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Having cleared the Horn of Abbadon, our party returned to Farholde to get a second opinion on the alchemical designs found in the workshop as well as to pick up supplies, specifically some reduce person to fit through the hole leading who knows where in the cagers below the spire.

Returning to the spire, the party discovered the remains of a cultist, holding one of the three Eyes of Vetra-Kali, as well as his book on the Dirges of Apollyon. Most helpful. The group also finished deciphering the rituals found on the second floor, proceeding to summon the nightmare and hell hounds. Some prisoners were taken and kept in the cells on the third floor, but kept being slain mysteriously, so the PCs set out to investigate. They then ran into Ezra the Thrice-Damned, and what remained of the Fourth Knot. Negotiating a peaceful agreement, Ezra agreed to give the PCs the treasure in the secret vault, and not eat them, in exchange for the PCs bringing Vetra-Kali once more into the material plane, and giving them a steady supply of a commoner a week upon which to feed.

The party completed their repairs of Artephius with objects purchased from farholde, as well as the lightning elemental which was found hovering in the upper room of the Horn, he was then set to defend on entrance along with a squad of newly-minted skeletons.

The PCs made an alliance with the Bogards, folding them into their Evil Organization, and have had the boards filling the lower levels with dangerous snakes, crocodiles, etc to fend off intruders. The boards even managed to catch a Hyrda, which the PCs have set up as part of one of the pit traps inside the spire.

The first adventuring party which managed to make it past the 7th Knot back in Farholde reached the spire this session, and the PCs dispatched them with relative ease, slaying all except the follower of Mitra, which they are holding in a cell on the first floor in anticipation of using her for the second ritual, in which her heart need be removed to further Vetra-Kali's return.

The PCs also ran into a pair of moon dogs come to destroy the evil of the Spire. The moon dogs made a sneak attack into the spire, destroying many of the skeletons the cleric had set up as defence, then attacked again from the outside, running into more skeletons, as well as Artephius, the alchemical golem, now made whole once again. The moon dogs were beaten back, but escaped away from the horn by teleporting (Fortunate that they had not made it inside yet).

Progressing up through the spire, the party entered via the exterior hole on the first floor. Seeing nought but rubble and ruins, the only thing of note that was found was the remains of an alchemical golem. The party discovered the secret staircase in the temple room, and followed it down, discovering that it emerged near the boggard camp, then back up, gaining access to the second level of the Horn. On the second level of the Horn, the party found vast murals depicting ancient rites of the Sons of the Pale Horsemen, as well as more destruction caused by the Victor's armies. They happened upon a room of broken statues, with one more head than statue, and brought the extra head to the headless statue of an acolyte in the north end of the level. Miscellaneous small treasures were also found. Having found the second teleporter throne, the party quickly solved the nature of the key words, and were able to travel between the first and second floor with ease.

The party discovered the set of staircases which led up through the third floor to the sanctum, managing to get by Hexor and Vexor by thinking quickly and saying they were here to release Vetra-Kali. Not dallying in the sanctum, the party returned to the second floor to finish their sweep, and then made plans to return to farholde for needed supplies, including some form of reduce person to squeeze through the narrow passage in the caverns, and to have someone take a better look at the schematics for the alchemical golem, which they were only able to get a vague impression of.

Session two of our Way of the Wicked Campaign sees the PCs advance from 4th to 6th level as they complete module 1 and begin module 2.
Plotting the demise of the keep of Balentyne, and having alerted the defenders to some mischief taking place when they destroyed the arrow stores and the rookery, the party sought out new ways of inflicting damage on the garrison. Having heard tell of Captain Mott's affair with Captain Eddarly's wife, the PC's went to Kaitlyn Mott's house in Aldencross to spy on Mrs. Mott. They then dropped a note to Captain Mott, who confronted Eddarly, challenged him to a duel in which Captain Mott was killed, and Eddarly sent off to Branderscar Prison for his crime.

Upon the return of Captain Varning's patrol, the PC's posed as farmers and told Varning their were bugbear sightings near a farm. When Varning returned along the road, the PCs ambushed the patrol, killing all.

