Shib's page

The reason I didn't look into prewritten 1-on-1s is because I didn't know they existed. Thanks! We're going to discuss his interests and expectations beforehand but these look like helpful references if nothing else.

Here's how my partner and I have been running two-person games for awhile. One of us (the player) plays two characters. The other one GMs and also runs two characters. The GM's characters still interact with the player's characters, but the player's characters are the ones who talk to the NPCs, figure stuff out, etc. For us, it hasn't really taken the spotlight away from the player (one character usually ends up being the party "face," but it's generally fairly balanced in terms of main character/side characters). We've gone through four APs that way and are about to finish our fifth.

It might be a bit much to keep track of if you're a new GM, though. Is your player new to playing?

He played some D&D 3.5 back in high school and a Pathfinder game 2-3 years ago, so he knows more than me.

Hi there!

So it looks like I am FINALLY going to get a chance to GM a Pathfinder campaign. This will be my first time, and I had a couple questions, one simple and one not-so-simple, I was hoping some more experienced GMs and players might be able to chime in on.

1) I’m trying to get a sense of how to calculate the CR of a group battle. If it’s multiple creatures with the same CR, you add numbers based on the chart on page 398 of the CRB. So if it’s 4 creatures with CR 16, you add 4 to the 16 and it becomes a CR 20. So far, so good. But what do you do if the encounter has mixed CRs? Let’s say it’s 4 monsters but one is CR 16, two are CR 12, and one is CR 5. My best guess was that you’d average the CRs and add 4, but that would make the hypothetical scenario above a CR 11.25, which sounds low. Is there a rule for this I haven't noticed? I looked through the CRB and the bestiary appendices and didn't see anything.

2) Despite my best efforts, I only got one friend to agree to play the campaign with me. We decided we’d give the solo campaign concept a shot. One possibility we discussed was having me run some party NPCs to balance encounters, but I’m wondering if that would take the focus away from my friend’s PC, which I’d like to avoid. I want his PC to be the hero of the story, or at the very least the leader of the party. Other than stocking him up with magic items for healing/enhancements, are there any ways I might be able to tailor the encounters to fit one character? Is this at all feasible from a balance perspective? I am not certain but it is most likely he’ll be playing a martial class, like fighter, inquisitor, or brawler.

Any thoughts you might have for questions 1 and/or 2 would be greatly appreciated :)

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate all of your responses, it helped me understand the class a lot better.

I think I will pass this along to my buddy so he can start thinking about how he wants to play his character.

Happy to hear any other thoughts you might have, but I think my original question has been answered.

Hi all,

I’m trying to wrap my head around how the kineticist from OA works. I have a player who is really excited to create one, but I guess I’m having a stupid day because I can’t quite conceptualize how burn is supposed to work.

Question 1: What is the hard limit for burn? Is it a) the amount of nonlethal damage a character can take or b) 3 + Constitution modifier? The rulebook seems to rather clearly suggest b, but I don’t quite understand why burn is tied to nonlethal damage if there’s already a hard limit associated with it that doesn’t connect to your current level of nonlethal damage? Are these two separate things?

Question 2: On a related note, what is the point of increasing the amount of nonlethal damage (“For each point of burn she accepts, a kineticist takes 1 point of nonlethal damage per character level”) if there’s already a hard limit on burn at 3 + Con?

I think I’m misunderstanding how burn and burn management would work. I’d appreciate any clarification y’all could offer. Either it’s unclear in the rulebook or I’m just not practicing good reading comprehension :)