Lintecarka's page

I think the coolest option would be one of the guys visiting their island at the end of book 4, as this produces some nice tension where they have to think if they want to bring it up or rather ensure their seat at the council. I'd probably go with Avimar Sorrinash, who is known for his cruelty.

Maybe the majority of the crew survived and is now werewolves? Would make for cool potential allies if they manage to strike a deal with Avimar.

In my game it wasn't really a siege. After the battle against the chelish armada the PCs fleet was seriously thinned out and it was very clear they would not win a straigt up fight against the Hurricane King.

So they used their fleet, commanded by Tessa, as a distraction. They rightfully assumed the Hurricane King would want to end this new threat quickly and while the majority of the Hurricane Kings forces gave chase, they infiltrated his castle.

This still ensured tension, as Tessa wouldn't be able to outmaneuver the enemy armada forever and their fleet was at stake. But at the same time it was plausible that the chase would last a day or even more. When they used Sending Tessa was reasonably optimistic to evade the Hurricane Kings armada during the night, but assumed they would start losing ships after dawn.

They rested once during the very first part of the dungeon before they made contact with any of the Hurricane Kings forces, so him calling back his fleet wasn't an issue either. Once they made themself known in the early morning, they quickly worked their way through the defenses and finished the dungeon without another rest.

If it had taken longer, they would have lost more and more of their ships (and eventually NPCs), while the Hurricane King might have found the time to reinforce his position. But as they were very aware of that risk they didn't waste any time and all worked out fine.

Recently my players fought an Aboleth. I simply had it telepathically implant its monologue into their heads in an instant. This doesn't create a weird situation of them just listening to it, but still gives them all the needed information.

I can't yet comment on book 6, but regarding your other points:

It probably doesn't hurt to declare that one of the magical protections of the Spindlelock Facility prevents it from being found unless directed to it. Both Eliza and the players get that information from the Constructs, so they are covered.

As for other explanations:

ii) I intent to use the idea from the previous books thread to make Auberon basically a couch potato. In my version his plane allows him to see misfortune that happened all over the world and he has so much fun watching others suffer that he doesn't really care adding to it. This has the added benefit that his plane can be used as another opportunity to give the group some details about the Earthfall they may have missed before (like some HD pictures of Amazmen dying after absorbing its magic, which Auberon finds hillarious). It is a bit goofy, but should be a good fit for my group.

iii) Durvin Gest found a lot of interesting stuff, give this guy a break. Revealing Wayfinders and Decumvirate Helmets probably kept him occupied. If anything it is a bit strange there weren't other experienced exploration teams following his footsteps.

iv) Helekhterie isn't interested in azlanti ruins unless they help her with the ritual, so even if she knew about the Spindlelock Facility she probably didn't care.

v) Captain Ancorato wouldn't really want to travel too far from the coast and isn't interested in archeological finds either.

About the PCs actions in book 1:

1) They are not the leaders of the colony and they can't simply tell everyone what to do. The settlers are mostly noncombatants and Ramona is afraid they will immediately try to get away from the island if they see something too gruesome. If this happens the whole expedition is basically over. This is why she needs the PCs to explore and secure the area first.

2) They also can't force the ship to sail around the island, because the captain is only paid to bring the settlers to the island and his crew is already frightened after the ship stopped moving and stuff. He wont risk his life, his crew and his ship (and the money he would make by returning right away) for some people he doesn't know. This is why the world needs heroes like the players.

3) They aren't tasked to race from one end to the other, they are tasked to map out the area and find valuable ressources. I don't possess Ultimate Campaign, but if it claims all this can be done in 4 days on an overgrown remote island of that size, then Ultimate Campaign is the book you want to change.
Keep in mind some areas are even magical in nature, such as the vampire forest.

To make the six day limit appear less superficial, I explained to my players that the partially burned ship will be ready to sail within that period of time. Many settlers already declared they don't want to live in proximity to whatever attacked them, so they will seriously consider their opportunity to get away.

In short the colony is likely to take a major hit if the PCs don't succeed in time. To ensure the campaign doesn't end even if they fail they can replace lost settlers with those freed in the cathedral of course, but if they want the colony to flourish they better calm down the current ones before they have the chance to leave.

In rounds and only counting nonstop action a recent swarm battle should be pretty high up. A level 1 player without any meaningful bonus to attack used a torch to fight a cockroach swarm. In a swarmsuit and with a healer nearby to fix any damage the swarms 1d6 would sneak past the 5/- reduction.

