Montis's page

I've already posted them in their own thread but just for the sake of archiving them here as well:

- Age of Ashes Stronghold Rules by yours truly

- Google Spreadsheet Template (make a copy for your own use)

Long time in the making, finally ready for the public. First the links, then the background behind the whole thing.

Obvious Spoiler Warning for the Age of Ashes Adventure Path

Link to the rules: PF2E Scribe Stronghold Rules by Montis aka RussischerZar

Link to Downtime Tracker Template Spreadsheet: Google Spreadsheet Template (make a copy for your own use)

This is the current version of rules that I'm using for my two on-going Age of Ashes games. When I ran my first group through the rebuilding of the Citadel using the official rules from the AP, I noticed that there was a lot of micromanagement and bookkeeping. It was tedious, somewhat boring and didn't have much payoff.

Trying to keep things easier to do and engage my players a bit more, I devised a downtime system that uses weeks instead of days (since I'm assuming about 2 months of downtime between each book) and has a much better incentive for the players to engage with it: they get stuff for their characters! I took a page out of the Strength of Thousands playbook and put these bonuses up as something to achieve by upgrading the Citadel between each book (see page 10).

These rules are yet to be fully tested - my more advanced group is currently between books 2 and 3 - but I believe I struck a good balance of cost vs effect; due to the characters later being able to gain extra money from selling items through the Trading Post I believe this will offset the cost of upgrading the Citadel for the most part. There is also an implementation of a version of the Gardens of Wonder through the Aiudara Keys (page 12) which should give a party access to a good amount of extra consumables for comparatively little cost. I hid this page from my players until they made the discovery about the keys, so while the rules are technically supposed to be shared to the players (as there is some other GM information missing), you might want to make your own copy or something. If you would like me to send you the source text, let me know.

I would welcome any feedback, both positive and negative, be it oh so minor as pointing out some odd grammar or typos (English isn't my first language) or improvement suggestions or if you just think this is plain stupid. Or if you have any questions why I designed something one way or another.

In any case I really hope some of you find this useful as I put at least 30 hours into all of this. :) I'm also contemplating on putting it on Infinite, but that might not be worth it. I'm also putting a link here to the Reddit Thread as I'll likely be much more responsive on reddit than here, especially a couple of months from now.

Is that the one done at 3pm (I am guessing then that’s EU time zone) if so I was interested but 3pm sucks as time point I still need to work till 5 and we eat here around 6.

Mine is at 8pm UK time, it should theoretically display the correct time for you. My name on there is Montis, too, so should be easy to find.

Montis, you might have better luck if you hosted a few short games on there first. You've got some good reviews, but I'm not sure that I would sign up for an Adventure Path with a GM with 0 table credits on the site. Once you had 5 or 6 shorter games, then I'd list the Adventure Path.

Good luck, by the way! I hope your game fills!

Thank you! I tried hosting a one-shot twice without any luck either, and the discord tells me that campaigns usually draw more players than one-shots on the site, so unsure. I did put in quite a bit of effort to my profile and everything to appear as professional as I can, but ultimately someone needs to make that first leap of faith I think. We'll see :)

I've also considered it. Like you, Alex, I have some name recognition as a GM. But I've been leery of turning my hobby into a job, and changing the relationship that I have with my players.

Weird aside: I do this for free, but when I looked at the cost the GMs were charging here, my thought process was: that cannot be a living wage. I hope all those GMs have another source of income.

I spoke with a few other GMs and the gist of it is that you need somewhere between 7 and 15 weekly games to make a living out of it. Which I honestly don't know if I could do.

Also I tried to start small with only one campaign (Age of Ashes) to earn a bit of extra spending money, but so far no one has signed up since I posted the campaign 2 weeks ago. Well, I guess session 0 is Monday, so there's still a bit of time, but well ...

Montis wrote:

I'm currently running this book and I'm looking for a reason why Voz never just walked into the Citadel and took the stairs down to look for Alseta's Ring. It seems like she should've found it quite easily.

There's a section that covers that, I believe. The stairs are in B1 of the Crypts, but Voz never made it out of B13. Her necromantic spells triggered the wards and forced her to run away. The stairs are now blocked by the damage the Grauladons did.

But from my understanding she was looking for the ring way before the Cinderclaws arrived, so she could've just taken the stairs down at that stage.

I guess I'll go with something towards TomParker's explanation above that she only got information on it being there after the Goblins already moved in and didn't want to be seen rummaging around the citadel.

