LoFro The Pirate's page

So I was just thinkin'.

A +7 bow is base 98k. This is a +7 intelligent bow with spell like abilities and a good alternative property priced at 54k.

Do you think it's a typo and it's supposed to be 154k?

That's what I ended up doing. I charged him 30k to add it on, my logic being it was like bringing his bow up to +4, but half again as much for being a secondary property, sorta. (So 32k x 1.5 = 48k, -18k for the +3 he's already paid for.) That way he can still have Outsider Bane, he just can't combine it with Brilliant Energy or Shock.

I mean, I think Brilliant Energy is a wildly overpriced property anyway... Maybe they just decided to eyeball it rather than follow the formula. But it's hard to tell.

Mainly I just feel bad for my player... He traded in a +2 evil outsider bane bow for this, but this campaign (Savage Tide) gets more and more demon-heavy as we go along. Brilliant energy doesn't actually do anything against most demons, since they're just a pile of natural armor...

Yeah, I lost track of it once too. Intelligent items, p.358.

A player in my game recently got a Lightning Bow from Ultimate Equipment as the culmination of a long quest. He likes the bow, but he wants to add Evil Outsider Bane to it. I'm trying to figure out how much that should cost, but I have no idea how the pricing works on this thing.

The Lightning Bow has a price of 54,300 gp. This seems shockingly low.

The base bow is a +3 adaptive composite longbow. +3 is 18,000, adaptive is a flat 1,000.

However, it creates ammunition, either +3 brilliant energy arrows or +3 shock arrows, on command; it is, essentially, a +3 brilliant energy adaptive composite longbow. Brilliant energy is a +4 property. This would be 99,000 gp base, plus at least some amount (probably half?) for the Shock property. (It wouldn't be full because you can't use both at once.)

There's a heck of a difference in price between 99,000 and 54,000. And that's all before the spell-like abilities and the bumps for it being an intelligent item.

Even if they gave you half off the price of Brilliant Energy, it still comes to at least 58,000 gp before spell-like abilities or Shock.

Any ideas how on this pricing works, and how much I should charge my player for a +1 property?

I was mainly just worried that the Cheliax missions consisted of a long series of puppy-kicking moments, which isn't really my guy's style. It seems like he'll be able to make do with the missions given to him. Cheliax it is!

My friend and I are dipping our toes into PFS for the first time, and we're deciding what factions to join. His faction was pretty obvious - Andoran - but I'm having a hard time deciding on mine.

My character is a LN human Inquisitor of Iomedae. He's about 50, so he was a kid when Galt fell into ruin and as a result he's highly distrustful of ideals like "liberty" and "democracy," believing such things inevitably lead to, well, Galt. He worships Iomedae, and hopes the world will someday live up to her standards, but he believes you need absolute order to accomplish this.

He also has a bit of an Inspector Javert thing going on with my friend's character.

My instincts say he should join Cheliax - he was technically a citizen of Cheliax when he was born, Cheliax is the faction that believes in order above all, and Cheliax is a natural foil to my friend's Andoran - but he serves Iomedae and I can't imagine he'd go all in on the devil-servitude. Looking at the traits and such for Cheliax, they all seem REALLY focused on the dark, diabolic stuff, not so much on the pure order aspect of the faction.

Basically, if I go Cheliax, will I be able to carry out my faction missions while staying true to my character's motivations? Or is every Cheliax faction mission going to entail devil-worship and the spread of evil along with the spread of law?

(I am okay with occasionally having my guy turn his nose up at a mission and say, "No, that's beneath me." I just don't want to have to do it every other mission.)

Cannonballs inscribed with Symbols of Charming. Take THAT, defending infantry!

Does a human-bane weapon still activate against a human druid wildshaped into an animal form? I'm not sure if "assume the form of an animal" includes changing your type or not.

The spy thing is going to work out really well, actually - I figured out a plot twist to use that won't seem forced or cheap. The pirates will learn a lot about the town's defenses, but not everything. Thanks for that!

I am running a Savage Tide campaign and my players are currently at the end of "Tides of Dread," where a small fleet of Crimson Fleet ships are en route to attack their home, Farshore, a hamlet of about 250 people. The invasion force consists of about five pirate ships.

My players have had two in-game months to prepare for the invasion. In addition to all the stuff the adventure provides (recruiting allies from elsewhere, recruiting people into the militia, etc.) they have been doing really extensive plotting for the town's defenses, mostly abusing magic. The characters are 9th level, and they're planning to cast a lot of spells.

