RoryNearAustin's page

A) Get a different group.

OR

B) Adjust freaking greatly to compensate for their lack of size.
They don't tell you or each other their names, so each is a lone wolf, therefore you become the same (no aid other, no save other, nothing but self buffs, any and everything that you can find is yours by right of boosting it into your backpack without them noticing).
OOC them without mercy as they seem to enjoy doing so (one-ups-manship, it's not just a thing, it's an entire lifestyle choice for this band.)
Don't hesitate to aid mobs in slaughtering them (they'd do the same to you so by the rules of NN alignment, it's just self defense).

Obviously, A is less stressful than B, yet B can provide a lot of laughs if you're the kind of person who relishes revenge on dummies.

In response to the situations described:

1. Yep, something else would be more generally used, so you were correct. It's the same advice I'd have given as another player. IF you want to though, just go ask if they're satisfied with what they picked and explain options for retraining if not.

2. Tell them you're the producer but they're the directors of their own characters. You make sure the story continues, they deal with their characters lines, actions, and choreography within the provided stage.

3. I'd seriously enjoy having a verbatim or two players. The opposite is WAY more of a problem when handing out info as a GM. IF it bothers you though, don't think of it as Odd, think of it as respecting your delivery skills and them not wanting to leave out crucial clues which you may or may not have given. IF you still want that to stop, rattle out a ton of info so that they have to summarize (unless they have perfect auditory recall, in which case they probably don't have a choice about reciting it as said).

ALL OF THE ABOVE SHOULD BE USED SPARINGLY!
The objective is to have occassional but significant occurrences of hidden passages that the spell fails against. When the villain escapes via the tapestry in the example above, it adds time for them to get farther away while the players check out the various sections of the throne room (LOTS of time if they rely only on the spell because it worked everywhere else but here it's Different).

For ambushes planned from secret doors:

Place a secret door on the floor with the opening mechanism only available from the monsters' under-floor side.
Place the door on the ceiling and equip it as above.
Place a lot of secret doors with complex and SLOW opening processes (hand cranking up a 1500 pound hidden portcullis is going to use up at least one casting by anyone under level 6 and a slow opening hydraulic door is quiet and may not even go anywhere but to a 10x10 room with a gelatinous cube the residents let out once a week for tunnel cleaning.)

Miscellaneous secret door things:

Per the spell, "Only passages, doors, or openings that have been specifically constructed to escape detection are detected", so if you want secret doors that aren't detected, just hide the door / passage / opening AFTER it is constructed. Examples: Put a large bockcase in front of an open passageway that requires dragging out of the way (perception will notice the drag marks, detect secret doors won't find anything). Hang a tapestry in front of a doorway that can be swung aside and pulled back from within (Perception or Knowledge Engineering to note the odd mountings supporting the tapestry). Re-route the river to put a bloody waterfall in front of the portcullis (not only do they have to find it, they have to crank it open while taking 1d4 non-lethal damage AND making Fortitude saves vs hypothermia from the barely above freezing mountain waters).
Put the passage underwater. It isn't detectable by the spell because it's just in an odd and out of sight location (it's not a secret, merely a hassle to notice or navigate).

This seems to have generated excellent advice. Among the best:

Multiple head bad guys, not just one. Economy of action will prevent killing everything at once, thus spreading the action about.
Don't try to secretly nerf his damage. That's cheesy and beneath someone such as yourself (if that was something you'd be inclined to do, then you wouldn't be here asking for advice).

Since I haven't read everything, I'll just throw in some of my own suggestions and hopefully some of it will be unique/new:

..........
Individual Experience Bonus Awards, MAX of one category per character-
+10% for spectacular defeat of monster with CR 3+ above group
+10% for exceptional difficulty skill challenge (trap, diplomacy, etc.)
+10% for out of box thinking (maneuver villain vs greater evil, etc.)
+10% for Most Valuable TEAM Player (healer, buffer, assist other, etc.)
No rewards mandatory, just available, award by group vote.

Include monsters, villains, and situations where combat leads to failure (hostages, fanatics who suicide bomb if defeated, objective is to ally the current enemy rather than conquer them, etc.)

