Mervikoth's page

Unless it's been renamed, Realm of the Mammoth Lords is incorrectly labelled Realm of the Mammoth Lands on the map.

Good luck to everyone!

This looks great! I have a half-orc druid I plan on getting the stats up for later today. A family man tempted by the sweet comforts of civilization in his middle age after a relatively boring life as a guide and a hunter.

I'm in Central Time, and usually post from 2-4 pm or 8-midnight. I'm still a novice at PbP. My IRL gaming group had too many scheduling problems, so we started a PbP with me as GM only 2 months ago. Then I joined an unofficial PFS scenario a few weeks ago to get a feel for what it's like as a player. So I'm still figuring out how to write good posts, but feel like I have a good grasp of how often I need to post, especially as GM (answer: often!).

My post as a PC, Prince Magniventris: LINK
And one as a GM: LINK

I tend to blab on in backstories, so here's my submission.

If there's any other info I'm missing, or if you need clarification, let me know.

Good luck to everyone!

1. Absolutely, please do so. (This goes for everyone, though I can't guarantee every NPC will survive what's coming.)
2. I do not recall any dinosaurs in the AP.
3. Unfortunately, no. The first adventure has very little/no opportunity for purchasing items.
4. Good question. My times vary pretty widely. I would say I mostly post around noon Eastern, give or take an hour, and then as I'm able later in the evening. However, on Tuesdays, I work a day shift, so my posts tend to come more often at night. (A lot can also depend on what type of post is needed. If it's not combat or something I need to check the adventure on, I can usually find a couple minutes at work.)

1. Wonderful! And I would expect nothing less. What better avenue for inner turmoil than to have beloved NPCs killed off tragically by the GM?

Unfortunately real life got busy this evening, so rather than post a half-completed backstory, I'm going to wait until tomorrow to post my PC (assuming things slow down tomorrow).

One other question, Motteditor: What are you thoughts on Drawbacks?

This looks great! I have a half-orc druid I plan on getting the stats up for later today. A family man tempted by the sweet comforts of civilization in his middle age after a relatively boring life as a guide and a hunter.

I'm in Central Time, and usually post from 2-4 pm or 8-midnight. I'm still a novice at PbP. My IRL gaming group had too many scheduling problems, so we started a PbP with me as GM only 2 months ago. Then I joined an unofficial PFS scenario a few weeks ago to get a feel for what it's like as a player. So I'm still figuring out how to write good posts, but feel like I have a good grasp of how often I need to post, especially as GM (answer: often!).

My post as a PC, Prince Magniventris: LINK
And one as a GM: LINK

I do have a few questions before I finish my PC this evening:

What are your thoughts on Drawbacks?

Since this is a PFS scenario, I assume it will end before we level up (I have no experience with PFS). Will we only be playing at level 1?

Lastly I too am new to PbP, but not Pathfinder in general. I recently started GMing a PbP (for IRL friends only, who are also new to PbP) and am interested to see how being a player goes. This kind of short commitment is exactly what I've been looking for, so thanks for willing to GM this.

I hope to have my PC up for you tomorrow. A courtly kobold alchemist and devout follower of Apsu. (Unless, of course, that deity doesn't exist in Midgard)

All of them.

Just like Golarion has nations with vastly different "flavors" of fantasy, Starfinder will have different systems of planets with all of the "flavors" you want to play in - or ignore completely.

Marvin,

I hear you. I got the impression from the old D&D books that authors were chucking their home games straight into the mediocre prose factory. Pathfinder Tales are not like that.

I've only read Sutter and Gross so far, but that's because of fundage restrictions. I lurves me some good prose, but characters are my literary focus. With those guys, I have not had the disappoint. They've also brought Golarion alive, which has helped tremendously in my games. When more disposable moolah occurs, I plan to explore other PT authors.

For outstanding fantasy prose, I haven't found better than Gene Wolfe. Heck, his prose is so good, sometimes you can't even understand what's going on! And he does not make up words, no matter what anyone says. Barry Hugart also has some lovely typing. Bridge of Birds is Hugart's best, while Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is outstanding. For drunk/drugged reading, Wolfe's Peace works because it's incomprehensible sober.

