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**** Pathfinder Society GM. 252 posts. 1 review. No lists. No wishlists. 23 Organized Play characters.



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Got about halfway through War for the Crown on Roll20. We're supposed to pick it up again if everyone can join. In person, our GM who'd gotten us through the first book of RotR 10th anniversary was frustrated trying to challenge a well-built party of six, so the new plan is to start Tyrant's Grasp next week.


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A couple of things to compare to:

Using the Survival skill: "Predict the weather up to 24 hours in advance. For every 5 points by which your Survival check result exceeds 15, you can predict the weather for one additional day in advance." So the spell is equivalent to a Survival roll of 45.

The existing Fortune's Path spell. It's much broader, but only has a 50% chance of telling anything useful, and a 25% chance of "[A]ccurately predict a major event likely to happen in the next week. For example, you might foresee an enemy ambush, the discovery of sought-after information, or inclement weather causing significant travel delay (though this spell would not show you the event’s exact details)."

Most of the magic items I've looked at which deal with predicting the weather just add to your Survival roll.

For level of detail, make realistic adjustments. Precision goes down the farther out you go, and the broader the area you want to predict.

Material components: a small flame, a pinch of earth, and several drops of water.


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Magus class is justly famous for being able to pump out absurd damage for a few rounds per day. You won't have great AC, but being able to buff with Vanish, Mirror Image, Greater Invisibility and others will more than make up for that (although at higher levels, True Seeing becomes common among opponents). You can also build a Magus for combat maneuvers, which you might find entertaining.


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Is your GM/campaign relatively generous with money and magic? If so, I'd recommend getting Heightened Awareness as a wand. You'll probably burn through it pretty quickly, but using the +4 initiative will take away from the per-level advantage of casting it from a spell slot. If purchasing magic items is difficult due to money or availability, Craft Wondrous Item is probably the way to go for your feat.

Consider Summon Monster III for the spell. You've already invested two feats into summoning so you can make the most of it.


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Chrion wrote:
...I want something more, some interesting thing to happen to make it more than just kind of a meet-and-greet, but I also don't want it to be negative or conflicting in any way. The players have been through a lot of negative stuff in the game and I want them to have a chance to have a fun time together with each other and with the NPCs. I'm struggling to come up with anything though besides the general party\festival setting. The PCs are also lvl 13 at this point, so they are pretty powerful. Anyway, I'm looking for some fun, low stakes, RP stuff to do to kick off the next leg of the game.

For a low-stakes setting, a local celebration is fine. Make it a deal where the temples of various gods sponsor different activities, including friendly competitions. For example, the Abadarians would have a contest of lightning calculation or puzzle-solving. The Shelynites would sponsor almost any performing arts. And of course the Cayden Caileanites would hold the drinking contest(s). That should give you plenty of reasons for the PCs and NPCs to meet and mix. Think of the games of skill (maybe without the rigging) at a typical county fair, if you're familiar with that. If your city is big enough, have competitions between the various quarters or neighborhoods of the city - races on foot, races on horseback, feats of strength. Throw small rocks for accuracy and a big rock for distance. Target shooting with spears and bows. Lots of ways to have the players roll some dice without worrying about whether it's going to get a PC killed.


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Thomas Seitz wrote:

As a 14th level arcanist, who also has access now to greater teleport and a group that knows how to get Absalom, I just was wondering, would there be a scroll of Gate that I would be able to buy...or should I just wait until we hit level 17 so I can summon it just for giggles and crap.

I mean against our enemies, not necessarily against the party...

Up to your GM. For standard Pathfinder, the chance of a 9th level scroll being available is pretty small. In locations that are Large Towns or larger, there are 1d4 to 3d4 Major Magic Items available for sale. For a given item there's a 10% chance that it's a scroll. Major Item scrolls are 4th-9th level, and the chance of a given Major scroll being 9th level is 5%. I haven't reviewed the rules to see how the spell type (divine or arcane) and actual spell are determined, but if it's a dice roll, there are a sizable number of 9th level wizard spells to choose from.

