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![]() Alright.... 5 months later they finally made their move. What the Rogue has done.
She has opted not to be put in the loop in the interest of more faithfully playing her character. The plot at this point is flawless, unless the party's barbarian opts to seek out the advice of a third party diviner after the 2 day duration of the mind-blank has concluded there is no conceivable way that all her compatriots kidnapped her love interest. What I've done:
I'm pretty happy with the present state of affairs, I think it'll create some excellent opportunities inter-party drama/conflict for the campaign climax. Also, I'm never running a 1-20 campaign again, it takes eons to write adventures that need to factor in the ability of party members to cast wish and so forth >.< ![]()
![]() So after mulling it over and building a rudimentary spreadsheet looking at shipping costs vs local sales tax I bit the bullet today and renewed by subscription for the Pathfinder game. Now the subscription starts with NPC codex and part of my justification in doing so presumes that I'll get it shipped via sidecart as a cheaper consolidated shipment with the adventure path... Unfortunately I now realize this means that I might be waiting until the payment is authorized a month from now to see the PDF, and I'm impatient, is there a way to issue payment sooner to get the PDF now without sending two shipments. ![]()
![]() To everyone who is saying that twisting the wish is unsuitable and to stop being a jerk. Please read the descriptor of a Galbrezu: With its ability to cloak its true form in pleasant illusions, the glabrezu uses its magic to grant wishes to mortal humanoids as a method of rewarding those who succumb to its guile and deceit. A wish granted by a glabrezu always fulfills the wisher's need in the most destructive way possible—although such methods might not be immediately apparent. A struggling weaponsmith might wish for fame and skill at his craft, only to find that his best patron is a cruel and sadistic murderer who uses the weapons to further his destructive desires. A lonely man who wishes for a companion might have his wish granted in the form of a lost love returned to “life” as a vampire, and so on—the glabrezu is nothing if not creative in addressing a mortal's desires. Lots of good ideas so far, few comments A) demon horns/features I like it, but so would the player, he's been claiming to be a demon for years.
My favorites at this point are slow polymorph into an oxen and pseudo demonic possession. ![]()
![]() Ok, so as per usual my players will be fed to a Tarrasque if they read this post. In the last session our party's CN rogue agreed to spare a Glabrezu demon's life if it granted him a wish. He wished for more constitution (+1). Now immediately following the wish being granted the rogue summarily executed the demon, (which most of the CG party members found no issue with) Now I'm all for slaying demons but if there was ever a wish that needed to be harshly twisted about this would be the one. Who's got an extra helping of nasty for me? ![]()
![]() Hartbaine wrote:
Thanks for your comments, no offense taken. ONE of my players sees it this way. He may be correct that the NPC is evil but the Kianna is neither omnipotent nor immortal. As I'm not yet reading the other thread (pending my player's permission) I can only speculate on what perspective he's putting forward but he might be a tad cross at how the clone in the last adventure screwed up the party's stuff. The players (particularly the rogue PC Taylar) are constantly telling me "We're building a fortress city, We have elaborate magical traps, we have a vault of our unused treasure safe from prying eyes, we have guardian creatures"
In a vacuum of hard defensive info I presumed that a clone with the NPCs knowledge (supported by an epic level lich) could perform an inside job, steal, kidnap, sabotage etc. It was very much a case of hitting the party where they live to drive home the villany/power of the BBEG. Taylar's player was a bit irked saying "we wouldn't be caught with our pants down like this" but went along with the adventure anyways. He seems to mis-ascribe the godlike ability to mess up the party's stuff to the lower level NPC rather than the epic level big bad. The same NPC lich has proven the ability to clone other party members also. Anyways I don't agree with the Players logic or the character's logic but I can't disuade him from this course without vetoing it so we'll see where this road leads. ![]()
![]() Friend of the Dork wrote:
Thanks Friend of Dork, I found this really useful. 3 is a non issue, this character isn't a DMPC. any time she joins the party she is controlled by the players (unless I need her as a mouthpiece for knowledge checks). If I were to poll the other players they would say it's 1 and 2. The four other players AND characters in the group as of the last game came out with radically different conclusion they said: "Wow our NPC/Cohort friend was just captured by the Big Bad, refused to join the BBEG's ranks, was subsequently Tortured extensively, we thought she had turned on us but the real her never wavered." In light of this all the other characters think she's now beyond reproach The lone PC (Taylar) seems to be saying
Now I'm not going to say who's right here, I do love my plot twists. I will say that all my players don't have all the information yet and some characters aren't reacting rationally to the information they have available. ![]()
![]() Vicon wrote: NEVER let your attraction for how you planned things to supersede a characters ability to have an effect on the story. I'm actually in the nice position of not having one firm plan for the end of this campaign. The campaign has the players sandwiched between two big bads who are at war. Agents of death and magebred monstrosities, BOTH big bads are bent on world domination. At the end of the campaign the players will make some choices that will decide the outcome of this conflict for better or for ill. Infact some of the choices they make may reshape the world. The player's (Taylar's) actions don't run off the rails, I'm still comfortably within the scope of the plot as I foresaw it. The unfortunate aspect of this is that if not handled correctly his imprisonment of a key NPC (Kianna) may limit the choices the party can make that affect the campaign outcome. I want the party to make these big choices not one player. Given that the taylar could take the rest of the party (NPC included) out in combat and has superior command of the rules to let the dice fall where they may favorers the powergamer over the others at the table (myself included) ![]()
![]() DrDeth wrote:
From my perspective I think the situation is a bit more fluid. framed this way honestly I could see this going down as any of these outcomes. 1 2 & 3 1 & 3 or just 3 on it's own. IC Relationship is a non-issue, I'm not about to ruin anyone's fun for the sake of preserving imaginary relations between a fictional characters. In truth killing, abducting or tormenting Kianna has proven to provide high drama situations that the wife quite enjoys. I see a PC driven abduction of Kianna as no exception to this trend. I would frame this issue more along the lines of: 1) Satisfying agency of PC (Taylar) who has desires that conflict with group.
