New Earth Man's page

Yeah, I'm worried about how it will play out in practice too since I have no idea what kind of modifications and weapon replacements they will have done on it by that point. But I can always adapt the encounter on the fly.

What if I had a battleship that was Tier 14 and Six Tier 6 Fighters? I feel like an idiot asking this - normally I work out ECL's fairly well.

So, I'm having an issue really understanding how to work out the ECL of a starship combat I'm trying to present. The characters are sixteeth level at this point and as such, they have a Tier 16 ship. I want the encounter to be fairly average for them so far as difficulty is concerned. Their opponents are Six Small Fighter craft so...what tier to the fighters have to be to equal Tier 16?

Okay, I looked at Alien Archive and I see what you mean. I had no idea the book came with an NPC constructor, lol. Thanks for the help everybody!

Hmmm...that means I can throw a lot more at my characters without a TPK involved. Maybe gonna keep the feats for my own personal game, though, for officers, big personalities and the big baddies.

I mean don't get me wrong, building them without Stamina means the characters can mow through a hell of a lot more mooks but still - seems a little unbalanced in the character's favor.

So I've noticed that NPC's and enemies in the Adventure Path and all of the stats in the Alien Archive don't seem to have any Feats, Stamina and Resolve points and just the barest hint of skills. Why is this? I feel like it really cuts down on their threat rating. Are classed NPC's still supposed to be ECL -1?

All right, thank you for letting me know. I'll take a look at it here in a bit.

Also, where are those rules located? Somewhere in the Core Rulebook?

I...actually hadn't thought that far ahead. I would sell them for a little, I suppose, but certainly not the price of say modules or something. What sort of publishers would I ask about that?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to be posting about this but recently, mostly at the urging of my players, I've been giving serious thought to actually writing up my dozen or so homebrew campaigns into a series of published campaigns. The problem is, I have not clue one about how to go about this. Does anyone have experience doing this? If so, I'd appreciate some feedback or advice.

I have an artist friend who says she'd be willing to do illustrations and I myself am fairly good at fantasy cartography so other than that, what do I need to get started?

Thank you in advance.

Thanks for your input people, I appreciate it!

So I was thinking about sending drones after my characters like those used by the Mechanic Class. If I were to do as much, how would I figure out what CR the encounter is? Should I just use the CR as if it were a Mechanic of that level?

All of these are really good ideas. It's also worth noting that the country which rules over this part of the world is also home to a state run religion who has a sort of religious police which are normally good people. But I can see the character's enemies trying to spark some animosity between them and the police. Any ideas concerning that?

Recently, I've been working on a campaign where the characters are journeying down a great river in an Egypt-like environment which is similar to the Nile. On one of their first stops at a small fishing town, they are probably going to be spotted by one of their enemies - specifically a wizard who was left behind to look for them. He's capable of long-range communication and teleportation.

My question is, do any of you have any ideas for unique traps, ambushes or feints the enemy could make against the characters? I don't want for this to devolve into 'Oh look, they found us again, better fight back' kind of a thing. I want the players to genuinely feel as if their character is being hunted by half the people in the country and the other half seem to think whatever collateral damage their doing is the work of madmen and want to stop them.

Any advice is appreciated!

I plan on it happening no matter what - the only person that can stop this thing hasn't been born yet and is born just before it happens again and manages to stop it on the second go around. But I figure this story will be more about survival and saving what can be saved. I think I'm looking for a sort of what if story about what would happen should the Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos were to wake up and start their reign. Entire races were twisted by this event and one entire race even managed to open up a gate and got thousands of people through before the end. Mostly, the story will follow the dwarves - there were no humans on the world at the time - so most players will have dwarven characters if that helps at all.

