MinisculeMax's page

As it exists, there is no 1st-party diseases that affects undead. However...

If you feel fine homebrewing, you could make a magic-sapping disease that targets Will saves and reduces CHA.
If you are alright houseruling, you could rule that undead are subject to decomposition, and need Fort saves for that.
If you like logical consequences, you could have disease evolve a way around Fort saves.
If you want a more mystical feel, you could make a magical viral sort of curse.
If you want more zombies, you could have a super-disease that targets zombies (turns zombies into golems, demons, better zombies, living people, or whatever).
If you consider life to be an STD, you could have Elven Paladins.

Interesting bunch of stuff here, thanks for the input

Like Mysterious Stranger said, as a GM, you have the power of plot on your side. Don't do it too much or your players will start to cry foul, but if it makes for a cool plot hook, you can go for it. The rules are just a framework to hang your story on. If the rules don't work in your favour, you're allowed to change them. Just don't change them too much or your player don't know what to expect anymore.

Or flavour it as a very aggressive disease. Mere contact will afflict you, without even a save. Flesh-eating bacteria maybe aren't the best example, but things that literally spread by touch just need a new surface to cling to. Things like the flu need to fight through your immune system, but if there's a fungus that literally grows on everything it touches, you just need to touch it for its spores to carry over to you. On zombies it just rots away the flesh or whatever, but on living things it could do anything you want.

If you want something divine in nature, you could say the gods are involved. They don't have to listen to the laws of magic, they simply overwrite them. Urgathoa (or your homebrew version of a goddess of disease) put a curse on some zombies and now they carry a disease around. Problem solved. This dodges the fact that undead are immune to disease, because a deity willed it, and immediately makes it understandable to your players why undead are affected by it.

I like the idea of a fungi based affliction. I can't really have it be a canon deity that created the disease for many reasons, especially from Urgathoa who's dead in my universe at this point. I could introduce it with from a distance with a new deity, but doing things in compliance with how the world has been developing so far is kinda annoying

I don't think it would turn them into skeletons. Skeletons and zombies are explicitly raised differently (especially if we're talking about ghouls, which are the "zombies" from most pop culture references, like Dawn of the Dead).

I've made more than a few necromancers in the past, and the defining difference to me between skeletons and zombies is that you get "fast zombies" or "bloody skeletons". The undead's charisma only prevents natural decaying from continuing, which is how you have centuries old skeletons NOT crumbling when looked at too hard.

EDIT: And flesh eating diseases are usually pretty OP irl too XD

Oh, whoops. The "that seems OP" comment was meant for you

I feel like a flesh eating disease would be pretty rough. I see no reason why it couldn't eat dead flesh too.

Sounds kinda OP to me

I feel like a flesh eating disease would be pretty rough. I see no reason why it couldn't eat dead flesh too.

Wouldn't that just turn all zombies in to skeletons?

There is no disease in Pathfinder RAW that affects undead. Undead are... explicitly immune to everything that requires a fort save, and I don't know of any disease that forces a will save.

Buuuuuuut as DM you're able to give the final say on what does and doesn't. I personally love the thought of a disease that, while potent to living creatures, would wreak ungodly havoc on undead that literally lack immune systems. Kind of like a fungus growing in them that they are biologically incapable of stopping.

Some sort of disease that messes with Charisma would affect both undead and non-undead alike, though it would eventually destroy undead and just put living creatures into comas. Any idea on something that could do that besides just relabeling something?

Long story short, my personally crafted world is more or less destroyed and a few hundred years later my PCs start anew.

Due to some interesting events, half of the tiny amount of the world's occupants that remain are mindless or intelligent undead.

Does anyone know of some interesting homebrew or maybe even a by-the-books way of making an almighty disease that affects most creatures, including undead? I saw that under the disease templates the "Magic-Resistant" template made it to where the disease affected that had immunity to disease, as long as they had constitution scores, which obviously undead don't have.

