Proley's page

I like the idea of Asmodeus tricking the PCs

He requires a macguffin for his outsider shifting superweapon but its obviously guarded against divines and outsiders, so he can't get it himself. He knows his more potent agents are being watched by the other outsiders, so he dispatches a lower minion to pose as a wealthy employer.

This employer hires some low level mortals who will be unaffected by the outsider/divine protections. The PCs think Old Man Jenkins has hired them to retrieve a family heirloom.

They turn in the macguffin with Old Man Jenkins who has another fetch quest, he gives them the instructions then has business out of town. The party embarks on the next leg of their mission, this time something unrelated to Asmodeus' Plan, but alas, during the caper they provoke the ire of the church of X and find themselves being hunted down by clerics and inquisitors of team good guys,who don't know who the PCs work for but who assume their up to no good based on their involvement with Y.

Meanwhile, Norgorber knows something is up and sends HIS agents after the party. The party is hunted by the good guys, and evil assassins, an associate of Old Man Jenkins offers them help, without giving away whats up, but is of course, a devil. His offers all invariably further hells aims, while obfuscating the real plot.

So the party unwittingly are playing for team villian, and fighting off team good and team neutral, they get the sense big things are in the works, and a cold war spy game sets in.

After having proven their value, Team Jenkins has them put to task capturing specific outsiders for transitioning, but of course, a friend of Old Man Jenkins needs these outsiders for research to fight evil, certainly nothing untoward.

The party kidnaps specific outsiders, and they get some Kickbacks from Hell (but not knowing it's hell). But now things get weird!

The outsiders start marching on the mortals trying to reclaim the captives.

At this point, the party (Team Hell but don't know it) are fighting off outsider incursions, AND Team Good, AND Team Norgorber Assassins. Eventually plot develops and they have a choice:

Old Man Jenkins had a break through that can stop the outsiders in their tracks, but at the same time a representative of Team Good tries to inform them they're being played, the party has a choice and depending on that choice, they help Hell take over the outside planes coming into conflict with everyone else, or they choose a different side, at which point Hell sets it's sights on the PCs...

Better question would be to ask who in the world thinks they're pirates. For the nation that have effectively had their warships raided whilst doing their official duties, this group would likely be seen as a pirate menace.

For other salvagers who know what the sketchy nation is upto, the crew may be seen as just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For the other nations that hear their rival nation is being attacked by this crew, they may think the enemy of my enemy is my friend and seek to work out a privateer arrangement.

For the villagers in the coastal towns who've heard the news about the crew's exploits, some may support the idea of sticking it to the sketchy nation, but if those villagers don't know the whole story, maybe they believe the "official reports".

Conspiracies can be fun!

Mage's Magnificent Mansion is my go-to camping spell, it has a a feast for something like x ppl for CL, private rooms, is extra-dimensional with an invisible non-existent door on the material plane after you walk in, with a couple dozen unseen servants dressed in full-livery. No trail rations, tents, or mud for MY wizard.

Servants can be cheap and handy too. Sure, it's not an Instant pavilion, but a pavilion with 50 lackeys setting it up is RELATIVELY instant for you, and then you get to lord over the masses.

Wagons are handy investments for carrying your loot, but nothing says you can't splurge and get an RV!

Secure Shelter is another spell that uses the surrounding environment to make a cottage with some magical defenses, but it's still an actual shelter that enemies can attack.

Shame you're not the Heavens Oracle, they have a revelation that allows them to float over the ground. I had one who hadn't touched the ground for weeks.

If bad guys won, I think you need a deeper fleshing out of the bad guys. A cunning tyrant may make access to weapons, and martial traditions extinct to eliminate threats of armed revolt or sedition. Good luck finding a chivalrous cavalier order in his kingdom!

Likewise, a "Might makes right" Barbarian king may actively encourage all to be as martial as possible, as being overthrown by a superior combattant is the way they think the world should work. Good luck finding arcane scholars in a land ruled by jocks.

How grimdark can your party handle? Will there be cannibalism and rape festivals, or is it a fascist state that just denies freedom and liberty rather than thriving on cruelty, etc...

I'd consider things like slavery to be commonplace, have butchers selling elf meat, maybe have heroes marched through the streets and suffer... depravities. Visiting emmisaries from House Thrune, or Nidal bring tributes, because you know it's bad when Hell and Kuthites acknowledge you're super evilness.

But again, evil comes in all shapes and sizes, so flesh that out, and the rest will fall into place :)

A monkey Butler to assist,
Storage to hold relevant resources
A weapon of some sort to beat unruly players
Maybe a secondary surface to put other non-game related things that are still nice to have at hand (pizza, donuts, piles of pesh, whatever floats your boat).

