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As written, no to both. Deeper Darkness is not Darkness—the “functions as darkness” is rules shorthand. On the other hand, if your GM is nuts enough to let you play a Drow in the first place, you could probably make the case for allowing it to work that way. Also, just as a note, be sure to pick up “see in darkness” somehow, otherwise you’ll be blinding yourself when you turn off the lights.
Just remember the timer on when the target will treat the intimidating character as unfriendly and report the party to the authorities. A party who goes around intimdating everything indiscrimately could end up cooling their heels in a cell. Which brings us to one of the problems with using Intimidate as a social tool in PFS: the GM rarely has the resources (in terms of encounter blocks) or the permission to deploy an appropriate response to PCs threatening the hell out of the locals. Yes, it would be better to include that kind of contingency response in scenarios, but it's not necessarily a good use of page count and developer time. Failing that, it makes sense, I think, to simply declare, as appropriate, that a straightforward use of Intimidate will not achieve the party's objective in particular cases.
Title says it all. Sooo pretty!
I'll often print out a copy of the full map on a standard sized page and reveal it as the party explores the dungeon. When a fight happens, we move to the full-size grid, where I've sketched (or can quickly draw) the battle area. This saves effort and prevents the tedium of moving models every time anybody does anything.
If the items are meant to be legendary, introduce the legends in advance, preferably well before the party stumbles across them. Hopefully, the players will be excited to discover something they've been hearing about since they first started clearing giant rats out of basements. Of course, if you need an adventure hook, you could have them specifically go out looking for the items. The legends don't have to be about the items themselves; it would be fun to find gear that once belonged to famous adventurers of old. I know I'd be thrilled to find a cloak with Durvin Gest's nametag sewn into the lining. Another approach would be to slow burn the reveal. It turns out (stop me if you've heard this one) that the simple Ring of Invisibility you've had for years does interesting things if you chuck it into the fireplace. Object reading and similar abilities open up some interesting possibilities in the form of fragmentary impressions you can seed with clues about other mysteries the PCs might be investigating.
I really like the concept behind this item. It could be useful in the hands of a clever player, and it's a bit icky—definitely not something you'd want to wear around the house. I think the design direction you've indicated could use a bit of massaging. For what it's worth, I'll give it a shot. You probably don't want to have the slippery slime effect active all the time. Anyone wearing the slippers would be permanently banished to the back of the marching order, and greasing up the party's backtrail sounds kinda dangerous. You don't want to have to keep constant track of the exact squares the wearer moved through, especially if the trail's duration is short enough that you're also tracking round-by-round slime removal. I suppose a character could get around the problem by changing shoes, if you don't mind the inevitable Mr. Rogers references. How committed are you to the speed reduction aspect of the slippers? It certainly fits the theme of the item, but it also moves it further into joke territory. "They're sluggish! Get it?" Movement speed is important and I wouldn't penalize it lightly. Allowing the item to scale in utility with speed doesn't strike me as a bad idea. So, with all that in mind, here's my quick pass at statting these slimy slippers up. I've added an always-on effect, providing both a benefit and a drawback, and put some limitations on the full-on slime trail. Sluggish Slippers
Three times a day, the wearer can activate the slippers, causing them to spew out copious quantities of slime. The wearer's current square, and any other squares she walks through, are coated in slippery goo, to a total distance of 60 ft. Slimed squares are treated as if affected by Grease. The slime lasts for one minute after the slippers are activated. This ability can only be used while standing on a solid surface.
Any other insecure GMs looking for descriptions of their own games in this thread? Anyway, I'll share a campfire tale of gaming horror. I can't give any backstory, because nothing in the game made any sense whatsoever. We always had the feeling that somehow the story worked in the GM's head, but only he and the voices understood it. For some reason or other, we were on a really long overland journey. We spent a couple of weeks wandering through an endless prairie. Eventually, we hit a really wide river. The GM informed us that our chances of swimming to the far side were nil, it was so wide. We were first, maybe second level and had no magical resources suitable for the task. So, fine, we decided to build a raft. No trees! Anywhere. I'm from Kansas. I know from prairie. If there's a river like that, there are going to be trees around it. Nope. Eventually, we got the GM to admit that we had passed at least one tree a week or so back. Great! We turned around and walked for a week, cut down the lone tree, and hauled it back to the river. We weren't able to make a raft out of it, because reasons, so we lined up along one side of the log and kicked our way across the river. The GM insisted that our plan wouldn't work because we'd get dragged downstream. Of course, we didn't care where we ended up on the far bank (it was apparently also featureless prairie), so we explained about vectors and made our way across. As I recall, we made the trip several times, hauling the stupid log around everywhere we went. Not sure why I stuck the campaign out for more than one session. Probably because it was too fascinating a train wreck to look away from. Eventually, we found a bag of devouring. My character wore it as a hat, hoping it would eat him. The GM never took the hint.
I will absolutely allow a PC to attempt all relevant Knowledge skills on a post-briefing Knowledge check. Knowledge isn't only testing recall, it's testing whether you ever learned something in the first place. Each skill represents a separate expenditure of time and effort (and precious skill points) acquiring information. Maybe I nodded off in History class whilst we were discussing Tar-Baphon's imprisonment, but that doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention in my Geography lesson on the Isle of Terror. Furthermore, there is usually little point in playing coy with those checks. Generally, they're providing context, rather than hints. Context is good, it helps keep scenarios from being "Generic Dungeon #19". In the case of allowing multiple checks to overcome an obstacle, it is not metagaming to attempt various options, insofar as the various skills represent different approaches to the obstacle, all of which are apparent to the characters. For example: I'm faced with a door, secured by a runic puzzle, for which the relevant skills are Linguistics, Knowledge (Engineering) and Disable Device. I have a choice: I can try to suss out the runes, ignore the runes and rely on my expertise in sliding puzzle mechanisms, or I can pull out my tool kit and jimmy the thing. My player knowledge of the three skill choices directly represents my character's understanding of the challenge. Giving me those options is a shorthand description of the situation. As for the example upthread of the dead body and the bugs, would a successful Heal check notice the insects? If not, I would allow a Perception check as well, maybe calling for one automatically if the poor healer had to kneel down in the middle of a swarm to work. Not a Swarm swarm, of course. That would be a Fortitude save.
I put together some handouts for my players before running this last week and chucked them (the handouts, not the players) onto PFSprep: Link The first is a little guide that Poppo drew up to help his Passfinder friends keep track of their quarry's secret identities. They can take notes on it. Or not. The second is a set of broadsheets attributed to the mysterious Printsmith, who needs some introduction prior to Olandil's big reveal. Perhaps the PCs can find them posted here and there as they explore the town?
I'm mostly concerned about the implications of showing up to a game fully charged for abilities that are supposed to soak up daily limit things to be able to do. It negates the daily limitation if you come pre-charged. You could also evade your daily limit by bringing along things like scrolls, wands, and potions. Are spell-storing items so much more efficient, in terms of action or gold economy, as to warrant extra concern?
Pretty sure that when the gods teamed up to imprison Rovagug, there was some serious sacred/profane buff stacking going on. Similar things happen, I suspect, when LN orders of Hellknights or Abadar's Church Militant get stuck in.
AP 113 is showing up under "Paizo-other" rather than in Strange Eons on the My Downloads page. |
