Does the caster need proficiency in whips to not receive a penalty?
Search Posts
Hi Pathfinder Paizo people. I just had a discussion with a friend of mine after I wrote http://www.thepathfinderchronicles.com/2014/06/intelligent-items.html that blog. He was really excited about the idea that a dead God may once have invested his power into an intelligent item and that perhaps that "dead god" could be reinstated or destroyed utterly with the item. He asked me if I was using Sauron's Ring as inspiration and I said partly but I had also been thinking about the dead God Aroden and wondering if he was ever going to make a return. He said that I should pitch it as an AP. I said no because you probably get that all the time. On reflection I thought why not. So there you go. It is an AP I would like to see made and it would fit well with a Mythic style campaign in my view. Thanks for reading. By the way if you are not a Paizo person but you like the idea too, add a comment giving it some support :)
My email has changed unfortunately. You can now email me at mark.knights AT gmail.com
I have a player who is an alchemist/master chymist (8/7) who just levelled and is looking at going (8/8). He is keen to get the Advanced Mutagen (Draconic Mutagen). However I read it and the way it is worded would lead me to believe that this mutagen is unable to be ever taken by a 16th level character although in the text it says you must have an effective alchemist level (alchemist + master chymist level) of 16. The reason that I suggest that it would not be available is because the second part of the criteria is that the character must know the form of the dragon 1 extract. The reason why I would think this is contentious is the fact that the player at minimum needs to be a second level master chymist and 14th level alchemist to meet the 16th level criterion, however, due to not obtaining a caster level at level 1 for master chemist, the character is a 15th level caster and does not qualify for a 6th level spell (which is what form of the dragon 1 is). Is this the intention of the rule? I have allowed my player to take this power through a little bit of inventiveness. My player actually has the extract in his formula book but cannot yet make the extract. That is he "knows" the extract (as per the wording in the advanced mutagen), he just can't make it yet. Is my interpretation what was actually intended? Or am I getting it all wrong?
We announced Macintosh Support this morning! That is awesome! Good to see some of the better projects finally giving the Mac a look in. And in a development environment I use often! Go team. Proud to be a backer.
Thank you. This will make tomorrow nights game an interesting one. Running Serpent Skull adventure path and they are investigating the ruins of Ilmurea. I have designed the Hall of Human beauty as a heavily mechanical and magical trap Mecca filled with undead, constructs and at the pinnacle, a Demi-lich (serpentfolk). Looking forward to it
As the rogue sniper build loses trapfinding does this mean they lose the ability to detect and disarm, detect but not disarm or disarm but not detect? I have a player who took this build and it has not become an issue until now. The player is a rogue/sorcerer so they have ability to detect magic, I was just wondering how the loss of trapfinding affected the game? Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks for the ideas. I might do something similar, although I sort of warned them off being too gun-ho about killing the Urdefahn due to wanting to ally with them too. The prestige one is excellent and I might entice them into areas with that carrot. Thanks again!
Loving this adventure path. However, I have run into the sticky situation where my players essentially found Thekola, went direct to Udarra and then direct to the gate with Izola doing only one Urdefahn guard patrol and the Driders on the way. The group is very anti exploration and want to find Eando Kline and deal with the serpent folk. That means that next adventure they will pretty much come across the Vrock encounter and then be knocking on the door to a thousand fangs. The party will still be 30 to 40000 XP off 14th Level. This happen to anyone else? What have you done to get them up a bit?
Why is area C18 CR5 when there is no creature, trap or event listed for it?
Thank you! It is so obvious to me now :)
Ok, first time I had to DM this spell and I thought I had a handle on it but then I got confused with the wording regarding caster level HD equal to caster level is clear as is HD up to caster level -1 But then the wording confuses me HD up to caster level -5? Does this mean if their HD is caster level -2 I use this row? And the HD up to caster level -10 does this mean caster level -6 to caster level -10? And what if your HD is less than Caster Level -10? We ran the spell twice tonight and I erred on the row of kindness (as players were caster level -2) so I used the caster level -1 row but on second casting they were caster level -3 so I used the caster level -5 row. Can someone help with a clarification please?