I know I'm going to have to deal with things like this:

-Mirage Arcana cast to make it look like the town's harbor is blocked by a cliff wall
-Mage's Private Sanctum to block off sight of the beaches
-Wall of Stone under the water to wreck ships
-God only knows how many planar bindings and summoned monsters

And probably more than that.

I want to respect my players' preparations and let them be worthwhile, but at the same time, I want this to be an exciting, climactic encounter. (For those unfamiliar with the AP, this is roughly halfway through, and the finale is the players defeating their long-time nemesis, who is the admiral of the invasion fleet. It's a big deal.) If the pirates just get wrecked by illusions and magic, it's not going to be a very fun session.

So... Any advice on offensive measures the pirates can take to counteract the defensive magic available to a 9th level wizard? I'm basically willing to add any NPC necessary to keep things fun... Right now I have, in addition to the admiral (a 12th level half-fiend two weapon Fighter), an artillery sorcerer and a buffer cleric. They're tough on their own, and will make the pirate mooks considerably stronger, but I'm so far at a loss for how to let the pirates get around the illusions and such, much less spells to grant them any kind of offensive advantage.

I've just used the Sailing Ship stats for the caravel. It's not that far off.

I sent them an email, but I haven't gotten a response yet.

Does anyone know if there's still a way to give these people money? I'd really like to buy a few Waggamaephs to use as Phanatons in my Savage Tide campaign. Their website (http://crunch-waffle.com/index.php) is up, but the shop button leads to a 404...

Spoilers for a five year old AP ahead, I guess?

I'm GMing Savage Tide, and the group just got the Sea Wyvern. (They still have to save Lavinia from the bullywugs, but that's all that's left in The Bullywug Gambit.) So I'm pretty pleased with how Skull and Shackles is coming out right now.

1) How reasonable is it to mashup Skull and Shackles and Savage Tide? I was hoping to at least steal some naval encounters to spice up the Sea Wyvern's Wake.

2) To give the players an excuse to get into trouble with the Sea Wyvern, I'm going to have Lavinia convince the Dawn Council to grant the Blue Nixie and the Sea Wyvern letters of marque so they can be privateers. Who would you say Sasserine considers an "enemy" for such letters? The Crimson Fleet, obviously... But the Scarlet Brotherhood? The Sea Princes? Anyone else?

3) In the original Dungeon issue, the Sea Wyvern can hold two ballistae or one light catapault. In the Skull and Shackles player's guide, the equivalent ship (a Sailing Ship, as best as I can figure) can have... up to 22 siege engines. Which would you recommend I use?

Thanks!

Osirion! Worldwound! Osirion! Worldwound!

It's going to be a highly frustrating encounter for a third level fighter no matter what. Even in an optimal situation - 18 strength, masterwork weapon, weapon focus, flanking - they still need to roll a 20 to hit. That will quickly give anyone the "this is BS" vibe.

I'm currently running the Savage Tide adventure path, which includes the players getting their hands on a pirate ship which becomes their home for most of the AP. While I still have a few levels until they actually get their ship, I'm trying to prepare for the eventual ship combats that will follow - and I am extremely confused.

It looks like there are two completely different sets of ship combat rules available for Pathfinder - one in the Game Mastery Guide, and one in Ultimate Combat. The big issue for me is that the statistics - including the potential combat capability of the ships - is extremely different depending on which system we're using.

For reference, the PC's ship will be using the Sailing Ship stats.

According to the GMG, a sailing ship has AC 6, 125 hp, +6 to saves, moves at 60 feet, deals 3d6+12 damage on a ram, and has a minimum crew of 20 and a maximum crew of 50 + 120 passengers. It also has room for a total of two weapons - two siege engines or one siege engine and a ram.

According to UC, a sailing ship has AC 2, 900 hp, +0 to saves, has a maximum move speed of 180 feet, deals 8d8 damage on a ram, has a crew of 20 and can carry 200 more passengers. It also has room for either 20 (!) Large siege engines or 6 Huge ones.

These stats, as far as I can tell, refer to exactly the same kind of ship from the core book, but have extremely different statistics. I have no idea which ones to use. Can anyone help me unpack this?

Considering their parents are good people (they worship the Eladrin/Azata), they probably would know more celestials, yeah. You figure the kid who gets stuck being Obox-Ob is actually going to be kind of skeeved.

@Knight Magenta: This is a campaign that hasn't started yet, so I can't answer that precisely. Those of my players who have played with me extensively (about half of them) would probably get that I'm dropping a hint. The others haven't really played D&D with me since high school, when I was a lot less sophisticated as a DM.

Technically this campaign is in Greyhawk, though I'll still have printing presses, because that level of tech is neat.