Sneaking into the castle through the cellar beneath the armoury, the party ambushed the few guards in the room while casting silence to cover their actions, they then snuck into captain Barhold's room to find him absent. Sneaking out they damaged the lock on his door, further alerting the guard to going-ons in the castle. Disguised as the guards from the armoury (whose bodies now lay in the tunnel connecting the keep to the Lord's Dalliance Inn), the party sought out Father Donnagin, lured him back to the cellar and killed him, impersonating him as well, thanks to their Iron Circlets. Their disguises however proved inadequate, and so were soon fighting a escalating series of bluffs, trying to convince the guards of their identities, but ending up having to be presented to captain Barhold, who saw through most of their disguises. Seeing their opportunity, they attacked, killing captain Barhold and a few more guards. They then snuck out the basement passage.

Posing as Varning and a few of his patrolmen, the PCs approached the castle, looking like they'd had a run-in with some hostiles. Being admitted into the keep, they sought an audience with Lord Havelyn, and getting the drop on the commander, they killed him, then sent a guard to summon the Magister, who, along with his ice golem, they also killed. Deciding they'd caused enough damage to the castle, they moved to open the portcullis and let the Bugbears in. Firing the rocket from the roof of the keep, they then waited until the bugbears were nearly upon the castle, killing the guards at the gatehouse, and opening the portcullis.

The bugbears overran Balentyne, Burned the town of Aldencross, several buildings of which the PCs had already set ablaze as distraction. Following the destruction of the town, Sakkarot's Horde destroyed several borderlands milita groups and destroyed the tower of Lorringsgate. Breaking the clay seal they had been given by Cardinal Adrastus Thorn, the party summoned Tiadora, who rewarded them for their services, and escorted them to a river barge, upon which they sailed to Farholde, northernmost town in Talingarde. Sowing confusion and pain amongst the townships along the river, Tiadora anchored the barge each night and by dawn the villages were ablaze.

Arriving in Forholde, the group did some shopping, selling loot they'd found, and buying new and improved kit, before being introduced to Baron Vandermir by Tiadora. They were able to secure his aid in searching for their next target, given by Thorn, the Horn of Abbadon. The party also met up with the 7th knot, the knot Hibernal led by the With Elise. The 7th knot explained that they would set up a spy network in Farholde and keep other treasure keepers away from te Horn, and alert the PCs to any impending threats they may find.

Acquiring some horses, the party set out into the Caer Bryr, rainforest of eastern Talingarde in search of the Horn. After running afoul of a Dire Tiger, and meeting a treant who warned them away from the Bryr, but with who combat was avoided, and searching for several additional days, the party eventually discovered the location of the Horn. Advancing into the caves below the spire, the PC's discovered a Boggard tribe, who through restraint and diplomacy, they were able to make a quick deal with, trading some goods, and not engaging in combat with any. The barbarian fell into the pit trap screened by fragile flooring in the western cave, but otherwise their progress through the lower level was uneventful....

Arriving at the south shores of lake Tarik, the party ambushed Odinkirk and his men, and slew them all, then burned his ship after having liberated all the valuables. The group made their way into aldencross, got rooms at the Lord's Dalliance Inn and sold their ill-gotten gains, purchasing new equipment as well.

Level 4

The group spent some time gossiping with bar patrons, learning of the going-ons of Aldencross and Balentyne, before running afoul of the dwarven seige engineeres staying at the inn over a drinking contest, and beginning a bar fight. as the rest of the parton had fled the Inn during the fight, the PCs decided to finish off the dwarves, slaying them all and crushing their heads with warhammers to prevent them from speaking in death, they then fled the Inn and changed their appearance thanks to Thorn's Iron Circlets he had given them in act 1. The party also stole the map of the the fortress the dwarves had in their rooms, and forging documents which would give them access to the keep as labourers, they scoped out the place.
Having heard that there was a patrol out in the countryside, they considered ambushing them, but didnt want to spend the gold for horses so they could ride out to the patrol in the wilderness. They met the Bard of Barrington and his actors, and decided that the play would provide excellent cover for more snooping, and mischief. On the night of the play they entered the tower of balentyne, and ascended to the rookery, killing the ravens and their master, as well as destroying the supply of arrows in the castle tower, before fleeing back to the Lord's Dalliance, where they found the innkeeper smuggling wine out of the tower. Successfully intimidating him into compliance and silence, they now have a secret back door into the castle. There remain four days before the fire axe's horde could be summoned, and the lord of balentyne, his captains and guards remain largely intact.

