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Funny how "why Trump won" always lines up with the political and personal views, preferences, and prejudices of the person saying it. It's a lot like how whatever somebody says makes God angry lines up with whatever they personally don't like. I'm guilty of this too, of course.
Numbers remain the same. Your first core character will be whatever the next number is for you. For example, I currently have six characters, my first Core characte will be -7. Today I found out I have more characters than Michael Brock... I like this idea, I have a lot of people in my home group (where we occasionally run PFS scenarios for credit at our home table) who would like to play but worry about all the complicated rules. This will be a big help both for new GMs, and for players like myself who don't want to keep track of all the pieces of a complicated multi-source character. Will also cut down on stinky cheese.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to this. A frank question for you, Kyra Clone: Would you run it if the 4th-level pregens were allowed? You raise many points in your post above, and it's unclear to me whether you require all of your concerns be addressed or just this one before you consider the module suitable. It would be much more likely. It would be a more workable patch on the modules other problems. If you wish to effect a change, I kindly request you not refer to Paizo staff as insane, callous, or incompetent. I think it's a good policy for dealing with people in general. Somewhere along the line, several balls were dropped. With as good as the content from Paizo usually is, this was a very disappointing experience. The most disappointing part of it was that the problems come from the business side of it, and not the gaming hobby side. The overall idea for the module was a good one, and much of the roughness around the edges was added for financial reasons. That hurts. Kyra Clone, what insane restrictions? That they wanted people to use the new iconics? It's that they prohibited the use of the old iconics. On top of that the new iconics are (by the author's admission) underpowered for the scenario. If they'd been level 4 like the standard iconics, and you could choose between them and the standard iconics, that would make a lot of difference.
I should clarify, my hostility is not for the module's author, who made some relatively minor and understandable mistakes, but it is for the business side of it, and the restrictions they put on the module for business reasons. Yes, it was unfortunate that we were not allowed to play 4th-level pre-gens for the Free RPG Day. It is also understandable. Paizo was excited to show off the new classes. They could, without much difficulty, have made the module pregens 4th level instead of 3rd. At this point it's a dead horse and I'm moving on, as I expect many others are as well. A 2.5/5 rating from the community speaks for itself.
Going back to Rob McCreary's post. First off, it's important to point out that the Free RPG Day module has to serve a number of masters, including marketing as well as PFS This means that it was intended to attempt to sell the ACG, not to attract new players. For Free RPG day. Regarding the pregens, I definitely agree that they are not well-suited for this adventure. And yet, the standard level 4 pregens are prohibited from being used. Why is that? Why hasn't that changed? One of the key marketing goals of this product was to preview four of the new classes from the Advanced Class Guide. And not to attract new players. In fact, those four pregens were picked because at the time we needed to send this to the printer, those were the only four that we had art for. So, the module was an advertising gimmick and they only picked these pregens because *the art for them was done*. Thus we ended up with the swashbuckler and the investigator, which are underpowered for this adventure. A frank admission that the pregens in the module are too weak for the module. In this case, it looks like doing previews of the ACG classes was not the best choice for this adventure Waiting on the PFS change where it's not a choice between "existing characters" or "these previews of classes that are not a good choice for the adventure." The same goes for detect magic and Spellcraft. Oloch is the only spellcaster with detect magic, and with just 6 skill points, I didn’t put a rank in Spellcraft. Crowe has Spellcraft, of course, but he can’t cast spells yet. This was another goof. He built pregens for the adventure without understanding the pregen classes he was using. And this was a very potentially fatal misunderstanding. The biggest problem I have with this is that the PFS Chronicle sheet for the module says:
Legal Pathfinder Society Characters Players who wish to receive Pathfinder Society credit for playing through Risen from the Sands must use either one of their Pathfinder Society characters (without modification) within the legal character level range for the module or one of the pregenerated characters provided on pages 12–15 of the module. These pregenerated characters use four of the 10 new classes included in the upcoming Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Class Guide. The level 4 standard PFS pregens aren't great. But for a new player, who will not have a level 2-4 character, they're better than the included required pregens. Certainly they're better than using level 3 pregens from classes that the module's author admits were only used because the character art was ready, from a book that the module's author admits was only used because marketing wanted to try to sell the book, and that the module's author admits are underpowered for the difficulty of the module. A new gamer being introduced to Pathfinder and PFS play finds that, instead of getting a friendly and enjoyable introduction, they get a crash course in arbitrary rules written to move product. I expect that from Wizards but I expected better from Paizo. If this was intended to endear people towards the Advanced Class Guide, to get us excited about the possibilities in the new book, it is a dramatic failure at that. And since that was the core and overriding goal for this module, it becomes a dramatic failure on all fronts. Normally I wouldn't care this much, but my wife's best friend was interested in playing a Pathfinder game, and although she had to reschedule, I was going to run this for our group. I was going to inflict this on a person completely new to any kind of tabletop gaming. After reading the module, and the insane restrictions set by PFS (as I was just going to hand her Kyra or Seelah) on pregens, I decided to run Master of the Fallen Fortress instead. GMs and players shouldn't have to worry that the module they're about to run is a minefield of death traps caused because of poor writing and poor playtesting all in service of marketing goals. tldr; The wrong pregens were used, because of marketing demands intended to sell the Advanced Class Guide. However, the PFS chronicle requires that original characters or these specific pregens be used, probably for marketing reasons. When will Paizo either re-release the module with effective pregens? When will PFS allow the level 4 pregens to be used in this module? Because as it stands right now, this is unacceptable as an introduction to Pathfinder intended to bring in new players and customers. Yeah, it was free, but I wouldn't run it if you paid me.
