On Saturday I'll be running a session for a party consisting of a 3rd-level cleric, a 3rd-level fighter, and a 3rd-level rogue. A dozen bandits (a 1st-level fighter, a 1st-level rogue, and 10 1st-level warriors) are going to raid the small village that the PCs are in (which only has a watch of 6 1st-level warriors and a 1st-level fighter as a guard captain). I already have a variety of combat encounters worked out, but I do not want the entire session to be hack'n'slash.
I need a few ideas (3 to 5) for skill-based non-combat encounters that can happen during the raid (such as saving a child from a burning building) along with some rough mechanics for them.
Haven't ever had that problem. Occassionaly, when appropriate, some of my player's have had their chracters cry. The most memorable of which was in a campaign where a beholder had just distentigrated the druid brother of the party's barbarian. He had his character spend a couple of rounds dropping to his knees and "weeping hysterically over the ashes," before standing up and destroying every foe in the rest of the dungeon in a fit of revenge.
For a while now I've been working on rules to run an E6 Fallout campaign using 3.5/PF as a base. I'd like to share what I've got so far and would appreciate some feedback. I have yet to finish the Bestiary as well chapters on Action Points, NPC Classes, Random Scavenging, and Vehicles & Maneuvers.
So NY and Chicago are so safe for all that gun control compared to my home town with a murder rate of much less than once a year where many of us keep shotguns in our cars and no one flinches at the sight of a pistol at one's side?
Is your hometown comparable in population and population density to NYC or Chicago?
That's in PF?? I never saw that one. Where is it located?
Massive Damage:
Massive Damage (Optional Rule): If you ever sustain a single attack that deals an amount of damage equal to half your total hit points (minimum 50 points of damage) or more and it doesn't kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. If you take half your total hit points or more in damage from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt more than half your total hit points (minimum 50), the massive damage rule does not apply.
I've been at a table with 13 players (and will never do so again). The DM at the time usually just had a few, very difficult foes, such as 2 dragons at once. It led to some very frustrating situations where people needed to roll very well to do anything at all. Every once in a while he ran an encounter that had hordes of level appropriate mooks with only a few, slightly tougher enemies. These ran much better (even if a round of combat took ages), and was one of the few games I ever got to cast circle of death to great effect. I believe that the DM explained for the well built encounters he simply built an encounter appropriate for 4 to 5 players and tripled the amount of everything, adding templates or increasing levels for only the enemies that it wouldn't make too much sense to have more than one of (such as a BBEG).
You could try a similiar tactic; build encounters for a party of 4 to 5 and merely double everything instead of trying to figure out APL, since you essentially have two parties on the map simaltaneously. At level 1 you shouldn't have to worry about big AoE throwing the numbers off.
The other important thing we learned was to keep things running a speed swifter than a slow crawl people could not constantly be talking over one another and needed to pay attention and know what was happening so things didn't need to be re-explained. This was accomplished after instituting a rule that only the DM could speak anytime he wanted, everyone else could only speak if they were holding a specific item (usually a dice bag that we had on hand). If you wanted to speak you'd raise your hand and get passed the item by whoever currently had it. It worked really well so nobody got drowned out by ambient chatter when they were trying to take their turn in combat or have a discussion with one another or an NPC.
The party had arrived in an isolated, creepy swamp-town ruled by a cruel theocrat of an evil god and reluctantly agreed to do a job for him which required that they trek through untamed wilderness. They asked for some lighter armor since they were mostly wearing medium maror and not only wanted to move faster in an area that already cuts their overland speed but also didn't want to die due to armor check penalties when trying to Climb/Swim their way out of quicksand, so, after succeeding on a Diplomacy check, they were loaned some leather armor by the guards. I had them note that a large symbol of the theocracy had ben scorched into the leather. Not a one of them having ranks in Survival, they hired a local hunter to help them not get lost along their journey.
On their first night around the campfire, the party's cleric asked the hunter what she and her family thought of the theocrat. The hunter stares at the symbol of the theocracy on the cleric's armor and responds, monotone, "We love the theocrat."
Then I hope this hits Netflix soon; I am eager to catch it. Question; is the show a historical drama, a documentary, or an intermingling of the two in the style of the Men Who Built America?
I got rid of cable a while back and was sad that I was going to miss this when I heard about it. I enjoyed Mankind and The Men Who Built America; History had been producing some pretty neat stuff as of late. I might have to pick up the DVDs to catch it when they are released (assuming they are reasonably priced).
Can't believe I forgot this one from a long time ago in an old AD&D game.
The party had finally encountered the BBEG who was bent on conquering the world, as BBEGs are wont to do, and just learned his motivation, deciding to try talking him down before simply attempting to smash his head in.
BBEG: "What better gift for the love of my life than the world itself along with all its splendors?"
The party's resident low Int warrior: "Chocolate?"
BBEG: "Ha! With the power I wield I could force the finest chocolate makers on the planet to craft an entire city out of the most decadent sweets!"
The party's warrior, scratching his head, deep in thought: "...flowers?"
I edited Saxon's fluff to better reflect his traits and feats. I also editted his skill selection, dropping Knowledge (nature & religion) in favor of Knowledge (engineering & history). The updated character and background are both visible in Saxon's profile.
Central Time, GMT -6; I sit in front of a computer 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, so posting a few times a day should be pretty easy for me to do. I run a D&D game on Monday evenings, so on those nights I may be a bit scarce.
Saxon Cynald is a young man of 22. He has shoulder length hair a shade of brown so dark it borders upon black and a tan complexion. He has few, if any, remarkable features, and a face, that while not unpleasant by any means, is easily missed in a crowd and quickly forgotten.