Oh, and if your group uses lots of tablets or devices at the table, an easily accessible powerbar or something so charging doesn't require awkward gymnastics over each other (Acrobatics DC 30)

Ally grappled by a tentacled monstrosity grappling him, ally near dead. CMB check is crazy high, so of course he's maintaining the grapple on my dear old buddy. Wizard strokes his beard, "I cast Maze."

"What does that do?" asks the DM

I read him the description.

DM Swears and, since it affects only one creature, no save, the grappler doesn't get to take his snack with him. Meanwhile, the creature, who we later find out has an int of 10, spends 4 minutes trying to escape while the party heals, buffs, battlefield controls, and waits with readied actions. When creature rolls a 20 on his Int check, he reappears... triggering 10 readied actions, which consist of our biggest blasts (naturally).

Invest in bluff so even if he DOES notice, you can explain things away.

"Sorry, did I wake you? I think I stuttered that last time around the spell didn't take, looks like I need to try again, just ignore me, I can't focus when I'm being watched..."

"What do you mean it's too comfortable on top of this mountain? Clearly you're just too tough to notice the cold. In fact, I think you're as tough as you are brave. Who's a brave man? You are!"

Get a metamagic rod of Silent Spell. I'm sure if you ask your DM nicely and only use it for these hijinx, maybe it'll be included in the next loot drop :)

Also, maybe instead of casting it while he's sleeping, arrange other things to cover the sound. "Hey BSF how's your battle cry go again *abracadabra* no, no, the other one *hocus pocus*, thanks, I'm just going to do some dishes *clang clang clatter clangalakazamclang."

I didn't realize soldiers had to be celibate. Temperate behaviour and moderate actions doesn't neccessarily mean he can't have consensual one-night stands, so long as they aren't full-blown orgies of depravity.

Iomedae is the warrior goddess, concerned with her soldiers winning the battle. Those same soldiers, on occassion, need stress relief, and if doing so involves having consensual one-night stands, I see nothing wrong.

I find it funny that you'd be ok with it if, instead of having one-night stands with consenting partners, he went to the pixies kitten and paid for services. What's more noble sounding?

"There's Paladin Bob, I here he and Shayliss are awfully close..."

or

"Hey look, there's Paladin Bob, I hear he's a regular with the ladies at the brothel..."

He's Lawful Good, not Dead.

Is it all happening in the prison or is the prison just the jumping off point?

Guards could be lawful good to the extreme, have them beating inmates and that sort of thing under the guise of "punishing evil". Nothing like a disciplinarian lecuring someone for being a sadistic monster while they themselves are torturing someone "for the greater good". Maybe have one of the guards know something vital to the plot, they may need to torture him, naturally if they let him live, he could report their activities, so they need to kill him because being Good would get them caught/killed. Maybe have there be some sort of infamy within the prison. If they're gentle flowers, other inmates are hostile, but if the PCs are the big fish proven through acts of heinous cruelty, other inmates fear/respect them. Maybe theres a cavalier or two locked up on trumped up charges, chivalrous heroes who try to resolve things through duels, meanwhile they're nearly killed because they're the only ones following the rules.

I imagine the prison would be carefully monitoring magical items to prevent shenannigans, but there's probably a reliance on divination to keep track of people and events. Abjuration items would probably be handy too, something like Immovable Rods used to keep inmates in place.

For a nice twist, have the guards using Helms of Opposite Alignment on inmates. CE becomes LG, so it's the ultimate form of rehabilitation, but at the same time you're brainwashing someone removing their free-will.

As for the decadence, maybe have nobles visit the prison and treat it like a zoo. Maybe the nobles are buying up prisoners like cattle for various purposes (some have bad-boy fantasies, others hunt them for sport), or maybe a lord is exploring necormancy using his wealth and access to the prison to retrieve fresh specimens, or an alchemist looking for spare parts. Make the rich so incredibly out of touch with everyday concerns.

Maybe corrupt bureaucrats are extending inmates prison terms due to bribes or minor slights. "You dare look me in the eyes? You whelp! 5 more years for you!" And thus the man locked up for vagrancy is serving his 60th year because he refuses to cave in.

Best of all, have someone routinely abuse their power to stick it to the PCs. Oh, and of course, nice guys finish last, gang issues arise in prison and scarcity of supplies leads to further conflict. Have the gangs coming up at them, with the gloves off.

Any mercy is punished, kindness is weakness and the weak end up dead or worse.

We generally figure it out when we're calling the tactical retreat, our spells are bouncing off them and our fighters are too busy cutting themselves free of entanglement/trying to escape grapples/bleeding out/looking for their missing limbs. We're slow learners but it makes things exciting!

A very caring support/buffer, played like your standard stereotypical overbearing mother. Make sure the other players are well fed, in tip-top shape. When you're staying in an inn for the night, make sure your party (whom you refer to as your children, of course)have the best rooms. Ensure they get all the rest they need.