Alright, so we had a long session yesterday, almost 12 hours, and the PCs managed to get all the way up to fourth level, using the ""levelling points" of the campaign, rather than traditional xp system
...
Finding themselves in prison, our sorcerer was visited by Tiadora, who gave to him a veil of useful items. The PCs decided to make a break for it immediately, rather than waitin to see routines or anything. Using the masterwork thieves tools on the veil, the Magus managed to get the party unshackled, but fumbled about on the lock to the door, and alerted the guards, who came in to pacify the prisoners.

Drawing daggers from the veil, the party managed to fight the guards to the door of the cellblock, and then our sorcerer used color spray to knock out all the guards, who were then summarily executed, and their swords stolen, along with one bow and arrows. Using the window from the veil, they opened an escape route in the eastern wall of the cell block, and tying off the rope to the cell bars they fought a defensive action against two more guards as they bailed out into the courtyard. fortunately for them, the guards patrolling the walls were not on the east side of the prison at the time, and they managed to make it almost all the way to the southeast tower which had been retrofitted as a privy before being spotted. knowing the guards were soon to close in on them, they used the rope to climb down the rocks and, clinging on for their lives, shimmied their way around the the northeast corner of the prison, the barbarian having to rescue the sorcerer several times as he fell in. now finding themselves presented with the bridge to the mainland, they climbed back up the rocks to the road, and ran across to the portcullis. the guards and dog at the gate gave them a good fight, but were eventually cut down, and their bodies thrown onto the rocks below. successfully navigating their way through the moors, they avoided contact with any hostile entities and made it to Thorn's manor in one piece.

Level 2
The sorcerer and cleric were already devotees of asmodeus, and so were glad to find themselves in Thorn's presence, and gladly signed up for the Nessian knot. The magus was persuaded of the righteousness of the Prince of Hell's cause, and converted, also signing. The barbarian, having no interest in religious matters, but being thankful for his freedom and the opportunity to gain vengeance signed his soul to the compact as well.

The nine tests proved fairly easy for the party, they only having to come up to rest once before proceeding into the ninth room. A pit trap here, giant boulder there, and a screaming mushroom aside, they proceeded through the labyrinth quickly, and delighted in the racking of execution of Sir Balin's squire in room 4. Sir Balin himself game them a good fight, cleaving where he could, and stepping up to harass the sorcerer. The cleric was briefly unconscious, and others perilously low on health, but the magus' successful disarm of Balin's sword saved them a great deal of pain, and they won the day. Returning his holy symbol of Mitra to Thorn, they completed their training over the next few months, and gained skills they would need to defeat the forces of good.

Level 3
The party embarked upon the frosthamar with captain odinkirk, bound for the bugbears of the north. After dissuading the captain from delaying to hunt seals, and successfully fooling a Talingarde naval ship with a set of well-forged documents, they traded wares with the northern people, giving them steel for ivory at a good exchange rate. Following this, the party was set upon by a blizzard, an ice mephit, and a foursome of elementals, who they dispatched with relative ease. Using captain odinkirks warriors as a display, the bugbears on the dock where they arrived at the Fire-Axe's camp were cowed, and chose not to test the party's combat prowess. The party dined with Sakkarot, and learned that he too was bound to Thorn, as the first of the nine knots, and that his service to thorn for glory and conquest would require him to betray his people as the party would betray those in Talingarde. The following morning they reembarked upon Frosthamar and sailed for the village of Aldencross, near tower balentyne

My group is about to embark on the way of the wicked campaign starting this Saturday. They're all really looking forward to a chance to be evil dark lords of doom, and my DM nature to root for the bad guys is going to be gloriously fulfilled vicariously through my players. Let the Evil times roll.

The party makeup is as follows:
F LE Changeling cleric of Asmodeus (domain Law subdomain Slavery) -thorn will like her
M NE Half-Orc Barbarian
M LE Human Sorcerer (Elemental Bloodline [electricity]) - he's gonna be mr "I have every energy type evoker"
M LE Human Magus (also the party's best skill monkey)

I'm going to post the events and details of sessions in this thread, please feel free to comment. Hopefully my group of borderline, and not quite so borderline sociopaths will have fun being evil baddies and bringing the hurt to the happy people of Talingarde. Will update as frequently as possible. For now, blessings of the prince of Nessus be with you.