Just finished this module (kind of, moving on to Vaults of Madness anyhow) and barely scratched the surface of it. There is even one district (Residential) that the players did not enter at all. This module saw 4 deaths in it, causing the players heaps of problems with debt for getting Raise Deads and Restorations cast. I did allow one player (it was their first death to be reincarnated into a Fetchling from the new Advanced Races Guide which helped take the sting from it as he had been harping about how that is the race he would have started with as soon as we got the book. Their faction is well in the lead with discoveries (Pathfinders, about 5 weeks in and have over 40 discoveries) and using this module to intersperse the Vaults of Madness will be great. The players all clicked over to 10th level in the same game and managed to handle the undead assault quite easily (even with one man down who had decided to scout the Government district the night the attack came). They regrouped to assault Sozothola but got whipped by him. He destroyed the party and turned the feral mutagened Alchemist/Master Chymist with a woeful will save against the two still alive (barely) as Sozothola sought to burn the place down with his wall of fire and escape. Tonight sees the start of Vaults of Madness and I am having Sozothola return to the first Vault where he will be in the final chamber. He will be trying to piece together how he can activate the portal as the players arrive. In City of Seven Spears the players conquered the Military and Mercantile District and allied with the Artisan District (only very recently). They have slain the Green God but that was an epic battle that would have been a TPK if I had not had the "Green God" become very upset with the parties folding boat that had the cavalier's horse on it :) They managed to have the four armed half-fiend dire ape bought back to life but he flew away uninterested in a fight with the party after killing the Girallon boss and the Shaman. I am holding him up my sleeve for an assault on the Lillend very soon. Got to say I loved this module, but am looking forward to a more structured approach in Vaults of Madness. It is incredibly hard to prepare as a GM in such an open sand box like CoSS but it does make for the players having a massive investment in the plot and the city itself.
No, absolutely not. I will give them 400 xp and the 500 gp for each discovery that the players discover for themselves but they are not the only source of discoveries being found. I have played out around three weeks (in game time) of this module and the players are averaging about a discovery and a half a week while their faction have amounted a healthy 19 discoveries without them :) The factions themselves seek discoveries outside of the players help as well. The party set their exploration stat up so the faction averages about 1.75 discoveries a day :) They are powering through.
I played out my first vorpal kill last night with a Camulatz... The game before the gnome alchemist got killed by the giant bat in the mercantile district and then last night via a random encounter they faced the Camulatz. One of the players got critical led by a bite (with a roll of 19) and then the very next attack was on the gnome alchemist with it rolling a natural 20 and then, just to rub it in, a natural 20 to confirm... Talk about bad luck! That now means we have two people in the party who have died twice, one who has died once and one other who has yet to experience Pharasma's realm :)
In HackMaster.. a Wizard can take his spellbook and cast spells off of them as a Scroll.. .ripping the pages out and the magical ink disappearing as you cast the spell (obviously in an emergency)... We used to play AD&D 2E with this same house rule... Result was we had to go and buy the wizard a new spell book after almost every adventure. He was always casting the things out of the book... DM: A group of four goblins sit in the sewer junction ahead, discussing something while hurling stones at the nearby rats Weaver the Wizard: "AAAAAAGGGGHHHH. I have no decent spells left. I open my spell book to fireball and hurl one down the corridor at them!" Everyone Else: <Collective sigh and shaking of heads>
I do not like the idea that my players are behind the eight ball. In fact, by having them it should give the edge to their factions SO I will be giving my players 30 points to distribute just like their faction would have if the players were not with them...
I may be missing something very obvious and if I am I apologise but I am preparing for my game this week by putting together faction campsite sheets. Just a thing so I can record discoveries and the state of the factions, along with NPC notes etc. Anyway, I have gotten them all written down, omitting the scores for the pathfinders (who my group is affiliated with) and looking at the rules it tells me they get 24 points to spread amongst the faction scores... Looking at every other faction they have 30 points distributed. Is this a deliberate attempt to have the PC's struggle to keep up? Is it due to the fact the PC's are the adventurous type and they are meant to be the 6 point difference? Or is it just a mistake? Does anyone know the answer on this? I have had a quick read through this thread and not found out anything specific.
Got a question on how to wrap this one up... The players have the gems after defeating Issilar and found the pillars but they do not know how to activate them. I will add my question behind a spoiler just in case my players are lurking... Pillars of Light:
The players did not fully check out the ground floor of the ziggurat and hence did not meet with the idols that give the players the knowledge to activate the pillars. The players have literally cleaned nearly everything else out of Tazion (missing a couple of leech swarms only from memory).
