Mark Hoover 330's page

I haven't run an adventure ever above level 15, and rarely make it to level 10 before real life conspires against one of my campaigns. For several years I have run a hybrid of the Lost City of Barakus and homebrewed adventures which is nearing it's natural conclusion in the megadungeon; PCs are L13 and hot on the heels of the BBEG of the titular lost city.

A couple sessions ago my players asked if we can continue this campaign after this expected end. I have to admit, this stopped me. I'd fully planned to start a new campaign in the setting to the point where I'd already started writing up random encounter tables.

Anyone have tips or suggestions for adventures between 15th-20th level? Like, I can pick some monsters out of the bestiaries and try to come up with fights but I don't have a lot of plot threads dangling out there. I do have one re: the elemental plane of fire and a war there, but like I said I didn't really revisit that, instead thinking I'd end and restart something new.

Elf Unchained Rogue (Scout) 12 in my megadungeon campaign. PCs just leveled to 12 and the PC took the Another Day Advanced Rogue Talent:

Prerequisite: Advanced talents

Benefit: Once per day, when the rogue would be reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by a melee attack, she can take a 5-foot step as an immediate action. If the movement takes her out of the reach of the attack, she takes no damage from the attack. The rogue is staggered for 1 round on her next turn.

If a foe attacks the rogue and hits her with a melee attack that also has Grab, leading to the rogue being Grappled by said attack, and also that attack would cause the rogue to be reduced to 0 HP, would the rogue move to avoid?

Second question: if the rogue is already IN a grapple, fails to break free, then takes damage as part of the grapple action that would reduce her to 0 HP, would she move as an Immediate action?

I need to get these questions answered as we have game day tomorrow and I have grappling undead on tap. Thanks!

I'm running a megadungeon campaign, APL12. The NG Elf U-Rogue (Scout)12 in the party has a Perception +28 at this point so when she is ahead of the party searching for traps only the most high level spell traps matter. The PCs however have gotten so used to moving slowly but finding nearly everything along the way that none of them, not even the rogue has any sort of permanent Detect Magic going or magic items like a Gem of True Seeing.

This got me thinking: couldn't this party be tripped up by a simple Alarm spell? I'm not talking about a Proximity Trigger as part of a trap here, just a L1 spell cast by, say, an enemy wizard. The spell isn't called out as a spell trap and if it isn't part of a larger trap as the trigger mechanism, the only way to detect it in place is by magic right?

I have a buddy who is aggressively "old skool" in the way he plays FRPGs. He is also pretty controlling; always the DM, never the player. He's been married to 3x D&D for decades and openly bad-mouthed PF1 to me before realizing it's my go-to system.

Tomorrow I'm going to be running a session of PF1 where he is a player in my game. We're starting off at L1 and since I've been running a lot of stuff lately in the Frog God Games setting I'm setting a generic, canned PF1 adventure in their world.

I'm nervous y'all. I don't know why exactly but this guy intimidates me. I've run several PF1 campaigns, I know the mechanics, read through the adventure and what not. I know how to do silly voices, ad lib NPCs, try to manage tension, all the skills a GM should practice IMO. Despite all that something about tomorrow's game has me on edge.

It's not a good anxious either. Like, I'm not excitedly looking forward to the clatter of the dice. More like I feel like I'm under a microscope. There's only 2 players; one has been in many of my PF1 games and seems to genuinely enjoy the way I run things. The other is this friend who has me sweating about tomorrow.

I've played in this gentleman's games in the past. He has story but he is extremely withholding of it so 10 sessions in you don't really know much about what's going on besides this is the enemy of the session, here's the ultimate big bad, and your own personal goals. NPCs tend to be 2d and the fights are an idea in the GM's head that then marry up to stat blocks he looks up on the fly in the Monster Manuals.

By contrast my games tend to focus on the characters and NPCs first, with combat sprinkled in as the conflicts escalate. I also use pre-written stat blocks as is but try to give the combat areas some character; shifting, loose stones, different elevations, cave formations or running water, etc. I also tend to be pretty open with my plots, using mysteries sparingly; I figure we all have jobs and lives and most of us are in our 40's and older, so forcing someone to unravel tangled plotlines months old in a 4 hour session on a weeknight is cruel and unusual punishment.

I don't know why I'm making this thread except to just document things. I'm nervous but hopeful that tomorrow's game will be the start of something cool for all three of us. Regardless of how it goes, I'll come back post game for an update. I guess, if anyone has tips or tricks to deal with anxiety around feeling intimidated by one of your players, let me know.

So, I do have a PS4 but I never play games like The Last of Us so watching the show is my first experience with the story. I know they changed parts for HBO. I purposely avoided any spoilers from the game story info online and went into this show blind. After watching the finale last night on Hulu, I only have one question:

You all KNEW this was coming, but there weren't worldwide alerts or anything?

That is honestly one of the darkest ending cliffhangers I've seen in a long time. For those of you who played the game and had to deal with that the first time, I am genuinely impressed with the level of emotional and mental fortitude you must possess. That ending was a lot is what I'm saying.

So in another thread a poster made a point about GMs that severely restrict or disallow the crafting of mundane or magic items, or restrict giving the PCs adequate resources or time between adventures to do so. Why?

If a player chooses to put ranks into a Craft skill, or a Profession skill like Baker or Woodcutter that might have some crossover into crafting, or they take an Item Creation feat, chances are they intend their PC to be making stuff. Some classes rely on these functions; a prepared full arcane caster might be under-resourced for spells to cast in a day without scrolls and what is the point of an Alchemist having Fast Alchemy and a portable alchemy kit if they are never allowed to use them?

So what reasons or justifications are we GM's using to prevent PCs from using these skills and abilities? More than that, why don't we WANT them making their own gear?

Pyrotechnic Eruption is a Wizard 4 spell. A player in my megadungeon campaign has a NG Humanoid (Human) Wizard (Fire Elementalist)11 PC with some extra cash beyond WBL. He is asking me if his PC can find anyone in town willing to let him copy this spell into his spellbook.

The reason I ask the question in the title is: at his level, this PC is dealing 19d6 Fire damage to a single victim (DC 21 Ref save every round for half damage) over the course of 4 rounds; for 3 of those rounds, 8d6 of that damage is happening in the background with no Concentration check or Move action required by the PC.

That means that round 1, the PC casts Pyrotechnic Eruption; if the foe is susceptible to Fire damage at all and he beats their SR, that foe is taking 11d6 Fire (Ref for half). Then rounds 2-4, the foe continues suffering the Fire damage from PE but is also taking Scorching Ray, or Fireball, or any number of other Fire damage spells in addition to the original spell.

Am I being too paranoid, or should I say this is one of the rare times he can't find someone in the Large City with all the arcane casters in it to sell him the spell?

I've asked people to stop gaming w/me over the years. I've also been removed from others' groups. It happens; your style isn't compatible with theirs, maybe you rubbed people the wrong way or you're just not good at the mechanics and refuse to learn. In instances though where I'd been generally friendly w/the folks at the table though I've always been able to either maintain friendships away from the games or rekindle things with them at a later time.

I recently removed a problem gamer from my table. They had been talked to many times, they cheated, they lied and they pretended to be ignorant or remorseful JUST ENOUGH to stay on in the games for years. Tail end of last year though our group had finally had enough so we gave this person 2 more sessions then ended things with them earlier this month.

