Lincoln Hills's page

Man Paizo should just release a splat containing all the deity stats.

Said stat blocks consist of the deity's name, a brief fluff description, and a single rule: "You lose."

Hey, those are the combat statistics of Caine from Vampire: the Masquerade! Which I still think they stole from the combat statistics for the Lady of Pain in Planescape.

well bulette are made with demon ichor but are neutral in nature. could a magic user possibly create a bulette with an angels blood with the same results?

(Not everybody has the source you're quoting about how bulettes were created - I believe Classic Monsters Revisited?)

The answer is entirely up to the GM, but I personally would consider this a golden opportunity to introduce a unique monster. You're better off sticking to the recipe, if you want bulettes.

Right: 'trained' indicates ranks (any number of ranks) in the skill.

Yes: the number of ranks you have is a bonus to your skill roll.

So - a class skill in which you have ranks has a bonus of [NUMBER OF RANKS] + [ATTRIBUTE MODIFIER] + 3.

A skill in which you have ranks (that is not on the class skill list) has a bonus of [NUMBER OF RANKS] + [ATTRIBUTE MODIFIER].

Some skills can't be used untrained at all. But if the skill doesn't say 'Trained only', you can attempt it by rolling a d20 plus the attribute modifier it uses (as if it were an attribute check).

Certain races get racial bonuses to certain skills - these bonuses apply to all three situations (class skill, non-class skill, and untrained.)

Here are the spells that I know qualify (according to the magic item requirements) - from the core book plus Advanced Players' Guide, Advanced Class Guide, and Occult Adventures. It includes some oddballs, such as potions brewed by bards, rangers and paladins (when that would give earlier access): they'll have a higher caster level and therefore price than normal potions of that level.

0: guidance, message, resistance, stabilize, virtue

1st: ant haul (APG), blessed fist (ACG), cloak of shade (APG), crafter's fortune (APG), cure light wounds, delay poison (as a Ranger spell), endure elements, enlarge person, feather fall, gentle breeze (ACG), hide from animals, hide from undead, invigorate (APG), jump, keen senses (APG), lesser restoration (as a Paladin spell), mage armor, magic fang, negate aroma (APG), pass without trace, protection from evil (and variants), quintessence (Occult), reduce person, remove fear, resist energy (as a Ranger spell), restful sleep (APG), sanctuary, shield of faith, shield of fortification (ACG), touch of the sea (APG), undetectable alignment (as a Bard spell), vanish (APG).

2nd: barkskin, bestow grace (APG, as Paladin spell, CL 7th), blessing of courage and life (APG), blur, bear's endurance, bull's strength, buoyancy (ACG), cat's grace, contagious zeal (Occult, CL 4th), contingent action (ACG), corruption resistance (APG), cure moderate wounds, darkvision, delay poison, eagle's splendor, feather step (APG), fox's cunning, heighten reflexes (ACG), heroism (as Bard spell, CL 4th), invisibility, lesser restoration, levitate, misdirection, muffle sound (ACG), owl's wisdom, protection from arrows, rage (as Bard spell, CL 4th), remove paralysis, resist energy, righteous vigor (APG, as paladin spell, CL 7th), see invisibility, shield of fortification (APG), slipstream (APG), spider climb, tongues (as Bard spell, CL 4th), undetectable alignment

3rd: aura alteration (Occult, CL 7th), clairvoyance/clairaudience, cloak of winds (APG), contagious zeal (Occult), cure serious wounds, dispel magic, displacement, draconic reservoir (APG), fly, gaseous form, good hope (as Bard, CL 7th), greater magic fang, haste, heroism, invisibility sphere, jester's jaunt (APG), nauseating trail (ACG), neutralize poison, nondetection, placebo effect (Occult), protection from energy, rage, remove blindness/deafness, remove curse, remove disease, righteous vigor (APG, CL 7th), tongues, water breathing, water walk, wrathful mantle (APG)

I'll suggest a homebrew alternative for you, DungeonmasterCal: it's how Linguistics work in my post-apocalyptic Earth campaign. It involves more paperwork and more tracking of in-game time, but has the advantage of not being level-related. (Learning Osirian is not just a matter of punching 10,000 goblins anywhere on Golarion.) Alter it based on your own needs.

