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When using detect evil, how does cleric's aura interact with other character auras? let's take following example:
- lv 5 cleric, LE character
- the cleric is followe of LN god, e.g. Abadar.

Detect evil gives following aura strengths:
aligned creature, 5 dice: faint aura
Cleric of aligned deity, 5 dice: strong aura

The cleric has aura class features: A cleric of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particularly powerful aura corresponding to the deity’s alignment (see detect evil for details).

My understanding is, that this cleric would have strong lawful aura and faint evil aura. is that correct?

Hi, i'm playnig an abjurer wizard who just hit 6th level. This means i have access to energy absorbtion now, but i'm not clear on the lsit of elements that energy absorbtion skill should be apply on. wording is (from pfsrd)):

At 6th level, you gain an amount of energy absorption equal to 3 times your wizard level per day. Whenever you take energy damage, apply immunity, vulnerability (if any), and resistance first and apply the rest to this absorption, reducing your daily total by that amount. Any damage in excess of your absorption is applied to you normally.

The element (e.g. fire, acid) to which resistance should be applied is not mentioned here, contrary to e.g. barbarian's energy absorbtion. does this mean that the absorbtion should be applied to:
a) all elemental damage, from a single pool?
b) single element chosen at some point of time?
c) single element linked to some other skill, e.g. resistance gained by abjurer at first level?

thanks for helping me out:)

I have played in a couple of AP's both with and without clerics. One of them only was focused on channeling, but in my opinion it made a huge difference.

Channel specialist (having high charisma, selective channeling, quick channel and, in our case - the feat to turn channel energy into breath of life) offers very much to increase teams chances of survival. Most of the dangerous situations we run into are when an enemy can do a lot of damage to whole group - e.g. throws a couple of fireballs against a group with no protection from energy.

Cleric can easily cure that - in case of CL 10 fireball, cleric can cure all average damage (5d6) ot the team members that made their save. If a lot of them failed, or enemy has much higher potential - he can expend 3 channels to heal 10d6.

It gets even better when you have shield other spell and phylactery of energy channeling, which makes a big difference to final result.

The minus is that you need to invest feats and cash into supporting capabilities. It does not let you shine that much, but help the team.

Normal cleric does not let you heal in combat effetively, but offers the same set of spells. he can help you avoid the risk, but does not have much capability when you run into trouble (as always - being prepared helps a lot, but makes assumptions. Channel Energy specialist has lot of redundnacy, thus remaining useful even when he is not optimized or prepared for situation - as when being ambushed).

Parties without clerics had to work a lot on condition removal and healing. It simpl consumed resources that were normally saved by the healers (e.g. think of cost of wands of CLW vs of the periapt of energy channeling). They neede to solve many of the problems by different means, preparing narrowly for expected danger, or withdrawing from trouble. Frankly speaking - while i greatly enjoy a semi - martial group, i often feel that the lack of dedicated healer really hurts on the skill to sustain damage and take part in large number of encounters.

I have createda couple of playlists for use of my group - if any of you wants to use them, enjoy :) I would also gladly take any suggestions on how to improve the experience.
The assumption was that i have 3-4 tracks that offer consistently similar mood, to be background for encounters. i use YT for ease of adding music and management.

3 playlists for Fires of Creation:

-
Torch Tracks: i want to show how the city is slowly starting to fall asleep. People had a week's worth of free time, not so much, but they took care of urgent, but not work - related stuff. Slowly boredom and lack of perspective starts to creep in. Add to that trash lying on the streets (they can't throw it into fire anymore), people dying in the tunnels.. It is no wonder they are starting to get tired. If nothing happens in a week or two, i want to switch that to music that shows disaster brewing - Twin Peaks: fire walk with me soundtrack

Expoloration: the mood lightens, all of us are doing something we enjoy. I want to ephasisze that PC's enjoy their adventures - no heavy or sad tracks on this one.

Combat: This list would be concise for most of the AP parts. Possibly only rural areas will have separate ones. As we are fighting using high-tech weapons it is filled primarily with industrial music.

I any of you has Scrapwall suggestions i would take them gladly - i want to show it as a lawless bartertown, possibly with middle eastern feel.

Hi,
what is the action required to reload a technological firearm? I don't see the answer in technology guide or SRD.