We play mostly weekends, but occasionally squeeze in a weekday session. those ones are for obvious reasons only about 3-4 hours, but our traditional weekly or bi-weekly weekend sessions are from 1PM to 10-11 PM, so 9-10 hours, with pizza being ordered and eaten as we go.

As a new-ish GM, I would say run Serpent's Skull.
My group just finished serpent's skull and are now on skull & shackles.
As MPL said, modules 1&3 of Serpents skull are great.2 we thought was okay. and 4-6 were meh, that being said the reason I would say you should run it is that Skull & Shackles Module 1 is pretty poor, but then it picks up, though the form is more free-form, sandbox kind of play, so for an early GM I think the structure of Serpent's Skull would be useful.

Also if your players want to be the bad guys, then pirates area better choice than pioneering adventurers, so talk it over with them and see what they would like as as well.

Interesting, everyone has their own method, in our group the GM reads out how much xp everyone gets after each encounter and we do the math on our sheets, and if after an encounter someone has enough xp to level, then they go ahead and level right away while the rest of us talk about random stuff, or tell funny stories of recent events.

Ah I see what you're getting at.
I'll illustrate with examples.
If you make only one attack then its a standard, if you use any more then one then you're doing a full attack action.

For the grizzly
2 claws +7 (1d6+5 plus grab), bite +7 (1d6+5)
Means that the claws and bite are both primaries, and on a full attack you can get one bite AND two claw attacks.

Example for a case where there are secondaries: Adult black dragon has:
bite +21 (2d6+10), 2 claws +20 (1d8+7), 2 wings +15 (1d6+3), tail +15 (1d8+10)

Bite and Claws are primaries, wings and tail are secondaries, see how the -5 is already factored into the wings and tail.

The bite is one higher than the claws cause the dragon has weapon focus (bite)

i present you with a table! TADA!

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules #TOC-Natural-Attacks

EDIT: Also, the one exception is if a monster only has one attack type and it is listed as secondary on the table, it is treated as primary cause its the only one.

Hah, I was using nondetection already, but I missed the line about it working with "detect" spells. So that works out well.

So happy day, since converting over to pathfinder from 3.5 I've been a touch sad at the lack of resources for undead PCs in the Paizo sources. We use only Paizo sources, no 3pp stuff, and no 3.5 stuff. I have managed to successfully lichify (sp?) my character, and have been going through various means to disguise this fact from the world at large, and to a lesser extent, from the NG wizard in the party (Everyone knows OOC that I'm a lich, but none know in character, and its been super fun coming up with plausible reasons I take less damage, don't sleep anymore, cant be fatigued, etc.
I've been concealing my nature with Gentle Repose, Undetectable Alignment, a greater Hat of Disguise, and a bluff check through the roof, but one thing occurred to me, namely that I can't find a way to block detect undead. Walking around inside a lead box is obviously somewhat prohibitive, so thats out.
Is there any way to avoid detect undead without using 3pp or 3.5 stuff, because that does not exist in our pathfinder games.

I would not change the type of the creatures from the material plane to Outsider or Native outsider as that has implications for HD, BAB, saves, etc... However, Banishment and Dismissal cast by someone from the, say, astral plane on a PC from the material plane would kick them back to their native plane, will save providing, of course. Not sure if that is exactly RAW, but the spells don't call for a creature of the Outsider type, they call for an Extraplanar Creature, and from the point of view of the astral plane, humans, dwarves, etc are very much extraplanar.

Thats exactly right, the caster level on magic items tends to be the lowest level you would need to be in order to cast the component spells normally, and qualify for whatever crafting feats are involved, for spell-replication items. So in this case, you've got a 9th level spell, and so the item is 17th CL.

In my group we've only had one player run a goblin, and he had this feat. He was playing a barbarian, so being out of melee and unable to make full attacks was to his detriment. He basically treated the feat as a get-out-of-death-free card, but only used it 3 or 4 times ever, as he was quite tanky. The time he died he tried to use the feat to avoid death from a huge size monster's attack in a smallish room ~40x40, the monster hit him, he bounced, then th monster moved up, and on the next round he could not escape and only has the one action, so the monster finished him off.

