Professor Calaelen's page

I know this has fully been covered in the aforementioned thread. But why do the rules i said above (which give no chance at a tpk, and dont actually imbalance the metacampaign) have any difference beside making it more fun.
This is a reason that pleanty of quality gm's, able to alter the module for what the party wants and needs to make it fun, are leaving pfs play.

The scenarios should be run as written without adding or changing the foes.

Absolutely follow these rules. I follow them to the letter. UNLESS people at the table are just not having FUN!

Do NOT kill them, cause you made it harder (more fun) do NOT give them conditions which makes them spend resources etc...

I really hope that, for the sake of PFS, that I am not GMing "illegally" following these rules. This game is there for the table to enjoy themselves, so make sure everyone has a chance to shine and that they know that pathfindering is a difficult and dangerous profession.

fun,fun,fun.

All that said if everyone involved is having a blast, game on! If they aren't then the player should know that this penalty is not (in my understanding) supported in PFSOP.

Exactly! I have a few players that would certainly be fine with taking something more fun than RAW for this kind of thing, as long as the GM and the player agree and it doesn't randomly help the player, then game on indeed!

Lead blades states that they gain density "just as they strike the foe". This is why characters aren't instantly loaded down as soon as they cast it, which would be very funny!
Since the spell is cast on the person, I would GM rule that there needs to be a physical connection between the caster and the Melee weapon at this time of increasing density "just as it strikes". Since this is not the case, no lead blades on thrown weapons.

High strength person throwing chakrams is pretty decent anyway... ;)

Wow, this is a lot of preparation! I wish I had time to prepare like that, you guys must run great games.
If you don't have time to draw maps beforehand (and draw the horrible ones first if you can) then WET WIPES!
I have not been to a convention where I haven't gone through all of my wet wipes, since other GMs steal then all the time!

Also, I definitely second point 10, I have a $100 tablet which has an Amazon app for d20pfsrd, which is absolutely vital!

fun,fun,fun!

Can't wait for this. Looking forward to getting in on the UK Pathfinder scene. I'm more than willing to help as much as people need!

Amen. I've been in the rather frustrating position of having a GM neglect or flat out refuse to say when the PCs' blows are being turned aside by a creatures' DR;

Don't worry about the rant, I entirely agree. I was more wanting a fresh arsenal of comments which are more exciting than "it doesn't do as much as you thought" which doesn't really help when things such as d12 greataxes exist, with fluctuations much greater than 5 damage occur every round. At that stage it becomes "This creature has DR" which is just announcing the mechanics far too much for my personal flavor of GMing.

I tend to describe it based on the type of creature and DR.

Thanks for the fantastic ideas people. I just like to describe combat a lot and was really irritated with my lack of DR related terms, this lot certainly gives me a fair few more!

I'm liking the malignant force slowing down the blade, that's been a real tough one.

Hey, not sure where exactly to put this. Mostly wanted to know what the other GMs out there do about DR to let their players know that the attacks are doing less damage than they are rolling.

I can explain fairly well when they are using the correct thing "You hear a hissing as your cold iron weapon slices easily through the skin of the devil" or adamantine weapons getting through constructs hardness is fine, etc... Even this is difficult and sometimes monotonous and difficult with DR/Alignment, since there is nothing to describe.

So what do the GMs out there say? Do you let players know? Give me a few examples of what you guys do, cause I really struggle not sort of repeating myself.

Thanks GMs. :)

I was looking just in terms of character concept at the true primitive. Taking the feats where you can break your weapon to auto-confirm a crit and break armour to auto-negate a crit, along with quick draw at later levels. Looked like a lot of fun to roleplay.

Just a quick question on this. (Sorry if it was said somewhere already)

Can GMs play down? As in out-of-tier down? I think the answer is no, but that means that GMs are going to have loads of level 1 characters hanging around after they have run this loads. I know they can play out-of-tier up, and just wait for this xp, but is playing down okay?

Thanks for the clarification.

I understand that you have to have levels in Barbarian to take certain rage powers, but is this true for Oracle Revelations? It seems to say "you must be X level to take this revelation" which to me could be total level.
This would mean that Rage Prophets could take extra revelations via the feat and then get the extra level bonus for them from rage prophet, thus making it a workable PrC once again.

Maybe this has been mentioned before, but I thought I should add it to this rather large discussion (which I have no read everything of)

What I would like to see if some sort of enforcement of the "No Evil" rule, since at the moment it is more of a mechanic.
This should CERTAINLY not be a 1 evil thing puts you as evil. But maybe if the GM thinks you acted evilly then you get an "Evil point" on your chronicle at the end. 5 of these moves you one step closer to evil, i.e. Good>Neutral>Evil. These can be negated by a GM thinking that you acted in a good way during a scenario, thus ensuring that neutral characters actually are neutral.
It would be an additional thing for GMs to do at the end of the scenario, but it would be nice to see some kind of mechanical disadvantage to just acting evilly.
On I side note, I care a lot less about killing PCs who act IMO "evilly"

As for gunslinger dips, one-level dips for certain features are nothing new. I've not seen anything about firearms to indicate this is any worse than oracle dips for CHA to AC, etc. If people want to, I see no problem.

