Lady Bluehawk's page

Erithtotl wrote:

I think it's worse than you are making it sound. By your own admission you have a roleplay centric group, and yet you had to condense the 20 days to 12. And even then, I think asking even a roleplaying group to spend 6 sessions essentially near-powerless victims of tedious lashings will stretch their patience to the limits. 10 sessions definitely would.

As for the swarms, lets be clear here. Swarms have always been one of the more broken parts of Pathfinder/3.5 rules, and placing these in a scenario where there is no clear way of combatting them is beyond 'deadly', its malpractice by the adventure designer. As mentioned, without a very specific type of PC in the party, this is a near certain TPK, especially in the scenario where the party is attacked by the ankheg at the same time as the swarm.

Finally, the overuse of monsters with improved grab and high-damage output means that you are likely taking multiple PCs out of each fight, not only threatening a lot of deaths but also being constantly frustrating.

Not even mentioned is that the group supposedly only has 48 hours to get through the island the only fresh water source is miles from the coast.

A more creative selection of opponents on the Island (no flying creatures? how about some goblin primitives?) would have presented challenges to different character types without making it a cakewalk.

My party is a veteran group of 5 members and is on 25 point buy and if I hadn't removed the swarms and fudged in a few cases they would have been wiped out. I question if this was ever successfully play tested without many player deaths as written now.

Actually, it is possible in the context of the module to handle the swarm creatures. There are vials of acid and alchemist's fire available for purchase in the Wormwood's "store" from Grok. It requires some initiative from the players, but those that make the purchase are rewarded for it.

For players that didn't take that option, there is always the option of using...

What I did, ultimately, was to tweak the rules to House Rule Level on the alchemist-made Vermin Repellent: if the maker has at least 1 rank in Craft (Alchemy), Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nature), and Survival (our Druid ticked all the boxes!), you get beau coup help with it vs. vermin: increased DCs for the vermin to attack (or even get near) the wearer of the goo and decreased DCs to craft it in the first place (and an hour of gathering herbs provides enough goo for half a dozen Medium-sized critters [with more or less for other sizes, natch] for four hours; the goo itself can be washed off in only 1 round, but it takes a lot of scrubbing and really wanting to get it off. The scent disadvantage still applies, including "scent" [= taste] underwater).

The numbers for the PCs and against the vermin slightly increase in sub-arctic/arctic areas (because YOU are one of the only sources of noms, pretty much; the Vikings were scrupulous about grooming in real life because of that) and greatly increase in the sub-tropics/tropics (because even the local plants don't like swarms, that's why).

Why focus so much on the Repellent? Because my players didn't see any reason for the acid and fire and didn't have a lot of coin on them, and I'm a field biologist in real life, in the "camp of opinion" that DETESTS parasites (I could tell you RL tales of bot flies that'll have everyone here puking, seriously), and really did not EVER want to have to deal with them AT ALL. X-P

Kinda wish I had that option (or had thought of it) in Second Darkness in the second book, but I'm not sure that would've helped... :-/

And I agree: I hate it when the writers blithely go, "Oh, don't worry about _________! You can deal with it pretty easily with really (relatively) high level spells you won't have access to until at least the middle of the next book! :D"

LB

To resurrect this dead horse, the weapons druids get are usually based on either a) Simple weapons, and/or b) the sorts of agricultural tools that historical druids in Europe would be expected to use in their ceremonies and in tending to the land (sickles, scythes; scimitars are okay because they're vaguely reminiscent of such).

In my 1e Pathfinder Golarion, if you're from a different culture, but can prove how a weapon you want to use could be fitting that second category, like a kama or nunchuks (originally a grain flail), for instance, I'd definitely be willing to look at it as a possibility; on the other hand, our group doesn't do PFS tournaments or anything like that, so, we're pretty free-wheeling here (way too many logical things, imho, get wrecked by too hard a cleave to RAW [especially with all the Errata everywhere]). :)

If you could convince me that a terbutje would fit those sorts of definitions, I'd seriously consider it. They do have a Martial proficiency requirement, but then again, so do scimitars. ;-> The main thing that seems to be fitting the theme, imho, would be the natural composition of it (sharp stone shards or shark teeth in a thing of wood), but there are steel versions, just like lots of other weapons druids can't use. I've often seen druids as "the farmer's friend" vs. rangers, who are out with the hunters, who'd be using things like the terbutje.

Having just been looking through my digital content page for something. Will the changes to the store do anything to fix the truly baffling organization and sorting of that page?

And will our ancient-of-days (and vastly preferred, frankly) 1e content still be available from there? :-/

LB
(who hasn't finished downloading her most recent purchases yet... :-/)

While there are many Pathfinder rules that do not make a lot of sense to me, none is worse imho than the rule that all paladins have to be LG. With that said, it is impossible to be a paladin of Cayden Cailean since his alignment chart is CG, NG, CN.

The actually concept of paladin is holy warrior for a deity, not some overzealous policeman upholding the law. For that you have hellknights.

Is there a workaround for this or does PF throw its hands in the air and just say not all good aligned deities have paladins?

A buddy of mine was GMing Curse of the Crimson Throne eons ago (to rez this dead equine of a thread ;->) and my hubby wanted to play a Paladin of Pharasma so his character could really womp on the undead (and this was years before the Warpriest, which really limits the Cleric in the wrong direction, imho; limiting higher level spells vs. not starting them until later, like a Paladin).

He was told that wouldn't fly due to Pharasma's True Neutral alignment, but together they worked out the literal Holy Warrior for the top 6 alignments (and Unholy Warrior for the bottom 3 alignments). So, in our group's house rules, all Paladins are Holy Warriors, but not all Holy Warriors are Paladins, that kind of thing.

To be a Holy Warrior of ________, you had to pick an alignment within one step of your Patron (and I can't recall if Philosophies were allowed) and STICK TO THAT, the way a Pally would stick to LG (but read the wonderful sidebar on Chaotic Neutral in Champions of Balance). The powers were very, very similar, but could be tweaked; a CN Holy Warrior of Calistria, for instance, would have Smite Law instead of Smite Evil, etc. I think they also had to focus on a specific thing in their Patron's bailiwick, and his character really wanted to clean up on undead, which Pharasma's bent out of shape about (understandably).

My hubby's Neutral Good character, joining us after we'd started (his work schedule was odd back then, and wasn't sure if he could join us each time), soon proved very valuable; it's good to be able to run into a haunted house on the heels of someone in full plate with a mace, "plowing the field" for the Cleric to get centered and then WHOOMPF! go off with the Channel Positive... ;)

Not to mention:

The main issue we had with Adiera was that she wasn't "NG enough" (almost TOO Lawful), and the rest of the female toons in the group figured she needed a little loosening up at a "spa day"...the trickiest thing there was convincing her to leave her weapons and armor at the Cloak Check counter. X-D

Getting back to the OP's question and several comments therein, if anyone among the PCs suspect anything, you could always have Harri playing the, "Oh, I'm a double-agent! Those nasty Chelaxians think they have me where they want me, but -- ha-ha! -- little do they know the shoe is on the OTHER foot!" card, especially:

@drsparnum came up with the doldrums idea, and I'm borrowing off their idea:

Winds near the equator go up, rather than across. This phenomenon, called the doldrums, makes it very slow sailing through the equator. The Eye of Abendego creates frequent choppy cross winds preventing the doldrums from forming. This makes the Shackles the easiest place to go over the equator anywhere on Golarion. Hence a lot of intercontinental sailing is attracted to this region. Routes that might appear faster on a 2D map are actually slower because of the doldrums, hence some ships risk the pirates and Shackles, whether by desire for profit or simple logistics of being unable to carry so much extra food and water.

