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I keep seeing a lot of posts, from both players and actual, real-life Paizo staff, that people need to play the game before providing any feedback.

To quote Paizo CTO Vic Wertz,

Tell us about your actual game play. Theory is all well and good, but everybody’s got theories, and we’ve probably heard most of them already. Tell us how things are actually working in play, not how you think things will work.

But we should all keep in mind that the playtest is a game; and if someone is not excited enough to play the game then that is a valid complaint.

We can all argue about whether someone's issues were real or perceived, and we can tell people that the problems they had go away in actual gameplay, but if a person chooses not to play a game because it seems to complex, boring, confusing, bland, tedious, or time-consuming, then that is a valid criticism against that game.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what we argue about on the forums. What matters is how many people buy the rulebook at a bookstore and take it home; and if someone picks up the book and it looks boring, they're not going to reserve judgement until they've played a couple sessions. They're going to put it down, and just go with 5e.

Hello hello all!

I've been GMing S&S for a couple months, and aside from some slow moments in the first book, my players have been having a blast. They made friends with nearly every possible NPC, (and one or two impossible ones thanks to lucky rolls) and they hated Plugg and Scourge the perfect amount.

However, when it came to the mutiny, they seemed mostly confused and resigned. As the AP dictates, rumors of insubordination start to plague the ship once Plugg is in charge, and my PCs replied to all of them with "Who the hell keeps saying we're gonna mutiny?!" because at the time, they had not made any actual plans.

Once they were on the island, I decided to have Plugg pull one aside and tell them they should "Come straight down the beach. Don't go through the jungle, don't row a jolly boat over. Just sit tight on the beach and we'll come get you." My main reason for doing so was to showcase Plugg's advanced paranoia, and my secondary reason was to give the party the choice of what kind of fight they got. They could go down the beach or sail over to the ship and deal with ranged attacks before boarding (as is written), or they could try to head through the jungle in which case an ambush (albeit a slightly less dangerous one) awaited them.

I was perfectly satisfied with this plan, until my players started talking about the rumors of mutiny later on. None of my players were excited for a mutiny, and none of them really had a score to settle. Oh sure, they all hated Plugg and Scourge, but not enough to pick a fight just yet (plus they were very worried that they couldn't handle either of them). So it seemed like the mutiny as planned wouldn't be very thrilling or satisfying, they were sort of resigned to "Well I guess we'll just figure it out when it happens". On top of all this, the PCs had befriended so many other pirates that I wasn't sure how difficult the fight would actually be.

So! I scrapped the whole thing and came up with a new plan. A much, much better plan.

While the PCs were on the island, I read the party a cutscene of sorts. Plugg calls the crew together and announces that he's tired of these rumors. He tells the crew that when the PCs head back, they're going to have a trap ready. At this, a few of the party's favorite NPCs speak up, saying, "Like hell we will!". This showed the players that they did indeed have friends, and they enjoyed hearing some insults finally lobbed at Plugg. I gave them the sense that Plugg expected as much. He's been hearing about insubordination for weeks, and he knew they had some allies.

However, when Plugg challenges any disobedient crew members, not only do the favorite NPCs draw weapons, half the entire ship does as well. Plugg, very much not expecting this, screams "MUTINY!" and commands all officers and still-loyal crew to fight. This showed the players just how successful their diplomatic efforts had been.

For the fight itself, I gave each player the stat block of their favorite NPC (all level two, with Ambrose at level 3). Before we started, I told the party that as veterans aboard the ship, their characters know for a FACT that they cannot take on Plugg. They fought against some old enemy NPCs and Scourge, while each round Plugg got closer to them. In the end they killed a decent number of officers before parleying with Plugg, and he offered them a deal. One person from the main party vs. him. Winner takes the ship.

I don't know if this re-write is usable for other groups, but I can safely say my group nearly flipped the table with excitement.

Hello hello everyone!

Like so many of you, I enjoy a good AP. So much so that I often read them just for fun, and my bank account would really appreciate it if I liked them a little less, but such is life.

And like so many of you, I find a deep satisfaction in flipping through actual, tangible pages when reading adventures. Which is why my heart sinks every time I look at exciting APs in the store, only to see "Out of Print".

I've read all the posts detailing why Paizo doesn't reprint APs and why it's bad for business etc. Printing costs money, and it's a gamble on the part of Paizo to print books when there's a chance only a handful of them will sell. I know, I know. Honestly that's kind of what makes the whole scenario so tragic; the reasoning behind it is sound.

