I've not had any trouble with a single AP issue until Sword of Valor. I've got them all from #1 till now and this is the only one that I've had a page fall out of on my initial read through - just flipping through the pages. All the rest of the AP books I have are consistently high quality and have had no issues at all.
Until I experience otherwise I'll figure this is maybe a one-time thing, or at least something that is uncommon, and not worry about it. I wouldn't base my entire buying behavior and place full judgement on such a small occurrence. I think Paizo has earned more than that from me over the past years.
Can a creature be invisible and also have an invisibility purge effect centered on it?
Example: A cleric has his sorcerer friend make him invisible and then casts invisibility purge on himself. Does the cleric become visible or can he remain invisible with the other effect radiating out from him?
I thought this was a good reference article on the various tools out there for different games and campaigns. I'm sure there are more out there, but this is a good place to start.
It would embrace the fact that monsters are built using the same "Legos" that PCs are built out of. The problem is, there's several books of Lego expansions for PCs, but very very few Lego expansions for monsters. THAT'S what this book would be about.
The trickiest hurdle to clear for a book like this is the fact that it's not really a book for players, and that tends to make folks nervous since the perception is that the book would sell much less. I'm not sure that's the case, since Bestiaries aren't player books and they seem to be selling just fine.
It'd pretty much be a crunch-heavy book for GMs, and NOT for players.
As a GM, and as someone who writes and develops lot of adventures... I've always felt these books for other systems are worth their weight in gold. And almost as rare.
I would quickly buy a book on Monsters as James has described.
Awesome! Just wanted to jump in and let you know how much I am enjoying this journal. It sounds like you've got a really good game there. I'm jealous! :)
That said, it's really pretty rewarding and wonderful to see how many people would be interested in seeing the game, and that in and of itself makes me want to step up from the idle tinkering back into the actual design of the game—right...
Add my voice to those who would support you doing this. I realize the contraints you have and only hope that at some point you will be able to tackle this in the manner you want.
The party had fought a grinding battle through the ogres and leaders at Fort Rannick, encountering Lucrecia twice during the early morning assault. She initially was driven off but appeared again with a contingent of ogre reinforcements only to be driven off yet again. The players were hungry to defeat her and were frustrated each time she escaped.
Finally they reached the second floor of the fort and were faced with the final leaders of the ogres. A brutal battle ensued and the party finally claimed victory. Only Lucrecia remained, backed into a corner. Her turn came up. She had one slot remaining for a final dimension door she had saved as her escape. She had done this twice before early in the fight to get away from the party.
She began casting defensively, made her check and was about to disappear and escape to the grounds outside the keep and then away to Hook Mountain. The paladin in the group decided enough was enough - he used a hero point to gain an attack of opportunity even though she had successfully cast defensively. He was already smiting evil against her. The attack was a crit and Lucrecia, who thought she was home free, fell in the end.
The players actually cheered around the table when the paladin's player stated what he wanted to do. As the GM I thought it was a great use of a hero point and was just as excited when it came out so much in the party's favor.
So what I'm hearing is...maybe. Some things might be added in and other things might not me. I don't want to have to go through and reverse engineer all the opponents to see what is added into the stat block or not, but looking through everything it's not always easy to figure out what has been added and what hasn't.
Am I missing something or does that seem accurate enough. I don't think it's a huge deal overall, but it would be nice to know one way or the other.
Not sure if this is addressed anywhere - I couldn't find an answer searching through the boards.
Are the stat blocks in the Anniversary Edition set up as to assume that spell effects are already going as stated in the Tactics section of the NPCs? I just don't want to double up on effects that are already included in the stat blocks (or short my NPCs by not adding in the appropriate modifiers). This would include an NPC that is listed as going into a rage or other characters that have special abilities that will adjust their performance.
Been paging through my pdf for a while now have to say I really like the layout particularly the new up/down direction arrows on the map, the stat block header now including hp, and the much more prominent location ID call outs.
Is this a sign of things to come in the APs or is it just a one shot thing with the anniversary edition?
It COULD be a sign of things to come in future Adventure Paths.
We're already 3 adventures in to Shattered Star, and we didn't want to make any major changes to the Adventure Path layout or look until we started hearing feedback from all the numerous changes in Rise of the Runelords... which just came out.
