Screaming-Flea's page

i like these ideas. Some solid advice here. Thanks Devilkiller.

OK I'm wrong about WBL. I didn't have the book there to check.

The 'super powers' thing you have restricted so we can 'grow into them'.
I'm more like a 1/3 dragon. Breath water, swim faster, +1 natural armor, and spit a line of acid 3 times a day for 3d6 (DC 14 reflex). While these are nice to have, they don't seem to be very useful against most of the things we encounter.

I don't know what the lycanthrope/rogue/cleric of Cayden has for 'super powers' other than everyone smells like 'pork' and some DR (?)/silver.
His best power is changing water into beer so far.

The small silver dragon usually does nothing in fights anymore because he is heavily outgunned by everything and the wizard doesn't want him to die. He used to be quite useful many levels ago but this doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

I don't know, maybe we aren't as good at this game as you think we are Blake.

Oops that was supposed to be 180,000 gold not 18,000.

Hi guys, I play the fighter in Blake's game. One of the things that seems to have been overlooked here is that we are about 1/2 the WBL at this point. We are about 60,000 gold per character and should be around 18,000 gold?
This is because we weren't advancing with XP but story award. After we finished Occipitus chapter we were 10th level. Blake had us bump up our PC's to 12th level. Then plane shifting (heading home) we were 'intercepted' and plunked down in this rather lethal place. So our resources aren't quite up to par either.

Maybe we might consider this from a slightly different point of view.
The paladin's god. This entity is lawful good right? This includes good not just law. Good to me would mean understanding and compassionate and forgiving of minor slights against the code. As long as the problem gets fixed and the code is upheld in the end.

The paladin was going to leave the ravaged town with all townsfolk seemingly lost. Out of resources, this battle seemed lost before it began. Returning later ready for the battle to smite the evil and seek just vengence for the town. If I were playing this paladin I might even make reparations to the town (gold and time helping to rebuild) or any survivors/ next of kin.

IMHO an acceptable outcome.

You could view this as an opportunity. You could shift the focus of the game the characters are involved in more in line with what they want to play. Shift the plot into the background. Have things they are doing get interrupted occasionally with plot related things. If enough of their plans get interrupted, they may decide to take care of the irritation themselves and do something about it.

I think that describing things is an important step. You need to paint a picture with words from the environment to the actions of the baddies. Also keep the pace brisk if at all possible. Don't let things get bogged down in numbers.

In one encounter I ran the party was fighting some giants in the courtyard of a ruined keep. When the 'biggest' giant swung his huge club and missed the cleric I didn't just roll dice and say he missed. I said he swings his huge club with all his might and struck the ground next to you with a loud KA-WHUMP and you get showered with dust and pebbles. A small crater left in the ground where he hit.

If done right, this tends to inspire the others at the table to do the same and collectively the combat (as well as everything else) is more exciting. I recently played in a game and the DM was making an effort to do this. We encountered some bandits and I found myself describing the actions of my PC in combat as well as taunting the bandit leader after rolling a critical, slaying a bandit with one hit. I described this as stepping into his guard putting him off balance while reversing the grip on my sword. Raising it up and stabbing down between his neck and collarbone. Looking into his dying eyes I said "You chose poorly this day."

OK e-mail sent. :)

What day are you wanting to play on? Me and a friend are looking for a game. He lives in Sandy and I live in SLC.
BTW welcome to Utah. :)

try looking at it from the reverse point of view. A 7 int is 3 points off of average right? So how smart do you play a 13 int?

Almost every PC has had a close call with oblivion at one time or another but no deaths so far. I'm actually surprised my character is still alive. I'm the party's rogue and despite my +13 perception and +16 disable device I've had rotten luck on traps. I've set off far more traps than I've found by about 8 to 1. My DM laughingly says he almost feels bad for me with his bad rolls whenever I'm checking for traps. (he rolls behind a screen so I'm never sure that there is a trap or not)

I'm sure if this trend doesn't change I'll have a rogue R.I.P. XD

There's an ongoing subscription? Wow. 4 years of play 3 days a week? Our group plays once a week. I'm not sure I want to commit to a lifetime of gaming in one dungeon. ;^)
I was worried about playing the same character for a long time but if it's that deadly maybe I won't have to worry too much after all.

