NewtonPulsifer's page

I was a player in Snows of Summer and just bailed on it. It wasn’t a decision I took lightly because it ended the game in its entirety. A player had already bailed, another had maybe 50% attendance, and another probably would have stayed if I did and the GM did retcon surgery to fix problem #1 below - but the GM didn’t seem interested in putting in the effort - and why should he? Isn’t that what APs are supposed to be good for - saving the GM prep time?

Three big problems in this AP in my opinion from the get-go are:

1. The premise isn’t self-consistent (massive plot holes)
2. You need to make sure you have player buy-in on the plot and premise before you play.
3. You need to make Baba Yaga a more sympathetic character somehow (or better yet replace her with another being/person).

From reading there are more problems (the books are connected by a hackneyed magic coupon system that forces the players through a bunch of pointless encounters) and potentially more beyond that.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qcle?Is-this-adventure-path-a-dud

The way you fix #1 is reduce the story’s impact to regional (say winter spreads to a single Linnorm Kingdom where Heldren is). Otherwise why wouldn’t the PCs just pass the torch to some 17th level NPCs if they really were interested in saving the world? Even better just make it an internal Irriseni civil war and the PCs are exiles from Irrisen that have a reason to return.

The way you do #2 is straight up reveal the premise in its entirety to the players before you start the first session. Otherwise shortly after finding out the plot premise a majority of your players may just quit the game. Get that buyin ahead of time.

For #3 you need to make Baba Yaga at least somewhat sympathetic. Something like it is well known that she’s a fey being of pure balance and for every person she helps or saves she has to balance that with an equivalent atrocity. Or replace Baba Yaga with a rebellious offspring that took her out. Or make Baba Yaga have been dead for a very long time and was replaced by an unknown trickster god murdering Irriseni witches that are reincarnations of Baba Yaga every 100 years before they grow into demigod level threats (a disguise of Aroden?) but Aroden/Baba Yaga hasn’t shown because of his untimely death. Most payers aren’t going to be interested in serving an ancient witch demigod that eats a lot of children and murders innocents by the thousands just to perpetrate revenge against their rebellious relatives.

I’m not seeing the evil here.

Lots of Chaotic, though. Enough of which will make a Paladin “fall” to NG.

Can I earn two 3xp module chronicle sheets as a level 4 pregen and convert+assign them to an new character number and start at level 3?

Or does the act of assigning that first module pregen make the new character level 2 and thus ineligible for any further converted chronicles?

Have the AC be to your left or right a bit, or you'll take soft cover penalties with your reach weapon going through the AC's square.

Please queue me up for a code.

I've read if one actually reads the book with durable arrows in it (Elves of Golarion) those arrows are listed as the crafting cost; I don't know for sure as I don't own it.

So not only are they not sold separately (and you need to buy a regular sized lot of durable arrows, regardless of special material), you also need to triple the base arrow cost.

It seems that spell-like abilities aren't technically "cast" in the same way scrolls are "completed" and wands are "activated" and wondrous magic items are "used" - and thus don't qualify for prestige classes or class features (like you can't use a scroll and combine it with the "share spells" class feature) that require "casting".

However for everything else spell-like abilities seem to work as "In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell" so the ring would work.

Seems the developer might not have intended they work with spell-like abilities though, but then again they might have (probably not as it is only a 2000 GP item).

It seems strong enough that it should probably be banned in Pathfinder Society.

P.S.

From the PRD

Special Abilities: Spell-Like Abilities

Spell-Like Abilities: Usually, a spell-like ability works just like the spell of that name. A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus. The user activates it mentally. Armor never affects a spell-like ability's use, even if the ability resembles an arcane spell with a somatic component.

A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description. In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.

Spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance and dispel magic. They do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated. Spell-like abilities cannot be used to counterspell, nor can they be counterspelled.

If a character class grants a spell-like ability that is not based on an actual spell, the ability's effective spell level is equal to the highest-level class spell the character can cast, and is cast at the class level the ability is granted.

If I have a Ring of Lingering Blood Magic, can I use it with Spell-Like Abilities? For example the blur spell-like ability for 4th level arcane bloodragers?

Now what about the Bit of Luck Luck Domain power spell-like ability?

Paizo PRD - Ring of Lingering Blood Magic
Item info:
"RING OF LINGERING BLOOD MAGIC
When the wearer of this ring is bloodraging, he can expend 1 round of bloodrage to extend the duration of a beneficial spell affecting him by 2 rounds. This is a free action the wearer can take once per round."

Domain Power Info:
"Bit of Luck (Sp): You can touch a willing creature as a standard action, giving it a bit of luck. For the next round, any time the target rolls a d20, he may roll twice and take the more favorable result. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier."

Please hit the FAQ button if you believe this needs a FAQ answer (I do).

andreww wrote:

Kigvan wrote:

A nice simple smoke stick can prevent an enemy in darkness from making their sneak attacks and saved at least one character at the last core table I GMed, works just as well in a normal PFS game.

A 2pp wand of obscuring mist will do much the same for the entire group.

With the smokestick you aren't hindering party members that have darkvision....

Both an Obscuring Mist and Smokestick (its description references the Fog Cloud spell) will block darkvision beyond 5 feet, so I'm assuming you mean the smaller area of effect for the Smokestick makes it easier to place it so it doesn't block an ally's darkvision. That's a distinction a reader might not have noticed.

You can get vials of djezet from [REDACTED], which you can buy and give to a level 7+ cleric to get a 4th-level daylight.

Not PFS legal to buy, so [REDACTED] must mean it's a chronicle only purchase...

Warning: Econ crunch ahead.

