot Nyrissa looks like a total anticlimax from here (especially with Briar still in the players' hands).

Well this has been a bit of rambling, so I'll just finish by pointing out a few of the odd little inconsistencies that could confuse players as they figure out how things work. The Horned Hunter not being a bloom ('where's the trophy? we only need one more! why can't we find this one?'). The Shunned Falls not being a glade for uprooting purposes (this one was only an issue for me because I gave the players a special effect as feedback every time they defeated a guardian). And the guardians not necessarily being the glades' primary owners (the smilodons rather than the Misbegotten Troll, the worms instead of the Wriggling Man).

I'm curious to know how other GMs approached these issues, and how things played out. Did any groups simply sit back and wait for all the blooms? Charge in and kill Nyrissa before uprooting?

I'm having some trouble transitioning into the mass combat phase of WotRK. Specifically, coming up with a good in-game reason for the players to work within the mass combat rules instead of doing their usual charge-the-monster tactic.

I know that ultimately I can put my foot down and say, this is how the rules work for this, but I find that unsatisfying. I can't be sure, but I have the feeling that the group could take out an army or two. Something similar happened in the days before mass combat rules, when my group pretty much waltzed through the siege in book 5 of Council of Thieves.

Just wondering how others have handled this.

I'm running a wizard with the Air Elemental school.

There are spells with the [air] descriptor, and there are spells on the Air Elemental school list. These are different lists; for example, Lightning Bolt isn't an [air] spell but is on the air school list (in the same way there are acid spells on the Earth list and cold spells on the Water list).

I am pretty sure that the Elemental Focus feat is based on the descriptor; Elemental Focus (air) does not affect Lightning Bolt.

I am almost positive that I can't take Spell Focus for the Air school.

I am less sure about elemental opposition schools. Earth is my opposition school; does this include only spells with the [earth] descriptor, or all the spells on the Earth school list (like acid arrow)? The Elemental school spell lists are so haphazard and only vaguely related to the elements they represent, I am inclined to say that it makes little sense to tie any game mechanics to them as groupings, so base opposition schools on descriptors.

Whaddaya think, sirs?

I'm hitting a wall with my Mysterious Stranger/Divine Hunter build at level 6, and it looks to get worse at level 11. Having everything based off of CHA is an interesting synergy, but...

The problem is that getting iterative attacks at higher levels requires a full attack action, and reloading -- even with rapid reload -- interferes with this. There are abilities that work around the reload issue, but they're mainly high-level gunslinger abilities. Even a Beneficial Bandolier, which allows one chamber to be reloaded as a swift action, only helps a little.

At sixth level, with a double pistol, I can go into a fight fully loaded, shoot, shoot, and swift reload. Next round, I have to take at least a move action to load the second barrel, so I can reload, shoot, and swift reload to get back to a full gun. That's two attacks every other round if I don't move.

Put a haste on me, or put me up to 11th level, and it gets worse. I don't think you can get up to those three attacks/round without having some kind of high-level gunslinger ability, and the need to use a move action to reload kills the second attack too -- you're back down to two attacks every other round.

Two-weapon fighting is out unless your GM is willing to let you reload with both hands full.

The best solution seems to be taking vital strike, etc. to pile as much damage onto each shot possible. And reminding myself that I have some neat paladin abilities too. But overall, gunslinger is not looking good for multiclassing.

Am I missing anything?

Just within the past month, my group has found three different incorrect uses of medium armors in Adventure Path modules. If it were just one, I'd chalk it up to a mistake, but three?

The character Kelda in Jade Regent: The Brinewall Legacy does not have a movement penalty for wearing medium armor. Likewise, the Black Sisters in Kingmaker: Blood for Blood suffer no movement penalty for theirs. And earlier in KMBFB there are two significant villains who have medium armor despite having evasion.

Granted, that last is not an error per se, but it adds to the feeling I get that (a) adventure path baddies are too cool to follow the rules, man, or (b) my group has been totally wrong about how medium armor works because we missed an errata or failed a Read Rules check, or (c) it's just a big coincidence.

?

Shouldn't it be "Skeletal Young Dragon"? Or do Skeletal Dragons age?

</pedant>

Just playing around with Photoshop today and decided to merge the Brevoy and River Kingdoms maps from the Inner Sea World Guide with the Kingmaker maps, just to give my group a sense of their kingdom's place in the world.

It didn't quite overlay exactly, but I did what I could.

MAP

I haven't seen any attempts to do this so far, but if any exist, please point me to them.

If anyone wants to improve on what I've done, I can supply the larger tif files, which have layers and whatnot.

cheers
Karl

I'm a little concerned that my group is exploring the map too quickly in proportion to kingdom building, and that they'll end up with a too-small kingdom by the end of Rivers Run Red.

Is there a total kingdom size that I should be aiming for by the end? I do see a thread about the number of cities, which would also be a nice benchmark to have... In fact, since a lot of groups have finished the whole Adventure Path by now, what kind of progression of size has been seen after each module, and how big did things get by the end?

thanks!