If the GM is using random rolls to determine if a Gate scroll is available, I wouldn't even bother to ask.

Now assuming you did get hold of the scroll, don't forget: "A creature with more HD than your caster level can't be controlled." Even if the GM generously allows the CL of the scroll to be the determining factor rather than your Arcanist's level, you probably still can't control a 20HD Balor.

So let's assume your party has gone to Absalom and have placed yourself where a Balor could do the most harm to your enemies. You Gate the demon in, and because you're smart, you've arranged to teleport out before he can act. The demon's first impulse is going to be finding and punishing the fool who dared inconvenience him. Assume for the moment you can't be followed. The Balor will realize this quickly. He'll also figure out where he is. I expect his reaction will be 1) making a quick mental note to have his underlings get to work on identifying and locating you in order to make the rest of your life miserable and brief, and 2) make a real mess of whatever area he's in, either by a Fire Storm or summoning a lower level demon to do the job, then 3) leave.


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I'll endorse Magda Luckbender's recommendation above, and the David's mention of Apsu. Apsu gets you Travel Domain, which is one of the best. Take the Evangelist archetype (giving up the second domain) and your kobold will be hissing and growling the party to success.


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Some basics:
1st level: Swarms, DR/slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning.
5th level: Flying, invisibility, DR/magic, cold iron, silver, ability damage, elemental resistance 5
8th level: incorporeal, ability drain, DR/alignment, grab/engulf/swallow, resistance 10+
11th level: elemental immunity, DR/adamantine, SR 20-23
At higher levels, it’s mostly combinations and higher resistances


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Zarius wrote:

So, yeah... Exactly what the title says, but I'll refine my terms a little. I need one spell that fills the following criteria:

~Up to level 5, preferably 4
~Caster level 10
~Can kill up to 1,600 targets with four castings.
~Assume most of the army to be a reasonable level 1 character.
~Direct damage preferred
~Lower level spells with metamagics are completely allowed
~Third party spells are allowed
~No mythic versions, as we aren't using it.

My GM is telling me that an idea I had for a spell is over powered explicitly because it is, as he and I both define it, 'an army killer'. But I know for a fact that Contagion could do it with a little luck, and that Greater Contagion could do it with great ease. But I'm looking for 'quick' results on the slaughter.

The key question is how dispersed this army is. Very few spells can affect widely-separated targets. Best bets as far as I can tell are Cloudkill and Firefall.

Edit: Cloudkill would most definitely take care of your criteria, assuming your caster can position correctly. Initial 20' radius is 44 squares, with an additional 12 squares/round. At CL 10, it moves for 10 minutes or 100 rounds, so the maximum is 1232 squares if I'm calculating right.

Firefall is just barely in criteria, as the 60' radius should cover about 450 squares, so 1800 for four castings.

This is Paizo-only. There may be 3rd party spells that work as well or better.


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Scott Wilhelm wrote:


Is variant channeling PFS Legal?

Better be. Our Seeker-level group (Eyes of the Ten and beyond) has a Dazing Cleric of Dispater who is devastating.


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Assuming you're running a homebrew campaign, as opposed to a Paizo Adventure Path, I have a general recommendation on random encounters. Mostly you should avoid them. They suck up table time on activity that, by definition, does not advance the plot. They will either be trivial or suck up party resources in fighting or escaping. They can often leave the players thinking the GM is just screwing with them rather than working on the cooperative storytelling that can be such an enjoyable part of this game.

That being said, a GM might have good reason to insert a random encounter. You might want to illustrate the hazards of the environment. You might want to add some variety to a session that is otherwise all roleplay. You might want to see how they react to certain threats. You might want to have them use up some resources before a planned encounter (be careful with that one - they deserve to succeed more easily if they've made the right preparations and you don't want them feeling you've neutralized an advantage they earned).

To my way of thinking, a 'random' encounter should be more or less the kind that shows up in PFS scenarios. It occurs at a fixed time and location, it's generally CR+/-1, and only the particular foe is chosen by the dice.