Levels of Fluency
Level 1: You can only use and understand one-word sentences.
Level 2: You can use and understand three-word sentences in the present tense.
Level 3: You still have a three-word limit, but articles ('the', 'an', 'my') don't count toward the three-word limit, and you can use past-tense verbs.
Level 4: You can use and understand five-word sentences: articles and conjunctions ('and' and 'but') don't count toward the limit. You can use any verb tense, but you can't use or understand simile or metaphor.
Level 5: Your speech is accented and sometimes halting. You are unrestricted in daily speech, but can't use or understand metaphors or advanced technical terms.
Level 6: Unrestricted fluency.

A PC untrained in Linguistics who encounters a regional language can make a Linguistics check. On 10 or more, he has Level 1 fluency. One trained in Linguistics can make a similar check, gaining Level 1 fluency on a 10 or more - or Level 2 on a 20 or more. Continued daily exposure to that language allows another Linguistics check (DC 20) in 1 day, then 1 week, then 1 month, then every 3 months afterward. Each success grants a level of fluency.

You can apply the usual +2/-2 modifier for languages you feel are particularly similar/dissimilar to the PCs' native language.

The other people at the table are your partners, not your audience.

Oh, definitely divine magic. I've never heard the party say, "Who cares if we get blinded, driven insane and disintegrated - we have a wizard! He'll just fix the boo-boos. Chaaaaarge!"

By that logic, you shouldn't be able to multiclass at all, because all classes require you to start at level one!

You may want to tell the players, "I'm getting burnt out. I wanted to run a campaign for heroic characters, and instead everybody's gone for criminal types. I don't look forward to running the game anymore. What do you think we should do?"

RedDingo, Scythia and DungeonmasterCal have all offered advice that handles the in-game aspects, but you should first make the players aware that there's a problem and that you want their help in improving the campaign.

As far as I know, the short-lived ones produced by the mirror of opposition are the only evil twins in official PF products. However, you might consider a 'parallel Prime', a newly discovered plane rather than a magic item - comics have been pumping from that well for eighty years or so.

I'd say the best way to build the concept into a campaign is for a villain who doesn't have the brute strength to overcome the PCs do the necessary plane-travel or conjuration, plucking 'alternate' PCs from that Goatee Dimension of Evil (or from several, if you've got really divergent concepts for each evil twin). When the evil twins demand that he return them home, he'll make up some story that requires them to kill the PCs first ('only they have that spell' or whatever). Depending on how you want that to play out, either the evil twins do the villain's bidding... or they see through his ruse, kill him, and then set out to murder the PCs anyway.

I don't know about that. Remember when Concentration was a skill?

Why is Perception a skill?

Take a look around and see all the people who are so focused on their social media/multimedia devices and oblivious to the rest of the world around them. Then ask yourself if perception is innate or learned. :D

That's not a fair analogy! Those people failed a Will save. It's a different mechanic.

Don't forget kitsune and their jewel or onion shaped ball that either holds their soul or simply magic...

And you can influence a tanuki by taking away his booze, but I'm pretty sure that's not a soul thing.

If you really want the rest of the party to notice his weaknesses, throw skeletal undead at them. A one-handed piercing weapon is about the worst thing you can use against a skeleton, except perhaps attempting to disbelieve it.

A note for GMs considering this option: I once started an adventure with the whole group failing a save 'because Plot', as the saying would appear to be. However, I also passed each character a poker chip and said, "This represents the save you didn't get to make. At any point in this campaign, you can give me back the chip to automatically make a save." It seemed to go over well. (After all, they might have failed that save anyway.)

How about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? What would happen when one is touched by his noodly appendage?

Well, that's how gravity works, Manny. The FSM loves each and every one of us, and His appendages hold us against our planet so we don't go flying off into space. That's how gravity works. For much, much more about this amazing and completely factual phenomenon, you only need to consult the Book of the Flying Spaghetti Monster*, available at your local library and/or pirate lair. We now return you to your regularly scheduled bickering.