Anyone? Bueller.....Bueller?

First off please NO SPOILERS! Or if you must, be kind and put them in a spoiler button.

My group just started this mega dungeon a few weeks ago. We have 2 veteran players, 2 players that have been playing maybe 2 years and 2 new players. We have been going at a snails pace opening every door, checking every room and hall for traps and secret doors. And doing our best to mess with every oddity we find. At this rate it feels like it'll take a decade before we find the temple of Orcus we are looking for.

I'm just curious if anyone has finished this monster and how long it took.
-Also is it really as deadly as advertised? One of the first things our DM did was show the group the pages and pages of space in the back of the tome for obituaries of PC's.

thanks for your input.

-Flea

Basic D&D <> weekend before summer vacation '81 <> 13
human magic user-thief made it to 3rd level before getting creamed by ogers. XD

As a starting point for me when I GM, I ask myself what would I like to do or see as a player. What would I think is cool or fun to do as a player in this game. It seems to be a good starting point for me. This is just a step 1. The next step (maybe the more important one) is getting feedback from the players on what they would like to do and what they think will be fun. Once you have a solid idea in your head about what you and the players want in the game it's easier to enjoy the game together.

-Flea

I noticed there was a lack of "facts" about how the violent crimes rate spikes every year in cities hosting other 'con' events during the time they are being held. This article reminds me of others from the 70's and 80's and the witch hunt mentality of D&D. Now it's "violent video games" instead of RPG's. Sadly, some people will read this not knowing better and believe it.

-Flea

Several years ago, with my old group, we played at my place. I had a rather mischievous cat that occasionally liked to pilfer dice when players weren't paying attention. One day we had to stop the fight for a few minutes because a player couldn't find his d20. We were looking under the couch and table and pulled the cushions off the couch. We were just lifting the couch up to get a better look under when we heard a distinct clatter of a die rolling across the hard floor in the kitchen. Then came her famous battle cry '...mew!' and the sound of the missing die rolling again.
Probably not that uncommon for cat owners out there but it had us laughing afterword.

-Flea

A few years back I had a pair of NPC's that were hired mercs. The PC's ran into them in several different places during the campaign. One was a half orc named Blood and the other was an ogre named Guts.
The third time the party ran into them at a mountain pass inn, one of the players said "Man, we see Blood and Guts everywhere."

-Flea

How about terrain? Can the dragon fly out of the thrown range? Does he have mooks to occupy the alchemist with? How about spells and like powers to grant miss chances?

I'm certain it will be an excellent game when finally released but at this point I've lost interest in it. When Blizzard gets around to it I may buy it or not, I don't know. I loved Diablo and D-II but I have other things to take up my time than wait for a decade for a game. =(

Could someone else hold onto the sword? Someone with a better will save?

You may want to keep the damage the same as other 'cantrip' spells. Doing 1d3 instead of 1d4 (like ray o' frost) with the +1 per two levels. Keeps it a little more balanced with other spell damage for that level of spell.

Or you could keep it as written and have her character find a unique spellbook with the spell in it (or something) she could learn. Something to make her character different and unique from other wizards in your game.

It's always fun when you have something that sets your character apart.

Or she's checking to make sure her belt matches her shoes.

To maintain the wealth by level, things should be sold at half price. However the wealth by level is only a guideline. If you feel OK with allowing things to be sold for more in your game, that's fine.
In my game, I've had my PC's are able to sell things for 60% to 75% of value with certain merchants they have helped before.

Just be aware that you need to keep a close watch on the characters wealth because they can amass a large amount of money quickly and buy better and more powerful magic items earlier with more money available.
This can have a ripple effect through the game and make encounters with monsters easier than you thought they would be.