Be the most attentive person they've ever met, and shower them with love and affection. So long as they call you Mother, of course. Roll will saves everytime they talk to a woman, if you fail, you're jealous and angry she's trying to take them away from you, be petty and scornful of her. If anyone else provides healing, buffing, or cooks for them, do the same will saves.

Bribe shopkeepers and such to swoon over the PCs, as their self-esteem is very important. Anyone less than friendly to the PCs is immediately on Mother's naughty list. The Naughty list has consequences.

At an appropriate level, they all get homemade jewellery consisting of an Onyx Gem of varying sizes, as a token of your undying affection. Keep them in the best shape you possibly can, so that when they die, you can rebirth them into undeath. Of course, until the first time you raise Johnny, they'll all just think you're an overly attached mother, when in reality, you were just ensuring they'd provide you optimal corpses.

In the caravan that comes to town every second Thursday of the month, there is a baker. He makes many things but his specialty is pies. They always sell out as his pies are renowned through out the inner sea. He's charming, and always quick with a joke, when he finds a child crying, he gives them 2 pieces of pie, one for themselves and the other to share with a friend. He likes bringing the community together and helping people connect with each other, often sponsoring banquets and feasts.

He's well liked by the townsfolk he meets, but there are stories that even the beasts of the dark forests and craggy mountains love his pies so much, that they allow him free passage, even leading him to secret berry patches and orchards tended by the green spirit itself.

He's a generous individual, he stops at hospitals and shares pie with the plague victims long forgotten in quarantine, bringing some light to their dark existence, a beacon of hope and joy in a cruel, dark world.

He's an Anti-Paladin, his pies delight the humans as they're made with the freshest ingredients. His pies delight the monsters, as they're made with the freshest villagers. He spreads disease through pies, he encourages the gathering en mass of the public so as to spread the disease further and wider. He uses his charitable nature to earn favours that start small, but then grow into bigger and better things. The only ones who know his true nature are those locked away in sanitariums whom he visits regularly so he can witness their suffering. They're assumed insane at their insistence that the pies are poison and that this kind soul is a monster, some even having been moved to rabid assault on this paragon of virtue. He uses his networks of favours to protect his true work.

He'll kill you with disease, or have groomed a lonely child into an angry assassin, he'll have tricked you into murdering your family in a bout of insanity as the pathogens he spreads find their way to your brain. And while doing so, he'll be warmly welcomed into your village, into your home. People will line up for hours for a chance to thank him for his presence. He'll have killed you with a handshake loaded with plague, which you spread to your family at a banquet in his honour, and then he'll depart knowing you'll be dead by the time he returns a month from now. And when he returns, he'll find your child, alone and sobbing, he'll offer your son a pie, and your son will look into your killer's eyes and say "Thank You."

Boost Charisma sky high, Craft: Baking, Profession: Baker/Event Co-Ordinator, Invest in Bluff/Diplomacy, Pose as a follower of Torag (Community and Craftsmanship). Be friendly to everyone, and celebrate every occassion with Pie. Pick up Coward's Mark, Demon Fever and Mindfire to be your disease weapons, and watch as communities unravel in your wake.

I think the big problem here is that your player thinks beating AC is the only way to hurt something. Anyway, short of using unique monsters for everything, rolling in secret, and making players roll in secret from each other, you can't stop his behaviour. Even then, if I only know my rolls, but I know I didn't hit when I rolled a 17, I can infer that the AC is probably fairly high.

I don't think it's particularly meta-gamey, after all, supposedly these adventurers are adventurers for a living, and have been in their fair share of fights. If after having gone a few rounds with an enemy, they figure out some of their capabilities, that's normal. If this is the 30th Giant Rat I've fought in the last 4 days, I probably know a bit about how they fight, and how hard/easy it will be.

As long as they aren't reading the Beastiary entry when you first introduce a new monster,I don't think it's problematic if they try to figure out the enemies strengths and weaknesses during combat. A knowledge check may be able to get the same information on the first round and save you some trouble, where as trying to stat count gets you usable intel after 2,3,4 rounds of fighting, during which time the enemy has had a chance to hurt you or figure out YOUR abilities.

Skill Focus: Craft:Baskets
Catch off-Guard

Be the best damn basket weaver ever, and then weaponize them when someone dares insult the craftsmanship. When was the last time you saw a fighter craft something that wasn't blatantly a weapon?

Nature Soul to make you useful in nature, then Animal Ally so you have yourself an animal companion for kicks.

Destroy Identity at level 11 lets you deal charisma damage and stagger someone when you crit them.

Druidic Decoder lets you read druidic, or speak it if you have enough linguistic ranks. Could be a handy niche to fill, or using that and Nature Soul/Animal Ally, pose as a druid for the lulz.