I more meant that banning the archetypes just means that people will do this instead, thus making it a bit pointless to ban the archetypes...

It's good that it has been picked up quickly and will hopefully be sorted before too many people are put out by any changes, which probably should be put in place IMO. Even if it is not allowed I would not be put off making a character like this, it would just mean taking gunslinger 1st level, then taking Wizard second and making the battered gun my arcane bond then.

Having recently read through Ultimate Combat, I do have a few concerns for PFS play. The number one concern involves arcane bond and its potential usage with guns. A first level wizard could take gunsmithing and choose to bond with, say, a culverin, and start with 4,300 gp weapon. That is a rather painful advantage over anyone else in the party.

I was confused as to this as well and put a previous link in a GM thread. I have seen this come up a couple of times over the last couple of days across the boards and apparently it is being looked at, but won't be in the faq for a while.

P.S. I totally agree with the half-hearten approach to guns, specifically archetypes, that PFS has chosen. It just means that instead of taking the archetype, everyone will just dip a level into gunslinger, to get them the 3 feats they need, I know I am tempted!

I had mike at my table on THursday...Man I wished I would have thought of using him to run the NPC that was BRILLIANT.

Yeah it was great fun, gave me time to focus on other stuff and allowed Besai to be much more annoying. Mike was great (since it was his character!)

I'm looking at you, Matt

Ha! I will! I will! I keep meaning to get around to the massive load of reviews which I need to do after GenCon...

So I just ran Ghenett Manor Gauntlet for our group (6 players sub-tier 8-9) and I have to say that this is an awesome scenario. Not going to go through it all but I wanted to share a very hilarious and iconic character death.

SPOILERS!!!! Don't read unless you want to know too much

** spoiler omitted **

I loved running this at GenCon recently, and was lucky enough to have the writer of the scenario play as the historian NPC, Besai I believe...

My party's were at each tier. They didn't die instantly from the trap (you must have rolled really well on the damage or had a gunslinger with not much hp to kill him instantly!) I would have given him a perception, even if he didn't say it, but then I roll player's perceptions behind screen most of these times.

Thanks for the clarification on the bow. My gut instinct seemed to be right, this time...

Yeah, so you would just have to take that feat at first level, to be able to purchase a gun as your arcane bond. That's how I see it, correct me if it's wrong.

Wow! Considering traits like Rich parents are banned in PFS, I feel this should have some sort of cap!

Yeah, but if you took Wizard at first level and took Gunsmithing as your feat at 1st level, then you could get, say a pepperbox for 3000gp, for free!

Hey, just a quick rules question.
Is there any limit on the "no cost" weapon that is received at level 1 for the Wizard as the arcane bond. Obviously you shouldn't be able to get a enchantment bonus on this weapon, but with all the new high cost firearms, is there any reason one of these cannot be got at level 1 for a Wizard?
I had a player at GenCon who wanted a +4 composite longbow as his bonded item (not sure why) but I wasn't sure about whether he could do it. I told him to ask a venture-captain after the game (and not get any STR bonus during the game) but I never found out what the ruling was.

Hopefully I've missed something and this isn't actually possible.
Thanks for the clarification.

What a fantastic idea.
I was a bit disappointed checking this after GenCon to see that there wasn't the huge amount of awesome stories posted all around the forums, people seemed to be focusing more on the small amounts of bad things (though I confess that I did also post about Shades III).

This was my first (and possibly last due to the fact that I am returning back to England in Jan) GenCon ever. I signed up to run 10 slots of PFS instantly, plus 3 slots at Scotty's the day before. After having got into PFS a few months back, I knew this was all I wanted to do at GenCon (but I did find time to do other stuff indeed).

Right, some highlights for me. Sewer Dragons was one of the most fun mods I have run in a long time. Really nicely written, and roleplaying with Kobolds, I mean come on! That's just epic! I definitely recommend that. The special was... hectic. I ran for a party without too much actual damage within their ranks, so it was tricky for them to keep up, but that seemed to spur them on, taking larger risks to kill stuff as quickly as they possibly could.

I met some awesome people at GenCon, had some amazing roleplaying and tense combats, so it's really tricky to pull out the best moments, as it says it was indeed the best four days in gaming, certainly that I have ever had.

Wow, that was a cheesy signoff...