I need to figure out how my rogue can start using Disable Device as a combat action. Oh expletive, and I own that book. And haven't applied the chronicle to any characters yet.
My first character in PFS is based on Kyra, as I had no idea how to play PFS and everybody needs a cleric. Since then, I've also played a lot of Kyra pregens in different games, and the joke locally is that there are hundreds or even thousands of clones of Kyra that get thawed out in the form of a pregen whenever a table of three needs a 4th and cleric. The avatar was one that wasn't widely used (6 instead of dozens), and I figure it represents the errors in the genetic code that appear after so many thousands of clone copies. So far I've been well pleased with it.
As the inventor of Sarenrae (who's been the main goddess of good in my homebrew campaign for decades now), my issue is that she's supposed to be the kindest, most friendly, most forgiving, and most open-minded of ALL the deities. That's in large part why she's the goddess of redemption, after all. Sarenrae is one of my favorite deities, and one that I've got a LOT of personal interest in and have, as mentioned above, spent decades doing work on. She, along with Desna, Rovagug, Abadar, Urgathoa, Zon-Kuthon, Gorum, Norgorber, and a few others have been characters near and dear to my heart for nearly 30 years. I think that an adventure path focusing on ANY of them would be great... but I think that Sarenrae's the one that has drifted the furthest from my vision and personal touch, and as such is the one I'm probably most eager to spend a lot of time exploring. As someone whose first PFS character (and current highest level PFS character) is a cleric of Sarenrae, it's fricking awesome that my question about Sarenrae worship in Taldor got a reply from the creator of Sarenrae. There's ABSOLUTELY some worshipers of Sarenrae who crusade against slavery and slavers themselves and DO use violence against the slavers. My Cleric/Holy Vindicator has as a result of previous PFS chronicles membership in the Silver Crusade while also being considered an upstanding citizen of Andoran and he's got the Eagle Knight and Tiller vanities. He's very much a crusader against slavery. I wouldn't mind seeing Taldor still banning Sarenrae as a combination of xenophobia and misunderstanding, or because they realize that the entire religion isn't bad but think it's the only way to be sure they exclude the dangerous elements.
I've searched the forums for an answer on this and have not found it yet, I've found things that are close but none that answers my specific question. The sacred shield lasts until "struck in combat". Does the hit have to beat your AC to count as "struck"? Because armor doesn't restrict somebody's ability to physically hit you (which is why touch AC is so much lower), it just drastically reduces the chance for that hit to cause damage. When my Cleric 7 / Holy Vindicator 1 activates sacred shield, with +2 full plate, +2 shield, and a phylactery of positive channeling, his AC will jump up to a 33. If somebody rolls to attack and has a 30 to hit him, is the Sacred Shield expended at that point, or does it stay in place until somebody gets a 33+ to hit me?
I was reading the Sarenrae section of Inner Sea Gods and it was talking about Sarenrae temples in Taldor, thought I was losing my mind. Especially since my cleric of Sarenrae did the Dalsine Affair scenario a while back, and the banning of Sarenrae in Taldor plays a major part in it. I preferred it the old way.