Combined with lucrative trade opportunities of rare artifacts from ancient ruins on your way through, including the Mwangi Expanse, a ship that makes the successful voyage stands to make a substantial profit. This also includes nations to the south.

I don't have the Mwangi Expanse supplement, but it's supposed to explain some of the trade issues.

Ah-HAH! Okay, cool; that does make sense, thanks. :) I do have that supplement, and I'll double-check it for that.

Basically, I was just going to have the evil, scumbag Aspis Consortium make for good, fat prey ships (with many of the ships' officers and crew not even necessarily know who they're working for, ultimately), and let the PCs worry about things when the multinational corporate Empire strikes back once the AP is over and they're like 14-16th level or so ... if they want to continue in that region. :)

I provide a Pathfinder conversion of Salvage Operation HERE

You'll still need the original adventure, available either in PDF of Dungeon #123. It was also reprinted as a 5e adventure in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure compilation.

Found it! We're using it right now, though we got to that point a wee bit late, so we haven't finished yet. They went down to Krell's level via the stern (sigh...) and they defeated him before they ran out of spells and ammo and hit points. They've yet to face most of the rest... ;->

And, of course, there's still the BBEG to go... :D

Thanks again for your conversion, Dudemeister! You've saved the day as well! :D

LB

This may be resurrecting and then beating on a very dead horse, but I fell in love with the Shaman and out of love with both the Oracle and the Witch. My question is: even with various sources out there, I haven't found a lot on more Shaman Spirits, so how could I convert Witch Patrons to Shaman Spirits? Are there helpful posts (or ideas) along those lines? :)

And of all the Shaman Spirits, I DETEST the idea of the "Dark Tapestry" one. It hearkens back to the Lovecraftian nonsense of "Oh, don't go out into space! It's too scary! Oh oh oh!" that I personally really hate, being both an Original Series/Next Gen Trekker and a Whovian. ;) I have seen folks come up with, iirc, a Time Patron, maybe even a Time Spirit -- I'd have to find it again, but I know I saw it somewhere...ah! It's from Ultimate Magic, which also has a Stars Patron; I'd also like to convert the Stars Patron to a better Space or Stars Spirit, rather than the Dark Tapestry -- (scrolling down a list of more polite terms) -- stuff (Stars = good; Dark Tapestry = evil).

(In the Whoniverse, apparently the Archons are the inspiration for the Great Old Ones myths, and the Doctor kicked the last of their butts back on one last planet of theirs in a short story involving the Second Doctor, his Companion Jamie, and a set of bagpipes. ;->)

We'll be starting in January [back in 2016], with me GMing and three players/five PCs:

Jackie Ketch, great-granddaughter of Molryn Hangtree, with the Buccaneer's Blood trait and an Heirloom weapon; MIXED blood Human, primarily Chelaxian ("Heinz 57 Varieties"). Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade archetype).
Masika, female Suli-Jann Sorceress with the Seaborn (Wildblood Aquatic) bloodline; Ship's Surgeon trait.

Marco Selachii (heh; Google that last name...), male Skinwalker (wereshark-kin) Fighter; will be Master Gunner eventually. Ilizmagorti Native trait.
Andrei Codrescu, male Varisian Human, Cleric of Cayden Cailean, originally from Riddleport (his most recent memories of home involved the tail-end of our aborted [but GM'ed happy ending] Second Darkness campaign). Barroom Talespinner trait.

[to be named soon, hopefully ;)] male Rogue, patterned strongly after Geoffrey Holder's character in Swashbuckler (psst! It's available on DVD from Amazon! fun pirate movie). Not sure of race, campaign trait, possible archetype, etc. yet, but he likes knives. Lots and lots of knives (mainly because yeah, only the King has gunpowder weapons). ;->

Should be interesting... :D

LB

Too late to edit, but we're finally doing it; we've had about 3 sessions so far.

The gang:
Andrei: same. ;->
Jackie: same. ;->
Lowell: the Unchained Rogue; based more on Lupin III now. ;->
Marco: same. ;->
Masika: same. ;->
Mzuzi: Rainkin Half-Orc Storm Druid. :)

I'm gonna be running the Salvage thing from Dungeon 123; it's perfect for this group. Hope we can get to it tomorrow night, but we have a limited amount of time. :-/

LB

Touc, on "that Excel thing [you] mentioned," I tried following that link, but it glitched on the receiving end, and even they don't know what happened. :-/

I do have Dropbox, but I doubt it even got to the point of my being able to download anything? :(

LB

Good to have some free 2025 Skull and Shackles Campaign Materials stuff out there, Touc, drsparnum, and DM_aka_Dudemeister. ;)

Amen! :D

Where does Salvage Operation come from, again? And if it's now out of print, is there anything similar you can recommend?

LB

I've got RP notes thanks to the NPC cards for something to be going on every day with some NPC drama, learning the ropes (literally), as well as epic sea events. Definitely right that a day of "you wake up, you make a few rolls, repeat" would get old quickly.

Am running Salvage Operation. I like the idea of a timer. That's solid. I also am borrowing the idea of Harrigan killing the squid, though it ends up being dinner. Waste not, want not.

Interesting squib options, I'll take a look at my adventures. Haven't figured out post-Wormwood options yet.

Same for Pieces of Eight. Anything superstitious like that fits well in a pirate campaign!

Hey, as long as no one's allergic to squid on board (/raising_hand), they should be fine. :)

And I hear that poor Fishguts is actually quite the artiste with ingredients... :)

(No, our version does not -- insult -- the ingredients, just to get back at his tormentors; if he has nothing else, he has his culinary pride. And his chickens.)

LB

I'm running a game with 7 players so I sometimes need to adapt things just for that reason. I recently wrapped up book 1. Here are my tips for that book....

1. cut the number of days aboard the wormwood by about half. This can be done by only running the days that have an event. Taking the Man's Promise and subsequent mutiny will still feel earned. This is especially true if you have a lot of PCs because that is a lot of ship actions.
2. take Dudemeisters suggestion and run salvage operation. I put a twist into salvage operation. When my players boarded the ship I had them make a sailor check to realize the ship was sinking and their movement would hasten that process. I told them they estimated they had 4 minutes and then wrote right on the battlemat: Rounds (40). After each round I put a tally mark down to make it 100% transparent they were on a clock. In the process we got some cool fights. The party split up to explore faster (you never get that!) and I had scenes where, for example, one PC still on the deck was throwing holy water down through a grate to help a fight on the lower deck. You do need to not punish your players for splitting up. I'm trying to run this game to reward jumping in. I took the suggestion too after the PCs got the treasure (I had it be magical sails), Peppery Longfarthing cast fly on Harrigan, Dimension Door'ed him above the squid, and he dove in the water solo and slew the squid under the water. That really sent a message to my PCs to not mutiny while Harrigan was around.
3. I house-ruled that in the shackles the spell create water is level 3 due to the presence of all the salt water, instead of level 1. This makes needing to find water on Bonewrack more logical, and it will also make the encounter with the Dominator in book 2 more logical.
4. At the end of the book I told my players they knew of three places to squib a ship: 1) rickety squib, 2) kracken cove, and 3) Lilly White. Kracken Cove had the advantage of being closest and cheapest but you had to do your own...

