McBaine's page

At the end of the Adventure Path Rise of the Runelords, there is an adult blue dragon that has in his tactics, that he casts mage armor on himself in the first round of combat and shield on himself on the second round. He has a caster level of 5 for these spells and SR 24.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, lowering the SR for 1 round is a standard action, as is casting those spells, so he can't do both in the same turn, meaning he has to overcome his own SR of 24 with a roll of 1d20+5 (his caster level).

Since mage armor has "SR no" in its entry, that works, but shield has nothing about SR in its entry. So, does the dragon attempt to cast shield on himself, probably wasting a turn because he only succeds on a roll of 19 or 20? I mean, that fight is hard enough, so the PC's can use this break, but is that how it is handeled or am I missing something?

Hi, I will start a Rise of the Runelords campaign with my group of players in about 2 weeks. We finished the Carrion Crown Adventure Path and will finish the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path next week. Two of my players have complained that they got tired of the same enemies over and over again. In Carrion Crown it was undead and in Legacy of Fire it was Efreeti and other Fire based monsters.

In Rise, the first book is heavy on Goblins, the second has quite a variety of enemies but starting from the third book it is giants in all forms: Ogres, Trolls, Hill-, Stone-, Cloud and Rune Giants etc.

I see these players hitting giant fatigue soon when the Adventure Path progresses. Are there other monsters that would fit in the theme and make sense as Karzoug's minions?

tl;dr: Are there other fitting enemies than mostly various giants for the end of Rise of the Runelords?

Thanks in Advance

I am a bit confused with what gets multiplied when a critical hit is rolled.

Multiplying Damage: Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results.

Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage. So if you are asked to double the damage twice, the end result is three times the normal damage.

Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon's normal damage are never multiplied.

So, here are some examples how I read it:

Paladin [+1 holy longsword] with smite evil active crits on evil monster:
Normal Damage = 1d8+1 (+1 longsword) + 3 (ST Mod) + 2d6 (holy) + 12 (smite evil)
Crit (x2): 2d8+2 (2x +1 longsword) + 6 (2x ST Mod) + 2d6 (holy - not doubled) + 24 (2x smite evil)
As far as I understand, the holy is not doubled because of the stated exception and the 2d6 from holy are "Extra damage dice over and above a weapon's normal damage" right?

Ranger [+1 giant bane longbow] with favored enemy (giants)+4 vs giant:
Normal Damage = 1d8+3 (counts as a +3 longbow vs giants) + 2d6 (giant bane) + 4 (favored enemy)
Crit (x3) = 3d8+9 (3x +3 longbow) + 2d6 (giant bane) + 12 (3x favored enemy)
Again all modifiers are multiplied, but the extra damage dice from bane are not, correct?

Rogue [+1 vicious flaming dagger] vs flanked enemy:
Normal Damage = 1d4+1 (+1 dagger) + 1 (ST Mod) + 2d6 (vicious) + 1d6 (fire) + 5d6 (sneak attack)
Crit (x2) = 2d4+2 (2x +1 dagger) + 2 (2x ST Mod) + 2d6 (vicious) + 1d6 (fire) + 5d6 (sneak attack)
In effect, the rogue gets only +1d4+2 extra damage from his crit because he has no flat modifiers but only extra dice from various sources?

Am I reading this correct? Extra dice are not multiplied but every other source of flat damage mod like power attack and so on is? Thanks in advance.

Wall of Force

Effect wall whose area is up to one 10-ft. square/level

A wall of force creates an invisible wall of pure force. The wall cannot move and is not easily destroyed. A wall of force is immune to dispel magic, although a mage's disjunction can still dispel it. A wall of force can be damaged by spells as normal, except for disintegrate, which automatically destroys it. It can be damaged by weapons and supernatural abilities, but a wall of force has hardness 30 and a number of hit points equal to 20 per caster level. Contact with a sphere of annihilation or rod of cancellation instantly destroys a wall of force.

Breath weapons and spells cannot pass through a wall of force in either direction, although dimension door, teleport, and similar effects can bypass the barrier. It blocks ethereal creatures as well as material ones (though ethereal creatures can usually circumvent the wall by going around it, through material floors and ceilings). Gaze attacks can operate through a wall of force.

I'm not sure if I understand the text for wall of force correctly and I hope to get clarification. The bold text above seems easy enough to understand for rays and templates like cones and lines such as burning hands or lightning bolt. It blocks line of effect and ends when it hits the wall of force.

My question is about other spells like cloudkill, feeblemind, baleful polymorph and so on.