We made a couple rolls and then just agreed to extrapolate from there, so thankfully it didn't take that much real life time, but technically they were trying to kill each other for 30+ rounds, before the party was finally victorious.

Attacks from Land: (...) A completely submerged creature has total cover against opponents on land unless those opponents have freedom of movement effects. Magical effects are unaffected except for those that require attack rolls (which are treated like any other effects) and fire effects.

So spearfishing is illegal.

You usually don't even wear a Ring of Sustenance if you are out for efficiency. That ring slot could have been something so much better. There are grade 1 spells that negate the need to sleep for the whole party.

I understand that the OP wants to get rid of those spells as well, but personally I already hate random encounters for being a waste of time more often than not. They don't become more fun if you take away the tools to make them a little bit more bearable.

I never liked CLW wands. If you want tension there has to be a chance of failure. If you can always heal up and mostly use classes that aren't very reliant on daily ressources you will quickly find yourself in a situation where tension can only be generated within a single fight, but not really over the course of several small skirmishes.

This can be problematic, because I believe skirmishes are overall a better option. A small group of goblins wouldn't challenge your fully healed party. But they might be able to down one or two adventurers if they find the group injured. Fortunately chances are good the rest of the party will eventually prevail and get their uncoincious mates into savety.

If their enemy was of higher CR balanced to threaten a fully healed party, then chances increase drastically it will defeat the whole party with some lucky rolls. High CR encounters always threaten a TPK, which is why they are usually reserved for important boss fights.

Basically what I'm saying is that CLW wands require the GM to raise the threat level and make every encounter a boss fight. I prefer a bruised retreat over death, so we usually agree to stay away from wands or use them very sparingly. The only exception would be Pathfinder Society, where they are pretty much expected and you play with people you don't know.

Mixed feelings. I think Pathfinder needs an update.
There is some bloat that feels unhealthy for the game and is hard to remove only using errata. More importantly the higher levels feel worse than the earlier ones for various reasons and fixing this is beyond the scope of some slight adjustments.
So I believe a new edition is a good thing, even if it invalidates some of my books. As long as stuff is accessible online the books are optional either way (and I really hope Paizo keeps it this way).

So why mixed feelings? From the blog it sounds like Paizo tries to fix problems I've never seen as such. Pathfinder allowing for small adjustments and a ton of feats is one of its most important niches. I like browsing through hundreds of feats and think about possible combinations and builds. I like putting just a few skill points here and there. My character might be decent at acrobatics because he tumbled around a lot as a child, but if the new system is anything like what I'm afraid it will be I'll probably have the choice between being untrained or being an olympic jumper at higher levels.

A lot of people have chosen Pathfinder because they like the math and the fairness that comes with it. My biggest fear is that Pathfinder 2 will turn out steamlined and arbitrary. Don't allow this to happen.

I'm aware as someone who actually disliked the fact Paizo mostly ditched the advancement by HD rules for monsters from 3.5 I may not be representing a majority, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone either.
Fix the shortcomings of Pathfinder like those I mentioned in the first paragraph, but don't dumb it down. Pretty please.

The chelish armada conquers most of the shackles as described in the book. Once they have taken port peril they will spend some days executing pirates and declaring themself the new rulers. Eventually they will obviously start attacking the other isles, including that of the PCs. Their fleet size isn't really impacted by the previous battles, as they replaced their losses using defeated ships.

In essence the PCs have limited time to gather the remaining pirates (shouldn't be complicated, those who don't flee are basically looking for some leader to gather behind so this part can be mostly glossed over) and form a new fleet in a last ditch effort to stop the chelish threat. As there is no hope to beat the chelish armada in a fair fight after the devastating defeat at port peril, the PCs are supposed to attack Druvalias flagship directly while their allies keep the fleet occupied as long as they can. You can play the fights as written (some devils try to stop them from reaching Druvalias ship etc), simply ignoring the fleet battle itself.
Make sure Druvalia mentions her uncle, who is currently residing in the lucrehold, coordinating the regular troops.

If they manage to beat Druvalia, the chelish fleet retreats to reform itself, giving the players some time to get rid of Druvalias uncle as well (forgot his name). Druvalia will readily offer advice in case she survives (as she knows her uncle has to die before her if she doesn't want to lose her soul) and the players should know about the secret entrance from Harrigans notes. They could either use the remaining fleet as a distraction again or sneak in at night.