Sabotauge the enemy? Imagine crafting a weapon sympathetic to your goals, then dropping it into the hands of the baddy, now behold as the villain starts doing things to make your life easier.

Have a party member who's dumb as a brick? Hand them the fancypants talky sword, and behold as now there's a bit of forethought in their decision making.

Surveillance, translator, or as a skillmonkey. Your fighter is kind of useless outside of combat, but his sword is an engineering expert who's extra-talented at motive sensing and speaks 9 languages, as well as hit your foe with dimension door with it's actions, leaving you to full attack the wizard nerd to death?

Kinda handy situationally, eh?

All I can think of is someone breaking a contract and you saying "Liar, liar, pants on fire." in a deep, gravelly voice, as you set them ablaze. :)

You could be an Oracle of Battle, given that Hell is known for it's infernal legions. With DM agreeing to refluffing, I think Outer Rifts is a good way to go, and sounds fun too!

2. Put a note right in a monsters mouth, impairing bite attacks or breath attacks if its of substantial size to block the airway, and read up on suffocation rules.

3. Improvised ballgag for those Calistrian Holidays.

4. Fighting a martial? Cast this high up in sky, disarm the weapon and hang it out of his reach.

CONGRATULATIONS! Maybe some ACG spoilers to celebrate?

VICTORY FOR PAIZO
VICTORY FOR THE KIDS
VICTORY FOR GAUNTLET PUNCHES!

Rock = Free

Geodes= Rocks with mineral formations on the interior

Onyx= Mineral

Thus, if one of your millions of free rocks is a Geode, it could, arguably, have Onyx inside.

So, if you're a necromancer, and lets say you're having trouble finding enough onyx to make all your undead minions, instead of tracking down 400 onyx gems worth 25g, you instead have bought your rocks, for free, which are geodes, containing Onyx inside. Now, have someone offer you 25g to buy each geode, and shazam! You have your undead minions.

Diamond is also a mineral found in rock formations, so if any spell requires a diamond, low and behold, you may very well have a diamond in amongst your rock pile. Wish just became much more accessible because even if, statistically, you have a 1 in a billion chance of finding a diamond that large in a mundane rock, you can afford to buy a trillion free rocks, meaning you have at least 1 diamond.

Considering all the different minerals, or high priced gems that serve as spell components, I don't see why every wizard doesn't have a dump-truck following them around loaded with free rocks.

You guys are thinking too small scale...

Consider that something like your standard rock is free. Now, consider that a cold iron weapon doubles the cost of the weapon. What's the cost of 0x2? Well, looks like you have yourself a free cold-iron rock. Watch demons lament as you continue to bludgeon them with your thousands of free cold-iron rocks in the back of your wagon. Take Craft: Weapons, and smelt down your thousand Cold Iron rocks into something simple like, lets say a greatsword. Now you have your Cold Iron Greatsword (50gx2=100g) for free. Sell to the weapon seller for half-cost, heck, throw him a 70% discount, and enjoy your 30g you made for free and the eternal friendship of a vendor who got a bargain.

Rinse, wash, repeat, and you will have made 30*Infinite gold! Starting a character at level 2? Put 50% of your wealth into your Cold Iron Rock Quarry, and then invest the other 20% into your weapon factory, and bing bang boom, you have a completely viable business that took 0g from your wealth by level. Assuming your never run out cold-iron rocks (which why would you since you loaded up on MILLIONS of them earlier in your backstory), you have yourself a money machine.

Hey gang,

I see Contingency gets a lot of love on the boards because it provides a great "last-line of defense" and flexibility when things go wrong.

For the pessimistic, necromantic caster, there's another use that I've been thinking of and I'm wondering if it's legit rules wise.

You're going into a fight very likely to end in your death, but not being a quitter, you don't want that to get in the way. Or maybe you're about to be lynched as the masses storm your cabin in the woods after words of your "experiments" on the farmer down the road has gotten out.

Could you cast Contingency, with the trigger being that when you die, Create Undead kicks in and you rise as a powerful undead, possibly with class levels?

Mostly because I don't want them to feel that they can escape any encounter that starts going badly with so much ease. It takes a lot of the tension away in my opinion. I also don't like playing in other planes and generally like lower level, rpgs in general.

I play a teleportation specialist wizard, level 14. Dimensional steps has saved my squishy wizard life more than once, but I don't think my teleporting has ever broken the game.

As for thinking it will make encounters easier to escape, consider the following. If I'm teleporting the party out, everyone has to be in contact with me. This means our frontline has collapsed and we're at a tactical disadvantage. If a PC is down, someone needs to retrieve the body, requiring even more risk. Also, as the "way out" the wizard player gets put in a stressful situation if they have to decide if/when the party is pulling out. Nothing adds to the tension like your party looking to you to get them out alive.

