Marko Westerlund's page

Are you new to pathfinder society, or old but have trouble keeping your character alive? Look no further, this thread is for you. Here I'll list a few things to buy and use that help you reach your first tier 5-6 scenario.

Things to buy after your first adventure:

Some healing items. If you're sure you won't adventure with a cleric or a druid in the party, buy potions of cure light wounds. If you think there will be clerics or druids playing with you, buy one potion and a couple scrolls. The healer can't always come to your aid, and the potion might save your life. If you are a healer, buy a potion anyway. When you're the only healer, it sucks to bleed to death simply because nobody can cast a cure on you.

This is so important I'm going to say this again as simply as possible. Even if you aren't a healer, you should buy healing items. In a global campaign, you can't count on someone else to have spells and items to heal you when you get hurt.

Protip: infernal healing is a great spell for healing between combats. It heals more than cure light wounds and can be used by arcane casters in addition to divine casters. It can be found in Cheliax, Empire of Devils. If you own the book, look into it, but don't rely too much on the spell. As far as combat healing goes, it's horrible.

Get a few vials of alchemist's fire and a dozen or so pints of oil. You will encounter monsters that you can't hurt with weapons (too high DR, too high AC, swarm, etc). When this happens, don't panic. Toss an alchemist's fire on the enemy, and when he's burning, continue with oil. Oil is cheap, only 1 sp per unit. One more thing, while the rules in equipment chapter say it takes a full round action to prepare a flask of oil with a fuse, forget about it. You're not building a Molotov Cocktail out of your oil flask. You're going to break it onto your enemy so the heat from alchemist's fire can ignite the oil.

An oil of magic weapon and bless weapon might save you if you run into DR/magic or DR/Evil. These cost 50gp per oil. If you can cast these spells yourself, get scrolls instead.

While getting HP might save your character's life, getting ability damage back can make a difference for your party. Lesser restoration helps here. If you need to use the spell in a battle, drink a potion. Don't use a scroll, a wand or cast the spell yourself. Drinking the potion is a standard action, but casting the spell takes three rounds.

Protip: Buy your lesser restorations from paladins. Paladins get the spell at 1st spell level and sell them dirt cheap. A scroll costs 25gp and a potion/oil costs 50gp.

While we're talking about paladins and their spell lists, rangers deserve a special mention. If you need resist energy cheaply, look there. Their resist energy is cast as a 1st level spell, thus making potions, scrolls, and wands cheaper than those made by clerics and druids. Actually, after you have been on a few adventures, you might want to invest in a few scrolls, just in case.

If an adventure looks like it might have something to do with poison, get a vial of antitoxin.

After this you should save to buy your combat gear like armor and weapons, if you use any. Remember to have a few weapons so you can do all three kinds of damage (bludgeoning, piercing and slashing). Also, get a weapon made of cold iron and another made of silver. These will help you get through any DR your enemies might possess.

cheapskate tip: Club costs nothing, does 1d6 bludgeoning damage for medium creatures and can be thrown.

When you've accumulated your first 9 prestige points, you can move from scrolls to wands. When you do, don't sell the scrolls.

Wands are cheaper than scrolls per charge, and thus cure light wounds, infernal healing, lesser restoration and resist energy wands will most likely be of some use to you. Resist energy and lesser restoration might be used too rarely for some characters to justify buying a wand full of them. If you think you don't need them, pack a few scrolls or potions just in case anyway. A wand of magic weapon will be pretty pointless, because you should invest in a real magic weapon instead of a wand.

If you have anything to add, feel free to do so. Help this thread keep new pathfinders alive.

Edits: OP's grammar sucks.

Something jumped up from the rules regarding zero level spells.

Cantrips: Wizards can prepare a number of cantrips, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on Table: Wizard under “Spells per Day.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again. A wizard can prepare a cantrip from a prohibited school, but it uses up two of his available slots (see below).

As you see, it's these spells that are not expended, not the spell slots. This means that a metamagiced cantrip can be cast again and again just like any other cantrip.

Generally speaking, this is not too useful save for a few things.

1) Extended Daze. A 2-round stop doing anything spell. Usable only for the first few levels, because enemy HD rises quickly over 4, and daze doesn't affect them anymore.

2) Quickened acid splash. A little turret for shooting down nasty insects and keeping trolls from regenerating. Not good for much else, and of questionable worth for a 4th level slot.

3) Silent Ghost Sound. When you really really want to remain unheard while making sounds, go with this.

I'm putting this here mostly to make sense of this myself, but hopefully some of you can benefit form this, or correct any errors I might have made, which would be even better.

CMB = Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier

So far pretty simple.