The last two players levelled to 7th after defeating Issilar so they are in the zone for CoSS. Now my question is this... It is day 56 so today the Red Mantis arrive. As CoSS brings the ideas of factions from an almost abstract idea to a "You are sharing the city with them" level would it be worth having the Mantis assassin trailblazer group arrive at the pillars, having obtained the knowledge from downstairs and negotiate with the players to share the stones and the information? The players are Pathfinder faction so no major conflict (apart from the fact that they are all sure the Red Mantis are after them for turning them down in favour of the Pathfinders). Allows them to build on the relationship in CoSS and then when Aspis goes nuts in VoM a natural ally to hit with them. Or should I just allow them to go down stairs and kill the statuettes? What do you think?
Wow, that last Ziggurat is a doozy! The players have been in it for two sessions now! They fought Issilar tonight which was a MASSIVE battle and lasted essentially the entire session. They still have very little idea on how to activate the pillars yet but they have all the gems. One more session and it should be all over :)
4d6 at level 6. There isn't a rule to cite on this, the spell tells you when the damage increases. Thanks for this. It was how I thought it would be. For it to be the other way it would read for every three caster levels (or part thereof) to work in the other way.
I read the magic section again after a player asked this as I am having a mental blank. If a spell says something like... Does 2d6 damage For every three caster levels you possess... So at 3rd caster level it would do 2d6 but would it do 4d6 damage from level 4-6 or would it change to 4d6 when they reach caster level 6? Can someone point me to a ruling on this please?
Just letting you all know that I have created a word document that contains 120 discoveries (bits of info) that can be found in the city. It uses the ten headings of historical discoveries as noted on page 10 of the module. A lot of it is as I have made up from reading the first three modules (I like to read ahead only one module at a time) so the information in the discoveries are from what I understand and a bit of fiction that I have added (particularly around the legend of Savith herself). If you want a copy email me at m.knights AT bigpond.com We will e heading into the City of Seven Spears in the next couple of sessions :)
Reaching Tazion they found the trap across one of the gaps in the wall and so sent the rogue/sorceror invisible to scout the inside to the next gap. The rogue/sorceror made its way past the well to the next gap and failed to spot the snare there and got caught. I rolled the d20 for the charau-kau and they had 4 minutes. On arriving at the gap the cavalier shot down the vines holding up the trap, although the rogue/sorceror screamed for her to stop. I allowed the game to run, with a stopwatch on as the argument built and built and built and then the charau-kau were upon them. The charau-kau were no challenge for them (and in fact any time they encountered them they walked all over them). The alchemist got bored (as he is so prone to do) and so went flying, dropping bombs in the tar pits that existed all over the compound for fun (although later he revealed that he believed there were things living in the pits so did it as a precaution. He then went off investigating the tower of serpents where he entered flew to the roof and dropped bombs on the snakes until they were dead. He noted the stairs down in the tower and decided it was time to get the rest of the party to come and follow it down. The party had since dealt with the remaining two patrols (which I thew at them at the same time) without breaking a sweat and with no sign of the alchemist they were heading to the temple of the snake. It is there that they spotted the alchemist and flagged him down. The alchemist convinced them to head to the temple to investigate the stairs (that lead to the aqueduct) but on foot they had to head south and around the massive burning tar pits. They destroyed the charau-kau and decapus on the way and found the treasure at the bottom of the well. The gnome spotted the hole to the aqueducts and decided to investigate (he plays his character so well gnome alchemist with wisdom of 7). He entered and triggered the huge elemental cleaner and was cut off from the group. The group saw a huge splash of water burst from the hole where the gnome had gone (they had tied a rope to him so could see where he went) and ran to his aid just in time (he was using some of his spontaneous healing as was near dead). A massive, fitful combat ensued that ended with the huge water elemental on 1 hit point running out of duration on the spell and being sucked back to the plane of elemental water. With 5 minute reset time the party started an argument (as they were tapped out and ticked off at the gnome's disregard) so I started the stop watch. They ended the argument quickly though and decided to investigate the aqueduct for a place to rest and heal. They came to the opening, had another massive argument about if they should go get the cavaliers horse that was "guarding" at the well and then decided to do it in the morning and rested. On returning to the well they found no sign of the horse but the cavalier found tracks and followed them to a place in the jungle. The tracks had humanoid feet with the horse and she found her horse dead, as if drained (nasty succubus LOL). They ran to their carriage and found the remainder of their beasts of burden and a pet dog they picked up slain and torn apart (this by the charau-kau. They bee lined it to the serpent temple and waltzed their way to the shedding pit to find one of the captives to be the old midwife they did not trust (the succubus decided she would ambush them here being immune to fire). They got the drop on the charau-kau and rescued all the tribesmen and they realised something fishy was happening with the old woman so the succubus teleported into combat, saying she needed to get the taste of horse out of her mouth. The cavalier went ballistic and buffed herself up, challenging her and receiving a bulls strength from the alchemist. The succubus smiled and attempted to dominate her, failing utterly as the cavalier got a natural 20 on the save. This combat the succubus fell quickly. With a buffed and challenge laden cavalier who seemed to get a string of criticals (she uses the +1 scimitar from the shiv crit 18-20). The succubus attempted to get away, failed concentration check after concentration check. Kept getting swept to the ground and eventually died at the point of the cavaliers blade... Finally they swept the rest of the temple, walking all over Raogru and hi snake to claim the treasure and the moonstone. That is where we left the last game as they begin to eye the ziggurat to the North for the likely location of the pillars of light and the trip to Saventh-Yhi slightly beyond it. The group are now all 6th level and close to 7th so they should hit the milestones at the right time. I can't wait!
