Stazamos's page

It's back online! Sorry for the delay.

6th-level human monk Belka Quinray, died in Iris Hill guesthouse. Killed by a living topiary's power attack.

She has never genocided any monsters.
She has never polymorphed an object.
She has never changed form.
She has used no wishes.

All right, so it seems that instead of, hypothetically, grabbing maps from the PDF and subsequently struggling with trying to find a good grid alignment (the grid cells on the PDF maps are of uneven size) after putting the maps into Roll20, I would rather rebuild the maps from scratch and have perfect grid alignment. And, as a bonus, have the chance to add things that are in the descriptions but not on the PDF map, and have a higher res asset.

Some of the buildings of Iris Hill are differently sized than in the PDF, by choice because I wanted the size differences (for example, didn't want the second floor of main bldg too much bigger than the first floor, not having noticed the difference until after finishing the first floor. Otherwise, the room connections should match up logically. There are other weird things you might see because learning curve. I did this with Dungeon Painter Studio (Steam app in early access status), and added effects using Photoshop.

So here are the results of my work: (I'm releasing these under the "MIT" license; Pyromancers, maker of the product, says "you may use your maps without any restrictions" so I take this to mean there is no default license, so I choose MIT)
Iris hill ground floors
Iris hill second floors
Iris hill attic
Under Iris Hill, part 1 -- This was my first go, and it's a bit weird because I drew it so each square is 2.5 ft to make the objects "more realistically sized", which turned out to be a big mistake
Under Iris Hill, part 2 -- includes a blood pool and yellow glow for the Star Stela area. And on my version, I have Hastur runes on the tiles in Melisenn's chamber, and it looks really nice, but I derived the symbol from Paizo art, so I cannot share it.

(sub-quote from In Search of Sanity --editor) "Weiralai was responsible for initially bringing the PCs—who she enslaved—to Iris Hill 5 years ago as servants and thugs for Count Lowls." ... which links up with the notion from In Search Of Sanity that when the Tatterman kills

Thanks for the reminder, and the factory reset metaphor, and I like that link to The Tatterman, I totally would have missed that connection. That is what I'm going to base my thoughts around until new information changes things, if that happens. It may be that there's some leeway in GM interpretation.

Might have to be careful with the revenant situation. Pinning a violent murder on a PC is rough. I'm probably going to talk to one of them before the session and get their okay. That one's a lot less innocuous than "trading insults" or running up a high bar tab.

I think it's interesting (usually the PCs are just in the way of a revenant and its quarry, so this is a change of pace), but certainly one has to be careful about which PC is assigned this event. Like you, I might clear it with the PC I have in mind for this first.

On a side note, this particular revelation makes me feel like the amnesia has not locked access to memories (like a typical bout of amnesia), but erased them entirely, leaving behind some vestiges (for the flashbacks), but otherwise erased enough to rewrite personalities. What if the PCs' new classes are indicative of the life they would have led had some event in their lives not happened, sending them down the sketchy path they actually took? I imagine the third book will help figure this out, anxiously awaiting that one!

I'm trying to piece together what Cesadia knows (because it's likely the PCs are going to want to get all the information they can out of her as soon as they realize she's seen them before, and I don't want to rule out the possibility the players'll find an unexpected way to find out what they want to know -- with amnesia the PCs are quite motivated), and this is what I've got:

Cesadia knows the PCs are/were employed by Lowls, from before things got bad in town. We don't know of her opinion of Lowls back then. However, one PC traded insults with an agent, so at least her opinion of that PC was soured. Then things got bad in town. She probably assumes leadership was at least negligent, but could be directly responsible. So at the very least, nonspecific negative opinion of Lowls, which may retroactively cause her to consider the PCs as bad, through association. In the present, this is not bad enough for her to refuse to work with the PCs, but enough to limit interaction and sharing of information, and for her to have warned Omari about meeting with Melisenn.

So, in short, it seems like she does not have specific evidence, but has a gut feeling and perhaps circumstantial evidence to cause her not to like Lowls, and distrust anyone associated with him. It'll take the PCs visiting the later locations in the adventure to uncover hard evidence.

Does this sound about right?