So my campaign world was shaped and formed by an event that happened roughly 4,000 years ago in the timeline known simply as 'The Cataclysm.' no one knows what really caused it but a lot of the creatures of a magical and aberrant nature are a result of that event. Entire land masses were changed by it and magical strangeness still exist because of it. This event pretty much resulted in the apocalypse and the world my players romp around in now is basically a world rebuilt after the fall.

Now recently, the players have got it in their head that they would like to go back really far and play a campaign that take them from just before the Cataclysm to just after so they can try to live through the apocalypse and see the one pivotal event that shaped their world.

Now my question is, has anyone ever tried to do anything like this and if so, how would you do it? What sort of adventures could there be? What encounters and challenges? What level do you think I should start them at? I'm basically looking for advice on running a campaign in which the characters will be one of only a few hundred thousand left alive. It will be dark and hideous and they will witness the world descending into madness.

Some background: The Cataclysm was caused by the arrival of a sort of cosmic evil that roams the universe seeking worlds filled with life. It then proceeds to sink its greasy tendrils into the heart of these worlds and drinks deep. It also happens to plant psychic sleeper agents among the populace so that when it puts out its 'call' they hear it and begin to enact its will. These poor individuals become everything from raving lunatics to powerful cult leaders with armies of slavering aberrations and the like at their command.

All good advice, thank you!

The place is supposed to, at least on the surface, look like a normal den of delights with a sort of unusual twist to it - in that its in the middle of a cemetery. There are a few minor practitioners of magic. But yeah, the deeper they go, the more serious things get. The club is owned by the guy (They call him Mr. Whisper) who is the Ghoul they're looking for. He's a sorcerer who specializes in Illusion and of the Ghoul Bloodline. Think Nosferatu from Vampire the Masquerade.

So lately I've been working on an adventure concerning the characters tracking down a particular character. This character is a Ghoul with the Civilized Ghoulishness Feat. They've been able to track him down to a place called Afterlife which is a sort of out of the way and secret 'club' that happens to be built inside an ancient mausoleum. People do opiates, perform depraved acts, blah, blah and it is loosely based off of the Hellfire Club of the late 1800's.

Problem is, I don't really know what I want to happen here besides them eventually finding this ghoul and chasing him down into the sewers. I feel like the location is WAY too good to not do something with it but I'm at a loss. Can anyone suggest things that happens at this strange little club?

Thanks in advance!

I had considered Mislead. Wicked spell when used for getaways. I had considered See Invisibility but I literally have never seen my group make use of that particular spell. Always a first time for everything but I doubt it would happen. However, there is a Summoner...and by that time, she may very well have her Eidolon have scent. Have to think about that.

Oh and let me be clear - I am by no means forcing this issue. If they see through it, that's awesome for them. But I need something ready in case they don't. That's where the dystopia version of my world comes into play.

Holy crap...that was a lot to assimilate. First, the things I probably should have mentioned. The world is not Golarion but rather a home brew world based on my writings; unfortunately no god of time. Also, I was aware of the Bard not being able to use Silent Spell but a great deal of things have been house ruled in my games. I've played with the same group for about ten years now...starting with 3.0 D&D and now with Pathfinder so I know pretty much how they will react and have taken to writing out several possibilities and contingencies in my games - I've needed to do it for a while now. Lastly, I do like the idea of Dimension Door instead of Invisibility. He has both so that won't be a problem. Oh, and the bard is a Dirge Bard if that makes a difference.

Also, as a contingency, I was thinking that if Suggestion doesn't work, he could use Dominate Person to try and take control of their fighter, use said fighter to force them to look into the mirror for a good long time, use Fascinate on them, something similar. Again, thanks for the technical issues but I'm really not looking for technicalities or rules issues unless it somehow helps with the plot.

However...the flood of ideas here (especially from Cuup, boring7, Ascalaphus, ect.) for all the good ideas.

I love the idea about them waking up in the future when the 'utopia' is already up and running and having them deal with the aftermath, possibly meet a resistance and have to deal with what has become of their favorite city; poor Chordilane. If you have any more suggestions, please don't hesitate to put them up here. It will be a few days before I start writing again so I'll be able to incorporate all these ideas.

