Spook205's page

Have a question for you folks.

I've got a rogue player who picked up a Shadowform Belt for himself.

Now, the belt specifically grants the Incorporeality rules to the operator of said belt. The rogue intended to utilize this to set up touch based sneak attacks (using his magic, but not incorporeal weapon) and avoid damage from anyone not using a magic weapon.

I originally thought this would cause problems since with ghosts they can't attack physical objects unless they have a ghost touch item, but there's nothing specifically in incorporeal write up that forbids attacks.

It reads...

...they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment...

I allowed the touch attack, but at 1/2 damage (since thats how magic weapons work on incorporeal entities).

Does anyone have any information on this?

I did a cursory search for this but didn't turn up anything useful (mea culpa if there's some thread that answers these questions that I missed).

A few weeks ago we had a situation where Rocs were engaging with knighted cavaliers. The Rocs have fly-by attack, as well as a grab attack. The player operating the rocs argued that they should be able to fly down, make the grab (and its damn near impossible to not get grappled by a roc), and then continue their movement returning to the air.

While I can see a Roc being designed to do this, I had trouble justifying this free movement with the monster now entering the grappled condition, that sort of put it in place.

I'm led to think the way this should play out is...

Roc swoops down, intendinga fly-by attack. Hits. Grabs. Grapples. Its movement ends.

On the following turn, assuming that the grapple is maintained, it moves away at half speed with its struggling quarry.

Anyone have better ideas on this then I? I'd really like some clarification. Thanks.

This is less a mechanical question then one for when its more beneficial to use the anti-magic fallback.

Obviously, this is a high level dragon issue, as the dragon has to have access to sixth level spells.

Now, I'm partially of the mind that the field takes away quite a lot, but also gives the dragon advantages he otherwise would not have against similar foes.

In my case, I'm planning to use it with an Ancient Green Dragon against a party of 6 15th level characters.

The pros I see are
1.) It disables the paladin's smite ability,
2.)pretty much all of the barbarian's rage abilities,
3.)removes the summoner's ability to use summoned creatures effectively against the dragon,
4.)makes indirect spells useless,
5.) Makes the dragon's DR 15/magic actually daunting as opposed to instantly bypassed,
6.) Renders elemental protections moot.

The cons are..
1.) It reduces the dragon to purely physical strikes.
2.) Dropping it to effect a magical escape, is a standard action.
3.) It robs the dragon of the capability of using its mirror image, displacement, mage armor, and shield spells.
4.) Inflicts on my players having to do math to account for their weapons and equipment all being turned off when they're within 10 feet of the gargantuan dragon.

Now I don't want this to just be about my Ancient Green but rather a discussion about whether its really in the dragon's best interests to pop an anti-magic field before getting to grips with a party of on par adventurers.

Just a few questions on our friendly lovecraftian demon-flashlights.

1. First question, burning touch...

Burning Touch (Su)

A shining child corrupts the positive energy within a living creature into an unnatural burning light. For the next 5 rounds after a successful touch attack by a shining child, the target takes 2d6 points of fire damage. The burning light can be “extinguished” by casting darkness or deeper darkness on the target, or by entering an area of natural darkness (not counting the light from the burning target).

As the Shining Child's Searing Rays are also touches, do they also ignite per burning touch? Or does it need to be specified as a ranged touch?

2. Searing Ray does 'double damage' to undead, is that best adjudicated by rolling 20d6, or doubling a 10d6 roll?

3.) What level of light effect is the blinding light (su) aura considered to be? Will a darkness spell douse it?

Thanks.

I had an odd thought when I was reading Rasputin must die, or rather, a nitpicky feeling.

Its described in the story how Rasputin faked his death, by utilizing mind control spells and a simulacra of himself that got autopsied and buried instead of him.

Now if the simulacra died, it should have reverted to snow, correct? Or is the assumption that it somehow 'survived' the autopsy process, or that Rasputin made a pre-dead simulacra (how does that even work?)

I know this is nitpicking, but it seemed like an oddity to me. What say you all?

One of the major threats in campaign world is the continued involvement of people such as rilmani, elementals, aeons, inevitables and proteans.

Now the inevitables, proteans and the like can be easilly dealt with by stuff dedicated to hitting law or chaos.

A more dire question is, what are good solid spell counters against Neutral opponents?

How do you keep summoned elementals from whalloping you (pro evil or pro good does nothing against them.)

Is there an Aligned Word that hits a True Neutral outsider as hard as Holy Word hits the evil?

How would you build a spellcaster who was dedicated expressly to combating neutrals?

If you're in my game, and you know who you are, don't open the spoiler further. :/

Basically, what do you folks think I could do to make this a more challenging, interesting and fun encounter?

Howdy folks, just looking for some advice on how to keep some encounters with juggernauts entertaining.

An eighth level party managed to discover that there are two juggernauts dedicated to a goddess of disease tearing through some corridors in a benighted under city.

One of the party members, a mystic theurg with a talent for knowledge skills managed to suss out the faith-bound drawback:

Faith-Bound (Su) A juggernaut cannot attack any creature that openly wears or displays the holy symbol or unholy symbol of the deity to which the juggernaut is dedicated unless that creature first attacks the juggernaut.

..and after a quick trip to the carpenter, they're all sporting little wooden unholy symbols.

Now this is clever. I like this, people who think their way around obstacles are good adventurers. I like that their preparation has assisted them, but I'd like to avoid them feeling overly friendly or unconcerned regarding the juggernauts.

I want to do this without totally cr*pping all over their preparation.

Any ideas folks?

Alright, more fun questions arising from having an Undead Master in my group.

The hearty fellow opted to animate a dead owb as a bloody skeleton, now with the purchase of muleback cords, he intends to have the owb make a habit of flying him around by carrying him.

Per weight restrictions, he's good to go (muleback cords are pretty handy when it comes to carrying capacity).

My question is how to adjudicate this. He's not riding the owb, he's being carried by it, and I'm unsure if this means he'd be counted as being grappled, moved, or what.

So I come to you all, to pick your brains.

Thanks in advance.

Howdy folks. Party recently dispatched an owb that had been set against them.

As the party has an undead master, he decided he'd upgrade from his usual bloody skeleton redcap to a bloody skeleton owb (he reasons it can fly and is ergo better).

Making evil outsiders into skeletons gives me a bit of a frown, but I see nothing against it and I start making up the stats to hand over to the guy when he shells out his brass for making it and I notice.

OFFENSE
Speed 5 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect)
Melee 2 claws +12 (1d8+4 plus 1d6 cold)
Ranged burning cold +14 touch (3d6 cold)
Special Attacks burning cold, curse of darkness

The burning cold ranged attack goes, its a SU attack spelled out in the Owb's write up.

Then I figure, ok, paizo usually explains where other attacks come from but.. Nada. No explanation for the source of that 1d6 cold on the claw attacks. No subtype besides 'extraplanar.'

So my question is... Does he keep the 1d6 cold damage per...

Special Qualities: A skeleton loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks.

Or does he lose it?

Also, does the skeleton keep the Light Sensitivity weakness? I don't see any mention that skeletons lose weaknesses but it seems odd he'd keep it. If he were an orc, I'd be inclined to say no (no eyes) but as an owb is a being forged from shadow I think he's got a larger issue against light.

Been using some fun dungeon hazards and well..

Yellow Mold!