Missions where an NPC noble/overseer/house representative/whatever is in charge of the group and to succeed in the quest the players have to toe the line as the NPC decides when to engage in combat, when to use ONLY non-lethal force, when to withdraw, when to take prisoners and not kill anyone, and all for political / secret reasons that the players are not permitted to know, all the while needing to keep the NPC alive, well, and satisfied with their performance.
..........

If you want to play with all of these folks AND you want to expand your comfort zone in GM'ing, this is a good opportunity to get really creative, but if you keep viewing it as an issue only, then you're shooting yourself in the foot right before the march starts, so just grin a bit and expect some challenges (fantasy matches life, who knew?).

This Cleric is NOT following the path of his Deity since their portfolio includes HONESTY. Sarenrae would disavow and reject him until his values match hers.
As for the player's claims, NO, this is NOT for the greater good at all, it is only for the win regardless of cost. Presenting a path to mental and emotional control through organized religion (or organized anything) is raw and moral-neutral LAW. The clerics alignment should shift to Lawful Neutral OR to Lawful Evil if his first choice is still torture (LN will use torture as needed, LE leads with torture and tries questioning afterwards)
There doesn't seem, to me at least, to be any grey area here. Smite him with the reality of the world he lives in and the Deities who live there and let him decide if he wants to change and atone or let him petition a new god for acceptance. (Note: LOTS of Lawful gods will NOT accept a cleric who has already shown their inability to remain faithful, so role play out any petitioning and make the Cleric earn either redemption from Sarenrae or acceptance from a more Lawful Deity.)

All of the above assume a setting such as you describe is LARGE enough to count as a small city, so the military post would be at a major intersection of caravan routes or a choke point (mountain pass, only bridge over major river, etc.) to invaders / mistrusted neighboring kingdom. In such cases a military installation / fort often allows family to stay at the post and from there a settlement springs up (families need housing, extra food, entertainment, luxury items, etc.).

Some alternate ideas for getting the party to the circus:

A) Grandmaster of a Trading House in the city the circus is about to visit suspects rival merchant house of using Circus as method for smuggling goods in without paying tariffs, thus allowing the rival house to undercut her House's prices, and wants the characters to investigate.
If the investigations show this to be true any of the following may apply depending upon the alignment and personality of the Grandmaster and the laws and overall nature of the city (as assigned by you):
Quietly stop the smuggling (discourage those responsible)
Brutally stop the smuggling (flagrantly eliminate those responsible)
Gather proof of the operation (blackmail rival house with info)
Gather proof of the operation (expose rival house to authorities)
Eliminate rival house members involved (allows takeover of operation)
Confiscate smuggled goods (turn in to authorities)
Appropriate / steal smuggled goods (turn in to her house)

B) Young member of local noble house missing, suspected to have run off to join circus but search of circus revealed nothing. Top advisor to noble house convinced missing individual is there but has no legal method to investigate further. Secretly meets with party (while disguised to avoid involving house), pays them to use whatever means needed to kidnap missing person without harming them and return them). Pays generously if successfull, hires assassin to eliminate party if not.

C) Adventurers Relatives (Parents, Siblings, Aunts & Uncles) are buried with work (ruling/farming/whatever) and need the Adventurers to take their kids (the Adventurers siblings / nephews & neices / cousins / etc.) to the circus. When they do, one of the kids sneaks away, sees something they shouldn't, and ends up missing.
OR: Adventurer's Relative frantically needs their help after one of their kids ends up missing (parent may or may not know the kid snuck off to see the circus). Police will not assist without any evidence of foul play, Adventurers have to investigate or kid is Gone.

In case any of your players read these, would you like them sent directly to you instead of put here?

Where should I send the sheet? And do you mind a LOT of abbreviations? :)

I have a character I'd like to play: Xharz, (chawful trait) NN Unchained Monk, Variant Multiclass Bard, seventh-son of a seventh-son (no game effect, just fluffy) "Human" (actually an Asura-spawn with Pass for Human and no knowledge of his ancestry). I did assign him the umbral shadow disad, giving him a four-armed shadow that doesn't match his actions and is rather creepy (he thinks is some sort of curse rather than any sort of reflection on his true nature, but he's unwilling to get rid of it because divinations have said that it is part of why he has Darkvision).

Thoughts & such?