They slipped NKechi into the river and made their way on. Three days later I had their faction (Pathfinders) find the scene of the battle and send another "guide"/cleric to join them (their party suffers for healing so need the support while on the road). This time a green adventurer who had only spent time in temples to Sarenrae joined the group arriving just after Amghawe's Tomb. The party owned Itombu, sneaking up on him and getting a surprise round. That combined with the flying feral alchemist meant the encounter was practically over before it began. The gnome took the war mask adding to his conversion into a savage. The eloko head hunters encounter was hilarious and everyone loved it. Everyone except the monk failed their save and it turned into a running battle to the bell. He managed to take down the eloko and after the effect of the extremely large bell (I had failed to read it was a small bell so had it like a church bell hung between trees LOL). They took the bell with them (it had one more ring in it) and made their way to the spirit dancers... The spirit dancers was again hilarious. They all did not like the look of them but a suggestion from Zakiyya saw three of the four fail the save (including the NPC). The one that did not fail also resisted her dominate and several attempts at charm before a fight broke out and the party was seriously divided. Some making saves others not. It was hilarious but the monk entangled the succubus wings with a tanglefoot bag and got her on the ground. The rogue/sorceror failed every save and continued to kiss the succubus who cared little for the combat as her damage resistance was turning aside practically all damage. In the end the monk rolled a crit, confirmed and then icrit came up with a crit where the succubus lost d4 hours of her memory. After this, shocked and bewildered she teleported away, determined to track the party and destroy them, after she worked out who and why she ended up in that situation. The road to Tazion found them come across a pregnant tribesman caught in labour, two scared tribesmen with her and a strange old woman who once was a midwife (actually the succubus). While the cleric delivered the baby the rest of the party discerned that the tribes people had no idea who she was, and they thought she was dodgy. The succubus got some information from the cavalier that settled her mind on destroying them as a minor annoyance. To do this she headed to Tazion to find a good ambush point... I will write the Tazion section in yet another post...
OK, the party is now almost through the complete adventure. Last time I updated they were just about at Kalabuto so leg two of the journey and most of Tazion will be here. The next adventure we have will be the ziggurat which is the last that they have to face in Tazion. I have just finished reading the City of Seven Spears and can't wait to move on though this module proved to be a lot better than I had initially planned it to be. In Kalabuto the party got ambushed in Cheiton's house on the first night by thugs of the Aspis. Though feeling safe the party set a watch and the watch rolled a natural 1 on perception. Being a mapmaker I had him engrossed in the maps to Tazion and hence the thugs got the jump. Three of the four party members failed their saves and were paralysed. The one that didn't (Alchemist Gnome with a feral mutagen/enlarge person fetish) fought a running battle. However, 2 of the party were killed. The first was the watch (Half-orc monk) who gave swift direct answers to questions and so the assailant used a successful coup de grace attack. The second (an elven cavalier) stalled for as long as possible but when the assailant found out the orc was killed and the map to Tazion was secured he used a coup de grace and killed her) The third failed save managed to save enough for a cure and escape artist out. The battle turned into a chase and eventually the pair hunted the surviving assailants down and got the map back. Only one of the thugs survived. The other two were raised at no cost to the party on Cheiton's coin who was shocked at the attack and the effect it may have on his reputation. The party did not tarry and as soon as they were healed they swap the horses for a carriage (which slowed them) and headed off. I was concerned that they were ahead of the game in the advancement path but I thoroughly bulked out the next 40 days with random encounters and a full dungeon, which is lucky as they will just tip 7th level when they reach Saventh-Yhi. Anyhow, they stopped and found the treasure in the Vanishing Army Lake and when one made a knowledge nature check to work out the critter was a baby you have never seen people get out of the water so quickly! They breezed through the next couple of encounters and came to the Bodies on the Riverbank which I was sincerely worried about after having read the write ups on here. The worry turned to despair when the possessed ape used the frighten ability and the parties main damage dealer (the elven cavalier) and her unpredictable support (the gnome alchemist) turned tail and ran. That left N'Kechi, the half orc monk and the dual class rogue sorcerer with a shadowy, non combat bent). They made their sense motive and so the monk ran in with zenj token in hand, slapping it against the ape and failing the spell resistance roll by 1. I ran the battle for a little with N'kechi keeping them alive with healing but as he