* Which I am not making up

While I too prefer my gods to be unassailable, I can't help feeling that the responses thus far have not been useful for Etc.Etc.

So, to make the attempt: To begin with, I'd assume that DR/epic is the norm - unless your weapon's +6 or better, don't bother. I'd also suggest that you use the same SR rules as golems - if SR applies, the spell won't function. They'd also have immunity to death effects and to effects tied to their portfolios.

Most would be Outsiders - I recommend full BAB and three good saves regardless of their monster type. You should probably start with the SLAs of the most powerful outsider type corresponding to their alignment, plus at-will SLAs matching their domains. If you're using Mythic rules, of course, even demigods should have MR 3 - I believe that's the one at which granting spells to followers is an option - and you should probably assume MR 9-10 for all but minor gods.

In the box on your character sheet marked 'Description', write the words 'Deformed Monstrosity'.

Congratulations! You have succeeded.

I would never claim that P.O.O.C (players of optimized characters) "never" receive criticism, but I think you're championing a non-issue for the most part. As a GM I get to generate role-playing adventures for a group of buddies, and that's sometimes a burden but always a privilege. Playing alongside a POOC, I usually avoid 'stepping into his limelight' but that's not because I know I can't optimize as well for the role as he can: it's the same courtesy I extend to anyone else. I even listen (with, I'll admit, some impatience) to his recommendations for my next feat or whatever. Unless he's actually shoving me out of my chair and commandeering my character "to play it right," it's not over the line.

Mind you, I tend to build my character fairly laxly ("What fits his background?") and save my rules-fu until we're in play - the details of cover, flanking, etc.

The subtle (but not guaranteed) method would be to ask one of your players to sum up what happened in the last couple of sessions before you start. The rest will subconsciously note what that player forgot to mention. If necessary, stretch out the time they have to discuss it by 'needing a couple minutes to prepare'.

46. The key will fit in any lock. However, the unlocked container or portal does not open onto its usual destination or contents. It opens onto the maindeck of the Lucky Lady, the favorite sailing ship of the wizard Blasterfaust. Unfortunately, Blasterfaust sank his ship years ago. Which is a fancy way of saying that as soon as the key is used to open anything, the surrounding area starts to flood with salt water unless and until somebody thinks to remove the key from its lock. (GMs: If the PCs don't think of this, this is an excellent opportunity to relocate an ocean that you feel is inconveniently placed.)

Well, you obviously want low-bar spring torsion: I gather the lowered center of gravity is really important so that you can move while firing your main gun. Don't spend too much on treads - it's better to have cheap ones and replace damaged ones when you get back to...

To... uh...

I'm sorry, I misunderstood the title. Uh, in this context I'd suggest a dwarf cavalier with Order of the Shield. Standard Bearer is a good archetype for dumping the mount in favor of footslogging, but I do like the look of Occult Adventure's Ghost Rider archetype - all the perks of a mount, none of the drawbacks.

It's grucknache!

...you might get any day an adventure where some dude is trying to revive a dead God and must be stopped because otherwise it might actually happen...

Does it strike anyone else as odd that only the forces of evil ever do this? You'd think the good guys would be just as eager to declare 'backsies' in cases of Sudden Immortal Death Syndrome.

If nothing else, you'd think PCs would be trying to raise dead gods because "How else are we supposed to learn what domains he offers?"

Granny Weatherwax.

Although she'd probably box your ears if you called her a "Good witch"...

No, she'd glare at you until you boxed your own ears. Bit of a hardcase, that one.

Yeah, don't go down that road:

Swords are made of steel. Steel is a type of iron. Therefore swords are a type of iron. Therefore my wall of iron is made of swords. I have proficiency with swords. Therefore I attack you with my wall of iron.

257. Everything within 100' of the bean's planting site seems (from outside) to freeze in time (c.f. sepia snake sigil). Those near the center receive no save: potential targets within one move action of the effect's edge get a Reflex save to leap outside the effect. Unless dispelled, the effect lasts for exactly one year. Wisdom checks to realize the time-skip may be needed if the whole group was caught in the effect.

