NihilsticBanana's page

Let me just start out by saying I'm not even sure if this is a good place to ask about this- In my opinion Pathfinder by default doesn't really have a great way to handle things like this- But with a campaign I've been working on I want to implement a strong trading element that rewards traveling large amounts of cargo between cities and towns for a bonus amount of profit in addition to whatever they might find adventuring. I sort of have an idea of what I'd like to try- but I'd like to hear other people's feedback on my idea and maybe hear some advice on better ways to handle this and how to balance it. Brace yourself for a bit of a lengthy explanation of what I was thinking.

So basically the idea I had was to create 4 categories of trade goods that come in 4 different tiers of quality that affect the base value of the items.

Categories - General Goods, Weapons & Armor, Magical Goods, and Artisan Goods

Quality Tiers

Low Quality
Default Supply Buy price (5 copper)
Default Buy price (10 copper)
Default Sell price (10 copper)

Normal Quality
Default Supply Buy price (5 silver)
Default Constructed Buy price (10 silver)
Default Sell price (10 silver)

Good Quality
Default Supply Buy price (5 gold)
Default Constructed Buy price (10 gold)
Default Sell price (10 gold)

Legendary Quality
Default Supply Buy price (5 platinum)
Default Constructed Buy price (10 platinum)
Default Sell price (10 platinum)

Supply Buy prices would be for the cost of materials to make the items yourself to make bigger profits which I was just going to reduce to some level of crafting DC per unit and I'd allow for up to 1 trade good to be crafted per hour of unbothered work (If crafting on the road it would take x4 times as long per item)

The idea for actually turning a profit would be that at the start of the campaign and every in-game month following that every city will have a d20 roll made for the demand level of each category of trade goods, affecting their buy and sell prices by a percent level based on the chart below.

1-5 Low Demand (-10% to buy and sell price)
6-14 Normal Demand (Default buy and sell price)
15-19 High Demand (+10% to buy and sell price)
20 Extremely High Demand (+20% to buy and sell price)

My thought to this was maybe they can check with a guild or do some sort of check to get a projection of the value of things in each city to know where to go if they want to buy low or sell high so like for example City A could have

General Goods - Normal Demand
Weapons & Armor - Low Demand
Magical Goods - Normal Demand
Artisan Goods - High Demand

While City B would have

General Goods - Normal demand
Weapons & Armor - High Demand
Magical Goods - Normal Demand
Artisan Goods - High Demand

Promoting the players to buy weapons & armor from City A and transport them to City B. I was also thinking maybe items like this could have a high weight tied to them or something like that to prevent players from just buying a ton of Legendary Quality goods all of the time- But idk. Part of me feels like a lot of lower quality goods wouldn't even ever be bothered with by the party because those don't deal with the highest amount of profit possible- I probably should figure out some sort of adjustment to make different levels worth it but I haven't come up with anything yet.

I feel like if I can make this work it would make room for a unique feeling campaign with encounters like bandits trying to rob the party trade caravan on the road- or maybe a projection of the trade value of goods was wrong and the party now needs to find a way to get their money back on a ton of useless goods or- Just all other sorts of trade shenanigans

What do you guys think? Would you find this fun to play? Is this dumb? Did I make more work than what's necessary and there's just a better way of doing this? Any thoughts, Ideas, Suggestions, Or just pointing out any dumb oversights I might be making would be great. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

I'm a little confused as to how pages in spellbooks work in pathfinder- Based on what I read it said "A spell takes up one page of the spellbook per spell level. Even a 0-level spell (cantrip) takes one page" does that mean each spell takes up one page? Or is it saying something like a 2nd level spell takes up 2 pages, a 3rd level spell takes up 3 pages and ect. Does anyone know the correct way that's handled? also furthermore- Am I able to purchase multiple spell books to have more pages? Or can I only use one spell book and I would have to upgrade to a blessed book if I wanted more? And finally, my spells gained from leveling up also count towards pages used right? Or do they not count and it's only for extra spells you try to learn?

Sorry for my cluelessness here, Thanks in advance to anyone who can break this all down for me.

I'm playing with a poppet as my familiar and just hit level 7, it gets a spliter breath attack but from what I understand about breath attacks those are a DC of 10 plus the creatures hit dice and its constitution mod- Something a construct familiar has neither of- Does anyone know what to do in this situation and how to calculate it?

