Lex Starwalker's page

Wouldn't a plant-based race smoking tobacco be just one step shy of cannibalism? ;)

I am REALLY looking forward to this AP! When I finish KingMaker, I'm definitely running it. You had me at fighting demons. :D

I would much rather see more Golarion hardcovers than the endless rules expansions.

To me the fiction in the AP books is just wasted pages. I've tried to read some of them and didn't care for it. I see it as filler. I'm glad at least some of you enjoy it.

If the fiction were relevant, something I could hand out to the players for background info, it might be a little better, but I would still rather have that space dedicated to something more useful like maps, NPC strategies, DM background info, etc.

I agree that it's all about communication. Pathfinder can be interpreted and played in a variety of ways. There's a whole spectrum of play between a roleplay-heavy game with lots of social roles and little to no combat, and a combat-heavy dungeon crawl with little to no NPC interactions or non-combat/trap encounters. That's just one dimension of the game.

Considering all the different ways the game can be run and played, it's not surprising that there's a wide variety of play styles. This isn't a bad thing. However, some play styles may not mesh well with other play styles, depending on the people involved.

As a GM, I feel my "job" is to make sure everyone at the table has fun, including me. As GM, you set the tone for the game. Make it clear to the players what kind of game you're running, and what kind of characters you want to see. Give them guidelines, and don't be afraid to limit their options. I run more than one campaign, and some classes are allowed in some of the campaigns and not in others. It depends on the flavor of that campaign.

If there's a disparity in play styles among your players that's ruining the fun for people, it can be solved with communication. Share your concerns with the group and solicit ideas from them on how to address the problem. If he realizes it's ruining the fun for others and understands why, you may even find that your "powergamer" comes up with the solution.

If the problem, on the other hand, boils down to one person who just doesn't play well with others, then removing that person from the game may be your best option.

I think if you took the time it takes to read this thread to discuss the issues within your group, you will be able to find a solution together.

Yeah, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

I'm personally very glad PF is based on a 4 person party for a few reasons.

1) It's hard to find good, dependable roleplayers. It was easy in high school and college, but as an adult, it can be difficult to find 4 people who can make the time commitment and whose schedules mesh well enough we can find a good time for all to play. Increasing group size only makes this harder.

2) It seems to me to be much easier to scale an encounter up for a larger group than it is to scale it down for a smaller group. Part of this is thematic--in my mind each encounter has a vision to it. If you start removing NPCs/monsters, or making them less powerful, it can easily water down or even ruin this vision. On the other hand, adding a few more henchmen to assist the evil overlord only builds the tension and scale of the encounter. Making existing NPCs/monsters more powerful does the same, especially with the ease of adding the quick Advanced template.

3) In my experience as GM, a 4 player group seems to be the sweet spot. With fewer than 4 players, not only is the group less effective and more vulnerable, but there's less possibilities for interactions between players. With more than 4 people, combat rounds start taking a lot longer, and it gets a lot harder for quieter players to get a word in edgewise. The farther above 4 players you get, the more of a circus it becomes. At first blush a larger group may seem more "epic", but in reality it boils down to each player having less face time with their character, or only a couple players getting all the attention while others are marginalized.

Thank you, Paizo, for the thoughtfulness you put into every aspect of your game. It's much appreciated!

What I meant to say is you can tell the people who GM from those who ONLY play. ;)

You can really tell the players from the GM's in this thread. ;)

If you're one of my players, stay out! :)

It looks likely that I will only have 3 players for my KingMaker campaign. The characters are an Illusionist, an Animal Oracle with a horse companion, and a Barbarian. I've had them make their characters with a 20 point buy.

For those of you with experience running this AP, what adjustments do you think I'll need to make in the first chapter, Stolen Land?

Right now my thought is to advise the party to avoid harder undertakings in the beginning (like taking on the bandit camp) until they can gain some experience and levels by exploring and doing some of the easier quests. Since there are three characters instead of four, they should level a little more quickly than the AP intends. Do you think this party will be able to handle the encounters as is, if they focus on easier things until they gain a level or two?

I've also thought that I'll monitor their progress, and if they really seem to be struggling, I could help them by providing a magic item or two, or giving them some easier random encounters to allow them to level.

What are your thoughts? I'd really like to avoid having to doctor every single encounter if possible, so if something simple would work, like letting the party get a level ahead, or handing out a few minor magic items, that would be preferable.

Thanks in advance for your input.

The second book of KingMaker has some information on Erastil that some may find objectionable. I know I do, and I anticipate that some of my players will as well. After giving it a lot of thought, I've decided to make a few small changes.