If disturbed, a 5-foot square of this mold bursts forth with a cloud of poisonous spores. All within 10 feet of the mold must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or take 1d3 points of Constitution damage. Another DC 15 Fortitude save is required once per round for the next 5 rounds, to avoid taking 1d3 points of Constitution damage each round. A successful Fortitude save ends this effect. Fire destroys yellow mold, and sunlight renders it dormant.

So, to make sure I'm reading this right.

a. Does this mean that if you set off the mold you need to make five additional saves of the next rounds? Even if you move away?

b. Or the mold floats in the air for five additional rounds?

c. Or you just take the additional five rounds if you fail the initial save?

I think its c, but...

I've got plans for a hard sci-fi horror-adventure campaign I was going to run to cool off after I finish my 4-5 year old Pathfinder game (when I finish it).

I've therefore been shopping around a bit trying to find a good system. I originally built the campaign to use the Alternity rules (which tells you hold old I am...) but that system is kind of not available anymore, and the gild is off the lily regarding how great it was (Alternity was great when we were leaving 2e, now its a little janky).

I've looked into Eclipse Phase but found it way too setting specific.
I even picked up the Serenity RPG, but its more of a storytelling system, and I want a little crunch for people to play with.

So I turn to you folks for suggestions..

The requirements I've got are..
1.) The system has to be easily available, legally.
2.) Its not overly crunchy (no GURPS).
3.) The setting needs to have a reasonable, but not overly complex ship to ship combat system.
4.) I want something more heroic and less one splinter in your toe kills you (So no Dark Heresy, Crusade, etc).

I'd lean towards d20 modern but the players (and I) think if we were going to use d20 modern, we might as well use Alternity.

I've had some people suggest using Bounty Head or Mutants and Masterminds (and setting the PL at around 3).

What suggestions do you folks have? Thanks in advance.

A bit of a quick question.

I've got a possible encounter coming up where a nightwalker might be involved. Now, these big nasty undead guys have a 3d6+15 attack, greater vital strike and greater sunder.

Now..even with my question of "Can I greater vital strike on my sunder?"

A larger question I have is, does the effective toughness of a furious weapon increase when the barbarian is holding it as its plus increases?

I've got an undead master cleric player in one of my games. Now he's got himself a little intelligence boosting item and his immediate response was to strap it onto an undead creature, specifically a mindless undead creature.

His intention is to give it a meager intelligence score (say 2) so he can train it.

Part of me is inclined to believe that mindless undead are just that, mindless, and no amount of intelligence boosting items is going to imbue them with an intellect (no matter how small) but I don't know if I have a rules basis.

Similarly, I don't think putting a +1 int item on a giant roach or a golem would make it animal intellect or trainable, but again, I don't have a rules citation to back me up.

What say you all?

To leap right to it.

One of the two groups I DM for has a somewhat odd composition for its party members.

Their party composition is..
1. Synthesist Summoner.
2. Undead Master Cleric (str as dumpstat).
2a. A bloody redcap skeleton.
3. Fighter / Rogue
4. Fire Based Sorceress
5. Cleric / Wizard with aspirations of becoming a Mystic Theurg.

Now, commentary anybody might have on these classes aside, the loot situation is...weird.

I tend to rely, 80% of the time on randomized loot based on the tables in Complete Equipment. I also tend to favor trade goods over straight coin (enjoy your ton of beans, muahaha!)

But the issue is the party routinely encounters martial foes, and martial foes have martial gear. And the only people in the party who use martial gear are the fighter/rogue and the undead redcap.

The normal charts generate a lot of magic swords, armor and various other stuff, but the party actually disdains weapons as they are almost universally spellcastery types (except for the synth who relies on her natural attacks).

As such, the loot they typically pick up ends up somewhat underwhelming to them. Especially to the cleric who is primarily obsessed with acquiring very specific items.

So the point of this. Without abandoning the random method, how can I better feed the party stuff they'd find exciting.

This isn't a question on WBL, or balance or stuff like that, the party has crafting feats and is quite willing to sell gear off to procure gear they might want. Its a question of how to make the treasure seem worthwhile and fun instead of 'meh, no one can use that.'

I've encountered a trend as of late.

DMs, and indeed other players seem to react to the presence of a LN with groans and sighs whereas the once denigrated and hated CN is given more of a pass.

This is obviously anecdotal (pretty much everything on these forums is), but it seems as if LNs are viewed as worse scolds then LGs and also ironically as causing problems for DMs who seem to assume their adventurers to be wild free spirits possessed of abusable egos.

I've spoken to DMs who seemed strangely irritated the LN didn't rise to challenge or insult as it was against the law, meaning he was robbed of his bar fight potential.

Others seemed to dislike the 'vulcan' LN who doesn't let things like anger, revenge, or even seeking for personal comfort and acclaim to get in the way of a narrow, goal-oriented outlook on things.

The 'we have a dragon to kill, why are you wasting money buying fancy clothes for some woman you just met?' guy. Or in Pathfinder sense, the guy who'd insist on no partying or relaxing what-so-ever until the goblin threat to Sandpoint had been resolved.

I've experienced this a bit myself as a LN character, when the DM seemed to assume I'd be motivated out of spite, or show greater loyalty to my party members (pre-established to be a purely business relationship) then the local law enforcement.

I've also had the goal-oriented thing thrown at me, when I powered past subplots (resulting in a party split for a while) since they only interfered with what our stated goal was. Meaning the DM, unfortunately, had to deal with trying to simultaneously run his light fun side quest stuff alongside the tougher darker stuff I was encountering.

Now I've asked around a bit about this in what passes for meatspace, and the usual reasons I've gotten are.

1.) LN causes as much trouble as CN, but the trouble he causes isn't 'fun.'
2.) Players seem to dislike when a party member takes the NPC sides instead of theirs.
3.) DMs don't like when the player isn't really engaging with the environment so much as 'surrendering' to it.
4.) LNs tend to want to know what the legal situation is in cities and environments where the DM'd rather not put too much thought into it. The lawyer tendency also results in them unintentionally kicking the pillars out that suspend disbelief.

So what do you folks think?

Hey.

This order's been sitting in Shipment Info Received by Post Office (Delivery confirmation no. 92419999920364123020001665) status since the third of November. I'm kind of worried that it might have gotten lost or something, is there a way to get an estimated arrival date or something for it?

Also, this order got placed way back on October 1, 2014. Is there a reason it took so long for it to get processed to the USPS in the first place?

Thanks.

So folks, got a bit of a question for you.

One of my players is a bit of an aspiring necromancer and given my propensity for using a lot of baddies in encounters I figure this is going to come up soon.

If the party is attacked by say, a carrionstorm, can he use his command undead (negative channeler) to attempt to gain control of the carrionstorm in its entirity? Its a swarm of something like 2000 little undead crows but per the rules only has like 2HD.

Similarly, if he were to encounter a zombie troop unit (an abstraction to represent 30-60 zombies in a group), should he not be able to control it, or just go off of the HD as if were a single creature?

When the enemy appears before the party, he's going to die.

This is an assurance a good 70-80 percent of the time. The way the code of Pathfinder plays out and the way that villains don't benefit from the usual advantages of fiction for escapes almost assures this.

I was mostly interested in starting a discussion for methods of setting up recurring baddies who actively engage with the party on a regular, or semi-regular basis, and the potential risks and caveats thereof.

The initial place I see to go for recurring enemies is unfortunately, high level spellcasters. This is unfortunate because it limit the possibility of meaningful long-term interaction (its the high-level, not the wizard I object to.) The high level wizard just isn't threatened, leaving the party less with a sensation of defeating a foe in honest combat which he fled from, and more in that they just survived a DM inflicted cut-scene.