O.M.G! :D

Bless your sweet butt to Besmara, me lad! :D

Here I was, a mere Level 2 GM, trying to run six characters, run by four Level 99-100 players, through this mess in Part 1 (usually, I'm among the 99-100 player chorale meself, but they're all like Level 99-100 GMs as well. Luckily, they're very nice, and we've all been gaming since the 70s and together since the 80s. Very forgiving, but only to a point...).

"Sandboxes" can be my most favorite thing to play in, and my LEAST favorite to run. I'm tearing my hair out, and I vaguely remembered seeing YOUR POST specifically, somewhere...taken awhile to find it.

But, THANK YOU! :D

You may just have saved the day! :D

LB

P.S. One of my biggest bugaboos was in convincing my 25 point build PCs that no, they can't just take over the Wormwood right now (for one thing, they have no weapons beyond rigging tools and maybe sail needles and no armor; all of that stuff of theirs is in the ARMORY, not the Quartermaster's store (there's no armor or weapons in the Store at all; that's not where that stuff belongs, but at least one of them got almost all his other gear back by dealing with Grok)), so what I need is more encounters, preferably showing off how bad-arsed the NPC officers are, rather graphically. I'll see what I can find...but thanks again for suggestions like that, and the whole "blow off days when nothing's going on" bit in general! :D --LB

Fraust wrote:

Gotta admit, much like "new" traits, a lot of the new familiars benefits don't make any sense to me, or are just rehashing of the stuff given by another familiar. Nothing against this book or its author in particular, just a general observation.

Pirate Familiars

Dodo - Master gains a +2 bonus on initiative checks
Dwarf caiman - Master gains a +3 bonus on Stealth checks
Giant isopod - Master gains a +1 natural armor bonus to AC
Parrot (as raven (cannot speak) - Master gains a +3 bonus on Linguistics checks
Seal - Master gains a +3 bonus on Swim checks

Comparing the new familiars with the basic ones in the CRB, pg 82:

The Dodo adds +2 to initiative. That is nice especially if used with the elf racial trait Warrior of Old. Those two equate to a free feat. Not bad for a class with limited feat availability.

Dwarf Caiman does duplicate the Cat.

Giant Isopod is new. +1 nat AC bonus.

Parrot is slightly different from the raven in that it permits +3 Linguistic. I like the raven more with the talking ability. Easy enough to house rule. Our GM actually is permitting a parrot to speak one round per day. That moves up a round for every two levels.

Seal is new. +3 swim bonus. The problem here is not knowing enough about the entire campaign and how much the seal will be able to interact on land.

Take it from a marine biologist: don't use a seal (no ears, short back flippers/legs can't swivel forward, etc.), use a sea lion (still a pinniped [related to seals and walruses], but has much longer back flippers/legs that can swivel forward, external ears, etc.).

Granted, they still move on land more slowly than in the water, but...

Oh. Just re-read the only source they apparently exist in (none of the Bestiaries? Just SnS Book 01? :-/), and given the description, these ARE sea lions being referred to, not "true seals." True seals don't rear up for long enough to do front flipper "claps." And their front flippers are too short for that any way. ;)

So, yes, your sealion (not to be confused with the sea cat) familiar will be able to galumph along on land, but they'll do way better and faster "under da sea." :D

(And the natural default sound for both ravens and parrots are squawks, etc., not people-speak. Huginn and Muninn, Odin's birds, were supernatural sorts. And a dwarf caiman may fit the scene better than a generic cat.)

doc the grey wrote:

When an Incutilis uses its puppetmaster ability is the victim of said abilities just turned into a zombie and lose all of its class abilities (save those things mentioned in the description) or do they just look and act zombie like?

What no one, including the Powers (and I've looked for any errata for either the Bestiary entry or the Skull and Shackles or Plunder and Peril adventures; no luck), have really talked about with the Incutilis is this:

NO SAVING THROW?!

If this so-called CR 2 latches onto your 1st-4th level character successfully (perhaps in a party without a Cleric; I've seen write-ups of groups like that*), your character. Is. Dead. Period. End of sentence. >:-(

The earliest casters that get anything like raise dead or reincarnate are either 5th level Clerics or 7th level Druids, and if it's considered "killed by a death effect," forget being Raised. Even if that's not the case, the, er, "juices" the damn' thing pumps into a body might preclude the whole "body must be whole" bit ("Well, he looks whole, corpse-wise..." [wiggles squid-free body] "Hmm. He's either sloshing or rattling inside; hard to tell."). :-/

I suppose having access to a 7th level Druid could help (and it'd be a random crap shoot as to what kind of a body you'd get), but they probably won't be right there in the party, since this is "only" a "mere" CR 2 creature (probably because of its land speed. Having my players not having their characters go anywhere near the water in a pirate campaign seems a bit ... lacking).

Is there something about this ghastly gods-forsaken PARASITE that I'm missing in the various write-ups? :-/

LB
(* who insists on the following party compositions when GMing:
-- any kind of Fighting type
-- any kind of Arcane casting type
-- any kind of Rogue type, preferably a class that includes important Roguish abilities with traps and locks and what-not
-- A CLERIC. Those "walking med-kits and Undead-Off(TM) holy symbols"...

Odd; can't Edit past a certain time? :-/

At any rate, I did apparently miss a crucial thing: regular Incutilises can attack a helpless Small or Medium creature...but still with no saving throw. :-/

Also, killing the Incutilis "destroys the zombie," which means you can't just raise dead your buddy; you'd need to reincarnate (I'd read that as still having some poofed ash residue or whatever left) or resurrect them. :-/

When an Incutilis uses its puppetmaster ability is the victim of said abilities just turned into a zombie and lose all of its class abilities (save those things mentioned in the description) or do they just look and act zombie like?

What no one, including the Powers (and I've looked for any errata for either the Bestiary entry or the Skull and Shackles or Plunder and Peril adventures; no luck), have really talked about with the Incutilis is this:

NO SAVING THROW?!

If this so-called CR 2 latches onto your 1st-4th level character successfully (perhaps in a party without a Cleric; I've seen write-ups of groups like that*), your character. Is. Dead. Period. End of sentence. >:-(

The earliest casters that get anything like raise dead or reincarnate are either 5th level Clerics or 7th level Druids, and if it's considered "killed by a death effect," forget being Raised. Even if that's not the case, the, er, "juices" the damn' thing pumps into a body might preclude the whole "body must be whole" bit ("Well, he looks whole, corpse-wise..." [wiggles squid-free body] "Hmm. He's either sloshing or rattling inside; hard to tell."). :-/

I suppose having access to a 7th level Druid could help (and it'd be a random crap shoot as to what kind of a body you'd get), but they probably won't be right there in the party, since this is "only" a "mere" CR 2 creature (probably because of its land speed. Having my players not having their characters go anywhere near the water in a pirate campaign seems a bit ... lacking).