And if the players have cohorts, followers, hired help, mounts, hanger's on, animal companions, etc...? Those are a lot of bodies that start filling up how many people I can get out. Generally, the party won't teleport out of the halfway finished dungeon since they're undefended donkey cart of loot is in the next room.

If you treat it like any sort of extraction in hostile territory, you'll see it doesn't necessarily make things easier as it opens up more tactical options, and choices. Also consider, the wizard is holding a 5th or 7th level spell slot back in case they need to teleport out. If you think the party safely arriving back at town to sell their loot is too game changing, how are you going to govern reversing gravity, creating demiplanes, scrying, controlling weather, or limited wish?

I think it's as easy as having consequences. You stroll into town and bully you're way through everybody? Maybe stores close early for you, maybe the clerics (who don't want to alienate their followers) refuse healing. Maybe the Pathfinders give them the crappy jobs for PR purposes.

"Hey, I heard you had a zombie problem, I'll clear it out for a small fee."
"No thanks, I'm expecting some heroes to show up tomorrow, I can wait."

Nothing will suck more than strolling up to the damsel in distress and being politely declined. Then, let the party stumble around finding nothing but uncooperative villagers. Then, they come across a drunken fool, who drunkenly informs them no one likes them because they're jerks, and Davey down at the barn said that he'd rather be eaten by wolves than get help from them. If they don't see the error of their ways by then, remind them, there's always a bigger fish.

My party suffered from "We're the Best" syndrome, we were quickly cured of it when the store clerk we tried hustling for weapon discounts opted to instead grab the Keen Scythe from the weapon rack and cleave through the party. As a retired level 11 Fighter, our Level 3 party quickly learned to play nice. It took one round and half the party KO'd, but we started saying please.

As a player, I'd hate it if after earning the 40,000xp needed for my next level I was told "Hey, Go do this quest for me and I'll teach you how to be better at X". If I need a trainer to teach me how to hold my sword better, or how to make my fireball bigger, what was the point of spending the last few months swinging my sword or blasting fireballs? When you get better at something in RL, do you only improve when you sit down and receive formalized training?

Ask your players if they want it, if so, sure add it in, but I don't see the point of giving experience for challenging encounters, then making it meaningless unless they do a side quest. Plus, will you factor training costs into WBL? If you're playing an AP where the PCs are on the clock to stop the big bad, do you want Rovagug eating Avistan because the party had to spend 3 weeks getting to level 18, or do you want the party getting killed because they knew they couldn't spare 3 weeks of time, so they went to save the day at level 17 instead?

Oh I didn't specify in the original post, but I was thinking of making it Permanent as per the spell, so it wouldn't be a short term buff but more of a lifestyle choice. I'm level 13 so think my playstyle is firmly established and I won't miss the lack of reach or AoOs. Plus, we're already fighting large, and colossal things so I can already be eaten alive, lol.

On the one hand, I think it would be very flavourful and entertaining but I wouldn't want to be crippled by it.

I prefer rolling, Point Buy is a min-maxers favourite, so if you want less cheese, go with rolling.

Plus, I hate having to decide how to spread them so I prefer rolling for that reason. My preference for a well-rounded character contributes to this too.

They stumble across an underground fight club, a few humanoid fighters, monks, etc... but amongst the crowd is one of the above mentioned monsters, so the players get to feel like it's a casual low-key and they think they've got grappling and such down, then BOOM, the grapple turns into a constrict or negative level and they see grappling can be the means to a nasty end.

Synth Summoner. Snap your fingers for armour that can grant you the ability to fly, take the head evolutions with breath attacks (fluff them as being the gauntlets), and since you can shape your eidolon however you imagine it, you can literally imagine it as appearing like Iron Man. Ta da! Plus, since you aren't spending coin on the Iron Man suit, you can afford to be the playboy who runs around and buys the bar, no, the neighbourhood a round.

Charisma powered, with evolving armour that represents an inventor tweaking his way to perfection.

If anything I think our DM bribes us more than we do him. We get xp for doing those polite things (A 24 is around 1000xp, 2500 if he's all out), and he'll exchange xp for helping out with other things (Bought a new couch, helped move it in, enjoy your 500 xp!). He gave out homebrew artifacts once when we attended an event he was running.

Now in this case, nothing is particularly gamebreaking and I don't think anyone really minds. When used in the more bizarre cases it adds to the fun and encourages us anti-social types to see each other outside of gamenight. Plus, we now have a new couch to sit on whilst saving Golarion, so it's win-win.