Here is the section from the book:

Old Deadeye is set in his ways and doesn’t take well to those who challenge his opinions or upset how things work. He believes the strength of a man’s will makes him the center of a household, and while women can be strong, they should defer to and support their husbands, as their role is to look after the house and raise strong children (consequently, there are few female priests in his church). Independent-minded women, he believes, can be disruptive to communities, and it is best to marry them off quickly so their duties as wife and mother command their attention. Children should honor their parents and know when it is time to work or time to play. He dislikes the chaos and trouble that adventurers bring, and while they may have their uses when monsters come sniffing about, it is best if adventurers take care of the problem quickly, receive a meal and a place to sleep, then move on before their wanderlust catches on in otherwise good families. His androcentric beliefs are unusual given his religion’s intermediate role between the Green Faith (which is largely egalitarian) and modern faiths (which have a mix of male and female deities).

I personally find it hard to accept that any deity (or at least a good one) would be so close-minded. I also think that, even in a world where priests can commune with their deities, it is difficult for mortals to know and understand the mind of a god. The above, therefore, is more an interpretation of Erastil's doctrine as opposed to words from the god's mouth. It represents the beliefs of a very traditional and conservative tradition within the church. However, much like real world religions, not everyone of a particular religion thinks and believes the same way.

So here's my spin on what Erastil stands for. He is a deity of family. He looks at it all from a more biological perspective. Ultimately, his desire is for every person, whether male or female, to eventually marry and raise a family. Once a couple does this, their first priority should be to the family. As long as the children's needs are met, it's really not worth the god's time to concern himself with what roles the husband and wife each play. What is most important is that the couple work together as a team to protect the family and provide for the family's needs.

Erastil is not a fan of adventurers, but this is as much directed at men as women. The question is not one of gender, but rather that one should be "settling down" and raising a family by a certain point in one's life. Adventuring when young is fine, but eventually the time comes to "grow up". Although most of Erastil's clergy does marry, the god does acknowledge that some may have to forego marriage (at least temporarily) in order to provide for the safety and well-being of the community. In that vein it is not uncommon for priests and priestesses of Erastil to serve their communities by adventuring, protecting, etc. Rather than being seen as shirking one's duties to raise a family, this is seen by Erastil as a sacrifice made by an individual to benefit the community.

Because of all this, there are more female clerics than stated above. The selection from the book represent the view point of the most conservative elements in the church, but it is changing. It is due to this change--the more enlightened attitudes of recent generations, the more liberal elements--that female clerics are becoming more common in recent generations. This all has a snowball effect--a more liberal attitude leads to more female clerics, more female clerics leads to a yet more liberal attitude.

Currently, it has gotten to the point where the conservative element has become a minority and is seen as a group of narrow-minded people stuck in the past by the bulk of the followers of Erastil. As in the real world, though, the holders of power do not give it up easily, even when the majority of people disagree with them.

A cleric of Erastil does not have to worry about falling out of favor with the god for adventuring (or not having kids) as long as she's serving others so that they may raise their families in peace. She may, however, sometimes come into conflict with the more conservative elements. This can be a great opportunity for roleplay as she would be a champion for the more open-minded people who are tired of such rigid and outdated philosophies.

I intend to have a lot more "encounters" than those listed and the suggested frequency of random encounters. This is a wild, unexplored region, so there should be numerous encounters in each hex. Due to the makeup of my party, and the caliber of roleplaying, I don't have to worry about them chopping down every wild animal they come across. A lot of these encounters will involve seeing animals in the distance, or in other ways knowing they're there, but not interacting with them in a direct enough way to warrant gaining xp for the encounter. In this way I hope to make the exploration a lot more realistic and fill my Stolen Lands with a lot more life, without skewing the xp and power progression of the group.

I also plan to faithfully use the requisite survival checks to avoid getting lost. Especially in the early levels, I'm sure they'll get lost more than once, and this will add to the feel and flavor of the danger of taming a wild land, and provide yet more opportunities for encounters with the denizens there-in.

Also, don't roll random encounters. Make up encounters ahead of time and place them in areas where they make sense. Place tatzlwyrm random encounters near and within the hex with the tatzlwyrm written encounter, do the same with kobolds, mites, etc.

Oh, and for the love of your RP, try to avoid EVER referring to "hexes" and discourage your players from doing so. There is no such thing as a hex in the world. There aren't hexes on the maps that exist, and there won't be hexes on the map the PCs are making. You, as GM, are the only person who needs to know that hexes exist. Don't describe your PCs as "entering a hex" or "exploring a hex". This will kick them right out of the story. If you want good roleplay, it begins with you and how you set the tone. Keep the system of the exploration behind the scenes, don't let it appear onstage.

This isn't really that complicated. The spell makes you invisible. Unless you have the ability to see things that are invisible, you can't see yourself when you're invisible. If this were not the case, the spell would say "the caster can still see himself if he casts the spell on himself" or something to that effect.