Two of themethods for the HL-caster type are of course.. The clone spell (ha ha, clone body), astral projection (I wasn't actually here!)

Simulacrum works to a point, but the fact the simulacrum is lower level and isn't actually the bad guy kind of blunts the appeal from a player perspective. Beating up a bunch of snowmen of the bad guy isn't the same as beating the bad guy. Its a doom-bot cop-out.

The undead are another option for recurrance.

There are a few undead who pull the 'defeated, but will return' shennigans: the little mermaid ningyo, lich, graveknight, ghost, and a few others.

You can defeat them, but they come back, admittedly with a severe equipment loss. The ghost doesn't even have an equipment loss, but they generally don't range around. In the case of the ningyo, its just a freaky little monkey mermaid thing and isn't really 'recurring villain' material.

Ghosts are arguably more of a pain in the butt then liches because they 1.) Are dangerous no matter what class they were, 2.) Take half damage intrinsically from damn near everything except ghost touch weaponry, and 3.) Can still get DR if you're an evil, evil DM.

If you guys have any other ideas on methods for recurring that aren't these guys and can be done starting at like CR 7, I'd be glad to hear it and add it to my DMly knowledge base.

Now some of you I expect to argue the benefits of the expeditious retreat spell, flight spell, dimension door (which I argue is absolutely worthless for escaping from a party), getaway , teleport or word of recall. And these are good for allowing a villain to poke the party and then come back, but require a mid to high level guy, and typically a high level wizard. The word of recall is useful, but requires a lot of pre-planning and also generally the heroes are already attacking the cleric's stronghold when that sort of stuff goes off.

Alright...

Living Walls (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary4/livingWall.html#living-wall) have the following ability:

Fleshy Link (Ex) A living wall that is adjacent to another living wall automatically links with it, forming an impassible solid barrier. Linked living walls coordinate their attacks and move as one creature. Any linked wall can unlink itself as a free action. Any damage to one linked living wall is divided evenly among all linked living walls (for example, if three walls are linked and one takes 15 points of damage, each wall instead takes 5 points of damage). Two or three linked living walls count as a Huge creature for the purpose of effects affected or limited by size (such as bull rush), four or five count as Gargantuan, and six or more count as Colossal.

They also have DR 5/slashing.

Does the DR get applied to the raw damage, or the divided damage?

Ok folks, got a bit of a two section question for you. i'm sticking this here because if I put in rules forum I'd be getting the strict RAW and I'm really looking more for a rule-based sensible approach.

The party, which contains an undead master cleric, have recently dealt with some pretty horrific aberrant and mythos creatures, specifically mi-go and chuuls and some oozes.

He wants to know if skeletons can be made out of mi-go (since they're essentially weird 'fungus') and chuuls (since they're invertebrates).

I also decided that the gelatinous cube the party dispatched didn't leave enough real remains to make a zombie out of, and similarly the hungry flesh and gibbering mouther they encountered literally had to be destroyed in order to stop them, precluding their becoming zombie versions of what they were.

Now on the second part..

The party also came across a few dwarven clerics who had been mi-go brain canister'd. Are they dead? Undead? The cleric wants to know if he can control them, if they're hurt by channeled positive, if he should suggest a raise dead, etc. I couldn't really find a straight answer in the mi-go brain canister write up.

I did a quick look through the search function and didn't find an answer to this question.

This came up in my game last night. A scrag comes charging at a PC. Another PC had previously decided that on his action his bloody skeleton redcap was going to ready to charge the scrag should they leave the bog they were in, to close to attack.

The scrag comes out of the water, the redcap charges. The redcap gets into position, and whallops the scrag, who then continues along his charge path.

The player who's cleric was operating the redcap then posited the redcap should get an AoO on the scrag as its 'leaving his threatened area.'

As I didn't want to spend too much time on it, I made a quick ruling that as the actions are considered to occur simultaneously then the redcap's readied charge occurs as the troll was already in motion and therefore he gets his readied attack, but not a subsequent AoO.

I do want to check up on this though.

So what say you?

Just a general thread since its a problem my players are currently dealing with.

The situation:

* The enemy is a mage.

* She personally is incapable of casting the spell (too low level), but thanks to being a minion, a higher up provides her with sustained clones that are kept in a variety of safe locales, ready for decanting.

* The party is concerned if they incarcerate her, she'll escape or be broken out (or alternately take her own life somehow so she'll blip off to one of her clones and her benefactor's waiting restorations.)

* The party (14th level) also exists in a political/moral atmosphere where things like trap the soul are illegal and unavailable.

* The party will have access to a means to prevent all raise dead/resurrection/become undead shennigans, but it happens at the next level for the cleric's prestige class and requires it be used on a dead body. Next level is a bit off.

* Although captured, she still has an unknown amount of spells memorized.

* The party does not know if she has still or silent spell as feats (she's never shown them before).

* They currently have the mage trussed up, fingers individually tied, gagged, with no gear.

* They have not located her spell-book or how she keeps regaining access to it. It was not on her.

Since I've created this situation for the players, I thought it'd be nice of me if I started a forum topic to see people's thoughts on the issue as well.

Also, it'll give me more information should they ask a more experienced adventurer what to do.

This might be a bit of a narrow thread. And anyone in my game who might be on this forum, should immediately close this thread right now. Else I shall be quite cross.

-

-

-

-

Alright. The question I have for you folks out there is basically this. I'm working on developing what is essentially a daily encounter (party is mostly fresh and ready), that I plan to provide them with all their necessary dangerous nutritional requirements in one big climactic event.

The details: The enemy of the party is currently working on attempting to contain a minor godling for their insidious purposes. To affect this, they have found a location keyed in with the godling's initial creation. This area has a dimensional anchor effect that coats it, which they plan to use to contain her (while also limiting their escape options) but the anchor doesn't stop summons (or gates).

They've enlisted a paladin, who they bluffed into believing he was serving the Big Good deity of the world by containing said god. Also, as the entire area is infused to the gills with evil energy, detect evil isn't really useful for narrowing down inspection of people. The paladin's presence however has resulted in our bad guys, who are mostly fiendish, having to disguise themselves as clerics of a good deity (meaning that some of the bigger scarier fiends are out), and no gating in pals, or teleporting away.

The encounter will occur in the containment room, which is about 360' by 360' area, with some sections having given way to a lava pool about 80 feet below (uncomfortably hot, but not actively damaging).

Now, Before I get into the baddies..the PCs are composed of the following.
All 14th level
Cleric , anti-undead and healing focus, spellcasting focused. Has holy word memorized and holy smites. Sun and Weather domains.

Paladin , melee focused, armed with a +2 holy, neutral outsider bane longsword.

Barbarian , armed with a keen falchion which through barbarian falderal he can get up to a +5 equivalency for DR bypassing purposes. Also he has a shocking glaive +1 as a back up. Superstitious rage power.

Wizard Admixture school. Sits heavy on the bone shatters and evocation spells. Has permanenced arcane sight and see invis. Wearing a roboe of the archmage, spell pen and greater spell pen. (Has SR, Robe of Archmagi)

Rogue Scout type. Armed with lawful outsider bane elven curve blade. Has a wonderous item that lets him true see for a few rounds a day. Has SR (drow). Rogue tricks boost his AC and rob AoOs from those he hits.

