Lawyur's page

Give up on those Reflex saves. Lol.

Transmutation Wizard
1. Nature Soul
1. Scribe Scroll
3. Animal Ally
5. Boon Companion
5. Craft Wondrous Item
7. Improved Familiar

Focus on making your Animal Companion and Familiar as useful as they each possibly can be... not necessarily optimized for combat, but useful to a freaking turtle navigating a very dangerous world. The Transmitation School can increase your physical stats, its spells can transform you into more mobile or combat effective shapes when necessary.

Lol yea his Reflex aint never gonna be too good i suppose. This is all pretty solid stuff, lol i love the idea of him pretending to be a familiar especially. Good call on the carry capacity stuff too, i'll probs need that. And i didnt even realize there were good transmute spells for speed but i suppose that makes a lot of sense, I should def pore over those for a bit and see what jumps out at me

I'm very experienced with the system, been playing about 5 years now and GMing for 4. My bud might be willing to GM a module or 2 in a bit here, and i wanted to try my hand at making a wacky awakened PC idea. Not really in dire need of help as i have it partially figured out already, but thought I might see if i get any fun ideas or suggestions from yall!

So im using the official monster PC rules, and i picked the snapping turtle for my awakened creature since his CR is 1/2 or lower (1/3). I know he kinda sucks but i like the imagery lol. Im guessing the other players will be allowed point buy, but since awaken only allows INT and CHA to rise, I'll be using his set stats for the other 4 amd maxing out INT and CHA through point buy logic, so he'll be STR 4, DEX 8, Con 13, Int 18, Wis 13, and Cha 9 to start (the highest awaken can raise his CHA to).

On top of that I'm thinking I'll have him start as Old, as absurd as that is, because i really want that extra spell slot at level 1. I know its dumb af but think of it as like, a mage-purist style challenge. So he'll have Str 1, Dex 5, Con 10, Int 20, Wis 15, and Cha 11. Snapping turtles live to be about 40, and in Pathfinder humans on average live to be about 80. So by that logic, if the ratios are the same, since humans hit old at 53, my turtle starts old at 26.5 years old (53 in snapping turtle years). Humans hit venerable at 70, so turtle would hit venerable at 35. This gives him 8.5 years to try and get from level 1 to level 20, at which point he can get that wizard arcane discovery and become an immortal turtle. Which is crucial since once he hits venerable age, his Strength would drop to zero and he cant move at all :C
Unfortunately his -3 Dex is pretty bad for AC BUT since hes tiny he gets a +2 for size and also has +1 Nat, so his AC is a 10, with mage armor its 14....but ALSO, he has (Ex) Shell, which basically makes total defense a move action, and its nat armor instead of dodge, so he can cast, then hide in shell, and it stacks with mage armor to a total of 18 c:

And for feats, i only have a few different ideas set up already. My thoughts are to make him that universalist subschool Arcane crafter, that gets a bonus item creation feat at I believe level 3, and I'll make it craft wondrous item, so he can craft 3 Minor Bags of holding simce his heavy capacity at Str 1 maxes out at 10 pounds. He can only crafy minor ones because the lightest proper bag of holding is 15 pounds so tragically he cannot lift a proper one lol.

For his 2 traits Im thinking Pragmatic Activator for his magic trait, switches UMD off his low Cha and onto his beeg Int. Not sure about the other one yet tho

My current plan for the other feats is lvl 1: Probably Lightning reflexes, because his reflex is a crime against my psyche
Lvl 3: Nature soul
Bonus feat level 3 for the Arcane Crafter: Wondrous item
Level 5: Animal ally
Level 5 bonus feat: Not sure yet, maybe craft magic arms and armor? To armor up my anicomp
Level 7: Boon companion
Level 9: Improved Lightning reflexes because, yeah
Levels 10+: Not too sure yet, probably a few more craft feats and maybe some metamagic. Oh and probably a mounted combat feat or 2, not really sure though since he generally wont want to ride too close to enemies, and they seem to mainly be forms of charge or melee attack

Also, for the animal companion, im thinking owlbear for sure, just because owlbears are great! Theres a PFS boon that lets you convert a Bear anicomp into am owlbear, and my GM will def allow it, since i always allow him the tiefling and aasimar boons of course (and the owlbear boon isnt really a buff anyway, mostly just flavor). I will also buy a custom saddle for my owlbear so that my turtle may ride him into battle C:

Thats pretty much all i have planned so far lol. Strengths: 20 Int, amazing imagery and fun to roleplay. Starts with a swim speed. Cons: Init is still low, AC is still only situationally 18 which is not too bad but his move speed is only 10 so baddies can catch him pretty easily. Cant aim dex spells worth a crap, and his reflex is still pretty low too lol

Also for his backstory, he was awakened by a druid, really admired said druid and wanted to be a caster just like him, but was sadly not born a sorceror or blessed by nature as a druid. Went to wizard school to become just like his hero (or as close as he could). Discovered in school, to his horror, his very limited lifespan in a book. There he also learned that the gods have no afterlife planned for animals (this is a huge stab in the dark by me and probably wrong). He now endeavors to become a level 20 wizard as fast as he can to become immortal, at which point he hopes to have bought himself enough time to become worthy to ask the gods for a soul (in case hes ever killed by injury or something). Also at the wizard school he found an owlbear egg and couldnt resist swiping it because he saw owlbears in a book and adores them

Nice, good ideas! Im not sure theres any npc currently that theyre super a fan of tho, sadly. Maybe Vorvashali or Jargie Quinn, I'll have to really think. But i get what youre saying. I'll give it a try, since it sounds like a fun tactic tbh

What helped in my case was a bit counter-intuitive: giving them a badge that said they were on a mission for the sheriff of Sandpoint.