Any ideas on something i'm missing or on something that I can make?
Ideally i'd like the disease I make to be pretty nasty to start out but get even worse in time. Preferably powerfully arcane/divine in nature.

It's per character. I believe the main purpose of that value is to give a number for how much equipment a character made at that level should have. In practice, as you level you could quite possibly get more or less than that amount.

Alright, thank you!

Generally what I had done was give each player 500gp, that way depending on whether or not I was wrong, my players would either be living high fantasy or low fantasy, and not overpowered or underpowered to an extreme.

Thanks a bunch!

So, a little trouble i've always had, at least what I feel, is distributing wealth properly to players, just because tables i've encountered confused me a bit.

There are tables which refer to players having a gold value in treasure per level, so let's use level 2 as an example. The Character Advancement table says that players at level 2 should have an average of 1,000gp, assuming it's a mid fantasy setting.

Is this table claiming that each player should have a personal treasure value of around 1,000, or that the party as a whole (assuming the average of 4), should have 1,000 in total?

If it's the former, my players have always been quite under armed.

This is obviously a problem because this is either claiming that the party as a whole should have 1,000 gold, or that each individual member should have 1,000 gold, the difference is massive.

MinisculeMax wrote:

DinosaursOnIce wrote:

Seems to me the answer would be copious amounts of aid another

I take it that this means that it is possible to take 20 on a STR check to lift a portcullis? All of this is making me wonder what the point of the portcullis is if it's a simple take 20 + aid another, other than a portcullis being flavor text of dungeon crawling or an unfortunate segment into the end of the hallway *not* filled with lava/monsters.

You can take 10/20 on Ability Checks. It doesn't specifically call all that you can use aid another on a Ability check, but I don't know why you couldn't.

There are no other rules in place (that I'm aware of) for trying to cooperatively do something.

Thank you. You've been very helpful

You would use the aid other rules. They don't explicitly call out ability checks, but it should work identically.

Assuming there is no penalty for failure, both parties could just keep rolling until they get max (take 20), although it might take a while. Note that you can't take 10 with an aid other check.

Thank you. So it's not a question of whether or not they succeed, just on how long it takes them to do so. I've been learning a lot these past few days!

Seems to me the answer would be copious amounts of aid another

I take it that this means that it is possible to take 20 on a STR check to lift a portcullis? All of this is making me wonder what the point of the portcullis is if it's a simple take 20 + aid another, other than a portcullis being flavor text of dungeon crawling or an unfortunate segment into the end of the hallway *not* filled with lava/monsters.

I know that this entire account has been all questions and no help giving, but all of this is so I actually know the game i'm hosting since i've never been taught my self (of course i've read the book, but lots of things can be forgotten or not mentioned). In good time i'll be trying my best to pay the respects forward, but I need to know the game well enough first.

I've recently just begun creating genuine dungeons with things such as portcullises, which is where i'm having a problem (as I always do)

So your average DC for lifting a portcullis is 25.
I take it that you can "Take 20" on this, but even if you've got the usual starting max of 18 STR and you take 20 on a STR check (assuming you can, i've just started using the take 10, take 20 systems and I don't fully know what's applicable), you still only get 24. So how does having someone else helping you, if at all possible, come into play? Can they both "take 20" or "take 10" to get a combination of 25 or over to lift this portcullis?

What would be some other examples of helping out on ability checks if there are any? I'm still trying to learn this all from scratch and I keep either missing information or not retaining it from the books.

You have all been a massive help and I can't thank you all enough.

I'd love to be helpful as well but i've been gradually learning pathfinder by my lonesome to hose for friends since i've never had anyone legitimately teach me.

Whenever possible i'll be attempting to forward the notion.

No worries. Pay it forward.

One more question.

How much do you reckon a singular untrained miner could produce in the mines lbs of iron wise.

IE: 1 worker = ?lbs/month

No worries. Pay it forward.

Will do where possible

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Thanks for all of your responses, I really appreciate it.