Bard Reach fighter, through various banners, feats and items, is capable of giving a +6 to hit and damage for allies in 30, and +3/+4 for those outside.

Summoner Usually the dimension door taxi (no go in the dimensionally anchored area). Loves bralani azatas and huge elementals. Tends to not bother with the eidolon, instead calling in a lot of outside help (I was planning on not limiting his ability to pull stuff), has summon eidolon spell, and has enhanced summoning (natch).

The planned opposition (who know the heroes are coming):

The ‘Bosses’:
14th level Wizard (admixture). An evocation specialist with ray specializations and an enjoyment for enervate and prismatic spells. Doesn’t worry about dying, has clone back ups. Invisible.

14th level dwarven Ranger (non-evil), with boon companion allosaurus, two-handed weapon specialization. Favored enemy types are not represented in the party. Starts hidden.

2 Handmaiden Devils (CR 14), disguised as clerics with aid of alter self, will drop if necessary.

2 12 headed pyrohydras.

The complications:

12th level Wizard (enchanter), big on dominates and support enchantments. Disguised as the ‘big good,’ the paladin (below) thinks he’s working for. Will likely cast invisibility first off.

3 Erinyes Monk 6s (zen archers) (CR 13 each) who will play keep away and flurry with their bows at soft targets as they present themselves.

1 paladin, 11th level (in the front line) (CR 10), mostly to cause the party some amount of confusion or difficulty vis-à-vis attempting to not kill the schlub. He’s armed with a holy merciful greatsword. Doesn't want to kill the party.

Juvenile Blue Dragon (capable of alter self chicanery), operating against her will due to hypnotic suggestions. Not evil aligned. (CR 10) Doesn't want to get hurt. Is motivated by fear of her controllers (the boss of the two wizards above).

Trio of Scheming Fencers (CR 10).

The meat:
15 or so bog-standard standard Erinyes (CR 8), whose only reasonable methods for causing harm is entangles or unholy blights.

Now my questions are..

Am I being way too hard for this (its meant to be an epic encounter, so I pegged as being like ECL 22 round abouts), or am I perhaps being too easy?

Any removals?

Tweaks?

Suggestions?

Thanks in advance guys.

Teleport always has a nice little hidden clause in it, what I like to call the 'Volcano Lair' clause.

"Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible."

Now, the idea of inside an active volcano, or down near a lot of lava, or something seems clear (at least to me) as being natural energy. But does this mean that our intrepid adventurers might have trouble with floods, incoming tsunami's, hurricanes, droughts , or similar things? Just what construes 'strong natural energy.' Can I not teleport to select locations on the plane of fire?

If I'm a gelugon, does this mean I can't zot around on the frozen hell that is my home because its constantly in blizzard with subzero temperatures? I have greater teleport, but that just means if its hazardous I don't go.

Also, what would classify as the 'strong magical energy,' if it includes anything which might result in a 'strong' return on detect magic, this means anything a 12+ level caster does might make an area dangerous (which seems weird to me).

And my tertiary question. Greater Teleport removes the failure chance, but if the situation would have resulted in hazard or failure, the teleport just doesn't work (you blink out and then back in again), or would greater teleport overcome the difficulties like this? Would interplanetary teleport?

If you guys think this question is more suited for General Discussion then Rules forum, feel free to kick it over there.

As a result of helping out a burgeoning LN necromancer in my campaign, I started on thinking of something.

We know how bad guys bypass those nasty alignment restrictive DRs (or just brute force past them), but how would say two evil necromantic clerics deal with say the following...

Our two fellows have decided to invest into bloody skeletons, with their HD and turn resistance (making them tough to wrest away). The destruction methods for these guys requires holy water and positive channeling, stuff they don't precisely have a lot of. Now I admit I enjoy the hillarity of them sitting in two towers yelling at one another as their skeletons wake up, beat the crap out of each other and fall back down in their mutual courtyard every morning but..

Is their only recourse to throw the damn things into a hole or lock them in the pantry?

I ask not just limited to the bloody skeletons but to the other various monsters requiring holy rituals (various outsiders, grave knights, etc), or holy water or positive energy to deal with.

Like how the hell do the bad guys deal with haunts?

Just a question for discussion.

I'm concerned this might seem presumptious, but this is a topic that comes up frequently, so I thought we should try to pool some ideas on it.

The purpose of this thread is to give guidance and ideas for DMs who are entering into the 13+ level range. Its not to discuss how 'the game falls apart' or the relative merits of classes (who or what is broken).

I'm sticking it in Discussion since I'm disinclined to think my own humble advice will be the polestar of the folks who are venturing into those higher levels.

And so...

"To train an archer, start with his grandfather."
This is a tricky thing I live by. The major problem with high level is when the party stumbles into it. When they ride modules and adventures that aren't connected into a high level arena without building up that high level arena.

You should already know who the big movers and shakers are. You should already plan for how the world handles these big guys. Since generally speaking, if the PCs get there, and you all of a sudden want to have appropriately high level CR threats..they had to have been there before.

If the party suddenly walks into a town and discovers the guards are all now level 11, they'll wonder where they were. They'll wonder how a normal kingdom deals with a CR16 Colossal Goliath Beetle that might just wander by one day.

The 15th level alchemists and warlords aren't waiting for the party so they can exist. Things in general go smoother if you accept they're there, and build them (and their counters) in from early on.

"Its less about can or can't and more about how and how well."
Defeat the lich.
Alright, we scry and teleport in using maximized spells and bob uses his superstition to tank while we...blah blah blah. This is usually what people cite when they say 'things fall apart.'
By higher levels, its not about just beating up the monsters or BBEGs anymore. Its about accomplishing something.
Astrobad the Cleric wants to resurrect the demon queen of fire ants. He's already started the resurrection, its happening . The party can swoop in and kill Astrobad, but then well, the demon queen's resurrection is still already underway. They have to find a way to stop it, this involves more then just finding the nearest goth cleric and punching his lights out. It requires an adventure, while meanwhile the clock is ticking.
And while they punch his lights out, fire ants are pushing at villages, full of squishy civilians to whom those fire ant swarms (inconsequential to the 17th level party) are still deadly serious threats.
Sure I can beat the bad guy in a few rounds, but what if there are civilians who need rescuing? All of a sudden its not about exchanging hit points, its about protecting people. You're superhuman now, congrats.
But Superman is too, and even though he can punch out the burglar, he still might not be able to stop the burglar from stabbing the little old lady in time.
Its both harder, and more rewarding to win the battle against the undead hordes while trying to keep that honorable, but nowhere near your power level NPC alive.

"Mano e mano. Man to man. Just you. And Me. And My GUARDS!"

Tabletop isn't Final Fantasy. The heroes shouldn't be squaring off against one guy with five dudes backing them up in a featureless grey room. The heroes obviously got to higher levels through cooperation as well as badassitude, so why do people find it so odd the bad guy might too?

If its not the BBEGuy, but the BBEGroup you get more NPCs to play with and a more diverse combat method. The party might find themselves prioritizing, while they themselves are being prioritized, and those high level guys? Just as mobile and high-levelly as they are.

Its something ironically enough that FR taught me. Why does Elminster sit in his tower all the time? Its not because of the lame 'then evil would pull out its CR 29 wizard' crap. Its because ideally he should be working on stopping his foes while he sits in his posh digs, andhe wants to watch the people and things he cares about. At higher level it becomes more about the mobility, the personality and the effects of the person on the wider world. Which ties in with the other half of this..