Right now I can pick 1&3 or 2&3. I want all three. ![]()
![]() Vicon wrote: Illidyth is totally right -- this is NOT a book. And as a GM of decades also I'll tell you -- I've had my endings inexorably altered too -- and it's a challenge a good GM must rise to meet, otherwise we should be writing stories and not running campaigns. I agree fully. As it happens I'm horrible at writing stand alone fiction :P I want everyone at the table to have fun. However respecting the agency of a single player (who is far more rules savvy and powergamey) than the others shouldn't ruin the agency of everyone else at the table. roguerouge wrote: Let the dice fall where they may. Two campaigns back ,my absolute favorite pet NPC of all time tried to recruit a like minded PC to help him attain evil godhood. PC pretended to go along with it and stole the godhood out from under him at the last second, killing another PC in the process. (Betrayed NPC, betrayed the party, became a the god of Death) It was very much an "empire strikes back" ending to that campaign and the in game repercussions are being felt to this day. Respecting the agency of that player made for some awesome ending but it also lead to some hurt feelings IRL. Looking to improve things this time around. ![]()
![]() Spiral_Ninja wrote: And as for Mrs GM? Why shouldn't her character be the one making out with the NPC? Do you want to play such a situation in front of the other spouse? Don't you think that's jsut a tad icky? I'm not sure I understand the question but I'll try to answer. I cater to the desires of my players, some players want a bit of romance on the side. There can be an ick factor but it can often ramp up the drama. Lets name some folks:
And if memory serves prior to these relationships the Tayar and Tammarack had a brief fling. The key NPC is not just crucial plot element but also something of a mulligan for my wife's character and we're getting some quality dramatic mileage out of "rescue the princess" plots so far. ![]()
![]() Aaaaaaaaaand I'm back... When I last perused this thread (about 70 posts ago) I got some good suggestions (and some bad ones), discussed with my player a whole lot, read up on spells, and figured out some ways of playing this. Then got talking to an important Kobold and failed to notice the thread growth entirely. Thanks everyone for your interest so far :) A few general comments before I respond to some individual points)
B) The fact that the NPC is involved with my Wife's character was withheld but not for the purpose of a conflict of interest on my part (at least any that I'm aware of). I come from a background where two female characters in a romance can be... controversial and wanted to sidestep a potentially useless tangent discussion, now that the cat's out of the bag I'm very glad to see it's been a non-issue. C) This character is important to the plot line, but she's not immortal or all powerful. I have pet NPCs, she's crucial to the plot, and I make no apologies for this. I consider myself a storyteller first and a ref second and storytellers need key characters. This doesn't mean the rogue can't succeed but his success or failure will have a *profound* effect on the campaign world I've been building for over a decade. I feel this power is best put in the hands of all the PCs not just one. D) I'm on here looking for options not allies, as such criticism of my approach falls on deaf ears. If you like my style that's awesome, if you don't like my style I respect your opinion but I don't much care. I don't need strangers on the internet to validate my DMing skills, I just want you to show me new avenues of awesome. E) I'd like to lay my cards on the table but with the second thread going there's too large a chance of more information leaking (Intentionally or accidentally) I'll need to continue to be somewhat coy. If anyone's paying attention a few months from now I'll post a behind the scenes look at what eventually went down. Now on to some specific comments... ![]()
![]() Ascalaphus wrote:
Pretty much ![]()
![]() As per usual, my players shouldn't be reading this post. Ok so 3 real world years ago in the very first encounter of our campaign I introduced a 10 year old townsfolk NPC child who, in the midst of a goblin attack discovered she had arcane talent and fought back against the invaders. The campaign has progressed well,, the party is reaching level 18 and the NPC (now an adult, a level 16 sorcerer, and all but married to one of the PCs) has occasionally joined them on adventures in a henchman capacity where her bloodline has proven to have a connection to and power over the monstrous minions of the big bad. Now the group has been joking for years that this particular NPC will turn out to be the campaign final boss so when I started riffing on this particular idea last adventure it was pretty epic. Unbeknownst to the party the big bad kidnapped and cloned her a bunch of times, the party had a big final battle against a lesser Jabberwock and a couple of casters, one who they presumed to be this NPC but it turned out to just be a clone. Upon rescuing the original most of the party think things are back to normal, with the potential exception of dealing with her clones cropping up in the future. One of my PCs however doesn't see it this way. The party rogue, the usually lovable loose cannon, has decided that the NPC is too much of a liability in the face of the Big Bad's looming apocalypse and has decided to kill her and/or trap her soul such that she can't escape or be resurrected. The player wants this plan to be kept secret from the other PCs both IC and OOC. Now the rogue is the powerhouse of the party, I have zero doubts about his statistical ability to push this plan through. However this is really going to cramp my style as I wrap up this campaign, plus upset both the PCs and their players. These are the options I've come up with so far and I'm not entirely happy with any of them.