And thanks a ton to you in particular Buri Reborn, it's always awesome to get perspective and this should really help me do what I need to do, thanks a lot!

It really is a shame there's no way of commending you other than a thanks, but I guess that'l have to do

Hey everyone!

I've been doing a 1on1 session with my friend recently, and we've recently gotten into building a stronghold for him.

The Pathfinder sessions I hold for either my friend or for other groups are always a mixture of Pathfinder and D&D 3.5e, so we used the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook from 3.5e.

After some in-depth and time consuming choosing and customizing, i've only run into one problem, and it's not that big of one.

The stronghold, which is essentially miniature thorp populated by soldiers surrounding a keep, embedded into a mountain, has access to a nearby Iron mine, this was determined during the creation of the stronghold from the book.

My question would be as follows:

For a level 12 player who owns a 120,000 Gold keep which is in sole control of an Iron mine, what would you feel is the appropriate income a month for such a mine?

How would you properly implement this mine without making it into a cardboard cut out taped onto the side of a mountain?

I've been scouring the internet for hours looking for some nice management ideas for things like this, but I just can't seem to find anything. Maybe Paizo has the exact book I might need and i'm just missing it, i'm not sure.

So after looking through all of the books I can't seem to really find info on making unique magic trinkets or items.

For example, if I were to make a mace that was to shine light as if imbued with the "light" spell forever, how would I figure out the cost and level area for this?

If i'm missing certain resources, please tell me where to find them, if not, tell me how you do it.

EDIT: By the way, I mean creating as in a DM sense of creation, as opposed to creating these items as a player, thanks!

So after looking through all of the books I can't seem to really find info on making unique magic trinkets or items.

For example, if I were to make a mace that was to shine light as if imbued with the "light" spell forever, how would I figure out the cost and level area for this?

If i'm missing certain resources, please tell me where to find them, if not, tell me how you do it.

MinisculeMax wrote:

So, for the Ankheg attack it says "Damage+Acid+Grab"

Is this grab an auto grab, or does a roll need to be applied?

It still requires a roll, but doesn't require an action of itself like a normal grapple check would. From the Bestiary:

Quote:

Grab (Ex) If a creature with this special attack hits with the indicated attack (usually a claw or bite attack), it deals normal damage and attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. Unless otherwise noted, grab can only be used against targets of a size equal to or smaller than the creature with this ability. If the creature can use grab on creatures of other sizes, it is noted in the creature's Special Attacks line. The creature has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use the part of its body it used in the grab to hold the opponent. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a –20 penalty on its CMB check to make and maintain the grapple, but does not gain the grappled condition itself. A successful hold does not deal any extra damage unless the creature also has the constrict special attack. If the creature does not constrict, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold. Otherwise, it deals constriction damage as well (the amount is given in the creature's descriptive text).

Quote:

Along side this, the CMB reads "+7 (+11 grapple)" does this mean +11 while grappling, adding this onto the +7, or what?.

It means that the ankheg usually has a CMB of +7, but this rises to a total of +11 for grappling.

Quote:

^Clueless as to how to post a proper photo on the Paizo forums, sorry.

Honestly, there is usually no need to. Just link to the appropriate part of the official PRD.

Thanks for everything!

So, for the Ankheg attack it says "Damage+Acid+Grab"

Is this grab an auto grab, or does a roll need to be applied?
Along side this, the CMB reads "+7 (+11 grapple)" does this mean +11 while grappling, adding this onto the +7, or what?.

[IMG]http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag23/Ministermax/Akneg_zpsa17cbec8.png[/IMG]

^Clueless as to how to post a proper photo on the Paizo forums, sorry.

As i've said in previous threads, i'm amateur at best when it comes down to DMing.

Any special advice for Roll20.net based games and DMing?

Still loving all of this

My tips for new GMs:

** spoiler omitted **

Also.. Give your Players The Following Advice:

** spoiler omitted **...

If you could link me to some of those wonderful ranged flying creatures... i'd be really grateful... *evil grin*

Loving all of this so far!