What about the level 2 finesse ability adding DEX to hit in addition to STR? That way you can have balanced STR/DEX (I'm a huge fan of this), and do respectable damage with your medium/low STR bonus to damage, plus Precise Strikes, and still hit often? (Edit: I'm not all about the damage; it's just easily quantifiable.)

(I should note: if DEX to damage does happen, I'm going to give in and join the crowd; but I like the balanced STR/DEX concept, it just could use some help.).

The real tragedy of sunder is that you have to go look up the rules to see how sunder works, and how many HPs a certain item has, or DR, and what happens to it when it's broken, because it's still somewhat usable, etc. I dunno about you all, but I haven't gotten those dusty sunder rules memorized!

A player in my RotRL game did a duelist. Nothing too fancy, just the feint feat chain, really. Most of the feats were various utility things, not to be a one-trick pony I guess. So if you're looking for optimization, I'm sure there's something out there.

The ranger PC (same campaign, different player) did more damage with full attacks, but the rogue did more damage with single attacks. So the rogue did better with more, but lower HP enemies.

I think. In any case, duelist is worth looking into into more detail.

Guys, guys. The official tactics for this encounter call for the BBEG to use a magic item to cast flesh to stone on a character, and then shove the resulting statue off the side of the building. That's what the GM's instructions are. Using deep slumber instead is different, but arguably similar enough not to matter much. This wasn't some "Muahahaha! I'll destroy them all!" type of thing.

Did the final battle! Results.

My group's final session is tomorrow. I'll come back in to report how it went, but in the mean time, has anyone got any final battle stories? How did Karzoug and the PCs alike prepare for it, and what did they do once the battle took place? Was it a 2 round rocket tag, or a minute-long epic confrontation? I'd love to hear your stories, for entertainment and yes, maybe some last-minute prep ideas. (All I could find on the boards so far were recounts of the original edition.)

Hmm. Since it's a calling effect, I'd actually have the creature roll initiative and place it in initiative order accordingly, and then it acts when its turn comes up.

It's summon monster I that specifies creatures act on the caster's turn, so that doesn't apply here (calling and conjuration do not say anything about when a creature acts). and I'd assume summon nature's ally I has a similar clause. Now, in those cases, if you used two standard actions over two turns ("start full-round action", "complete full-round action"), it would still appear and act on the caster's second turn, and get a full round.

Edit: I didn't look into the bargaining aspect, so that might take up its own time, but that can be determined separately.

Here's a quick tip for helping even seasoned players not metagame what monsters they're fighting (and it's a fun surprise afterwards): don't tell them what they're fighting! At least, not exactly. Just use a brief description, like "tentacled monster", "large humanoid", or "flying thing with claws". They may still guess, but they won't be sure -- there's enough ambiguity to remove that level of confidence. Ask for knowledge checks, then reveal information based on that. It might almost feel like you're constructing custom monsters.

That wasn't related to classes and levels, of course, so I'll get to the main track. Personally, I like planning my character's levels out in advance, to make sure I can get important feats that I want. Let's say you try to grow your character organically, and then decide you like disarming. So you want to do that without provoking attacks of opportunity. Wait, can't get that feat yet, it needs Combat Expertise. And that needs... INT 13? That's a little unexpected, as INT does not contribute to combat maneuvers, and drat, you only have INT 10, and no headband is immediately available.

That's a rough situation. But that's one of the great things about this game being human-run: you can ask for permission to fix your character build, maybe fix your point buy, and/or retrain feats. Many reasonable GMs would allow a fix like that. But still, it's better not to assume that safety net is there, IMO.

On the other hand, planning out a character too much is bad as well. You might want to change something, then it all comes crumbling down if you really tightened up your feats too much. So, it's a delicate balance.

Asked this in the "Ask James Jacobs" thread, and this was his response:
(link)

1) The Will saves talked about on page 317 must be made whenever a character enters the Xin-Shalast environs, yes.

2) If every PC passes the Will save, then they get to ignore the requirements associated with the Avah River.

3) They will indeed get separated. The PCs who passed the saves will need to backtrack out of the region to "re-sync" with the reality that the save failures are still in.