Oh my hemlock gave them an official letter saying they had been deputized, but they dint care, still hate him. Am i crazy, i could have sworn that was instructed to the DM in the module, maybe im wrong and i came up with it on my own

Also remind them that this is a GAME that they are PLAYING and if they want the NPC to do ALL THE WORK, then you can just stop playing TTRPGs and go play Catan or another game since they don't want to do any adventuring apparently. My players were doing this alot - literally screaming at NPCs because they 'hated a lazy NPC' - exact words from one of my players. Like, if an NPC didn't provide this one player with EVERYTHING he asked for - and he ask for alot - he immediately disliked the NPC. Not in character. As a player.

Ugh I hate that, yeah theyve been doing that exact thing a lot, mostly toward Hemlock. Literally thousands of times by now. Theyre fairly green so maybe they dont understand how ridiculous it sounds to the DM, but ive been getting more and more explicit to them about how little sense it makes.

Has Hemlock been doing anything notable in the meantime? The PCs have the idea that they're doing all the work while Hemlock sits on his backside

Well actually he did mention to them at the start if his last conversation that he had killed a handful of ghouls trying to sneak into town while they were gone, so thats something. Didnt change their behavior though.

Oh I was playing Hemlock as neutral good, i thought it would be a better fit for his role in the story.

As for Habe, its not so much that they thought he was literally evil as it is that they thought he was "bad" or a criminal or whatever.

Yall make some good points. Most of my group is, lets say politically involved in police reform, and its very possible they are projecting that into "all law enforcement must be detested." Or it could be that they want to be above the law, no matter how petty the pay-off. I think i will try replacing him with Jubrayl and see how that goes, I havent had the need to use Jubrayl yet so itll be a clean slate. Since im not really too sure if that was the reason though, its possible theyll send the same attitude Jubrayls way. But I'll see, for science.

And believe me, i've brought it up out of character. I often comment things like "The mans just doing his job, he likes the group," and "Hes just a lawman following laws, why all the outrage?" It falls on deaf ears though, they just rage about how he should be doing more for them.

Swapping him with Jubrayl for the lead quest-giving role will at the very least put them on notice that mistreating people can damage alliances.

Long time lurker here, making my first post because I cant find anything on this, because its absurd.
I've been GMing for about 4 yrs now, and we started ROTRL Burnt Offerings in spring of 2020. My party is currently halfway through Skinsaw, (we only play for a bit in the spring/summer), and this ENTIRE time, since starting Burnt Offerings, I've had to endure this weird issue.

My entire group of players, HATES, Belor Hemlock. A lot. And I dont understand it.

I generally try to roleplay him as a tough but courteous and professional law man. He lets them know whats going on around town and ASKS them to investigate (not orders them, asks them). However nonstop, they seem to want to heap disrespect on him for this, which I find obnoxious and really unpleasant. They argue with him about whats illegal for example, he once told them they couldnt legally keep Habe's 41 gold after they arrested him (Habe complained to Hemlock since he saw them steal it), and they bickered with Hemlock for almost an hour over said 41 gold. Their reasoning was "This guys evil, we should get his stuff, this is b!#@&%~%" Hemlocks reasoning was that Habe's supposed to get his stuff back once hes served his time.
And that was just today. When he tells them about a threat to the town, they sigh exasperatedly and sometimes try to provoke him. One player today actually said "I roll my eyes" as he was talking to them about who he thought the skinsaw killer might be. When theyre out and about, they often comment that "the sherriff never does anything, we do all the work" even tho I've said many times that hes staying behind to watch the town against the goblin/ghoul forces amassing in the area. Theyve also decided on their own that hes obese? I guess? Despite my descriptions to the contrary?
My issue is that I dont really want to roleplay an npc thats just getting passive-aggressived to his face nonstop, or argued with nonstop, and I just dont understand why its happening enough to resolve it. They dont act this way toward other npcs like Vorvashali Voon or Ameiko. Its only Hemlock. And again, he hasnt done anything to slight them or be rude to them in any way. The closest he got was not condoning their theft from Habe, but he was calm and patient about it, saying simply, "Im sorry, but the man does still have rights, we'll have to return his posessions Im afraid."

Thoughts on how to foster some damn respect for the man that chased down the Chopper? Because for how often he has to interact with them to progress things, Im leaning towards replacing him or just making him a level 18 fighter that beats them down if they talk smack unprovoked.
Absolutely sick of roleplaying a punching bag.