Oracle: Wait! Much time has gone by! The air smells different.
Occultist: Also, there's bird-poop in our hair.
Fighter: And the delivery guy just dropped off 12 issues of my subscription to Broken Feats Monthly. Something's definitely up.

Bilbo: Burglar?!
Thorin: You can say 'expert treasure-finder' if you prefer. Some of them do: it's all the same to us.

I do know exactly what you mean. My NPCs don't use the term themselves - sometimes they need explorers, or thief-takers, crusaders, patsies, bounty hunters, raiders, champions or giant-killers. Somebody who regards all this as 'adventuring' sounds quite insane to them. The PCs aren't in one all-encompassing profession: they drift from job to job. You know, like hobos. Murderous hobos.

M. Bison: Tuesday.

I'm reminded of The Screwtape Letters, in which one junior devil muses to another that despite finding wars amusing because of all the misery and suffering, he doesn't really approve of them. Wars produce atrocities, but in a fantasy setting, they also produce heroes and champions.

"We have made men proud of most vices, but not of cowardice. [...] In peace we can make many of them ignore good and evil entirely; in danger, the issue is forced upon them in a guise to which even we cannot blind them. [...] A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions."

You look around to see who turned on the Infinite Improbability Drive.

Of course, their wizards aren't required to wear a star-spangled robe and their druids aren't required to perform blood sacrifices to make the seasons turn, but somehow a psychic is required to fly around in a spaceship. The only way past a preconception is to see somebody else break it a few times, I guess.

,,,All I can say is that I've known people who subscribe to viewpoints like that, people who are sure about what good is and what evil is. They're not very pleasant people.

Well, yes. Black-and-white morality has a number of fallacies that can lead devotees into fanaticism, just as shades-of-gray morality has flaws that can lead its advocates into complete moral relativism. It usually doesn't happen, since most people have some measure of empathy and wisdom and are not driven by unmodified logic or dogma.

Wrap it up, guys, we need this space to complain about how unbalanced Rule or Class X is.

Hard-to-remove curses are fine with me. The game has a severe shortage of afflictions for which adventuring (as opposed to "burn wand charges until the problem goes away") is the solution. In legend and literature, curses are serious bad news, but in Pathfinder they are exactly as easy to get rid of as the common cold - and therefore about as interesting.

...DM believes they are doing the right thing. You should kill an innocent family, to save a many more innocent families... We were having philosophical discussion with DM and other players on the matter. I suggested I'd post on the message boards so we see what others think...

Well, then, it isn't a Pathfinder debate; I recommend your group take a look at Emmanuel Kant and Socrates - and then, for devil's advocate, read some Machiavelli. Don't ask us, most of us will give knee-jerk responses and then make anger-noises at each other.

(I wonder what the slaughtered family would say about the ethics of the situation. Anybody got speak with dead?)

cavernshark wrote:

Hex channeler is not restricted in PFS anymore. The only restriction is you can't use the extra hexadecimal feat to boost channel energy so if you want to have full channel progression you are giving up all hexes except the first.

Uh it probably goes without saying, but apparently my phone decided 'hex' needed to be 'hexidecimal'.

Skynet makes its opening move.

I usually describe something I've seen Spider-Man do.

From a drama standpoint, ankle-deep (or a dry access ledge) is best, to keep the PCs from suffering any significant penalties. The occasional deep trench or pit holding excess runoff can act as a dungeon obstacle - or, if fully concealed beneath filthy water, as a 'trap' with the risk of full immersion in the disease-carrying water.

Metal and other extra-dense junk used to accumulate wherever the water flow in such sewers created an eddy. The old English word for lost valuables scrounged out of a sewer is tosh. Learning is fun!

As long as players have played to get there, and are interested in playing some more, and there's more story to tell. Although I agree with posters above that, paradoxically, when the characters become capable of almost anything, the GM finds himself increasingly restricted.

To me the limit isn't where campaigns end but where they start. When bringing new players in mid-campaign I've noticed that new characters generated above about, oh, level 4 never become as beloved to their owners as the characters who came up the hard way. So if it's a campaign and not just a solitary adventure, I tend to start at level one.