Is there something about this ghastly gods-forsaken PARASITE that I'm missing in the various write-ups? :-/

LB
(* who insists on the following party compositions when GMing:
-- any kind of Fighting type
-- any kind of Arcane casting type
-- any kind of Rogue type, preferably a class that includes important Roguish abilities with traps and locks and what-not
-- A CLERIC. Those "walking med-kits and Undead-Off(TM) holy symbols" are CRUCIAL.
-- any other kind of Divine casting type [if we have room]
-- any other kind of other class [ditto])

In my game, we recently ran across a problem with these cantrips. According to Jason, because they are "rare cantrips," they don't automatically become available to casters who gain access to all cantrips when they gain first level spells. But how does that apply to sorcerors, who only have a limited number of cantrips that they can know? Taken explicitly, Jason's wording seems to suggest that a 1st level sorceror, at character creation, could just as easily choose one of these special cantrips as they could a standard one, and that's how my player is interpreting it. To me, though, it seems that the intention is that there is supposed to be a more meaty story to how they obtained these cantrips, as opposed to the standard, "I'm a sorceror, I can choose four cantrips, and I want this to be one of them." It seems to me that the intention is for these to be akin to quest items, something that is to be found in-game, either by finding it in some obscure text, or finding an experienced caster who knows the cantrips and can teach them to you, or in the case of a sorceror, finding some place where their connection to whatever bloodline triggers the ancestral memory of the spell is unusually strong, such as a place infested with undead for a sorceror with an undead bloodline. Does it seem to anyone else to be a bit of a cheat to just simply allow a newly created sorceror to have one of these special cantrips right out the gate?

In our games, with our groups of GMs/players, we let Sorcerers find scrolls of spells they don't have, but could learn someday (i.e., by swapping out spells when they get that chance, or more often if they have the Arcane bloodline). They get their favorite Wizard to make a copy of it, just in case, so they don't nuke the scroll in trying to learn it (and maybe "pay" him in the chance to copy a copy of the copy into his spellbook?).

So, no, it wouldn't have to just be a matter of being in the right place at the right time even for a Sorcerer, if it were on some "moldering old scroll" in a "forgotten library." Arcane casters have their own forms of treasure, yeah? ;->

All the more reason to go poking about in old ruins! :D

Morgen wrote:

Awww, I had Jolt pegged as an evocation spell.

It absolutely should be.

I'd agree with that, but someone later suggested it's Transmutation since you're rubbing air molecules together 'til they "catch on fire" (i.e., spark due to static electricity).

At any rate, the d20pfsrd.com folks have it as Transmutation, so maybe they agree?

I'm surprised it's only sorcerer/wizard. Several of these make thematic sense for both druids (drench, breeze, jolt) and witches (drench, penumbra).

Well, heck; if The Powers don't want them any more (sigh; poor Misfit Spells! :-/), then by all means, tweak them as you want in your games. :)

I intend to; I can see them coming in handy. :)

Lady Bluehawk wrote:

Question: is this 1e (which we still use and love immensely in our group) or 2e (which we're still rather leery of, for many reasons)? I can see it was released in 2019 originally, but I'm not sure when 2e came out. :-/

LB

2e, before the remaster

Ah.

Thanks! :)

Yeah, I'll be getting the 1e Alternate screen (with the folks from the Advanced Class Guide, etc. on the cover), no matter how much it cost:

$16.99 Item
$ 1.78 Estimated Sales Tax
$10.50 Shipping & Handling (this has gone up, hasn't it? :-/)
$ 1.11 Estimated Shipping & Handling Sales Tax (WHAT?! Since when?! And is this based on the state where the item is, or where the item winds up?)
-----------
$30.38

I wouldn't blame Paizo if they wind up going to pure PDF for everything; I wouldn't blame them a bit. :-/

LB

Question: is this 1e (which we still use and love immensely in our group) or 2e (which we're still rather leery of, for many reasons)? I can see it was released in 2019 originally, but I'm not sure when 2e came out. :-/

LB

What I've found I've had to do with Pathfinder ship maps, often, is re-draw them, period.

Don't get me wrong; I adore the system, especially Pathfinder 1e (still! :D), and always enjoy it, especially as a player. But their ship maps are often atrocious. X-P

Take the Wormwood, for example: 30' amidships (side to side) for the Upper Deck, 30' for the Main Deck, 30' for the Middle/Cargo Deck, 30' for the Lower Deck (crew cabin), and 20' for the Bilges. We have things like that on land, too; we call them bathtubs. X-P

Also, there's this weird bulge at the bow (front) and the stern (rear), that never get explained on the lower levels in like a cut-away view or something that would make sense. About the only vessels that have anything like that are submarines. X-P Any bulges in a ship anywhere during the Age of Sail would be on the sides, not at front and aft.

What I did was: a) got rid of the weird bulges and flattened out the stern a bit more (because you want your bow to be as hydrodynamic as possible, and your stern fairly broad); b) broadened the Upper and Main Decks to 40' across and kept the rest of the widths; c) had to lengthen the ship to 120' overall to keep something like the 3.33:1 ratio of length-width it had originally (it's amazing what adding just another 5' on each side will do to things); and d) wound up scrapping my original battle-map drawings and exchanging them for graph paper and regular markers, just for the outlines of the outer and inner walls of the ship. Any details, especially of stuff the players aren't supposed to know about, really, I'll do as separate pieces of paper of the appropriate shape. :)

And trust me; I'm no artist at all, especially without fancy drawing tools, but armed with enough erasers, even I can manage this, so no doubt, you can, too. :)

If you want to make it realistic, all of that belongs to the captain. Harrigan could claim it all. My players didn't take it, even the obviously magical pike, for fear of reprisal. If they are caught looting, it could be considered stealing from the captain.

Yes and no, but most pirate ships historically had an actual charter everyone signed onto (once they'd spent enough time with the crew, "because the GM says so." With mine, it'll be 21 days, but since I expect the PCs to be impressive enough, it could be a day earlier... ;->). That assures them they'll be getting shares of whatever plunder, etc. they're entitled to by the terms of the contract.

But yeah, the captain will get it all first, then dole out what he thinks people have earned or deserved as far as gear goes. ;->

I fully expect that by then, my lot will have gotten all their original gear back, minus their weapons and armor, since all that's in the Armory anyway.

But they'll be getting those back for the attack on the Man's Promise, and would have anyway once they'd signed the charter. :D

Though that dastardly Master Scourge still has the Swashbuckler's heirloom rapier (thankfully for her sake, he'll be taking it along with him)... :-/

ArchAnjel wrote:

I was going over the map of the Wormwood last night and something occurred to me... how the hell do the ship's non-officer crew get back and forth between the main and middle decks?

There are only two sets of stairs that lead from the main to the middle deck - one in the Officer's Quarters and one in the Captain's Quarters. Both are kept locked and trapped with the Officer's Quarters having Owlbear chained to the bottom of it expressly to prevent anyone from coming up the stairs into the Officer's Quarters.

Do they get hauled up and down through the cargo hatches? That seems a bit unusual.

Am I missing something obvious? Should this be hand-waved? Do the captain and/or officers let the entire crew come traipsing through their quarters every time a crew member needs to relieve themselves?

I was wondering the very same. I will go with ladders. And when do they keep hatches open/closed throughout the day/night?