Those guards? The players should have them too. This makes the high level guy feel like he's more then just a 15th level fighter. If he has people calling him Lord Kickassikus and being available to do his grunt work. Even without the leadership feat, the high level hero should be able to delegate. He's a power now. He should affect things beyond his own's arms reach. The party probably got recrutied by a high level guy at some point, let them be that guy for the lower level stuff that they can't be bothered with (stop those fire ants for me, and I'll give you 1000gp). It makes them feel like they've arrived.

Also, like the point above, if he is invested in people and places, those people and places don't necessarilly have the same wherewithall that he does. He can handle those Rakshasa assassins, but his wife and retainers probably can't if he's away too long (starting to see why our proto-Elminsters sit at home so much?).

"You take the thousand on the left. I'll take the thousand on the right."

Know those rules about appropriate encounter design and 'challenging' the player? Don't forget to let the players feel like rampaging gods of destruction. The five of them stumble across the Orcish Army, 6,000 men strong consisting of almost all basic CR 1/2 orcs.

Let them erradicate the green bastards.

Players frequently complain that NPCs get to look cool in cut scenes. Why do they look cool? Because they're fighting little dudes and get to show their tricks. Let the players do this. Have them single handedly rescue a kingdom or city, just by being there, just by unintentionally being there.

Don't make the high level party feel like its in an arms race. Make them feel like superheroes.

Then when an appropriate CR enemy shows up, it feels like a threat. Not just to them, but to the rest of the world.

I'll try to add more as I think of them, but feel free to add your own how-to tips on running higher level adventures.

Since this is a repeated gripe of one of my players (even though it happened months ago), I felt I should double check to make sure my ruling was correct.

The Scenario.

Rogue charges enlarged pole-arm equipped barbarian. Barbarian in this case has combat reflexes, improved trip, and greater trip.

* Barbarian utilizes his AoO to initiate a trip action.

* His CMB roll beats the Rogue's CMD.

* Rogue is tripped. Falls prone.

* Barbarian uses AoO ensuing from Greater Trip to whallop poor little prone rogue.

* On Barbarian's turn, full attacks poor prone rogue necessitating his rescue.

Now its a jerk move on the part of the DM (me), but did I make an error with the AoOs here?

I DM for 8 people (God help me), and these players up until fairly recently have, due to a mixture of being pack-rats and having scant opportunity for sales, had an outrageous horde of stuff they'd picked up on the course of adventures.

Old armor, equipment, amulets of natural armor, rings of protection, potions, spellbooks, gold statues, chocolates, defective magic items, monster parts, raw metal, trade goods, jewels, swords, etc, etc.

Now they just passed over the mark into 14th level, and they've been surviving for the most part on drops. Now that they've finally gotten rid of the crap cluttering up their ship's hold (to the tune of about 686,000 gold pieces. Each PC got about 85k thanks to good prof merchant rolls on the part of their merchant-summoner).

Mind, they hadn't sold anything since around oh, fifth level and have continually been complaining about WBL since they had to split their monetary finds eight ways (I give out most treasure in objects, not currency).

Now, the money they should have had all along, they have recieved in one huge glut and they're looking into bigger purchases (a few folks have gotten their tier weapons and equipment, which is great).

Now with the benefit of a large city, active magical community, and flush with funds like a cadre of Daddy Warbucks they're considering pooling their supplies into investments, purchases and base-establishment instead of making too many further purchases.

Now I support this, but does anyone else have any potential concerns with PCs suddenly discovering they weren't anywhere near as cash-strapped as they were, and having a sudden money bomb go off when their assets became liquid?

Also, from a quick audit of their sheets, thanks to their windfall they're currently about half of the way to what their WBL should be as 14th level characters (they just peeked over), so I'm kind of amazed it worked out that well with the random drop list from Ultimate Equipment, the old 3.5 DMG and my own DM experience generating the loot.

Hello all.

I have a player in one of my current games. He's playing a LN Undead Master worshipping my Homebrew god of vengeance, justice, etc.

Now, prior to this player making this character, I gave him a general warning that being an undead focused PC would have drawbacks to it, I also provided my (100+ page long) world guide. He mostly brushed the warnings off.

What the player is now discovering is that he has 1.) Next to no sources for 'materials' and 2.) His 'followers' frequently encounter trouble.

Problem 1 mostly stems from how the dead are dealt with on my campaign setting. There are four primary methods. Burning, which is practiced only in times of absolute necessity as its associated with a destruction focused ce god. Burial, which is relatively uncommon. And burial at sea, which is intensely common, and its faith is wide-spread.

Burial in the ocean also adds an additional lovely 'cannot be reanimated by any means' benefit. High level clerics of the death goddess can also put a 'no raises, no resurrections, no animated dead, not even with a wish' whammy on corpses to assure they proceed on their merry way with no interruptions. (This one apparently succeeded in derailing someone who tried to run an epic level campaign in my setting back in 3.5. He expected his villain to come back only to have the cleric send him off to his next life).

The player therefore is left only with the carcasses of people who attempt to kill him as his materials, which I as the DM see as much more acceptable. But the relative prevalence of the goddess of death's faith (the lawful good ocean burial folks), results in a great deal of consecration fields, casual destruction of his followers, and him having to skulk a bit whenver they get to a major city (which almost always has a temple dedicated to the death goddess).

The idea that the people of my campaign world don't generally bury their dead has been around since the setting's 2e days, and wasn't just made up to screw him over.

Still, am I being a jerk, or is this just the freight this PC needs to pay for being a necromantic cleric?

Its probably somewhere really obvious in black and white, but I want to confirm that my interpretation of how creatures who already possess counts-as spellcasting advance if they take spellcasting classes.

Nymphs function as 7th level druids for spellcasting. Dragons count as sorcerers for whatever caster level they have.

So if a Nymph advances into druid, does she function as an 8th level druid for spellcasting? Or does she have more first level druid spells (and now first level druid abilities/skills she'd otherwise lack?).

Does a dragon sorcerer get to add on additional spells and castings at a lower level (that don't overlap with his already known low level spells?)

I think mechanically it might work in the 'seperate pools' way, but that seems kind of odd at the same time.

I was trying to figure out what the value of Greater Arcane sight was the other day.

Currently, one of the players in my campaign is a 13th level wizard, who has seen to it that he has arcane sight on permanently.

Also, thanks to intelligence bonuses and a headband of vast intelligence +6, he's currently cooking with something around a +24 (+5 intelligence, +3 more from the headband, +13 ranks, +3 class skill) spellcraft and knowledge(arcana) check.

Knowledge arcana requires only a DC 15+ spell level check for determining on going magical effects while under detect magic, it is literally impossible for him to fail an identification check while just looking at things with arcane sight (the lowest he can roll is a 1).

As this is not an unreasonable situation for a 13th level caster to be in (18,000 (headband) and 7,500 (Permanent arcane sight)'s not much on the WBL budget) this makes me wonder why you would ever waste a spell on Greater Arcane Sight when by that point you should basically be able to spot identify every on-going spell or aura you run into (id'ing active spells is a free action) just based on your skill ranks.

I figured I'd ask this since someone brought it up today. Sadly the actual session where this applies might come up this week, but..here's hoping not.

The question is how the spell planar adaptation will interact with a major positive dominant area of the Positive Material plane.