Whats the cheapest way to get returning or something that has a similar effect for a thrown weapon? I could of sworn there was some sort of belt or weapon attachment or something that could give you such an ability but I can't for the life of me find it or remember the name of it for that matter. Any help that could be provided would be great. Thanks in advance!

Hey there, I'm a level 1 going on level 2 Unchained Rogue/Oozemorph. My DM for whatever reason undid the biggest drawback for an oozemorph and I get to stick in whatever form I choose all day so long as I don't get knocked out. This has me thinking that so long as I'm cool with missing out on that DR/Slashing and some extra natural attacks down the line I might as well think about multiclassing into something else. I feel like the concept of being a rogue who can easily change how they look each day is pretty cool and leaves room to make a pretty interesting character so if anyone has any class ideas that would pair well with that concept it would be really helpful to hear some ideas because personally at the moment I'm pretty stumped.

Also in case it is important to figure out what might work for me, Summoners, Paladins, and Monks are banned and I have 14 str, 20 dex, 10 con, 13 int, 10 wis, and 10 cha

Thanks for the help in advance!

I'm an oozemorph who uses a one-handed weapon and two natural attacks. to my understanding, if you're going to use a weapon and natural attacks which would normally be primary attacks are instead treated as secondary attacks meaning they get a -5 to hit. But saying that would that mean my normal weapon attack would be getting -6 as if I were two-weapon fighting without the proper feat? And if I were to pick up two-weapon fighting- would that even do anything for my natural attacks or is that strictly for if I were to pick up a second weapon? I've looked at Multiattack which- I mean I think I might qualify for at later levels when I get one more natural attack but currently I only have two natural attacks as opposed to the required three.. So- Yeah I'm probably overcomplicating things here but can anyone help me figure out the math here?

The title really says it all with my question, I think with an actual weapon in hand like a sword it would make sense- but Im not super sure- How does this all work?

I'm a little confused as to how a natural attack and weapon attack mesh together and I'm kinda lost on how many attacks I'm exactly getting here. I get 2 attacks with a weapon when my bab is this high and when I'm making a full attack I know I can attack and use my bite- But when they're put together like that I'm a little confused as to how many of each thing I get. Is it literally I get 2 bite attacks and then 2 sword swings making it 4 attacks total? Or am I mistaken here and I only get two sword swings and one bite? Or is it something else? Please explain this to me like I'm 5 because I feel like I'm missing something obvious here.

So like for example if I have weapon training and a +1 sword would it add just +1 to hit and +1 to damage? or would it be +2 to hit and damage at that point?

Our dm is starting up a new gestalt campaign which is cool, I’ve always wanted to try and make a fighter/wizard who focuses in on transmutation, transforming into stuff all the time and stuff- but in total honesty I’m not suuuuper sure how to build that? We’re starting at level 8 and I got a ton of feats I can get (I’m even getting a bonus one from taking a flaw) but I’m not sure if it’s just due to not being great at the game and I don’t know any better or if this is a legit problem but- I literally have no idea what types of feats or spells to get. Plus I feel like ac is gonna be a problem no? Sure I could go hard into Dex and stuff but I’d rather be focused on my strength and intelligence more then anything- if that’s possible.

I guess I want to know what sorts of feats would even be good for this? I’m probably not using a single weapon- I imagine it’s a lot of natural attacks right? But then what do you do with that? I have a wealth of feats I can get but no idea which ones would actually be beneficial- not to mention the fact that even if I had all the right feats I’m not super sure how good I’d actually be? Like I’m not even sure where that leaves me in terms of a party role?

Spells are an issue on their own, my dm said I’m good to go for this but I wouldn’t transform into stuff I wouldn’t of seen before- so no dinosaurs- so I’m set with creatures that I have reasonably seen or at least would know about- I had the idea of picking up the blood money spell to get past the requirements to have a part of the creature you’re trying to transform into for spells like monstrous physique but then I started thinking “well how much is this component worth?” Am I to assume that is an material component worth 1 gold or less? How much is part of a monster worth? Am I taking the strength damage to use this? Do I even want to be trying to turn into monsters in the first place? I got no clue.

I’m just generally confused and could use any and all help I could get, if not a specific walkthrough on what I should be doing any tips or info would be a massive help. Thanks in advance for any help or info you can give me

So my group seems to love running campaigns with Gestalt, Which I mean, Is fair. It's fun if a bit broken at times XD But I often find myself getting confused as I try to make something cool often leading me to be the one who often makes uh- Bad/dumb combos? But I think I'm onto something here with this latest idea. I just need a little help in really making it all tie together?