Medieval serfs in England who were wage laborers would have a cottage and 4 acres of arable land given to them. This is basically his "wage" for working for his landlord. He farms his 4 acres on his own time. The so called "cottager". In addition, rights to pasturage for animals would be available in the commons. Probably about 5x of that per cottager (20 acres or so). A cottager could aspire to purchase his cottage and 4 acres and thus free himself of his day job under his landlord. He would probably have hunting/trapping rights in the forest too, but they might be limited (rabbits etc., not deer or boars) or just unlimited rights but only in portions of the forest.

Typical rents for additional acreage would be about 6.25gp (2 shillings 6 pennies) per year for arable land, assuming a British pound from that era is worth about 50gp. If the cottager were energetic or ambitious, or found himself with extra cash and wanted to hire laborers of his own to turn a profit he could do it in this way. Not sure of the value of pasturage, as some pasture land was unsuitable for farming, and other pasturage was simply farm land that was temporarily fallow.

Eventually wool became so valuable the lords simply kicked all the cottagers off of their land to tend sheep and feudal peasantry disappeared in England.

A yeoman would probably need 20 acres of arable land and about 100 acres of pasture to get that rank (owned by him). Keep in mind at some times you had to have the actual title to the land to get the rank. So if you had to mortgage to a lienholder and they held the title until it was paid off, you literally actually "lost title" and were no longer a yeoman. In some areas/times the exact acreage to attain a rank of yeoman was actually spelled out, and often put a requirement on the yeoman to maintain a militia soldier with a certain standard of equipment that could be called up in time of need (often the yeoman himself if he was fit and able - the classic yeoman English longbowman).

P.S. Old style farming left a surprising (to modern eyes) amount of land fallow (most of it, actually). It was the only way they knew of to fertilize it - with cow patties. They couldn't just turn crude oil into ammonia by the kilotonne and make fertilizer like we do nowadays.

I agree with Raving Dork - a good character could do all this except the torture.

I'd say the torture is an evil act. However, it is not like he did it for fun. If I were one to give "points" to a character based on their actions, this would certainly merit fewer "evil" points and definitely not a sudden change of alignment if they weren't already evil.

Law vs. chaos - just because the rogue is causing major death and destruction doesn't make him chaotic. It just makes him effective.

Execution of nuisance prisoners who would be executed under the law anyway (brigands/pirates) isn't evil. It's self serving. I'd say it's neutral.

There aren't any rules on how quickly one switches alignment from certain acts.

As DM I'd rule this wouldn't push a character to evil no matter how many times they did it, but it would drift them towards neutral.

Is there a way to disguise your scent? Seems like there should be a mundane thing to cover your scent. But any thoughts mundane or magical?

Scent Cloak from Adventurer's Armory increases the track DC by 10 for tracking by scent;it basically acts like the "false, powerful odor" mentioned here in the PRD.

As to getting around the invisibility detection at 60/30/15 feet (depending on upwind/no wind/downwind), just that spell that I know of.

master arminas wrote:

Firing grape-shot (blast-shot, I suppose is the Pathfinder term) at formed ranks would decimate an attacking regiment: two or three hundred dead or wounded from a single salvo.

Decimate actually does not mean "destroy utterly." It means "removeal of a tenth"

Sorry to be pedantic, but this always bothers me...

Err...regiments are often two or three thousand men, so.....

This scenario doesn't wash with even historical medieval justice in one important way - capital crimes throughout even medieval history were able to be appealed to the highest lord of the country (generally the king) and invariably always were.

This is why barons and counts who abused their power always let people they targeted rot in jail. They'd corruptly convict people of lesser crimes (misdemeanors) that they couldn't appeal (if indeed they had the power to dispense criminal justice at all - criminal justice was usually handled by Royal Justices and Sheriffs). If they summarily executed someone they'd be in for a potentially huge fine from the king (not that the king would necessarily mind taxing one of his nobles 50,000gp -ooh, there's a plot - king's agent provocateur tries to get nobles to summarily execute defendants) because they lacked jurisdiction to do it.

You're only going to have summary executions in times of war or extensive lawlessness where individual nobles are the real power and the king/queen is useless or ineffectual.

Even in the middle ages you'd sit in jail for a while waiting to hear about your appeal. Certainly way too much time to create any sort of dramatic tension.

Racing against the clock to fend off a summary execution is going to seem hackneyed railroading (and rightly so) unless the legal system in place is capricious and/or unrestrained by higher legal review (that is, neither lawful nor good and the paladin can probably tell this), or where human life is exceedingly cheap (for example a serf or slave accused of murder, slavery and serfdom probably not being on the "good" side of laws/customs either).

And now the 3.5 Edition Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual are beating 4th Edition's sales ranks on Amazon. Player's Handbook 4th Edition still has a lead, although it isn't a big lead.

If it is that important to him, have the DM make a tiefling leader NPC. I'd say, if there's one rogue, two is even more fun.

Rogue is about the complete opposite of a leader-type, so I think it could be very cathartic for you.

Here's a link that lets you correlate Amazon sales rank numbers to actual Amazon sales.

I suppose this thread is a bit stale now but here's something to resurrect it a bit.

Anybody noticed a lot of 4E stuff for sale second hand already? There's like 55 'New and Used' 4E PHB for sale, and 158 of PHB3 and PHB3.5 combined (129 PHB3 - a high number I'd expect - and 29 PHB3.5) on Amazon. Plus the 4E PHB starts at $14.97 and 3.5E start at $41.55

There's more 4E PHBs on sale on ebay in my quick search than 3E (yes I clicked on 'Auction' button to screen out 'buy it now' listings from vendors).

I was about to put my 4E stuff up for sale (main 3 books) when I noticed this.

I don't think this bodes well for 4E staying power at all.