The spell reads: (planar adaptation) grants you immunity to the harmful environmental effects of a particular plane of existence, including such hazards as toxicity, extreme temperatures, and lack of air"

Now the major positive dominant trait is:
"A creature on a major positive-dominant plane must make a DC 15 Fortitude save to avoid being blinded for 10 rounds by the brilliance of the surroundings. Simply being on the plane grants fast healing 5 as an extraordinary ability. In addition, those at full hit points gain 5 additional temporary hit points per round. These temporary hit points fade 1d20 rounds after the creature leaves the major positive-dominant plane. However, a creature must make a DC 20 Fortitude save each round that its temporary hit points exceed its normal hit point total. Failing the saving throw results in the creature exploding in a riot of energy, which kills it."

The negative dominant trait state that death ward functions to protect against the punishments there, but there's no similar 'positive' protection.

Now..
1.) Does planar adaptation work here at all?
2.) Does it stop the 'Overcharge Explosion'?
3.) If it stops the explosion, does it stop the fast healing?
4.) Does planar adaptation protect against stuff like the blinding light effect?

Anyone in my group, now's the time to stop reading.

Alright, for the rest of you folks. I'm currently making my party suffer through an 'elemental' themed multidimensional tower complex (different layers, different planes).

These are based on the "old school" quasis from 1e and 2e. The positive themed bunch.

As 3e hasn't been able to help me out with this, I've had to cobble together the necessary rules and 'planar effects.'

The party already managed to get through the mephit and invisible stalker filled Steam Layer (Positive Water), while dealing with the heat through use of air bubbles and dealing with the vision issues from the omnipresent steam.

Now they're on to the Lightning Layer (Air+), which will be full of such wonderful things as golems, magnets, omnipresent lightning and occasional lghtning elementals.

I had a plan for the Radiance Layer (fire+), which involved having to go from area of darkness to area of darkness to avoid the literally blinding light (light so bright it would function like total darkness for all vision types). The trick is how to populate it.

My current plan involves some blind grimlock style things (so they can 'see' in the blinding Light), shining children, and the like. However, I kind of feel bad hitting the party with another 'vision obscuring' layer so quickly after the first one (Steam).

So I'm asking if you folks have additional ideas on what to have stomping around there. Keeping in mind I'm trying to avoid too many of the more outer planar evil outsiders (devils, daemons, etc), and I need some reasons why the stuff could survive the blistering heat and blinding radiance that covers the place. Also other ways to work the mechanics.

Thanks in advance.

I figured I'd start this topic for a pretty minor issue. I like that Paizo's been giving us some of the fun Cthulhu gribblies, they've been with sword and sorcery stories since forever.

That being said, some of them in stats just seem to fall a bit short. The Shoggoth definately doesn't, and the Color out of Space sure looks on target, but the Yithian (admittedly a minor creature in the Lovecraft stories) seems to be missing one of his core powers.

The Yithian's pretty scary, don't get me wrong, his amnesia power and his body swapping are still there in all their terrifying glory. And the idea of this non-human thing bodyjacking them left a party of mine watching the thing suspiciously in one adventure where they had to deal with him, but short of relying on 2e cosmology, I had no method for explaining the Yithian's capabilities for temporally shifting themselves.

I'm mostly wondering if this is just me being particular, or if I'm missing something (maybe in their astral projection ability?), or if Paizo's trying to avoid people messing around with time in general.

Another Spook post to try to start a discussion (I like doing these, I know).

Deities in RPGs tend to serve as convienent barometers for the characters they're attached to, and arguably the same can be said in real life. One's beliefs in what encompasses eternity are big.

That being said, I've always had a problem with what I call the 'neat pantheon,' and it seems like most RPGs (especially our homebrews) end up that way.

With names redacted (since nobody'd care anyway), here's a summary of mine so you can see the 'holes,' in it:

LG greater goddess of marriage, death, birth, visions and the ocean.

LG greater god of war. (right makes right)

NE greater god of war. (ends justify the means)

CG lesser god of 'trees.'

LN greater god of the earth, farming and law.

CN greater goddess of winds, chaos and the like.

N/LN/CN greater triune deity of magic.

LN(E) intermediate god of revenge.

CE greater goddess of destruction

N intermediate god of trade

N intermediate god of innovation.

N intermediate goddess of navigation.

CE lesser goddess of disease and corruption.

LG lesser god of opposing the undead/solar deity.

Miscellaneous sundry deities of very, very narrow pantheons (genocide of illithids, baking cakes, beating up outerplanar invaders, being a sword that flies through a jungle, etc). Also these are the only ones who live on belief.

Now in the past people have said that I lack a suitable LE deity, I don't have a tyrannical deity, and I really lack an 'undead' deity (even though the disease deity and the destruction deity use undead from time to time) and these absenses make things 'hard' for players (mind the people who say this aren't actually my players) to understand. Theres' also been arguments that the pantheon is highly law oriented on the good-guy side. Also, people have stated that concepts like 'music' or 'thievery' lack real associated deities (the closest is the chaos deity).

The question though isn't about my stuff specifically, its about that concept of holes in the pantheon.

Does a pantheon need a god of thieves, a god of tyranny, or the like? Do the bad guys even really need Evil-Guy deities to worship at all or would fiends serve just as well?

Do you need to have 'adventurer' themed gods to accomodate all tastes? Or is it better to have a small selection of deities and then have players find theologies within them (like for example a cleric starting a charity to honor the navigation goddess as it 'puts people back on course.')

What say all of you?

The basic idea was that there’s a mage-heavy country in my campaign setting, it outlaws or restricts certain spells gun-control style in order to establish order, avoid widespread trouble, and the like. The idea was originally born out of TSR’s complete Necromancer’s handbook which stated the following examples for determining a’black necromantic spell:

1.) Has to cause undue pain or injury. (Basically the same argument used in the Geneva convention regarding how it’s alright to blow someone up, but making weapons specifically to blind them are out.) This is the most contentious category, obviously.

2.)Traffics in negative energy

3.)Interferes with the process of a soul.

4.) Creates sentient or dangerous undead.

5.) Spells with the death effect (ties in with 3) as they make it harder for a being to be raised.

6.) Has the evil descriptor.

From this I started to develop a basic list of Black Necromantic spells that most civilized countries outlawed. In the past I implemented this baby for 2e, and I have a general listing for the core spells from the CRB (listed below) but I'm also considering adding additional lists for ‘licensed’ spells and spells requiring like approval or whatever for other schools. Now this would only really be enforced within the country’s borders (as the mage country responsible is horrendously bureaucratic) but outside countries do tend to look at the magical rulings of this nation as guidelines for their own.

I’m mostly looking for opinions on the rationales and the spell choices below (for and against). Also for spells that probably should be added from the splats (to a player's terror I've told him that Boneshatter is definately being considered as a type 1 violator but its currently ok'd as its basically just like taking a mace to someone). And yes, I know this list makes playing a PC Necromancer a nightmare if they’re in an area where the list in held in effect.

Spells marked with an asterix are basically 'licensed' only.