Replace the hurricane king with Druvalias uncle and some of the piratey enemies with more fitting chelish stuff/devils and you can run the fortress part without too many changes as well. Just describe how this place obviously got raided and is currently redesigned to be a chelish outpost. The final boss is Druvalias uncle, who is planning to use the hurricane crowns power to reclaim the sargavian colonies after executing every pirate he can get a hold on.

If the PCs manage to stop him they would obviously be the ones to fill the power gap (with most of the other pirate lords being dead).

In case you feel particularly burnt out you could skip the fleet part completely of course. Just make sure the PCs know where to go (lucrehold). In this case they arrive while Druvalia is still there.

The attack in the bilges will be pretty deadly if the attackers have PC levels. Its dangerous enough as is.

Personally I didn't even use all the NPCs during the mutiny, because that would just slow down the fight to a crawl. Some of the more colorful NPCs participated (Sandara and Owlbear for the PCs, Conchobar for Plugg), but the rest was just described as fighting and keeping each other occupied (team sizes were relatively even).

Its pretty fascinating how different some groups approach the whole thing. In my game 2 out of 4 characters skilled profession sailor, one of them going as far as adding a skill focus. Another one bought himself a headband of intelligence once I explained the fleet combat rules during book 5. All 3 of them purchased a masterwork tool as well.
But if its only sailing they are not interested in that is fine. You might consider just dropping the ship combat rules.

Interestingly enough the slight changes to the story provide a very good reason to explore the chelish fort first, which is a good thing. My own group used the northern coast to enter the island and went straight to the way more dangerous cyclops ruins.

Here are my thoughts:
Find out what motivates your players or their characters to do stuff. Are they having fun? That is the most important question. I can't tell if your players are just having fun by being unpredictable or basically try to sabotage your plot. If it is the second one the problem will come up again. The players guide spelled out that the characters should -want- to become pirates and it doesn't seem like your players put in a lot of effort in that regard.

The story up to this point should be easily redeemable, even if you don't want to put in too much extra work. Your players lost out on experience due to losing the regatta, so send them on some small side quest. That sidequest may conveniently offer a headband of intelligence with profession (sailer) as the boosted skill or something like that, but most importantly some time passes. While they are occupied Harrigan gets disqualified and another free captain is the next in line to get the island. That free captains name is Bikendi.

As he seems to disappear shortly after reaching the island some powerful NPC (Tessa should work best if the master of gale hates them) asks them to investigate what happened. You can play book 4 mostly as written, but the chelish fort was reclaimed for a much shorter time of course, so it would have an improvised look.
Bikendi finished most of the ritual before he even entered the regatta, but he realized he needs a powerful focus to finish it.

If the PCs successfully reveal the story of the island Tessa will either try to get them promoted to pirate lords (if they have done anything to earn it before) or at least make sure they get the islanf (if they are still rather low profile) as long as they can convince a delegation they have stuff under control there.

Maybe everyone here thinks the devs just write stuff stupidly, I just choose to see the obvious syntax of the ability.

Let me make one thing clear: If the developers wanted that specific interaction, they would have written so. You need to notice that currently you are the only one seeing it and I would certainly argue something to be written in a stupid way if almost nobody understands it. So the one arguing the developers did a poor job is you.

To me it still seems you are evading the weapon issue. Something being threated as a weapon is identical to being that weapon in the given situation, otherwise the information would held no value at all. Just because they elaborate further what considering the bolt a light weapon implies that doesn't invalidate the first part in any kind (notice the logical "and"). The information the mystic bolt can be dual-wielded is essential, as we wouldn't know if we can create 2 of them simultaneously otherwise.

You also imply there is a huge difference between creating something that is used "as if it were a scimitar" and bolts used "as though they were light one-handed weapons", which I fail to see. You don't get much closer in wording.

The mystic bolt is obviously used like a weapon. Your weapon focus (unarmed attack) doesn't apply, the weapon focus (mystic bolt) does. As such you attack with the mystic bolt and you haven't quoted anything to convince me otherwise.

The players botchered the diplomacy check on Conchobar horribly despite a large bonus I granted them for providing him with the instrument (so HE could give it to Rosie), causing him to never quite like the PCs. He occasionally even started to rally the crew against them after their mutiny (like when they decided not to sell plunder until the cargo was almost full so they would have to share less with the crew).
As he was their only NPC spellcaster for a large part of the AP they still valued him too much to get rid of him. Eventually he started to cooperate when he realized they were starting to build a fleet, as he hoped to become a commodore of his own ship or fleet (which never happened).