However! The best way to fight business logic, is with business logic. So I'm writing this post in an attempt to help Paizo (and the community) see just how big the demand for reprints really is. If the reaction is a tiny number of very loud people, then we can see that Paizo is probably wise in their decision. But if this post explodes with comments, who knows? Maybe the mighty Vic Wertz will take notice.

Here's what I propose:

Leave a comment with the following info:

1. Books you would love, but are rare and/or overpriced elsewhere
2. Books you nearly bought, but chose not to because they are PDFs
3. Books you already have, but would buy again to have in print
4. Do you prefer to buy books one at a time, or as a full AP?
5. If old books were reprinted, would you end your subscription to new AP content? If so, why?
6. Do you buy books only when you intend to play them? If not, why?
7. Are there any books you'd like to buy as a gift for someone, but not as a PDF?
8. Realistically, how much do you think you'd want to spend on reprinted books?

Afterward, make a wishlist of all the OoP books that you would DEFINITELY buy if they were back in stock.

Be sure to be honest in your comments!

Again, this is not meant to beg Paizo to reprint old content. It's simply a quick poll to see how much our community is actually affected by the issue.

Also, if any Paizo employees see this and want to add better/more relevant questions to the list, please do!

Hello hello all!

When Starfinder came out, my friends group was rather excited to play. Most of us prefer fantasy, but we enjoy some good Sci-Fi and a space-themed Pathfinder game seemed like the perfect route to go! We asked the resident Sci-Fi fan to GM, and he took to it with relish. He put 10+ hours of work into each session, and the characters were fun and had good chemistry. However, as of yesterday we stopped playing and are planning the switch back over to a Pathfinder AP. I thought I would share some of the reasons we stopped, as almost all of them are actual issues we had with the game, for anyone who's interested.

1.) Customization
This is the big one, and by far the most jarring difference between Pathfinder and Starfinder. In PF, there are a staggering number of options that help players tailor their character and gameplay to exactly what they have in mind. I realize that PF has been out much longer and has tons of material added later, however we found that it seemed like even the PF core rulebook just had more stuff in it. Starting off in vanilla PF, there are 11 classes to choose from, each with its own unique abilities. In SF, there are 7 classes. This trend continued throughout SF, with a shorter spell list, a replacement of archetypes with "themes" that offer little in the way of actual use and are more or less simple flavor. My group grew frustrated with the simple lack of choices to pick from.

2.) Mechanics
In SF, my group found that mechanics seemed to often fall into one of two categories: confusing or arbitrary. Many rules were written in strange ways that required several minutes of cross-referencing to figure out; for example, reading that grenades are thrown weapons, but they do not have the "thrown" special property, meaning that the section on "thrown weapons" does not apply to them but the section on "thrown ranged attacks" does. We got confused and cross-eyed many times trying to figure out simple things, and we are all experienced in PF, so we're no strangers to complexity. On the arbitrary side of things are item levels. We understood that item levels were an important mechanic, however they never made sense to any of us, and frustrated most of us. RAW state that an item's required level represents the connections needed to track down the item as well as the trust a vendor needs to have in their buyer. However I was personally frustrated by this because none of this information can mechanically reach the players. There are a plethora of ways of level-capping items with high skill check DCs, ability requirements, etc.; all without actually level-capping the items. As players, the current rules very much struck us as "you can't because I say you can't" and we believe they are in need of a major overhaul.

3.) Resolve Points
Let's talk about Resolve Points. The key thing we disliked about RP was that they are inherently tied to a character trait. Namely, your resolve. The fact that these points are meant to represent something akin to your character's will to live, tenacity, or determination made them a perplexing system in gameplay. You can roleplay a stalwart fighter who would rather die than let the villain win, but according to your sheet, you've run out of Resolve, and therefore cannot use some of your more potent abilities to turn the tide. Looking back, classes like the Gunslinger and Swashbuckler were probably a form of play-testing for this concept, but I'll say that we were equally baffled with those mechanics as well. A PC may be a grizzled war veteran with a batman voice who refuses to sleep on a bedroll, but suddenly they run out of Grit and can no longer use certain aiming techniques in the middle of a fight. Limited-use abilities are common in PF and resource-based abilities are prevalent as well, but they always distance themselves from character personality. A monk's Ki is an example of this type of mechanic functioning well because Ki is distinctively a semi-magical resource that is described as a material that requires time and focus to manifest and discipline to stockpile.