Performing a Combat Maneuver: When performing a combat maneuver, you must use an action appropriate to the maneuver you are attempting to perform. While many combat maneuvers can be performed as part of an attack action, full-attack action, or attack of opportunity (in place of a melee attack), others require a specific action. Unless otherwise noted, performing a combat maneuver provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of the maneuver. If you are hit by the target, you take the damage normally and apply that amount as a penalty to the attack roll to perform the maneuver. If your target is immobilized, unconscious, or otherwise incapacitated, your maneuver automatically succeeds (treat as if you rolled a natural 20 on the attack roll). If your target is stunned, you receive a +4 bonus on your attack roll to perform a combat maneuver against it.

Allright, so the bolded parts modify CMB. Still pretty easy to figure out, though I can't see why stunned opponents grant attacker's CMB instead of reducing their own CMD.

When you attempt to perform a combat maneuver, make an attack roll and add your CMB in place of your normal attack bonus. Add any bonuses you currently have on attack rolls due to spells, feats, and other effects. These bonuses must be applicable to the weapon or attack used to perform the maneuver. The DC of this maneuver is your target's Combat Maneuver Defense. Combat maneuvers are attack rolls, so you must roll for concealment and take any other penalties that would normally apply to an attack roll.

Right, now it gets kind of complicated. So my CMB is actually STR + BAB + Special Size modifier + 4 if opponent is stunned - damage taken from AoO + other bonuses.

I think other bonuses are things like improved [maneuver], weapon focus, weapon's enhancement bonus, bless, inspire courage and so on. Interestingly only bonuses, but not penalties are added to CMB, so I can use power attack when dealing damage in a grapple check at no penalty to my CMB, or use maneuvers while prone at no penalty.

Finally, concealment affects combat maneuvers.

Right. Let's move on to CMD.

Combat Maneuver Defense: Each character and creature has a Combat Maneuver Defense (or CMD) that represents its ability to resist combat maneuvers. A creature's CMD is determined using the following formula:

CMD = 10 + Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + Dexterity modifier + special size modifier

So far simple.

The special size modifier for a creature's Combat Maneuver Defense is as follows: Fine –8, Diminutive –4, Tiny –2, Small –1, Medium +0, Large +1, Huge +2, Gargantuan +4, Colossal +8. Some feats and abilities grant a bonus to your CMD when resisting specific maneuvers. A creature can also add any circumstance, deflection, dodge, insight, morale, profane, and sacred bonuses to AC to its CMD. Any penalties to a creature's AC also apply to its CMD. A flat-footed creature does not add its Dexterity bonus to its CMD.

And here it gets difficult. CMD is actually 10 + STR + DEX + BAB + Special Size Modifier + deflection + dodge + insight + morale + profane + sacred - any penalties at all to AC.

It's important to note that CMD is not the same as touch AC + CMB, even for medium sized creatures who don't have multiply size modifier to AC by -1. For example, cover and luck bonuses are added to touch AC, but not CMD.

Oh yeah, and if you're denied Dex bonus to AC, you lose it from your CMD. I assume this means I also lose dodge bonuses from CMD, but that's not explicitly stated anywhere.

There's a nice feat in Cheliax, Empire of Devils called Fury's Fall. It basically lets you add your dexterity modifier to your combat maneuver check when tripping.

Then there's the feat Agile Maneuvers in core rulebook, which replaces strength modifier with dexterity modifier in CMB.

My question is this: Do these two feats stack, so I could get 2x dexterity modifier on trip checks?

P.S If you're posting in this thread, you're probably not my DM. I'd appreciate if answers like "not in my game you wouldn't." would not appear here unless they are supported by RAW.

I'm planning on running this for my group on monday, and there were a couple things I noticed when I read the scenario.

Act 1 enemies have wonky skill bonuses. I suspect armor check penalties form their armor have been left out.

The enemies in act 4 do one point of damage too much with their off-hand attack. Their skill bonuses look like armor check penalties have been left out.

the enemy in act 5 has one point too high AC and touch AC.

She has 9 skill points to spare and she should have one more feat. Makes sense if one assumes human racial abilities are gone with this template. I don't think it works that way.

She has DR 5 instead of 10 it should have. Is this an intentional change to allow parties without the correct weapons to have a fighting chance?

Also, her dominate ability probably has a DC 15 (10 + ½ HD + Cha mod), but this omission isn't so much scenario's fault as it is WotC's fault for not clearly telling what DC to use in their rules.

Also, cloak of resistance is listed in scenario chronicle with a price of 2000gp, when it probably should only cost 1000gp.

Edit: One more thing. If the enemy in act 5 drinks the potion she has, can the PC's buy it after the scenario?

This item has one problem. It doesn't state what "dissipates naturally" means. Is it one round? Two rounds? Ten minutes? Until wind disperses it? Some clarification would be nice.

I'll drop this here so we all don't have to open our books to discuss this item.