We're all grownups though. Before I joined this particular group, one person had briefly dated the removed player and all of the original members were either online or in-person friends with them. As such, the group came to the decision to remove this player entirely from our lives; blocking the removed player's number, blocking them on social media and so on.

This is all new to me. We've moved the venue of our March session (we play 1/month) so this person doesn't physically show up and disrupt things. The removed player somehow managed to get to me through a dummy acct and sent me messages alternately sad and bitter: I'd helped them start writing again, I'm a funny storyteller, they're going to miss my game... I'm "throwing the baby out with the bath water" and I'm the one who's losing out here. That kind of thing.

Has anyone else found it hard to remove someone from their games? If so, were you able to maintain a social relationship if you wanted to or did you have to cut all ties with the person?

I mean, the obvious answer is as foes for the PCs, but what kind of stories do you use for this creature type? Are they aliens from space, invaders from other dimensions, former creatures of other types warped into their current form? If you subscribe to that last one, can aberrant creatures be turned back?

I've been thinking about creating my own homebrewed AP relying heavily on aberrant creatures. In the campaign, most of these creatures were once something else and weird, alien radiation corrupted them into the monsters the PCs face. In this way though, I was also thinking of the rare player (at my tables anyway) who, upon discovering that fact might want to try and reverse the process and save those they can.

I have no idea yet what that reversal might look like or need. I mean, if I was playing in a different system and crafting, say, a modern or sci-fi type campaign it would be easy. When it comes to high fantasy where spells from Dispel Magic, Mage's Disjunction or even Wish are a thing a convoluted alchemical antidote or radiation siphon wouldn't really be needed.

Anyway, I'm curious how you've implemented Aberrant creatures into your campaigns. What kind of backstories and ecologies have you used or narrative quirks did these creatures have?

I never have so I'm wondering what people's experiences were. I've played 20 pt buy and some GM handwaving back before even the hybrid classes were created, that's the closest I ever came.

When I say strict RAW, I mean every rule as written in the Core book. Like, you have to watch your carrying capacity and count your ammo; when you arrive in a village, the GM randomly rolls what magic items are for sale and those are it; a CR 8 encounter yields exactly 2,200 GP worth of treasure if you're playing Slow progression, 3,350 on Medium, or 5000 GP on Fast.

I see all the time comments to the effect of the PCs outpacing monsters/foes by like, L5 or whatever, but I wonder if part of that gap has to do with point buys and other rules, or if it's really as baked into the math as everyone says. I'm also just curious if anyone enjoyed/enjoys this style of play.

How many non-martial PCs, either arcane casters or divine healer types, have you played with a 10 Str? There are GMs out there that track equipment weight and under those rules, a Str 10 PC only has up to 33 lbs before they are at Medium Load. You ever actually look at clothes?

An Explorer's Outfit for example. Say your 10 Str wizard 1 doesn't know what the weather will bring and knows that their GM likes using wilderness rules. An Explorer's Outfit weighs 8 lbs. Tack on your wizard's spellbook, there's another 3 lbs. A spell component pouch is 2 lbs. At this point we're at 13 lbs and the wizard has no scrolls, carrying devices, spare weapons, alchemical items or doses of alchemical power components and so on.

In this thread, a GM aptly points out that ammunition matters. While I don't necessarily disagree, I don't track the weight and quantity as closely as I could as a GM. The reality to me is that, before Rapid Shot or iterative attacks become a thing, a dedicated archer fires one arrow per round.

Per the Weapons section, 20 arrows weighs 3 lbs. In the description however, it clearly shows that these arrows come in a leather quiver with no additional weight suggested for said carrying device. Your interpretation may vary, but this suggests to me that its the arrows AND the quiver that combined weigh 3 lbs. A bundle of 20 arrows then weighs less than 3 lbs.

I bring this up b/c if you have a martial dedicated to archery, chances are that at L1 the PC's Dex is higher than their Str. If your Legolas clone is closely watching both their carrying capacity and their ammo, they might have an extra 20 arrows on their person somewhere.

40 arrows, fired at 1 per combat round from L1, should be enough for this PC to level up to L2 without needing to purchase more arrows unless you are using Slow advancement. I say that b/c the "average" fight at APL1 is CR 1, and it requires 20 or less fights for this PC to advance at Medium or Fast advancement.

40 arrows with quivers weighs 6 lbs. A common longbow weighs 3 lbs. An explorer's outfit weighs 8 lbs. If this PC wants "adventuring gear," a Pathfinder's Kit has nearly everything you might need for wilderness travel except rope, but that weighs another 22 lbs. Now, without rope or armor, a backup melee weapon, or any other gear for fighting swarms/overcoming low level DRs, you're already at 39 lbs. If this archer wants to move their full movement rate they better have a 14 Str or better; leather armor alone weighs 15 lbs.

Do you track weight and ammo count in your games? If you do, what creative solutions have PCs come up with? Here are some I've developed over the years:

1. Be Small size: your carrying capacity limits are only 2/3 the standard limits, but all your gear is 1/2 weight because its sized for a Small PC
2. Get a mount, a hireling, or establish a base camp: one of my favorite scenes in the movie Platoon is Elias saying to his troops "you don't need THIS, you don't need THIS..." while stripping non-essential gear off their packs. Bottom line, if you're lower Str get someone else to carry your stuff or just leave what you don't need behind
3. Know what to expect: sure, its a magical world and freak atmospheric events can happen, but predicting the mundane weather for the next 24 hours is a DC 15 check; 1 rank in the skill as a Class skill with a Wis of 12 means you can auto-succeed if you can take 10. Knowing the sun'll come out tomorrow might let you lose some layers and save a couple lbs encumbrance
4. Masterwork backpack: If you have a Str 10 but 50 spare GP and access to a Settlement, you can carry gear like you have a Str 11 picking up an extra 5 lbs in Light Load carrying capacity
5. Figure out where you can take 10: If you have an Int bonus of +2 and the right common artisan tools on hand, you can craft any ammo requiring a DC 12 check. 20 arrows and the quiver cost a combined 1 GP; the tools are a 5 GP investment. Taking 10 and getting a 12, times a DC of 12, means that you can craft 14.4 GP worth of arrows in a week, so crafting 1 GP worth of arrows would be less than 1/14th that. The crafting cost for 1 GP worth of arrows is 3.3 repeating SP, so if your GM lets you get away with it you could say you just spent 4 SP before leaving town to craft while adventuring through the wilderness
6. Use magic: One player in a game a while back started a tradition. His PC was a wizard and the ranger in the group was Dex based, focused on archery as well as weapon finesse. The wizard made a point of putting Arcane Mark on all of the ranger's arrows before their first adventure, then kept selecting Detect Magic among his cantrips every day. Any time the ranger missed a shot, the wizard would cast Detect Magic to find any "lost" arrows quickly. Alongside this there's the spell Abundant Ammunition so that for non-magical ammo you're not losing any you pull; Unseen Servant to hold a bunch of quivers for a PC; Ant Haul so that, for a couple hours at least, somebody's carrying capacity triples. I'm sure there's plenty of others I'm forgetting

All of this is obviously for low level play. By L3 the party may be able to purchase a Handy Haversack. This device, even when filled, will always weigh 5 lbs. By volume however the bag has 2 side pouches that can contain 2 Cu Feet or 20 lbs each, then a central portion that can hold 8 Cu feet or 80 lbs. There's also the Efficient Quiver or simply a Bag of Holding as well.

