Ninten's page

So I'm about to (surprise!) DM Skull & Shackles for my group, and I've been doing some research up front on the forums and elsewhere in order to make everything go as smoothly as possible/avoid potential issues/iron out bumps in the AP. I noticed awesome threads full of fan additions/comments, etc in the forums for Rise of the Runelords and especially Curse of the Crimson Throne, but nothing much here so far. So I thought I'd make a catch-all thread for all the little improvements people might have been using in their games.

For example, there is definitely an issue with player motivation in this AP, since after the end of book 1, trying to tell your new bunch of pirates what they 'should' do is questionably piratey in the first place. DM_aka_Dudemeister has a great solution for this here: http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5wfi?Motivational-Issues

Alternatively, SaintMac's suggestion http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5sq7?Just-a-suggestion-for-GMs-on-thisBig-Bang- Whip lets you use an actual whip sound, which might be cheesy, or very effective.

For my own addition, I think it might help the pacing of the AP somewhat if the Free Captains' Regatta gets thrown around a bit before the PCs are actually going to need to know about it: maybe they find leaflets or fliers among the possessions of other crewmembers, posted in their favorite fence's shop, etc.

So what has everyone changed or added to their campaigns?

Ok, so funny rules question here. It’s never come up in close to 8 years of me playing 3.5/Pathfinder, and in any case may never come up, but I didn’t see any answer anywhere, and thought it was a good question:

Let’s say I’m playing a Wizard (school specialization and familiar not important). I take Wizard levels all the way up to Wizard 4, stopping one level shy of getting 3rd level spells.
I then take a level in a Prestige Class (which one again isn’t important), which gives me spells as though I’d progressed a level in Wizard. Now I’m Wizard 4/Prestige Class 1, and can cast spells like Wizard 5.
My next two levels are also in this Prestige Class, making me Wizard 4/Prestige Class 3, and giving me the spells of a 7th level Wizard, or in other words 4th level spells.
Now things get tricky. Instead of taking Prestige Class 4, I decide to go back and take Wizard 5. What happens to my spellcasting ability, exactly? I think it could be any of:
1.) I just get the same spell increase a normal Wizard 5 would, basically a new 3rd level spell, etc. My spellcaster level doesn’t go up. This is a simple enough solution, but has some odd consequences, such as making it possible for the character to have more than the maximum 6 spell slots per level, by essentially double-dipping.
2.) I get the BAB, Saves, and Class Features of Wizard 5, but the spellcasting abilities of Wizard 8, because technically I already had seven levels of spellcasting as a Wizard. This also makes a degree of sense, but then what happens when my spellcaster level caps out before my Wizard class levels do? (IE: what if I get to the spellcasting power of Wizard 20 before taking 20 actual levels in Wizard? And then want to take another Wizard level for some odd reason? I can’t?)
3.) I just take Wizard 8 instead of Wizard 5, only adding the BAB/Saves/Class Features added between Wizard 7 and 8. Seems the least likely option.

So yeah. Hope nobody’s brain asplodes from reading this. Does anybody have any actual text info for what happens?

Thanks.

Ok, so here's the issue. In the group I am currently in, three of us DM (not in the same campaign- one of the other players and myself just happen to DM when not playing)and an issue has come up with Lightning Bolt. Both the actual DM and the other player seem to think that despite being a Line Spell, it only hits the first target "unless it does sufficient damage to destroy that target" as in the spell description.

I do not think this is the case. For some reason I believe that Lightning Bolt acts just like every other Line Spell in the game, and hits every target in the line. Furthermore, I think that the rules for it destroying objects in its way relate the the "Line of Effect" rules in the Core Book, rather than monsters stupidly standing in rows.

I have multiple reasons why Lightning Bolt should work this way, ranging from comparisons with Fireball to cross-checking with 3rd level Ray Spells like Sound Lance.

Of course, both the DM and player in question thought that Lightning Bolt also needed a Ranged Touch Attack to Hit, implying that they didn't read the rules. So I thought I'd ask here.

We are playing 3.5 with some Pathfinder material, but since the rules for Line Spells are the same in both, it shouldn't matter.

Thanks.