I'm a relatively new DM (I've been DMing for around a year now, but i've just got into doing it "properly) and i'd like all of the advice you can throw at me, silly or serious!

One of my favorite things about D&D, Pathfinder and games of the like, are all of the discussions, styles and info on these things, and there are always the people who love talking about it whenever they get the chance, so tell me everything and anything!

Hopefully this thread is allowed.

After reading everything, and some excellent lawyering from my PCs, they've survived. Thank you all for your responses, if I have any other problems, i'll gladly asking ask the forum!

MinisculeMax wrote:

Scavion wrote:

MinisculeMax wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

I'm having a hard time figuring out how a single bow shot decides the fate of anything but a cute little bunny rabbit. Do your PCs only have 1 HP or something?

BTW, eve if they were 200 feet away, his bow can still fire that far. It's in the 4th range increment, meaning he takes -6 to-hit, but he could still hit them.

If they're 200 feet away, he misses, my PC is at 4HP.

You do know you can have -hitpoints equal to your con right? Sure you'll bleed a little, but a DC15 heal check stabilizes you. Or any cure spell with pop you back up.

This is the last alive PC.

If the PC is tagged and goes down will they be killed or jailed by the cofnronter? Even if the guy gets a shot off he could still miss. Though it sounds like if he wins initative and thinks they are taking off then its a move action to get the bow out and a standard to let loose so yeah shot before they even move.

This opponent would kill them at the slightest hint of escape.

MinisculeMax wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

I'm having a hard time figuring out how a single bow shot decides the fate of anything but a cute little bunny rabbit. Do your PCs only have 1 HP or something?

BTW, eve if they were 200 feet away, his bow can still fire that far. It's in the 4th range increment, meaning he takes -6 to-hit, but he could still hit them.

If they're 200 feet away, he misses, my PC is at 4HP.

You do know you can have -hitpoints equal to your con right? Sure you'll bleed a little, but a DC15 heal check stabilizes you. Or any cure spell with pop you back up.

This is the last alive PC.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how a single bow shot decides the fate of anything but a cute little bunny rabbit. Do your PCs only have 1 HP or something?

BTW, eve if they were 200 feet away, his bow can still fire that far. It's in the 4th range increment, meaning he takes -6 to-hit, but he could still hit them.

If they're 200 feet away, he misses, my PC is at 4HP.

I'm currently DMing a session where my PCs and I are at a little problem.

My PC is currently on horseback with an PC who is currently knocked out on the horseback, and is confronted in the middle of the road. The person who is confronting them has a very good idea that they were doing something (just making it short), and wants to take them in.

My PC wants to sprint away on horseback, with would be 50x4 feet, making a total of 200ft, the character confronting them had a shortbow on his back, PCs are arguing that, without an initiative roll, 200ft away from a shortbow renders it useless, but I aruge that, with initiative, and him winning it (which he has) he gets a shot off before they even get running.

How does this work?

You decide the fate of my PCs

*reposted from the other thread*

Hi MinisculeMax, and welcome to the DM chair.

Let's dive right into your first question.

Personally I rarely find that it helps to pad the game out, unless it is of great importance to the entire narrative of the story that something be dealt with in a certain amount of time. Otherwise padding risks feeling like... well... padding.

If a player gets a magic item, is this magic item any more mysterious than his +1 Bastard sword? If so, why? Is it of higher caster level? is it unique? what is the narrative reason why the party should not be able to just hire someone, trained in the arcane, to identify the properties of this item?

I'd also advice that if your players are presently more focussed on getting out in the world and doing stuff, and not so much interested in exploring towns and going into great detail on minor things, then I would use more effort polishing the part where they seem to enjoy themselves the most. Make sure the jobs are entertaining, challenging and memorable.

I've been new to DM'ing, every DM has. We want to make the world and the storytelling perfect, for our players, but also for ourselves, so we feel like we didn't miss out on possibilities. But taking it easy and playing to your players' preferences is helpful in the beginning. I believe your players will come to appreciate the little details, the subtleties of downtime and exploring towns and places of interest, in their own time.