Would I bribe him for those +x gloves of y? Probably not, since I wouldn't want the other players to get fancy things just because they dropped more cake than I did. That said, if we were playing that way and everyone was on the up and up, I would bribe like a fiend. As they say in Morrowind, "Bribes are the lubricant of honest commerce"! Besides, what sort of rogue WOULDN'T bribe the authorities, I'm RPing, which I think should earn some extra XP don't ya think? ;)

Ahoy friends and fellow magicians, I have a dilemma. I'm at level 11 with a wizard who predominantly focusses on battlefield control and summoning things to do damage. I believe my most used spell is probably summon monster, with my feat selections focussing on that (Augmented summoning, Conjuration school increasing length of summons,etc..., so with Summon Monster 5, I bring in a strong elemental to aid in combat and eat hits for about the whole length of combat.

If my party isn't cheering on the elemental, or it seems like over kill, I'll create some pits to trap enemies, lay down obscuring mist to cover our support pcs, etc...

Core group has a Magus and a fighter who deal most of the damage, with a rogue who occassionally swings by, so I drop buffs as well, Haste and Enlarge Person are favourites for the party.

Now with my 6th level spell selections, I'm torn between the following options, if you could offer up any advice as to ones that are traps, or sub-standard, I'd appreciate it.

1. Chain Lightning, Direct damage to multiple enemies, Reflex Saves which puts most of our giant foes in the "easy hit category" but usually we aren't facing 11 enemies at the same time, granted that sort of damage is just amazing. Then again, I'm not a primary damage dealer, but I feel like I should have a blast spell on hand when I need it.

2.Conjure Black Pudding: I love it, and it works with my summoning tactics. The fact that as it gets hit it multiplies, causing more area denial and damage, as well as soaking up more hits makes it something I'm really jazzed about, only problem is that it doesn't respond to direct commands, but if I plop it behind enemy lines, muahahahahahaha

3. Form of the Dragon I: Who DOESN'T want to then again, as a small caster, medium is still a size boost.

4.Permanent Image: Probably suboptimal,but I like the idea of being able to create a permanent image of myself gloating, or blowing up the BBEG as a way to commemorate our battle. Or casting it on our travel wagon so that the wagon seems super impressive and intimidating, etc... over all, it's just really varied in it's uses, though the novelty may not be worth the slot.

5.Planar Binding: Seems natural for a summoning based wizard, being able to bring 12 HD creatures into this realm, but I could say long-term maintenance being problematic.

6. Summon Monster VI: Been my bread and butter thus far, I feel like I should stick with it, plus Huge elementals are Fun!

7. Transformation: A nice ace up the sleeve if I'm ever seperated from the party, but then again, if I have a 6th level spell free, why would I do this when I could just pop a Huge Elemental between me and the bad guy. I'm predominantly liking this because of the looks on the party's faces when I become an archer, lol.

8.Vengeful Outrage: What better form of control than turning one enemy against the other? Will saves are low for the brutish foes we may face, and I like having spells that can target enemy weaknesses.

9. Wall of Iron: I'm not too sure how effective this would be for battle field control. I've used wall of stone a few times to prevent reinforcements from getting into the fight too soon, but it usually only buys us a round or two. I mean, a wall with an area of 55ft would be good cover, and with 2 inches of thickness, it could eat 60 points of damage, which would otherwise come at the party but is this on par with the other spells listed here?

So of those, I can choose upto 2, what are your thoughts and opinions?

I wouldn't trade augment summoning for the world. Nothing lifts the party spirits like countering a giant with a giant who's stronger and tougher :)

Crazy idea, but requires DM agreement and co-operation:

John Smith takes Commoner levels (pretty much a handicap compared to taking class levels), in exchange your horse get's class levels with any companion feats, familiars, etc... applying to John.

It'll require lots of tweaking and adjustment but it's fun cheese that shouldn't be game breaking and it's a unique twist on standard character design!

Or when in doubt, use the ARG to build an intelligent horse people :)

You could always make a spellcaster regardless of what the party says since apparently this party doesn't take other's opinions into account (oh btw, forgot to mention, when you die I'm enslaving you for eternity). Make a wizard and dominate the necro cleric, ergo giving you control over your dead self. Make a bard and make them love you for your empowering abilities then kill them all when your bard has a diva moment and decides he'd much rather buff the other team, or since it's an evil party, see about making an aasimar anti-paladin.

Instead of doing the angsty jipped thing, just be an egoist who thinks you're the greatest thing ever and wants to be "special" (a direct reference to your cleric who's messing with your remains).

Ooooh, for added fun, make a cleric who's a direct rival of your existing cleric and then dip into gunslinger so you step on both their toes. The REAL fun comes when you take apart the gunslinger's gun and swallow the firing pin or other vital mechanism, nullifying him in combat and overshading the cleric in clericyness. Start a little holy war while the gunslinger is forced running around punching things. Maybe take animal domain so you can mess with the cavliers mount too. Then, once you've ruined everyone's day, you suggest the party sits down and has a talk about how you all want to play the game.