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The only thing I did well on building my first PFS character was selecting his domains. Travel and Liberation. Travel is praised already, but Liberation is also excellent. At low levels, ignoring difficult terrain for a few rounds is fantastic. At level 8+, Freedom's Call can be huge. Black Tentacles grabbed the whole party? Nope, not the ones within 30 feet of the Liberation cleric.

Luck domain is also great. Who doesn't want to pass around a half dozen re-rolls? But you do need to be adjacent to your party, so it could present some challenges to a ranged character.


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Sevillief wrote:

Ok, so I'm working on a custom scenario and it's meant to be hard. One of the middle encounters is CR 4, so according to the chart should be "Epic", but I'm concerned it will actually be guaranteed TPK.

Should be a five person group of level 1's with 25 pt buy stats, 500 starting gp, and the foreknowledge that they'll be facing undead, and that it'll be brutal. The encounter I'm concerned about is 3 ghouls. I even toyed with one ghoul having a single class in cleric as that keeps the CR at 4. But I'm starting to think that at level 1 specifically CR +3 might be more than just Epic.

For reference the other CR 4 encounters are:
Burning Skeletons x 4, Bloody Skeleton x 2
Gelatinous Cube x 1, Giant Botfly x 4 (big room they can kite the cube in)
Apocalypse Zombie x 1, Flapping Heads x 2

Let me know what your thoughts are and if I should tone all these down.

How much will you allow the characters to know about undead? Obviously the players can do all the research they want, but are you going to require Knowledge Religion checks to act on it? If so, that might be another area to give the characters a boost. Perhaps, rather than a straight bonus to K(Religion), grant them full knowledge of basic undead up to CR = character level +2 and only require rolls for knowledge of variants or higher level opponents.

You allude to tactics being against the party in the skeleton encounter. That's huge. You might want to factor the tactical situation into the CR. Finally, it's less about the CR of a single encounter than how all the encounters stack up between chances to rest and resupply.


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Drs. R. H. S. P. Stuart-Mill wrote:


Is it good or bad for the game that players know the AC during combat?

It doesn't really hurt, especially as combat goes on and all you really need to do is listen carefully. After five or six attempts to hit the thing, you can usually figure out the AC to within a couple of points.

On the other hand, as a GM I wouldn't announce the enemy AC ahead of time and it's not one of the things you can get out of a Knowledge check.


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Not so much overpriced as utterly useless: the Fire Lance. For 25gp plus the cost of two black powder charges, it provides a two-handed method of hurling a javelin TEN FEET. With the sole exception of an x4 crit multiplier, it is in every way inferior to just throwing the javelin yourself.


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Our PFS Seeker-level (L12+) party mostly took Lookout. It's paid off,as PFS writers like dropping in a surprise round every 3-4 encounters. But this is an exception, as it's a PFS quasi-campaign with the same six characters for a lot of adventures.


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Some additional things you should clarify before we get to your specific questions: What sources does your GM allow? What are your character's stats? What other traits and feats do you have? What's the makeup of the rest of your party?

Quick answer on #2 - You make basic bombs that do 1d6 fire damage at first level, scaling with our sneak attack (that is, 2d6 at level 3, 3d6 L5, etc.). To make any of the other bombs, you'd have to take Bomber, then Bomber's Discovery later.

2/5

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...you realize that your Alchemist3 is going to see nothing but demons for the next 4 hours.

...the GM warns the Bard that she *will* run out of rounds of Inspire Courage if she uses them every fight.


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Easy way for the GM to wiggle out of this, if she needs to: Comprehend Languages "does not decipher codes or reveal messages concealed in otherwise normal text." So the OP could easily have deciphered the words without having a real clue to the meaning. Come to think of it, that in and of itself could be a neat plot hook.


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This isn't 'just using scrolls' so may not qualify, but can you get a Merciful metamagic rod? The Lesser form is only 1500gp for three spells/day up to third level. The normal is only 5500. With Merciful, any damage your spell does is nonlethal.


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Take a look here for a pistolero feat chain both single and dual-wielding. He doesn't give the full build, but from the stats I assume he's setting up Dex 20 at level 5 and Dex 24 at 10th level.