I remember this as a hard fight, but definitely doable - though my party was 2 8th level/ 2 7th level characters when we did it (Cleric/Wizard MT, Rogue/Ranger,Cleric and Druid). In our cases the Blasphemy wasn't cast, but (not to make too many spoilers) there was another enemy, in different district who casts it, and it led to a near - TPK too.
couple of suggestions:
- there is a legitimate option to turn this beast to stone again. not easy, but doable.
-you are not alone. Grab some allies, talk to a different district and launch major offensive. This is a sandbox, not a linear story
- there are some really nasty opponents out there. Exploration of Saventh - Yhi can take many sessions, and you can get into part 4 of the AP while not having explored all of the city
- Explore a lot! there are some good magic items hidden in the city, with very high power level (including artifacts). They may help you with the combat ;)

Urban ranger will be fine, since surival is well covered by the druid. Myself, I would take the risk and make a wizard - it pays off in time, and in Kingmaker you not only will have to run pretty often, but will be also able to hire underlings to cover yourself. Or to buy you time to run, at least. If you want more survivalability - magus, if tailored well he can take also some of the controllers role, and his ability to go nova will be an asset in random encounters.

Sadly not - it was pretty informal, but i will lok through several blogs providing quality resources for sandbox campaigns - I think, that I remember several with random encounter tables which are used in my pathfinder campaigns (where i play, but I know some of GM's tools as I helped tyo design them), and will send them to you - it will cover the "lower" part of structure nicely, and i think that the "world movers" must be designed for each campaign specifically.
talking about agents, here is and example from my pseudo-medieval campaign (the world was similiar to late medieval europe, with very few fantasy elements, and i wanted to make diplomacy and espionage the focus of gameplay).
The city where we played was called harnost - a medium-sized merchant city by a sea which connected most of the civilized countries. It was rebuilt after a major war in which it was razed (100 years ago), and despite this difficulties, and poor means of farming(low crops), it managed to become a center of blackmarket trade and military technology development (resources in nearby mountains allowed citizens to tinker with cannons, handguns, and similiar modern developments, which helped city's defence gain upper hand in some minor skirmishes).
mechanic of the game was simple: there were several movers in the city, one of which was governor, Count von Harnost, and there were others - foreign diplomats, black marketeers, ambitious local politicians sitting in the city council (city government was based on Polish Gdansk - the city has very interesting history and political structure governing the interactions between council and nobles, and was quite strong politically for a very long time, having defend the title of free city reguralry)
essentialy, each time a major encounter was generated, each of them (around 10 major npc's, which later interacted with themselves and players personally or through minions) would take stance, and eventual conflict/ shift in power would be resolved. The events leading to that would create the space, in which PC actions were possible. High level play was trickier, as players would influence other regions through their representatives, receive more detailed information and create organizations, but the mechanic was unchanged, except the space of action was generated by interaction with even more powerful beings (think of kings, dukes, high priests, wizard guilds, etc), and such players could create space in which lower level pc's act (due to the actions they want to happen in area they play in).
coming back to the example NPC:
count von Harnost was settled politician, whose main aim was to help his family grow in power (4 children - full NPC,s, and a random generator of cousins. In asumed that he buried two wives already). He was very lawful person, who had huge problems with crime running wild in his city, and keeping it in check while not letting the commercial influence of the city wane (black market IS a market, and most of the goods are legal, if stolen - not a lot of merchandise was banned. think of heretic books and like. XVI-XVII century Gdansk dealt in drugs bought from colonial empires, i remember). He did allow spying activity in his city and had contact with most of "official" spies, in the same time building counter-intelligence network of his own. He had huge personal revenue thanks to having several mines in his fiefdom, but had very low influence in the council (being a noble in a city council consisting of merchants, he had to act carefully), and thus - low influence on city affairs, and had to act diplomatically, and through allies, and not hard orders (most notable fact: his personal guard was allowed into several parts of the city only - and he was voted out of influence in the city guard over the course of the campaign). What followed was description of his relation with most important NPC's (he could like someone personally - but if the persons employee was his rival, he couldn't help but defend himself. Please remember that fact, and dilemmas it leads to), and the structure (aims, relations, non-personal means of action, e.g. large - scale magic, persons he must obey, and persons he can order to do his bidding) led to resolving major events (normally - no more than one per game session, sometimes 2, often none), and minor events(major event - driven)