So a dreadnaught barbarian gets dead calm... Which if you don't know what that is it's the replacement for rage that archetype gets. It reads as follows -

A dreadnought can enter a dispassionate killing spree as a free action, granting her additional combat prowess. The dreadnought gains only half the usual bonuses from her rage but takes no penalty to her AC, can use all her normal skills and effects that require concentration, and is not fatigued when her rage ends. The dreadnought cannot enter a rage for 1 minute after she ends her rage, and she cannot charge or run while under the effects of her rage.

which says to me if I'm not mistaken because they can use concentration stuff they can still cast spells even when in a rage- Which surely must be good for something right? Maybe it'll lend itself it being some kinda... Super... Melee witch- thing? Sure I could shoot for some other spellcasting class other than just like a witch but- Idk I just like the sound of a witch more so I wanna try and make that work? Can anyone help me figure something out here? Or is the effort just a lost cause?

I have a 25 point buy to work with if you need to know that and uh- Yeah. Thanks for all the help/advice in advance!

Hi. I'm a level 5 evil cleric noble who recently got himself mixed up in a political intrigue adventure. My party really doesn't seem down to join in on my cult leader goals so it's more of a personal goal I need to handle solo.

I'm currently stuck in a tiny dirty town surrounded by a swamp with a population of less than maybe 60. You'd think that be an ideal place to start a cult but I've been having some issues getting started... I can't really be out in the open with "Wanna join my cult" seeing as I like not getting lynched/banished. Kidnapping or threats really isn't my style plus I think it might really upset my sister/the paladin. I don't have a ton of free time to work with, and I share my living space with all the rest of the party. the best I have going for me is that there's no church in the community yet (But the paladin and inquisitor are working on spreading their goody-two-shoes faith and hope to get one up and running soon), 4k gold, and I might have like... a few agents out of town willing to do a few errands or a small job for me. Any ideas on how I can get my cult started without getting killed by my party or the community?

Thanks in advance for the help.

When playing games I'm normally the type to try and make as "Out-there" of a character as possible. But for my next upcoming one, I really wanna shake things up by making a character as boring as possible. Like so boring it's funny. I already have it in my mind that they'll speak in a monotone and have some heavy NPC face going on. But what else can I do to make them more boring? What's a good boring alignment and class? How do I make the ultimate boring adventurer? Thanks in advance for the help.

My players in the one-shot are going to be level 9. I thought it would be fun if I gave them all gifts at a certain point in the form of some sort of fun wacky magic items that are very uh... Holiday-ish. I think going beyond just flavoring something that already exists would be cool. I just sort of think making up some new things that fit the season would be fun but I'm not too sure how to do that in a way that won't be unbalanced. Does anybody have any ideas that wouldn't be too broken?

Thanks in advance for the help.

I've had it in my mind that I want to run a Post Apocalyptic campaign in pathfinder with my normal group but I'm a little lost in where to start. I mean sure I can come up with an idea and way the world ended. Maybe Demons invaded, a Massive Magical mishap that blew up half the world, a classic zombie plague... I got all that. I'm just curious what rules or elements others would put into their game to make it feel really Post-Apocalypticy. How would you run something like this? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for the help.

So I have myself a Thrush Familiar, Its first level and I'm just a bit lost as to how to set everything up here. In the rules, it says something like -

"For each skill in which either the master or the familiar has ranks, use either the normal skill ranks for an animal of that type or the master’s skill ranks, whichever is better."

But when looking at the animal character sheet it has like +12 to fly and +5 to perception. This is where I get confused because if I were to actually give it 12 ranks in fly it bumps up to 17 which doesn't seem right. And when 5 in perception suddenly becomes 10 (Due to it being a class skill) I can't help but think that I must be doing something wrong here.

Also when my ranks in skills come into play does that mean it's getting my rank in linguistics right off the bat? If that's the case do they start off with an extra language they can use- Like can they start off speaking common it does say that thrush should be capable of actual speech so idk.

Furthermore, they appear to have skill focus (Perception) by default... How does that come into play here? I'm probably being stupid and overlooking something important here but can someone break it down for me? because I can't figure out what's going on here for the life of me.

Thanks in advance for all the help.