Of course, purchasing or crafting any of these sets the expectation that the PCs have access to any kind of settlement or Downtime. It may be that the party will never stop running from/fighting evil, constantly on the frontlines with barely moments to rest between battles, all of which take place in wilderness or dungeon settings. If this is the case, remember: unless its a VERY lopsided campaign, not every NPC you encounter will be evil.

Diplomacy requires 1 minute of interaction to influence the attitude of a creature with a 3 or greater Int that can understand you. If, during your crazed and breathless crusade you happen upon intelligent humanoids, especially those that might have some kind of crafting abilities and a base of operations, getting them to Indifferent in attitude means you can request things of them. From here, you might be able to pay them to craft items such as masterwork backpacks or magic items and such.

This would only take a minute to initiate, but it might save you time down the road. Finally, work with your GM. Survival DC 10 means that by moving at half speed in the wilderness you can "get along" in the wilderness. Many real world cultures are able to craft small amounts of bark twine using their bare hands or stone tools in a single day; if your PC has the Survival skill and the GM is willing, perhaps they can craft rope from vines, twine from plant fibers, simple water containers from woven twigs and so on.

I watch Tiktok on my lunch breaks. The first one that came up, the way I found out the Queen of England had passed, was a contemptuous satire of her path in the afterlife.

That was cruel. Literal minutes after Queen Elizabeth had been announced as gone, some American with spite for the royals was spitting venom. I'm... frustrated with some of the people in my country right now.

I'm not from England, don't really know the respectful way to do this. I'm just saying that I'm sorry for the passing of the Queen. She had reigned every day I've been alive, until today. I hope that her family can be given time to grieve this loss. I think the other thing I'm supposed to say is, God save the King, so I'll leave that here as well.

So a Troglodyte is a Med Humanoid making them eligible for the Zombie template. Under that template many special abilities and all Defensive abilities of the base creature are lost, but in the Troglodyte stat block, Stench is listed outside of Offense and Defense. Now, looking under the universal monster rules, Stench is called a "special ability" in the fluff, but is never designated as EX, SU, etc.

Would a Troglodyte Zombie lose Stench? I want to partner some akatas with the No Breath ability (so they're immune to the Stench aura) with some trogs and also make some Void Zombies out of them as well.

I don't know why this is getting to me. Maybe b/c I'm only 5 years younger than she was, or maybe b/c Six Days, Seven Nights is one of my favorite date films. I don't know, its just sad and I wanted to post this somewhere so this is the news today.

By RAW there's no CR adjustment to Beheaded if I only add ONE power right? Except if I add Swarming which automatically counts as 2 powers. Looking to make a low level encounter where undead monsters' heads come off and to add another phase of the combat.

Rapid Spell
(Complete Divine, p. 84)

[Metamagic]

You can cast spells with long casting times more quickly.

Prerequisite
Benefit
Only spells with a casting time greater than 1 standard action can be made rapid. A rapid spell with a casting time of 1 full round can be cast as a standard action. A rapid spell with a casting time measured in rounds can be cast in 1 full round. Rapid spells with casting times measured in minutes can be cast in 1 minute, and rapid spells with casting times measured in hours can be cast in 1 hour. A rapid spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.

Special
A spell can be made rapid and quickened only if its original casting time was 1 full round. This feat can be applied to a spell cast spontaneously as long as its original casting time was longer than 1 full round.

So, I played one session as a cleric in a 3.5 game which I shan't be back to, but I got to use this feat. I started the game at L4 so I took Summon Monster I as a Rapid Spell in one of my L2 slots and that plus a free Combat Casting feat saved my life after a Surprise round.

In one of my 2 current campaigns, I have a Druid constantly whining that they never have a Full Round of leisure to cast Summon Nature's Ally. Does anyone think this feat is overly powerful or could otherwise break a game? The only way I could really see it exploited in PF1 would be if a spellcaster ponied up the cash to make expensive wands or scrolls so that they could cast summon spells as Standards, but what do you all think?

Ok, buckle in b/c I'm going to rant and if you choose to read it that's up to you. I sit down to a session 0 with a GM. He claims to be "old school," my first red flag. Then he says he does worldbuilding "from the inside out" meaning that we start off in a place that's fairly well defined but that the world outside this starting point is kind of unknown, at least to the PCs.

We start making characters (D&D 3.5 FYI) and I ask the name of the town - he doesn't have that generated yet. I'm rolling up a cleric; what deities are we using? "Just pick one" the GM responds. Later in the evening its revealed we're supposed to be either part of the nobility or serving them. I ask who the nobility are; house names or ranks, is it feudal or theocracy or what. "I don't have that all in front of me."

So the inside, the starting point, is completely under-defined. Got it. And we're supposed to be worldbuilding from "the inside out." Oh yeah, and when I tried to just freestyle some details so that my chosen deity could have a temple in the town, the GM shut me down. He doesn't want the players creating his world; he'll be in charge of that.

Don't lie to your players. Don't lure them to the table telling them you've got a mega-plot, a detailed starting locale, and this SUPER cool twist for the campaign when the reality is you have done NO work on the starting locale, very little plot prep and the SUPER COOL TWIST is guessed by all the players at the table 14 minutes into character creation - we died and are playing evil undead versions of our characters.

On a personal note, I'm so sick and tired of check-your-head-at-the-door campaigns. Like, I don't need Holmes-level mysteries, but at least come up with plots that are more than "religion bad; undead everywhere!" That was the basic thru-line of this guy's last campaign he was telling me about (which self-destructed at level 5 FYI) and it sounds like this is another shade of the same material.

I'm giving it ONE session. ONE. I'm a man of my word and I'm giving this game a try. For the love of God and all that's good and holy, I hope things get better.

So last night I was rolling up a new PC. My buddy is running a 3.5 D&D campaign but the myopic view of character definition by class still applies. As soon as one of the other players said he was a barbarian, everyone at the table was like "ok, so you grew up outside the city, you're low Int and you smash stuff? Got it."

But I was like "maybe he was raised IN the city, but he was born out of trauma and couldn't contain his temper growing up? So a mentor figure takes him in, teaches him how to USE that rage... focus it on the PC's self defense? Maybe he's part of a regiment of disciplined solders that enter a "battle trance" where their "rage" is extreme mind-over-matter? He doesn't HAVE to be some savage outworlder in fur boots."

Folks at the table looked at me like I was crazy.

Point is that a PC's class shouldn't stereotype them into a single expression of that class. Even with archetypes; not all Unchained Scout Rogues are battle scouts from some military unit.

Feel free to either give your commentary on the idea of Class as character definition or share your examples of this happening to you.

So I'm not just looking for the RAW but a discussion on this topic. There's a template out there that suggests making an Energized golem is more expensive than a standard one. However there are rules for harvesting Trophies from creatures to preserve and sell as art objects or for supplementing costs in magic item creation and such.

If you defeat an Energized Iron Golem for example, that creature's creation cost was 105,000 GP and the market price for such a construct is up over 150,000 GP. If the party has a way to transport it, can they sell the defeated golem like an item or an art object? Would they instead need to make a Trophy from it? Would the same rules apply to any golem, like a wax or flesh golem?

Teach me. Seriously, I'm good at a lot in TTRPGs but my ability to run "dynamic" encounters - that is, encounters with traps, hazards, or unique conditions in the environment, are just lacking.