The only rules that govern large area interaction that i know of are in Kingmaker campaign setting - but note, that they are focused on governing, and not interaction (even though there are rules on warfare, they are not designed for campaigns and tactical combat, but rather for battles and skirmishes). I would suggest another route, one which is pretty time - consuming, but works well (it proved to be ffective in large - scale vampire: the masquerade campaign, and let the GM create a realistic map of europe):
- design random encounter tables governing historical events, and later go down to regional "encounters", local, etc. Essentialy, the farther an area is from PC's, the less interaction they will have with it - and thus, it is not essential to have everything ready, but some data is necessary in order to create realistic NPC's which come from foreign countries, or have some interest (especially political or commercial) there.
- while going down, it is essential to create agents of changes. For each nation, there is some ruler - and he probably has some means of interacting with his countrymen (feudalism leads to an easy and pretty intuitive hierarchy, although there are some problems, especially concerning religion and magic - are they included in the hierarchy, is there some interaction, laws concerning them?) for each action on regional level there will be agents of change - and they will conduct those actions according to their own style, reasons and means of carrying it ( a war can be conducted in a gentlemanly manner, with knightly ethics and duels between champions - or it can be a painful affair full of rape and plunder). this will read to some reactions (again - random encounters, and agents). Some tinkering may be necessary to keep the word logical - i would give it highest priority.
- most of PC's actions, especially on low levels would take place in towns or wilderness - it will take some time until they will be able to influence whole cities, and even more to take hold of some kind of a fiefdom. At this level, random generation of side-plots and related NPC's will be handy - some might be planned (for example, a liege lord controlling the area, who will be tied to some main plot), but in the same time, if you have a metaplot ready, tying random NPC's to it will be perfectly enough, if you can think fast. If not - have some basic characters (when i run such a campaign set in medieval europe it was about 20) ready, and use them to lead PC's to relevant actions. Please remember -even if a merchant is only passing through a town, he may be a part of a bigger trading company, or have some connections - this structure is much more important in creation and running of a large - scale game than local events, which can be only a means that some powerful person uses to lead his employees to action.

Last advice, but pretty important - remember to keep world alive. It will be a long time until the PC's will influence it in a meaning way (defending a village is certainly important for them and its inhabitants - but not much more), and many events will be only observed by them. Optimally, they will start to plan ahead and use upcoming events for their own benefit, and it is vital that they receive enough information to do that.

I believe that your group has all it takes not only to fight, but also to flee effectively - thanks to that, if they think some backup plans, allowing them to survive surprise attacks and to heal wounded/ let them reach safety (everything counts - obscuring mist to remove sneak attacks, summons pouring curing potions down their throats, unseen servant pushing unconscious characters out of danger zone and giving them relevant potions or hiding them while rest of group runs) - just a couple of ideas from top of my head. Also, a battle of wits with the enemy can be very entertaining, although it would require a lot of preparation from your side. I have played a lot in two man group, where rushing at the enemy was often a suicide attempt, and I have enjoyed this style greatly - it not only brings more thrill to the game, as you really put your life at risk, if you don't prepare well enough, but also gives a lot of roleplaying oppurtunities (think of some tip - offs, rumours, kidnapps, brokering information - and checking if your contacts are really "clean", because if they aren't, you may put your family and friends at risk too)

Actually, i think i would try to remove the focus from combat, and move to intrigue - social, political and informational outsmarting of the other party. If combat ensues - it would be much easier if the players only made declarations "i charge him" , "i run to the left", etc instead of using the combat grid (maybe keeping it visible only to GM's would work? i remember there wase some application for that mentioned on the forums several weeks ago) - of course that would make combat more of a GM fiat, butwould also support players ideas (maybe burning their house is safer than confronting them personally?) if the characters were kept secret from other group, there would be alaways some chance, that they are more or less powerful than us - eg, we know they have a wizard and a ranger, but what more? how powerful is the wizard? If we downed the ranger, would he survive alone in the wilderness, or teleport to safety?

I think 1 GM/ group is fine (we play in groups of 2 or 3 players, but if you have strong party mentality, and do not like to act alone, bigger groups would also do). Some referee would also help, to resolve disputes.