Just going off of base non-magical mundane weapons, but including all proficiency types, which weapons are great? Which are terrible? Are there any weapons that you consistently build a specific class around, and weapons that just clog up the weapon list in the book with their highly situational uselessness? Have you ever come up with ideas for making a terrible weapon useful? For example, the Lucerne Hammer is great. But I see a lot of hate for daggers, and starknives seem terrible.
He calls you a cheater and gives you a "mean-spirited dressing-down" when you are following the rules and he is randomly banning anything he simply doesn't like? I'd not only leave his game, but kick him from your other games. You don't need to be around people like this. Anyone makes you feel bad about trying to have fun needs to be banned. I agree, this absolutely does not sound like somebody I would want to associate with. Toss an NPC into the game you're running to fill it up while you look for a 4th. This guy sounds like trouble.
That would be a house rule on the bag of holding size. The books say it's a cloth sack 2 foot by 4 foot, and having familiarity with some cloth sacks, I picture it as being like a laundry bag with a drawstring like this one. Even if it was 10 inches, I would say that the noncorporeal being of shadow has no problem adjusting its width accordingly. The interior space of a bag of holding is 30 cubic feet, which would be plenty of space for a Wraith. Portable holes can't be cut open or otherwise destroyed from the inside and no weight limit. It can also be used as a trap.
The duration of the Command Undead feat, done using channeled energy is permanent, not minutes per level. For intelligent undead it lasts until and unless they make a saving throw, for mindless undead it lasts forever or until released by the caster (usually so more can be dominated). It is indeed permanent (or until an intelligent undead makes its daily save). Regarding getting it into the bag, while it is incorporeal, it does occupy a space (which is why it's Medium size), even if it doesn't occupy it physically. If it can move from place to place, it can move through the opening of a bag of holding, and the interior of the bag is an extradimensional space so it's not going to be limited or squeezed in there.
Game-wise, this makes a lot of sense. Channel isn't meant to be used for a long-term control of undead to amass an army or rule over a demi-lich. It's used when you're surrounded and want to turn the tables. To extend the length of that ability to days goes outside the intended use. They intended that to be for individual rounds. Excellent. I'll play it that way, since the game has a lot of new players in it (all of them), and I'm using it as a test bed to teach them how to think like a gamer. Having a wraith pet is cool, but this will teach that there can be repercussions for that kind of power. it will also teach that, for real nasty critters, Command should be used to incapacitate until the enemy can be safely and totally destroyed. Right now the wraith is in a bag of holding. What will be amusing is if they try to use it in an attack... in daylight. Oh, and if she uses it too often, it'll become a dread wraith... with too much HD for her to control it.
In a game I run, there is a cleric of Urgathoa who has successfully (barely) used the Command Undead feat to take over a Wraith. As intelligent undead, the Wraith gets a chance every 24 hours to break the hold of Command Undead. He just has to roll a 12 or better to make his save, so it's far from impossible. When intelligent undead break free of control, does the cleric know right away through some supernatural ability that they no longer control it, or can the Wraith pretend to still be dominated until a time when he can most effectively turn on the party? Side note, if they manage to kill the Young Adult Huge-sized dragon at the end of the module, with the wraith's assistance (especially through Con drain of the dragon), I'm going to have the dragon arise as a Dracolich far beyond their power to defeat, and it will become the new Big Bad for a sandbox campaign after the module.
There's nothing in PFS rules preventing PFS home games, or using a non-PFS Pathfinder home game to get people into it. Don't get them to walk through the gaming store door. Play in the living room or basement or dining room. My wife is comfortable now with playing in groups, we go to special events, conventions, etc. We got to this point as a result of playing games within our social group. Right now we're playing through Dragon's Demand. I'm running, my wife is playing, along with her twin sister, her sister's husband, a former coworker of mine, and a friend of mine from Facebook. In this group, my wife is the most experienced player (except for me and I'm the GM), so she's able to help her sister and the other players. Don't be locked into the idea of using the gaming store. And wait for a new player to be hooked on the game and established before exposing them to the community at large.
I let my PCs ask one question at 10 and an additional question for every 5 over 10, and I enjoy that this creates a bit of dramatic tension in whether or not they'll ask the right questions. For example, say they get a 21, and they ask how many hit points it has, what its AC is, and what will save it has. All well and good, but they missed the DR and the immunity to fire damage. I also don't include damage reduction and elemental resistances in the same category. If something had DR 5/Cold Iron and Fire Resist 10, they would have to use 2 questions to find out both of those.