Because you can't keep a good thread down... ;)

Hatches usually have just the sturdy grid cover over them, leaving them open to the air and sunlight unless a storm comes up, then the solid hatch covers (which I have hooked to the bulkheads near those areas) go over and are "battened down" to prevent too much water coming in.

And yeah, I think they'd forgotten a few things on the ship maps, so I just included a staircase aft of the foremast; there was enough room, after I got done re-doing the map (40' amidships for the Upper and Main Decks, then the 30' and 20' original widths for the Middle and Lower Decks and Bilges; extended the overall length; took out the stupid, unaccounted-for "bulges" fore and aft [if ships had bulges at all back then, they'd be on the sides, port and starboard, generally under the waterline]). :)

Catch up with the story so far of the wayward conscripts. They've come a long ways from the mutiny aboard Man's Promise -- and none of it was easy.

Woo! Granted, that was a LONG time ago, but I still wish you'd kept up your journal! We're just now dabbling our toes into this; I'm a barely 2nd level Game Master dealing with four 90th+ level players (old buddies, and I'm no slouch either at player experience), and I'm finding Skull and Shackles very rough going, especially the "social sandbox" at the beginning, but I have confidence once we get to Part 2 and beyond.

In the meantime, there were some WONDERFUL ideas for incorporating all kinds of things in your entries, and keeping everyone busy with things to do! Our group, of course, has different approaches (a half-orc Storm Druid, a suli jann Aquatic Wildborn Sorceress, a seascarred skinwalker Ranger, a half-elf Rogue, a human Cleric of Cayden Cailean, and a human Swashbuckler), and we're barely past the first day/night (Magpie met his end, and Andrei the Cleric got his stuff back, minus his weapons and armor [which wouldn't be lugged around on ship normally anyway, and all of that's in the Armory], by impressing Grok). I felt woefully under-prepared for this session, so I'm desperately scrambling around, looking for advice/help/anecdotes/etc., and I'm highly inspired by your annals! :D

Thanks! :)

Thread necromancy FTW!!!

In order to understand the psychology of Captain Harrigan and his officers, one must go back and watch two classic pirate films, Captain Kidd and the second The Sea Hawk with Errol Flynn. Captain Kidd shows the side of the converted pirate captain ostensibly working for good, and The Sea Hawk shows privateers battling under their own accord for the good of Britain.

Hmm! It's almost like Capt. Harri here is the exact opposite, then, of the good guys, unless that "ostensibly" is just a cover-up... ;->

The biggest question I have about the entire AP is this: with the Eye of Abendego just north of us, granted, the Chelaxian ships of the empire of Cheliax aren't able to "rescue"/re-take Sargava any time soon, but there's not a lot of merchant traffic around probably, either.

So, what is everyone preying on? :-/

If the islands are mostly run by fellow pirate lords, they're not gonna want anyone horning in their action by taking their fleet ships, or some merchant braving the environs to supply their islands. If there's hardly anything but small towns and villages along the coast, if they're raided too often, they're not gonna want to help the group if they need it, nor will they be interested in doing any trading/buying of plunder, or be able to if NPC pirates keep hitting them.

There's a protection scheme keeping Sargava from having its ships routinely attacked and their plunder stolen; they pay the Shackles "authorities" to be protected from Cheliax as well as from the locals.

So, are we like an island full of cats? (Which does exist in real life, in more than one instance, and probably the only reason they haven't all turned kitty cannibal since they would've destroyed the populations of any prey native to the island, is that people still leave out food for them.)

I know I'm coming to this late, but I'll still summarize since there are a lot of people who just came in to pile on rather than make an actual argument based on the rules.

Letric wrote:

...

Untrained: You cannot make an untrained Knowledge
check with a DC higher than 10.
As long as we are Untrained on a Knowledge skill, our ceiling will be DC10.
Untrained is defined, as we said before, by not having any single ranks in the skill.

After seeing all this, let's check what Bardic Knowledge says:

Bardic Knowledge (Ex): A bard adds half his class
level (minimum 1) to all Knowledge skill checks and
may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained.

Your paraphrasing is changing the meaning of things. To emphasize the point, if the untrained section on knowledge said "You cannot achieve a result higher than 10 with an untrained knowledge check" then bardic knowledge would be written incorrectly to deal with it. As it stands, a DC 25 knowledge check is a knowledge check you normally cannot attempt untrained. Because bardic knowledge is more specific than the general knowledge rule, that specific trumps general and you MAY make that knowledge check with bardic knowledge.

As it happens, this revealed an incorrect assumption I had. I had been thinking the rule essentially boiled down to your result can't be meaningfully better than 10. That's incorrect. If you're attempting a check with a DC lower than 10 and there are advantages for beating that DC, you may have them. So if there's a common low CR creature (e.g. ogre) with a base monster lore DC less than 10, you can gain additional pieces of information for beating that DC by increments of 5. At least by RAW.

The main issue I have with RAW is that there are SO. MANY. ERRATA. They. Have. Been. WRONG.

(Probably why I'd never do Pathfinder Society events unless the GMs would have a complete set of Errata for the scenario, rule books, etc. printed up and rule accordingly.)

What I'm looking at here with the Bardic Knowledge rule is that "A bard adds half his class level (minimum 1) to all Knowledge skill checks and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained."

Right off the bat, Bards add half their class levels (minimum 1) to their Knowledge skill checks. And can attempt to make a Knowledge check, regardless of any rank points added to it. Even if a check has a DC of 27, say, a 14th level Bard could try to shoot the moon, pray, cross their fingers, and hope they roll a 20. NO ONE ELSE COULD EVEN TRY. They can, because they're a Bard. That's part of their class's "powers."

Ta-dah! :D

(And my apologies, Berinor, for any offense; I'm not yelling at you, just in general frustration. ;-D)

SilvercatMoonpaw wrote:

I'm basically hearing a "Yes".

I think it is more because this is all based off of medieval thinking were the four elements and the unknown was all just magic.

Sonic and sound as a weapon is actually a fairly new concept, in world terms. Yes I know Archimedes burned down a fleet with polished round shields is technically a laser but they still don't exist in the game... yet

So yes it was added as a after thought of 30+ years of the game basics being out. Give it another 30 and the defenses for it will be added.

It doesn't mean that the resistance to it is not already built in

DR/-- would work against it as would anything that protects from Heat and Impact. I will not go into the science part of sonic more than this because it really doesn't fit a fantasy game, like lasers and heat seeking missiles. Yes, once again I know a presented a case for lasers but how many shields did it take to cause a fire?

-GAFY

What about Numeria? ;)

At some point, our group is going to be doing an Iron Gods campaign... ;)

(How many shields? The ancient Egyptians used reflective metal to shine sunlight down into deep areas, like mines or the deepest tomb levels of pyramids, so either a) a lot of shields, perhaps, or b) one really big one...maybe ol' Archie got the idea from them?)

LB

I know right off the bat how this is gonna sound (pardon the expression):

Doctor Who. Sonic Screwdriver. And before everyone starts chiming in, there have been players that have done homage versions of the Doctor; I'm seriously looking at it myself in one of our campaigns. Playing a (semi-)pacifist instead of my usual bloodthirsty warmongers is going to be an interesting challenge. ;)

What all does the Sonic Screwdriver do, and what could it do in-game? It actually can affect physical objects (except for wood or stone, which is kind of odd), up to and including actually unscrewing things, but in PF, would it be able to "fire" sonic energy effects like a wand?

