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I just realized that I forgot to add what the background does.

You are the victim of a personal or hereditary curse. Through great effort and occult study, you have learned to fend off the curse's worst effects and, by extension, you can protect yourself against other harmful magic. However, the curse still hangs over you and sometimes manifests in dangerous ways.

Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Intelligence or Charisma, and one is a free ability boost.

You are trained in Occultism and Curse Lore. You gain the Warding Sign reaction. You and the GM should determine the full effects of the curse, though you've staved most of them off for now. The GM determines the curse's lingering manifestations on you, which usually include at least a constant or very frequent thematic effect and occasional more dangerous effects.

Warding Sign (Concentrate); Frequency once per minute; Trigger You attempt a saving throw against a magical effect, but you haven't rolled yet; Effect You call on the power of a personal, eldritch sign of protection, which flares brightly before slowly fading. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to the triggering saving throw, or a +3 circumstance bonus if the effect is a curse.

I'm going to be running the Malevolence module and one of the players will be taking the Cursed background. They are playing a Human Investigator. I was thinking of having them be heir that inherits the mansion and tying their curse to the events that happened. My idea was something along the lines of the character's grandmother was Ioseff's sister got away and ever since the mansion stuff happened, her and her descendents have been hearing whispers that try to push them to learn more about the secrets of space. However, I don't know what to do with that mechanically. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do with this or for a different curse?

*facepalms* You're right about the HD. I used the CR by mistake instead of HD which comes out to 21 for Teraktinus and Longtooth. As far as the other stone giants now that I'm talking about it, I remember now that there was 1 "point" left over and the player wanted to use a random villager that died in the raid (which got instantly vetoed by the others). The other stone giant was one of the PCs Wildshaped as a Stone Giant (I forget the name, he's some kind of giant Druid archetype)

I've been rolling for Perception for everyone they've encountered and so far the dice have been in their favor each time. Funnily enough, the only one that passed the check so far was Conna.

Your explanations for everyone's tactics really helps put it all in perspective. Thanks for that. It gives me some ideas for how to work this. I'm definitely excited to see how they do and how far they can take this. They sometimes come up with really weird solutions to some of the problems in the campaign.

The party came up with a clever way of sneaking into Jorgenfist. After the raid on Sandpoint, one of the players decided to use Flesh Puppet Horde to zombify Longtooth, Terakinus, and 1 or 2 other stone giant grunts. After they found out about the invasion and Jorgenfist, they decided to use the zombies and pretend that Terakinus is returning with some of his crew and some new recruits (the rest of the party) with the stone. They managed to use this tactic to get into underground part and met with Conna. That's where the session left off. For the next session, I figured their trick will work on the guard to get to the library floor, but I'm not sure how to handle it after that. Would the guards down there give them treat them as intruders or as friendlies? From my understanding, Mokmurian's people are allowed down there, but don't go because it's dangerous. This kind of leads me to think that everyone but Mokmurian and maybe the lamias are treated as intruders, but I'm not sure.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I'm hoping you guys can help me with creating monster.

Here's a little backstory first. I'm DMing an AP and a few sessions ago, the party entered a bathroom on the second floor of a house that was "trapped". The floor was so rotten that the additional weight of a medium creature for a 3 rounds was enough to cause the floor to give and drop the player/s and bathtub into the bathroom directly below it on the first floor. The trap got triggered and the bathtub fell. The party had never checked the bathroom on the first floor before going to the second floor. In the bathtub on the first floor was supposed to be a diseased rat, but since they checked it after the incident with the upstairs bathroom, I determined that the upstairs bathtub fell on the first one and crushed the rat. When the party checked the bathroom and saw what happened, the druid in the party said something about it being the circle of life or the way of nature. Somebody responded with "Yes, the natural predator of the rat is the bathtub". This evolved into a set of jokes from everyone about how bathtubs are the apex predator of the wild and they're known to climb trees to drop on their unsuspecting prey and how there are different varieties, like the Jaquezei, which is a fire type. This gave me the idea of creating a bathtub monster to toss at them at some point when they're travelling.