started to run out I allowed the frightened ones to exit the state earlier than normal so they had a chance. At this point the gnome alchemist had just taken the wings discovery and came flying back in no time while the cavalier was a little further out. The shadow demon was out and walking around largely unperturbed by attacks but as the returning cavalier started shooting cold iron arrows it got his attention. Anyway, the shadow demon was on its last legs, everyone was still standing and then the cavalier rolled a crit fumble. We use the fumble app and it came up that the arrow hits the closest ally and a critical threat. The critical threat confirmed and an awful iCrit giving triple damage, the cavalier and her composite longbow (+4) killed NKechi deader than a dead thing. The shadow demon was killed quickly thereafter but what should have been a big celebration fell flat... I will write more in another post so as not to overwhelm...
I am actually enjoying this threat level for my players. It is great that they do not need to rest up for days after each battle and this level also allows for random encounters to be used without unbalancing the target difficulty. And I also have to say that my dead Cavalier would argue with you too! The chemosit destroyed her In a couple of rounds flat and then ate her brains. She was so happy they had not used the raise dead scroll from the Shiv on one of the NPCs and N'kechi did the honors after they retrieved her brains from the Chemosit stomach and popped them back where they should be :) We are having a great time with this module. I am using a lot of random non-creature and in some cases non-threatening encounters just to build the feel of the place. Some of these encounters have really entranced the players and help them buy into the story more. I have been using things such as totems, shrines, prayer trees and other signs of natives that have unnerved them and caused them to Barbour a great deal of respect when they meet the locals! Next session will see them move into Kalabuto to meet Cheiton and then onward.
Specifically this is about true strike but more in general it is about how the qinggong monk spell like abilities are used. I have a player who has just gone fourth level and swapped out slow fall for True Strike spell like ability that costs one Ki point. I am fairly certain he is of the opinion that if he spends the ki point he can immediately apply the +20 bonus to the next attack. I believe that the Ki point simply allows him the ability to cast the spell, the casting taking up a standard action so the bonus would apply to the first attack in the following round. So what I suppose I am asking is once the ki point is spent does the monk need to spend the casting time to get the spell off?
SPOILERS! Please. Sorry, they have now been added...
I will preface this question with the fact that I have spent some time scouring the net for an answer to this with nothing specific leaping out at me. Last night I was running the second module from the Serpent Skull series (Racing to ruin) The following should not be read if you are considering playing this module :) serpent Skull Spoiler:
and the party entered the Fzumi salt mine. There is a monk in the party who doubles as their scout and he came across the crystal ooze in the main chamber. The. Ooze missed poorly with its strike and the monk then belted it easily with his flurry of blows. I ruled as the GM that the monk took acid damage from the ooze for each successful strike (as the ooze does bonus acid damage on a strike from itself). Though I received no arguments about this ruling I did wonder if it were the correct thing to do at the time so made a note to follow it up.
Then there were the salt wights who drain con on a successful slam attack, not to mention the Blue Spirit Warrior that is a more traditional wight. The monk started going for his quarter staff and I soon worked out that this was because of the draining attack rather than any desire to use his staff and we discussed if there would be any drain. While happy to use his quarter staff for the night other players scoured the rules for me while it was not their action but no satisfactory answer was found. Today I have been doing some research and while I have found no specific answers I have found some answers that may provide me my house rule unless someone from Paizo can point me at the definitive ruling... So my house rule goes like this; 1. If a creature does additional damage on an attack from an energy type (e.g. Fire, acid etc.) that a person striking unarmed also take that damage on a successful strike; 2. (and this ruling comes from the info under ability drain on a d20 rules page I found on the web) If a creature has an ability that must occurs after a particular type of attack (e.g. A wight's energy drain after a successful slam attack) that ability is not activated by an opponent striking the creature with an unarmed attack; 3. In exception to rule 2, if the ability is a touch attack from the creature (such as the multiple powers that can be used by a ghost on a successful touch) that ability is activated by a successful unarmed strike from an opposing creature I know my wording may suck slightly but what do you think of the above rules as house rules. And if I am wrong and have simply missed the correct rules can someone please direct me to the actual information that I should be referring to. Thanks!