Yep, stone familiar from UE costs 6000gp, is a statuette of a tiny animal, and can store up to 500 spell levels worth of spells, and can be used to teach familiars those spells.

As blackbloodtroll pointed out, there's no allowing PCs to take monster feats, they are allowed. GMs can only houserule that they don't want PCs to take them.
the opening line of the monster feats section has been talked to death already.

Most of the following feats apply specifically to monsters, although some player characters might qualify for them

Most PCs don't have fly speeds, natural weapons, breath attacks, natural armor, etc... but those that do can take these feats.

oh and also @ Tim, 880,000 GP is the wealth by level for 20th level characters
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement

@ Tim: The +7 is from Agile weapon property on his kukri, allowing him to add dex to damage in place of strength.

@AndIMustAsk, if your Kukri is +5 and Keen,Agile,Speed, you're forgetting the enhancement bonus to damage, should be +5Magic, +7 dex for d4+12

Checking back into the wording for shadow evocation, i'm not sure why this is an issue:

You tap energy from the Plane of Shadow to cast a quasi-real, illusory version of a sorcerer or wizard evocation spell of 4th level or lower. Spells that deal damage have normal effects unless an affected creature succeeds on a Will save. Each disbelieving creature takes only one-fifth damage from the attack. If the disbelieved attack has a special effect other than damage, that effect is one-fifth as strong (if applicable) or only 20% likely to occur. If recognized as a shadow evocation, a damaging spell deals only one-fifth (20%) damage. Regardless of the result of the save to disbelieve, an affected creature is also allowed any save (or spell resistance) that the spell being simulated allows, but the save DC is set according to shadow evocation's level (5th) rather than the spell's normal level.

Non-damaging effects have normal effects except against those who disbelieve them. Against disbelievers, they have no effect.

Objects automatically succeed on their Will saves against this spell.

The section in italics is for damaging spells, which daylight is not, the bolded section covers non damaging spells, including things like floating disks and daylight. Everyone gets a save, the people who fail really think there's light, the people who pass see your attempt to conjure light as a cheap trick, and keep being in the dark.

Yeah after all this effort, I took mplindustries' advice and rebuilt the character as a STR-based loremaster with enough DEX to still make Combat reflexes a good time, and I'd say it turned out better. No free trip from lvl 11 two-hander ability, but +CMB/CMD and a couple extra skills made it better overall I think. Thanks for all the clarifications.

The trouble I'm having with all the interpretations is the ambiguity in the ability wording. Agile lets you replace 1.5xSTR to damage with 1xDEX to damage, but I don't see why that invalidates an ability which just says 'add double your strength bonus to damage'.

Out of curiosity, are there any other archetypes better suited to combat maneuvers for the Fighter? The juicy of Two-hander was the free trip on piledriver, I didn't really care about the damage on OC and backswing, was just confused

Yeah that seems like the simplest interpretation on the face of it, but the reason I asked for clarification is that in this thread The argument was that the devs clearly did not mean you get your normal damage plus 2x STR, because then you'd be getting 3.5x STR if you just "Add 2x STR to damage". The sane people in that thread (not that Ravingdork doesn't make my day on a regular basis) were intuiting that the ability was designed to take you from 1.5x STR to 2x STR. So going DEX + 2x STR seems like the same argument as Ravingdork used to try to get 1.5xSTR +2x STR, which is almost assuredly not correct.

EDIT: Ninja'd --this was in response to Seranov.

Illusions are individual. Each person in the Area of Effect must save individually, as they would for a reflex save vs Fireball for example. If it is an ongoing effect, like an illusory wall or some such, then if anyone passes their save and communicates that they see through the illusions, everyone who failed the first time gets a new save at +4

So I'm assembling a spiked chain wielding tripper at the request of my GM, cause he thought it'd be neat. I decided to go dex-based for the AoO's, and so now I have a question, and I'll try to include all the relevant source material.

Normally, a Two-Handed attack with a spiked chain adds 1.5 times strength, as it's a two-handed weapon. Sounds good.

Overhand Chop and Backswing say you add 2x strength when you use their respective actions.