Short campaigns would work perfectly fine. The problem is, what would happen if some characters decide to run? (for example, from Forgotten Realms Sembia to Amn, or for a several month vacation in myth drannor to wait out the troubles) Unless strong character motivations are provided, there would be high risk of leaving the game area. Also, to keep the things easier - no one needs to know, which characters are PC's, and which are not, do they?

EDIT: one more thing: although it is customary to fight personally, i think that during PvP, shielding behind underlings is perfectly in order - especially, because it favours players which interact heavily with the world, have way of financing themselves, keeping a position in society and remain in power by virtue of skill and leadership, not like the notorious troublemakers known as adventurers. Such an approach also helps PvP play - you do not have to fight other parties, but can still confront them - for example, if there are several priests fighting for a top position in clergy, there are chances that one will attempt assasination, but most of the conflict will be procured through social means (rallying support, gathering resources, and proving to be better leader or more fervent believer)

Yes, it is (i have been playing since 1,5 year in such an environment, and it works well). There are several problems, which may be hard to solve with many groups, such as:
- access to information (all the groups should be able to receive exactly same information, with some changes due to gameplay, rolls, and data already received)
- risk of death: PvP game always pose a big risk to character life. normally the GM can pull punches, but in such a case it would be very inappropriate. What is worse, there are many ways to dispose of a group without giving them chances for survival (for example, shutting them in a cave with only 1 exit and without specialised equipment to open it)
- rules for interaction (if there is one gm - how to avoid metagaming? I play with several GM's running their sessions in the same time, and coordination still poses a lot of problems)
- laying the emhpasis of the game on some parts of the game, while developing others can take long time without developing the plot (we solve it by allowing the players to take some actions in their downtime - which is provided as several hours a day. it can be spended by construction, gossiping, studying, etc - essentialny anything, which does not involve PvP actions, and preferably can be also solved with several skill checks)
- communication between players: what if there is an encounter without combat? In fantasy setting it is easy - the characters must meet, but in modern times telephone calls can cause significant problems for gm (only 2 characters talk, and it may have big influence on later actions. what is worse, i can easily imagine an encounter of 20+ player characters - for example during a ball. running it smoothly can cause significant problems, we solve it by letting GM's opening chat rooms and saving the text later - but mass meele can be a headache even if the rule of "1 minute for declaring and resolving an anction" is obeyed)
- the plot for PvP groups can go in many, many ways - i believe that only way to run it smoothly is by having a well - developed world, which can run autonomously (the players don't have to be the center of things - rather, just pieces of bigger puzzle). Sandbox game is fine, due to random encounters, but if enough players are present (we have more than 100) things develop smoothly even without intervention - but, strong GM supervision is a must in order to keep the world logical and in order.
- a matter of action consequences: if several groups take action with the same NPC, how will you resolve that (order, counteracting each other and using data from earlier encounters to keep the NPC behaviour real?)

Well, those are at least some basic problems. Real question is, if the action will develop to pure combat, or rather interactions based on character emotions, ideas and objectives? I strongly encourage the other one, though it requires giving a lot of freedom to the players, and creating ties between them and the world. Also, as i play that ino other system than D&D (precisely - vampire: the masquerade), i think that D&D combat rules can cause significant stops of actions during combat - you should think on resolving that problem in some way (although, i see no other ways than employing computer simulations, or storytelling combat).

A friend of mine has played a necromancy - focused mystic theurge, which worked very well (with unhallow and traits to increase caster level after some slow advancement in the beginning, he and his army started to raise in power very quickly about levels 8 - 10) . This approach has one flaw - animate dead is a spell that comes pretty late for a MT. It can be countered somehow by adanving to cleric 5 first, and using "lesser animate dead" in your wizard slots (one strong monster is much better than lots of weak minions anyway). Apart from that - pure cleric is one of the easiest ways to make a good necromancer.

On the other hand, a necromancer which does not place much focus on rising undead, but rather on using debuffing spells works well with a wizard - but i think, that necromancy is not a good enough school to focus heavily in it (a wizard would need many spells from other schools to provide staying power in combat and utility magic)

A desk with a set of letters from other dragons

A picture of said dragon with some other dragons, perhaps very young or old

A collection of old relics the dragon has kept for barter with other dragons

A fully operational summoning circle (it has been used to summon extraplanar creaturers which delivered packages between the dragon and its trading partners)

A cave with walls made of cristal, constantly shedding multicoloured light.

A storyteller golem, knowing many draconic tales and legends.