So yeah I've heard it all before, The turn order is the ultimate killer of single monster boss encounters, I get that its better to have some minions floating about but I just can't get over the idea of wanting to make just one big monster work and not have it end too quickly. Part of me wishes I could just give the monster multiple turns on the turn order but I'm not too sure how balanced that would be, Not to mention I'm not even sure that would solve the problem so I wouldn't want to risk trying to pull something like that. Does anyone have any ideas on just how to make one big baddy in a boss fight work without any sort of minions? Thanks in advance for all the help.

So yeah I've heard it all before, The turn order is the ultimate killer of single monster boss encounters, I get that its better to have some minions floating about but I just can't get over the idea of wanting to make just one big monster work and not have it end too quickly. Part of me wishes I could just give the monster multiple turns on the turn order but I'm not too sure how balanced that would be, Not to mention I'm not even sure that would solve the problem so I wouldn't want to risk trying to pull something like that. Does anyone have any ideas on just how to make one big baddy in a boss fight work without any sort of minions? Thanks in advance for all the help.

I’m more used to DMing a campaign where the players are the heroic good guys off on a quest to stop some sort of evil or save the day. So I’m curious how it would be like to go the opposite route and have my players be the baddies for a change. While a league of evil working under some sort of dark lord is the classic sort of evil campaign.. at least In my mind I was thinking of just going a bit more simple with having the players be a bandit group. Thing is as I got into it I realized I have no idea how to build a story for that, bandits aren’t really known for going off and doing quests are they? They aren’t really known for venturing into dungeons or slaying monsters. So I would love it if some of you could tell me your ideas of what you might do if you ran a bandit campaign and maybe that’ll inspire me to come up with some ideas of my own.

Looking forward to your responses!

I’m a player in a upcoming campaign and agreed to be the party’s healer. We’re starting at level 1 I believe and have a 30 point buy, I’d ideally want to be human too. I really want to try and make something a little weird so I decided on a chaotic good cleric of groetus. His mindset being that if the end of the world is coming upon us everyday should be lived like as if it were your last and he celebrates the idea of the end of the world because that would make room for something even better to take this worlds place.

This is my first time playing a cleric. Can someone help me figure out how to build this? I’m told that social skills are a bit important for this campaign so I need to find a balance here with social skills, combat ability and healing? Is that possible? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

It's stated in the description of the power:

"as an immediate action, you can reroll any one d20 roll you have just made before the results of the roll are revealed. You must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. You can use this ability once per day at 6th level, and one additional time per day for every six cleric levels beyond 6th."

Now, why would I want to do that? Is there any point or reason to reroll a roll you haven't even seen yet? Am I missing something here? Is there a benefit to doing this that I'm not seeing?

It's all been leading up to this, My players have dealt with so much and now it's all coming to an end, The final dungeon. I have just about everything set up, the majority of it not involving any combat except for the one I have them heading towards

They were given warnings of a powerful beast that lurked in here, locked away behind one of the most mighty of doors guarding the artifact they need to reclaim before it could fall into the hands of an evil cult that's been plaguing the lands.

Once they get the key things will kick off as soon as they enter, it'll be up to them to defeat the mighty dragon I have planned for them.

So here's the deal, What they'll be facing is an Adult cave dragon (CR 11), I thought in this case that would be the most narratively and visually interesting choice. Its CR being one of the lower ones for an adult dragon I thought it be decently good. But there are a few problems

I want to figure out a way to lower its CR by one but I'm not sure how exactly I should go about doing that, I ideally want this encounter to be their APL+3 (Average Party level currently is 6 but I was thinking of giving them an NPC companion to boost it up to 7 (Currently have 5 levels 6 and with the NPC it would be 6 level 6's) I don't want to have to shoot for a young dragon just kind of based on I only have the stats+CR for an adult or a young cave dragon)

So it be great if someone could help me figure out how to lower that or something, But outside of that I also am a bit worried in how much I should prepare them for this fight, should it be a little? A lot? Part of me was thinking if I made the NPC a cleric I could go ahead and help them out against its DR 5/Good by having them align their weapons but idk.

In all honesty, I've never used anything as intense as a dragon before so I'm a little nervous about doing it right, I want it to be an intense and fitting final encounter but at the same time I don't want it to be something where they would go "That fight was super unfair" or anything like that. Really any suggestions or tips on just actually how I should fight with this dragon would be great, how to handle a cave dragons kinda.. fighting strategy I guess? I still have plenty of time to adjust its lair in any way I need too in order to make it a proper battleground I just need all the help I could get here because out of everything this is the one thing in the campaign I have to get absolutely right.