Overhand Chop (Ex)

At 3rd level, when a two-handed fighter makes a single attack (with the attack action or a charge) with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his Strength bonus on damage rolls.
This ability replaces Armor Training 1.

Backswing (Ex)

At 7th level, when a two-handed fighter makes a full-attack with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his Strength bonus on damage rolls for all attacks after the first.
This ability replaces Armor Training 2.

The Agile weapon property lets you add DEX to damage, but you don't get the 1.5x modifier for two-handers. Also fine.

Agile weapons are unusually well balanced and responsive. A wielder with the Weapon Finesse feat can choose to apply her Dexterity modifier to damage rolls with the weapon in place of her Strength modifier. This modifier to damage is not increased for two-handed weapons, but is still reduced for off-hand weapons.

So thats all fine and dandy. My question here is, given that I'm going with DEX, which of the following three interpretations is correct? Or if they are all wrong, what is the right answer? Help me out.

Idea 1:
Attacks deal 1x DEX from Agile, plus 2x STR from OC or Backswing eg: STR 12 and DEX 18 would net you 2x1+1x4=6 damage

Idea 2: DEX acts in place of STR for damage, so you just get the stated 2xSTR, but STR = DEX so 2x DEX, or 2x4=8 damage for the above stats.

Idea 3: The two-handed fighter abilities were built assuming you'd be getting 1.5xSTR to damage, so you could RAI the change to STR damage as +0.5x instead of goes to 2x in all cases. This would get you then DEX+1/2 DEX or 1.5xDEX... or 1.5x4=6 damage in the above scenario.

thoughts?

Thanks guys, that helps a lot.

I really hate to do this, because I'm sure its been discussed somewhere, but for the life of me I cannot find it.
I'm putting together a Dwarf Druid, and my question is as follows: when he wild shapes, a) does he lose the benefits of being a dwarf (saves vs poison, stonecunning, etc) ? and b) does he lose his qualification for dwarf racial traits/feats?

Basically, if I wild shape into an elemental, am I considered Humanoid(Dwarf) or Elemental during the wild shape?

Objects that fall upon characters deal damage based on their size and the distance they have fallen. Table: Damage from Falling Objects determines the amount of damage dealt by an object based on its size. Note that this assumes that the object is made of dense, heavy material, such as stone. Objects made of lighter materials might deal as little as half the listed damage, subject to GM discretion. For example, a Huge boulder that hits a character deals 6d6 points of damage, whereas a Huge wooden wagon might deal only 3d6 damage. In addition, if an object falls less than 30 feet, it deals half the listed damage. If an object falls more than 150 feet, it deals double the listed damage. Note that a falling object takes the same amount of damage as it deals.

Object Size Damage
Small 2d6
Medium 3d6
Large 4d6
Huge 6d6
Gargantuan 8d6
Colossal 10d6

Scribe Scroll, but you already have that.
Craft Wondrous Item is a bag full of pure win. Even if you don't get fancy and just save cash with it, plus I hear Kingmaker has lots of crafting time available.
Craft Wand is basically just a cash saver, not sure if it's worth the feat, but if you don't know what else to take then maybe this.
Rings, Staves, Rods in my experience are not worth the feats, but YMMV.

Hmm. Never run into this one... Going back and reading the text of all these feats and the scrolls section, I would say that Gifted Adept and Spell focus do not help you.
Gifted Adept: Whenever you cast that spell, its effects manifest at +1 caster level. Just increases the CL for the purpose of the effect, as opposed to Varisian Tattoo and Bloatmage which say: you cast spells from this school at +1 caster level.
Spell Focus deals not with CL but with DC's, so that has nothing todo with this AFAIK.

Since you are "casting" the spell off the scroll, I can see that Varisian Tattoo and Bloatmage would give +1's as you cast the spell at +! CL and are Making a CL check.
So unless anyone else can fill in the blanks about CL and those feats for me, I'd say you're looking at +3 vs DC 6 (1 level, 1 tattoo, 1 bloatmage).

I can't find a hard and fast yes or no on this, but my feeling would be that yes they can, based on the fact that some monsters have regeneration AND immunity to aging (Titans), while some monsters with regeneration do NOT have immunity to aging (Troll).