So: Is there anything I should do before kicking out the player? Questions to ask, talks to have, etc.? Or is this the sort of thing where I should trust that the previous GMs have probably already tried their best, and go with the finisher right away?

For convenience, I shall refer to the problem player as 'DQ', short for Drama Queen. DQ is doing you a favor by leaving the campaign early. Others have already gone into great detail as to why.

If you know DQ outside the gaming table you might want to ask - not at game and in a non-gaming context - if something's making him particularly upset. From the way you describe him I doubt he's a friend, but if he is, it would be good to find out why he's trying to win a gold medal in the 400-Meter Jerk.

If DQ shows up at your next session, you do have to make several things clear: 1. If he wants to play in your campaign he has to accept the fact that each player at the table has an equal amount of say in the party's decisions, 2. You don't have the time or inclination to split your game time between everybody else and the solo wanderings of DQ, and 3. A party member who doesn't wish to contribute doesn't have to, but shouldn't expect to be rewarded for it.

...Minsc would change to a straight up Barbarian, but with skill focus nature and the the Eldritch Heritage feat for a Sage archetype Hamster familiar (or the runner-up Mauler archetype, GO FOR THE EYES BOO!!!)...

You entirely misunderstand the relationship! Minsc isn't a barbarian with a familiar: Boo is an awakened hamster with a cohort!

That's a tough one. Of course, back in 3.5 days, you could just hope to come across a dried-up old lich eyeball and jam it into one of your empty sockets...

...sucker.

Juju zombie template (Bestiary 2), applied to a nabasu demon (Bestiary 1). The nabasu is a ghoul-generator by nature, which is perfect for a herald of Orcus; its transformation into a juju zombie would presumably arrest its usual pattern of eventually 'maturing' and returning to the Abyss. Add nabasu Growth Points and/or Inquisitor levels to get him up to the CR you need.

A deific curse or something that imposes consecrate and magic circle against evil on him until he can rid himself of it would make for an interesting power limiter...

Although if you apply both Bloody Skeleton and Skeleton Warrior instead, you have a foe that can follow the classic horror and pulp-fiction concept of a villain that comes back over, and over, and over...

It's bad enough as wizard keeping your spellbook safe.

Really? That's a major issue in your campaigns?

GM: Mu-ha-ha-HA! Curse that wizard, curse him!! Let me see. This adventure shall take place in the Land of Perpetual Fire. And torrential rain! It shall feature paper-wasp swarms, pyromaniac goblins with Improved Steal, and this new golem I constructed that can smell spellbooks and unleash its terrible erase breath weapon! Thousands of them! The book will die, the book will die! This I vow!

All I know is that it worked marvelously in Fallout 3 - in the one case where you're confronting an AI.

Random Visitor: Destroy yourself.
Bad Ol' Robot: 'Kay.

You're probably thinking of the alternate Attribute Poisoning tracks from Unchained, G.P. All those tracks ended in death.

My advice for an antipaladin?

I. Thou shalt change gods frequently, sometimes even in mid-prayer.
II. Thou shalt worship graven images, especially if they'll do bludgeoning damage or have a good resale value.
III. Thou shalt use thy god's name in place of every other word, except when actually speaking of him: then use 'sweet-cheeks'.
IV. On holy days thou shalt spend the whole day in drunkenness, public urination and wagering at fixed dice games. Go not to the temple.
V. Dishonor thy father and thy mother. On Mother's Day, get a tattoo that says 'Who cares?'
VI. Thou shalt kill, but then, thou wast planning to, whether I gaveth or withheld permission.
VII. Get married. Otherwise thou may inadvertently not commit adultery.
VIII. Thou shalt not... hey, where's my wallet?
IX. Thou shalt get elected to public office.
X. Thou shalt only covet things for as long as it takes to obey commandment VII or VIII. Or both.

...Some people complain that any kind of coherent plot is a railroad and want their GM to sit there and just ask the players "So, what do your characters do today?"...

The same thing we do every day, Pinky...

...Just make sure you put "he breathes his last" at the end of your box text.

Canadian Hamlet: Blarg, buddy, I die, I breath my last, guy. BLARGH!