Smokestick: This alchemically treated

wooden stick
instantly creates thick, opaque smoke when ignited. The
smoke fills a 10- foot cube (treat the effect as a fog cloud
spell, except that a moderate or stronger wind dissipates
the smoke in 1 round). The stick is consumed after 1 round,
and the smoke dissipates naturally.

I Ran this scenario yesterday. Here's what I noticed during play:

Act 4

Map on page 6

Boring encounters

Stat block nitpicking time

Statues' effects not defined properly

That's all the bad things I have on my mind on this scenario. Let's move on to the good things.

Nonlinear encounters

Interesting faction missions

Finally, I'd like to say my players enjoyed a chase scene I added in the beginning, where they chased after Chaim through the bathhouse. I called for a couple rolls to not slip on a wet floor or to jump over a pool in order to catch up to him. They never actually had the chance to catch up to him. He always managed to run around the corner, so that characters couldn't actually catch him or use up any resources while chasing him. After a couple of rolls Chaim finally got to Grandmaster Torch, characters right behind him and the story progressed as normal.

I've noticed that only couple types of wands will ever be bought and used by players. First there are healing items, like wands and scrolls of cure light wounds(caster level 1st). Then there are buff spells, like enlarge person and mage armor. Then there are utility items, like 3.5 knock or command undead, that is useful to have in scroll form in case it's needed.

Then there are the items nobody ever uses. These are things like a scroll of cause fear or a wand of fireball that just cost too much, are easy to save against and even if someone fails their save, the effect suffered is underwhelming at best.

I believe this has to do with two things. The low DC and lousy caster level / cost ratio.

A good solution to this problem should not make often used items more powerful or cheaper, but only reduce the cost of items not likely bought. My own fix would be to tinker with magic item pricing, so that scrolls, potions and wands would have a base price of (X * spell level * minimum caster level needed to cast spell), where X is 25 for scrolls, 50 for potions and 15 for wands. Then, if a crafter wanted to create an item at a higher caster level, he'd have to pay additional sum that's less than what he would pay using the current rules. For example, if each additional caster level above the minimum cost only half (for example, a scroll would cost: base price + 12,5 * spell level * (item's actual caster level - minimum caster level required to create item), a wand of fireball (caster level 10th) would cost 16 875(11 250 for caster level 5 wand plus 5 625 for increase of five caster levels)

This ensures that a wand of fireball (caster level 5th) would not become cheaper, but a wand of fireball (caster level 10th) would.

Most combat encounters so far in PFS are quite similar to each other in the sense that the objective for player characters and their opposition is to destroy each other. For most encounters this is just fine, but after too many repetitions it gets boring. Some varying would be nice in future scenarios.

Here's a few examples of combats that have objectives other than slay the enemy.

- Party tries to escort an informant to a safe location, but were ambushed by bad guys. Party tries to keep the informant alive while bad guys try to kill him and get away.

- One of Bad guys has information on McGuffin, and party has to take the informant alive for interrogation.

- Party has to reach a ship that's setting sail in 5 rounds to get away with McGuffin. Bad guys try to stop this form happening. Reverse would also work, so that party tries to stop bad guys from getting on board with McGuffin.

- Ninjas have captured the Governor. Are you bad enough guy to save him before he's coup de graced?

Some combats have or could have presented challenges like these already in PFS. Here's a list of those hidden safely behind spoiler blocks. Note that I'm not suggesting anyone change how these scenarios are ran in PFS, but instead how a scenario could be written to spice up encounters.

Silent Tide:

Hydra's Fang:

Murder on the Silken Caravan:

Frozen Fingers of Midnight:

Mists of Mwangi:

Black Waters:

Among the Living:

Slave Pits of Absalom:

Eye of the Crocodile King:

Blood at Dralkard Manor:

So, what do you think? Should PFS scenarios have more combats with objectives other than slay the enemy?

Something that bothers me with open door being a move action is that when a party rushes to a door, the one opening the door gets to go through last, unless he was next to the door at the beginning of his turn. In play, this has resulted in characters delaying their actions until a slower character can come open the door in question, because this enables faster characters to move further than if they opened the door themselves.

Example:

This happens because opening a door is move action. If it cost less in terms of actions, faster characters Would be less likely to wait for slower characters to clear the path for them.

One option I can see to fix this is to make opening doors a swift action. This might be the most simple solution I can come up with, although it might be too fast that way.

Another option would be to make opening a door cost some amount of movement, (10ft?) so that characters could open a door and go through with only one move action. This option would reduce but not eliminate the problem, as faster characters would still get further if they allowed slower characters to clear the path for them.

One of the earliest oddities I found in D&D was that a dagger thrown by a pixie has the same range increment and maximum range as a dagger thrown by a titan.

Should range increments and/or maximum ranges for projectile and thrown weapons be modified by wielder's size?