4) If the PCs take this route, and the caster level check is accurate, they can appear within the Xin-Shalast environs zone and thus bypass the Will save, but where they end up is entirely up to the GM, since until the PCs visit the place, they can't pinpoint it to teleport to it.

2b/4b) The CL check does both. You cast teleport, then make the CL check. If you succeed, you know something was trying to mess with your teleporting but you powered through it. If you fail, you know the same thing and when you arrive, you know because you're not where you were trying to go to. Following the phantom river is the best option for groups who lack the powerful "rules breaking" options of certain high-level spells or the like, but if the party has the resources to use those options, they should absolutely be able to enter Xin-Shalast.

The point of this whole thing is to explain why very few people have found Xin-Shalast over the past 10,000 years, and to make the PCs feel like they're high-level bad-asses when they DO find Xin-Shalast.

I kinda sorta "cheated" with respect to the haunts. Well, it's within the rules, but a little cheesy. I gave the entire house a necromancy aura, and it's possible for strong auras to muffle weaker ones. (Edit: wait, no, it's not as bad as that; detect magic doesn't work anyway! Cool I'm not a bad person. Nobody had detect undead or alignment.)
- - - -

BuzzardB, I think this is where you're confused:

Normally, a PC unwittingly steps into haunt area, or otherwise triggers the haunt, which then manifests, and a surprise round begins, with the haunt at 10 initiative. The PC rolls perception to notice the haunt in the surprise round. If a PC is a cleric who notices the haunt in the surprise round, and the cleric beats the haunt at initiative, the cleric could channel energy to harm the haunt.

If someone is using detect undead/alignment<X>, they can determine that there's a haunt there if they succeed at the perception DC, with -4 to their check, before the haunt even manifests. If they notice it, they can act on that information, e.g. stay away from the area, or prepare for it somehow.

I think people also tend to picture a shop fully laden with magic gear, when I don't really think that's the case, just going off the rules for rolling random items. For a hamlet, there are a handful of items, for example; are those in a single store? Maybe. Or maybe random households have them, discovered upon chance, maybe someone will buy it and feed the family for life (well, depends on the item, and how big the family is). Once you get to a metropolis, there are a hundred stores you need to visit to find what you want. This isn't a bulletproof view. Imagine how much a single magic item would make or break a tiny village, for example. Still, I like this approach. Once you get to a metropolis, yes, you have a magic item emporium, but they don't have everything. All the shops combined do.

Let's see:

• I don't want the URL to be misconstrued as a title, so I've changed it to "pf_items.html" (which is also simpler, and reflects non-settlement usage to be added in the future). Because I cannot edit my original post, I've made an HTTP redirect to go from the old name, to the new.
  
• I've made sure to set the HTML title property as well.
  
• Just to be comprehensive, I'll rename my publicly hosted version control repository title (I have not announced where it is, but it does have public visibility, so it's possible for someone to stumble into it).
  
• I'm not actually using the logo but I went ahead anyway and added the declarations associated with using the logo.
  
• I'll soon begin the application progress. On that note, should I declare that the compatibility license is pending, rather than assumed to be in effect?
  

Thanks, Liz!

Update: I'm confused about something, Liz -- I was on the page you linked, and at the bottom, there was a check box stating agreement, and a submit application button. I checked the box and clicked the button, but I was not asked for further information. Did anything happen? Since I'm logged in for posting on the boards, did my account get posted to some sort of list, and someone from Paizo will contact me, or did something go wrong with the form, and I need to take some kind of action? Should I mail a copy of my product, or wait for instructions?

I have created a random item generator for GMs to use to determine what items are available at a given settlement. It's pretty basic right now, and quite plain-looking, but I thought I'd ask the boards here for some feedback. (I hope this is the right forum!)

It's available at my website: Pathfinder Settlement Item Generator

Current Features/Notes:

• Generates items for the standard settlement sizes
  
• Uses tables in the Core Rulebook (and/or Gamemastery Guide) for settlements and item types
  
• Includes all items in Ultimate Equipment (all 71 tables!)
  
• Uses a 50/50 ratio for determining lesser/greater when transitioning from the CRB to UE, since UE added the lesser/greater levels.
  