Lastly, how do you make the game stop feeling like they're just waiting for the next encounter. I'd say provide them with challenges that are not combat-specific. Terrain challenges and social challenges are a thing, they are just as important as combat challenges. So let them work their social-skill muscles next time they want a job, make it a challenge. Then when they're on their way to the place of interest for their quest, have them encounter trouble in the terrain, travelling is dangerous, and unprepared travelers, who didn't bring a detailed...

EDIT: IT ACTUALLY WORKS NOW! Praise the gods of technology.

The reason why I wouldn't like the party to know exactly what a magic item is, is because the item is magic! Where's the mystery if they can just hire any mage to identify it for them for a miniscule price?

as for padding, not exactly padding.. more so finding something to get the party involved in, instead of having them essentially trying to use the "rest" feature in fallout or Skyrim, as an example.

As for your final section of response, there IS a problem with that... because of my situation, I can only use the Roll 20 website, and have never been able to properly view the use of terrain and such, so I don't fully know how to do it my self, and there are no physical things for me to do. Sure, I could throw them into some mountains and have some cave ins and such, but with these things it always seems like they find some sort of small detail that just allows them to get out of it within 2 seconds.

I'm a relatively new DM, and started in quite an odd way. I started off watching RollPlay made by itmeJP on YouTube, and quickly after started watching Neil Erickson, who does D&D 2E. So, naturally, I wanted to play, but due to lack of other DMs and lack of interest in others DMing at the time, I took it up my self, using an odd Hybrid of 2e, 3.5e and pathfinder.

Now that I know what i'm doing a lot more (and still barely know what i'm doing, it's funny how DMing works), and can focus on single styles IE: Pathfinder, I have some very annoying problems.

For 1: How do I pad stuff out, even if ever so slightly? I mean... if a player gets a mysterious magical item, what is there stopping him/her from just finding a mage and paying them a lump sum of gold to identify what that object does? This applies to many things, not just magical items. Whenever I DM it seems like the players aren't too interested in going into super amounts of details on things, aren't interested in crafting or exploring towns (or anywhere, for that matter) and only seem to enjoy finding jobs for people to give them. Obviously, with the lack of exploration, deep and extended conversation, crafting, shopping and so on, the sessions start to turn into a waiting game for the next encounter, how do I stop this?

I have more questions, but i'd like to see responses on these things first.

Also, i'm very interested in speaking with experience DMs, either via forum, PM, Skype or something similar.

TL:DR - I'm a s*&&ty new DM who can't find a way to stop players from changing 4 hours of stuff into 30 minutes of stuff

I'm a relatively new DM, and started in quite an odd way. I started off watching RollPlay made by itmeJP on YouTube, and quickly after started watching Neil Erickson, who does D&D 2E. So, naturally, I wanted to play, but due to lack of other DMs and lack of interest in others DMing at the time, I took it up my self, using an odd Hybrid of 2e, 3.5e and pathfinder.

Now that I know what i'm doing a lot more (and still barely know what i'm doing, it's funny how DMing works), and can focus on single styles IE: Pathfinder, I have some very annoying problems.

For 1: How do I pad stuff out, even if ever so slightly? I mean... if a player gets a mysterious magical item, what is there stopping him/her from just finding a mage and paying them a lump sum of gold to identify what that object does? This applies to many things, not just magical items. Whenever I DM it seems like the players aren't too interested in going into super amounts of details on things, aren't interested in crafting or exploring towns (or anywhere, for that matter) and only seem to enjoy finding jobs for people to give them. Obviously, with the lack of exploration, deep and extended conversation, crafting, shopping and so on, the sessions start to turn into a waiting game for the next encounter, how do I stop this?

I have more questions, but i'd like to see responses on these things first.

Also, i'm very interested in speaking with experience DMs, either via forum, PM, Skype or something similar.