The party is APL 9 and terrain is usually Dungeon. We have a 1/2 elf u-monk 8 with a decent Perception and free Skill Focus (Perception) at creation. There's an elf u-rogue (scout)8, 120' Darkvision, a grippili bard (busker bard)6 cohort and the Trapspotter ability. We also have a 1/2 dwarf paladin 8 who brings his 1/2 orc cleric 6 cohort along everywhere and rounding out the party a human wizard (fire elementalist)8 with a pyrausta familiar on his shoulder; said dragon was allowed to improve to an "elder pyrausta" at level 7 to give it a fighting chance at higher level game play. This does mean however that the dragon has a 14 Wis, Perception as a class skill and the wizard has been sinking one of his own skill ranks into that skill every level, so the thing is a tertiary lookout.

My point is, unless the rogue and monk are both unconscious, they notice everything. They can use Free actions for a sentence or 2 in order to warn folks in combat where not to step so that triggers aren't set off, tripwires don't get pulled and so forth. The players are paranoid so unless there's a time crunch they scout ahead, occasionally use summoned monsters, or once in a great while interrogate their enemies.

Short of just GM fiat, how do I add traps or other static terrain elements that ACTUALLY impact encounters?

Just trying to gauge the forums, see what you folks do. For a long time I had players pick one PC with an appropriate Knowledge skill, then anyone else with that knowledge could attempt to Aid Another. They'd get one big number and I'd tell them a lot about one monster.

Recently I switched to making each PC roll and, if some folks got above the base for the lore check they might know one or more things about the monster. Sometimes they know the same stuff, sometimes different info.

I made the switch b/c honestly after about level 4 the one guy that always plays the arcane caster with some ability or feat that makes their knowledge checks ridiculous is usually going to know everything anyway, but when they were doing Aid Another checks some of the numbers got so high I might as well just hand the players the monster's stat block.

Now it works more like this: I've got a modified CR 6 ghoul with NPC class levels to make it a setting-specific ghoul variant. These are pretty uncommon, so the base DC for a knowledge check is 21. 3 of the 4 PCs have 1 rank in Knowledge (Religion) and they have a paid NPC Cleric with them as well.

Going around the table the paladin gets a 22, the NPC Cleric has a 19, the u-monk gets a 28 and the wizard scores a 31. So nearly everyone knows it's an undead ghoul variant called a Spirit-Ridden Ghoul and, like all ghouls, they'll paralyze you if they hit you with their natural attacks. The monk and wizard however both know that the spirit that inhabits and "rides" the animated corpse gives extra skill and power in combat; they also know that the ghoul can create standard ghoul spawn when they slay mortals. Finally the wizard, having the highest roll, knows that the rite that binds the spirit to the corpse is fiendish in nature; the Spirit-Ridden Ghoul can empower it's attacks with the Smite Good ability and has a powerful resistance to several energy types.

Am I doing it wrong? Does anyone else do it one way or another? What are your thoughts on Knowledge checks and Aid Another bonuses?

Here's a weird question I can't seem to find the answer to: if a PC is away from their business long enough for attrition to occur, what happens if the business isn't generating Capital and the PC doesn't have any laying around?

The PCs in my game have been away from town 21 days. All 4 PCs have a business with an organization as well as a manager, so they'll only lose 1 of each Capital type (Goods, Influence, Labor and Magic). One of the PCs however spent out all of the Capital they had before leaving town and while they were out just wanted the business to generate GP.

So in that case... do they lose nothing to attrition? Would it be fair for the PC to lose 1 GP instead? I'm putting this in Advice because I don't see a rule that covers this situation. Any feedback is welcome. Thanks!

PCs are L8 and just finished a mission so not currently under a time crunch. 2 of the PCs are a Wizard (Fire Elementalist)8 and a Paladin 8 with Craft Magic Arms and Armor. Those 2 PCs have gotten buy in from the other 2 PCs to spend 3 weeks of Downtime so that they can make a Weapon, some Armor and a few Wondrous Items respectively.

That leaves 2 other PCs with 3 weeks of Downtime. One is a U-Monk 8 with Profession (Courtesan) who is perfectly content just running his business, adding Rooms and Teams to grow the organization, and making a couple Gather Info checks here and there for rumors among his clientele he might be able to exploit.

The other PC however is a U-Rogue 8. The player at the end of last night's session was visibly upset but begrudgingly agreed to the 3 week Downtime. Then, just as I was packing up I overheard her say "well I don't know what I'M s'posed to do for three weeks! I'M not crafting anything! I guess I'll just sit around my bar since I don't have any gold left."

So... suggestions? I know people hate the SRD, but I did send her the info there about Blackmail, Infiltrating another organization, Coerce an NPC, etc. Even still, I'm open to ideas other folks have used in their own campaigns to keep non-crafting PCs interested/engaged in long amounts of Downtime.

Last, but certainly not least, elaborate social encounters or extended roleplaying is out with this player. She has no patience or enjoyment in such encounters, so getting involved in some extended intrigue is out as well. Thanks in advance!

We lost another iconic actor and comedian. He was one of the best stand up acts I've ever seen and had some great roles. He will be sorely missed!

Since HS my players and I were always emotionally invested to some degree in our characters and the story. I've had folks cry at the table, whole campaigns have been engineered around personal growth and so on. Because of the way I game, I tend to add emo stuff into my games.

If any of you have paid attention to my megadungeon campaign posts over the past year, you know that my players are not really touchy feely types. This past session that came to a head. Turns out, when push comes to shove even the guy running the paladin will gladly solve problems like a Vulcan; the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, emotions are illogical and so on.

Anyway, now to my problem: I've run and designed every game in every system for 30+ years with emo roots. I plan out sympathetic bad guys, NPCs have backstories, storylines are meant to emotionally connect with the players. Currently I have 4 players that frankly do not care about the game on a personal level.

So what, I just... open up the Bestiary, pick appropriate monsters, drop them in with some loot and string together some surface level plot? Like, do I mine TV Tropes or something? I don't really know how to craft games for folks like this.

Also, this leads to a second problem: motivation. With these players and the way they game, there's nothing that they see as personal, so there's really nothing I can do to motivate them. The only reason they have their characters go on adventures are 3 reasons: money, mechanical power for their character, or because a more powerful authority told them to.

While on missions, especially now at L8 when they can afford and reliably cast a scroll of Breath of Life now and then, there's really nothing I can do to threaten them other than TPK's. They've shown a willingness to attack NPCs until they hit 0 HP, then stabilize them later; none of the PCs have signature gear for me to steal or corrupt; they have Cohorts, AC's and Familiars among them, but a few levels ago one player reminded me that his familiar is just GP and some time spent to bring back if it dies.

Help me understand and build adventures for folks who will have no emotional engagement with the source material. Also if any of you play this way or have played with folks like this, feel free to offer anecdotes or educate me on non-emo gaming.

Does anyone listen to The Magnus Archives by Rusty Quill Podcasts? It's kind of embarrassing, but I heard a sound on a TikTok video that referenced the series, and from there I found them on YouTube. Its a horror series with a huge amount of worldbuilding and some truly amazing stories. I didn't see anything on these forums, just wondering if folks had already discovered these and I'm just SUPER late to the party?

Thought I'd make a new thread since I didn't want to hijack the one that DeathlessOne posted the following excellent point in:

I suppose that's just a long way to say this: Feats are not as important as people think that they need to scrimp and save and get the perfect one. Not for any kind of 'average' game that keeps within the expectations of the CR system.