Saxon Cynald is a bit of a recluse and a bookworm. He spends most of his days locked in study to unlock arcane secrets and most of his nights escaping to fictitious fantasy worlds between the pages of a book, taking the odd job here or there to buy more tomes, magical or mundane. Knowing that he has few practical skills aside from a keen grasp of the basics of magic and that he will have to aspire to something someday lest he fester away into insignificance, he has embraced his favor of the school of abjuration and dreams of one day being chosen by a lord to be a court wizard, perhaps that which protects a noble king. Saxon strives ever toward that goal.
Recently the young wizard received word from distant family in Cheliax that his young cousin had shown an aptitude for magic. He readily took a trip to the distant land to collect his kin to see if he could push his abilities further while fostering another's by engaging in mutual study and challenging one another. Unfortunately, it turned out that his cousin had the gift of sorcerer's blood and had little patience or skill in book magic, so Saxon, disappointed, departed for home, leaving his family member behind.
Looks like a nice piece to display in the game room...but I have a couple of cats that would simply love the chance to knock over and break something so pretty.
My 1st printing CRB's spine has completely ripped off and the book is more like a stack of papers. My Bestiary is in a similar state. After such shoddy quality I stopped purchasing Pathfinder books. I can live with PDFs if it means not having my investment fall apart.
I'm in agreement with littlehewy; my 3.5 books also have survived much worse treatment for far longer and are still in much better condition.
Kindle Fire is a good inexpensive option, though the screen is a bit small for reading game books. I believe that they've recently come out with a Kindle Fire with a larger screen, however.
In my homebrew campaign setting, dwarves come from a nation that is an analogue of historical Mexico. Easily my favorite. It all started with this from last year.
You may wish to switch out that darkwood buckler for a regular, masterwork buckler then, since the darkwood buckler isn't actually a buckler, despite its moniker. You can't use the hand using it to use a weapon.
Or... it could be that he is using a buckler made of the special material "darkwood".
Except that the "buckler" is described as a metal shield and thus cannot be made of the special material "darkwood," since "darkwood" objects need to be objects comprised mostly of wood.
Oh I was likely always going to take quick draw. But that combo really did make me lean even more towards it. Right now shield wise I'm just using a darkwood buckler and just taking the -1 on attack rolls to keep using my sword two handed.
So the thing about bucklers is that you don't get their armor bonus in any round that you attack. Just FYI.
I know. I have it in case I decide to go total defense and such.
You may wish to switch out that darkwood buckler for a regular, masterwork buckler then, since the darkwood buckler isn't actually a buckler, despite its moniker. You can't use the hand using it to use a weapon.
Darkwood Buckler:
This nonmagical light wooden shield is made out of darkwood. It has no enhancement bonus, but its construction material makes it lighter than a normal wooden shield. It has no armor check penalty.
I'd love to attend, but none of my friends have both the money and motivation to go (plenty of them with one or the other, though), and given the choice of going alone and adding a nice bit the retirement fund...maybe next year.
I was actually planning on going to GenCon for the first time ever this year. I even managed to scrape up a spare $3K for the experience, but then I broke down an sunk it all into the stock market at the start of the month.
...the PCs find themselves in a remote village ruled by a theocrat to a evil deity (I had campaign traits drawn up for reason why they had recently arrived to such a place). The townsfolk, seemingly legitimately, revere their leader as a hero. In the months preceeding the adventure the town had fallen on hard times. Their food had spoiled and their crops were failing (for whatever reason you feel, if you even care to have one). Few traders traveled far enough for the little coin the town had, so purchasing outside food seemed not an option. But then the lord of the community had apparently found an untapped, ore-rich mine some distance from town after the trouble started and began offering the farmers whose land had fouled lucrative careers mining it. He then used the leftover coin to trade with another village (the name and location of which is unknown to the people) for an abundance of preserved meat which he sold to the poor townspeople at very low prices, drawing praises from his ailing people.
The PCs head to the mine for whatever reason. Perhaps they are hired to deliever a message to a miner who has been gone a while or need to escort a new group of miners overland. Mayber the theocrat sends them to retrieve a shipment of ore. The reason isn't overly important, but a compelling motive is nice (it won't matter for long).
Upon arriving at the designated location, the PCs find a ramshackle mining camp, but are assaulted by kobolds who pour from the entrace. Heading inside after the battle the PCs find that a tribe of kobolds are slaughtering the miners. Evidence throughout the dungeon seems to suggest that there is nothing to mine at the kobold warren and that theocrat made a pact with the tribe to murder the men sent their, eat their fill, preserve the rest, and send it back to him to sell as meat. Depending on their particular personalities from their they can reveal the disturbing truth to the town and do away with the corrupt leadership or perhaps even extort the situation for a cut of the action themselves.
I had it sent in a swamp region so there were "random encounters" with crocodiles and snakes, problems with getting lost, disease to deal with, and other dangers involded, such as banditry, to make the travel to and from the dungeon exiting as well.
We have a GM and 2 players for the group currently, and are looking for 2 more players. Most likely we will be playing through either the Second Darkness adventure path using D&D v3.5 or a homebrew campaign using PF. We are looking at meeting 2 to 4 times a month; short sessions every week on most Monday evenings or longer sessions twice a month on Saturdays.
If you are interested please e-mail me at: mhawkins1116@yahoo.com
As I mentioned, I have 0 experience with Silent Hill, so it didn't really matter what came first to me.
Played my sudoku on my phone for about 10 minutes, got bored, watched the movie. Had a few neat scense, but overall, thought it was lame. I expect not to like most movies I am going to see. They seem that much better when they surprise me. Hasn't happened in a while, though. But, like I said, my fiance is a Silent Hill nut and enjoyed the crap out of it, so maybe it is good for Silent Hill fans, but it wasn't my taste in movies.