YOU GUYS ROCK!

The last time I asked a question on these boards, it was a big help. And now, in the same campaign, I am closing on level 13 and this one is a biggie. At this point, the characters are infiltrating a mine wherein the big baddy has his operation set up. When they break into his inner sanctum, he basically lays his plans out for him - gives a nice Hannibal Lecture and tells the PC's all his plans. He offers them a place in the new world he's building. It is assumed that they will refuse. After that, he puts up one hell of a fight with them until he makes it look like he's beaten and flees to a room (he has many spells to facilitate flight being a Bard) where this book is being kept on a dais.

Now this book is meant to look like a volume the characters have encountered before and have been looking for since around 5th level. It is not the same book but rather is a blank book wherein a paper thin Mirror of Life Trapping has been situated. The big baddy touches the pages of the book and appears to disappear into its pages. He has in fact cast Invisibility using Silent Spell. He then waits for the characters to voluntarily enter the book (Thus no saves?) and uses Suggestion on those who are thinking twice about it. Now there's a REALLY good possibility that he will succeed in this, thus trapping the characters for an undetermined measure of time...in short, he wins.

Now if he wins, he'll do what he was trying to do and create this magical utopia and those who wish to survive the creation of it - which quite incidentally will do a lot of damage to the environment of the real world - have little choice but to come and be ruled over by this new society of magic users. Now eventually, I have a plan that the character's mirror will be discovered by someone and will happen to be set free by this person. Now the question is...what will the world be like? The real world I mean. I have the idea that the characters will have to find a way to set things right while wandering in this post magical apocalypse but I have no idea how they can set something like that right. The idea for the trap is far too cool for me to throw away, but I also want to engineer a way for my characters to set things right. Time travel? Alternate realities? I need some help...if you need more details, please just ask.

I'm starting to understand that. I've had campaigns set in urban environments before but honestly, the characters were always more 'upper crust' than this campaign. Now they have a real reason to go crawling through the urban sprawl. If anyone is wondering, my party is made up of:

Rogue (Knife Master) who is a member of the local gang of thieves.
Paladin (Holy Gun) who is working for the constabulary
Alchemist who is part of the local Healer's Guild
Summoner who is a member of a college of mages.

Everyone has a 'local' connection and a hardcore reason to track down this tricky chicky.

These are all awesome ideas guys. I'm kinda overwhelmed by the response. Oddly enough, I've never had any problems coming up with ideas until this odd little dungeon. I'm trying to make up a multi-level 'dungeon' map with a couple of pages of grid paper, giving plenty of fire escapes, ledges to walk and crawl spaces to traverse; some much more dangerous than the others. keep the ideas flowing, guys, i really appreciate it.

Man, those maps remind me of that old PC game Stonekeep. I assume it was of the same kind of feel?

Yes, sorry. When this event happens, they should be around 10th level. The campaign will go to 20th. I have already done the sewers, of course. It's kinda of impossible not to, yeah?

Hey guys, this is my first post on here so please, be gentle.

I'm currently writing a campaign (home brew) for my players of some ten years now and I'm having trouble with a particular 'dungeon' of sorts. The characters have tracked a person of interest who is an extremely skilled agent for a government group. She's both a Rogue (Spy) and a Ranger (Urban Ranger) and can do parkour like Assassin's Creed.

The area she flees into is known as "The Warrens," which is a tightly packed maze of alleys and tenements which is contested over by at least two different organized crime interests. I want this dungeon to be completely 3D - lots of ladders, stairwells, ways to get across the rooftops and the like.

The problem is this: I have no idea what kind of encounters to do. The only thing I can think of are dangerously run down buildings, squatters and gangland violence. Can I get a little help please?

Bonus question: Any OTHER ideas for awesome urban dungeons are welcome!