I just killed my first two PCs ever, in this module. Plot: Our party was as follows:
Cleric of Iomedae
My PFS Tiefling Wizard started out with a thrush, and he had that for the first four levels until it was killed horribly by a Mi-Go with class levels. After that, and since I had just hit fifth level, I took improved familiar and got an Air Elemental. It was the right choice. So far I've used him to scout and spy for me, and the fly speed of 100 is great for that. He delivered a Shocking Grasp to a dragon and survived the dragon's attack afterwards. But the real value is when we were attacked by a couple swarms of some really nasty bugs. He was able to use his whirlwind ability to suck up the bugs and to suck up the bugs that were sticking to people and attacking them. As a small elemental, his whirlwind ability had no effect at all on the PCs. And the whirlwind's negative effects kick in any time it enters a hostile square, and it can pass in and out of squares without getting AoOs when in Whirlwind, so in an enclosed space with the 100' movement you can just bounce back and forth like a pinball getting all the bugs off everyone. It's very situational, but when you want to scrub a swarm, you can't beat the air elemental. And it can use the whirlwind ability for a number of turns equal to its master's class levels. Whirlwind runs off of HD, and for familiars:
For the Protestants, I have always viewed them as late-to-the-party, historically, so consider a Musket or other firearm. I assume they will be commonplace in the setting, considering its time frame.You know, I like that idea. Let it be so! I'm a bit late to the party as well here, but a musket is in fact fantastically appropriate for Protestants, particularly in that time period. One of the earliest Protestant movements, predating Luther by over a hundred years, were the Hussites, who followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus. The wars fought between the Hussites and Catholic leaders attempting to stamp out the fledgling religion were called the Hussite Wars. Some background on them:
One of the favorite tactics of the Hussites during those wars is the Wagenburg, or "wagon fort". Firearms played a key role in it: The crew of each wagon consisted of 18 to 21 soldiers: 4 to 8 crossbowmen, 2 handgunners, 6 to 8 soldiers equipped with pikes or flails, 2 shield carriers and 2 drivers. The wagons would normally form a square, and inside the square would usually be the cavalry. There were two principal stages of the battle using the wagon fort: defensive and counterattack. The defensive part would be a pounding of the enemy with artillery. The Hussite artillery was a primitive form of a howitzer, called in Czech a houfnice, the word the English word howitzer comes from. Also, they called their guns the Czech word píšťala, meaning that they were shaped like a pipe or a fife, from which the English word pistol is possibly derived. When the enemy would come close to the wagon fort, crossbowmen and hand-gunners would come from inside the wagons and inflict more casualties on the enemy at close range. There would even be stones stored in a pouch inside the wagons for throwing whenever the soldiers were out of ammunition. After this huge barrage, the enemy would be demoralized. The armies of the anti-Hussite crusaders were usually heavily armored knights, and Hussite tactics were to disable the knight's horses so that the dismounted (and slow) knights would be easier targets for the ranged men. Once the commander saw it fit, the second stage of battle would begin. Men with swords, flails, and polearms would come out and attack the weary enemy. Together with the infantry, the cavalry in the square would come out and attack. At this point, the enemy would be eliminated, or very close to it. That's a battle straight out of Pathfinder/D&D right there. Don't listen to the naysayers, I think you can make it work. Plus it only has to work for your game.
RPGs are about playing a character. It's not just about the dice roll, but about the drama in the life story of that character. Portraying a descent into evil *with accompanying alignment shifts*, maybe with a change of deity or class, can all be part of having a multidimensional character beyond just "healbot". If your character is more than just dice mechanics, having messed up things happen to it, or be done by it, just deepens the character.
Humans are mechanically better than many of the "exotic" races, and if you look at optimized character builds, they often use humans because no negatives and the bonus feat. I was in a game where the DM wanted us to make custom races using the Advanced Races Guide and 20 race points. We came up with some very interesting things. I had a race loosely based off the tengu, it's a race of vultures that were given humanoid bodies and intelligence by Pharasma for the purpose of hunting undead. I called it the Tuiju. For my wife's character, I made an enhanced race of Grippli called "Bull Grippli". Uses swim speed, climb speed, camouflage, natural poison, and it's amphibious. Neither races are particularly game-breaking, and I'm fairly proud of both.