I haven't sat down and tried to make this yet and I've never created a custom monster before. Does anyone have any helpful tips for creating a monster or ideas on some neat abilities to give the dreaded bathtub?

I'm hoping you guys can help me with creating monster.

Here's a little backstory first. I'm DMing an AP and a few sessions ago, the party entered a bathroom on the second floor of a house that was "trapped". The floor was so rotten that the additional weight of a medium creature for a 3 rounds was enough to cause the floor to give and drop the player/s and bathtub into the bathroom directly below it on the first floor. The trap got triggered and the bathtub fell. The party had never checked the bathroom on the first floor before going to the second floor. In the bathtub on the first floor was supposed to be a diseased rat, but since they checked it after the incident with the upstairs bathroom, I determined that the upstairs bathtub fell on the first one and crushed the rat. When the party checked the bathroom and saw what happened, the druid in the party said something about it being the circle of life or the way of nature. Somebody responded with "Yes, the natural predator of the rat is the bathtub". This evolved into a set of jokes from everyone about how bathtubs are the apex predator of the wild and they're known to climb trees to drop on their unsuspecting prey and how there are different varieties, like the Jaquezei, which is a fire type. This gave me the idea of creating a bathtub monster to toss at them at some point when they're travelling.

I haven't sat down and tried to make this yet and I've never created a custom monster before. Does anyone have any helpful tips for creating a monster or ideas on some neat abilities to give the dreaded bathtub?

I have picked two archetypes that are compatible with each other, meaning they don't break the replace/modify rule. My question though is, do they both take effect at level 1 or do I have to take one of them first at level 1 and then add on the other archetype at level 2? Thanks.

I have a player who is a Shadow Dancer and has a Shadow. We're playing Rise of the Reliefs and they are about to fight somebody that has Shadow Evocation. Since the spell uses energy from the Plane of Shadows and the Shadow is an incorporeal from there, would it effect the Shadow any differently? Thanks for an responses.

Thanks a lot. This really helps me get something going.
^__~ b

My party just finished Jorgenfist. When they got to the first lower level they took Conna's advice and went the long way around, so they never met the Lamias or other things on that side. After defeating Mokmurian, they cut off his head and gave it to Conna to use as proof that he was killed for her to get everyone to go home. They then went back to Magnimar for some rest and shopping and came back to do research a few days later. I figured that since it's been a few days, everybody would've cleared out.

I'm wondering though, what should I do with the Lamias and others that were in that side of fort?

Thanks for your replies.

I know that the touch spells I have at level one are awful (and I probably won't use them), but I just want to understand how they should work. I get an ok-ish touch attack from the death domain.

The book infers that simply touching even the armour is a hit, so AC is effectively ignored:

Quote:

When you are the target of a touch attack, your AC doesn't include any armour bonus, shield bonus, or natural armour bonus.

My book says that DEX armour is counted, so I am guessing you count DEX, and it's not a natural AC?

For touch AC, it's the normal AC minus Armor, Shield, and Natural Armor bonuses. So Dex, Deflection, and other things still apply.

Most of my touch spells seem to be 'Will save half', so I suppose I'm never really going to miss with those spells?

You still need to make a touch attack against Touch AC to see if the spell happens and then if a save is involved, they roll for that to see the effect.

The round that they get to the watch tower and start to transform. The stone giant would automatically notice them right?

Hi. I have a few questions about Wind Walk that I'm not sure how to handle. First, here's the description of the spell:

You alter the substance of your body to a cloudlike vapor (as the gaseous form spell) and move through the air, possibly at great speed. You can take other creatures with you, each of which acts independently.

Normally, a wind walker flies at a speed of 10 feet with perfect maneuverability. If desired by the subject, a magical wind wafts a wind walker along at up to 600 feet per round (60 mph) with poor maneuverability. Wind walkers are not invisible but rather appear misty and translucent. If fully clothed in white, they are 80% likely to be mistaken for clouds, fog, vapors, or the like.