4.) Resource Tracking
PF can get complicated. PCs need to keep track of wand charges, spells per day, rations, and occasionally things like Ki and Grit. However all of it pales in comparison to SF. The amount of resources a single player needs to keep track of on a round-to-round basis is simply absurd and only increases as players progress. Mid-high level play can quickly dissolve into tedious algebra for each action. And while PF can simply throw rules out whenever they slow down gameplay, it becomes much more difficult to do in SF where resource mechanics are a main method of balancing. A single player may need to track: a weapon's current charge, the charge used per hit, point-based abilities like Solar Attunement, resolve points, two separate health pools (each healed by different things), spell slots, cooldowns on equipment and augmentations, as well as myriad other things they might choose to employ. It's difficult to appreciate how cool something might be (like wreathing yourself in solar fire and exploding in a mini-supernova, or swinging around a lightsaber) when you're doing math before and after each action to ensure that your action was valid and to re-plan your strategy next round based on the new numbers in front of you.

Honestly, I could very much continue. This list is probably only 60-70% of what caused us to stop playing (don't get me started on ship combat). But I'm not here to do a full review of Starfinder. This list is just the top issues my group had with the game. I wrote it in the hope that maybe other people having these issues can see they're not alone, and to voice the issues that my tabletop friends and I had.

Alright GMs, what are your thoughts on this dreaded player-killer?

Does it rest behind a panel that reads "In case of Min-Maxer, Break Glass"? Or is it locked behind an intelligence score requirement? Do enemies assume that an unconscious PC is a dead one? Or do they perhaps decide to deal with the whole party before slitting throats?

I've always found that most GMs view the CdG as a nuclear button on the president's desk; yes we most definitely have it, but we hope that the day never dawns when we use it, and we go to every length to try every other option before we even think about pressing it.

Personally, I think that CdG should only be used in combats that are explicitly [u]built[/u] around it. I would straight-up tell my players, "This guy will try to Coup de Grace you if you fall." It's a little meta, but the players deserve full warning before you bring out the dreaded save-or-die, and I think that most other ways of doing so run the risk of misunderstandings.

So what do you guys do? Is this full round action simply banned from your GM toolbox? Or are you infamous in your friends group for crossing PCs off the initiative tracker one by one?

In writing my homebrew campaign (levels 1-20), I've come across a problem. There just aren't that many things stopping my villain from completing her plans.

Here's the rundown:
-Desert/Egypt themed setting
-Villain aims to break the seal on a very old, very terrible curse
-Currently, the curse is kept at bay by two seals, and a third seal that keeps anyone from touching them.
-When the party is level 8, the villain enacts a plan to break the first seal, allowing access to the other two.
-With that done, there is nothing stopping the villain from breaking the other two seals, and ending the world.
-I have an idea on how to get the PCs up to level 12 before all this happens, but as far as I can tell, the level 20 BBEG stuff will be happening by then.

So my question is, how do you slow down your villains? General ideas are most welcome! Paizo APs tend to be good at putting on the pressure, saying that the BBEG is getting closer and closer, without actually putting a clock on the players. I'm just trying to figure out how to give my players more time before the villain finishes her plan without deus ex machina'ing the whole thing (time stasis, planar entrapment, imprisonment spells, etc.)

Alright, so I am currently writing a homebrew campaign, and I want to double check some difficulty questions so that I don't kill everyone minute one.

Quick spoiler alert for anyone on here who might be a friend of mine, if "The Desert Campaign" sounds overly familiar to you, then you should stop reading now!

So! Here's the rundown.

- 1st level party of 4
- Following combats take place day one, back to back, during a town raid:
- CR 2, one creature
- CR 3, two creatures
- CR 3, two creatures
- CR 1/2, one creature

However! While I realize that these seem insane, there are some mitigating factors as well.

- Party will find healing items after the first and second encounters.
- An unseen entity in the background is aiding the party. This will quietly penalize every enemy's attack rolls, AC, and saves by -2.

With the additional factors, it's hard to tell if this will kill everyone or not. So I'm hoping for outside perspective. Due to the story I've written, I'm well and truly locked into my creature choices, but I can reduce numbers.

Hey guys!

So I'm currently pondering some backstory for a new character, and I've recently been talking with my friends about the difficulties of giving a level one character a badass backstory. Just because it can be a bit odd for the headmaster of a prestigious wizard academy to have trouble casting Fireball. You know, normal character creation obstacles.

But one route I'm really interested in is the fall from grace option. Character <i>was</i> level 20, but a terrible tragedy struck and all that power and experience has been stripped away. Thus, for that character, the process of leveling up is just re-learning/remembering their old strength! Which I think would be rad.