I've been a big advocate for this for years. Feats, Traits, Archetypes and so on aren't inherently there to make your Barbarian do more DPR, or make your Brown Fur Arcanist nearly indestructible. Instead these are simply tools to round you out into the unique character you want to be.

Think of it like this: pick whatever benchmark system you want to measure your combat ability against; I myself just use the Monster Creation rules but use what you feel comfortable with. Combat is inevitable in a PF1 game unless your GM is running a truly unique campaign. Once you've hit the metrics you need to for defeating a monster of the CR that equals your current level, what if other choices you made for Feats, Traits, Archetypes and so on were based on some non-combat feature of your character?

My point with this post is to open a discussion about the merits of NOT optimizing your PC entirely for combat, or perhaps only optimizing to be "ok" at combat. Here, for myself I'm defining "ok" as being able to hit about 50% or more of the time and deal avg damage or overcome the saves of my enemies about 50% or more of the time, as measured against the Monster Creation chart. Again, your benchmarks may vary.

U-Rogue (r) and U-Monk (m) are like this at the start of a round with a medium sized undead (u):

r m u

Could they set up a readied action chain as follows:

1. Monk (with Improved Grapple/Greater Grapple) starts a grapple, moving the undead into their square
2. Monk uses Move action to Pin undead
3. Pin triggers Rogue's readied action and she makes 2 melee attacks, both of which with SA added
4. Monk finishes his full round action by using a Free action to release the grapple and a 5' step to get behind the undead, thus putting the undead foe between monk and rogue in a flank

Can you Ready off an action inside a grapple? I would guess so, since its a Move action to pin, but I wanted to ask for clarity. Thanks!

Ok, I'm bad at this. Anyone got any build advice for making standard CR3 wights threatening to an APL9 party? I'm looking to get the generic wight up to about CR6-7, then build combats with 2 or more of these creatures in the mix. I'll also be sprinkling in some demons and the environment is a dungeon below a barrow mound, so I'll have to figure a way to factor that in as well.

Bottom line is that just adding enough HD to the standard Wight would make the monster LAST longer, but not really add anything to the combat. I'm not looking to just brute up the wights. Instead I'm looking for ways to maybe give them a Touch attack or to target Will saves, or other more interesting choices.

Also, I'm not looking to TPK the party. An "average" fight would be CR9, so if I made the wights CR6 I'd be making a combat involving 3 of these creatures. If I really WANT to destroy this party I'll throw in a single Coloxus demon and call it a day. No, I just want a CR6-7 monster that actually delivers some measure of threat to this party.

Thing is, the more I scour the boards the more I realize how much I don't know. Would grappling be a good strategy? How about levels of Magus along with Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack? Considering wights start with a high Cha, is there a 3-level Oracle or Sorcerer build that might help? Or, am I overthinking and there's a Simple template out there I should consider?

Do your players actually have their characters interact with their backstories? Over the weekend I was reviewing some old stuff in my megadungeon campaign and I came across the email chains showing each PC's backstory elements. I generated two obvious side plots from them which resolved over a year ago now.

Since then, these PCs have never once gone back to their former homes, checked in with their families. One player asked a couple months ago to port over some old 3.5 gem magic items for his character to craft, and I had to remind HIM that, in looking for rare gems to craft with, the dwarven half of his family mines rare minerals to the south.

Is this common, rare, or (as with most things) a little of both in other people's games? I had a character I only got to play up to 3rd level but she was a half-elf wizard from a Romani-style traveler clan. Between the end of level 1 to the start of level 3 we used the Downtime rules and started businesses.

My character purchased a Scriptorium for myself, penning scrolls or making books, paper and scrivener's kits for profit, but I ALSO created a Laundry room which I asked the GM to keep separate from my main business. Finally I generated a team of Craftspeople to run the laundry; three washer women who were, in fact, my character's "sisters" who I was helping establish themselves in the city.

The end goal was to help others of my clan settle in the city where they would develop into a merchant organization. The GM had laws in the city preventing this, so my character was using her adventuring career to earn enough fame and money to get this done under the radar.

While the main plot of the game unfolded, my PC would have had an entire background plot that in turn would've tied back to our party's adventures. The PC's clan was feeding the party info and, as they settled in the area would've become information brokers and such.

I don't know; am I the outlier here?

I didn't know where to put this but Full House was on TV. Bob Saget RIP.

In this thread a poster said:

I've only played a few "archers", but I've played a lot of back row guys like casters and the norm is that enemies are constantly in your face.

I didn't want to derail the thread, so I'm asking here how do I do this as a GM; how do I make the "norm that enemies are constantly in your face" for the back-of-the-party types?

I run a megadungeon game and the characters often scout religiously unless they're on a clock. Between their senses and consumable utility magic items, it's hard to have a random encounter sneak up on 'em. Also, with all of this recon they often approach rooms or other encounter areas with SOME kind of forewarning of what's ahead.

And that's just it... the villains are always ahead. I've tried having enemies go invisible and run behind the party, but Glitterdust and high initiatives; I've tried the villains being gaseous form but the u-monk can use Ki for Gust of Wind; I've tried teleportation in combat but demons have to use an SLA and a Standard to do so.

I need to understand better methods of threatening ALL Of the characters. To that end, here's a very brief overview of the party:

Human Wizard (Fire Elementalist)7 with a Pyrausta familiar
Elf U-Rogue (Scout)7 with a grippili bard (busker bard) 5 cohort
1/2 Elf U-Monk 7 focused on grappling but otherwise vanilla
1/2 Dwarf Paladin 7 with special dispensation by me to have a War Bull as their Divine Bond mount; 1/2 orc cleric 5 cohort

Nearly every fight in the dungeon involves the u-rogue scouting ahead and letting the other PCs know what's coming. Then the party moves forward, their noise alerting the enemy but the rogue getting a Surprise round usually. Combat then unfolds, with the u-rogue, u-monk, paladin and the paladin's mount forming the "front line" where all the melee takes place.

These are enough bodies between the enemies and the wizard, 2 cohorts and the familiar in the "back" that those entities are rarely challenged by any kind of melee. Ranged attacks might target one or more of these PCs/NPCs, but the Wizard and the cleric cohort are builds focused around ranged combat.

The only time I've consistently worried the "back row" types was when using incorporeal foes. While the cleric has Channel Positive Energy he's not built exclusively to use it so it is a nuisance at best to such foes. That being said I'd rather not make the entire rest of the dungeon exclusively wraiths, ghosts and shadows.

Hear me out. I want to have a minor villain in a homebrewed level 1 adventure be a unique Spirit Oni. To do so, I was considering changing it's 2 feats from Improved Initiative and Weapon Finesse to Improved Unarmed Strike and Magic Trick: Mage Hand.

Is it legal by RAW for the Oni to take Improved Unarmed Strike? This will vastly change it's Attack modifiers with it's physical attacks, I get that, but if IUS is legal, then combining it with Magic Trick means the creature can:

1. Move objects up to 10 lbs instead of 5 (per Powerful Hand)
2. Render ranged Aid Another checks at the range of it's Mage Hand by making a Touch attack instead of a normal attack roll (per Ranged Aid)
3. Attack at range with a telekinetic punch dealing 1d3 Force damage and using it's Cha bonus and Caster Level 6 for the attack bonus (per Throw Punch)

I just thought it looked cool in my head that an innocuous "evil mask" could turn invisible, pick up 10 lb weights, or become visible again and either help it's "master" get a +2 on an attack roll or punch someone in the face from 30' away.