And since Sorcerers can have draconic bloodlines, even Linnorm ones, why not an Yrthak ancestry for a Doctor homage? ;)

I do agree with those that say that Paizo kind of dropped the ball on developing sonic energy more, except for maybe psychic stuff. It's been proven scientifically that certain cetaceans (dolphins and bigger toothed whales) that use echolocation, can indeed "fire" a blast of echolocation that can actually damage their prey long enough to slow it down, stun it, or even kill it if it's a small enough critter. Sound waves travel through a medium (they need a medium; they can't travel through a vacuum), usually water in this case. Sent through air, they can shatter a glass goblet in RL. Sent through dirt, they can cause anything from ground tremors to earthquakes (not the same; ground tremors are way more shallow) to simple subsonic communication between elephants.

So, yeah, in general I wouldn't classify sonic as Air or Earth, but as its own thing, energy-wise; I just wish there were more in-game applications for it. :-/

LB

Liliyashanina wrote:

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

I actually played with a guy who thought that was the right way to play Paladins. Things were out of control with that guy.

I mean, Paladins of Torag do get into Judge Dread Territory, but the archetype for that would be certain Hellknight orders.

Concerning showing mercy: Nocticula herself generally wages war by assassinating the enemies' leadership, and then offering terms to their followers that are mildly better then what they would expect to get.
To an extent, that is a quite merciful way to wage war. It also conserves her resources.

Also fairly manipulative in accordance with her nature.

Minion 1: "OK look over there."
Minion 2 suspiciously: "But I heard something."
Minion 1: "Yes and if we let her pass she'll probably kill lord H#RTO#@IHEFRWi and then offer us weekends off and dental to join her above our current conditions."
Minion 2: "My what an interesting bush is over there."

Wasn't that a line from the Street Fighter movie? "You get PAID?!" :D

Seriously, that was one of the things that made Genghis Khan so popular; he HATED nepotism and family connections and all that other bushwa (that's what got his father killed and his family exiled into the wilderness) and was much more into meritocracy. One of his most brilliant generals, Subotai, was once one of his enemies that he showed mercy to.

And yeah, the troops under his leadership were generally treated a lot better than most were back then, even in more "civilized" areas... ;->

LB

Sissyl wrote:

If clothing isn't free encumbrance anymore, there is an obvious solution.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0025.html

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0026.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0027.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0028.html

ROFLMAO!!! :D

The oots0029 I recall, but for some odd reason, I hadn't remembered the previous four... X-D

LB

Slotless muleback cords cost 2000gp and I don't know what they weigh.

Handy Haversack is 2000gp and weighs 5 lbs.
I'd advise getting both on any character with a low to mid strength rating. The haversack is pretty much a must on any character. The utility of being able to get any item you want as a move action without provoking is phenomenal.

Muleback cords take up a Shoulder slot. You can either have that or a Cloak, apparently. :-/

But isn't there a Feat or something like that, that can help?

Right now, we're a low-level party (not even in the high single digits yet!), out in the middle of FREAKIN' NOWHERE, with no MagicMart or the equivalent to buy said goodies at. X-P

LB

it's also nice to have an aoe healing ability for that moment when a fireball\trap drop 2-4 party members and you can't run to stabilize all (AND the GM won't let you know who is in what condition beside that - 'they are DYING, do something!')

some GM won't let you know the other player's exact hp without some high dc heal checks or spells\abilities (or at all).

Dude, take deathwatch from the Core Rulebook (well, 1st Ed.; not sure if they still have it in 2nd Ed...if not, they lost a wonderful spell). It's an awesome little spell that does exactly what you were looking for, and it's only Cleric 1. :)

Let me see if I can find it...ah:

DEATHWATCH [pg. 265, Core Rulebook, 1st Ed.]
School necromancy; Level Cleric 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range 30 ft.
Area cone-shaped emanation
Duration 10 min./level
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
Using the powers of necromancy, you can determine the condition of creatures near death within the spell’s range. You instantly know whether each creature within the area is dead, fragile (alive and wounded, with 3 or fewer hit points left), fighting off death (alive with 4 or more hit points), healthy, undead, or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct). Deathwatch sees through any spell or ability that allows creatures to feign death.

And back in the old days (I'm thinking....3.0?), the write-up for it was so ghastly: "Using the horrible, wretched, putrescent, unholy, despicable [etc.] powers of necromancy! Boo!" that I wanted a "good" version of it called triage, because you could do exactly the same thing for your potential patients as a healer that you could for an evil, terrible, no-good necro looking for victims. X-P Fortunately, Paizo did a better job of writing it up in Pathfinder than WoC did in the Player's Handbook. ;->

LB

I will say right now off the bat, I way prefer Shamans to the other two, and after our own playtesting in our local group, the others agree with me (or I with them; either way). For us, Shamans have the advantages of Oracles and Witches without their disadvantages (really debilitating weaknesses for the one; a walking, "talking," fragile spell book for the other). My issue is, I'm not that personally good at game mechanics and construction, so if there's anyone out there who feels like we do, give me a holler; I haven't seen too much in the forums on this specifically. :)

LB

There was a 1-star review re: some missing formulae for the Alchemist, from 2013; some books hadn't been mentioned in the cards. Considering the deck came out in 2011, those books might not have come out yet (not sure; didn't keep track of the publishing history)? Not having an instant update every year or two of the card deck seems a bit harsh of a reason to give it such a poor ranking. :(

LB

Apparently this product is simply not being supported anymore. Shouldn't it be taken down then? It seems unethical that people can still purchase this. BTW, I had also found that the security settings will not allow me to print selected pages of the document (ex: the cleric spells I needed for my inquisitor class) to a new PDF that could be more easily used. This is a fail, why is it still being sold? BUYER BEWARE!

Sounds like the security thing that Vic Wertz responded to. It's also why no Bookmarks. :(

Sad, but I'm willing to put in the work. :)

And "simply not being supported any more"? It is 1st Edition (which I prefer, so this is good), so I'm not surprised; does that mean they're not coming out with any further volumes, like Sorcerer/Wizard spells from Ultimate Magic, for example? :-/ For that matter, is Blue Banzai even around any more? That could be another reason for it, though I too wish they'd come out with more. :)

Win7 isn't being supported any more, and I still use it (I way prefer it to Win10, which I have on my laptop under duress); in fact, Microsoft keeps insisting on updating my security programs for it, even though they said they wouldn't any more...if I tried, I could probably find a legal copy of it somewhere, even possibly from Microsoft itself, what with all the ton 'o disks of it they may still have in the warehouse somewhere. ;)

LB

Actually, judging by the email I just received, it may have been to do with the fact that my credit card expires today, and the replacement doesn't start until tomorrow. i.e. No overlap.

Hey ho.

Gah, that blows; been there, done that. :-/

But apparently, after looking at various FAQs and policies and whatnot (trying, actually, to find this forum again...), yeah, it could also be things hadn't shipped yet (but why not put the PDF in a separate category if it's just 1's and 0's...sigh). :)

LB

Darrell Impey UK wrote:

Hi again.