I'm currently running this book and I'm looking for a reason why Voz never just walked into the Citadel and took the stairs down to look for Alseta's Ring. It seems like she should've found it quite easily.

One potential reason that is a bit far-fetched is that she didn't want to be seen by the goblins that lived there, but the same could be said for when she entered through the crypt. Also, how did she know about the tunnel into the crypt?

Does anyone have an idea or reason for this?

ok

Do these two things work together?
It seems kind of powerful that the entire party (or at least the front fighters) could benefit from a +5 barkskin and other strong potions (whatever my party will come up with) for only a few 2nd level extracts, but I don't see a reason in the rules why it shouldn't work.

The only thing I could limit there is the availability of very strong (high CL) potions, but since they're in a rather large city (Magnimar) I don't want to bend that too much.

Since supernatural abilities are magical, I wonder if a transformed doppelganger or lycantrophy (or basically any shapeshifting monster) has a magical (transmutation) aura, while in it's alternate form?

Also, only the protection against contact vanishes, the bonuses for AC and saves remain.

Why has Divine Favor a fixed duration of 1 minute instead of 1 minute per level?
The only other spells that I know of that have a fixed duration instead of a variable, level dependent duration are either level 0 spells, spells that have a really long duration (1 hour +) anyway, or spells that only have a one round (or other low) duration for a specific reason.

So what's up with Divine Favor?
I mean the spell is not that uber-powerful to begin with (imho) so basically having to cast it inside combat wastes a lot of its already not so high potential.
And please don't argue with "it was like that in 3.5".

Other spells which are similar are the inquisitor spells Wrath and Shared Wrath and the bard spell Delusional Pride.

I would really like these spells to officially get the 1 min/level treatment or alternatively a reasonable explanation why it's like this, because I can't see them being suddenly too powerful with a 1 min/level duration.

Cheers

What also strikes me as strange is the flavor text of the feat...

"You can dramatically increase your damage reduction in exchange for its temporary loss." (emphasis mine)
There is no description of losing any DR in the "benefit" text, it seems something is missing there or they rewrote the feat without rewriting the flavor text.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/svirfneblin.html

The standard Svirfneblin ranger has 3 SLAs. The DC for blindness/deafness for him is 12. Usually the DC of SLAs is calculated: 10 + CHA-mod + spell level of equivalent spell.
In the universal monster rules it's stated that by default you take the sorcerer/wizard spell level which would be 2 for blindness/deafness.

When I calculate the 10 -1 (CHA-mod) + 2 (level for blindness deafness) I'm at DC 11, not 12. Are the svirfneblin special in that regard somehow or is this just a mistake?

Has anyone thought about going Magus / EK?

Okay I guess everyone else agrees with me that this should be handled differently from the RAW.

Scrying: A scrying spell creates an invisible magical sensor that sends you information.

[...]
A creature can notice the sensor by making a Perception check with a DC 20 + the spell level.

(emphasis mine)

Really? I'd imagine an invisible sensor as really small (tiny or even diminutive) and stationary (invis + stationary = +40 stealth). From that alone the DC should be at least 48 (tiny) or 56 (diminutive).

Or not?

The problem with this kind of view are healing spells. If you have 150 HP as a Fighter at some point and the Cure Critical Wounds spell doesn't even heal the half of it, it can't all just be bruises, now can it? :)

I'm going to answer that with a re-bolding:

Ref: Rays as a weapon...

Feat: Weapon Focus (Combat)
Choose one type of weapon. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for the purposes of this feat.

Montis wrote:

Tanis wrote:

Here's a question: if you have a touch spell held do you threaten and can you take AoO's?

Yes you can. The charge makes you count as armed and as long as you're armed you threaten and can make AoOs.

Note that as soon as you make the AoO, the spell would be discharged though, hit or miss, and so you'd stop threatening.

That's not quite right. If you miss, you're still holding the charge.

So basically, it has to be a dragon, aberration, or some such and THEN you could actually find out something useful. Say, resistances or special type attacks, defenses, that sort of thing?

Whereas if it's humans, elves, or any of the Core races, knowledge checks are pretty much worthless. Except in the case of those that have subraces as creatures. (drow, duergar, etc.)

Is that the gist of it?

BTW: Thanks for all the responses!

Try FE undead or outsiders (most encountered subtype is of course evil), then you have probably something worth finding out. :)

Here's a question: if you have a touch spell held do you threaten and can you take AoO's?

Yes you can. The charge makes you count as armed and as long as you're armed you threaten and can make AoOs.

From the description of the Alter Self spell, I always assumed you turn into the creature whose part you had.