A wind walker can regain its physical form as desired and later resume the cloud form. Each change to and from vaporous form takes 5 rounds, which counts toward the duration of the spell (as does any time spent in physical form). As noted above, you can dismiss the spell, and you can even dismiss it for individual wind walkers and not others.

For the last minute of the spell's duration, a wind walker in cloud form automatically descends 60 feet per round (for a total of 600 feet), though it may descend faster if it wishes. This descent serves as a warning that the spell is about to end.

My party is trying to sneak into a fort and decided to use Wind Walk to get there. They're doing it at night to make it harder to be seen. The fort has 4 watch towers with 1 Stone Giant in each. They want to go to each watch tower, transform back to normal form and get a surprise round on the Stone Giant to kill it before it has a chance to raise alarms.

I'm not really sure on how this should be handled. Would the giant automatically notice them in cloud form once they get within 60ft or should it do some kind of perception check? If it needs to do a perception check, would it have to do it when they get there and each round of transformation back to normal?

Also, the description for Gaseous form says that you can't cast spells with verbal components. Does this mean that while in mist form you can't talk?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

>< I feel dumb. It really did not occur to me to not tell them everything about it ^^;

Thanks for the advice.

What about the questions I had about them going about trying to figure out what it is?

I have a party that's on their way to Jorgenfist. Going over the book for the area, I got stuck on the Anathema Archive. I'm still somewhat new and this is the first artifact that I've come across. What would the party need to do to identify what the item is and what it does? I know that Spellcraft is used to figure out what it does, but would that also tell them what it is or give them the full information on it? Should I have them do a Knowledge (History/Arcana) to know what it is specifically?
Then there's also IDing it as an artifact. Would the spellcraft check be enough to them them that?

The last thing I'm wondering is how to go about selling it. There's only one caster in the party and she's a basic cleric with the fire and healing domains. She doesn't really have points in UMD, so it'll be hard for her to cast from the scroll. I'm pretty sure once they find out about the negatives, they won't want to use it and will want to try to sell it. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this?

I have a few questions about how golems work. My understanding of them from the rules is that they are pretty much mindless robots that just follow the orders of their creator. This lead me to a few questions.

1. What happens to the golem if the creator dies without any lingering orders given? Does it just go into a standby mode only responding if attacked?

2. Is there a way to take over control of a golem without it being transferred over to you by the creator? If the above scenario happens and you come across the golem, is there a way to take control of it?

Thanks for the answers. That really helps.

How would enchantments on each end affect the breaking of the weapon? If both ends have a +1, is the entire thing treated as having a +1 or +2?

I've tried searching the boards for answer, but can't find one. How would sundering a double weapon, like an orc double-axe, work?

Ah, that really helps. Thanks for the help.

I have a 7th level half-orc with a +1 orc double axe and the two weapon fighting and improved two weapon fighting feats.
Str = 20 (5)
BAB = 7/2

I'd like some clarification on how the attack would work to make sure I'm doing it ok.

Will a full round attack be 11/11/8/6 (1d8+8)?
11 for the first primary swing.
11 again for the first off-hand swing.
8 for the second primary swing because of a high BAB.
6 for the second off-hand swing because of the -5 from improved two weapon fighting.

I'm also not entirely sure about the damage as well. I'm guessing that since it's a two-handed double weapon, both primary and off-hand attacks get the 1.5xSTR bonus. Don't know if the if the off-hand half STR applies to this.

Thanks for any help ^__~ b

I really like number 4. It gives me some ideas. Won't turning the town against them interfere with them wanting to protect the town?

Hi. I'm a first time GM (first time player in any tabletop RPG for matter). I was looking for some ideas/advice on the Runelords game I'm running. My party is in the Skinsaw Murders portion of Runelords. I ran the Dawn of the Scarlet Sun module shortly after they got to Magnimar (I couldn't resist. There's a cleric of Serenrae in the party and she wanted to visit the abandoned temple and pay her respects). The succubus, Avalexi, survived and got away. I'm not sure on what to do with her now. When would be a good time to bring her back? The party right now is about to head over to the sawmill. Thanks for any help.