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Just double checking I'm understanding this correctly.
So if I wanted to make an item that's basically an unlimited wand of magic missile, it'd be Caster Level x Spell Level x 2000, so 1 x 1 x 2000 = 2000?
Is that correct?

Working on an Elven Investigator, no archetypes, and I'm stuck on what feats to give him now.
What I've got is weapon finesse to boost attack, and Power Attack for a boost to damage.
The GM also let me start with a home-brew sword, d8 damage, finesse, can be used one or two handed, and does double damage on a charge.
I don't want to go Two-Weapon fighting, that doesn't fit the idea of this guy that I have.
He's more of a spy so I like the idea of sneaking around and then rushing in for one devastating hit. But I don't know what other feats would help in that regard.

Working on a culture in a custom setting.
They're germanic in style, like land vikings, or a certain kingdom of horse riders.
The trick is that they don't really fight each other, the region they're in has a lot of the basic undead, skeletons and zombies and the like, due to these magical crystals.
So I'm mostly wondering what kind of weapons and tactics would be best suited to combatting the large groups of undead regularly encountered.

So our party is going to be facing a problem very soon.
Long story short we are very deep into the hobgoblin controlled lands mining for magic crystals, and we just received word that a hobgoblin war chief is going to be passing through the valley we're in, in about a week. And he has about a full legion of troops, (hobgoblins in this setting are very Greco-Roman) so he has about five thousand or so guys.

We've yet to figure out what to do. Fleeing is an option except for our large entourage of NPCs that'd not be able to move quickly. But a battle is likely suicide.
I'll list what resources we have, I'm fishing for any ideas, any tactics, anything we could do to not get steamrolled into paste by an army.
The party is all 7th level.
Characters are a Warlord/Ranger/Paladin, a Brawler, a Monk, a Witch, a Rogue, and a Swashbuckler. The more powerful NPCs we've got are a Jotunblood Barbarian, a Cleric, a Bard and an Artificer.
The bard just got a Lyre of Building, we've got some magical weapons between us. The dwarf is chief of a tribe of one hundred goblins and I just took leadership and got a hundred hobgoblin mercenaries under my command. The other twenty or so NPCs are all just laborers and miners.
We have a week to a week and a half.

So our group has a very high chance of having to face off against an army of hobgoblins and if we do it'll be a battle, and running five thousand of them against our two hundred just isn't possible.
(we have two hundred because our brawler took over a tribe of 80 goblins and I just took Leadership so I'll have 100 or so soldiers of my own)

The core bits of the combat system work just fine, each mini representing 10 creatures and the way it works is straightforward and is understandable. The issue that will arise is how to handle the "advantage, disadvantage" rules.
What would be a good guideline for the bonuses and penalties listed?
http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA_Battlesystem.pdf

I just picked this book up at a Con and was reading through and was kind of perplexed when the 90ft tall Mecha Kitai robots only had a strength of 10.
Is that just for Vehicle to Vehicle comparison? Or can my Half-Orc fighter actually arm wrestle this thing?

I'm slightly surprised I've not seen someone in my group try this before and was even more surprised when they were shocked at the build.
Okay, everyone in my group is a firm believer in having a backup character, just in case your guy dies and there's no method to Raise them. It's nice not having to sit out the rest of the session. Anyway I made an Elf Wizard as we don't really have any arcane talent in the party currently, actually we've only got a Witch, everyone picked martial types.
Anyway, the build, Elf, wizard, we're currently second level, I managed to get 20 in both Int and Dex, (Transmutation specialist ability).

I pointed out that my guy can cast Mage Armor, Shield and then wade into combat with a 23 AC.

Has anyone else used this build? I'm curious.

I don't have a question about how it works, but I could swear that somewhere I read that you can pour alchemist fire or burning oil on a melee weapon for some added damage.
But I cannot find that rule anywhere, did I imagine it? Does anyone know where it might be?

Let's start with a staple of low level play, spiders, they run out of their holes, throw some entangling webs and then charge and fight till 0 HP, story is old story is boring.
That's not how a spider usually hunts, they don't charge like a zombie, they wait for prey and the ambush.
Here's and idea on how to change the playing field and keep players nervous.

They're going into the spiders home, their nest, the spiders have spun webs everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, not just in the big drapes across hallways, have them lay some across the floor and on the walls. Second, remember that spiders can sense vibrations through their webs and can find prey through that vibration. The spiders follow, stalking, then dart in, bite one of the PCs and then run away and let the poison work. Often times, players aren't used to that, and while poison saves are often low, if the spiders keep doing this someone's inevitably going to fail, and then stat loss happens and the players get scared.
If the fighter fails a few saves and loses say, 3 Strength, he's going to be scared, he won't hit as often, he hits less hard, and if his strength drops too much, he could start getting encumbered by his gear.
Anyone starts losing Dex and their AC starts dropping fast.

This has a startling effect on a players confidence, and can be a major inconvenience even at higher levels. Stat damage from Poison or Disease takes time to heal, sometimes several days of straight bed rest, or a valuable Restoration spell, which they might want to save in case of bigger problems.

You can even throw this at them without a Giant Spider dungeon.
You're in an abandoned tower rummaging through a bookshelf, a tiny spider bites your hand cause you nearly squished it.
If you're DM is mean (diabolical genius) he could put on the door right before a fight.
While they're tromping through the woods have them step on a normal hornet nest. I guarantee it'll be entertaining.

Include Disease.
If they're walking around all kinds of dead rotting corpses make them make that saving throw to get all kinds of nasty crap.
If they're wading in swamps make them roll against things like Dysentery or "Trench Foot" or Malaria cause they're getting eaten alive by Mosquitoes.

If you've got other ideas please, share them.

So after our second session, two more players joined and several NPCs introduced, my Half-Elf Wardblade is the only male in the party of eight people. BTW this is a pirate campaign.

Should I be worried about anything? Our group has no qualms with "risque" material and have had plenty of inter character relationships in the past

So last night my party faced off with a custom drake I built, they're only level 5 so I could have had a medium sized white, or an advanced, giant flame drake.
Anyway, they were well prepared enough to basically destroy him and only take minimal damage and then the question was raised, "Drake's are dragons, are dragon parts magical?"

I don't know what Pathfinders rules, or if there even are any rules, for this. I quoted some old myths that I remember, in that, the heart of a dragon if eaten will allow you understand animal (though the jury's still out on whether I have it be true) and a vial of dragons blood can restore a petrified creature.

Does anybody have any ideas?

"I want to search the door for traps. (blank)s rogue only rolled a 2."
How would one go about giving a good in-game reason as to why your character would do something like this?
Something like knowledge checks, stealth, craft, even disable device. It's pretty obvious when someone fails these, so it would make sense that someone else would want to try. But with some of the other skills, mainly perception, it isn't very obvious when someone fails, so why would the character try?

http://hastur.net/wiki/Troop_%28D%26D_creatures%29

I rediscovered this template while looking through old notes, and I'm immediately in love. Planning on having the party face one pretty soon.
In the meantime, has anyone ever used this? How did it go? Any glaring issues that would need to be changed? How did the party react? Opinions and stories are welcome and appreciated.

Bandits, whenever I come across them they're either useless after a couple levels or you somehow have 8th level thieves sleeping in the woods like hobos and mugging farmers.
How do you keep bandits relevant as encounters while maintaining a sense of realism for the region they're in?
First, consider the region they are in. This is terrain as well as who they steal from normally. If their victims are normally farmers, they are not going to be prepared to face paladins, wizards and barbarians.

Mostly it's about having them make sense, really. Your normal everyday bandits aren't going to be a lvl 4 ranger, lvl 4 rogue hybrid. That would a group of elite bandits like Ali Baba's 40 thieves. Those 40 men could and would sack entire cities, but, those are the kind of guys who get a widespread reputation, they'd famous in the region, possibly the whole kingdom.
Another point, have bandits be smart, but don't go trying to outsmart the party. Sure the bandits could have a well setup ambush, tree across the road, archers on both sides, spearmen in the bushes. But are they really going to have a wizard with spells prepared specifically to counter the party's caster? That reeks of DM Metagame and isn't really fair to the party.

I know that there's already a million puzzle threads, but I can't find any that have the style of puzzle I'm looking for.

I recently got into a game "The Legend of Grimrock", a game styled like the old "Eye of the Beholder" dungeon crawler, and am having a ball with it.

I thought it might be fun to run my players through a dungeon styled like that, combat plays a major role, but equally important is slow, methodical thinking to solve the riddles and puzzles throughout the dungeon. Some of them even require you to traverse several floors of the dungeon, climbing up and down stairs and using the pitfalls to get past obstacles.
When I mentioned using puzzles and they just about squealed hard enough to blow my ears out so I know that they're all for some intellectual adventures. (I suck at writing political intrigue or mysteries)
I'm mostly wondering if anybody has any examples of these type of puzzles, not the usual, solve a riddle or color pattern and the door opens.

So I was thinking about dungeons and ruins in general and the nasties in which reside and I started wondering, "If a skeleton can shoot a longbow, could it open a door?"
This opened a floodgate of questions in my mind, "Is the use of weapons and shields just leftover from life, a "muscle-memory" if you will. If so would using a door be as well? If it requires some modicum of intelligence would a normal skeleton draw a sheathed weapon? Pick one up? Would it recognize a better weapon? If disarmed would it try to retrieve it?"
I'm curious what people think, what they would house-rule, please debate

So, in the group that I'm DMing, they ran into a fire beetle a while ago and thanks to the fighters Handle Animal and some beef jerky they tamed it and made it the party mascot naming it Squish.

Two levels and one town burned down by a cult late, they were running around in an abandoned mine trying to find the cults headquarters. They found the ancient temple and were then attacked by the Octopus-like Abomination guardian, sadly, it only barely survived into the second round due to concentrated ranged attacks. They decided that they didn't want to risk Squish's death and left him behind happily eating the abominations corpse.

Going off of a passing comment one of them made I rolled on a table I made up and rolled in the 2% that Squish would be subject to a random spell that would permanently alter him. Rolled, got Awaken. So the Fire Beetle is going to end up with an Int of 15.
Rather than just making it a Magical Beast I think it'd be funny to give it class levels, I'm just having a hard time deciding what class to give it, though some type of caster is top of my list.

Post your best final boss stories.

I'm working on a campaign arc and have been thinking that something like Demon Souls or Dark Souls.
Has anyone done something like this? What changes did you make? How did the players react?

I know some people avoid romances in campaigns, but my current group almost always ends up in relationships. I'm mostly just curious what other people think about relationships and love interests in campaigns and how you handle them.

Has anyone ever come up with a good way to introduce NPCs at the beginning of the campaign? It always seems to be that you're just told that they'll be working with you, they just show up and start following you, however which way I always seem to see that the DM has characters who are sent along with the party because, because.

What are some good ways to avoid doing this? Cool ways that give a legitimate reason for an NPC to be there with the party.

So I'm working on the first adventure for a campaign I'll be starting up in eight weeks and I wanted the first adventure to be different to the usual.

I'm working on having them all be staying at a massive inn, there's a massive storm outside so nobody can leave and there's a serial killer in the building with them.

Any suggestion/ideas from anyone would be greatly appreciated!

So a good few years back I joined my current group midway through the campaign, and went through three characters before I found my niche.
I'm mostly curious if anyone knows if the Paladin build I used is legit or not.

We were level 15 or so, I had written into my characters story that he had a Holy Avenger Bastard Sword, I then picked up a few other items(I joined around level 13 so I had my starting budget to spend), magic mithral full plate, and a Sun Blade.

It says the Sun Blade can be treated as a short sword so I used it in my off hand while two-weapon fighting, so with all three two-weapon feats I was getting a ton of attacks a round.

The DM allowed it but regretted it when I took the final boss almost single-handed and killed him in three rounds. Smite, and the Sun Blade does double damage to evil outsiders so I was shelling out around 300 damage a round.

Does that build actually work?