The payment for this order has been sitting listed as "pending" on my credit card for about five days now, and suddenly today it vanishes completely. Is something going on at your end? Ta.

Hi!

When an order is placed, we immediately authorize your card to ensure that it can be charged when we ship your order. An authorization is a non-monetary transaction that merely checks with your bank to ensure that the card is valid and has sufficient funds. It sounds like you may be seeing the authorization on your end since no money is charged to the card until we ship your order and we are currently still shipping out these orders. Please let me know if I can assist you further :)

Whew! Heh, if I'd come here first, it would've saved us all the headache of a panicked bleat email from me to support...I was wondering the same thing, and worrying about my card. :-/

So, if there actually had been something wrong with my card, various little flags would've gone up right off, saying, "Wait! Gae nae furthur! For DEATH awaits yer payment with big, nasty, pointy teeth!" and a message would've come up in addition with something like, "You might want to check with your bank on this one; let us know when everything's okay on that end." rather than just the mystery of "Pending," right? :)

On the other hand, I'd ordered a Print/PDF bundle, and I'm surprised the PDF didn't show right off in my Downloads, giving me something to work with while I was waiting for the book itself...as long as I have something, I won't go even crazier than I am already. ;->

Didn't the bundles used to work that way? We get the PDF as soon as the order's confirmed? Has that changed? Or am I just misremembering all over the place (wouldn't be the first time)?

LB

I'm going to start the Ap next week and as I read once again the wormwood mutiny and scrolled through the wonderfully written NPCs I came across this sentence in fishguts's background saying that he was fired from the lobster's armor for inappropriate behaviour with his assistant and thought:

Ohohoh! Fishguts is gay!
Am I overlooking this or did you think the same?
Because in a way it would make sense, fishguts, hating himself is in a spiral of self-destruction, alcohol, bad hygiena...
And I was thinking about Captain Harrigan knowing it and using it against him just by making the information leak to Plugg and Scourge to make his life miserable,the captain has his own cruel amusements after all!
What do you think about it, does it make sense and does it add anything to this already wonderful story?

In my version, his assistant was female, but under-aged (apparently "developed" early), even for the Human age rules. ;->

Either that, or was married to or was the daughter of the restaurant's owner; haven't actually decided yet, since we haven't started yet. But she was female.

LB

Just to beat a zombie horse to raise it, I'm looking for the Maiden myself for my (finally!) launched Skull n Shackles game, and as far as I can tell, Paizo is the only place left to acquire it. It has sort of a page for it on World Works Games, but it's all broken images and "You must run Adobe Flash now or else!" type messages and no way to order it any more, apparently. :-/

So! I'll trust to Paizo for it now. :)

LB

Paulicus wrote:

I can't find this feat. Got a link or source?

No link yet. It won't be posted on d20pfsrd probably for a month or so (it's from the new Occult Adventures book).

In which case, this is a bit of a zombie revivification, but our gaming group got the book itself not too long ago, and my question is: could this be used on a single written document to translate it, with the +2 to the Linguistics check bonus for another document (or later on in a thick volume) in the same language? With the duration either being a set number of pages or 1 minute/level? With the same drawback, i.e., you can't read that specific work (written by a medical doctor, for instance, with handwriting only a pharmacist could decipher; or it's a technical manual equivalent full of jargon; a math textbook with mostly those sorts of symbols as well as another language; etc.) until you get more ranks in Linguistics?

LB

Given the great improvement in post-ACG products after that one was roundly mocked, I think there's a strong case to be made that delivering a certain measure of embarrassment and shame over their mistakes is doing them a favor.

Two things: first, when is the Errata "product" going to come out? Soon, I hope, though I saw one of the answered FAQs was from October 2016, so I'll not hold my breath too long. ;)

Also: I, and everyone else in our group, adored the ACG, and thought most of the classes in the APG sucked, given our own playtesting experience of them. We tried the Alchemist, the Oracle (Hearing Voices was the only reasonable Curse), the Summoner, and the Witch, and didn't even bother with the Cavalier, largely because it's entirely too specific: useful only for battlefields, unless used with a later product archetype that eliminates the mount (or you play a Small size Cavalier, with a mount that will fit everywhere else). Nor did we try the Inquisitor, because frankly, our group members are all students of history, and that just smacks of "Evil NPC class" and appealed to exactly none of us (actually, a lot of these might do okay as NPC classes, but...). The Alchemist and the Oracle/Witch are only useful for their rules sets for the Investigator and the Shaman, IOHO (In Our Humble Opinions), and even the Unchained Summoner was still too game-breakingly powerful; they didn't need to nerf the eidolons, they needed to nerf the Summoner.

(In all fairness, I have to admit that I liked the APG for just about everything else, except the new classes.)

Given all that, yeah, I can appreciate the fixes the Errata will do for the UI book, broadening the sort of roles and concepts for the archetypes there. :)

LB

Very cool start! Just one little kvetch:

Shields:
buckler
light steel (quickdraw)
light steel
light wooden (quickdraw)
light wooden
heavy steel
heavy wooden
tower

Shouldn't that be bronze instead of steel if we're talking about the usual metal used? ;->

And yeah, the use of iron definitely depended, often, on what you had available where you were. From what I understand, Chinese iron was so awful on such a regular basis ([and still is, to this day] they'd tried an Iron Age not long after everyone else, but quickly went back to bronze for quite awhile), and it was so much easier to simply smelt and mold things like 1,000,000 arrow or crossbow bolt heads out of bronze, for example, that they stayed with bronze much longer than anyone else and did amazing things with it.

I've also heard that in the sub-Saharan empires of Africa, they had copper, but hardly any tin (Egypt was well-placed to send expeditions to the tin miners, or at least trade with others in the Fertile Crescent for it), so they basically went from the Stone Age to the Copper Age (very briefly, if at all, since copper weapons sucked without tin to harden them) right to the Iron Age, probably before anyone else on the planet (some sources think as early as the 3rd millennium BC). Inter-kingdom rivalries probably prevented a lot of "let's mount an expedition to sweep up the Nile or the coasts and nuke everyone else" fun during the Bronze Age for everyone else (and Nubia actually had quite a Bronze Age, since they traded a lot with the Egyptians).

One attribution of the collapse of the Bronze Age was a temporary shortage of tin (or maybe just access to it; the volcanic eruption of Thera [Atlantis? ;->] around 1300 BC kind of threw everyone off), making people look more to iron and figure out better ways of working with it. By the time more tin sources were available, the iron and steel stuff was much better and cheaper, so hardly anyone went back to bronze. ;->

During the New Hittite Empire (1400-1200 BC), there were quite a few steel implements, weapons, etc., but they were mostly just for the rich nobles. Masterwork (or even "magic," say +1 or +2) stats might be for steel, whereas the common, cheap stuff could be bronze.

LB

Bump, because we need to get to 333 and we're just a few short.

But, the numbering got messed up earlier:

Goblin_Priest

265. The party stumbles upon a giant bee's nest. Turns out, it's abandoned, and giant wax moth larvae are chewing out its remains and ignoring the PCs.

266. A farmer is removing stones from his field, but has caught a fever. He asks the PCs for help to get the job done. Bonus points if they succeed the checks to keep at it long enough per day to finish it on time. Bonus points if they manage to remove that really large boulder that was there since forever.