For added hilarity, roll a d6 everytime you level. 1 and 2 you go Cleric, 3 and 4 you go cav, 5 and 6 you go gunslinger. When you can't choose, let the dice!

Also, is it possible that your DM changed his ruling (though from the sounds of it he never expressly said you could play a monster race) because you played with reckless abandon and gave the impression that you treated death as no big deal? If you started acting like your PC was disposable, I could see the DM deciding he'd make you think otherwise. While not the best approach, I at least could see that happening maybe.

Personally I don't mind it someone subscribes to the philosophy of "Hey, I could really use an agile weapon since I'm a dexterity based fighter, so I'd like to ask around town to find someone who can do that.", there's nothing wrong with a player putting thought into their gear and in-game, an adventurer is eventually going to say "I'm fighting Dragons the size of my house, I need something more than this scythe I picked up at my farm, and I've seen/heard about this fancy thing bob has, I should grab one."

Now, asking for something to be available is different than "Give me X, y, and Z because I need it".

As for planning, my group has players that put thought into their character with planning, and we have players that don't know the rules of the game and have no idea how/what to build, from a players perspective, I'd rather have people who put effort into their builds (note effort, not just optimization).

Sub-optimal solution, but allow it to level, on the slow xp progression, and the xp comes from his fighter's share, so he can level up his owl, slowly, at the expense of his main character. When his Owl is treated like a level 9 cohort, but his fighter is only level 3 going against CR 11s, we'll see how much he likes his owl.

Or just have a mature discussion that you're fine with playing loose with the rules but need to maintain some semblance of balance. The other thing to consider is if all the other players are enjoying the same luxury of making demands of you. If you allow it for one, you need to allow it for all, at which point things become very dangerous as the fighter has an animal companion, the wizard wants a tarrasque familiar, with some extra attribute points while you're at it, and the rogue is seeking a platoon of Shadows as his flanking buddies. Either that, or they feel like it's grossly unfair that he's getting all these cool things.

When in doubt have a paladin come by, let the oracle and fighter explain their side to the paladin, and then, based on skill checks and justifications, let the paladin decide what happens with the imp. Ta da, now the fate of the imp comes down to a game mechanic and you have a level 20 paladin around to enforce the decision, preventing any sort of PVP.

Along the same thread, have a Redeemer paladin come by and offer to take the imp under their care at one of the sanctuaries for the reformation of evil creatures. The oracle player rolls occassionally to determine progress, and over time the imp either rehabilitates (and is deemed Good by a higher authority who are likely experts on the topic) at which point it comes back to the party to thank the Oracle for giving it a shot and offering it's services, free of charge, as a token of it's grattitude. If the rolls don't go well, and the Imp doesn't reform, the Oracle get's a letter from the reformatory explaining that the imp orchestrated an escape that resulted in a variety of denizens escaping and raiding a nearby village. Now the fighter can go and merrily slaughter the Imp while the party goes off to rescue this village as a sidequest that can explore the nature of good and evil.

That said, these are in-game ways to handle what largely sounds like an out of game issue, so I'd use these as a last resort resolution if maturity and open discussion don't work.

You can make life harder for them without killing them. After all, in a racially politics charged situation the minute one member walks away alive and the rest are dead, fingers fly to the survivor and who he's working for.

Instead, maybe you let the GM know you'd like to hire some assassins, you remove your gold from your char sheet and let him throw an assassination encounter at the group, maybe you supplied information that will make their job easier.

When you get to a situation where you have to make a choice, like killing v. capturing someone, or taking evidence, make sure that the least helpful thing happens. For example, you know this book holds clues to the location of a treasure, but during the fight, you cast burning hands and "accidentally" scorch the book. Ooops, no treasure for the humans!

Bob has helpful information about the temple? Well none of your spells are non-lethal, you accidentally killed him.

The archbishop character's word is law? Sounds like he could use a smear campaign amongst his people. An emissary arrives telling him that he's wanted back home to meet with the council as some worrying news has come out. Well, now does he go back home to face questioning, or stay adventuring (suspicious, guess who's lost some of his sway?), does he separate from the party, or does the whole party head back with him (oh shucks, looks like we're behind schedule).

When you get a lead or information, feed it to your nation's spy network. The party won't know they're on a deadline to get to the magic item until they show up and it's missing. When this happens a second, and third time, let the allegations of a mole flow through the team, disrupting things quite nicely as everyone tries to figure out who the traitor is, and how they can limit the intelligence leaks in the future.

Read up on your cold war history, the states and USSR didn't nuke each other, instead they made life complicated for the other. Play that game, but be the only one playing it until it's too late!

Mutilated corpses with varying freshness to indicate how long ago cannibals were there.

A NPC who's badly hurt and can't stop mumbling about the teeth. the teeth.... the teeth.... THE TEEEEEEEETH. Red. So much red teeth. The teeth.