So I have seen a permutation of this comment on several threads: "martial types and most PCs need a melee, ranged, and a backup melee weapon." The question for my discussion and the stories I'd like to hear... when do those backups actually matter?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with having a melee and ranged option, even if your PC isn't a switch-hitter build. Anecdotally I've seen no less than 3 barbarian builds where, if the PC couldn't get to melee range for some reason, their character basically just stood around and tried to Intimidate to demoralize a foe for several levels. For Str based martial types I have strongly urged players to include a sling on every character; they're cheap, easy to carry, and the ammo is cheap as well so if the foe is airborne or whatever, they've got SOMETHING to do and it adds Str to damage w/out breaking the bank.

But maybe this is an indictment of my poor GM'ing skills, but PCs in my games are rarely Grappled or Disarmed and I've only had one PC in one encounter have their weapon Sundered. Having a Light melee weapon just in case of being Grappled has never once paid off in my games.

I'm looking for your anecdotes or examples of the importance of backup weapons and characters justifying them.

So I just did a dive through these boards and found a couple threads that suggest that the disembodied spirits of Oni manifest by infusing themselves into the flesh of a sinful mortal. However, in the bestiary it sounds like Oni will themselves into a new, material body so they can enjoy sin for themselves. Do we know which one it is?

If it's the "possess a mortal" type, what happens to the person being "ridden?" Like, if someone is particularly vile and attracts an Oni into them, but then some aspect of the mortal consciousness remains after the Oni takes over, can the mortal side come out? Can they be freed? Bear in mind, I haven't read through Occult Adventures so maybe all of this is covered elsewhere.

I'm suggesting that the following skills are NEEDED in a party of PCs, but nothing more than this list is required for long-term success in a campaign:

Diplomacy
6 Knowledge skills (the Monster Lore ones)
Perception

What's interesting to me is that martial PCs with Full BAB and some other classes are often derided as being "skill starved." If your GM allows Traits, nearly no skill is out of reach as a Class skill. If the above skills are truly all that's necessary, then every character needs to average to 2 ranks/level in a 4 person party.

The movement skills and Acrobatics seem good on paper but are rarely used in gameplay, unless you've chosen a specific type of character that likely has many skill ranks/level. Craft, Profession or Perform, for the purposes of making a living can all be replaced by Diplomacy (if using the Downtime rules) or Craft can be used untrained. Stealth can be managed in rounds at first, then in minutes per casting of spells from level 1.

So if you had a party of 4, let's say Paladins. If their Int is at least 10, they get 8 skill ranks. That's enough for these four PCs to have the above 8 skills covered through Traits as well as normal Class skills. They won't be spectacular at the Knowledge checks, but they'll be able to attempt them.

I'm making this thread b/c I don't understand why people still concern themselves with how many skills a PC does or doesn't get, and what skills those are.

A quote from a regular forum poster named Melkiador from a thread about the utility of Channel Positive Energy:

If you have a small party size(3-4), then there is a fair chance that your party will need in combat healing on a regular basis. If you're not, then your GM is probably being very kind and never going for a kill, even if doing so would be logical for the enemies.

So yesterday I had another session of my infamous megadungeon campaign. Without going into too much detail, the PCs are a half-elf u-monk 7, an elf u-rogue (scout) 7, a half-dwarf paladin 7 and a human wizard (fire elementalist) 7.

They have rolled stats, so their stats are much higher than a 20 pt buy. They have avg WBL but supplement this with consumables (now that I bullied them into it). Each is optimized for combat with the monk acting as a dpr/grappler, the paladin is the low-damage tank with a sacred mount for more damage, the rogue is getting SA on about 1/2 her attacks and the fire wizard is all about ranged energy damage.

Finally, they got Leadership as a free feat (homebrew campaign) at level 7 so two of the four cohorts are traveling with them. Suffice it to say, I estimate them at APL 8 and build encounters accordingly.

Now, I DID recently kill 2 of those PCs last level, but the foe they were attacking was a CR 10 young adult black dragon and they used terrible tactics. Most of the time my fights include a couple waves of low CR monsters, perhaps 1-3 of such creatures per wave, with one big foe. That "big" one is either a support type that tries to make the wave creatures stronger or is some big bruiser type.

It is common for me to deal a LITTLE damage to these PCs, but 1. with the exception of the dragon encounter they rarely even come close to death or even get knocked out; 2. its not unusual to have one entire wave of foes not deal ANY damage at all; 3. if I target their saves with anything except an EXTREMELY optimized enemy it is a wasted action on my part.

Based on Melkiador's comment and similar sentiments on these boards... I feel like I am probably a pushover GM.

Am I supposed to be "going for the kill" more often than not when I design my combat encounters? Like, if you still use CR's I usually design my fights to be like equal to or 1 higher than the APL. Should my "average" fights be tougher?

And before I get a million folks asking me yes; my players say they're having fun. That being said, I still think I'm doing them a disservice. Most of their fights are very minimal threat and resource investment, but often when I then put a really tough fight down they use poor tactics, get complacent and in that dragon fight it cost half the party their lives.

So like, I've got four PCs well optimized for combat. Their tactics lately have been sloppy and at times non-sensical (a U-Rogue [Scout]6 charge-attacking a Young Adult Black Dragon), but for the most part due to rolled stats and well chosen feats I should be able to count on 3 high DPR martial types backed up by a Fire Wizard.

In another thread about undead I realized how crazy a Juju Oracle can get, just by level 6 with their Animate Dead spell if a PC was super optimized and I made the joke that one Juju Oracle 6 villain could be surrounded by 6 9HD Fast Zombies in a boss fight. Another poster reminded me it's not always advisable to optimize a villain as hard as you can a PC.

That got me thinking... does anyone besides me ever mine threads with the likes of VoodistMonk or Ryze Kuja or some of the other ridiculously talented PC builders out there, hunting up extreme villain builds? Like, just how hard SHOULD we be optimizing our villains?

I'm all for not making fights too tough on the PCs and letting the environment or dynamic, fantastical hazards like bubbling acid pits with narrow bridges add spice to a combat encounter. Sometimes though I find myself wanting to take some lowly kobold, give it PC levels with the accompanying +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, -2 bonuses, then optimize the crud out of it and put a boss in front of my players that can genuinely threaten their heroic lives.

How much is too much?

So, Hardened Fists is the level 1 Bloodline Power for the Sorcerer Shapechanger Bloodline. This is a Free action to deal lethal damage as if you were one size larger with your unarmed strike for a round.

This ability does not state that this is a Polymorph effect. Will Enlarge Person or other size changes stack with Hardened Fists?

So, in another thread I've discussed some foolishness that led to 2 of the 4 PCs in my megadungeon game dying in a fight with a dragon. Follow the link for the highlight reel. Now however I'm running into a different problem.

The main reason the players decided to go after the dragon in it's lair now is because several allied ratfolk NPCs in another part of the dungeon had been threatened and attacked by the kobold minions of the dragon. If the party didn't intervene, the dragon or its minions would've slain the ratfolk. However, on a more practical note the players also realized that they were pretty behind on WBL and thought a dragon hoard might catapult them from the end of level 6 to level 7 both in level and wealth.

So now they've all leveled to 7th level. Part of the reason they were all down so much WBL was b/c they bought a scroll of Breath of Life and had to use it this past fight. Unfortunately another reason they're low on WBL is b/c I've been so stingy with loot so I padded the dragon's hoard with extra treasure from the kobold minions, a couple named kobold NPCs and such.