• Ensures that weapon and armor special properties are compatible with the item, e.g. it won't make keen warhammers.
  
• Handily provides the item price.
  

Planned Features:

• Automatically reroll items that fall under a settlement's base value
  
• Add means to reroll single items generated for a settlement
  
• Roll individual items
  
• Roll treasure hoards
  
• Pretty up the page a little
  
• Random size, material, and magical nature (glow, runes, etc).
  

Known Issues:

• Fails to provide a price for "other" items (e.g. "other weapon", where a GM would be expected to choose something -- the page cannot, of course, predict what it would be, but a GM should be able to select something and add the prices together)
  
• Does not check to make sure weapons and armor do not have redundant properties, e.g. Resist Fire 10 and Resist Fire 5
  
• Possibly some other things; it was a command line tool before I switched it to a web thing.
  
• I'm not sure if I made the adjustments to the price of the Amulet of Mighty Fists mentioned in the recent Paizo Blog post. I think I did.
  
• Update: sometimes generates "Wondrous Item: (Wrists);" This is high on my priority list.
  

Looking forward to criticism and feature requests! Though please not too critical... I'm not a web programmer, just dabbling. This page may also change dramatically as I work on it, and uptime is not guaranteed if I'm making major changes.

(And Paizo people, please let me know if I am adequately attributing the OGL, and Paizo trademarks. I read up on the policies, but I could easily have made a mistake.)

The Rot Grub, I have programmed this, though I'm not sure the thing is ready to make public yet. I use the CRB tables for settlements for the number of minor/medium/major items, and base value, and then more CRB tables (or GMG?) for the item types. I then use my arbitrary solution of 50% lesser, 50% greater to bridge between CRB and UE (and in the case of minor slotless wondrous items, I use either 33% least/33% lesser/34 greater% , or perhaps 25% least/25% lesser/25% greater, not sure). Then, once "I" know how many items of each "strength" are needed, I generate them. Its usable in its current state generating items using Ultimate Equipment tables (edit: yep, I did up all what, seventy some-odd tables?), but at present it's just a console program, and it doesn't reroll items that fall below base value. (edit: there is an advantage in it being a console program, since I included a "roll manually" option, where you can roll dice and tap in the numbers if you'd rather use dice than a pseudorandom number generator)

If there's interest in it, I'll stop dragging my feet and finish it! This is technically not in the thread's topic, and for that I apologize, but if anyone's interested in my finishing this, please let me know (PM or favorite this post, maybe, as not to clutter the thread?) -- I'll get it going with a simple web interface and start a thread on it. If I know someone wants this, it's more likely I'll get going on it. :P

If this thread ever figures out what the ratio should be, I'll switch to that, or just make it an option or something.

PhineasGage, I noticed the same thing, and decided to make the flood just significantly deeper. The water line then became where buildings were completely submerged, and I made the rest of the area 10' deep. 5' water with currents is dangerous, especially to the schoolchildren who were stranded on the roof, but I thought deeper water would really sell it.

Edit: I gave my PCs access to a boat, which was towed, I think, by the druid's animal companion. Or maybe the druid himself...

Really? I mean, I can see things getting a little silly if I was talking about making the spells themselves "touch" instead of "personal", letting the wizard go around and mirror image the whole party without the recipients having to spend any actions or other resources. But for the extra monetary and action costs of a potion, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

(Side discussion; I don't mean to derail, but I doubt it'll snowball into a large conversation)

The self-only restriction also has some notable exceptions. For example, a druid can give some potent self-only spells to her animal companion. Alchemists get to skirt the self-only restriction with the Infusion discovery as well. So I think with all these exceptions, the non-magic users end up the worst for it. Of course, this is just my opinion. The power level of characters increases with the allowance, but it also becomes a bit more level, I think. And as long as the bad guys benefit as much from a change as the heroes, it's okay in my book. IMHO, of course.

In any case, if you're allowing the creation of custom magic items, as I think many groups do, a potion from a personal spell then becomes a wondrous item in that scheme, so you end up with personal potions anyway. And not to mention that Craft Wondrous Item is way too good as it is (obviously more so, if custom items are enabled, so that is more of a "problem", but it sounds common to me, so it's worth mentioning).