If anyone needs more info from me in order to help figure things out feel free to ask me anything and I'll try to respond as soon as I possibly can.

Thanks in advance for all the help.

The title says it all, Can a cleric take the Bloatmage Initiate feat to increase their caster level or is that only for arcane casters?

My players are headed to a fancy ball, That's well and fine however what they don't know is that this ball is going to turn bloody in the sense that a murder will take place and every one of the strange characters my players would meet this night has a motive. I originally wanted the lights to go out so that such an event could unfold under the cover of darkness but... Well almost everyone has dark-vision. It would make for a pretty weak mystery if they see who does the killing so... What's a good alternative to obscuring the sight of my players?

My players are headed to a fancy ball, That's well and fine however what they don't know is that this ball is going to turn bloody in the sense that a murder will take place and every one of the strange characters my players would meet this night has a motive. I originally wanted the lights to go out so that such an event could unfold under the cover of darkness but... Well almost everyone has dark-vision. It would make for a pretty weak mystery if they see who does the killing so... What's a good alternative to obscuring the sight of my players?

So my players are off to help out some elven druids during their ritual to heal "The heart of the forest" a giant tree in the center of the forests of bereaving (The local haunted, monster-infested, and witch-filled woods known for drawing in children who are then never seen again) The druids need to perform a ritual which takes a full 24 hours of unbroken concentration in order to rid this forest of its corruption and needs the party to protect them from the dark forces that would try and stop this ritual.

Thing is.. I'm a little lost on what exactly I should throw at them. I wanted to make this a "Waves of enemies" sort of thing but then I figured well 1. thats a little hard to do just in general but 2. it's all the more difficult with the 24 hour part I added in. Right now I'm toying with the idea that maybe a wave would show up every 6 hours? I'm not sure, Which makes picking what exactly I should send at them all the more difficult. Does anyone have any ideas on how I should handle this? I'm really trying to think of a way to make this as intense and dramatic of an event as possible seeing as this will decide the fate of the forest as a whole, If things proceed to get more dangerous and reaches a point of no return or if slowly things can get better and become more hospitable.

The party is made up of 5 players all at level 5.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Its kind of a simple question, Is it fair to cast a spell on a player if I know the party has no way of combating it? For example Aboleths lung. If that was cast on one of them in an environment with no water and the party isn't super balanced so there really isn't anyone they have that can dispel the spell. So basically if it lands their fate is completely reliant on if they can resist the spell or not. basically a "Save or die" situation. Is that cheap to do or is it alright to do something like that? I figure if one of them dies it's going to give them a chance to make a more balanced party (It's my fault for not doing a better job at trying to prevent something like this at the beginning but basically the entire party is a bunch of melee fighters, some of which can cast weird variants of spells. We have no healers, ranged fighters, or AOE dealers.). but I'm not sure. Can I hear others' thoughts on this?

So I'm the DM of this campaign, Right now my players are in this orc camp where all the orcs worship this evil god of war and fire. They just found out that the orcs basically burn alive their old warriors once they grow too weak to fight and use the ashes from those old orcs in this sort of "Ritual Warpaint" which supposedly bestows the combat knowledge that old orc once had in life. While particularly great warriors are reserved to high ranking orcs in the encampment I did say that should an outsider prove themselves worthy they could gain access to this stuff. Here's the thing. One of my players wants to try and prove themselves worthy next session, Which is fine. But I'm not entirely sure how to handle something for just the "one player" Do I have them do a fight on their own? If so how do I handle CRs in this case? My players are level 5 currently. Also, I wouldn't mind suggestions for what kind of effect this warpaint could have on a player when applied. I like the idea of it being something they can only apply in the camp and have its effects only last so long. But outside of that, I'm not sure what I should have it do exactly.

Something to note would be that the player in question is a rogue but so far they've been an absolute killing machine, Like... They've handled more enemies in close-range combat than even our fighters.

Oh! Also, I'm not strictly locking myself to the idea that the challenge has to be a fight, I'd just like some ideas is all.

So our parties cleric died the other day, That sucks but the real problem is when they were making a new character turns out they showed up and were no longer a cleric. Now, this party is already pretty unbalanced, our spell caster isn't able to detect magic, I don't think we have any ranged fighters and like... Now we're down a healer, I think that's going to be a pretty major problem. In retrospect I should of as the DM maybe said what we need and don't need. But either way, it's too late to switch things now and I don't really wanna have to force the former cleric to be a healer if they don't want to be one (especially seeing as they didn't like doing the actual healing part when in that role so it kinda defeats the whole point) so what should I do? The evil part of me wants to maybe wipe out a couple of smarter players that would be willing to actually step into the roles we need so we can have someone make something that's actually more useful to the party, But you know.. That's probably most definitely not the best way to go about things. Ideas?