Anyway, how close to WBL should I stick, and how much of the cost of raising the dead should be shouldered by the PC that died? If you read through the highlights, the PC that needs raising was told NOT to move up and solo the dragon with unarmed attacks, did it anyway, and bit it. I don't know if player decisions factor into payment terms, but there you go.

I want to be a good GM and I know the wizard PC has run out of spells a couple times now b/c he hasn't had enough GP to craft a ton of scrolls or cheap wands to back himself up, but at the same time its really not MY fault that the one PC got slain by the dragon. Let me know what you folks all do for WBL in general and if you have any advice for these players specifically. Thanks!

I'm not adding a link b/c I don't want to get banned or offend or anything. This movie is a 2020 sendup to a lot of campy horror flicks from the late 70's to early 90's. It's made by the same folks that made Manborg, if you've seen that one, so it's kind of shoestring and cheesy. Still, I loved it.

The "horror" is really just gore. Its more like a sci-fi/fantasy comedy with horror elements. The plot is pretty simple but with some character driven nuance I really enjoyed. If anyone else has watched it, I'd love to hear your take on this movie!

Is it ok to change the Adept such that, as the GM, I declare they're casting Arcane instead of Divine spells? I might also switch a couple of the spells on their spell list to represent more Arcane spells, but keeping with the class I wouldn't choose particularly optimal spells.

I just thought it'd be cool to simulate a "Magus" by giving an NPC levels in Adept and Warrior, give them Two Weapon Fighting and say that they could use TWF to cast a spell while also making an attack, but otherwise didn't have any of the Magus powers/abilities.

If there's no Arcane NPC classes I'll just give this NPC kobold levels in Magus instead. It's just that Kobolds are CR -3 instead of CR -2 when they take NPC classes, so a Kobold Adept 3/Warrior 2 is actually CR 2, not CR 3. Anyway, let me know what you think.

Here's a fight I just designed for a dungeon crawl campaign:

So what I'm looking for is examples of combats you've designed or run for APL 6 parties. I'm wanting to compare and contrast my own encounter design with others' to once again mine some inspiration and gauge the difficulty level of my own designs. Thanks in advance to any and all who participate.

So in this thread the esteemed VoodistMonk states:

it is easier to create a complete thought with gestalt... and still have a functional character. Gestalt gives you the liberty to make certain story-driven, thematic choices with your character and not hinder its combat effectiveness (too much, when you consider what could otherwise be accomplished with a gestalt murderhobo)…

Rather than hijack the other thread, I figured I'd make my own to ask the question: why? Why is it easier to make story-driven choices with your character and not hinder your combat effectiveness with gestalt vs standard character creation?

In other words, what do you consider "combat effectiveness?"

I personally measure combat effectiveness by the baselines laid out in Monster Creation from the Bestiary.

At level 1 a PC should either be able to beat a 12 AC and deal 3.75 damage, or force a foe to make a save with a DC 15 or better, since a CR 1 monster's avg "good save" is a +4. All the while, if the PC is going to be stuck in melee or get attacked by their foes from range they need an AC of at least a 13, need to be able to withstand 7 damage, and be able to reliably save against abilities/spells carrying a DC 12.

Fast forward to level 6. PCs need to beat an AC of 19 and deal 17.5 damage on a Full Attack round, or overcome a "good save" of +9. The PC's defenses need to be an AC of 23 or better, HP needs to be higher than 25, and PCs need to expect to save against DC 16 abilities.

A 15 point buy Fighter that dump stats their Int and Cha could hit all of these using their stat array, magical gear as they level, Bravery, and Power Attack while wielding a Greataxe, later a masterwork or +1 Greataxe. There's even chained monk and rogue builds that could pull off hitting some of these benchmarks. Problem is...

Every 15 point buy build comes up a tiny amount short, somewhere. A skill focused rogue that wasn't PURELY optimized for combat doesn't do enough damage, sometimes even using Sneak Attack. A melee martial type likely spends all their wealth by level on Big Six items and can't fly or swim for many levels, so they fall down on ranged attacks.

However, the game is meant to be played with a group of 4 PCs. So your generic melee focused slayer can't fly? Ok... your party's Witch has a Potion of Fly they brewed with a Cauldron hex they took for "thematic" purposes and so the Slayer spends 1 round drinking a potion before they make their attacks. So the vanilla dwarf rogue falls behind on damage? Good thing the Cavalier was able to hand out Precise Strike as a Teamwork feat so that, when she and the rogue meet up in a Flank they both do an extra 1d6 Precision damage.

Point is, the characters are meant to help each other fill in those gaps. Now, could 2 Gestalt characters, or PCs built with a 20 point build, or still other optional rules make the characters BETTER at combat without having to sacrifice thematic elements? Certainly. However, I'd disagree that they are mathematically necessary or vital to success in combat in PF1.

Now, my whole argument falls apart if you're not using the Monster Creation rules as a baseline, so I'll just leave it here for now. What does everyone think? Am I naïve and wrong on this, or does it make sense?

As requested by Quixote here, I am throwing this discussion out there as a way to help myself become a better GM. I also read this article from the Angry DM about designing encounters and something hit me that, in ALL the years of running games in 3x and PF1 never occurred to me: combat is a dynamic encounter because the PCs and the combatants are active; non-combat encounters aren't dynamic because everyone and everything is passive.

Well, in this thread I want to talk about ways to weaponize environments. That is, how do you make the setting an Active opponent to the PCs? While we can and will certainly have RAW and mechanics here, I want to stretch beyond that. In other words, I get that if a group of PCs are fighting some gnolls on a hillside, one of the gnolls can get up on top of a boulder and gain +1 to attack from Higher Ground, making the environment somewhat active, but I want to think of things outside of that.

So, in that gnoll encounter, some ideas on how to make the environment itself more dynamic:

1. Rocks shift under the sod as a character moves through a square; make a save or take 1d2 Dex damage from an injury to your foot or ankle

2. The mud here is slick causing an effect like a Grease spell

3. Ground hornet nest?

Now could PCs simply avoid these hazards with a Survival or Perception check? Certainly, or even with Ref saves or whatever, but these minor hiccups might also impose some inconvenience or Condition on the characters, and at the very least using them reminds the players that Mother Nature is an active protagonist, not a stage prop.

What other suggestions/discussions can you add to the discussion?

The Magic Trick feat can, if focusing on Mage Hand, allow you to throw a punch for 1d3 Str damage. Per the feat this is a Melee Attack using your Int, Wis or Cha (whichever is better) for the attack bonus and only deals 1d3 damage.

An Esoteric Magus gets Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat and can enhance unarmed strikes as if they were manufactured weapons with their Arcane Pool. However, could an Esoteric Magus enhance their 1d3 damage Mage Hand Magic Trick with the same pool? All this would give would be bonuses to attack and at higher level some energy damage, but I also figured that the Magus could use Spell Combat to Swift Action spend a point from Arcane Pool, punch with their normal attack, cast Mage Hand and then make an attack with that spell, and if it counts both his punch and the Mage Hand punch would have the benefit of the Arcane Pool.

Does that not work?

The PCs in my megadungeon game last night encountered a male undead (ghost) Cleric 6. They are APL 6 and I used the stats from the Bestiary for the example Ghost (CR7) and added some Cleric abilities to fit the story. One of the biggest things I added to the original source material (based loosely on Lost City of Barakus from Frog God Games) was to put in details that, in life, the ghost had worshipped the same deity as the paladin PC (Abadar).