0-level: No restrictions
1-level:
Chill Touch* - Rationale: Utilizes negative energy
2- level:
Blindness/Deafness-Causes undue pain or injury.
Command Undead*-Undead focused spell. Legal use only to command undead to positions where they can be destroyed or resolved.
Ghoul Touch*- Utilizes Negative Energy
3-level:
Vampiric Touch – Currently under discussion for addition to list. Currently approved for use.
4-level
Animate Dead* – Creates Undead/Has Evil Descriptor. Approval for usage granted only for creation of non-sentient undead for purposes of training. Animation requires moral oversight of clergy and resolution of subjects following exercise. Subjects must have been willing for their bodies to be used for this purpose. Use of convicts or bodies procured under duress are strictly prohibited.
Contagion – Undue harm/evil descritpr
Enervation* – Utilizes negative energy to damage the spirit of a foe.
5-level:
Magic Jar* - Interference with transfer of souls.
Blight* – Causes undue pain or injury.
Symbol of Pain – Causes undue pain or injury
Waves of Fatigue* – Utilizes negative energy
6-level:
Circle of Death – Negative Energy, Evil Descriptor, Death effect
Create Undead – Creates Sentient Undead, Evil Descriptor
Eyebite – Causes undue pain.
7-level:
Control Undead*: Similar restriction to command undead.
Finger of Death: Death effect. Interferes with transference of soul.
Waves of Exhaustion* - Negative energy
8-level:
Create greater undead
Horrid Wilting – Causes undue pain.
Symbol of Death – Death effect.
9-level:
Energy Drain* – Utilizes negative energy.
Soul Bind – Interferences with transfer of a soul.
Wail of the Banshee – Death effect.

There are probably a lot of non-core spells I’d need to add to this (if you guys can think of any, and whether they’d be on the no-no list, or the restricted * list, I’d appreciate the opinions).

I'd also like suggestions on non-necromantic spells and whether you think they should be licensed or restricted as well.

Also I think this is the correct forum for this as its discussion and not house-rules, but if I'm in the wrong place, just kick me over.

Recently I decided to abandon the critical fumble chart from middle earth I've been using (inflicting) on my players, and I also decided to use paizo's fun critical hit deck. I find the card drawing mechanic fun, and the cards do present an interesting tactical situation to the party (although some crit hits seem to be overwhelming like the 2d4 int damage one if you're fighting animals).

Now the issue that was brought up was a player asked what the point of going into the critical tree is if the cards are used. Why pick up bleeding critical, or the like, if the deck is there and giving similar effects 'for free.' I didn't really see anything in the deck itself to explain interplay with on-crit feats. I admit I'm trying to figure out an answer to this and so..

Discussion time.

What do you lot think?

Despite the fun title, my actual point for discussion is how traps seem to increasingly become irrelevant, or alternately intrinsically terrifying as the party levels up.

A party without a rogue is going to be suffering attacks from these malaicious contraptions semi-regularly as they go up in levels, but for a party with a rogue, even the cited high level traps in the DMG become tremendously irrelevant by virtue of the trapfinding ability.

Lets take the cone of cold trap CR 11, standard. It has a DC 30 detection and a DC 30 Disable.

Now lets imagine a rogue, approximately 11th level, with perception and disable device and full ranks in each a 16 dexterity and a positive wisdom score modifier of say...12 (I assume no one will find this unreasonable). Meaning essentially a +17 on base detection. Now again, lets assume our rogue friend opted to take the relevant skill focus on perception as well, so thats an additional +6 (since he has more then 10 ranks), meaning essentially he has a +23 on base detection, making detection of a CR equivalent trap almost a given. Assuming he has the typical masterwork thieves tools as well, he has a better then 50% chance of disarming the thing.

Now lets move up to CR 15. The Rogue is 15th level, and his opponent this time is the Crushing Stone trap. He's now carting along with 15 ranks in perception and disble device, both with a +7 from trapfinding for a base bonus of +22 even before any wisdom or dexterity adjustments. This is also assuming, the very unlikely prospect that he doesn't have some additional magical gear that pumps his wisdom or dexterity even further. So lets assume the stat range from his 11th level incarnation so he has a +29 to perception and a +25 to disable device. The CR 15 trap we're presented with is..detected on a 30 and disarmed on a 20. The equivalent CR trap is more or less automatically detected and disabled, and again, this is assuming a very unwise rogue, and one who isn't wearing gear expected of a 15th level PC (Such as gloves of dexterity or perception boosters).

The CR 20 variants top out at 34 for detection and disarmament, meaning our 15th level rogue can take care of what would technically be an 'overwhelming encoutner,' solo, while the rest of the party drinks mai-tais behind him, or whatever it is adventurers do while the rogue works. The 11th level variant would definately be challenged by a 34/34, but probably could handle the crushing stone trap above without much trouble with it either, but if he botched the entire party would probably cease to exist.

Now, without a detective type rogue, the party would probably be severely messed up by these (I mean a meteor swarm trap, sweet heavens!), but in general it seems to me from a DM perspective that the traps represent irrelevant encounters and free xp to the party when the rogue's doing his job and terrifyingly arbitrary methods of causing damage if the party lacks an expert on these things.

Brilliant energy ignores non-living matter. Now, this raises some questions. Assuming that an individual was equipped with say...blindsight or some sort of tremorsense and in a room with large slabs of mobility impeding raw meat hanging from hooks, would our observant friend be able to perforate his attackers through the meat through the use of brilliant energy projectiles and would he suffer the concealment penalty if they were within his 'sight' radius?

Similarly, could you make a turret by hooking up something like a xorn inside a wall with a brilliant energy crossbow and have him shoot through the wall at people nearby without fear of reciprocation (well until they broke the wall down).

Something about this seems awesome, but also horrendously abusable so I'm wondering if you guys can see anything that would rationally stand in the way of this. Aside from the obvious that brilliant energy weapons and blindsight/tremorsense 30ft radius doesn't grow on trees.

Another one of 'Spook likes to stir discussion' posts.

Basically this one came from observation of myself and my own experiences.

According to my players, I'm a very competent DM, able to create engaging scenarios, world-building, making the PCs feel special and their actions feel important, filling the encounters with a cinematic but still believable atmosphere, etc.. As well as seeming to have a certain laizze-faire attitude and generally being as serious or as goofy as I need to be while portraying a wide gamut of NPC character types.

According to these same players, and co-players from other games however, I am a fun-hating, psychotically paranoid, boring jerk when I play, who routinely (by my own admission) tends to only play Lawful Neutral warrior types who do not drink, smoke, make love, gamble, or do anything besides having a dog-like focus on "the objective." They also state that I tend to not get attached to my actual PCs and tend to play them 'like disposable NPCs' which I'd argue isn't true, but I will admit to the fact I always try to play 'supporting cast' and enable the other PCs in the party to shine usually by doing the "drudge" jobs of tanking damage, standing in the way of things and carrying the party's gear.

My curiousity, and the topic for this thread is basically.. Do you folks have similar experiences? A guy who is good at one of the roles (DM or player) but then absolutely awful at the other? And thought as to why.

Alright, another goofy rider question from me.

Riders occupy the same space as their mount for purposes of attacks, reach and whether they are threatened, etc.

Now, some mounts are large enough that they can accomodate multiple riders. Assuming that the 'rider and mount' bypass the usual rules over occupying the same space, how does this work when you have multiple riders occupying the same space (the mount)?

What if these individuals are hostile (IE: Two people riding on the back of a horse fist fighting)?

Title ruthlessly stolen from one of Spoony's Countermonkey things.

He raised a good point in it. I lack the link so I'll sum up.

Aquatic Monsters are cool, but its hard to justify their inclusion. Ergo, players know when they get onto a boat, raft or the like they'll be up to their rears in selkies, giant gars and kraken.

So my question for you folks, is...how the heck do we integrate underwater or aquatic enemies without making the portion into 'The Boat' or 'The water dungeon' or something similar? Particularly as fighting in water is ranked as the #1 thing PCs seem to hate (penalties to movement, attack /and/ damage! Hooray!).