So I bit off a little more then I could chew with taking on 2 campaigns at the same time, Both of which I'm the DM at first it seemed like it was going to be fine and fun but now I'm rapidly realizing that I made a big mistake and it's been eating way too much into my free time. I honestly don't think I can pull through until the end of one of them but I don't want to let anybody down either... So what's the best way to go about that sort of thing? How can I stop DMing without upsetting or letting people down?

I want to throw my players into a big arena, I figure it would be fun or cool to put them through 5 waves of enemies slowly scaling in danger or difficulty so, for example, a decently sized troop of goblins for starters and then slowly increasing the CR of the monsters until finishing off with one big CR monster. Thing is I'm not to sure how to balance this... What I mean is how do I handle the CR of this? Do I hit them with things under their CR and slowly scale up to something above? Wouldn't they like.. be in super rough shape by then? Should I let them get all healed up after every encounter? Should I throw them some NPCs to take some hits for them? Help me figure out how to handle something like this the best way possible, please. Thanks in advance.

My players are always making rapid progress through my campaigns, Which you know.. That's good and all for them, they're doing their role perfectly but it does feel like they tend to get like 2 sessions worth of continent done in a single session which has been.. well it's been a bit stressful on me as a DM as I would like just a little more breathing room when it comes to setting things up for a game session, I'm the type who likes to have a ton of stuff done already in advance so I can have more free time on other days but with my party's rapid progress it's been rather difficult.

Sure I know that I can throw a combat encounter at them and that usually kills about an hour or so, But is that all I can do? I'd just like some more tips and tricks in having it so they progress slow enough where I can relax more about having things set up for a campaign. I'd rather not like.. Switch things to Bi-weekly and my players are just masters when it comes to puzzles and riddles down in dungeons so those seem to be poor ways of slowing them down too... I can never count on how long they'll talk to a specific NPC either so.. I'm at a bit of a loss here. Can anyone offer me a bit of advice?

So I have a level 5 sorcerer as a sort of "Minor villain" and sure enough he ended up getting killed, I thought that was a bit of a shame as it was an interesting character, I think it might be fun to bring him back to face the party once again but I'm not too sure how best to go about it, He wasn't a necromancer or anything (They had the pestilence bloodline so they were more of a "Diseased rat king" type who was trying to manufacture a plague to wipe out a town) So I guess if anyone can give me any ideas or excuses for bringing this character back later on to fight once again let me know.

Thanks in advance

I've had this idea for a character for a while now, I've been thinking, What if I got a really old magic type (Be it a wizard or sorcerer or etc.) and had their whole goal to be to steal the body of someone ideally Young, Fit, and Rich/Prestigious so they could not only live longer but live again stronger then ever free from the notoriety of their past life.

I'm confident in my ability in finding someone that fits what I'm looking for when the time comes for a character like this, My only problem is I want to find out how exactly I can take their body permanently.

Ideally, I want to do this at as low of a level as possible as it's not often campaigns I join last long enough for those really high levels. I'm willing to accept some drawbacks that could come with the process be it being an expensive effort or maybe some negative levels being taken because of it, But what spell or spells would best aid in this effort?

I really want to just see how far this can go, I want help in figuring out just how smart I can make an ape/how "Human" I can make it.

Think planet of the apes, The ultimate goal would be to get it to a point where it can talk (To others, not just me), wield weapons and armor perhaps, and have decent set skills of its own it could do.

The only rules are anything that could have it no longer be my animal companion is not allowed (So no using awaken) and nothing third party is allowed.

If it takes multiclassing I'm more then willing to hear you out to make this possible.

Thanks in advance.

The goal here is simple, I want to make someone that my party will encounter every now and then who only exists to mess with the party and slow them down as much as possible before escaping/fleeing before the party can pay him back for the annoyance. I want him to be irredeemably evil and ready to do whatever it takes to mess with the party.