The reason he was the only NPC spellcaster was of course that Sandara didn't survive the first dungeon. This was disastrous for one of the PCs who fell in love with her, so he spend the next few books finding a way to revive her. He could get the clerics of besmaras throne to do so after becoming a pirate lord and the diplomatic efforts taken on that path were the main reason the clerics provided support when the PCs gathered their allies to build a fleet.

Shivikah recieved a good chunk of screentime, after she became best friends with the good aligned PC catfolk lady. Said lady was only in the shackles to free her enslaved brother and despised slavery, but still grew fond of Shivikah - a former slave trader who never hid she only stopped because she couldn't compete with the steep competition on the sea (she only operated in the jungles before). She became the most important advisor of the PCs, usually offering a very pragmatic view and kind of taking Kroops spot in the AP (who became more of a background character after the mutiny).

Another NPC with a lot of screentime was good old Owlbear. The first contact wasn't all that promising, as the PC that had to fight him didn't stop when he begged for mery (fearing to be punished by Plugg), so Owlbear is still a bit afraid of that guy. On the bright side this caused the cat lady to feel pity and she did spend a lot of time earning his trust and even more to make him her lover. I kind of steered away from that last part as I played him a bit too childlike to be comfortable with him engaging in anything, but maybe there is hope if she fixes his condition first.

One interesting case was Plugg. He survived the PCs mutiny and became a prisoner, because the cat lady refused to have him killed and she repeatedly tried to redeem him. She wasn't all that successful and eventually they sold him to his parents for some gold, but her effort kind of paid off as he made a short reappearance when they gathered their allies against Harrigan. Plugg knew he wouldn't be safe as long as Harrigan was alive and he reasoned it would be for the best to team up with the guys that kept him prisoner for several weeks to get rid of the captain he betrayed. His ship survived the battle and he fled the shackles the moment he was informed that cheliax was heading there, but it was still fun to see the PCs reacting to their former tormentor fighting at their side.

Pretty cool ending. I would've been concerned that my campaign was doomed not to end on a high note (hurricane king already defeated, just clearing some mooks), but I guess it worked out well for you. Always nice to be suprised as a GM.

My players just entered the lucrehold through the crypts, so my campaign will be coming to an end soon as well. As I made sure they despise the hurricane king I'm pretty sure he will not survive the adventure.
He tried to have them assassinated after they defeated the chelish armada, knowing they archived what he was supposed to do. Out of fear he basically created a self-fulfilling prophecy of rivals grasping for his throne.

I slightly changed the story of the crypts so they actually contain the remains of the first hurricane king himself, who was so powerful that his ghost haunted the crypt until his successor (and murderer) had them sealed. The archdevil told Druvalia about the crypt, but as the second hurricane king is long gone there aren't any mortals left knowing about it.

After the party managed to free the former king from the magic binding him to the crypt, I plan on having him support the final attack on the current one. While the players fight his officers above deck the ghosts will keep the hurricane king himself occupied for a short time, so there is a logical reason he doesn't enter the fray early.

Getting the help of the first hurricane king is also a pretty neat legitimation to grasp for the crown I guess, not that my players need it.

The good character in my party was very interested in stopping ships from and to bloodcove, a known slaver city. Freeing slaves became a major motivation for the first 5 books and it was pretty easy to change some bits of the story to keep it relevant.

Spells modified by a metamagic feat use a spell slot higher than normal. This does not change the level of the spell, so the DC for saving throws against it does not go up

Lesser and Greater Metamagic rods: Normal metamagic rods can be used with spells of 6th level or lower. Lesser rods can be used with spells of 3rd level or lower, while greater rods can be used with spells of 9th level or lower..

The metamagic rod does not seem to care about the spell slot used, but the level of the spell you cast. Metamagic does not change that level, so using your lesser rod of maximize on your empowered intensified fireball should be totally fine. It doesn't matter if you are casting prepared or spontaneous either.

I don't think there is anything in the rules stopping a (spontaneous) caster from just applying his metamagic rod first (which doesn't affect the effective spell level) and his own metamagic feat after that. Unless there is some FAQ I'm not aware of?

Maybe another perspective helps in this case. I will use your own match in the following example to keep stuff simple.

Imagine there was no bard. Without the performances the fighters average damage would drop by 39 (to 161 on average) because he loses the damage bonus and by another 10% because he loses the attack bonus. He ends up dealing around 145 damage each round.

