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This might be a strange question but let me give some backstory.

In my homebrew campaign setting, the material plane is sealed off from the outer planes.

To get around summon monster spells; I have a gigantic demiplane prison full of outsiders that spellcasters can still summon things from (and a ruthless organisation that prowls the inner planes hunting for rogue outsiders to add to it)

I was thinking it would be funny if spells like ‘heroes feast’ are also summoned from the prison plane. What are the best creatures to use to make gourmet meals all day?

Ok, so I've built a fun character which is a whip wielding summoner with a 'gimp' Eidolon who worships Zon-Kuthon.

It's a character I built ages ago but I have been waiting for a chance to use her. I'm not sure if it's right for this campaign but I have thought of a backstory that I think will suit it despite being lawful evil. I just want to check how viable is it.

The backstory I've thought of is that she was a member of a secret zon-kuthon cult. The leader of the cult (who was also her lover) was murdered (love lost trait). Without strong leadership the cult fell into disarray and was quickly discovered by the authorities (and slaughtered)

In my mind this gives the character a hook into the story and a reason to stick around & fight the authorities. The character will also choose revenge over her religion if they ever conflict.

Could this work or should I just play something else?

Incident at Absalom Station and the Starfield are currently set as unavailable (and their subscriptions are skipping to the October releases). Is this likely to change before the 17th?

I was hoping to buy all the August releases in one order because international shipping is really expensive.

I'm going to start a future campaign (whether it be Starfinder or Pathfinder) with a jail break adventure. It's a good way to get the party together and encourages them to think around problems.

I'll homebrew most of it, but I might steal some ideas or maps from published adventures if they're any good. Which ones are worth looking at?

(system or genre doesn't matter. I'm just looking for good themes & ideas)

Hi, it's been 7 days but my order hasn't shipped yet

I'm not bothered about receiving my order late, but my concern is that the payment section of my order states, 'Payment authorization - Expires tomorrow' :S

What sort of things are you looking to run in your first games?

Feed my hype.

I watched a bit of the playtest stream that was uploaded to youtube. It looked fun but I noticed the damage dice for futuristic weapons seem to be pretty low (basic d4, d6, d8, etc)

Do you think primitive weapons like bows will still have the same dice as Pathfinder or is everything going to be re-balanced?

I thought Starfinder was going to be mostly compatible with Pathfinder, but this just fills my head with a thousand questions :S

I'm really excited to either GM or Play this AP. My group has often added a splash of sci-fi to our fantasy, so the theme will be spot on with our tastes.

My group tends to prefer non-linear games. Not complete sandboxes, just the chance to do some ad-hoc sidequesting, downtime and the ability to make choices which affect the plot.

How easily can Iron Gods accommodate my group?

(Please avoid major spoilers)

Arrr me hearties.

I be wondering if any of ye scurvy dogs have tales of the high seas about a problem I foresee on the horizon.

One me press-ganged crew be the meanest, most difficult sea dawg around, and the lash of t’ cats tail will only make him mad with cabin fever. He’ll probably force me to make ‘im walk tha plank rather than submit to his cap’n.

How did the rest of ye run a smooth ship with a swab like this?

Arrrrrrr

I’ve been thinking of better ways of starting a game. Most games seem to start with a variation of "you meet at a tavern" or the PFS-style “I’m your boss, do this”.

Some of the adventure paths have more interesting ways of bringing the party together:
-The players are all attending an event, when something suddenly kicks off
-The players are shipwrecked and need to work together to survive
-The players are press ganged by pirates

Here are some others I’ve thought of:
-The players are soldiers in a large army which has just lost a huge battle against [BBEG] forces. The survivors are retreating while being pursued.
-The player’s home town is attacked by [monsters]
-The players all awake together in a strange place with amnesia
-The players are all prisoners who get broken out of jail

What else can we think of?

Scouting ahead wins fights. Knowing where and what enemies are lets you build a plan, pre buff and get a free turn at the start of combat.

The only problem is that the Scouty classes sometimes roll low and get seen (also stealthing everywhere slows the whole party down). Using spells can ‘scout’ more effectively, but most of them tend to be one-shot deals or min/level duration.

Here’s a thought exercise: What combinations of class abilities, spells or items will help a party get the jump on enemies almost every time in both the wilderness and dungeons?

I really enjoyed running Kingmaker, so I’m working on a similar styled sandbox campaign. I want more of focus on fantastical adventures in a hostile & exotic location (similar theme to the works of Jules Verne).

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

A large tropical Island full of ancient ruins, dungeons and big monsters is discovered in the Azlantian Ocean. Various factions sail there to claim it as their own. The PCs start as freelance adventures who will be paid to explore and clear the island of monsters. The direction of the game will largely depend on the PC actions, but my hope is that they will eventually rise up the ranks of a faction and maybe use the kingdom building rules.

~Random thoughts and Ideas~
-The island has an ancient evil that gains in power. I haven’t decided what this is yet, or how it will specifically affect the PCs.
-The island was hidden, now it’s not.
-Lots of ruins of old races including Azlantians, Serpentfolk and Aboleth
-Dinosaurs!
-Other indigenous nasties

I’m curious. Most things you fight in APs are evil. Did you get to make the most of your abilities?

Also, how well did the roleplaying encounters go? Please list any amusing anecdotes.

I want to run PFS at my club next rotation. The players won’t appreciate random unrelated missions though, so I’m looking to run it like a campaign with a bit of foreshadowing and a decent finale.

I’m thinking of starting with the 3 intro missions, but can anyone think of a decent set of scenarios that can loosely string together?