Hope this helps.

Treppa

Can't recommend Wolfe and Hughart enough. Wolfe was the first name that sprung to my mind when you mentioned "literary" fantasy. Start with the Book of the New Sun, a quadrilogy that starts with the Shadow of the Torturer. Also, Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea series is a must as well.

I'm surprised no one had died from the Sandling in Book 1, Part 1. Our group had 3 out of 4 in the negatives from that thing before the still-standing ranger finally knocked its health down to 4 and it retreated.

Our group talked mostly to Mad Dog and the halflings. They tried to exchange some words with the rogue-like crew, but got only intimidating glares in response. Velriana asked about the Erudite Eye to no avail. It wasn't a lot of roleplaying, but it will definitely help enforce these other groups as real once they meet in the Tooth and Hookah later.

I also have the prices dropping by 5% each day, so going back to rest is actually an interesting choice the PCs have to make.

As for a 5th member of the Scorched Hand, you might just give each of the current members another class level. Not sure how much work that'd be. You could have one of the "lone survivors" of a different adventuring group be that 5th member, so it makes sense if you've already introduced them into the story as only 4 people.

Getting ready to run this over the weekend.

I've moved the roleplaying between rival adventuring groups to the wait before the lottery. Not only does that allow for more than one period of interaction with the Scorched Hand, but it will allow me to sow some seeds for the potentially deadly encounters (two of my players are new to Pathfinder). The other groups will talk about needing holy water for undead, scrolls of restoration for curses, two-handed weapons for constructs, fire/acid for swarms, good eye for traps, and so on.

Conveniently there will be street vendors selling last-minute goods to the adventuring masses right before the lottery for only slightly jacked up prices. I'll post more once we run it.

Mmm, that's true. I was mostly curious about the parenthesis at the end, where it says the rogue does not apply his Int mod to damage. Does this override the Alchemist's ability to apply Int to damage, or vice versa?

Also, before anyone says, I know there is Underground Chemist, which is much simpler, but the goal here is to be an alchemist, not a rogue. Extracts, multiple bomb discoveries, feral mutagen, etc.

How would these abilities stack?
You take 2 levels of rogue, pick up the Bomber's talent, and then multiclass to Alchemist (vivisectionist) for the rest of your levels. Vivisectionist gives you Sneak Attack that stacks with other sources, and the Bomber's talent grants you bomb damage based off of sneak attack. Since Vivisectionist does not remove the Throw Anything ability of the Alchemist, does this mean you would have bombs that deal +Int damage, and do the same damage dice as sneak attack? You only be able to create your Int mod per day of course, but is this a viable way to have both sneak attack and bombs at your highest damage?

True. So it would be better to have one party member without a key taking all of the attacks or a summoned creature we send to the front lines.

Thanks! I'm playing in an Iron Gods AP and we just got 900 gp each to spend. My character even worships Abadar, so this items seemed perfect.

But it sounds like I'll have to ask my GM what his interpretation on it is. He usually sides with the players' wishes (provided they aren't unreasonable) in gray areas like this, but it sounds like it would slow down a lot of fights as I remind our GM that no, that robot wouldn't attack me first. He and the party would probably get frustrated after a while, and we don't play often enough for this to become secondhand.

After all, our GM prepping for each session way more than us players are, and tacking an additional responsibility for him to remember for a lot of our combats isn't worth it, from a real-life perspective. Metagaming doesn't have to always be disruptive.

Now, equipping everyone in our party with one? That's an idea...

The Clockwork Key from Faiths of Balance states:

Constructs avoid attacking the bearer of the clockwork key, directing their attacks toward other targets if possible, unless they are directly threatened by the bearer or are ordered by their creator to attack

What does "directly threatened" mean? Is that in my threatened reach of the weapon I am holding, or is more up to the GM's discretion?

What if I am attacking another enemy, who is an ally of the construct in the room? Is that directly threatening it, or indirectly? If a room was full of 50 constructs, could I take them out one by one because none would attack me unless attacked? If attacking the enemy's allies count as directly threatening, then what is the point of the Clockwork Key?