Also, even true resurrection, a 9th level spell, cant bring back to life those who died of old age, so I doubt that you could get around old age with something as easy to come by as regeneration.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCombat/variants/calledShots.html

Here is the section on Called Shots. Aiming for an eye takes a -10 to the attack roll, but it does not give stats for eyes or what the effects would be, so I'd say use your HP=HD idea, and that the first eyes gives partial concealment, and once they're all out, its blind.

I believe one is in the works.

Edit: From The Deep.

Good Find. Maybe i'll propose that we keep it pazio for their modules and then the psionics fans can get their fix by us playing these modules in an all psionics world

@mavbor: yeah this is what I was thinking. 1-keeping GMs happy is good. 2-If we set in a hard and fast paizo only rule it eliminates all ambiguity in further issues with 3rd party stuff.

@TriOmegaZero: Has DSP or anyone else published a full adventure path for psionics?

I should have clarified I think. I don't need convincing about the power levels of psionics, and I doubt that an argument for "they are balanced" would sway the people who don't like it, as it's partially an issue of flavour and of it being 3rd party. Fred said to me the other day that he would not mind if Paizo had done the psionics because then it would have been balanced in house. Also, no argument showing how crazy you could make a psion or any other psionic class is going to sway the guys who like it.

The issue here is i need advice on what I should try to do with my friends in the group. Do I side with the guys who dont like it, keep things Paizo, and tick off the psionics fans, or say we let them have their fun, and keep the GMs annoyed. That is the question.

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So I'm currently in a Serpent's Skull campaign, and we're planning on doing Skull and Shackles next, I'll be in both as a player, but the GM will be different for the two campaigns. As the groups de facto board-searcher, i have a few questions to throw out at you all.
First, my group is of 5 of us, including the GM, and two of the players seem really into psionics, one for the versatility while still keeping full progression of the psion, lets call him Tony, and the other guy likes the new expanded psionics classes like vitalist and aegis, call him Luke. I'm kind of on the fence regarding psionics, I dabbled a bit in it in 3.5, but haven't touched it in PF as there are so many other cool things i can play. The other two guys in the group don't care for psionics. One just doesn't like the idea it seems, call him Red, and the other one (our current GM) is of the opinion that Psions are overpowered, having played one himself in our last campaign, and now GMing our party with a psion in it, call him Fred. So Fred, our current GM is grumbly about it, but seems to be letting it go for now, and the GM for Skull and Shackles will be Red, the other fellow who doesn't seem to like them for flavourful reasons, and maybe a bit of a imbalance perception. We have thought out our party for the beginning of Skull and Shackles, and Luke wants to play an Aegis, but Red isn't sure about it. So I'm talking to Fred and Red the other day, and Fred mentions also how he doesn't like how DSP has incorporated psionics into Golarion, and how his life would be easier if we just stuck to the Paizo material, as it would make his world nicer, and he would not have to worry about balance between 3rd Party material and Paizo stuff. The discussion eventually ran to the idea that instead of the GMs just decreeing that psionics does not exist in the world, we should put it to a vote. Now here's the part where I need your advice, oh wise internet. It would surely fall to me to break a 2-2 tie if we voted on this, and from the GM's point of view i can see why they don't like it for non-canon reasons and the psion's ability to stack up power points into more high level spells than a wizard could dream of, but I'm concerned that we'll be alienating two of the group. I think Tony would be a bit upset, as he said he'd never play an arcane caster again as long as psion is available, and he has played a few, but i think he'd just say poo on arcane casting and play divine or martial characters. But Luke really likes psionics conceptually, and I think he'd be a bit put out.

Again, I have no real desire to play any psionic class, but should I agree with the GMs and say we're playing Pathfiner, lets keep it Paizo-only, and not have to worry about 3pp balance issues, as well as the idea that if we let in psionics we'll slowly end up adding more 3pp material, some of which is silly how unbalanced it is, or should I say let the players play what they want to? any reasonable advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

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I don't really think it's that big a deal, as the only purpose of create water over long durations is for it to be consumed by people, as the spell says that is disappears after 24 hours if not consumed. Also, considering you cant *really* cast for 24 hours straight, unless you want the penalties for not sleeping, lets say you cast for 16 hours straight. IF you were casting into an olympic swimming pool, you'd only fill it about 5-6 inches deep, and then the water is gonna start disappearing again at 2gal/lvl/rd.
So i'm not sure what's happened in your game for this to be a big problem...