"I need you to roll a dex check..." then when they say the result scribble something down on a note pad, but don't tell them what it was or what the result was. Then, do nothing with it to keep them guessing. Also, workable with a perception check, if they get a natural 20 maybe tell them they hear rustling in the bushes but can't decipher if it's the wind or an animal or person.

Let them find tracks near their camp in the morning. If they don't move camp, let them find even more tracks the next day.

Let them roll an "intuition check", and they feel like they're being watched.

Have something go missing from the camp with no explanation of why, and let them wonder what happened to it.

Maybe their awoken in the night by screaming and chanting and drumming, etc... then let the fatigue and exhaustion conditions kick in when suitable so they feel like their worse for wear.

You smell like Calistria's Holy bits.

To a male: The sound of your urine discharges hitting the urinal sound feminine.

To a female: Caidean's mug! Your beard is as big as Torag's, and you're rear is the size of Rovagug, yet despite your clearly divine lineage, you fight like a mundane cow.

What vile magic are you using to make yourself so repulsive? (best posed as an innocent question like you are really curious)

Everyone who ever loved you was wrong.

When you die, I'm not going to your funeral.

I hope something you love catches on fire.

You're not very nice and I don't like you.

If you were any less intelligent, I would have to water you twice a week.

You hit like an elf!

I'd tease you, but you, sir, are unremarkable and bland in every sense.

You look like your face was on fire and someone tried to put it out with a fork.

If your wife/mother's naughty bits had a command word, it would be "command word".

I was with your wife last night, she liked my longsword.

To the cronies: "Hey guys, can you cover your ears? I'm going to say some really personal things about this guys mother and I don't think he'd want you to hear about the many ways I defiled her or the freaky things she does, including this one thing where I take a Desnan candle, while she..."

I bet you wanted to be an accountant when you were a kid. (fits well with a gnome's whimsy, seeing a job like accountant as being an insult in and of itself.

OOooh, and for kicks, you could use ghost sound SLA to make random animal or gas sounds every time a baddy talks or takes a foot step.

I'd say, as someone 4 levels into my first tabletop RPG/Pathfinder experience, you want to do a good job of giving them a break down of what they can do but not too much that they feel that's all they can do.

For example, explain the sneak attack rules briefly for the rogue, but don't make him think he's only effective if he's flanking.

Play a bit loose with the rules for now, but state that you're doing it so that if they do stick around they aren't going "Wait, since when do I need a feat to throw a beer bottle at someone?" Explain you're playing with just the basic rules for now.

Reward creativity, and set up options to let them do it. If they roll well on a perception check, let them see the unsteady looking support beam that could knock a few goblins out of the fight.

Something to consider, maybe, and I don't know how DMs feel about this, but maybe start them off with a level or two under their belt, so they get a sense of what great things can come. If it's a one shot, quick introductory, campaign give them a taste of being able to do amazing things. No one plays pathfinder to kill rats with 1d4 shortswords, capture the spirit of epicness.

Have some reference sheets on hand that they can look over on the fly. We have a sheet of what's considered what type of action (move, standard, etc...) and what provokes AoOs. That way if my turn is coming up, I can do a bit of planning and check to see if it works, without having to wait until my turn, asking you if I can do it, and then revising my plan from there. It's also a good way of letting them learn the rules casually on their own without having to stop and ask you about everything.

Just my 2 cp though

A bit of musical interlude.

If you "forget" and still do it, it is because you decided those rules weren't important enough to you and thus didn't file it in the important area of your brain. Next time make sure you remember when someone asks you not to do something in their home.

Nice post Pres, Social Etiquette for the Socially Inept, you should write a book, hosts everywhere would thank you for it!

I would like to point out just because something is important doesn't mean I'll remember it (i.e. studying for the big final and you draw blanks on test day, tax filing, where you put your plane tickets, where you put your child, etc...). Of those events, all are fairly important, but forgotten all the time. Other than that, spot on :)

Or appraise and perception: "I see this Staff has rubies and emeralds with intricate carvings so it's valuable" v. "I know this Staff is 3 lbs of gold with some jewel work, with gold at it's current prices, it must be worth a hefty amount."

Regardless of if you perceive it, or appraise it you can reach the same conclusion but they aren't always interchangeable and so we have two separate skills.

Going to the extreme, we could merge perception and sense motive (I see the hand slowly shifting to the dagger, he must be hostile), or stealth and slight of hand (I stealthily conceal the dagger up my sleeve), or spellcraft and use magic device (I don't know how to drive a car, but I understand how it works, and therefore whilst being untrained in driving, I can make it function). At this rate, we could reduce the skills considerable, but it's important to remember that X and Y may share similarities but X and Y aren't always interchangeable.