Minsk's page

Hexes more accurately handle distances than squares do. Moving 1 square covers a different distance depending on whether you're moving horizontally/vertically or diagonally (thus the 5-15-20-30 diagonal movement cludge; it's actually ~1.4 times the distance diagonally vs horizontally). With hexes, you're moving the same distance no matter which of the 6 directions you move. The main reason hexes aren't used for interior maps is that they don't handle right angles well at all, but that's not an issue for exterior maps.

Oh yeah, that makes sense! That makes the number-crunching side of traveling very pretty mathematically. I brainstormed a bit (a rare occurence) and also figured that if all overland maps have hexes and location maps have squares, then you'll recognize a new map for which it is just by looking quickly at the grid. That's not nearly as big a deal I suppose, since the content of the map itself should be a dead giveaway, but it's still nice.

But now I'm thinking, with regards to moving diagonally, I should make a map with a grid of 3x4 rectangles. Sure, moving diagonally in those is impractical and unrealistic, but now the math is so clean with no square roots!

So what is the reason for using hexes in the map grid instead of squares? I don't mean this as a complaint, I'm just generally curious. I guess part of it is nostalgia, since I understand that the old school games loved to have hex grids on the world maps, but why did those go with hexes in the first place?

A vicious little gnoll called Fippy Darkpaw ranting about humans ruining their lands? That totally made my day!

The crew of the River Queen definitely makes a big difference in the encounters on the river in our game. My players are complete newcomers to D&D, so they really don't know how to prepare ahead for the encounters on the river. However, with the NPCs helping out in flanking, damaging and just drawing enemy attention, the gargoyles, kech, and elves were all pretty even fights for the group - not many close calls on the good guys' side. Further evidence for this was the encounter in the swamp, where the crew stayed behind and the PCs investigated all by themselves. The will o' wisp turned out to be nigh invulnerable to my players' attacks so two rounds in I had to spontaneously drop its AC a bit to give my mates a fighting chance.

I've yet to start running Second Darkness, but can I offer a suggestion to fixing the sense of contrivedness in Saul's betrayal near the end? Although I have to put a disclaimer that in my group, two of the players are children and the rest of us (myself included) are child-minded, so our campaign is likely less deep and mature than the standard Pathfinder adventure, and this might not be an ideal solution for you.

I found (the hard way, unfortunately) that a grim fate for a beloved NPC resonates extremely poorly with my players, so I'm going to observe how my players take Saul in. If they end up growing fond of him, I'll rewrite Saul's backstory to make him a more benevolent character, but completely under Depora's control out of fear. His betrayal won't be his own decision, but an order from Depora that goes against his wishes.

I'll either have Saul be neutral from the start, or I can start him like in the module but have the PCs influence him. As he finds the PCs making his life more profitable than ever during his crime boss days, he starts to regret his actions and plans to go legit with his gambling hall business. This redeeming of his character is likely the sappy plot development that might not jive with those of you wanting a less idealistic Pathfinder world.

In either case, though, Depora grows concerned of the PCs after hearing from Saul regularly about them. She orders him to get rid of them before they find out about her operations. Saul is now an honest friend of the PCs, but is too scared of Depora not to obey. If they survive the ambush and return, the PCs won't have to fight their way into the Gold Goblin. Saul will personally try to make amends and reveal what's been going on, and beg forgiveness. He'll also have realized by now that the PCs are skilled enough that they might stand up to Depora, and pleads for them to stop the drow.

This way I can also determine how mature to make the rest of the game, depending on the players' response. If they simply kill him out of revenge, I can similarly stop pulling punches with how crooked the villains are. If they show an act of kindness and face off Depora, I'll give a similarly happy ending to Saul, one that also benefits the PCs. This is a nice way to encourage the players that acts of good don't go unrewarded - useful for later in the path when the elves need their help!

Just my rambling plans on making Saul's betrayal more fluid. Admittedly, in this scenario it might be even more jarring, but Depora's influence explains that away better. In the original, Saul himself decides to off the PCs, which is harder to justify.