But here is the catch: the bards player is still around. Lets say he also rolled a fighter instead of a bard. Now he is adding 145 damage each round as well. This is pretty close to the total amount of damage lost due to the missing performance (129 + reduced attack bonus of 4 more guys), so lets just assume those changes cancel each other out.

The net damage difference between bringing a bard and bringing a fighter is basically the melee damage the bard was doing. And we are talking about the best party a bard could ever ask for (twice the amount of people to benefit from the performance and a fighter designed to make as many attacks as possible).

Of course this doesn't give the whole picture (especially as the bard would be way better of casting support spells like haste at that level), but if a guy doing 200 damage on average causes you trouble, then two guys doing 145 each will be just as bad.
The problem is not the bard, the problem is high level pathfinder becoming rocket tag by default. This is why every character guide out there tells you to get improved initiative. When a single full-attack kills an opponent then going first is the difference between potentially dying and leaving the fight unharmed.

Reach gets a lot more powerful if you can increase it beyond the normal 10 feet. But even regular reach can completely shut down the Sloppy Joe:

1) the melee guy will provoke when he approaches
2) you use that free attack to trip him, while he is still 10 feet away (he can't attack you at all during that round if you succeed)
3) on your own turn you can full attack and take a five foot step back
4) back to 1)

As you may have noticed your opponent never manages to get adjacent, so Achilles would be just as helpless as Sloppy Joe is. As long as you can reliably trip them, they won't even touch you.
Against Sloppy Tony you simply equip an armor with spikes and end your turn adjacent to them. Now they can't 5-foot-step and cast or even withdraw without provoking. Your armor spikes threaten the squares adjacent to you and while they do less damage they still impose the serious risk of breaking the casters concentration. Next rounds full attack should usually finish them.

Lastly you need to keep in mind that most of the time you are fighting monsters and those can get pretty large. Being able to attack them without eating attacks of opportunity is really useful and a reach weapon can help with that.

The only spells which can be cast while grappling or pinned are those without somatic components and whose material components (if any) you have in hand. Even so, you must make a concentration check (DC 10 + the grappler's CMB + the level of the spell you're casting) or lose the spell.

Going by this quote you need to have the material components in your hand to cast any spell that requires them.

A similar topic was discussed in this thread a while ago and I tend to side with those who claim that a weapon created by magic (or other forms of energy) is still manufactured.
Maybe a native speaker can clarify this further but in my tongue the word "manufactured" is very similar to "created", the only difference being that it usually describes stuff that wouldn't occur naturally.

While I'm not sure at what interval you need to redo stealth checks if you're sticking around it's soon enough to be immediate.

Are you going to be eaten?

Step 1
Make stealth check Yes---> Not eaten
Make stealth check no ---> attacked
Attack hit?
Yes--->eaten.
no--> not eaten.

At step 1 being eaten is a real possibility, hence danger.. Its a real possibility of happening in pretty much zero time , which is soon enough to be immediate.

The same logic applies to climbing up a very high wall, which is one one the examples where taking 10 is supposed to work. Basically if the danger only comes up if you fail your skill check it isn't immediate enough to prevent you from taking 10.

I would think both handle animal and wild empathy work similar to diplomacy, the first to improve a creatures attitude and the other to make a request. The time required to use each action reflects that.

One thing to keep in mind however is that handle animal doesn't cause a critter to become an automaton. You wouldn't use diplomacy to ask two guards to attack each other, so using handle animal to make a creature attack its benevolent master would obviously fail as well.
As handle animal is very similar to making a request, enforcing an indifferent (or better) attitude seems very reasonable, even if it is not explicitely mentioned in the rules. This means it could be used on all domestic animals, but for wild animals you'd either need to use wild empathy or find other ways to improve the creatures attitude first.

Wild empathy on the other hand causes animals to like you, but to actually make a request you would still need to use handle animal or some spell that enables communication.

Succeeding on a Saving Throw

A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.

So while the watcher doesn't know it was a sleep spell, he DOES know a magical attack took place and if he doesn't raise the alarm at that very moment the party deserves to be ambushed.

As for the follow-up question. The watcher is screwed unless his allies succeed at their perception rolls with a -10 penality for being asleep.

Saving Throw

Generally, when you are subject to an unusual or magical attack, you get a saving throw to avoid or reduce the effect.

This hints strongly that everything that forces a save is indeed an attack.

Rogues should be wary of landslides either way, as they still bury anyone in the center without caring about reflex saves. When it became relevant in my campaign I ruled the rogue could dash to a safe spot where larger rocks would form a small chamber (no damage but still trapped), which seems to be exactly what evasion is about.