So... We'll be watching and listening closely to everyone's feedback on things like the stair arrows, the new look of the stat blocks, the big blocky encounter area tags on the map and in the text, and all the rest.
But the EARLIEST we'll be able to graduate the changes that folks end up really liking will be the Reign of Winter Adventure Path, which starts getting laid out in about 4 months, and won't be for sale until next February.
I love the layout. If you're counting votes then mine is firmly on the side of the new layout.
This is standard for the hotels I've worked at. It's usually a fixed amount per day, ie $35 per day at my property. Prepaid cards can act a bit odd on the card company side since we authorize one amount but then final settle for a lower amount.
Also if it's a debit card, the pending authorization can sometimes appear to be a finalized charge instead of just pending. It can take several business days the final amount to appear correctly and despite it being mainly computerized, settlements or credits posted over the weekend usually don't start being processed until monday or monday night.
If you notice a pending charge is still hanging on much past 5 business days, I'd suggest calling the accounting department of the hotel, verifying the final amount they show versus what your online account shows, and if need be asking if they could call your card services number (usually the toll free number on the back of your card). Usually the they can confirm the correct total with your card company and then your card company can release the extra pending or issue a temporary credit until the release goes through on its own. However, some banks or card companies won't even confirm the hotel's own transaction information unless the cardholder is on the line.
+1
This is standard practice for hotels. It is not a hidden charge or anything subversive. It is a verification that you can cover any additional charges above and beyond your room & tax amount. This allows you to have an active telephone in the room to make calls. It allows you to go to the bar and charge your drinks back to your room without any trouble, etc. Without this practice in place you would either have to put a cash deposit down or choose to be on what is commonly called a "cash only" basis. This means that you must pay for anything up front or at the time of service. Hotels have found that the majority of their guests find this too much of an inconvenience and use the authorization of a pre-determined amount per night of stay instead.
In an effort to get my players to pledge something I've told them that I will award their current characters in the campaign we are playing 10 xp per dollar pledged.
Not sure if it will work, but I am not at all above simple bribery!
"Ok game-fans! Due to overwhelming support, Grumpy Frog has made arrangements to get another 20-25 pages of battlemaps, covering 15 or so new locations! These are not tied to any price point or total money raised, EVERYONE GETS THESE IN THE PRODUCT!
In addition, we have 2 new spells, half a dozen more magic items, another new feat (for Pathfinder), and we are expanding the side view of the dungeon levels to TWO PAGES for ease in reading and finding where the levels connect (Grumpy Frog has a hard time reading the tiny print).
So, in addition to the bonuses given out for raising the pledges, we're adding content for free!"
I see that your resurrected Bigfoot Country blog's last post was in late March. Has this one fallen by the wayside like the old one did?
It did sort of fall by the wayside for a bit while I was slammed with work stuff. And after it felt like no one was looking at it, of course... but if folks ARE looking at it, maybe I'll go back to it and do stuff with it...
Understandable with your work load.
Well...I was reading it, that's one at least. But I understand if it's not feasible to do.
Hmm, that's not a question.
If there were only a couple people reading the blog would it be worth it to continue?
Good thoughts - thanks! I think I'll do that and have her head up north to team up with Lucrecia. I really like the idea of conning Kaven into betrayal with the threat of killing his supposed lover. Gives a bit more "bite" to why he does what he does.
As noted - there are spoilers for The Skinsaw Murders as well as possible other adventures in this path. If you are a player please stop reading now.
That said, I am looking for some advice on what steps to take next. Here is the story thus far:
Party consists of:
Paladin of Erastil 5/Bard 1
Rogue 5/Ranger 1
Sorcerer 6
Cleric of Shelyn 6
We have played through almost all of The Skinsaw Murders. The party has learned all about the cult of Norgorber, infiltrated the sawmill in the dead of night while they were performing a sacrificial ritual and defeated the cultists in a knock-down drag-out fight. Ironbriar escaped during the fight and headed to the clocktower in an attempt to meet up with his "love" and warn her of the PCs.