Thanks for your help!

Thanks everyone! Kingmaker seems like a big hit, it was one of my top picks before we settled on Carrion Crown. Council of Thieves I know the least about and that might be a good thing if I end up being a player instead of a GM.

Our group started playing the Carrion Crown Adventure Path almost two years ago and we are about midway through the final book. We'd played 3.5 and 4e for years before, always with homemade adventures, so this was not only our first taste of Pathfinder but also our first taste of premade adventures and we have loved it so far.

However, after two years of horror and fighting undead at every corner, I as GM have been itching to try something different. Our group will likely take a small hiatus from Pathfinder for a few months before picking up something as long as an AP again. But if/when we decide to do another AP, I'd like to do one that's radically different from Carrion Crown.

So what APs are very different from Carrion Crown? I've heard good things about Mummy's Mask and Reign of Winter for example, but are they also undead heavy and another travelogue respectively?

Please give reasons if you can; broad, moderate spoilers are fine as I researched a lot about the APs before we settled on Carrion Crown, but don't go into too much detail; I may be a player in it. Two years (for us) is a big commitment to GMing I may not take again so readily.

Thanks in advance!

Aaaaah! If only I could access Facebook at work!

I like the 24-hour reset. It's a surprise that catches the opponent off guard, but isn't unlimited in its advantage like sneak attack. Duration to Int mod instead of 1/2 Int mod is great too, and I could see it being a standard action at lower levels, then speeding up to move or even swift at the later ones, whether through talents or a static change.

Swashbuckler archetypes:
Peltast.
Uses thrown weapons instead of one-handed piercing. Switches out parry/riposte for... something that makes thrown weapons viable.

The investigator had better have some combination of a monocle, mustaches, and sword cane.

Any thoughts on the hunter's animal companion or the warpriest's deity? I have no idea about the animal, but as for warpriest, I'm expecting them to showcase a deity that can't get paladins. Gorum seems a bit too obvious, though it would go well with a half-orc. Cayden Cailean would use a rapier, which is what I assume the swashbuckler will also have, so that's probably out. Possibly Desna? A male, dual starknife-wielding warrior decked out in full plate with a purple butterfly on his chest is all kinds of awesome.

Protoman wrote:

Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:

"Swashbuckler Finesse (Ex): At 2nd level, a swashbuckler
gains the benefits of the Weapon Finesse feat with light
or one-handed piercing melee weapons, as well as gains
a +4 bonus to her CMD on disarm, steal, and sunder
attempts made against these weapons."

So if I am reading that right, then it allows you to Finesse other one handed weapons than the Rapier, so Heavy Pick, Morning Star, Short Spear,and a few others are now viable options.

Yeah, dwarven swashbuckler with a pick. Let that one sink in....

If that's how it actually works, that would be pretty awesome.

Seems legit! Weapon finesse needs a light weapon and a light pick is it. HI HOOOOOoooOOOOOOO!

For the dervish dance, you can't afford the +2 weapon till level 6 or so... that is over half the game to wait to start damaging things if you're lucky.

When I read that, I went through the list of one-handed piercing weapons to see what ridiculousness you could do.

Earlier you mentioned some of the general themes for the Iron Gods AP being science vs. faith, artificial intelligence, the Technic League, and other things. What are the general themes for the Mummy's Mask AP?

Your site is great, thanks! And I had completely forgotten about the Cartographer's Guild. I knew there was some resource for finding maps I had forgotten.

I have most of the pdfs for the Adventure Paths and the Modules, but none of the flipmats. I was wondering if there was a generic inn I could use for our session tonight. Nothing specific, other than an inn quite a few zombies can show up in and attack the place. I saw there was a seedy inn flipmat, but I don't have the money to buy anything new, so if there's a suitable inn in an old adventure, that'd be perfect. Thanks ahead of time!

Any chance of getting all of the ARG races in? Gillmen, Merfolk, Strix, and I'm sure others are missing, probably because they weren't statted up in the race creator section of the book.

Love the program by the way!

Nice minis, alginon. They'll be great for our group. We're about to start CC in a few weeks.