The tricky part is that pathfinder usually doesn't care which square you are leaving. If you check for difficult terrain for example the square you are entering is the important one. You can for example use a 5-foot-step to leave difficult terrain given you are already at its border. With jumping it's the same.

So when you try to jump over a pit you check the square you are currently entering. Is it a pit? Looks like you have to jump further. Is it solid ground? Gratulations, your jump was successful. You don't have to be jumping to enter a regular square. Thats why the DC only looks for squares that you can't stand on.
If the pit doesn't cover the whole square just break it down to feet. It still works the same.

I have a concept of a tank mesmerist floating around somewhere. An half-orc in heavy armor with a tower shield but no STR to speak of, so his final attack bonus is somewhere around -12 (due to not being proficient).
His saving grace is the mesmerist trick that allows him to force a creature to attack him when the he misses it with an attack, giving him the opportunity to actually tank some hits.

Bonus points if you manage to trigger it with an attack of opportunity after casting deja-vu on said opponent. Double bonus points if your (improvised) weapon happens to be a rod of extend you used for that deja-vu spell.

As all he really needs is 13 dex for dodge (and later oslyuth guile) and some con, so he can still max out his charisma.
This helps him to contribute with his spell DCs and he has an easy time positioning himself for that color spray. As a psychic caster none of his spells use somatic components, so spell failure does not apply. He can't do anything reliant on attack rolls (so aid another is off the table), but demoralize is at least something. You also still debuff with your stare and will be a great party face.

You'd have to avoid anything anything that involves stuff like climbing until you have at least access to levitate, but one or two scrolls might help in the beginning.
Your first feat has to be noble scion of war as you otherwise suffer your full armor check penality on your initative roll.

The bane of your existance are creatures immune to mind-affecting effects, so plan to take the relevant bold stare (also allows you to intimidate those creatures) and/or the spirit walker archetype, which at least helps against undead.

Doomed Hero wrote:

I'm pretty sure this is going to be ruled "weapon like spells count as weapons for the purposes of how they interact with Swarms"

I'm pretty sure it won't.

What is a weapon-like spell?
Is acid splash? Why, because you make a ranged touch attack? Then shouldn't disintegrate (which is explicitly not effective on swarms) work?

Disintegrate probably wasn't written with swarms in mind. They just wanted to clarify it is not some kind of annihilation sphere that absorbs everything it touches. Unfortunately that also makes it ineffective against swarms, but unless you are playing PFS its easy to houserule. The levels when you attain disintegrate aren't those you typically care much about swarms consisting of tiny or larger creatures, so I don't really see this coming up in real play.

Overall I think declaring rays and other "spells that create something you attack with" as weapons when determinating if they affect swarms is indeed the smartest solution. This means they deal half damage against tiny swarms and no damage at all against smaller ones.

This has 2 advantages:
1. It is pretty straightforward and consistant. The main argument of this tread was that it feels stupid that you can't affect something with a ray when you can affect it with an arrow. I tend to agree.

2. No rules need to be changed. It is already spelled out that rays and similar spells behave like weapons in many aspects, the FAQ could clarify this is meant to include how they damage swarms.

Giant does not descibe its size (there is no giant size), but its template. Because of the giant template it is actually medium sized, but the aboleth did some magic to make it appear even bigger.
So its really medium sized, but seems to be large.

There are two relevant questions.

1. Does Blink (only) grant concealment?
Personally I always considered concealment to be something solely based on visibility. Blink does more than that, it actually shifts you out of harms way into the etheral plane. We are also informed that Blind-Fight, a feat designed to help against concealed opponents, doesn't affect Blink.
There still seems to be a part of Blink that is basically concealment, but negating that part still causes a 20% miss chance that isn't further specified. In this thread we ignore the usual 50% miss chance caused by Blink as the concealment part of it wouldn't stack with invisibility, but this still leaves us with the 20% miss chance caused by becoming etheral at just the right time.

2. Do we only roll once for miss chance?
I don't think there is anything about this in the rules. We know we only roll once for concealment, but the rules are silent about other sources of miss chances. Personally I would assume you roll twice, simply because we are told to roll by two seperate effects.
This seems plausible as a character needs to overcome both obstacles (invisibility and etheralness) seperately to hit. Attacking the creature while it is not etheral doesn't help if you don't manage to hit it because of its concealment just like beating the concealment doesn't help if the target is etheral at that very moment.