267. A hermit praises the wonders of a magical bird, offers a reward for it. If they catch it, he cooks it and shares it with them. It has nothing magical, just tastes really good.

268. A winery owner argues with a client over whether or not fruit wine can be called "wine" at all or if the title is reserved to grape beverages.

deuxhero
269: A noble's estate manager hires the party to find out what is causing rumors of his charge turning tricks in the red light district despite perfect alibis for all times the charge was supposedly spotted.

This could lead to loads of possible reasons. Shapeshifters, illusion, look-alike, deliberate lies for slander etc.

Kobold Cleaver
266. A black bear harassing a honeybee hive in a bee tree.

[er, Kobold, shouldn't this one be #270? :( --LB]

267. Related to #266, a bear or other dangerous predator that has passed out after eating a particularly filling meal. Bonus points if the meal was a sentient creature.

Ciaran Barnes
268. After the low-level PCs perform a deed of heroics (probably for an unreasonably low sum of gold), the town puts together a parade and other festivities to honor them. They all get a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks in that town, unless they turn into jerks.

269. A score of pilgrims is eating and resting in the middle of a field, many miles from civilization. They haven't yet had any trouble on their journey, but that could change when they enter the foothills in a day or two.

270. A well-to-do Elven diplomat (with family and personal guard in tow) is stuck at a washed out bridge and the river is too wide and swift to safely cross. The caravan does not travel quickly so heading north to the next bridge could set them a whole week behind schedule.

So, we actually should be up to 333 by now, or even 334, because of the number glitch? :(

LB

I know how this will sound, but we have more than a few house rules, and we have the books. So, we will always be in the market for the books themselves (which we would have by our sides to refer to), but we too have a distance from our old gang and real life time issues. Apparently, there are some decent VTTs out there that have just about everything but the kitchen sink, but I for one would actually like to have a Paizo-related VTT that actually DOESN'T come pre-loaded with the rules (yeah, I know, heresy ;->).

There are a ton of games that Paizo does, and more in addition that they want to look into coming out with, and I'd love just a bare-bones thing that would enable us to play remotely without needing numerous different forms of the VTT (one for each game), or that would be complex enough to enable us to plug in our own interpretations, but would have a really annoying learning curve. And yeah, yeah, we wouldn't be "legal" for PFS play, but we don't generally do that. If we ever do get into that, we'll have our own, separate set of characters for that. We even have our own character sheet system, thanks, so that wouldn't even be something to worry about having to include. :)

Maybe the various other third-party sites could charge players and GMs for all the bells, whistles, rules, character sheets, etc., but if they would also offer a freebee no-frills version that would just display the map (and let us use Paizo AP maps for that), let us show our characters and my NPCs/monsters, and I dunno, maybe let us roll dice (though we have bags and bags of those, too ;->), that would be awesome...oh, and work with some voice chat thing, too. Not all of us type very quickly. :)

EDIT: And if that simple version could be guaranteed to come out sooner, that would be ideal. ;->

LB

Okay, I've got a question that I haven't seen answered, but this might not be a bad thread to bring it up in: cognatogens vs. mutagens. For the most part, the write-ups indicate they're just about the same, except you trade physical stats for mental stats with the cog'. Fine, great, got it, no worries. But: why does the cognatogen actually dump "2 points of ability damage to the ability score penalized by the cognatogen" onto any poor sap who wants to use one? (/Ultimate Magic/, pg. 15) The mutagen doesn't, there's nothing in the APG or UM errata to indicate there's not supposed to be that pretty big damn difference, so what the hell? :-/

LB

Whoops, never mind; turned out I'd spelled it wrong, originally...once I got the right spelling, I found quite a few entries. ;->

Never mind! :D

LB

Okay, I've got a question that I haven't seen answered, but this might not be a bad thread to bring it up in: cognatogens vs. mutagens. For the most part, the write-ups indicate they're just about the same, except you trade physical stats for mental stats with the cog'. Fine, great, got it, no worries. But: why does the cognatogen actually dump "2 points of ability damage to the ability score penalized by the cognatogen" onto any poor sap who wants to use one? (/Ultimate Magic/, pg. 15) The mutagen doesn't, there's nothing in the APG or UM errata to indicate there's not supposed to be that pretty big damn difference, so what the hell? :-/

LB

cycnet wrote:

So I added that one thing back into my cart and then the discount got reapplied... weird... So I guess I gotta buy that thing to get the discount, lol.

And now, even though it's a $140 order, the blurb tells me to add $15 to get "first $10 shipping"

And the shipping changed from one $57 package to two packages, one $47 and one $27... for the same 3 things I had before.

I love Paizo but your store is really janky. It makes it infuriating to shop. I was seriously ready to make an order tonight but not now, not paying an extra $50 on my order because I deleted an item from my shopping cart and added it back in and the system decided that means it's a great idea to send my item in 2 packages instead of one.

Sorry to hear about that! I was trying to look into this for you, but I am only seeing two items in your shopping cart now, so I am currently unable to check what may have been causing problems.

If you still want assistance with this, please let us know, preferably in a new thread on the Customer Service messageboards or via an email to customer.service@paizo.com, and we'd be happy to look into this further. It'll work best if you add all of the items to your shopping cart again, so we can take a look. Thanks!

Email? Okay, cool...because even though it's just the last four digits of my credit card that would be "shown," I, too, have an issue with the store in that the "holiday17" discount was listed (and I just now realized I didn't take screenshots...oy...), but apparently never counted for the total price. I bought 5 items, either 5.99 each or 4.99 each, that totaled $26.95. They were all PDF downloads, but I didn't see anything in the offer that excluded downloads? They were all from Paizo (Skull and Shackles Minis; I already had Vol. 1, then got the big overall set in physical cardstock, only to realize that yeah, I did need the other volumes in PDF form to get all the figs I needed :-/). Granted, it would've been a grand total savings of $2.70, but still, it's the principle of the thing.

Hopefully, you won't need screenshots of the final page for this and can just review it in my account info. If you want to make it up to me, just plain store credit would be nice. :)

LB

Knowing my players as I do, even though we don't start play until January, I fully expect:

LB

I was a player in this campaign for the first 2 books, and unfortunately due to multiple issues the game had to end. We will be going to back to the game at some point but there are two things that just made the game SIGNIFICANTLY less fun, pretty much everything involving the ships.

There has to be some way to make the running of fleets and ship to ship combat actually interactive for more than one player.

Er? Everything I've read on it (we haven't started yet) says pretty much to focus on the PCs' (all of them) combats and let everything be a foregone conclusion, like:

The NPCs, named and otherwise, do their bit (any crew losses might be just random numbers of unnameds, depending on the level of the opponent, or your crew's so awesome there aren't any losses) in the background, since the PCs are the stars.

We'll have a Swashbuckler, a Sorceress, a Fighter (eventual Master Gunner), a Cleric, and a Rogue. Seems to me, there's something for everyone there. Once a boarding action begins and the PCs are on one ship or another, it's basically a fight on land (with the occasional worries about falling overboard to hungry predators, of course ;->). Don't sweat the details, IMHO, or if it happens to arise, I'll follow Shaun's advice. :D

'Cause seriously, a pirate AP without taking ships is like a day without sunshine. ;)

LB