Any ideas as to how to best handle this for the enjoyment of all. ![]()
![]() I do a bunch of Live Action Roleplay where i come from (vancouver), mostly European style boffer LARP as seen in movies such as rolemodels. My idea is as follows: Event: Gollarion themed LARP session, based perhaps on a dungeon from an adventure path such as RotRLs
Pros:
Cons:
Thoughts? ![]()
![]() I'm not one to turn down some feedback Mindari’s Maddening Mittens of Myriad Missiles
Thanks in Advance! ![]()
![]() I don't have strong feelings on the matter but I'm in agreement with Are for the most part. Note that from the base skill: If you try to take something from a creature, you must make a DC 20 Sleight of Hand check. The opponent makes a Perception check to detect the attempt, opposed by the Sleight of Hand check result you achieved when you tried to grab the item. An opponent who succeeds on this check notices the attempt, regardless of whether you got the item. You cannot use this skill to take an object from another creature during combat if the creature is aware of your presence. So if you are invisible stealing from an unaware creature you wouldn't need to use the talent at all, and I don't think as skill use it would constitute an attack. Now the talent makes a disarm attack with the slight of hand skill so If you do use the talent it removes invisibility... which doesn't make perfect sense to me. ![]()
![]() +1 for option 3 keep them alive and write the next adventure as them as dragon thralls. Another way you could go is for the dragon to let them live but take all their gear. Perhaps maim them a bit to "Set an example" before sending them back through the gate. Sets up your dragon as a longer term villain that they can come back and kill once they are appropriate level. Note that a level 7 party has allot of resources at their disposal buffs, magic items from their tok'ra wizard friend, + clever tactics. If they go in knowing they are up against a high CR dragon and the dragon doesn't see it coming I would give them even odds of pulling it off. ![]()
![]() I was super concerned about this in my campaign a while ago, the rogue was uber, the rest were low average characters. Had a sit down discussion with the rogue's player and he agreed to help the others out a bit. Surprisingly some players took his advice, some ignored it. Seems that most were happy to have the rogue save the day from time to time. I also try to balance out the party in other ways. Light weight characters often receive neat artifacts that are best in their hands.
Give the non-min maxers more leash.