My mindset is to have him be a sort of "Hit and Run" villain who stands behind a group of monsters or hired help, Dishes out a powerful/annoying attack or two and then flee's the moment things even slightly look like they're not going to end well, Ideally, this would be a character that is extremely cowardly but manages to get every single one of my players to want nothing more than to be able to track him down and kill him. I want him to have a high chance of being able to escape if the party is aiming their sights towards him. I want him to try and slow down the party in any way possible no matter how horrible, so he might somehow control children that were stolen away from the village and use them as child soldiers that he throws at the party, He may send them letters that explode if they read them. Just help me make someone everyone can universally hate.

The only rules in place for making this character is nothing about them can come from 3rd party, they can't be any higher than level 7, and they can't have any super expensive items that someone of their level has no business owning. Ideally, they're a core race as well.

Thanks in advance for the help.

So I have an interesting problem, I have a game going on set in its own custom setting. Right now I'm in the process of populating the world with a number of dungeons and it's been progressing pretty solidly, however, there's one location I know I want to do something interesting with, I'm just not finding the right spark of creativity to do something with it. Full-on Ideas and suggestions on what I should do would be most appreciated.

In the middle of the Forests of Bereaving, A wicked Forest of twisted pines and horrible monsters lay's a clearing, Here no plants grow and no animals dare to hang around. All that lay's in the center is a large pit filled with dragon bones, Or at least that's what it appears to be at a distance, when closer inspected it's revealed that these bones are simply made of stone. When inspected by the common traveler more often than not it's an eerie location to be sure but not a hostile one, Any sorts of dangers or monsters are nowhere in sight. Yet there is a good number of adventurers who claim there is a dungeon hidden amongst these bone-shaped structures, But this surely must just be a myth, as each group claims that the entrance to this so called dungeon was in a different location.

The average party level is 7

I'm mainly having trouble turning this into a proper idea, Is there a teleporting entrance? Is it all an Illusion? Could these of been like.. undead dragons that got turned too stone? And what would the Dungeon hold then? Maybe these should actually be real bones instead of stone ones?

Please just help me figure this out. Thanks for any help in advance.

So, I've been interested in toying around with an intelligent magic item one of these days, that's all well and good but the main issue is I'm having trouble fully understanding the rules and like... system to do that? I guess maybe I'm just being a bit stupid but I often find myself confused when attempting to figure it out on my own and when I look for answers online its mostly about players wanting to know how to make an Intelligent magic item in-game.

So basically, Can someone walk me through the process of creating an Intelligent magic item in the most simple way possible? Thanks in advance.

One of my players wants to go off into a prestige class later down the line in my campaign (Mortal Usher I believe it's called) Thing is part of getting it requires them to befriend a Psychopomp, Now that sounds like it could be cool and interesting but the problem is I'm not even sure how I could give them the chance to be face to face with one let alone befriend one.

Anyone out there have any ideas on how I can try and make this happen?

I'm setting up a number of tables for good, weird, and bad random events/encounters that I can roll, I think it would be interesting to see how that all plays out, Problem is when it comes to bad stuff I'm a little stumped as what to put outside of monster encounters, I don't want it to be all "You're suddenly ambushed Fight X monsters" but at the same time, I don't want to do things that are unbalanced/unfair and just say something like "Your gold was stolen last night" that's just not cool.

So how do I make a fair "Negative" random event?

The campaign is pretty horror leaning in sort of a weird supernatural way, So I have a lot of "Weird" things already for the weird table like glowing lights out in the mist and whatnot, but yeah. Any ideas or suggestions would be great.

Just as it says in the title, I've got a new campaign coming up that heavily involved Kytons and all the creepy oddities that come with that, Now that's all well and good but my party is going to start out at level 4, Sure it be fun to spring a chain devil on them right away but I want a little mystery and build up before that, So I want to start them off easy with a few cultists, Problem is I'm not too sure how to handle that? Should they be fighters? Clerics? The god I have closest to the Kyton ideals in my custom setting is CE not LE. I need them to be weak fodder that I can throw a lot of at the party. Like CR 1 or 2. Masochistic cultists who basically torture themselves just like the Kytons.

How's best to handle this? Any ideas out there you can give me?

So I'm working on a tiefling currently with the "Claw or Maw" alternate racial trait, I want to give them the claws but I realized that I have no idea how to even handle natural attacks.

The character is a level 8 druid with a BAB of 6, So that's a +6/+1.

I have two claws apparently from what I understand each that do 1d4 damage plus strength right?

