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A random keleshite caravan would make sense. Perfect, thanks!

Eastern Iobaria, specifically the Dvezda Marches, is well characterized in Maiden Mother Crone (AP #69). It sounds like a wasteland, but still it might be possible for the occasional foreigner to try to eke out some minimal trade, directly or indirectly, with those centaurs.

I'm wondering what humanoid nationalities might strike up a trade? For instance, going by the maps, it looks like it should be possible for Tian Xia to possibly have some irregular trade with Eastern Iobaria via the Shining Sea.

Trade with the Tian Xia matters for an in-campaign plot point, but I don't want to stretch the setting TOO far; I would settle for any kind of trade. But my knowledge of Golarion isn't that solid, and I know that the Jade Regent AP talked about the path over the Crown of the World. Would appreciate any idle comments from the Golarionites in this forum about who my PCs might run into out there.

What do the PCs want to accomplish in Reign of Winter? A truly horrific action for any good character: to free one of the evils of the multiverse, one that has inflicted countless horrors on innocent and non-innocent alike over centuries. The Black Rider's mantle is a evil geas inflicted on the PCs with a spoonful of sugar, driving them onwards with no choice except to comply, regardless of the moral quandary.

But, you counter: it's for a good reason! You are driven to free Baba Yaga it to prevent an ever greater evil - that of eternal winter spreading across Golarion. With that in mind, let's take the best outcome in the authored AP: the PCs free Baba Yaga, stop the ritual, and afterwards ask Baba Yaga politely to leave Irrisen alone. Yay! Golarian is saved!

But... Baba Yaga is free. She is loose.

Does saving one planet from an icy fate really excuse the number of lives that she will destroy on other planets? The countless off-planet Irrisens she will almost certainly go on to create?

If you question the amount of lives lost, the AP establishes that Irrisen is, by design, a frozen hell bent on torturing countless innocent souls via The Shackled Hut (aka, "The Child Endangerment AP"). The Witch Queen's Revenge explains what happens to the granddaughters of each of the deposed queens. We could go on; Baba Yaga is no Demon Lord, but most of her experiments seem to involve a gleeful amount of collateral damage. Let's not think that she is innocent or does not deserve to be brought to justice.

So, if freeing her is an evil act, should a paladin fall after releasing Baba Yaga? Of course the answer is no! No GM should force a fall from a choice that is not really a choice.

And that's my issue with the railroad: why isn't it a choice? Why did the author(s) choose only ONE single way to save the world? Should freeing Baba Yaga have been the only way to conclude this Adventure Path?

If you ask me, tabletop gaming is at its best when it promotes creativity. The AP metaplot had plenty of options to support creative solutions beyond just freeing Baba Yaga:

• stealing her power by following Rasputin's path to ascension, becoming mythic, and stopping the ritual.
  
• finishing Rasputin's path and claiming the Thrice-tenth kingdom for the fact that it may weaken Baba Yaga, allowing her to be ultimately killed or reimprisoned
  
• destroying the Dancing Hut. Doesn't it house the demi-plane where Elvanna is hiding?
  
• after killing Elvanna, there is really NO WAY! to stop the ritual short of Baba Yaga? Really?! No allies, no deific intervention, not the decemvirate, no avatars of creation that can sort out how to stop a ritual that has been put in place by (only) a 20th level, non-mythic, non-deific power?
  
• Best option! Make it a choice. Free Baba Yaga to stop the ritual, thus acquiring great wealth, power, and immortality as boons upon her freedom; or sacrifice your lives to shut down the ritual and keep Baba Yaga imprisoned for another age.
  

Sure, any GM can add this, but I am wondering why the conclusion to this AP are so narrowly structured, with one path to success or failure, given how much of a moral quandry the plot presents to thinking good PCs.

How would YOU have changed the ending?

PS. And don't get me started on Elvanna. She manages to survive her mother just to guarantee her death by threatening all of Golarion before her power is cemented. Brilliant plan. /slowclap

The creature doing the grappling can move.

Grapple wrote:

Move: You can move both yourself and your target up to half your speed. At the end of your movement, you can place your target in any square adjacent to you. If you attempt to place your foe in a hazardous location, such as in a wall of fire or over a pit, the target receives a free attempt to break your grapple with a +4 bonus.

You've left out an essential part of the description leading up to the move grapple action you quoted.

If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold. If your target does not break the grapple, you get a +5 circumstance bonus on grapple checks made against the same target in subsequent rounds. Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple)

Move: You can move both yourself...

By your logic, you could never move anyone, round one, round two, round 50000.

You can move them on round 2 - round 50000 by successfully maintaining your grapple and using the move grapple action.

The grapple action describes the exception to the Grappled condition, which is what grapple actions are available to you as the primary grappler that has maintained the grapple on each subsequent round.

If you don't believe me or what is written in the rules, as another summary which lays this out nicely, look at the grapple flowcharts on d20pfsrd. The move grapple action is only available to the grappler who is controlling, as part of the standard action to maintain the grapple on subsequent rounds.

From a thematic perspective, I agree with Adamantine Dragon as well. Regardless, the RAW mean the minimum time taken to execute this action via Grapple is 2 rounds. I doubt the PCs could have prevented it, given the description, but there would have been a bit more rolling involved.

So: BBEG and helpless PC, standing on a 5ft cliff ledge, adjacent to each other. What can the BBEG do to drop the character off the cliff?

- Drag wouldn't work, because the BBEG can pull the PC behind them but is not holding them as such.

The aim of this maneuver is to drag a foe in a straight line behind you without doing any harm.

BBEG walks 5 ft off the cliff, and the PC stays at the ledge.

- The BBEG could not Reposition the character into a hazardous location, such as over a pit, as per RAW.

You cannot use this maneuver to move a foe into a space that is intrinsically dangerous, such as a pit or wall of fire.

- If this was grappling:

For all of these:

Slapping or wounding awakens an affected creature, but normal noise does not.

Though the RAW is not explicit, RAI would make me think that any aggressive action towards a character, such as dragging them around, would wake them up.

Just ran into this thread, so while I'm here:
recent FAQ post on how Crossblooded and Wildblooded do not stack.

Go go Toronto Pathfinders!

This rule is attempting to do two things:

1) ensure players have the reference for all abilities in play at hand - to increase smooth running of game
2) to ensure books have been purchased

Yes! There are really two separate issues.

• Having references at hand. This entirely makes sense: GMs need rules to adjudicate. Just enforce non-internet/PRD based access from a legal rules source. Rules are always available for the player and fully legal.
• Enforcing book ownership. Yes, we all want Paizo to thrive; but volunteer PFS GMs are not meant to be an 'enforcement arm' for the Paizo purchasing system. GMs are meant to run a fair and fun PFS scenario, and not to make sure players have paid their bills.

So! Don't make volunteer PFS GMs tax collectors and book auditors. They have enough to do keeping the game fair. Let the culture of PFS encourage people to do the right thing.

Photocopies of hardbacks accomplish this goal, and also supports PFS players who a) prefer hardbacks b) prefer buying from their FLGS, who can't sell PDFs.

Conclusion. Having references at hand should be the goal here, with the informal proviso of 'you must own the resources you use'. And photocopies of the hardbacks you own is a perfectly balanced approach.

One quick option: Use Magic Device and a wand of Spectral Hand.

Level sorcerer/wizard 2, witch 2

1 min/level
A ghostly hand shaped from your life force materializes and moves as you desire, allowing you to deliver low-level, touch range spells at a distance.

Spiritualist Rings are a very expensive way to get Spectral Hand 3 times a day.