So, I got my case and I will entitle this post The Good, The Bad and The Ugly... Good news, got a full set from the case I ordered and have a dragon on the way so am pretty pleased. The miniatures on a whole are a really good looking set and I loved the packaging for them. Very schmick. I am in love with my goblins, having received 1 booster of each they make a nice little horde of 8 :) They look really good in comparison with other pre painted minis of goblins. Followed up with the orcs (brute and warrior) I have a nice little bunch of green skins. The orcs look cool, but nowhere near as cool as the goblins... The skeletons are great. I got 4 of them and they look fantastic. As good as the painted ones I did many years ago for a tabletop board game so kudos for the skellies. I got a mixture of 5 of the watch guard and officer and while I like the look of the miniature the paint job makes them very bland to look at. Still, good for a town encounter of course and that is the essence of what I bought these for. The lizard folk champion looks great. I totally love him and as I am running the Serpent Skull Adventure Path at the moment they will sub nicely when I need a serpent folk mini (I know not the same but similar at least). The next, the zombie looks very cool but has to fall under the bad cos I only got 1 of them and I love undead games. Commons my bottom! The next group is where this miniature set shines. The almost "natural" critters look amazing! They are so colourful and look awesome. I think the snake "may" be my favourite miniature in the set. Time will tell. I received three a piece of the giant spiders, wolves and the venomous snake (the snake is meant to be uncommon) which is very useful to me while the players are on Smuggler's Shiv... The mummy is a little bland for me. I would have liked to have seen some more of the mummy's flesh poking through less bandages, but I have an adventure with a mummy in the works so it will fit OK I guess. The following 3 minis, human rogue, human ranger and elf wizard look good but I would say if I was a player I would only be proud to pick up the ranger mini and say that is my character. The Elf wizard ears make her look like a human cat. Way too prominent. The rogue is versatile but lacks detail. The last of the uncommons look pretty good and are mainly character pieces again. The half-elf cleric is very impressive as is the gnome fighter and the Dire Rat looks awesome too. The Dwarf fighter looks pretty cool except I would have liked an action stance for him but the detail is nice. The druid does not scream druid to me. It does say pathfinder, or scout, but not druid. Still, it is a very nice character figure none the less. So, on to the rare. The gargoyle is nice but plain. It would have been nice to include some moss or erosion or something on him but a great crafted mini. The half-orc barbarian is probably my favourite character mini. Detailed and looks great. The spectre took me aback when I opened it as I had no idea what it was, but it has really grown on me, which is lucky because it is only one of two rares I got three of... An encounter with three spectres sends chills down my (players) spines. Seelah, the paladin is too colourful and too sliver I think. She is cool, but too much silver for me, although probably a typical paladin. The werewolf looks awesome, if a bit top heavy and the medusa is very, very sultry and very, very cool. Not keen on using medusa in my adventures but I may just make an exception now I have this mini... The minotaur was the last miniature I opened and he looks fab. All brooding and dangerous, as a minotaur ought to, fit with a bit of blood on his axe. The ogre is the other rare I got three of. His face is cool but I have to say he is the miniature that screams plastic at me. Block colours and bulky. Also, and here comes one of the two BAD mentions, the first miniature I opened was an ogre and it was broken. His club sheared right off at the hand. I was not a happy camper. I will be able to repair it with a little bit of drilling, pin and superglue, but I was meant to get these miniatures and be able to work with them straight out of the box, no modelling required. The troll is cool. I like the different take on trolls visually that pathfinder has and these will definitely be used in my games. The Ettin is a great miniature. The heads look great and the whole miniature works well. The chimera is absolutely fantastic and made me laugh out loud when I got it. Great work on this one. The manticore is a little unsettling with it's face, which at first I did not like, but after consideration now think it is really quite a good thing. You should be unsettled by the manticore :) Now, if the snake does not turn out to be my favourite miniature one of the next two will. The Giant Caveweaver spider is brilliant. It is big, detailed, got a nasty coloured pattern on the back. And oh yeah, may have mentioned it but it is BIG! Then there is the frost giant. Great detailed miniature with not one but two weapons for him, that just plug in to the arm. Brilliant. Very very clever. The final three... The succubus looks very cool and is a great miniature. I love the lich and recognised him immediately. Here is a miniature that WILL strike fear into the hearts of my players. Now the vampire contains the second BAD for my set. It is a very cool sculpted miniature, and included as a picture on the side of the boxes too. The problem is on mine there is NO gold edging on it anywhere. In every picture of this mini that has been advertised and displayed it features gold. On mine there is just a lighter grey. It gives this miniature a very washed out look and makes a great miniature very, very average. So there you have it. The good, the bad and the ugly. I am about to go and put this review on Google+ attached with photos of all of my miniatures as well so you can see what I am seeing too. Just add me to your circles or look for my post as it will be public. Overall I am pleased with the miniatures but the purchase was not incident free. Just can't wait to see my black dragon when he arrives later in the post :)