Alter Self

Components V, S, M (a piece of the creature whose form you plan to assume)

Then I read in the magic rules:

Unless otherwise noted, polymorph spells cannot be used to change into specific individuals. Although many of the fine details can be controlled, your appearance is always that of a generic member of that creature’s type.

I'm not really sure which one would apply now.

Bolds are, of course, mine.

Another question while we're at it: can you apply multiple metamagic rods to a single spell?
Say you're a 6th level Sorcerer and have got one Lesser Maximize Rod and one Lesser Empower Rod and want to cast a Maximized Empowered Fireball... would that work by using both rods at the same time?

Well... in general, I guess.
Mainly for the purpose for ranged touch spells shooting into melee (penalty: yes or no) and feats that can be applied to (ranged) touch spells.

Well that doesn't really help me as my GM is a RAW kind of guy. It would be nice to get a rule quote on this (didn't find anything specific yet) or even some sort of clarification from the devs.

Imho touch attacks and rays don't count as weapons but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. So I'm searching for pro and con arguments on this matter.

Pro arguments:
- Power Attack specifically states, that the bonus damage does not apply to touch attacks, although it doesn't say "weapon attack" in the first place

Con arguments:
- you would get str-bonus-damage on melee touch attacks, which doesn't seem to make sense

kind of neutral arguments:
- attacking with a melee touch spell counts as an armed attack, although "armed" probably doesn't equal "the spell is a weapon"
- Weapon Focus: "... You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for the purposes of this feat."

so...

if these spells count as weapons:
- feats like Point Blank Shot, Arcane Strike and such would apply
- you get a penalty for shooting spells into melee

if these spells don't count as weapons:
- feats like Point Blank Shot, Arcane Strike and such would not apply to these spells
- no penalty for shooting spells into melee

I'm really waiting on an Inquisitor guide, I don't get how he can become a really useful asset in fights. A bard is better in almost everything they can do. Or am I missing something?

Chuck Norris style multiclass monk/paladin: roundhousekick everyone for great justice.

An Inquisitor who constantly suspects anything and everything and trusts no one, not even the clerics from his own deity. He's really forgetful though and if he get's sidetracked from something and finally turns back on his initial subject, he forgot what he wanted, shrugs and walks away.

Half-Orc Bard with Skill Focus Intimidate, and all the other Intimidate Feats, Weapon Focus Whip and Dazzling Display, maybe later also the Improved Trip.
If that's too fragile, drop the bard and pick up a barbarian with a scythe or a heavy flail.

Human Fighter or Barbarian with 20 starting strength, he only attacks unarmed and specializes on combat manouvers, especially trip, grapple and overrun. Call him "The Bear-Wrestler".

If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first.

Reading these sentences again makes me think the fighter with two weapons (and the greater twf feat...) could indeed make a +11/+6/+1/+11/+6/+1 type of attack.

This would also answer King of Vrock's question on the haste issue.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Pathfinder beginner. I know all penalties (from using two weapons) and bonuses (+str, weapon enhancement etc), and I was assuming Greater Two Weapon Fighting, merely stating TWF as a combat style (attacking with 2 weapons that is).
And I only stated the BAB bonuses to clarify which attack is which.

@ Howie:
you're saying that the secondary attack's -5 doesn't count as strong as the second weapon's attack -5? Could you quote any specific rule on this?

Anyway, if that's the case, then the bite and the spear from the Babau would be tied to max. BAB and then he could indeed bite first then step back and attack with the spear twice.
If not, he couldn't.

Thanks anyway for the clarifications up until now.

Full Attack

[...]
If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first. If you are using a double weapon, you can strike with either part of the weapon first.

Say I have a level 11 fighter with TWF, he wields a longsword in main-hand and a dagger in off-hand.

Also, let's take a look at monsters, e.g. the Babau:

Melee [some attacks] or longspear +12/+7 (1d8+7), bite +7 (1d6+2)

If he's adjacent to a PC, he can't use the spear until he makes a 5-ft-step.

An attacker must be able to see the figments to be fooled. If you are invisible or the attacker is blind, the spell has no effect (although the normal miss chances still apply).

what if a character purposefully closes his eyes before attacking the mirror imaged npc? he'd only get a 50% miss chance (less with blind-fight feat) instead of a 80% miss chance with 4 images out (which is not even the max).

would that work? I guess it would, but that would make the spell just so much worse... any ideas?

Multiple Attacks: A character who can make more than one attack per round must use the full-attack action (see Full-Round Actions) in order to get more than one attack.

Does that answer your question?