Orcus was just an example, incidentally - he's probably not the one I would use.

Assume that your characters are in a city, and you run across a couple of children playing. You hear the children shouting that they're playing "angels and fiends" ("Cops and Robbers" by a different name.) At some point, the kids say the names of some specific angelic/fiendish personages ("Awww, you ALWAYS get to be Orcus!")

Would you be more likely to:

A) assume this is a background flavor event and move on (or join in, if your character's like that)

or B) stop and say, "wait, how the heck do those kids know the names of demons?"

Basically, I was considering using this in my Savage Tide game to give the characters a nudge about the location of the angelic cult called the Church of the Whirling Fury - the kids' parents are members of the cult. But I'm not sure if it will actually spur them to investigate anything or if they'll just smile at the silly background event and move on.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

On the other hand, when you're talking about an item that's worth that many thousands of GP, it's quite likely that the item just doesn't exist yet - and even if it does, it doesn't necessarily exist in this town, even if "this town" is Absalom itself. Which just means you need to make it yourself or get somebody to make it for you, not that it doesn't exist at all.

Does your world just not have any metropoli? (Not that metropoli completely solve the problem, of course, since they still have their own GP limits.)

Well, keep in mind, that's just the "magic item shop." RAW also says each community will have a certain number of more expensive items available, so that's one thing to keep in mind; they can also still get NPCs to make things custom for them, without going through a magic item shop (which, I believe, represents items "on hand.")

If they're complaining because they can't get the perfect items for uber-optimization, tell them that the game has already provided a source for those items - it's called Craft Wondrous Item.

(That said, as DM, it's probably a good idea to ask for "wish lists" from your players, and include some of those things in your encounter treasures.)

I'm about to start running Savage Tide in Pathdfinder, and for character creation I'm being generous and allowing my players to take their home district's feat as a bonus feat and also one trait. I threw together a few Savage Tide specific traits, mainly by modifying traits from later APs. Anyone care to comment on them, or offer new traits of their own?

Crush
You’ve never had the guts to act on it, but for as long as you can remember, you’ve had a crush on an NPC. Someday, maybe you’ll be able to earn the NPC’s love, but for now, you’re content to spend time in the character’s proximity, or even to do things for the NPC that might earn you a word of thanks or a smile.

Benefit: You gain a +1 trait bonus to a particular skill, based on the subject of your affection. Once per day, you may attempt to earn a kind word or smile by making a DC 15 Charisma check. If you’re successful, the elation and the joy at the attention gives you a +1 trait bonus on saving throws for the next two days. If you ever succeed in earning the NPC’s love, this +1 trait bonus applies at all times as long as your relationship lasts.

NPC Choices: Lavinia Vanderboren (NG female human aristocrat, Diplomacy), Tolin Kientai (LN male human ranger, Intimidate), Kaskus Kiel (LN male dwarf druid, Survival), Liamae Teslikaria (CN female human sorcerer, Bluff), Amella Vankalie, Profession – Sailor.)

Jilted Dragon
You were, until recently, involved with the notorious criminal organization called the Lotus Dragons. You were destined to go far in the organization, even to the point that you were able to spend a pleasurable dinner with the Lotus Dragons’ leader, Rowyn Kellani. But a mysterious new figure has become Rowyn’s pet, and you have been forced out of the guild altogether, leaving you burning for revenge.

Benefit: You get a +1 trait bonus on Stealth checks, and Stealth is always a class skill for you. In addition, you get a +1 trait bonus to attack rolls against any member (current or former) of the Lotus Dragons.

...regardless of the fact that Wizards of the Coast wouldn't let us use three names in the adventure path... "Greyhawk", "Tenser," and "Bucknard." We could use all the other proper nouns and names we wanted, but for whatever reason, WotC felt that using those three would make it feel TOO Greyhawky and would scare off customers or whatever.

Why did it always seem like Wizards was ashamed of Greyhawk? The optimist wants to say it was so people would stay out of Living Greyhawk's playground, and the pessimist says it's because Greyhawk novels never sold as well...

Regardless, the Greyhawk flavor was always one of my favorite parts of the Dungeon APs.

There's nothing to indicate your weapon is in your off-hand, so no.

Hello,

I placed a preorder for the Ptolus vinyl map on August 31st. Since then, I haven't heard anything at all about when this product is going to be released (if it still is going to be- Fiery Dragon hasn't updated its website since GenCon, apparently.) If nobody knows if this product is ever going to to actually make it into somebody's hands, I'd kind of like my forty dollars back.

-Eric Scott