Bladesinger

I was born in 1976. I've been playing and running RPGs for over 20 years.

The Rules Lawyer is nothing new. I remember hearing the term in the days of AD&D.

My first DM used to say, "The Dungeon Master isn't god; the Dungeon Master tells god what to do".

Things were definitely more "hard core" in those days (or maybe it was just my DM). He was the best DM I've ever had. He ran the most epic, balls-to-the-wall game. The kind of game where you were always afraid of dying, and had a huge sense of accomplishment when you survived. He was always fair, and impartial, and he would hear you out, but in the end, his word was law.

In those days there were no cookie cutter "builds". People didn't go to forums (they didn't exist) and mindlessly ask for someone to give them a character build. People made their own characters from the ground up, and they had personality. They weren't just a collection of stats on a piece of paper. Back then, you were required to justify EVERY thing your character took during creation. You had to fit it into your character's background and story. Min-maxing was a great way to inspire the DM to tear up your character sheet (which in those days was just a piece of notebook paper) and tell you to start over and do it right.

You can still have an equal gaming experience today. Those games didn't come easy. There were min-maxers and rules lawyers even then. It was the DM's job to deal with them--to get them to see the error of their ways, or if that was impossible, tell them not to bother coming back.

There was respect for the DM, but that respect was earned. We had awesome adventures. There was no running of published modules, each adventure was created by the DM, custom crafted for your character. I'm not saying modules are a bad thing, they can be done very well. But when they are, it's because the DM put a lot of time into modifying the module for his group.

I think the key is to be very clear with your players in the beginning what you expect from them. Tell them what kind of game you're running. Lay down the ground rules. Tell them what books/supplements you'll be using, what options are available for play. As a DM, you don't even have to use everything in the CORE book, much rather anything else. Maybe a gnome just wouldn't fit in the game you have planned, or a player trying to play a wizard would be more trouble than it's worth, or whatever. As long as it's stated ahead of time, the players have the option to either play in your game and abide by the rules or not play in that particular game.

It's possible that the new d20 system has led to a bit more rules lawyering, but if so, I think it's because the rules actually make sense, are systematic, and accessible to everyone. 2nd edition was a mess. I remember in those days every DM I played under had his own set of house rules. It was practically required by the game because the rules as written didn't work or make sense. In that kind of climate, you came to every gaming table expecting not to know all the rules because there would be a lot of modifications by that particular DM. It's hard to rules lawyer a DM when he's made a lot of the rules himself. My own 2nd edition campaigns were highly modified. All my campaigns used the same rules, but they were filled with my own house rules I'd developed over the years.

I ran 3.5 and now Pathfinder with no real changes to the rules. The system is tight enough there's no need, and there's enough options for players I don't feel I need to create new ones. But in the end, Rule 0 still applies as much today as it ever did.

I think Desna is awesome, and her portfolio resonates well with an adventurer's life and the Pathfinders.

I agree that when you're talking about creating a specific, named magic item (eg Holy Avenger) that has a suite of powers, it may be reasonable to ask a PC how he knows about such an item.

For everything else, I look at it differently. The PC looking through the book and telling me the specific item he wants is what is occurring in the real world. In-game, the character is deciding, "I want an item that can do x and y." Having items in the book already, and having rules on how those items are constructed, saves me the time of having to figure that out for every item every character makes.

For instance, let's say I have a player who wants to make a +1 flaming, defending long sword. Obviously the player looks at the book and says, "I want a sword with flaming and defending." In-world, the character is thinking, "I want a sword that can catch fire at will and can help protect me in combat when I want it to."

This doesn't mean the character has any knowledge of a flaming defending sword. In my mind, magical item creation is as much a thing of invention as recreating something you've seen before. To require a character to have to have seen an item he wants to create seems rather debilitating and goes outside the spirit of the rules, IMO. If you want to control and micromanage the players' items to such a degree, why not just disallow item creation feats? Then you can hand out exactly what you want them to have.

If, on the other hand, the player wants to create a specific named item, then you're on stronger ground to say he can only do so if he's encountered such an item (I personally wouldn't do this). If I were to do this, I wouldn't disallow the item entirely, rather I'd have the player make some changes to it to make it something more of his character's invention.

I hope you make these changes to the magic item creation clear to the players before they buy the feats. In my mind, it's gimping those feats a lot, to the point that if I were playing under such a system, I'd be spending my precious feats on something else.