Zenith Games also has a links to a couple of other Musket Master builds using svirfneblin and goblin.


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Dustin Ashe wrote:
If you loved the Class Guides in the recently-released Strategy Guide, you might just love these homebrew ones for the nonCore classes. Here's the first of many more to come!

That looks really good! It'll be a great help to newer players.

One correction: Stink bomb has smoke bomb as a pre-requisite, so you can't take stink as your first discovery.

2/5

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Michael J. Caboose wrote:
Those familiar with the name of this PFS-character would have some idea of the concept I am going for - and it's partly played for laughs.

The first time you go unconscious you really need to fail a stabilization check so you can give my favorite Caboose line: "My body is trying to die."

2/5

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Silbeg wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
Did anyone sing the doom song?

The doom song?

Link, or it doesn't exist.

If you insist.


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Ciaran Barnes wrote:
St. Cuthbert's Mace? What happened to his cudgel?

Actually it was always a mace:

"Mace of Cuthbert: This weapon is said to be that actually used by the Venerable Saint Cuthbert of the Cudgel when he demonstrated the folly of error to the unbeliever."

From the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, 1979.

I have always loved that phrasing.


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Taku Ooka Nin wrote:

So, TL:DR:
Ask why they don't want to play your homebrew. Correct issue within design. Ensure you have wonderful and memorable characters—an outrageous paladin who yells his lines and charges forward to smite evil with seeming infinite bravery and endurance is great, but when the PCs realize he is doing it to run away from that traumatic event in his past that haunts him relentlessly he...

Reminds me of a favorite NPC from many years ago. The dungeon was an insane asylum, and we came across a sort of Inigo Montoya character, only without the revenge motif. But he was, he said, the greatest swordsman in the world, and had the most wonderful sword ever known. He would reach down to his waist, where a scabbard would hang, and then extend his arm as if dramatically drawing a sword. But his hand was empty. He was genuinely puzzled why we couldn't see it. Plus he would occasionally attack opponents only he could see or hear.

The party took him on as a sort of guide to the place, and the first time we hit combat he jumped right in - and started laying waste to all kinds of opponents with his invisible sword.

I think we found a potion that would cure insanity, and had some debate over whether to give it to 'Inigo', since we were afraid his sword would disappear once we did. I don't remember how we ever resolved it, but what a great character. Some excellent GM roleplaying.

2/5

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Snuggles: Destroyer of Worlds wrote:
...When you play with socially ackward people that have charisma based characters and are the ONLY ones with social skills... but always lock up in a brain freeze whenever they have to talk.

Really happened: At the seven person table, the adults were playing a barbarian, a fighter, a gunslinger, a cleric, and an alchemist, none of whom I think even had ranks in Diplomacy. The bard and the sorcerer were played by middle-school-aged boys. One of whom I'm pretty sure falls somewhere on the Asperger's scale. And was playing his second or third PFS session.

(To his credit, the kid insisted on donating some of his gold to a temple that was being extorted earlier in the scenario. The GM made sure to note it on his chronicle, which I thought was cool. And we came through the scenario just fine.)

2/5

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My first character is Andoran, and would at first opportunity explain to Maldris how corruption is an expected outcome of governments grown large enough to constrain natural freedoms.

Actually, he will explain this to anyone at any time, and at great length. His adventuring partner, a bard, has had to develop a countersong for those times when a simple "Shut up, Valthur" will not suffice.

2/5

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Silbeg wrote:

I have rarely seen people deny healing. Just remember that your fun should not be contingent on someone else being required to keep your character healthy with their limited resources.

But, if you would like to play a healbot cleric to show people how your think it should be done, by all means do so! I guarantee that character will be welcome at almost any table

Another thing to keep in mind: Everyone knows that first-time characters are built with 150gp and no prestige, so of course you don't have a CLW wand. If you have enough money left after initial equipment to afford a potion, great, but no one really expects it.

The d-bag quotient in PFS, as in the rest of real life, is lower than you'd think by reading message boards!