Edit: A Ninja ninja'd me.
You can only make the water show up somewhere it would fill a container, or up to 3 times that size, so 6gal/level
no swimming pools for us, and that'd take a lot of cups

I'd say it is allowed, as the crusader reduces the cleric to one domain, you can still make that one domain the death(undeath) domain the undead lord needs. just remember to abide by the rest of the domain change rules on spells/day

Hah, Krodjin, if only Pathfinder had a CSI guild or some such.
Mixing science knowledge with rpg rules is always a delight, though admittedly my biology is not as good as chem and physics. These hand-waving arguments should be good enough for a fix for this kind of scenario, so i didnt bother going and looking up hard data for decomposition rates.

There are a few interesting things going on here. First of all, bodies start decaying pretty much the moment they die, but it gets exponentially faster as micro-organisms grow and consume the flesh until they die off from lack of food. Given that gentle repose postpones days of decay, and refers to raise dead, which can raise someone who has been dead for up to day/level, you'd think that raise dead's magic caps out at about 3 weeks of decay, for a 20th level caster, that being said, if they leave the bag closed for the whole time he's in there, after a while all the oxygen will be consumed and only the anaerobic micro-organism will keep decomposing the body, and they work much more slowly.
If it is the smallest bag of holding i'd say maybe count the first 2 or 3 days normally, and then count further days as 1/2 days or something like that, to model the body decaying more slowly and still being raiseable for longer.

I thought arcane discoveries were wizard-only?

Well since my guy in question is a sorcerer, not wizard, I've only got access to 7-th levels at this point, and the spell slots used for daily prep based on which of RD's suggestions i think I'll need are 4 2nd's, 1 3rd, 1 4th, 1 5th, and one 6th/two weeks for contingency

That seems okay, when you've got more casting per day of the spells than wizard, using up a bunch of lower level ones seems fine.

@James: good idea about the permanency having a sacrificial spell one level higher, though the permanency spells in question are all pretty low level, and not easily detectable, save for Arcane sight's glowy eyes

Many praises!

Thats a great list. Have to rearrange spells known a bit to accommodate some of that, but those all seem like good choices, and the permanency options are discrete enough they shouldn't be the target of dispels too often.

I have a 15th level sorcerer, and I've read often that a high level caster should not walk out the door in the morning without an array of spells running either through casting or magic items, other then obvious stuff like mage armor, possibly nondetection, what are we talking about here?

EDIT: It just occurred to me contingency should be a good one.

Surprise rounds tend to be for just that, a surprise. So things like firing ranged weapons from the trees, casting spells, partial charges, or other hilarities like invisible touch attacks or oozes dropping from ceilings are all good ideas, movement for the sake of movement is a bad idea.
If your baddies have set themselves up for an ambush without ranged weapons or casting, there really is no way they could start inflicting damage on the PCs before they see them and engage.

I understand the issue about having a drawn map seem like an encounter, trap, ambush-in-the-making, etc, and so what our group does is draw EVERYTHING. Unless we're going somewhere purely for shopping, a discussion with an NPC in town, etc. so we always move in formation, and we can never cry foul if we step on a trap, cause we sure did. I guess it adds a little more time to everything, but as we use a 3-foot by 2-foot, 1-inch gridded Whiteboard and various colours of pen, it is pretty fast to draw everything, and it helps us visualize our surroundings.

Yeah I did some back of the envelope math, and Justice is a better deal than Destruction.
As for protection it's kind of pointless as I'm already getting a sacred bonus to AC, and Purity is nice but not necessary as his saves are already boss.

It's a two-handed weapon Witch Hunter Inquisitor with the spellkiller inquisition who uses a greatsword (thanks Gorum)
So frontline fighting, AC could use some work, but he's got already an average of 140 HP at level 13, so thats not too bad, attack bonuses are +19/14 for 2d6+12 unbuffed, and +25/25/20 for 6d6+32 with Bane, Judgements, Power attack and Divine Power

For reference, if anyone is checking this. The inquisitor is level 13, so the difference with the favored class bonus for judgments are from +5 to +7 for destruction and +3 to +4 for Justice.
And with the 3/4 BAB inquisitors have, I figured that an attack boost couldn't go amiss.