The problem I'm having is actually handling this stuff, Do I just treat the attack like any normal weapon and it's like I do 1d6 if the +6 lands and then do a 1d6 if the +1 lands? Or do "Claws" suggest that it's like I'm doing my attacks twice? Would that be two sets of +6/+1 attacks independent of each other? I'm feeling a bit dumb because I can't figure this out on my own here, Can you try to explain it to me like a child or something because this is either really complex or I'm basically just being an idiot here.

Thanks in advance for the help!

So I'm building a dungeon for an upcoming game of mine but I'm a little confused as how to handle it, It's going to have multiple small encounters in it along with a good number of puzzles and traps however I'm a bit confused as to how I should handle all of that.

Let's say I have an APL of 4 and my party faces three separate combat encounters and for simplicity's sake, let's say they all were a CR of 4. My understanding is that the loot generally should equal 1,150 GP for a medium speed game per encounter right? Okay, then they face the boss encounter which will be a CR of let's say 6 which should have its loot be somewhere around the value of 2,000 GP.

So that would be

1,150
1,150
1,150
2,000

I want to give the party a bit of loot on their way through the dungeon but make the majority of their haul be at the very end in a treasure room, So how should I handle this? Do I add the total of all the treasure together for the final room for a grand total of 5450? Do I keep the spending separate and get loot out that's worth only as much as what could be afforded with each individual encounter? (So nothing worth like say 3000g) or am I doing this all wrong? Please help I'm struggling to understand this all.

Also while I'm at it I understand that Traps have CRs tied to them, Do they factor in to the total loot? And what about things like puzzles?

Thanks for all the help in advance.

Me and my group have this running gag, I forget where exactly it first came from, I believe it was that someone Misheard the DM and for some reason heard the words "Bone Crusher" Ever since then we joked about Bone crusher being the secret BBEG and whenever we enter a cave we joke and go "As you venture into the cave you hear the crushing of bones in the distance" We've also joked about what bone crusher looks like, Be it anywhere from a bone devil, A large man with a big hammer, or at times we talk about the katana-wielding Bone Slicer, Bone crushers alter ego. At this point, it's inside joke ontop of an inside joke. For my next campaign, I'm thinking about putting Bone crusher in at some point. Thing is I'm not sure what the best way to do that is.

So basically my question is, What's the best way to go about making the myth and the legend real? Help me create a physical body for the Godly Bone Crusher and unleash him into the world to continue his work of Crushing Bones.

I've got a horror campaign coming up soon and I really wanna catch my players off guard with the dungeons I'm making, I want death to actually be more of a possible risk than normal without it feeling like I'm forcing them into situations that are like "Roll a save or die" I want my players to feel like their characters are in real danger during fights or when walking into traps but I at the same time don't want things to feel unfair, I basically am trying to really drive home the "Your actions have consequences" idea and really get them feeling the fear and danger but I don't wanna get burned at the stake here because somebody fell into a vat of acid, What's the best way to handle this?

I'm gonna be running a horror campaign for some friends of mine, I've got six players total and I'm gonna start them off at level 3 but I was hoping for this campaign to last till at least level 8 or so. Problem is I'm not really sure what's a good scary end boss for everything, I know that whatever it is it's going to be far deep down in the last chamber of the dungeon I've been working on and is currently being worshipped or maybe in charge of a "Monster Cult" basically crazy folk that are turning themselves into monsters or just mutilating themselves until horribly deformed, Ideally this monster would be intelligent to some degree but other than that I'm drawing a blank, In all honesty, I'm not even fully sure what the best CR would be for six level 8's. If anyone has any good suggestions for what kind of monsters I should be looking into that would be a major help.

So basically whats a good boss monster for a horror campaign that isn't lovecraftian?

Any suggestions would be great if you could give me some, Thanks!

My goal is to make a character who is as freakish and monstrous as possible in terms of looks. I can build the character gestalt with the only restrictions being no third party content and no summoners. Ideally, we'd want to make the character functional as well but mostly I want to focus on how many unnatural things we can do to them.

Let's just say the character is level 10 with the standard wealth for that level (62,000g) and let's just say the race is human for simplicity's sake.

I personally think that an alchemist might be the best way to go with one part of it thanks to discoveries like vestigial arm, Parasidic twin, and whatnot. but beyond that I'm not sure, What are your ideas on making my character as monstrous and mutated as possible to the point of not being a recognizable member of his own race anymore?

Anything that effectively physically changes the character permanently (Without just being a straight debuff) is basically what I'm looking for, Stuff like any traits, feats, spells, or classes that would let me do something like that is what I'm looking for.