I can't see my players taking the capture and question route when it eventually comes to cannibals. Although I love your method of using the cannibals in such a way to point the players to it. I will adapt it and perhaps have a map marking the spot where the grove is with either "Evil Spirit" or "Alchemical Reagents" in Malikinda's hut (the witch from memory) and this will give them the impetus. Thanks for the idea. Who knew cannibals could be so useful :)
Curious yes, but with the amount of deadly things on the isle they are seriously spooked. So they are keen to get off the island. They know the lighthouse is in the SW and have almost pinpointed its location with a guess. I cannot see that they will go NW just for a sight seeing trip. As the party is currently without a cleric (although they have an alchemist but he is favouring endure elements spells over cure lights) I would love them to have the ally in Ayencia and get to the silent island too :) This is such a great module. I am so glad I bought the entire adventure path now. May even look at subscribing.
Hey all. Just want to add my two bits worth in here as I have just read through all of this, coming a bit late to it as I have been running SfSS for a few weeks now. I really wish I had read this thread first but there you go. As for a few things that have been mentioned... Disease I have pushed on the Shiv and my players love it. Admittedly we are an experienced group and few of us have had to deal with disease in any major way but it makes sense and also fits perfectly with the setting. Not once has the party had any problem with a disease check, in fact it causes some great roleplaying moments when they keep blaming the Monk for drinking the cure disease when he contracted Red Ache as most of the sufferers of disease are the NPC's and they are all realising how important they are (especially Jask as the party has no cleric). Mainly the diseases have struck the NPC's anyhow, Jask contracted Mind Fire first night and has been unable to shake it (i.e. make two consecutive saves) whereas the other NPC's have shaken theirs after a few days. One PC has had no contraction as yet, but the others have shaken what they catch (I have pretty much stuck to mind fire and red ache). I so need to do more with the NPC's. I read the book as making them very uncooperative to start with and this made the PC's turn their back on them until I had a word in one of the most experienced players ears about how a little diplomacy may go a long way. They have completed Jask, Aerys and Ishirou's quests. They know what the other two want but unless they want to do some serious backtracking they will not complete Sasha's but are yet to visit silent island so may finish Gelik's. The NPC's are very camp bound so far and I need to make them come more alive. Morale has been a real problem for the group. Aerys, Jask and Gelik have reached hopeful but Ishirou and Sasha seem to be caught in an endless cycle of frightened and panicked. So much so that I will soon be having them just flee at random into the forest causing the players one further problem to deal with. This is the first AP I have ever run (although I did play the crown of the goblin king in heavily modified format). The players LOVE it. I had no qualms with the way it started with the auto fail and it did not raise a blip on my players radar, one of them who in fact rolled a natural 20. They are yet to clash with the cannibals (though I have plans for that soon) and are still focussed 100% on getting to the old lighthouse (as one of them is a history buff and knew of it as per the info sidebar) to get off the island. They also have a low level fire of revenge burning for the captain and Ieana so leading them on from the cannibals to Yarzoth should be easy enough. They are also certain that they are being followed by a wyvern (from the foreshadowing of what is in area Y). The players love the pure ability to explore. They have a goal to work at but they are doing it their way and finding a sense of freedom in that. They are scared witless of the island as there has already been 4-5 very close shaves with death and they are building strong tactics on how to deal with new situations all the time. They also love the idea of resource management. The amount of times they have discussed how many arrows the cavalier has left, what potions are doing, how many days rations are left has amazed me. They have even taken a day out of the exploration to help maintain some stuff and a large part of hunting the shipwrecks is to see if they can get any metal the alchemist can use to craft some more rudimentary arrows and so on. Their biggest treasure haul for reaction so far was I put a pile of ballista ammo at the bottom of the sea near the Crimson Angel and they were in rapture over the number of arrowheads they could fashion from it. Finally, I have been reading ahead so I have no surprises and am just wondering, how many times did the groups run through this run into Aycenia in area U? I really want my players to encounter her as I do not think they will go to silent island without the push but almost know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they will never head in that direction as there really is no need to head that way. Any suggestions on this?