Most exotic weapons in PFRPGBeta aren't good enough to spend a feat on. Light and one handed weapons are mechanically about the same as their martial and simple counterparts.

Light exotic weapons, kama, nunchaku & siangham are all worse than a shortsword or a handaxe. While these are all monk weapons, it's not good design to limit these for monks only. If these were martial or simple, the poor monk might find a decent magical weapon even when he's not fighting other monks. Only the sai is alright, because it has a special purpose beyond dealing damage. It grants the greatest bonus on disarm attempts.

One handed exotic weapons, bastard sword and dwarwen waraxe, are basically like their martial counterparts, except they deal a point more damage and look bigger. One point of damage is not worth spending a feat on, and looking awesome isn't restricted to exotic weapons. Dwarven waraxe defends its position as an exotic weapon in the sense that dwarves get it for free. Still, I can't imagine anyone else spending a feat to get one. This might be the intention and dwarven waraxe is probably not supposed to be a weapon one spends a feat on. The only good enough exotic one handed weapon is the whip. This, like the sai has one unique property that other weapons don't have. 15' reach. This justifies it's place in exotic weapons.

Let's move to two handed weapons. Spiked chain is mechanically ok. Somebody will eventually claim it's ridiculous, but mechanically speaking it is what an exotic weapon should be in my opinion. Elven curve blade is ok in the sense that it's better than a greatsword for a disarmer. The other two handed weapons are all double weapons, and fall into bastard sword trap, as they deal 1 point of damage more than their martial counterparts and look awesome.

And that's only the melee weapons. Some ranged weapons are actually weaker than their martial and simple counterparts.

Every exotic crossbow sucks when compared to light crossbow. With one feat, a character can become proficient with a crossbow that has to be reloaded in every five attacks, or one can take a feat that makes reloading a light crossbow into a free action. Light crossbow wins. As for hand crossbow, 1d4 damage might cut it against commoners and rats. Anything else will merely be wondering why it's being shot with needles.

Shurikens - can you say worse than daggers? Compare exotic weapon proficiency(shuriken) with quick draw. Results are similar to repeating crossbow example above.

Bola can somehow justify it's place among exotic weapons for being the only ranged weapon that can trip. Still, I've never heard anyone take proficiency with this unless house rules have been involved.

Net is a special case. I've never seen anyone take proficiency with this, but I've sometimes seen people use these without proficiency. -4 nonproficiency penalty means that a ranged touch attack is still more likely to hit than a normal attack if the enemy has touch AC 4 lower than normal AC.

Someone might think that not every exotic weapon has to be better than their martial counterparts. That simply isn't true. A player shouldn't have to make the choice between equipping his character with an awesome weapon and an effective weapon.

First off, I may be overreacting (or I've just missed some critical rule and feel really embarrassed once someone points it out) and this might never come up in play, but I made an interesting observation in the Guide to Pathfinder Society organized play.

Experience is granted for every character who participates in an adventure. However, the party has to find gold. This means, that if a character (or party, for that matter) has to run away from battles they will not get gold from that battle. If this happens often, a character gets less powerful in comparison to the party he adventures with (unless they're poor as well), and in comparison to the monsters the character must face.

Then again, a character might lose their gear and be just as poor as the guy with bad luck in combat. For example, if a 4th level wizard loses his gear, he will be no better than a 4th level commoner until he can at least get a new spellbook. That's at least one, possibly a few adventures of tagging along the party, running away at the first sign of trouble and generally feeling useless.

If this happens, I can think of only one way the character has of getting back where he's supposed to be in the gold/experience ratio, and that might not work depending on how campaign grants gold. That way is to die, get raised and lose a level in the process. This works only if characters get more than 950 gold per level.

Another way would be to discard the character and make a new one, but that shouldn't be necessary.

The fact I'm even considering getting a character killed (repeatedly, I might add) in case of a huge monetary loss suggests that this system could use a bit of work.

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PS. I find it amusing that under "Death, Dying and Dismemberment" section of GtPFSOP, regenerate is not on the list of spells a character can purchase, nor is there any other spell that can regrow dismembered limbs.

When I ask why cure minor wounds is removed from Pathfinder PRG the response I usually get is that cure minor wounds creates an unlimited suply of healing. I'd like to know why this is bad.

While playing D&D 3.5 I've noticed that after each combat characters heal themselves to max hit points using wands of cure light wounds(referred to as happysticks from now on). This is good, because going to a fight with less than full hit points is an invitation for character death. This usage of happysticks is ultimately bad in my opinion, because it adds bookkeeping in the form of keeping track of money spent on happysticks and the charges remaining. I'd like to see overall character wealth by level guidelines reduced by some amount, but give the characters a free supply of healing.

The second reason why this change would be a good thing is that it's more heroic to see a cleric praying at the side of a companion for minutes than watch a cleric poke said companion with a stick.