Montis's page

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.

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?

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

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?

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?

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.

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

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?