I am currently mid way through the first book of this adventure path and have been running it with three players. So far in the game I have not modified a single encounter and they have been getting away with it just. I think things will be OK but you may need to up some encounters with the discovery of healing potions a bit. My players are appreciating the deadliness of the Shiv in around 15 days on the island already though their lives have only truly been in the balance about four times and one of those was because of their own making, not the design of the adventure. My group have a monk, and alchemist and a cavalier. The only one struggling a bit is the cavalier because of how restricted she is with her horse. Another cast away will be joining them next week so it will grow to a party of four but I would have kept running it unmodified without the excess player anyway.
Got to say I love the look of this. The detail in your blogs is also really good. It ensures a good loyalty base to start with, not to mention basing the game off the best paper based RPG at the moment has to help. I too am a fan of the hex, although I think that may be a throwback to many old board games and battle tech as well :) It makes for a good system when handling land expansion type games, like the old play by mail and play by email type games had. Really good locale to pick for this style of game too, the River Kingdoms. From what I have read of the world guide it is perfect for the type of game where little nations bloom and get beaten back, disappear, reappear etc. And of course with that style of pedigree there is heaps of adventure to be had. Great work Paizo and Goblinworks, keep it coming :)
I made a new race using these rules as I needed a mysterious race that came from the Dimension of Time to fill a niche in my game. I give the details later in this post. I will say I started by thinking I would make it advanced and then when I got into making it I found the number of abilities usable to be really slim pickings. There are a whole lot of gaps that need to be filled. So I scaled the race back to a basic race. I was fairly disappointed with this as I wanted to use that race as a precursor to creating an alien race in Numeria that had some kind of breath weapon and some really alien qualities but they are just not there to use. I suppose it is early days yet though. Anyway, on to my race, the Dolan... Dolan (Outsider)
They are tall (6'-7' average) violet humanoids with no hair and eyes containing no pupil. They adorn themselves in golden and silver tattoos that represent the lives of their ancestors. They claim to be immortal and are certainly very long lived with some individuals being recorded through the history books of many countries. They tend to favour long flowing robes that enhance their graceful movements in social situations. The Dolan believe that they were created when time also came into being. They hold no favour with one great creator, and revere their ancestors whom they claim to be able to contact in spirit form through their own racial memories. It is true that they are wise and have great sages amongst their number. Children of their race do appear to be sagacious in their outlook and demeanour that lends credence to this belief. The race tends to believe that they are some kind of protector of the material realms and certainly do not consider themselves a part of it, as if guiding it to some kind of shared destiny. The Dolan are rare on the material plane and are unable to interbreed with other races. Regardless of this the Dolan ingratiate themselves into any community they come in contact with and are often found in positions of great influence due to this. They are seen as extremely odd but their advice is often sought after which makes them become very valuable in communities. It is claimed by several scholars that the Dolan present on the Material Plane are actually exiles from the Dimension of Time for some great crime committed there. The Dolan do not respond to such questioning, but nor have they outright denied the rumour. They say very little about how they came to be on the Material Plane other than it was "The Great Journey". The Dolan get along well with nearly all other sentient races and there are numerous examples of the Dolan becoming close friends with a huge variety of creatures. One thing they cannot abide by though are Demons and they will go out of their way to destroy the Demon scourge wherever they can. For this reason many Dolan can be found on the frontline at, or near the Worldwound. Dolan are drawn to religion in Golarion. It seems the absence of a spiritual being in their home dimension causes an intense curiosity in the divine beings. Due to this many of the Dolan are drawn to religious service as Clerics, Paladins, Inquisitors and Oracles. Of course this does not restrict them wholly and there are tales of great druids, rangers, rogues and others amongst their number. Basic Race (10 RP) Racial Type: Outsider (Native to Dimension of Time) (2 RP) (60' Darkvision)
|