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![]() I've got a bit of experience as an archer, both with LARP combat archery and target archery. So I'm coming at this as a guy who knows his way around a bow. I would say this would be plausible but somewhat ineffective. A) you sight down the arrow to aim
you would only be able to sight down one bow and would be firing somewhat blind with the other. Also you would need to slant both bows enough that they wouldn't clash perhaps 10-20 degrees off perpendicular I would say you should take -2 with the primary and -4 or more with the secondary at very least. This sounds to me like you would want a dedicated feat instead of/ or in addition to two weapon fighting. There's a 3.5 precedent for this, and a good image to visualize
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![]() Awesome Set, I'm very excited, My one big request for Pathfinder minis is this: consistent color schemes. This drove me nuts with DDM, different sets had wildly differing color schemes for the same race If a goblin's skin color is green in this set don't make them gray or neon orange in the next. If I'm fielding a tribe of goblins I expect them to be thoroughly inbred not inexplicably genetically diverse. ![]()
![]() If you're my player, no looking at this thread, yes that means you Phil :P Has anyone tried to run a logic matrix puzzle at a tabletop RPG? I'm working on adapting one for a pathfinder adventure. I figure it'll be a nice puzzle for which I as a GM don't need to babysit the party on. They can break off into groups or singles and solve it/argue with each other and I'll sit back with some light roleplaying options for the non-puzzle people. IF they get bored/stuck they can wander off kill monsters and come back. I'm thinking something along this line would be thematically appropriate,
I figure the vault they are trying to break into will ask a random question of them, if they answer wrong they get disintegrated, so they can either risk it %80 chance of disintegration, or they can work out the entire puzzle (spend an hour or two) and save their skins. Likely include a high int henchman/hireling or two for players who want to participate but feel constrained by a low int character. Thoughts, advice, ![]()
![]() Sigh... When World of Warcraft came out it decimated my 3.5 campaign, I don't want to see a repeat. Fact is many pathfinder players still play pathfinder because they dodged the WoW bullet as it were. To be blunt MMO are a dangerous, addictive, life disrupting pastime which steal and detract from the art form of pen and paper RPGs. Why get together in the basement around Mountian Dew and Cheetoes when you can play at home in your underwear. I do not support this move, I think it's doomed to failure, I think even if it works it will detract from the base of support for the pen and paper rpgs and pathfinder in particular. I very much hope Paizo isn't tying up any of their own capital in this endeavor. ![]()
![]() First off, if you're in my campaign, don't read this. So my level 14 group has got it in their head that they want to rob a bank... They want the loot to fortify their home town against a growing threat of minions run by the big bad. Not just any bank mind you but the richest, most highly guarded, bank on their continent of my little home brewed world. So now I'm looking at writing a heist adventure, as with any good heist story I'm hoping that half (or more) of the adventure will be spent plotting and scheming. Presuming PFRPG magic, and practically unlimited resources how would you build a bank vault to be not only seemingly impregnable, but also really fun to knock over. So far I'm thinking the usual suspects like:
I'm looking for your ideas, particularly stuff you have used in your game, on a similar note does anyone know of heist adventures, ideally for pathfinder or 3.5 that may be applicable/available? ![]()
![]() I think the map PDFs are great, Corey's maps are of course works of art and it's awesome to have older one's available. however at $9.00 each for what amounts to 9 pages of information (18 for a double sided offering) I don't think this would be worthwhile. I would be interested in buying all of them but only at a lower price point, say $3-5 each. At this price I could see buying one or two. Another way to make these maps more palatable would be to improve the customization available perhaps through a different file format. A document in Photoshop for instance would permit people to remove certain elements (say the layer that contains the cannons) while leaving the rest of the map intact. I don't know that there's a widely available file format this would work for (I don't know that gimp would be appropriate) but I'll just throw it out there.) Anyways still very excited, very cool to see a PDF offering of this nature. ![]()
![]() I have a bit of hands on experience with foam larp weapons, which are relatively light compared to steel. Lifting a weapon and swinging a weapon in a combat situation are vastly different animals. In combat you're not only swinging the weapon in a simple arc but also changing the angle mid swing to compensate for the opponent's attempts to block/dodge. Using a huge sword one handed is wildly impractical for this. If I were forced to write a PF feat simulating monkey grip I would limit the character to one attack a round, at a -4 to hit penalty. Further it wouldn't be compatible with other feats like vital strike. ![]()
![]() I played map-less in 2nd ed, all through high school, found it kinda irksome.
Now 11 years later, I've done some map less "theater of the mind" stuff at the request of players or for simple combats, often cause we're to lazy to position minis for a simple fight vs a lone NPC. Generally though I feel generally it detracts from the experience. I've also had some luck with 40K style ruler play, works really well for players who have warhammer/wargames experience and particularly for outdoor combats. Come to think of it I should do more of that. Of course d20 introduced mats&minis to make more money, and that's even without considering mini sales. A better game will sell more books, a mat makes a better game (in this system). Vis-a-vis a OGL game employing battle mats is more profitable. To support this highly opinionated argument I'll point out that both before and after WOTC was making pre-painted minis they have had licensed offerings of paper tokens for use with battle mats. I think that battlemaps are great for pathfinder and feel generally that theater of the mind is regressive for the OGL based games. Then again I have players who jump at the chance to ditch the map. ![]()
![]() Back in 3.5 we had Titan fighting, (races of stone p145) which seems pretty popular at my table. I noticed that every single gnome/dwarf etc took it which says to me to go get the nerf bat. Also it's closed content which I prefer not to use (not fair to folks who can't get the old books) So I came up with this. Nimbleness of the Short Folk {Racial}
I'd welcome your opinions, thoughts as to comparative balance. This is open content see tuskmountain.wikidot.com ![]()
![]() Jeranimus Rex wrote:
Well the cannon was treasure from a past adventure, they looted it from a pirate ship. If he doesn't use it to sneak attack I suspect they'll mount it on a ship of their own. I think the motivation here is bragging rights. We're using cannons right from inner sea guide, though the rules are a bit sparse.
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