I put a unique staff into a game. The staff as it's only power could cast light on command. However it had three slots that you could insert three wands or rods into and be able to use them through the staff. I thought having three wands at the ready would be pretty cool.
What made it 'useless' was the wizard who ended up with it never once used it. It ended up at the bottom of a bag of holding. *sigh*

I had a hooded lantern with a tiny fire elemental inside. It could be commanded to 'flare' to increase the light intensity and radius for a short time. When the lantern was opened the elemental could be commanded to light all the light sources in an area, darting from candle to candle or torch sconce and fireplace. The party found it in a wizards library where there were hundreds of candles and a fireplace.
They used it once to light some oil thrown on a troll. Good times.

I think the problem you are having is there is no written and defined rule for 'high fantasy'. It's what you and your group decide is fun.

If that entails powerful characters of fantastical races (dwarves, catfolk or angelic bloodline elves or whatever) wielding the mighty macguffin of worldsaving and saving the world...a lot, then that is how to run 'high fantasy' for you.

My advice is not to get bogged down in the rules.
They are just a tool to help expedite your imagination into form to share with your friends.

This is what I believe also. The traveling PCs gain the extraplanar subtype but the outsiders subtype remains the same and therefore subject to the bane (outsider) weapon bonuses. Even though the PCs are on the outsider's home plane.

If we (the PCs) are now the 'outsiders' when traveling to other planes, then the denizens that are native to those outer planes become what?
Instead of evil (outsider) they are evil (native) on their home plane?
I didn't see a 'native' option on the bane categories list in the CRB.

Hmmm.... I may have been mistaken on what the weapon actually is. We had a discussion about the bane quality on outer planes and it was my assumption that the staff's magical ability is what was being discussed.
I am not the user of the weapon but it's my hope that the player will post on this thread to clarify about the staff's abilities (as explained by our DM). I told him about the thread today in the hopes he will join the discussion.

Even if I am wrong about the staff's powers, I'm glad I posted this thread. It's been interesting to see the individual points of view from a rather diverse player base. :)

I think it's a bane vs. outsider (demons) staff enchanted on both ends. It's from the Shackled City APG. It's a named item though I can't think of it now.

Our group has a weapon of +2 Bane vs. Outsider and have recently traveled to a layer of the Abyss. We were informed by our GM in a fight that the weapon's Bane quality won't work on this plane because this is the demons home plane and they are not considered 'outsiders' here.

I thought this ruling of the bane quality may be in error so I did a little research. I could not find either support nor denial of this ruling.
Under bane it says:
'A bane weapon excels against certain foes. Against a designated foe, the weapon's enhancement bonus is +2 better than it's actual bonus.It also deals an extra 2d6 points damage against the foe.'

The only thing I could find for defining an outsider was in the Bestiary.
Under Outsider is says:
'Unlike most living creatures an outsider does not have a dual nature - it's soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no soul is set loose.'
Also under outsider:
'An outsider is at least partially composed of the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the material plane.'

Am I missing something? Does a bane vs. outsider weapon loose it usefulness on outer planes? Or should they retain their quality for those who travel to the outer planes?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Anyone else use the Wobblejack? I think it's a hoot though i don't use it too much because you'll loose treasure.

Also speaking of Lydia, I've had random townies follow me into my house in Whiterun and Lydia upstairs said 'I hope you aren't going to cause trouble.' Then they turn and leave out the door. Funny.

just thought I'd share

http://m.valleynewslive.com/valleynews/db_271559/contentdetail.htm?contentg uid=4ARdvDyD

Congrats to the creaters of a great game!

Thou shalt not show up to a role playing game and never talk to anyone unless it's dice roll info. Then when the GM tries to engage him in a role playing situation he says 'No, I don't want to.'

-Flea

In an AP I was playing in last year I had a dwarf tin can shield and axe fighter. In one fight I found myself (quite suddenly) at the bottem of a 30 foot pit. I was mowing through the meatsacks in front to get to the archers plinking away at me from down the hall. I charged down the hall and down I went. That was where I stayed until the end of the fight.

Tank removed from the fight. :)

-Flea

Back in the day I was the Dm most of the time and had a friend that had a very quirky d20. It was a cheap brown one. You know the kind that the edges would round off with some use.