Oh yes, that's a very feasible plan of course. Event 6 especially counts on this to drive the point home if the players haven't figured out about Petrune yet.

The main problem with this method is if I try to introduce the secret operation going on at the Station with it (there's of course quite enough clues hidden in the adventure as is, including Event 4, but I'm still worried my players might first need clues to come to them to start them off). Virtually all of the Consortium people are in on the scheme so there isn't really any need for them to "sneak about" among each other, and acting natural would be the logical thing for the Consortium men to do to dissuade PC suspicion.

I think a similar thing to do is to maybe run Wisdom checks after a weeks' work to notice some discrepancies in Gorse and the mercenaries' routines at the Station, if they haven't struck out for clues independently by that time. If that doesn't work, I suppose I'll just let them work for the Consortium blissfully unaware (or I could have one of the non-Consortium NPCs discover something and pass it along, but admittedly that would be even more heavy-handed).

Good evening, all! My regular players are trudging through W2: River into Darkness and we're almost past the boat ride and are getting to the second part of the adventure, where the players help guard Nightfall Station during the siege. I was curious on other peoples' experiences in running this part of the adventure, as it's noticeably non-linear compared to the boat ride upriver (and, as a novice at dungeon mastering, it'll be the most non-linear game that I've run once we get to it). How have those who've DMed W2 handled the players' work at the station, the various events going on and the time frame?

My own plan is to make a nice weekly schedule for the PCs' guard and patrol duties, and figure out how to sprinkle the events at the station during the weeks that they're there. My players are new at tabletop roleplaying and they haven't grasped yet how much freedom they have to do their own things in the game world, so I fear they might not pursue or even realize the secrets at the Station. So I'm thinking of additional events that would clue in on things being afoot there - most likely a friendly NPC noticing something and passing it on to the players, since those have been the best hooks for us so far ("Hey, have you noticed anything funny about the barracks?", and so forth). While there's nothing wrong with simply weathering the siege as an adventure conclusion, I'd like my players to at least be aware that the plot's not as black-and-white as they think.

I'm most worried about the actual time frame of the siege. If all that the players do is guard against the siege then I fear they'd get bored if it would last for more than two or three weeks. But if they manage to get hooked with all the intrigue at the station I imagine I could stretch it out further. I suppose I should run the siege for a couple of weeks, see how my players are faring and then decide if I should move on to the climactic battle.

But yes, how's this part of the game been handled by other people who've played or are playing River into Darkness? I realize it's ultimately up to me to figure out what works for my crew, but I would really like to know how this game's gone for others!

Cheers,
Minsk

Hmm, I think I understand by now. My thanks, Mr. Pres Man, Mr. Rezdave, for the further clarifications and suggestions for tooling up my NPC. Really my biggest stumbling block was the fact that a manufactured/natural weapon combination has different to-hit penalties than a two-weapon combination, so I was rather challenged by trying to figure out which penalties stacked with and which overrode other penalties here where both combinations existed simultaneously. But now I've got the right to-hit bonuses on his full attack.

Also, I'm very happy to hear that I can still have him with both sword attacks and claw attacks without playing around with if he's wielding swords or not. The duality of a civilized upbringing and primitive instincts is central to this character, so I'd hate to not have it reflected in his fighting style too. I'll re-evaluate his current feats and see how I could further reflect this theme with Mr. Rezdave's suggestions.

Thanks all,
Minsk

Ah, thank you very much, sir, that effectively cleared up all of my problems. I hadn't noticed that Improved Two-Weapon Fighting feat while searching the rulebook - I was only checking the base attack bonus rules and full attack rules. A page reference to that feat in one of those rules would have been nice, but hey, I'm just as silly for overlooking it. =)

I did consider the Multiweapon Fighting feat for my kreen, but originally I wanted it to be part of his character to alternate between sword-fighting and clawing. I kind of wanted his character to alter from trained dueling with swords to savagely tearing into his enemies with his bare hands due to his thri-kreen instincts.