Recall that Abadar is worshipped by merchants, judges and lawmakers, among others. The paladin, while his alignment is LG, plays as kind of a business owner who campaigns to further the causes of good and justice on a lawless frontier. So, when that player realized his party had just defeated a ghost that may have at one time been a person who also honored deals and negotiations with the same righteous fervor as his character does, a plan began to form.

My players want to "redeem," not "destroy" the ghost. There were no obvious remains on the scene where the battle took place, so they don't yet know how they'd even go about destroying it at all, but the idea they floated amongst themselves while I listened was to somehow reform the ghost, turn him back from Evil to Neutral or Good while also striking an Abadaran bargain with him; the ghost would work with the PCs as a kind of... oracle, or source of minor clerical spells that they can visit with.

Any ideas on how I might engineer this kind of side quest? Like, I get DESTROYING a ghost; find its remains or some totem item and destroy that, or complete some unfinished task for the ghost, in order to untether the spirit from the mortal world for good.

But how do you think 4 PCs could convince a vengeful spirit to A. not be evil anymore, and B. agree to a contract wherein it works with the party to deliver lore, exposition, or the occasional Blood Biography or Contact Entity II spell? The only lore I have to go off of from the source material is that this creature haunts a collection of rooms referred to as his "sanctum" and I embellished it a bit to suggest that at one time these chambers were a shrine to Abadar, long since unhallowed and no longer serving as a conduit for Divine power.

Any hints, suggestions or advice is welcome. If you need more info just ask. Thanks in advance.

Planning a set piece encounter with the PCs descending through terraced hillside ledges occupied by groups of kobolds aiding a fire drake. The party is APL 6 and they're all extremely optimized; ACs between 20 to 26, insane saves, a scout rogue that deals impressive damage if she can Charge or Flank, a U-Monk with a 20 Str, a tanky paladin with a very powerful unique mount, and a Wizard (Fire Wizard) with high damage output from Fire damage.

The one thing none of them are real good at is their CMB. Right now I'm thinking for minions using 2 different elite kobolds: Kobold Adept 5 and Kobold Warrior 7.

These are CR 2 and CR 4 foes, respectively. The adepts will have flying, Valet archetype familiars that zip back and forth through the area delivering harmless Touch spells to the drake or maybe others - Bull's Strength/Bear's Endurance/Cat's Grace, Aid, Cure spells, etc. They could also use Scorching Ray if the PCs get close enough (to within 35').

The warriors though I need some help with. Initially was thinking of just giving them Reach weapons, Combat Reflexes, Bodyguard and Extra Traits - Helpful and Fools for Friends so they are delivering +4 Aid Another bonuses or defenses to the drake as it flies around. However, are there good kobold, combat maneuver builds out there that I could utilize for the warriors or should I make them Fighter 5 (Lore Warden) instead?

Right off the bat I'm thinking I leave them as Warrior 7 and just give them Combat Expertise (I'll have to rearrange stats to get them Int 13), Improved Dirty Trick, Greater Dirty Trick, and Agile Maneuvers so their attacks are based around Dex instead of Str. Essentially these kobolds use the local terrain to deliver Blinded or Entangled long enough for the drake to try a Flyby attack and sub a Bull Rush in place of a Bite.

Would rebuilding them as Fighter 5 be better? I don't need them to be DPR specialists per se, though it'd be nice to have a secondary source of damage besides the rare Adept Scorching Ray.

Any tips or suggestions would be MOST welcome.

Ok, buckle up cuz this is another of my now infamous (and annoying) Griping-About-and-Fixing a part of my gaming. Sorry for the wall of text below.

My players have said that the megadungeon game has gotten a bit stale. They've pointed to the fights. The source material I'm using for said megadungeon is sparse on details and their descriptions have the dungeon as a lot of picked over, empty rooms with bits of trash on the floor along with very sparse furnishings from occupants.

To pep things up I've begun adding more dynamic rooms and environments. There have been 2-story chambers with galleries, hanging banners and tapestries. There have been fireplaces (even though science would dictate that this far underground some of these rooms would be choked with wood smoke), tables and chairs, wood shelves full of crockery or arcane substances, hanging chandeliers and even a large open room with a deep pool of water containing an aquatic naga. I've even spontaneously added pit traps or spilled oil, or even leaking gas in one room even though the encounters didn't have these in my original designs.

Now, I've specifically asked the players what they find boring and they have mentioned the fights. They all assure me they don't want to quit the campaign and they're having fun otherwise, but lately the fights have been boring. However, I feel like I'm using all the tricks I know to add some spark to the combat.

PCs are level 6. We have a half-dwarf paladin with a Large sized mount (he usually doesn't summon it unless the PCs are in a large enough space for it), a human Wizard (Fire Wizard), a half-elf U-Monk and an elf U-Rogue (Scout).

However, here's the thing - none of the players is actually engaging with the environment. All of our combats follow a pattern: I describe the scene and the PCs proceed with a sort of military precision. The rogue checks for traps while the monk (second best Perception) keeps lookout. They just finished a mission with a time crunch and now they're just exploring the dungeon a bit, so I don't have a ticking clock on them right now.

After the rogue gives the all clear for one section of hallway or one area of a room, the PCs move to this "safe zone" while the process repeats. In cases where the rogue finds a trap (she has a freaking +16 from 10' to notice these, even when just taking a slowed Move action, not even actively searching) she works to remove it while the other PCs use ranged weapons to cover her. Finally, if there's a terrain feature such as a patch of mold or pool of water that the rogue can't easily or safely navigate the super-genius wizard (with a feat that lets him make all knowledge checks untrained AND gives a bonus on them all) analyzes said terrain feature from whatever the safest possible distance is.

Once combat starts, the ONLY actions taken by the PCs is to maximize their weapon or spell damage output in the most efficient way possible. Period. They don't try for Higher Ground bonuses by climbing up on tables or furniture; they DO use Flanking, but only if the PCs involved can be on solid, flat ground. No one cuts down banners, smothers enemies in tapestries, throws oil or explosives into lit fireplaces, knocks over shelving units, swings on chains for a Bull Rush into a pool and so on. Its just: analyze environment; identify foes/monsters; engage foes/monsters; move to efficient melee if possible; inflict damage until all foes destroyed.

Oh yeah... and no enemies ever escape unless I full-on pull GM fiat. Their penchant for melee and ruthless exit covering means that unless I give the monster a magical means of escape such as teleportation or Shadow Walk, foes are systematically cut down, every time.

I mean, what MORE can I do here? I've been making the dungeon more dynamic, terrain wise. I've had foes/monsters take advantage of some of these terrains, inflicting the Entangled condition on PCs or trying to use furniture to knock them prone. I've included monsters with Climb and Fly speeds and one group of Large sized creatures using the Hover feat so that these monsters gain tactical advantages while forcing the PCs to use sub-optimal combat methods.

All this has done has made my players grumble that these monsters seem to "know" their weaknesses. In the meantime they've won every fight they've been in without a single PC falling below 1/4 of their HP for over a level now.

I don't know folks. I have talked with my players, they say the fights are getting stale. I have tried injecting life into said fight scenes with terrain, traps, and environmental factors as well as changing up monster tactics. What more can I do to pep things up?

MODOK drops today on Hulu. I haven't watched it yet, just making this as a placeholder for later. If anyone wants to discuss, feel free.