We had a guy who showed up as a pirate hunter with a deep seated hatred of all pirates. We're at the end of the first book, and we're hoping he'll have the character get off at Rickety Squigs and make a compatible character. Not counting the guy who hates pirates, of the remaining 5 people in the party, 3 are actual pirates, one is a cleric who is along for the ride and to help people, and the last wound up as the pirate captain. After we took the ship, he started killing unconscious crew, and my fighter had to beat on him to get him to stop. He wanted to kill the entire crew and have us take the ship to join the Chelaxian Navy. Wasn't happening.
Bonus answer:#35 Voice in the Void, #39 Citadel of Flame, #40 Hall of Drunken Heroes, #43 Pallid Plague, #2-03 The Rebel's Ransom, #2-13 The Throaty Mermaid, and #2-21 The Dalsine Affair Dalsine Affair was high on the list for the most fun I've had with my cleric of Sarenrae. He'd just bought Full Plate and the heavy armor proficiency, and I played him really over the top in that scenario as an evangelist of Sarenrae. Spoiler:
As we came up to the manor house, our rogue snuck forward and tied together the bootlaces of the guards. Then I strode down the lane, clad in the heaviest of armor, a Light spell cast on the armor to make it shine with radiant light, Sarenrae symbols all over the place, booming out "SARENRAE'S JUDGMENT IS UPON YOU! FLEE OR BE STRUCK DOWN!" When the guard tried to rush me, they tripped over their tied bootlaces and fell to the ground. I proclaimed "SARENRAE HAS STRUCK YOU DOWN! FEEL THE MIGHT OF SARENRAE! FLEE NOW WITH YOUR LIVES OR BE BURNED BY THE DAWNFLOWER'S FLAMES!"
They fled. My book recommendations are Classic Monsters Revisited and Classic Horrors Revisited, both have some cool stuff in them.
Good call for the Oracle. Here's what I have, after getting some feedback on Reddit Alchemist - The Alchemist by Iron Maiden
I'm a bit confused then as to why the Samurai is a pregen character but not the Cavalier? The Samurai from what I understand is based off the Cavalier, and both are (I think) a bit confusing to play when somebody could just have a Fighter or Paladin instead. And while some of those are difficult classes for beginners, the Inquisitor is actually pretty easy. I think PFS could swap out the Samurai pregen for an Inquisitor one, especially now that the Lantern Lodge is retired and we're all fighting demons.
Ronwe Leroung is my Tiefling Wizard, born in Cheliax to the Leroung family. Shunned for being a Tiefling, exploited for his intellect and ability to learn magic, he eventually decided "screw you guys" and he went off to join the Osirions and peruse ancient tomes of lore and forgotten tombs. Ronwe is the name of a mythological Demon of Knowledge, Leroung is a Cheliaxian house with many prominent academics. Karnak is a cleric of Sarenrae, named after the Egyptian temple complex. Glimmertooth is a gnome with a riding dinosaur and a predilection for fire, Glimmertooth just seemed like a good name for a gnome. Furou is an Inquisitor of Pharasma I play in a homebrew game where we got to create our own 20-point custom races from the ARG. I named his race the Tūjiù (chinese for vulture), a race of humanoid vultures given sentience by Pharasma and tasked with destroying the undead who wander the desert inhabited by the vultures. Fǔròu is Chinese for Carrion, and he has a tendency to eat things killed by the party.
I've got a bunch of songs that, when I hear them, make me think of specific Pathfinder classes. It gave me the idea to make a full playlist. I'm missing a few classes, figured I'd see if I could get some input or ideas. * Alchemist
I've purchased a scimitar of cold iron, and in the name of Sarenrae, I am ready to send these demons back to the pits that spawned them. I have had some measure of success in saving slaves from infernal cults and the too-intelligent undead, and will continue helping the meekest of the weak as I support our Pathfinder brethren against the forces of darkness. Karnak, Cleric of Sarenrae
The picture of Telda on page 17 shows a hobgoblin with red hair. According to the hobgoblin section in the Advanced Race Guide:
Hobgoblins lack facial hair, and even hobgoblin women are bald. I assume she's wearing a wig. I have a hobgoblin PC in a non-PFS game and the best character art I could find for him has hair, so this makes me feel better about that incongruity.
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