But as you reminded that he's only able to use either all four claws or none at all in a full attack, I'll have to scrap the "alternating attacks per round" idea. Since I want him to retain his swords, I suppose I'll just play up the brutality of his sword-fighting, not so much using them as a trained swordsman as pressing unrelentlessly like a cornered animal - maximizing his lethality isn't as important in his fight as the atmosphere!

In any case, thanks a bunch for clearing all that rules errata up! My thri-kreen should be ready to serve as an end encounter for my players soon! =)

Minsk

Evening all. I'm working on making my first NPC of own design, and I've chosen a difficult subject for a novice DM: a thri-kreen armed with two short swords. Working on him has brought up a couple of shady rules to me involving two-weapon fighting and the combination of two-weapon fighting and natural attacks. I seem to be missing answers to these in the core rulebooks.

First of all, when base attack bonus gets up to six, the character hits twice with his weapon in one round. Basic stuff. Now, what if the critter is fighting with two weapons? Does the off hand weapon also gain a second attack with the smaller base attack bonus? Or does only the primary weapon retain the second attack? Or perhaps the off hand weapon counts as the second attack? Does the character have two, three or even four attacks a round (with various negatives for fighting two-handed)?

But another problem arises with my NPC having several manufactured and natural weapons. The Monster Manual unfortunately appears to only have rules for one manufactured weapon and natural weapon(s). A primary weapon that's manufactured doesn't normally take penalties with natural secondary attacks, but does the second weapon still result in two-weapon fighting penalties? Does the off hand weapon affect the creature's natural weapons, changing their penalties to two-weapon fighting penalties too?

I hope my queries sound coherent. There's a lot of small details involving weapon combinations, and unfortunately I made the mistake of picking the most difficult combination. If the good folk of Paizo could help me get these rules clarified, I'd be extremely grateful! I'm otherwise proud of the character I'm making, and I'd hate to scrap him for something less intriguing!

Cheers,
Minsk

That's an excellent idea, milord Magus. For the time being I'm fortunately free of that problem, though, as both of my groups are still so new to the game that we're only playing with my own books. I think a few haven't even thought of there being supplements outside of the three core books and adventures.

Lots of excellent points on starting wizards, thanks all. It's not so crucial in our games right now as my players are still learning and are put off by all the options in spell selections (upon reaching level three, all of my caster players have been both excited at new spells and distraught by the amount of spells to choose from), but I'm pretty sure that after a couple more one-offs there'll be someone who wants to take on the wizard when we kick off a campaign.

Ah, excellent! Cheers, sirs. I don't know why I was missing the wizard's 3 + INT spells when scouring through the Player's Handbook, it's so plain in sight now that I have the page number. Now I'm set for running the casters properly!

Minsk

Evening all. I'm new to Dungeon Mastering, and I've come upon a problem that seems like it should be easily resolved but which I, in my infinite ignorance, can't find a solution for in the rulebooks. I was hoping that the good folk of Paizo could point me to the right page!

Basically, there's plenty of well-defined rules about how many spells the various spellcasters can prepare for each day, but except for the bard and sorcerer's "Spells Known" charts, I can't find how many spells the other casters know at the start of a game. If one of my players says to me "Hey Minsk, I'd like to play a wizard in this game," I can tell him how many spells he can prepare daily, but I can't find how big his selection of spells is.

With the divine casters I've just ruled that every spell allowed for their level and class is available for them to prepare, being granted by their respective deity. I've read of others doing the same thing and I think that's the official method. It hasn't been a game-breaker thus far, at least!

My main problem is with the wizard, whose edge is, of course, his ability to learn new spells. So how many starting spells does an nth-level wizard have? I know that they get two extra spells upon gaining a level, so does that mean that a first-level wizard has two? And nth-level wizards have 2*n spells? Of course I can have NPC wizards with however many spells I need if I justify their acquirement in their background, but players with this luxury of choice could easily make their PCs overpowered.

If you guys could point out a page in the Player's Handbook or Dungeon Master's Guide that explains this, I'd be extremely grateful! Thus far no one in the group has wanted to play a wizard, but once we're done playing various one-shot modules to introduce the game and pull out a full campaign, someone might decide that a wizard would be excellent.

Cheers,
Minsk