The party had a couple of cultists that they stabilized and harshly questioned. Through the use of some great Intimidate checks and some creative threats using the still-functioning sawmill equipment they were able to get some vague idea that the clocktower played some part of this whole cult business, though they did not get any information about Xanesha.
They took a short time to turn over the living cultists to the city guard (the paladin in the party has already established a relationship with many of the watch captions so they are on good terms with the guards) and then headed straight for the clocktower.
Using fly spells they completely bypassed the interior of the tower and flew to the top, encountering Xanesha berating Ironbriar for cowardice and leading the PCs to her. Combat in the sky around the tower quickly broke out. The party was able to kill Ironbriar and quickly realized they were outmatched with Xanesha. They wisely retreated with his body as evidence of his corruption. Xanesha chose not to pursue.
The party has exposed everything to the city government and been granted limited authority to investigate further. Xanesha quickly moved her lair to an abandoned warehouse in the vicinity of the clocktower as a temporary solution until she can find a more permanent living space. She brought the Scarecrow with her as a guard. Her plan was to call some extra-planar help using some purchased scrolls, but before she could put her plan into action the party was able to track down her new lair and destroy the Scarecrow. They discovered the beginnings of a binding circle that she had started as well as the information on the cult's targets. I also included a letter from Lucrecia providing a link to Turtleback Ferry as mentioned in a thread Lisa Stevens posted a long while ago. Xanesha herself was not at the warehouse when the party stormed it. I had her out gathering the final items she needed to call in some help.
The party has exposed the cult and silenced it for now. The mayor is on their side and has given them half the indicated reward in the module - he is holding out the other half until Xanesha is destroyed and the cult finally put down for good.
The PCs are planning on doing some cursory investigating around town, but feel that their focus is now on Turtleback Ferry and the further threats they have uncovered. They have only seen Xanesha in her humanoid form - they still do not know what she truly is, though they have some hints and think that she is probably a shapechanger of some sort.
SO...after all that...what would Xanesha do? I would like to keep her as an opponent for the group. Another wrench I can throw in the pot is Tsuto. He was arrested in Sandpoint and sent to Magnimar, but Ironbriar got him out and inducted into the cult. The PCs defeated him a second time and put him back in jail. Maybe she can get him out again and really irritate them with him a third time? Hire some mercenaries to shadow them and hunt them on their trip to Turtleback Ferry?
Any ideas or thoughts are welcome at this point. Thanks for reading and for your time!
We may do this as a kickstarter project so we canm print more and get it into distribution. Please let me know your thoughts about this. We could offer premium packages at higher donation amounts--not sure what all would entice folks (a trip to Dallas or PaizoCon with teh Frogs perhaps?).
I'm not a huge fan of kickstarter (the commission disappearing just bugs me for some, not entirely rational reason). However, I have supported a couple of projects and been patron on a few open design books.
What would entice me would be additional material - separate booklet of maps, printed battlemats, booklet of "you see this" illustrations, half a dozen painted figures, etcetera. (not saying any of those things are doable, but those are the sorts of thing that would make me chip in a few hundred extra dollars in advance).
+1 to this. I wouldn't be interested in any sort of travel or something along those lines. But some cool extras like those above I can have at the table that make the game even better would be a huge enticement for me.
IMHO
See Invisible lasts 10 min/level, Glitterdust lasts 1 rnd/lvl...that is the point of SI. Also, with SI you can identify who you are fighting, with GD you only get the outline.
While I agree that see invisibility and glitterdust both remove the miss chance, I've played where see invisibility does not give full details of the opponent. Note what it says near the end of the spell description:
see invisibility wrote:
...such creatures are visible to you as translucent shapes.
The benefit of glitterdust is that everyone in the party can see what is invisible to target it.
I've read through what seems like a billion Spring Attack threads in this forum and found a lot of good information, but not something to answer my question.
Is there anything that prevents a character from ending their movement adjacent to their opponent while Spring Attacking?
I don't see why it wouldn't work, but I'm looking mostly for some sort of consensus. So, a character can start their turn at some point away from their opponent (at least 10 feet to be able to use Spring Attack) and move in without drawing attacks of opportunity, but simply stay next to the opponent to continue attacking in subsequent rounds.
Fine according to the rules as far as I can tell. Anyone say otherwise?