1) Spread spells: Most spread templates just appear when the spell is cast. While the description of fireball says that a bead is flying prior to the explosion, I suppose it would crash against the wall of force and detonate early(?), but what about spreads that are not emanating but just appear like solid fog or cloudkill or a elemental bloodline sorcerers elemental blast?
Are those effect completely halted? Does it make a difference if the wall of force doesn't block completely (fighting out in the open or in a 15ft. high room with a 10 ft. wall of force)?

2) Spells that just target a creature: Does a feeblemind or baleful polymorph just smash against a wall of force and not effect anything behind it? Again, does it make a difference if the wall is not as high as the ceiling (can a target spell "hop over" or "go around" the wall of force if it isn't high or wide enough?

3) Form of the wall: There is no (S) for shapeable in the spell description, so can you only make a 10 ft. high straight wall or can you enclose it around yourself or someone else? Can you make it 20ft. high by building the wall squares atop one another?

That's all for now.
Thanks in advance.

The City of Brass seems to be a fun and interesting setting. Alas in The Impossible Eye you don't get to see this setting and you are stuck in one place.
I wanted to make use of the City of Brass and let my players explore it a bit. But there is only little information in the book. Any suggestions where I can find more about this setting (the artwork suggests flying ships - I'd like to know about that in particular, should be fun).

Here is the text for the alkali flask:

This flask of caustic liquid reacts with an ooze's natural acids. You can throw an alkali flask as a splash weapon with a range increment of 10 feet. Against non-ooze creatures, an alkali flask functions as a normal flask of acid. Against oozes and other acid-based creatures, the alkali flask inflicts double damage. Crafting this item is a DC 20 Craft (alchemy) check.

At first I thought this was a special way to fight oozes, but nearly half of the oozes have immunity to acid damage. By the rules as written the alkali flask would deal no damage against these oozes at all because the damage counts as acid, am I correct?

Against oozes without immunity to acid, how does the double damage work? is it a d6x2 (similar to how the enervation effect is made against undead)? Or is it 2d6 (similar to a critical hit with a x2 weapon)?

In the group where I am the DM, it happens frequently that the party decides after a level or portion of a dungeon, they need to rest up. The spellcasters especially burn through their spells and after half an hour of in-game time the characters leave the place and rest up for 8 hours.

There are times where this is easily done, but there are also times when this would give the enemy time to prepare or even retaliate.

I wanted to know how common this is in your games and how it is handled - is it no big deal, are you adjusting the enemies left or do some of them even come after the party?

One of the latest ideas might even kill the party:
Spoiler for Carrion Crown: Shadows of Gallowspire

I read into the magic item creation and had some questions about the slots. If a character takes the craft wondrous items feat, he can ... well, craft wondrous items. Say he wants to make a hat of disguise, but, he already has a cool hat (or magical headband), can he craft an amulet of disguise instead (same powers, but different slot)? Is there a restriction in place? I saw that the item costs more if it doesn't take a slot at all, so this is ok?
What if the character has the forge ring feat too? Can he create a ring of disguise?

Vampires have DR 10/magic and silver.
Does that mean you need a weapon that counts as magic and silver (like a +1 silver/mithril weapon or a +3 weapon)? Or is either ok, meaning, the DR is completely bypassed by magic weapons and even mundane silver weapons?

This is something that bothers me. I have seen that quite a few times in official publications. There is the Big Bad, a spellcaster with terrible arcane (or divine) power, but when you read his tactics as written, he does stupid things.

Example 1:

The enemy was a wizard who had prepared 2 maximized magic missiles. It was a 3rd Level encounter, so he could have blasted one or two of the characters away with 20 damage (4 maximized 1d4+1 missiles) per spell. But what does his During Combat entry say: "He is cruel and spreads his magic missiles on as many targets as possible to prolong the suffering".

Example 2:

Necromancer with 2 (not particularly strong) undead minions. In his arsenal of prepared spells are things like circle of death. What does his entry say? "He bolsters his undead minions." yeah, right, he has one desecrate spell prepared between all this attack spells.

I am aware that these things are there to prevent a TPK by enemy caster, but it doesn't sit well with me. Why was it designed that way in the first place? If someone doesn't want them to TPK the group, make them weaker, give them different spells and add a second in command who is a fighter or something. But just coming up with some excuse to not use all the deadly spells that are written there stretches my imagination and the believe.

Have you similar observations or is it just me? Did i pick two bad examples? If you know this "problem", what are your solutions (because simply TKPing the group is nothing I want to do. It can happen, but the odds should not have benn stacked against the players)?

I'm currently running Trial of the Beast as a GM
I'm putting spoiler tags, just in case: