RedEric's page

Since vehicles are illegal during the wilderness trek, do you think it would be legal for a party to purchase or rent a Shotalashu for the trip?

If so, can anyone suggest a price for renting or buying one? I'm struggling with it because I have nothing to compare it to.

Would there be any penalties for a non-telepathic character handling a Shotalashu, or would they just miss out on the bonuses mentioned for Lashunta mentioned in the telepathic link?

Can anyone think of any other Castrovelian creatures that would be appropriate as mounts or pack animals?

There's some really good advice here. Thanks, everyone! I now have some figures I can work with. I looked at the rules in Ultimate Campaign and my head nearly spun off my neck. I couldn't make heads or tails of them. You guys have really helped. Now I can pass this along to my player. I'm not even clear why she wants to monopolize the quarries; she's never really given me a clear reason.

Maybe she's going to sabotage a nearby castle and raise the price of stone?

Retired 20th level adventurers come to the island, but they're always poking around and investigating. Taking 20 while searching for traps everywhere. Breaking into the managements offices to look for the head of the secret cult or conspiracy.

The guests are very disruptive and nothing gets done. Profits begin to fall.

Then, if they don't come up with it themselves, have one of the NPC staff come up with a great idea: "What if you made a mystery for the guests to solve?"

Make your player characters GM for your NPC's.

Bonus points if they make the final treasure a mirror.

This isn't exactly an advice question, but still.

I'd like a list of all the cool uses of alter self forms out there.

Whatever you got, I wanna see it.

Someone made one recently and posted it to the boards. Link is in this thread:

for more details the Fey is the Fairy queen from Hungry are the Dead who I have made much more important. the 'quest' is to in 4 months stop a war between the Lumber Consortium and the Fey people. If war happens the people of Andoran will suffer and a nation like Taldor will take advantage of Andorans weakened state and reclaim what they think is theirs. the party had a meeting with the Fairy Queen and they were to bring a representative of the Lumber Consortium for what should have a peaceful talk but thing happened. the representative refused to go after a group of rouge Fey attacked the town and the party still made him attend. they brought him to the meeting unconscious. When he refused to talk until the Fey paid him for damages and turned his back on the Fey Queen she feebleminded him. all but one party member was silent and listened as she explained the war she is having trouble containing. she needs to meet with the actual leaders of the Lumber Consortium and they are to arrange it. the player in question was very verbal aggressive and got in the face of the Fey Queen. roleplaying really matters in my campaign. and she bumped up to Royalty and there will be more powerful people later. this isn't an easy quest so I want to reward the party and she will get the group reward because the Fey isn't hostile to her but the individual rewards each of which I am creating custom per play is what I am not sure about. if I give her a redemption quest I have no idea what it would be. I think that is everything

It sounds like she set a precedent for the punishment for rude behavior: Feeblemind.

NPC's, the ones with names, usually have a good deal of background to them and time put into them. It's difficult to get this across to some players at the best of times. Cheapening the NPC's by making several named ones with less details doesn't make for a well written story, and adding nameless mook NPC's takes away from the narrative weight of the BBEG / NPC.

More importantly, the writers cannot know what your party makeup is. The encounters as written may need adjustments by the GM or reinforcements to fit your party, but the well written NPC's usually don't need much more thinking for their motivations and goals etc.

I prefer to have a well written AP with a final showdown with a nuanced and complicated NPC that can struggle with optimized builds or a full party.

... we're rusty as hell towards D20 rules in general and PF has seen us crash learning for 2 weeks now, we're constantly updating our command of the rules.

I'd recommend starting at level 6 or lower to help learn all the rules before jumping up to 12. At 12 builds are getting fairly complex as characters can have a decent amount of feat chains finished. From the damage levels posted, I'm assuming not many of them have any special builds or tricks in mind when they made their characters. Time and experience and reading some guides and books will bring the others up to at LEAST the level of the fighter.

The group felt the 2H Ftr was game breaking, while I didn't.

That amount of damage isn't gamebreaking. I've seen higher damage from level 9 characters. Your fighter has a fairly straightforward build and he hit a lot of the good feats for 2-handers and a decent archetype. It's more that the rest of your party is sub-optimized.

Re: Monk ... I confess, a number of the design elements of the class aren't as obvious to me such as making him a 3/4 BAB class seems inconsistent when compared to Paladins/Rangers.

But, when the monk flurries, his BAB is his monk level, not his actual BAB. Check that you're calculating flurry with the correct bonus.

RE: Gunslingers.

Something's not right here. Gunslingers should be doing a LOT more damage than that.

RE: Spellcasters

There's a trait to help with metamagic by lowering it's level increase. I think it's magical lineage? I forget the name. If all your sorcerer wants to do is blast, it's a good choice for their staple blast. Also, metamagic rods will cost a lot, but be great for conserving their higher level spell slots. You don't HAVE to be a treantmonk style caster.
They can also buff their damage in other ways. Dominate person on a troll or other giant type works fine, and then you can equip them with the parties spare loot and magic weapons.

Re: Rogue. I have never seen a reliable rogue damage build. Look into Ninja instead if you want reliable sneak attack damage via the invisible blade ninja trick. Even then, it's not perfect and no sneak attack = pathetic damage.

How intelligent are we talking here? It could make a lab and attempt to build itself better rat bodies.

Maybe experiment on some were-rats? Either trying to adapt itself to learn the power of opposable thumbs and humanoid frames, or modify the were rats to get rid of the humanoid taint.

I had a similar thing in a campaign once, except it had a separate main body (a gelatinous cube who absorbs the minds of those it eats.) Obsessed with evolving beyond it's current state, it tried developing armored rat swarm bodies, among it's other experiments.

Some dungeon decoration ideas:
Rat's tend to shred and gather crap for nests or just as part of scavenging, so add some torn small items, papers, cloth etc. to your box text maybe?

Maybe it reads from multiple pages at once (with a single rat at each page) after tearing the binding out of a book.

Goblins ate my post earlier :( Here's draft two.

Wrath casters lose Abjuration and Conjuration, so you're down a lot of defensive and control abilities. You should grab a few illusions and enchantments to compensate.

Dominate person(5), to flip a few giants from their side to yours.

Haste(3), to buff your allies (including flipped giants.)

Fly(3) / Overland flight(5) to keep out of melee.

Greater invis(4) to prevent giants from hitting you with rocks after you fireball them. A wand of vanish(1) at CL 2 or 3 will help you conserver higher level spell slots during less important fights.

Mirror image(2) will prevent a lot of hits.

Spectral hand(2) will help you land touch spells at range like Curse.

Bestow Curse(4) will lower enemy saves to help you hit with save or die/suck spells.

Phantasmal killer(5) will kill a lot of things, especially with lowered saves.

Disintegrate (6) is a great non-evocation attack.

Eyebite (6) is also fun.

There's a lot of other great spells, so don't be afraid to crack open the spell list and read a while.

Daylight.

That's a darakhul (greater ghoul) spell (Originally from the Imperial Gazetteer), from a society that's mostly underground. The spell works on the surface, during the day, but if the target is outside in the daylight, then they'll have no DR benefit from the spell.

Or if someone casts daylight, that would negate the DR.

-Ben.

Nifty :)

Page 184, Heavy Burden, "If this penalty reduces movement to zero, targets can no longer take move actions, use items, or cast spells with material components, though they can defend flat-footed."

What does it mean to defend flat footed? Are they able to defend themselves as if they were not flat footed? Are they flat footed? Can they defend themselves only from flat footed opponents?

Page 184, Heavy Chains. "If hit, the target is staggered and entangled, and it can no longer take move actions, use items, or cast spells with material components, though it can defend flat-footed."

Similar wording.

Page 194, Ivory Flesh. "Your skin becomes as pure, lustrous, and hard as ivory. You gain DR 5/daylight."

Daylight?
I checked the necrophagy section as well and couldn't find anything about daylight weapons. Does this spell not function in daylight?

Page ??? Can't find anti paladin spell 'living visage.' Listed in necrophagy section, page 54, but not in the anti paladin spell list on page 80 or in the new spells section. Looks like it should be on page 201 between Litany of sure steel and lizardbane.

Also, is this an appropriate thread to bring up balance concerns? If not, is there already one, or where would the appropriate sub forum be? Ioun strike (page 193) seems far too good for it's level.

You missed my point. Goblins as a whole are considered to be up to no good. In most campaign settings you can kill them, and not even get in legal trouble. Most players know this so they wont ask questions. That is why I said if the GM is running things so monsters step outside of the normal alignment he should let it be known up front, and no information was given on this "good" tribe according to the OP.

This. Goblins being evil is an understood part of the campaign setting. In this case, it's the players who are deceived by the GM changing the setting, even more so than the NPC spouting lies. If you're running a campaign setting where goblins are NOT always evil, this is something you should make sure your players are well aware of before the game.

Further, if the characters live in this world, they should be aware that goblins are not always evil. They should have at the least gotten an unasked for sense motive check to realise the goblins weren't evil.

It'd be like changing every traffic lights stop color to green in a modern setting. Then punishing a PC who gets in a traffic accident because he didn't look up the traffic rules before taking his character driving.

I'm personally in favor of having there be no direct consequences from the portal.
Of course, if the player is spending that much time there, he is likely to be mistaken for the next corpse to be animated :)

If this is what your players do at level 1... what are you going to have for them at level 10 or 15?

Maybe I need to up the tension of my early game.

Headband of vast intelligence specced to UMD would give you max ranks in the skill. Might not be the best choice if you already have ranks in it or have a headband you need more.

So excited for this!

Get a scroll of planar binding or two. Then call up some Cerberi.
Dimension door yourself and the Cerberi right next to the drow. Or have the summoner do it.

I could see Cayden bringing the bro code to the masses. He swings by a few influential congregations/adventurers guilds, takes the highest ranking worshippers out for a few brews and explains the code. Rule #1: Thou shalt not be a dick.

Gives his priest a bro-fist and heads out. In my head-canon, the bro-fist is the official formal and informal greeting and parting gesture between Cailien worshippers.

What I really can't see him doing is the usual god schtick of delivering messages through dreams or visions or the classic burning bush stuff.

I guess maybe if it was a dream about going out drinking with him?

If loving Sarenrae is wrong, I don't want to be right!

On a more serious note, my characters are not always very religious, but when they are, they are very devoted.

I don't see a problem with a mortal loving a God, or a God taking a mortal lover. It's not like they can't meet face to face even, given the mortal has access to a high level spellcaster or equipment to help out.

From an rp perspective, I think if one of my characters was interested in their God romantically they'd do works in their God or Goddess's name to gain their attention. Not to mention daily prayer.

For Iomedae, maybe leading an army in the crusade to victory over demons. Dedicate the victory to her. Forge a sword and have it blessed, and have it delivered to her church.

You know, romantic gestures for the modern empowered goddess of the sword. Like giving flowers or chocolate would be for civilians.

There's guidelines in the God's and magic book for what signs to look for if a god or goddess favors the PC.
If they receive favor, they'd then get a modified atonement spell to seek an audience. May Shelyn bless them! Depending on the Deity in question, they might need it.

If you've got that much cash to spare, I'd go for permanent telepathic bonds. You'll need a 13th level arcane caster, or scrolls of permanency cl 13. Total cost would be around 15k per permanent bond or so, depending on if you buy scrolls or hire a caster, but the range is literally limitless.

The budget solution is to get three or four wands of message, 375gp each.

Sadly, message does not work in potion form to my understanding. Or at least, it only lets you send messages to yourself. It's range is also severely limited.

You could use planar binding or planar ally to call up a messenger. Many outsiders, even low hit die weak (Read, cheap) ones, have greater teleport and can carry letters etc. A lot of those are also messengers on their home planes, so running messages for mortals wouldn't be too much of a stretch, especially if your goals align.

Personally, I don't think I'd buy action figures. I already have mini's.

Stoked for this. I'm thinking a Thundercat character or team will be thematically appropriate for this.

HO!

This is legal, as far as rules go.

You could bring it up with your GM, or with the other player? That's the best advice I can give you.

If you bring it up with your GM, he or she can do a lot to curb the excesses. Ask about who exactly he's selling these masterwork items to? A GM can make a market flood if he likes. Maybe suggest people stop buying the characters items once he reaches a certain percentage above expected WBL.

If you bring it up with the player, let them know that their cheap spell combo is cutting into your fun, and ask if they'd consider retiring the strategy.

... there was a feat (I believe) high up the tree that made it so any attack against you that failed provoked an Attack of Opportunity...

Now I'm looking to create an NPC who works about the same way.

I know of two ways to build for this, though neither works exactly like the one you mentioned. There might be more I'm not aware of.

The first is the Duelist prestige class. At the 5th level of the class, it gains an ability called riposte which lets you attack once when you successfully use the parry ability gained on the 2nd level of the class. I think the earliest you can get that is level 11, due to the class requirements, unless I miscounted somewhere.

The second is the Crane Riposte feat. It's part of the crane style feat chain, so there's a lot of feat requirements. It works similarly to the duelists riposte, but the crane style parry is an auto-succeed. It can be taken by level 8 if you have enough feats.

Both abilities are a bit more complicated than my brief summary, so you should read up on them before committing to building your character towards them. They also require a good deal of investment in feats.

As I understand it, the 'God' wizard play style isn't the type that breaks games. It's the type that preps flexible controlling spells, powerful buff spells, and debuffs that apply to many occasions, as coined in treantmonks guide, right?

First off, the 'God' label is pretty clearly tongue in cheek, just like the 'big dumb fighter.' As I understand it, it's called that more to illustrate how good the author thinks it is compared to the other play styles he mentions and an overview of it's manipulative and team focused aspects, as opposed to being an accurate assessment of it's in game power level.
So, despite the pretentious label, it's not a guide about how to use your spells become an invincible and immortal king of your own demiplane, smiting your foes in moments with unfathomable power.

Instead, this kind of play style is very team focused. Team focused characters are pretty game friendly in my experience.

A problem wizard would be a play style based around trivializing encounters, while only facing the ones they want. Like using a teleport spell to move the McGuffin into outer space, or flooding an underground dungeon instead of clearing it. A wizard is also capable of avoiding a lot of challenges they aren't currently capable of facing, and coming back later, better equipped.

Or worse, trivializing other players by usurping their roles and bypassing challenges where they could shine.

To me, that's a much more disruptive play style, and not one that buff/control type wizards usually use.

Keeping dispel magic/greater dispel magic in a ring of counter spelling could help a lot.

Personally, I would house rule that it works as a suppression. Maybe for longer than the usual 1d4 rounds... 1d4+3 ?

It's kind of funny. The rules on scribing scrolls don't say anything about not being able to scribe the divine version of a spell into your wizard's spellbook.

RAI it isn't allowed, but I find the RAW funny.

I'm fairly sure it isn't allowed by RAW either.

Adding Spells to a Wizard's Spellbook

Wizards can add new spells to their spellbooks through several methods.
A wizard can only learn new spells that belong to the wizard spell lists.
Spells Gained at a New Level
Spells Copied from Another's Spellbook or a Scroll
Independent Research

Emphasis mine.

Scribing scrolls is actually a completely separate process from adding spells into a spell book despite the similarities. Even if you can scribe a scroll of a cleric spell by means of having cleric levels, you still can't record the spell in your wizard spell book by means of that feat.

As far as I know there's no way to to add a divine spell to a wizards spell book, not even the Samsaran alternate racial trait can do that.

I know the MT share spells ability requires a one level bump in the spell level slot, but does that mean it goes into he book as a higher level spell? Even with that requirement the higher level spells will be cheaper than buying a scroll for it.

It doesn't go into the spell book at all. It just gets prepared into the spell slot during spell preparation.

If you look at it another way, your cleric spell list acts similarly to a spellbook for your wizard slots, only all spells prepare one level higher. There isn't an actual spell book though, only the usual process to prepare divine spells.

Haste is an excellent spell. I consider it a 'must have' in almost all cases. It would still be great as a 4th level spell, though it wouldn't be quite as nice. I'm not sure if I'd consider it a 'must have' as a 4th level spell or not. It would at least have some competition at that level.

My players destroyed several questionable items in the second module, and I don't think they're behind Wealth by level. There will be other Loot to be had. I would give them some roleplaying XP for deciding against being murder hobo's, and slip an extra wondrous item or two in the next loot pile.

How about alignments of the enemies? Would smite evil get much use?

There are enemies to smite, but I wouldn't expect to smite every fight. Overall, I would say less evil to smite than average, but not so little that paladin is a poor choice for the module, especially considering everything else it brings to the table.

How about room for mounts? If I go mammoth rider would there be charge lanes?

I summoned large or huge size monsters in most fights. Not sure which size a mammoth is, but I think it should be available most of the time. Definitely not all the time though.

For charge lanes, that depends too much on both enemy and ally positioning, so I couldn't say for sure. I wouldn't recommend against a charging character based on what I know about the module.

This doesn't sound like a fun game to play in.

My advice: if these things are spoiling your fun, don't play in it.

No more so than it usually is. Evocation or shadow evocation and conjuration will do just fine. My wizard was a conjuration specialist.

This is one of my favorite modules, so get ready for a long post.

I'm not sure the module can be completed in one night, but it's a worthy goal. We took between 22 and 30 hours of game time to finish it (not at one stretch.) Of course, we're not the fastest players around. If you want to finish it in one night, you'll need to skip a lot of encounters, which is a shame. There's some very cool stuff.

Without giving spoilers to any specific parts of the module it's hard to give good advice, but I'll try.

Make your characters fast, especially in initiative. Matches begin face to face in the arena so it's important to get going right out of the gate because the enemy knows exactly where you are and are not surprised. Ranged attacks or movement speed is also important: our melee ranger had trouble being relevant despite a powerfully built character because the rest of the party went before her and were high damage ranged attackers to boot. Often, opponents that she could have full attacked next round were killed before she got a chance.

I think high damage classes are the way to go in this module. Our main attackers were very high DPR builds.

Bring lots of buffs, this is a combat heavy module.

I played a wizard, and often left many spell slots open at the beginning of the day. This tactic was more effective in this module than usual because often you can find out or be told sufficient information about the next encounter in enough time to prepare the perfect spell. At one point I won an entire match with a single, perfect spell.
If I had to do it over, I'd add the fast study arcane discovery to increase that advantage. In addition to that I'd pop a level 4 to 6 summon monster spell almost every fight to help diffuse incoming damage.
Have you ever wondered if some mook monk can stunning fist a Rhinocerous? I found the answer to be 'nope.'

The module wasn't too hard for us, though that's partially because we were too far ahead of wealth by level due to excessive use of crafting feats. I think we'd have still done ok if we'd had less gear. The extra challenge would have been appreciated. The GM was also inexperienced and there were a few times he shouldn't have stuck by the book listed tactics.

That's all boring mechanical stuff though. You asked about having a good drunken time: here's the characters in our party who had the most fun:

Pinky, our Tiefling Gunslinger, spent the entire tournament with a drink in hand. Some matches he held the drink the entire time. He was an affable, if often condescending, drunk. He had a slightly tipsy comment for every situation. The crowd loved it, and his player had a great time.

Luna, our Ninja, was an archer. She had a lot of fun talking with all the NPC's and had a very effective build in combat.

I played Kira, the Wizard! There's only one thing better than freeing a galley full of slaves, rescuing a princess, and saving a kingdom from annihilation: Getting paid obscene amounts of money for doing it! Kira, Wizard of the sixth circle, saw the tournaments prize as a secondary goal to the tournament. Primarily, she was there to impress prospective clients with her phenomenal magic power, and that of her adventuring companions. The heroes with the most offers for employment, after all, are the ones who get paid the most.

I scribed 10 scrolls of major image, and prepped the spell quite often, for the express purpose of amazing the crowd. I also used planar binding to call a 4 member Azata band to do pro wrestling style intro's for our team; one Lillend and 3 Lyrakiens. Each team member had a theme song. When not telling anyone who would listen about the amazing Kira, the Wizard! and her team, the Azata's watched other matches for us to report on future opponents' fighting styles and equipment.

This is still my absolute favorite character I have ever played. I'm reusing her for a council of thieves AP, though it's Much harder to showboat around in council of thieves, and so far our game has not led Kira to very much money.

If I could re-do the module I'd prepare more showboaty spells for the crowd. Probably ignore anything that didn't have an area of effect or something clearly visible. I'd also make up some taglines or one liners to spout off with her spells.

Actually, I might do that for council of thieves anyway.

I am planning on being a control wizard/hellknight signifier and see benefits for both summoner's charm and shift. On the one hand summoner's charm will allow me to control the field better but I am not only going to use summoning spells. On the other hand the teleportation subschool allows me to teleport starting at first level, allowing me to circumvent traps and escape from enemies. Between the two which do you prefer, any suggestion woud be helpful.

Fortunately, you don't have to choose between those two! The teleportation school specialty gives both shift and the summoners charm school powers at first level. It's the Acid Dart power from conjuration that is dropped.

It's one of the better schools to specialize in.

RedEric wrote:

How many action points did you get? I'm hoping to avoid them using hero points offensively by limiting availability.

4e had the concept of "milestones". Upon reaching certain milestones your character would gain an "action point". You could only have a certain number of action points available, based on your level as I recall. So this encouraged using your action points so that you could restore it upon your next milestone.

Also, GMs could hand out action points as rewards.

An action point in 4e allowed you to take another action in your round. 4e is based on the idea that you can do three actions per round, one standard action, one move action and one minor action. A minor can replace a move and a move can replace a standard.

So with an action point you could take two standard actions.

Now, some powers allowed you to attack with a move or a minor action.

So you could, with some planning, get four actions, each of which allowed you to make an attack. Some of those actions could be multiple attacks on their own.

I think the best I ever managed to get with an action point was to use a daily power that allowed me to do up to five attacks as a standard action, an encounter that allowed me to do up to three attacks, a move action that gave one attack and a minor action that gave one attack. So that was ten attacks in one round.

And, of course, I would plan for that to happen after getting as buffed as I possibly could.

With all ten hits the damage output I could pull off was just silly.

As I recall it, my ranger killed a Beholder Tyrant in one round, before the Beholder even got a chance to act.

Oh, to more directly answer your question, you regained an action point at least after every extended rest. You could get more during the day by reaching milestones. But you could only use one per round.

Ok, wow. That is a LOT more than I'm planning on giving, so I think I'm safe for now.

Similarly, if you ran up to an Elven archmage and pee'd on his robe... you might not end up dead, but the char certainly wouldn't be playable by the end of it. Poorly thought out plans and ideas I... I won't say I punish them, but I will say I do not forgive them.

We had a player sneak all the way up a lighthouse where evil cultists were enacting a ritual. This rogue carefully weighed her options, and decided to try to delay the ritual. She slowly snuck forward... lit a tindertwig... splashed some lamp oil... and set one of the cultists robes on fire, from 5 feet away. The other three captured her nearly immediately. She did not survive the night.

Her next replacement character lasted only two encounters before he climbed into the mouth of a monster.

I killed her zen archer who decided to delay initiative to get one last shot in before retreating while the rest of the party was running away. This was after a hilarious comedy of errors and fudging in players favor, the last straw so to speak for that encounter. Thrown poop was involved. Not their finest hour.

My main problem with 4e action points was that I actually planned combat around them. My ranger was pretty well optimized already and when a well-planned action point round was taken the amount of damage he could do was just insane.

With a little bit of planning and effort I was able to cram a crazy number of attacks into a single round, and do so while under buffs that pretty much meant I missed only on a 1, and even then I had ways to reroll if I did roll a 1, so I really only missed if I rolled two 1s in a row.

In fact it was so crazy that in some cases the entire table just basically watched to see if I could set yet another damage record in this particular attack.

And I usually did.

The problem was that I actually found those rounds quite boring. I rolled a ton of dice and generally managed to either outright kill the BBEG or else damage him so severely that he was dead by the next round anyway.

Hero points seem to me to provide that same ability. If our group used them, I'd plan entire attack tactics around them.

How many action points did you get? I'm hoping to avoid them using hero points offensively by limiting availability.

You had a Darwin then.

Both deaths are fully OK in my book. First one is choosing a dangerous action and suffering the consequences. Second one is choosing a fragile build and suffering the consequences. Both are teaching tools for the players so that they can enjoy their next character even more.

The first one was done in character. The barbarian was raging at the time, and wasn't interested in waiting to kill his foes. The wizard had just tried to destroy his war hammer, and needed to be squished for the insult post-haste.

The player accepted the death as a natural consequence of his bad decision.

Later that week, the player killed my PC in the game he was GMing. Not sure if coincidence...

The second death would have been a lot of damage for any caster of that level. She's a cleric with 9 con. Her max HP is only 34.

Are you sure the fall was going to kill him?

I had a similar case last night when the 3rd level fighter walked into a pit trap. I was worried the 60ft drop might kill him but rolled honestly. The character ended up alive but very upset.

100% Sure. The 6d6 initial took them down to 7 HP. The 8d6 falling would have done 37 more damage on top of that.

If hero points allow you to do the same thing as fudging rolls without fudging rolls, then they are essentially codifying GM die fudging into the rules. Which explains why I've avoided using them.

I'm all for the team being able to overcome obstacles. But pulling out a "hero point" to Harry Potter the problem into insignificance is not really my idea of "solving" a problem.

I think the advantage is Hero points have more strictly codified rules than GM fudging. Whenever I fudged things myself, I wasn't sure just how far to go to help out or not. Having the options listed for hero points should help. It also lets me set hard limits on how many they get.

I'm planning on giving them only one point for each volume of the AP, instead of 1 per level. I might replace a point once a volume, but only if they've already used theirs, so no one can have two at once.

Also, it also gives the sense that the GM will NOT fudge the dice to save anyone. The players have a number of 'get out of jail free' cards, and that if they run out they have to be extra careful.

This is more the feel I'm going to be shooting for with the hero points. Like kicking the game up to hard mode, or a 'Sh*t just got real' moment.

Only, instead of 'a number' of them, it's just one.

Previously, I've been against having hero points in general. We had a shadowrun game where the GM gave us a pool of 1 to 3 extra dice we could use at almost any test or roll. It was almost like having a second edge pool that could only be used to add to dice pools.

For those who haven't played shadowrun, they weren't quite the same as hero points are in pathfinder. It was more like having a pool of 5-15 to add to a d20 roll at any point, refilled each session.

That game was on easy street, and I was bored a lot during combat because we could throw those extra dice in to dodge attacks at any moment, and if we used them all up there was more to be had next week.

By limiting the hero points much more severely, I'm hoping to avoid that easy mode.

Honestly, the hero points might be more for me than the players though; I think I might just end up backsliding and fudging rolls and rules in the players favor if I don't give them the points.

Thanks for all the constructive responses guys =)

The input is much appreciated.

I'll discuss this with my group before making any decisions, but my thought in general is that I am too soft and need to give them less fudging.
If they also think I'm too soft, I'll do my best not to fudge anymore.

If not, I think I'll switch from open fudging like that to hero points. That way they can still have a measure of safety, but instead of it being me making an exception to save them, they are doing it on their own.

This trap did seem a bit overpowered. It was a huge object dropped onto the PC's who were on a small platform. +15 to attack, for 6d6 damage, followed by a dc 15 reflex to avoid being knocked off, for a 60-80 foot drop. With the fall included, It did enough damage to kill the PC in question twice over; the PC had a very low CON score.

Leaving out most of the specifics, there was a trap followed by a long fall, and a long fall would have killed the PC in question.

I allowed another character to make two saves in a row in order to pop off a levitation spell before the first one hit the ground, as an immediate action.

This is the PC's second character this campaign, the first died crawling through a fire in order to take an AoO so he could then attack someone the following round.

The players second character has been much more cautious.

I've killed one other PC as well. But it's also not the first time I've fudged the rules in the PC's favor to save them from being killed, and combined with this chapter of the AP generally being easier than the first chapter, I'm worried that the PC's will grow complacent.

Or worse; bored.

Part of the reason I allowed the save was because the dice HATED the PC all night.

Thoughts?

One thing first, it seems like your paladin and ranger are underpowered.
The rogue doesn't seem overpowered except when paired with the rest of the party, especially the wizard.

For the way they countered invis, how did they find the invisible creatures to glitterdust them in the first place?

If magic is available, Summon monster 3 for dire bats, which have blindsense. Then glitterdust, faerie fire, or summon swarm on the location where the invisible person is being attacked. Wind wall is a pretty decent spell to stop archery, though not infallible. Most casters I've seen are prepared for invisible opponents.

Cloudkill and Fireball don't care if you're invisible, and most casters they're up against should have greater invis available as well.

For non caster counters, it's much harder. Maybe the boss has a potion of invisibility himself. Rogues can't sneak attack you when you're invisible.

Take cover. You can't be shot at when you are totally covered behind a wall or something.

Oil of darkness on a rock will get it dim enough for a concealment miss chance.

Smoke sticks.

A few people already mentioned guard dogs.

Malag mentioned improved uncanny dodge. It is the ultimate anti sneak attack ability. It doesn't care if you're invisible, flanking, or in the surprise round. Even all at once is fine.

Throw more combats a day at them so they run out of greater invisibilities.

Greater invis also runs out very fast, a number of rounds equal to wizards CL. With careful use of cover, movement, smokescreens, etc. you can run it out.

One other thing, you mention that you are playing a campaign where the PC's get to set their own pace. I question this; surely, by the time they have hit level 8, some of the PC's targets have heard of them by now and should be proactive? If not, I think you should revisit this aspect of the campaign somehow. Even in a sandbox game, there should be something that prevents the PC's from doing as they please. Maybe a goal with a time limit?

You said it's modified kingmaker, so I assume there's a kingdom they're working in, with, or ruling. There should be some threat to the kingdom that they have a limited time to counter.

Do you think I am being too restrictive by making a GP cost to making a new character?

While the wealth by level guidelines are important, it's not expected or needed to follow them precisely 100% of the time. It's perfectly fine to leave them down by a level for a session or 5, though I wouldn't put them at wealth values more than one level lower. I think you've found a good way to discourage rampant character swapping in starting them below normal gear.

I would also tailor some loot for their characters after a few (no less than 3, no more than 10) sessions to bring them closer to par.

I'm not sure whether or not to make this explicit to your players.

On the one hand, you could be straightforward: For instance, telling them that if they stick with a character for once you will drop loot that is good for those characters. You can discuss what kind of items they want with them and see about making a compromise.

On the other hand, being manipulative might really hit the primate gambling instinct we all have HARD:
Drop a really good item... for the character they just abandoned. Tell them you had planned that a session or two back, after they did something impressive, and must have forgotten to remove it from the loot description.

If none of that works, you'll have to put your foot down and tell them flat out to stop swapping characters so much. 2 to 3 sessions is ridiculously too often.

Got my shipping notification this morning! Actually, due to an internet outage on reapers end, and a server having a brain fault, I received my notification 236 times. Better than not receiving it at all though!

Kickstarter Sophie x1
Owlbear x1
Klocke Classics x1
Fire Giant Warriors x1
Starter Set 2 x1
Undead Paint Set x1
Starter Paint Set x1
Frost Giants x1
Fire Giants x1
vampire x2
11 items total.

My only regret is not getting more things, and forgetting to trade out the second Sophie.

Not sure if I'll get this delivered before the 4th of July holiday, tracking number won't be active until UPS picks up the package tonight. Chances are slim, but I remain hopeful. It would be awesome to have the 4th holiday to unbox and paint stuff.

492 mini's will make one hell of a picture.

Your skills look pretty good, I wouldn't put any more feats into skill focus or whatnots. You stand a good chance of finding most traps already. I'd spend the points in knowledge local. It's a great skill.

If you really want to stand out as the trap finding guy though, you might want to get a couple items for trapfinding:
There's a +5 perception item, the Lens of Detection.
Add some glasses for disable device, the Goggles of Minute Seeing

Ask your party members to chip in for some of it. 6kGP total for both items is very reasonable for the benefit, your party should be willing to put up half of that at least. Added bonus, the lens can be used when searching for hidden rooms and looking for tracks as well.

If they won't chip in, don't pick them up, and have the other party members check the doors for traps by trying to open it after you do your first trap check.

Let your players relax and get back on the investigation after dealing with the fall-out. They don't need another ambush after the one they just had.

For one, Underbridge is a large area. Perception check should be required to notice the figures falling.

For two, I doubt X spends all her time waiting for people to jump off the bridge so she can swoop down and attack them. She's presumably busy with scouting out for proper victims.

Fall-out. :)

The quick runner's shirt is definitely a bargain at it's base price. However, melee combatants could use the buff relative to ranged attackers or casters as long as it's only occasional.
I'd only allow it in my campaigns with a house rule that switching shirts couldn't let you use one twice a day or more, or similar to the 'warming' period mentioned above.

A continuous shirt is too overpowered for normal campaigns.

Knowing how your own feats work is the players responsibility at our table. If a player needs help understanding something complicated like crafting, he or she can ask for it. For a cohort, it should still be the players responsibility. There's a bit of debate over the DC of the item in question above, but honestly the player should have checked the DC and worked through exactly that debate before crafting started. Your player should never have had his cohort begin crafting without an explicit understanding of the crafting project.

That said, crafting rules are hard and that's a LOT of money. I can understand a player being upset.

The other issue is if a character knows when they're in over their head in the crafting process or not. I think a character should be aware that they are taking a risk on such a difficult process when there's such a huge chance of failure.

In general, I don't like to give my players explicit numbers they need to succeed on for skill checks, but I will give them a general estimate, like 'You don't think you can make the 30 foot jump' or 'You can probably make the climb eventually. You doubt you'll fall, anyway.'

Maybe the cohort should have talked to the main PC and tell them they 'Don't think I can hack it, boss, sorry.' Unless there's an in character reason they wouldn't tell the PC? Like they thought they'd be fired or dumped or abandoned by the PC if they didn't follow orders?

My advice is to let the cohort re-use half of the materials wasted making the cursed item as a compromise in the misunderstanding, and have the player read and understand the crafting rules before their cohorts next crafting project. Your player does seem to be having a bit of a snit, which certainly isn't behavior to reward, so letting the other half of the cash be wasted is still a consequence.