So my question is, does anyone know of any mechanics already in game to accomplish such a thing? I've been browsing through cursed items and artifacts (thought for sure the harrow deck of many things would have something) and haven't turned up anything yet. Was just curious if anyone has spotted something I missed.

Odds are I'll just have to talk to the GM about how to go about it. Maybe even design a spell that my character (a wizard) cast on himself to keep his power out of evil hands. Or something equally cliche haha!

Before anyone jumps on me for suggesting a boost to CR 19+ creatures, I shall say that my question is more "hey isn't this inconsistent?" and less "hey isn't this too easy?". Okay? Okay.

So! One thing I like to do when reading Paizo APs is to deconstruct bosses. I like to see how their stats got so high, where all their modifiers are coming from, and basically just double check everything to see if that boss stat block is kosher by the book. Mostly this is to get some practice at making bosses of my own, but it did start with curiosity (I'm sorry, the Runelord's Int score is WHAT??).

One thing I noticed is that in the rare instances where a villain has access to Wish, they use it to boost their ability scores. Of course, by the rules, Wish has to be cast multiple times back-to-back in order to get more than a +1 bonus. That means that if a creature can only cast 4 wishes per day, then they can only boost abilities by +4 at best. This is usually baked into the stat blocks for you, so you don't really need to worry about it.

Onto the actual dilemma. Gold, Sovereign, and Umbral dragons all gain Wish upon reaching the great wyrm stage. BUT, it seems that their stats (at least on the pfsrd) are all regular stats with only age bonuses built in. Since all three of them can cast 4 wishes per day (without material components, the lucky bastards), shouldn't all of their ability scores be 4 higher?

I ask because it would make a significant difference. +60 hp, +2 AC, increased damage output, higher spell DCs, etc. And simply because I am personally always in favor of making dragons just a little bit more terrifying.

Hey guys!

So I am currently writing some of the plot for a homebrew campaign I plan on running in the distant future. (If you're one of my players reading this I WILL kill your character session one, btw) However I am trying [b]very hard[b/] to do everything by the pathfinder rules (yeah it's not making it easier lol). That being said, here's the situation:

- Pack of gnolls has been terrorizing the area around a desert village for decades; killing travelers, kidnapping and enslaving townsfolk, etc.
- A sinister person/group has convoluted plans for the gnolls, and begin brewing potions of Sow Thought and pouring them into the gnoll pack's water source. The potions are imbued with suggestions like "maybe they aren't so bad" and "I bet they'd give us food every day if we stopped killin' 'em." and other suggestions that encourage the gnolls to consider peace with the village.
- Eventually, after several months, the majority of the gnolls have shifted to CG alignment (with one or two who only shifted to CN or remained CE, which is actually an important note), and the pack leader approaches the village with an offer of long-lasting peace.

Essentially, there are several key assumptions I'm making here.
1.) Through constant exposure, eventually all of the gnolls fail the Will save against Sow Thought.
2.) With the new positive-aligned thoughts circulating through the pack, the gnolls begin performing small Penances (as per alignment change rules), and over several months these penances are sufficient to permanently change the alignment of most pack members.
3.) I am also assuming that the standard non-atonement alignment change rules can apply to an everyday creature (CE alignment, but not an evil subtype).
4.) This slow change in alignment is sufficient to override the standard cruel and evil gnoll culture.

Is any of this wrong? Anyone see a verifiable breech from RAW?

Ok, so I've been reading up on counterspelling and dispel magic and all that fun jazz for a wizard who specializes in fighting other casters.

However, while reading up on all this I noticed that the ONLY real obstacle to counterspelling high-level spells with Dispel Magic is a dispel check.

"When dispel magic is used in this way, the spell targets a spellcaster and is cast as a counterspell. Unlike a true counterspell, however, dispel magic may not work; you must make a dispel check to counter the other spellcaster’s spell."

If you use Dispel Magic to counterspell, you don't need to identify the spell being cast, but merely succeed on the dispel check. Furthermore, the DC for that spell check is surprisingly low. It is a simple caster level check against DC 11 + the spell's caster level. SO, if you're a wizard fighting against a wizard of a similar level, it's actually just a little under a 50% chance.

I was thinking that a caster level check would make more sense, honestly; with each caster putting all their willpower into thwarting the other. But with the dispel check, the opposing caster essentially "takes 11" on a caster check, which is not the best roll in that situation.