This die would roll a lot of 20s. This would have bothered me if it didn't roll just as many 1s. My friend loved using that die for years.
I even liked him using it because it brought an element of chaos to the table. In one game the final fight vs. the BBEG of the adventure came down to his character (an archer from dragon mag.) alone against a demon prince. Everyone else was dead or unconsious. He was down to his last few HP and so was the Prince. The AC was pretty high (or low in those days) and he needed a 17+ to hit.

It came down to this one die roll or it was all over. Yes he rolled a 20 and killed the evil prince and saved the party. That was one of the few times that everyone actually cheered when the die stopped rolling. :D

That die met it's end one day when it came up with four 1s in a row in another important battle. He took a hammer to it on the back porch stepps. Inside it had two big bubbles.

RIP 'Stinky' the die.

-Flea

First a little background- our party consists of 4 PCs and 1 DMPC from a player that had to recently drop out of the game. 2 of the players are new to Pathfinder and tabletop RPGs and 2 are old hands at it.

We are exploring this dungeon looking for a missing paladin. We entered a 50'x50' room with what turned out to be 3 green haggs. While most of us close for combat our wizard (one of the new players) stays his distance to throw spells. Now he recently aquired a new spell he has been wanting to try out...mad monkeys he called it.

The monkeys appear around two of the haggs and two of the party members (a dual rapier weilding rogue and a swordsage). On the dual weilding rogue's turn he rolls and said he missed with his primary weapon and scored a possible crit with the off hand.

DM:'You started your turn in the monkeys so they get a dissarm attempt.'

...DM rolls to beat CMD...

DM:'Looks like the monkeys dissarmed a weapon!'

...DM rolls to see which one...

DM:'Your off hand weapon is torn from your grip.'

ROGUE:' This IS NOT helping!'

WIZARD:'Sorry. New spell. Not doing quite what I thought it would.'
(sheepish grin)

-Flea

Be carefull not to go overboard on the 'loveable' factor or you might have the opposite effect and everyone hating him.
AKA: the Jar-Jar effect

Hate. That. Guy.

-Flea

My group plays about 5 hours or maybe a little longer depending on how quickly we get settled in for the game. We average 2-3 combats per session if they are fairly short. Last week we had a pretty big fight with 4 hill giants and a fire giant that took a little over 3 hours and 12 rounds. It would have lasted longer but my character scored a lucky crit on an AoO with my great axe, as the fire giant tried to rush past me to clobber our wizard. (He made him angry with electrical sphere spells.) Currently we are five 8th level PCs in this AP.

I think our GM thinks fights are too easy if we finish a fight faster than 6 rounds or so. We have alot of fights lasting 10+ rounds and a few lasting over 20 rounds so far. Although we have only had two character deaths so far, mine (a fighter) and an oracle. If we have a big battle (20 or so rounds) that usually takes up the lions share of the available time to play and is the only combat of the day. The rest is filled in with RPing, bookeeping, invesigating ect.

-Flea

Ok I have one:
The guy that creates his PC with a computer creation program and does not understand what anything means. When the GM asks about something
(most anything) the player says 'I don't know. It's how the computer made it.' Then the game stops for several minutes while people figure out whatever is in question or reverse engineer the character.

I think until you have a good understanding of the rules and how a character works don't rely on your laptop to make the character.

-Flea

P.S. thanks for the education on a 'weaboo'. :)

What's a 'weaboo' ?

OK, on with the thread-

Back in the mid '80s our group got a call from 2 friends that lived across town inviting us to come over and play DnD for the day. The 5 of us pile in my girlfriends car and head over to their house. After the 20 minute drive we get there and they tell us that they got a call saying there is a great game of Champions at a friend of theirs going on and they invited us to go play.
None of us had played Champions before and they said no problem. They'll help us create characters and we'll go over to their place around the corner. We spend about an hour doing character generation and getting a quick rules brief.

We all made some cool superheroes and was off to the new place. Being a fan of Wolverine that was who I made my toon like (sort of). The point buy system for a beginning hero wasn't much so I ended up with a guy a little stronger and faster with metal claws and an increased healing rate somewhat better than average. The others were a tech monkey with a laser gun, flying girl with a 'light saber', a guy that grew to 15' tall with a hammer and I forgot the other one.