The only examples I can think of involve stuff like The Watcher from LoTR in the lake.

I didn't see this one on the FAQ.

Does a breath weapon count as an 'attack' for purposes of flyby attack?

For example, a dragon on the wing, can it fly by, unleash its breath weapon at a point along its flight path, and then still make a normal attack at the end.

I also want to confirm that at-will abilities /cannot/ be used along with flyby attack, even if the at-will is itself an attack of some sort (like scorching ray or the like).

Edit: I checked Flyby Attack again. It gives standards. So...

Does that mean that you can in fact have a dragon flyby, breath weapon, and cast, all in a single round?

Does he incur a concentration penalty for that?

Alright, we know that when mounted, you count as the mount's size for purposes of areas you threaten and spacing. Its a simplification.

Now, does this mean similarly that a spellcaster, sitting astride a say Colossal dragon, now occupies colossal space and therefore provokes from potentially dozens of opponents when casting?

It seems pretty damn mean from a RAW perspective, but thats how I keep reading it.

It also has the sadly ironic thing of casting from a dragon's back would also incur concentration penalties for a moving mount, at least how I'm seeing it, correct?

EDIT: FOr some reason this one ended up in Advice. Can someone shoot it over to Rules Questions?

Hello again folks.

I'm working on rebuilding a character for society play. That being said, my friends have said that I need to break out of my usual safety zone.

Typically, I'm one of those folks who have been cursed with the curse of eternal DMing, and when I end up on player side I tend to veg out a little and usually end up playing a variant of LN Human Fighter with Shield.

During my introduction to PFS they handed me a Two-weapon half-orc fighter, it stuck me outside of my zone a little, and it got me thinking about really goign whole hog and 1.) Not playing a human and 2.) Not playing a fighter.

So at the moment I've got an idea for a LG Half-Orc Wizard (Earth Elementalist) built around making himself a little bit on the beefy side, or even focusing on arcane combat manuevers, and I was wondering if you folks have suggestions for wizard builds.

Now I've got a lot of skill on putting together NPC Wizards, but like Fezzig from the Princess Bride said 'You use different moves when fighting a lot of people as opposed to just one person.' Building feats and spell lists for a guy who'll appear in a few encounters, is different from one who has to live all the time.

I'd also want to know if you guys think the entire concept is intrinsically flawed. I'm not looking for super effective optimized, but I want to avoid being a millstone for anyone who ends up in my group in society play.

I know they're all a little crazy. I mean intense magical power. Nightmares about aboleths, goblins lighting everything on fire.

I don't just mean the following questions in regard to the 'things that a PC has seen' angle, but I mean them also in a disturbing trend I tend to see floating around this board.

What kind of person wears his armor 24-7? Who gets up every morning and casts a cocktail of spells like Howard Hughes popping pills? Do normal people keep knifes strapped to their legs when they go to the market or their cousin's wedding? Do they suffer from monophobia such that they need their buddies (who they might not even like) to accompany them to even the most bizarre or personal of places? Is crippling neurosis a requirement for hero?

Essentially, my sense of verisimilitude keeps getting trashed by some of the comments I've heard on channel about mages who walk around with a daily protective cocktail that should make them glow like a raver from Chernobyl, odd followers, mages who disappear into rooms to fret over tiny objects for years (well maybe that one), people wearing ridiculous equipment for marginal statistical gain, etc, etc.

If your 17th level fighter lives on a tower in the desert, thats one thing, if he wants to be a part of society, I'd wager he's probably going to be suboptimal in his daily gear and routines.

Does anyone question why the cleric has thousands of gp worth of dust sitting around on the off chance he 'wants to make his skin stone'?

Essentially, my question for all of you is...

Am I just missing something? Is this all in fact totally normal and within verisimilitude? Or is there something else in play between the "game" and "rp" aspects.

Again, this isn't an accusation, I just figured I'd ask about how people explain it, or see if there's any commiseration.

And again, to the poor forum guardians, if I've posted in the wrong forum, boot me to the appropriate one.

Hello folks.

A few months ago I was at a gaming convention in Northeast PA, MEPACON. At this convention, the Pathfinder Society was represented and I decided 'Hey, I play Pathfinder all the time, why don't we sit down and enjoy a game here, con style.'

Me and two of my buddies were given first level 'pregens' to play with, and we had a blast getting through the goblin guild, and through severing ties.

The GM for both games informed us we could respec the character completely as long as we didn't play in 3 games (as thats what it took to level).

Everything seems hunky dorey, but I have two concerns...

1.) A friend of mine seemed suspicious when I described my pregen (1st level fighter, half-orc double-weapon user), and I have concerns this might not be a 'valid' pregen. In which case, does this mean that chronicle sheets for Severing Ties and the Goblin Guild would be invalid? Also, how could I confirm this?

2.) I'm led to believe pregens can't exchange equipment. Does this mean I'm stuck with an orc doubleaxe and leather armor even if I respec into say...a gnomish wizard, human thief, or something?

Another one of my goofy 'to incite discussion' threads here. So I apologize for rambling, or if its in the wrong subforum.

I've got a campaign setting. This campaign setting is old, its been around since Second Edition DnD and I've had a lot of campaigns run through it.

As one can expect, this has resulted in the campaign setting filling out, stabilizing in some parts and generally getting that nice lived-in feel.

However, its also resulted in situations where Governments, people and the environment in general has gotten to the point where they can handle things on their own somewhat.

The countries of the world are better described as nation-states, each with standing armies, they also keep higher level folks around generally to deal with the routine problems of a fantasy kingdom (griffon attacks, uppity giants, etc). Also, their leadership qualifies more towards the 'competent' as opposed to 'pants-on-head' style we usually see in fantasy settings. Instead they keep accurate records, have specialists, and generally try to quash problems before they get to 'ravening legion of undead.'

Presented with somewhat reasonable evidence of a potential problem, the Governments of the Nations of my world would send in people to investigate and then respond with what they feel is enough force to resolve the problem if they have it available. In short, they do their job of keeping their citizenry safe. They obviously can't be everywhere though.

The world economy is also closer to late rennissance with free trade, well fed people pretty much everywhere (that whole functional nation-state thing again), and taxes and bueracracy. There's only a few really malevolent nation states, one of them is basically an anarchy and only really is a threat to people living there, and another is an imperialist totalitarian society like a bastard child of imperial china, feudal japan and soviet russia, but while oppressive its not 0% percent approval rating oppressive and it really can't be 'fixed' by having a bunch of people storm in and kill the guy in charge.

Now I've had people in the past who have told me that I am 'quashing the players' and should adopt a more Elder Scrolls approach where the past player actions come to naught and improvements don't actually improve anything, and countries shouldn't be able to do things and should 'forget' things that should be blisteringly obvious to them, but that seems kind of like bad world design to me.

I've also been told that this sort of thing 'denigrates monsters' and 'diminishes the specialness of characters.' Apparently some find it offensive that griffons might be taken out with massed arrow fire, or dragons might avoid settlements for concerns over having cannons turned on them.

This being said, the real reason I'm asking is this...

Should the world require the PCs to function? Does the 'true' gaming experience require a world where the only people capable of fixing anything above CR5 is the PCs? Do we need to have kings and councillors who have single digit hit dice, and armies composed almost exclusively of people who consider taking Power Attack a capstone of their lives? Is it really so bad if the military knows how to deal with things in its world like dragons, legions of the undead, or the like?

And if so, why would anyone live in a kingdom that couldn't feed or protect them against the genuine threats in the world?