Stuff I would like to see is: "From the Cutting Room Floor." Bits that were cut or stuff authors think would make good additions to AP issues and the Modules.
Totally agree with the OP. I used to go straight to the blog to see what's up. Now.... not so much. Especially when I have to scroll, and scroll, and scroll to get past the infuriating fiction they put on it. There is a "Web Fiction" tab right next to the "Blog" tab. Why not just use that instead of having it as blog filler?
My experience is the opposite. I didn't read the web fiction before, but now that it's a regular blog post I find myself reading it and enjoying it.
In fact, I am planning on picking up Death's Heretic because of the fiction that was posted to the blog, and I would not have bought it otherwise.
I am running the Rise of the Runelords AP and the party has nearly finished the first adventure, Burnt Offerings. I'll spoiler the rest since there may be some spoilers...
Burnt Offerings sub-plot:
The group has attacked Thistletop and encountered Orik and Lyrie fighting together. These two fought a defensive retreat in the complex until Lyrie turned and ran, leaving Orik to his fate. Rain did indeed heal Orik and discovered his story through questioning. She also discovered that he had feelings for Lyrie, but when she was taken captive and also questioned it was clear that she did not return his feelings.
Orik and Lyrie were taken back to Sandpoint as prisoners. The group spoke for Orik and Sherrif Hemlock decided that his crimes could be paid by service to the town. Orik now serves as a provisional town guard, always watched over by a few others to make sure he stays on the straight and narrow path.
Lyrie was unapologetic and has been turned over to Justice Ironbriar in Magnimar for trial and judgement.
I have begun running the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. One of the players has chosen to portray a female elven cleric of Shelyn. Rain, as she is called in the Common Tongue, has taken to wandering around Sandpoint in her off time, chatting with the folk of the town.
In particular she has begun telling the children of the village stories and legends from Shelyn. The player has been sending me these stories in between games as he writes them and I thought it would be fun to post them here. They have nothing to do with the adventure itself, other than the fact that they are great role-playing items and they have helped create a deeper and wider game world for us.
So as he sends me these tales that Rain is passing on to the children of Sandpoint I thought I would share them with the community here as well (with his permission). If they help anyone else's game in any way that would be great, too.
The party is not intent on just burning everything for the fun of burning it. They have cleared out the fortress surface level and are ready to retreat, but know that there is still more underground. They basically wanted to inconvenience whatever is downstairs before they go down themselves just in case that would give them an advantage...either that or possibly make whoever is down there think that the goblins managed to catch their fort on fire so that they wouldn't suspect they are being invaded.
I was thinking that it would be a tough place to burn, especially with the goblin's love of fire. The party basically threw some flammable things into the chief's room and tossed in a couple of alchemist fires and left, so they have not put much effort into the idea at all.
I think that I will have the chief's chambers and probably a little of the surrounding rooms end up as burned out shells, but the walls and roof will remain pretty much intact and the rest of the complex will be fine.
I started my own thread asking this question in the Rise of the Runelords forum, but as the author I'm interested in your opinion.
What are your thoughts on how the fortress atop Thistletop would burn? And what kind of effects do you think it would have on the folks below ground if they were unaware of what was transpiring above?
The goblins have been cleared out and the group I'm running the AP for has decided to retreat for now before going underground, but used some alchemist fire before they left to start some of the wooden fort on fire. That's where we ended the session, so I'm trying to figure out what happens to the structure while they are gone.
The PCs in the group that I am running have reached Thistletop. They've fought through the bramble tunnels, driven Gogmurt back to the keep on the island, infiltrated the goblin home itself and methodically defeated everything above ground. The bugbear even chanced to wander upstairs after the battle and encountered the PCs arguing over how best to transport the rescued horse and recovered treasure chest over the rickety rope bridge.
After a short but brutal fight they killed him as he was trying to get back downstairs for reinforcements. So far no one else downstairs is aware of the destruction of the goblin clan above their heads.
The PCs have decided to move back from the island to rest and lick their wounds. They know that there is more below the keep, but not exactly what, and they are not willing to go down in their weakened state after their day of fighting above ground.
So they have tried to burn the keep. They arranged the furniture abd dirty linens in the chief's bedchamber and used alchemist fire to get it started and then left the fire to its own devices.