We get to this apartment and it has 12 people in it already. 10 playing and 2 GMs. There was no room anywhere so we sat on the floor next to the door. One of the GMs comes over, looks at our toons and says that we'll be a team and we heard there was a huge fight happening in Phoenix AZ. so we travel there to help *in our superhero van*. She leaves and we sit there listening to the other people doing this huge fight for 45 minutes. GM #2 comes over to us and tells us we are on the freeway heading into the downtown area when we get attacked by 2 baddies and our van blows up. The tech monkey and the other guy that I've forgotten were killed outright.The others were able to escape. The flying girl goes after a flying baddie that blew up the van and gets hit by an energy attack. Not killed but bound for the hospital in a coma. I go after the other baddie in a mech suit and he is much faster than me and kicks me -boom- coma and hospital bound.
The only one to live that first encounter was giant guy who ended up growing big and walking to town. When he got there, there was another giant guy that was 50' tall and had somekind of energy blast.

We found out that these guy had been playing this game for months and we were like first levels dropped into a 20th level game.

Good times (after we left and went to play DnD back home)

-Flea

Steak 'n Shake? Never heard of 'em, but then again I live on planet Utah.
I've been to 5 guys and In and Out burger. 5 guys is better for me because I can get grilled onion and green pepper on my burger.
Yummm!

-Flea

I was playing Borderlands on the PS network on Tuesday with a friend and said it would be cool to see a "Moxxie costume" done by someone.
These costumes are TOTALLY AWSOME!!!!

Great job!

-Flea

My mom knew that I played DnD with a couple of friends but didn't know much about it other than stuff read in the newspaper. I don't think she was really OK with it but didn't stop me from playing. After watching the movie E.T., on the drive home from the theater I said in the scene at the beginning the kids were playing DnD. The next week my mom said that we could use the kitchen table to play if we wanted. She hung around and watched for a while. She even asked a couple of questions about stuff (like what an orc was) in the game and thought the dice were neat.

After that she never had a problem with it. A few years later when the Monster Manual 2 was released she bought it for me for Christmas. :)

When I was a sophmore in high school in '84, I had a friend who wanted to learn how to play. He came over after school and I let him use one of my characters and ran an encounter for him. He had a blast and wanted to play next time our group did. I let him borrow my players handbook to read that night to pick a class and race and he'd return it to me the next day at school.
The next day he returned the book and said that his parents saw it and took it away saying it was 'devil worship' and he was not to play.
He played for about 4 months on the 'down low' until he was cought. His mom saw the character sheet and dice I gave him in his room.He was grounded for a month. :(

-Flea

In my old gameing group we used a large dry erase board for encounters and loved it for the random danger of poorly placed area of effect spells like fireball or entangle. I had the players 'eyeball' where they wanted to center the spell, put a dot on the board and then I would get the ruler and measure the area of effect. Lots of times there would be a friend or two caught in the effect. Makes for a more natural feel than the world being a chess board and everyone moving about straight line for three squares then a diagonal square to the right.

-Flea

From 1981 to 2003 I was GMing for the most part, a weekly game. The same group of people for the majority of the time. It pretty much ran the gambit from ADnD (and all the changes in editions), Robotech, Twilight 2000, Marvel Superheros, Star Wars ect. I was DM/GM 90% of the time and got to be a player only rarely. And never more than 3-4 sessions in a row.

I took a break for a few years then got back into gameing about four years ago. Now I get to play more than GM which I am enjoying alot.

I think I initially read posts as a GM but now that I'm playing more, look at posts through a players perspective as well.

-Flea

This is not a question about the summoner class and eidelon.

Let me explain what happened. My PCs were in the middle of a fairly harry fight against 2 babus and a heruzog. One of the babus was able to summon a third babu to the fight. Four rounds later the summoning babu was killed. One of the players (who is also a DM) thought the summoned babu would poof as well and I thought the summoned one would finish out the remaning 3 rounds of the summoning before poofing away.

The game came to a stop while we all opened books. After a few minutes
no one could find a definative rule so I made a judgement call. I ruled that the babu would stay until the spell duration expired.

So was this the correct call on how summoning spells/abilities work?

Thanks for the input

-Flea