Ultimately, the logic of requiring a character to have seen an item before to create it breaks down. If I have to have seen a ring of protection to craft one, how was the first ring of protection made? How do you explain rings of protection existing all over the game world? If such a requirement were real, items would be regionalized. Ultimately, this is just a device to control the players/game, with a thinly veiled veneer of rationalization/justification. Your players will see through it. There is already a system in place that limits the items a character can craft by skills and level, not to mention monetary cost. If your WBL is in line, then you shouldn't have to worry about what your characters are cooking up in the lab.

Wow really? This is way overboard.

Simply, if someone's going to cheat, they're going to cheat. If you believe a particular player is cheating, then deal with that player. It's a little silly to make a ridiculously long list of "etiquette rules" that the 99% of players who don't cheat have to follow.

If a player is going to cheat, I'd imagine it would be easier (and safer) to fudge their bonus to the roll. This is the form of cheating I've seen most often, either blatant or a mathematical "error" that just happens to benefit the player. As DM (especially in a Society game) you're not going to have all their bonuses memorized.

I love forums, but eventually most of them leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I have to leave. I have to hand it to Paizo and the moderators: these are some of the most pleasant forums I've used. Great job keeping the troll away. I've known from day one that I liked these boards because people treat each other like human beings here.

I just realized a second big reason I love these forums:

No signatures!!! Thank you, thank you Paizo! I just wanted to say something because I'm sure you get the occasional request to add signatures. All you have to do is go to any forum that allows them and see how and why they'll ruin these beautiful boards as you do. Even on forums that limit the size of the signatures, it's amazing how obnoxious people can still be with them.

Kudos guys!

Gerbils were originally domesticated for food so...

As a new GM, you're going to make mistakes like this, probably more than once. If every time you do, and later, when you realize it was a mistake, you just house rule it in, you're going to end up with a lot of modifications to the rule system.

From experience, my advice to new GM's is always this: Play the game as written. Paizo spent/spends a lot of man hours and money playtesting their game. The systems exist as they do for a reason. As a relatively inexperienced DM, there will often be ramifications of "tweaks" to the system you don't anticipate. Learn to play the game as written. Have fun with it as it is. Once you have a good deal of experience under your belt, and you know all the rules inside an out, you'll be better equipped to make modifications. Even then, I'd recommend a long hard think before you do.

You know, if you've already had the heart-to-heart with them, and they've ignored you, and even thrown it in your face by explicitly doing the OPPOSITE of what you asked them to do (and every single one of them did it), then honestly, I would find a new group of players. I'm sure it's not what you want to hear, and it sucks, but it's not you--it's them. What they've done is demonstrate to you that they have no respect for you as a DM.

We dungeon masters work hard to build a game experience our players will love; in essence our job is to make sure they have a good time. If a player isn't willing to show you enough respect and appreciation to at least meet you in the middle by adhering to the few guidelines you lay out, they're not worth your time.

Honestly, they've shown you already exactly what kind of players they're going to be. This is just the beginning, my friend, and it will only get worse. Better to cut them loose now and find other players before you've invested even more into this group.

If you're really married to these particular players, then I would sit them down as a group and tell them AGAIN what you expect from them. Give them one last chance and make it clear that this is their last chance.

I just found this podcast and really enjoyed it. I'm going to start the adventure this weekend, so it was perfect timing. You gave me a lot to think about, and hopefully I can avoid some problems before they happen.

As for the trust, I'm going to try to use it, but keep it invisible to the PC's. Instead I'll show they're relationships with the townsfolk through roleplaying, and also show when they gain or lose trust in that way. I'm also going to scrap the automatically losing a point of trust every day, instead they will only lose a point of trust in that way if they spend a day without doing anything to help the town or work on the problem. I'm also going to allow any relationships they build with individual NPC's in the town to trump trust entirely. Trust will only reflect the attitude of the "average" person in the town who doesn't know the PC's personally.

As for the Charlatan scenario, I'm going to try running it without taking the haunted PC aside. I don't see the other PC's knowing what's going on really ruining it much (or the PC haunted, who will figure it out after a round or so). There will still be suspense. Besides, I'd rather lose what little mystery there might be there (which I don't really think will matter) as opposed to having the other players bored by themselves while I'm in the other room. I think that would just destroy any tension or momentum that the scene has.

I too was cracking up over the story of the group who ran down and killed all the thugs in the first encounter. Hilarious. If I had a group do that, I definitely think it would bring out my vindictive streak, and they'd be very much regretting that decision for the rest of the module. What a great way for new players to learn an important lesson! ;)

I also think the format of having a DM and player on the cast really helps and gives a nice perspective.

Greetings everyone! I'm getting ready to run this AP. It will be my first time DM'ing with the Pathfinder system. I've gotten a lot of great ideas from this thread.

I just want to take a moment to plug the podcast on this module that Sean mentioned earlier. You can get it here. I found it really helpful and a lot of fun to listen to.