Basically, if you're a level 18 Wizard trying to counterspell a level 20 Sorcerer, you need to beat a DC 31 caster check to counter with Dispel Magic. To do that, you need a 13 or better on the die, which means you have pretty decent chances to pull it off. If you use Greater Dispel Magic, you gain a +4 bonus to your roll, requiring only a 9 or better on the die!

HOWEVER, the reason I bring all this up is because after much reading and cross-examination, I cannot find anything in the rules that states that the almighty Wish spell is immune to this! The text of Dispel Magic does not state it only works on spells up to a certain level, the texts for both Wish and Limited Wish do not say anything about being exempt from counterspells or Dispel Magic, and the text for counterspelling in general states that spell descriptions will provide all relevant information.

So as far as I can tell...the famous/infamous Wish...THE most powerful spell in all of Pathfinder or D&D...can indeed be countered and dismissed...with a 3rd level spell, and a half-decent die roll...

Should...should we fix that?...Does that need fixing?...

Hello hello!

Alright, so I am currently writing a homebrew campaign for my players and I have a very plot-important boss fight in front of me. Now, this boss fight essentially begins with a long-time friend of the party (and genuinely good person) on the verge of performing a ritual and becoming a monster. This person has a lot of reasons to perform the ritual (the key reason being desperation), but they have also been subject to some mind-affecting magic that has pushed them to do it.

If the NPC completes the ritual, then there's no going back and the party will 100% have to fight them. However, because they're a good friend of the party, I want to give the players the ability to change the outcome. So I've been toying with a verbal duel of sorts, especially considering that the NPC's mind is not entirely their own and normally they would not actually perform the ritual.

The encounter would begin with an extremely high diplomacy DC (~40-50) to dissuade the boss from doing the ritual. The party will have enough time to start a dialogue with the boss, and I will have some vague pre-written guidelines on their current attitude. I am planning on having a general list of things the PCs can say to remind them of who they are; memories, things they have said in the past, what's important to the NPC, religious vows, etc. Each time a PC brings up a key point or statement that resonates with the NPC, the DC of the diplomacy check decreases. The party only has a short time to do all this, and then someone rolls the diplomacy check and we see which way it goes.

I'm worried that if the players succeed, then they miss out on the combat/resource/tactical challenge of a boss fight. So I'm wondering if I should have a backup boss fight that triggers upon a success, or if there are some things I can do to add to the intricacy of the diplomatic approach in order to make it just as challenging as a boss fight without depleting healing or doing much damage lest the actual fight occur.

What do you guys think? Any clever ideas on how to make a diplomacy check feel like a boss fight? lol

Haunts, as we all know, are a player's worst nightmare and the most fun a GM can have in a single action. The rules for haunts include two things that confused me a little at first and led me to make this post.

1.) "A haunt can have virtually any effect identical to an existing spell effect, but often with different—and distinctly more frightening or unnerving—sensory or physical features than that spell effect normally has..."

2.) A classic paizo-style rundown of haunt CR and CR modifications that include some haunt traits that remind me of metamagic feats.

For me, I was rather excited for haunts because I initially thought that you use a spell as the base for the haunt, and then add sprinklings of horror to make it a /little/ bit worse. But if any of the modifications extend past flavor, then there's rules on how they change the CR. In my opinion, a responsible GM should be able to modify a haunt to make it ever-so-slightly scarier than the base spell WITHOUT needing to change the overall CR. Now if the spell is Hunger For Flesh and you want it to hit 3 players, then yes, you'll need to use Mass Hunger For Flesh.

But I love the idea of haunts being a little bit more scary than their base spells, both flavor-wise and mechanically, so do you guys think it's reasonable to make small alterations to spells when using them for haunts without modifying the CR so long as the GM does it carefully? Extending spell duration for a round, increasing save DCs by 1 or 2, rolling 2d4 damage rather than 1d8?

What are your thoughts? Have you done this before or do you always do by the book?

Hey guys!

I have a friend who kinda has trouble separating the stereotypes of traditional fiction from the classes in pathfinder. To give an example, he was under the impression that paladins always have to be pious, here-to-help-the-weak priests in armor, and he believed that monks are one-note because they basically always have to be a zen-filled buddhist. To show him that absolutely any class can be anywhere on the rainbow spectrum of personalities, I started coming up with characters that have personalities you wouldn't expect. I'll share some below and I would love to hear crazy character concepts that you have all come up with to break the mold!