I’m on a quest to make the most irritating Bard in the universe, and have decided to make him sprout a one-liner after every action in combat.

Unfortunately I can't think of many. Please help

His combat options
-Sword
-Bow
-Net
-Whip (for tripping & disarming)
-Grease spell
-Dazzling Display

The puns can also relate to specific enemies that he's fighting at the time like, "Time to deal with the root of the problem!" when attacking plants.

The more terrible, the better

I'm tired of all my NPCs having my droning monotone, so I've decided to play around with accents with this AP.

My party has gone though the winter portal so I've decided to make all the locals speak in a Russian accent. Unfortunately my 'Russian' turns Italian mid-sentence, and sometimes Indian.

Does anyone have any good advice for holding down accents? I can mimic quite well, but I'm terrible a freeform.

((amusing side note: I RPed the greater witchcrow in the voice of George Takei. The players seemed to enjoy that))

I'm going to be running an AP with only two players. I'm either going to have them roll two PCs each, or maybe try out the Gestalt route.

I've seen people mention Gestalt's here before, so I would like to know how well things went, and if there's any tips (or warnings) you can give me.

Ta

I love Pathfinder. I’ve spent hours and hours poring over the rulebooks and know most of the rules inside out. I share my knowledge with other player’s and GMs at the table whenever a rule dispute pops up. I only do this so everyone has a clear & fair standing, but this annoys a lot of people.

I don’t understand why people ‘make up’ s+&% on the fly instead of using a clearly stated rule. Why would someone pay money for an expensive rule book if they aren’t going to use half of it? I have never used my powers for evil, but my extensive knowledge is so feared that none of my friends will GM Pathfinder for me.

So what is my grand reward for my love of the game? Never getting to play it.

#firstworldproblems :(

The King is a very powerful position in the campaign as he essentially ‘speaks’ for the kingdom. There can be a lot of NPC interactions which only involve him.

Some players are naturally louder than others and enjoy the sound of their own voice. One of these players is the King in my campaign. Some of the other players aren't happy because the King PC tends to hijack dialogue and makes decisions without consulting the other PCs.

I blame part of this is my own failings as a GM, as I believe I should have added more NPC interactions specifically tailored to the other PCs.

We're about to start the last book now, so this isn't going to be as much of an issue (the last book seems more like a linear kill-fest), but the damage is already done.

What have you guys done to prevent problems like this?

My group are just finishing up Harrowstone and soon they will be starting their long journey to Lepidstadt. I want to throw in some interesting encounters so I’ve thought about using Spring-Heeled Jack.

The party could out-slug him easily, so I’m going to have him hit the party with hit-and-run tactics, as well as pulling off cruel tricks (such as nasty traps, attracting monsters, etc).

Jack doesn't want to kill them all straight away; he wants to make a game of it that will entertain him for days.

Does anyone have any interesting (and cruel) ideas that could help me? I want the players to absolutely hate him by the end of it :D

I'm starting this campaign on Wednesday and i'm worried about an aggressive munchkin player not mixing too well with the first encounter (at the funeral).

As soon as the angry mob get in the way, he'll have only one response. BOOM! (and he's the sort of player that takes a sadistic joy out of it too)

In my chronic insecurity, I have visions of a downward spiral that might look similar to this:
-When Father Grimbarrow arrives he'll obviously be horrified, and will argue with the party. BOOM!
-Kendra will probably freak out at that point. BOOM!
-When the sheriff hears, he'll want to question the party. BOOM!

Being the Alpha-munchkin of the group, the rest of the party will probably just go along with him, and within half an hour they'll be run out of town and have no reason to visit Harrowstone. (EDIT: or they might TPK as Grimbarrow is 7th level)

Any advice?

At the start of Varnhold Vanishing, it states that the party should be ninth level by the time they reach Vordakai's tomb. My players however, are only half-way through 7, and are heading to Vordakai's tomb from the Nomen lands.

The book seems to assume that the adventures are going to fully explore the whole region before coming to the final dungeon. It's quite a silly assumption really, since most roleplayers are conditioned over years to follow plot breadcrumbs. I had a similar trouble with the first chapter too.

All I can really think do is rearrange some of the encounters so they face them on the route. But even this will only just get them to 8 before Vord. I know that's only one level, but Vordakai is the hardest fight in the game so far.

Has anyone else had trouble with players rushing through the plot?

After a rather unclimatic battle with Adimarchus the campaign is finished!

It's been just under year and a half since we first started, and overall everyone had a great time.

I would say that this isn't the sort of campaign that a DM can just pick up and run, it takes a lot of extra work (which tbh I didn't do enough of). There are a lot of NPC which players just couldn't remember after a couple of months of absence. I also beleive a lot more foreshadowing is needed to build up to the dramatic boss fights (You don't see or hear much about the individual Cagewrights before you have to kill them). By the time we got to the last couple of chapters everyone was feeling a bit drained & just wanted it to end.

It had it's good ponits, especially some of the battles! In my opinion, this campaign could be one of the most amazing games ever if you get to run it a second time.

My gaming club is having a swap around soon, so I have to finish SC in 3 sessions (each of 3 hours).

The party have just dipped into the ruins of Shatterhorn, so we've still got a bit to go. Here's my idea on how to cut the adventure path short, any advice is welcome.

I'm cutting shattehorn short, and having them fight Vhalantru there to save time.

Once they go to Carceri, I'm cutting out the long journey and porting them right outside Skullrot.

I'll keep in the main encounters in Skullrot if I can, but I may cut some out if they're not up to Adimarchus before the last hour of the game.

What do you guys think?