So...after all that...do you have any advice for me on the results of this action? Do you think that the whole keep will burn? It's made out of scavenged pieces of wood from shipwrecks and (I assume) the surrounding forest. Being so close to the water and taking into account the area that it is in, do you think the wood is too waterlogged and will only smolder and char or will it burn merrily to the ground?
I can definitely come up with some answers on my own, but I'm looking for ideas to help me flesh the whole event out. What do you think will happen to the keep? What about the folks downstairs? Will they even notice? Will it casue a great disturbance for them and drive them out? Is there a chance that the keep will burn so strong that pieces will float across the water to the mainland and start fires there?
Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Before my question I wanted to say thanks for this thread and your willingness to participate in it. Things such as this are part of the reason I think this company is so good.
So, question.
Are there any rules or guidelines around that you know of that deal with cleansing shrines, temples, etc. I'm running Rise of the Runelords and we've come to the part where
Spoiler:
they have discovered the shrine to Lamashtu below Sandpoint in the first chapter of the AP.
There is a paladin and a cleric in the party and they are both very interested in destroying the shrine, or desecrating it, or something so that any unholy powers it might have are destroyed.
Since you've kind of turned this into your alternate Live Journal do you have any recent movie reviews that you are sitting on? I miss reading your periodic reviews from that old site.
I have dj'd many, many, too many wedding receptions. I hate them. With the burning fires of a million suns, I hate them. Here in the conservative south, most of the time there is no liquor. No one dances except the little kids and sometimes the bride and groom (not every time) and no one is happy with the music selection ("Stop playing that N-word music!", "Yer playin' too much country!", "Yer playing too much rock and roll!", "Why are you playin' that old s***?", ad nauseum.
Sorry. I no longer do the dj thing, thank God. But this thread just stirred up some suppressed feelings lol
Just to let you know they aren't all bad down here, we're in Georgia and made sure that we had an open bar at our wedding, along with lots of dancing and so on. But I know where you are coming from. My wife used to be an events planner specializing in weddings and some of them are just crazy.
On topic, we picked Bon Jovi's slowed down version of "Born to be my Baby" for our wedding...well, I guess I should say my wife picked it, though I'm happy how it turned out. :)
Seeing a LOT of support for epic level play... not just in this thread, but across the boards, and indeed across the internet, or even best, in person at conventions, would help speed such a book along.
I wish I could say it in person at conventions, but that's unfortunately not going to happen.
So, in place of that I will state here that I would be very happy to see a book such as this for post level 20 play. We are just starting the Rise of the Runelords path, and considering the amount of time it takes us to get through these adventures I suspect that we will be nearing the end right around the time this book will come out (assuming it's going to be in about 3-4 years).
I am about to start running RotR using the Pathfinder rules and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on which XP track would work best since it was originally published for 3.5.
Has anyone had any success with one over the other?
I intercepted this e-mail of thoughts from a friend that had some thoughts on the summoner. I've not searched through all these threads to try to pick out the answers - I admit, I'm lazily posting this to see what thoughts are out there on these. Really I'm just trying to get some perspective on what the rules say as well as on what other GMs think is reasonable. Thanks for any thoughts...
•Using your Summon Monster SLA is a standard action that immediately ends any previous use of the SLA. You can use this to squeeze out two full attacks in a single round. Have a previously-summoned monster attack, then take your turn, summon another monster (dismissing the old one) and have that attack too.
•While summoning another monster with your SLA dismisses an old one, that doesn't apply to summoning another monster with your spells. If you keep one or two Summon Monsters in your spell list, you can have multiple summons out at once.
•You can have your Summon Monster SLA and your Eidolon out at the same time. Just use the Summon ability, then take 1 minute to call your Eidolon. (The rules say you can't use your Summon ability while your Eidolon is active, but there's nothing stopping you summoning your Eidolon while a Summon is active.) Since your Summon lasts 1 minute/level, this is a great way to double your hitting power if you have some prep time.
•You can even get a summon and your Eidolon out within two rounds! First use your Summon ability, then cast the Summon Eidolon spell. As a nifty bonus, this lets your Eidolon gain +4 to Strength and Constitution if you have the Augment Summoning feat.