- A drunken Monk who is an 18 year old frat boy. When he kills people with kung-fu he basically just goes "YOOOOOO did anyone see that shit?! I AM THE BEST"

- A middle-aged half-orc Samurai who has vowed to not let people be dicks. If he makes an Honorable Stand against an enemy, it's because they're a dick, and he's not gonna let em keep being a dick.

- A middle-aged elven woman Brawler. She has never trained in combat and is not really interested in fighting, but she's easily startled and tends to punch when she gets spooked.

- A skinny, bookish human woman Barbarian. She tries to be diplomatic whenever possible, but she is easily frustrated by stupid/violent people. When diplomacy fails, she calmly dog-ears her book and takes off her reading glasses before pummeling them to death.

- A female dwarf Paladin who is an instrument of Cayden Cailean. She hasn't been to church in ages, has lost more than one holy symbol, and has studied linguistics just so she can curse in multiple languages. Despite all that, she always follows her conscience, and has risked life and limb multiple times when an innocent was in peril.

I have two requests for Paizo. Whether they'll even consider them or whether they'll see this post is entirely up to fate, but I have two very important pleas to make.

1.) The Level-0 Bard Spell, Summon Musical Instrument, is restricted to instruments that can be held in two hands. While I understand that this is key in preventing players from summoning a grand piano on top of a villain, I believe this also restricts some of the more creative character concepts from taking form. A better option, in my opinion, would be to stipulate that any instrument that cannot be held in hand must be summoned in an unoccupied square within 5 feet, and cannot move from that square. This will keep players from wheeling an organ off a cliff and if someone wants to use a large instrument, they have to deal with movement restrictions while playing it (or use another round to summon the instrument in a new location).

2.) I was rather surprised when I couldn't find this already, but I would LOVE to see a metamagic feat/archetype/bloodline/etc. that allows a player to decrease the casting time on at least a single cantrip. Yes, I am aware that Quickened spells exist, but I don't think it's unreasonable to have a feature similar to rapid reload where a magic user can decrease the casting time of a cantrip by one action step (standard to move, move to swift). I know that with some cantrips like Daze and Touch of Fatigue reducing the casting time can be a WORLD of difference, but if you limit the ability to cantrips that have no saving throws, it pretty much just becomes a fun utility ability.

If you're wondering why I'm here on the Paizo boards to field such requests, it's because my players recently came up with two amazing character concepts and I was sad to see that it was difficult to work them in using the rules. And while normally the rules stop game-breaking characters from happening, in this case it felt more as if the rules did not provide the right tools to help aid in the creation of a really cool character. Their characters were:

Doshi - A mute Minkaian Bard/Monk who plays the Taiko drum, a large, 5' diameter Japanese drum traditionally stood on its side and played with clubs. He would summon the instrument at the start of combat and play it with his fists; anyone who got too close would be hit with unarmed strikes. (However, due to the restrictions of Summon Musical Instrument, he cannot use the Taiko drum.)

James McClannahan - An angry, clearly Scottish skald who plays the lute and is sick and tired of bards being considered weak. He would use the spell Alter Musical Instrument to make his lute almost always sound like an electric guitar. Any time someone entered melee range, he would immediately swing his lute at them as an improvised weapon; should the lute break, he would use Summon Musical Instrument to create another, and potentially not miss a single beat in his Performance. He would eventually take the Improvised Weapon Mastery feat, allowing his lute to do 2d6 damage; an amount that is comparable to/better than most two-handed weapons. (However, due to the casting time of Summon Musical Instrument, this build becomes hard to accomplish without resorting to actual weaponry.)

Paizo, I beseech you, if we can have spells like Poisoned Egg and Commune With Birds, then surely these requests are not outrageous.

Hey guys!

I'm hoping for some advice from fellow homebrewers. Currently trying to prepare a 1st-18th level campaign in a similar fashion to Paizo's adventure paths. While doing some work with a CR 19 creature from the bestiary, I noticed that it had multiple uses of Power Word Kill. I'm wondering if I should change or modify that before requiring my players to face it in order to save the world and whatnot.

I know that the creature's CR reflects its difficulty, but the only reason I ask is that Paizo themselves seem to steer clear of insta-death spells EVEN in end-game fights. Even level 20 wizards tend to forgo the spell for things like wish and time stop, and I think I agree with that methodology.

Just wondering what some other thoughts are. Have any of you encountered Paizo villains with the infamous PWK equipped? Or have you used it on an end-game party of players without issue? Or is it a definite no-go and a guaranteed TPK?