I've been wanting to play a paladin, maybe in the next adventure path.

I think the problem is that people taking alignments way too seriously, or at least consider them in isolation (from what I can tell from message board anecdotes and the like). Setting alignment aside for the moment, I like to think that a paladin is like a by-the-book cop or detective. He or she should therefore be able to do pretty much anything a cop could do, or at least a crime drama cop, since that's more interesting. But most of those tend to break the rules, or at least bend them, so let's consider a straight-laced one.

Cops can lie to you. They can go undercover. They can tell you they are not a cop. They can't manipulate you into committing crime, and then arrest you, however. A cop won't assassinate someone. They will kill armed suspects if there's a gunfight. They interrogate using light psychological tactics and intimidation. They won't break their cover for small crimes -- that's noted and taken care of once the operation is complete. Similarly, they won't arrest the mob boss for a crime with a 5 year sentence when they're poised to nail them for a much larger series of connected crimes. That rogue in the party? He's an informant, or a consultant. Just as long as he doesn't cross certain lines, it's an inconvenient, but necessary arrangement.

Lawful? Check - the laws provide for such things. Good? Check - you're doing the world a great service taking these bad guys down for crimes that'll put them behind bars for good, or earn them the death sentence, rather than simply take them off the streets for a couple years. Code of conduct? Maybe, maybe not - if your "code of conduct" fails to adapt for unpredictable real-world conditions, and you get caught, and you have to admit you're a good guy? Then that's a terrible code of conduct. Lying isn't evil any more than telling the truth is good -- usually, yes, one tends to be good, and one tends to be bad, not not always. If telling the truth gets an innocent person killed, for instance, I'd hardly say that's a good thing.

Might not fly in PFS, but it's a good way to approach LG, IMO. Alignments don't have to be pure implementations of a concept. That's what outsiders are for, isn't it?

I didn't want to use the Skinsaw Cultists as written because 1) I only had 3 minis, so I didn't want to do 4 at a time in waves, and 2) I wanted them to feel like a competent murderer cult, and therefore actually hit the PCs without needing to roll 20s.

So! I reduced the 13 cultists to just 5. I added rogue levels to make them cleric 1/rogue 5. I gave them the knife master archetype, and allowed it to work with war razors (hopefully not an abuse of power -- war razors have the same stats as a dagger, after all, and it could be considered not to be listed in the Knife Master description since the War Razor is a campaign setting item), and the Gang Up feat. Because there are fewer masks needed, this afforded me more loot, and I got a belt of dexterity for each cultist.

I replaced Justice Ironbriar's levels in Cleric with Inquisitor, Preacher archetype. The PCs gave advance warning of their arrival, so he was able to cast Invisibility on 3 of the cultists and Silence on one of them, and sent them ahead to sneak up on the PCs.

Justice Ironbriar had 2 cultists with him. I gave him a good amount of buff spells known, and a +1/Agile sword accompanied with good dex (I might have kept his stats the same, in fact). He did not benefit from Cat's Grace or whatever the other spell was. Those spells aren't on his list, and potions wouldn't last long enough.

The end result challenged my party. Be warned if you decide to do this, a gang of 3 cultists built like this do massive sneak attack damage, and can all be standing abreast to do so because of Gang Up. My party managed pretty well due to the fighter having Shield Other up, sharing damage with the cleric (the cultists had no time to position more optimally, with Silence ticking down). The fighter might have gone down, if it weren't for that. So, this can be unexpectedly powerful! But take one cultist down, and it ruins Gang Up, so it's not too overpowering.

Problem is the chalk/flour/powder thing only momentarily reveals invisible creatures. Not a deal breaker, but you better have your team coordinated.

I don't see these things so much as old school tricks, but rather just: tricks.

Here's one trick: intentional rift to the astral plane via portable hole and handy haversack. An expensive, but effective, escape in rare, contrived situations. Just so long as there are divinations, plane shifting, and making sure this LAST RESORT backup plan is known.

I just want Brain in a Jar to know that right here is one more person who appreciates his/her efforts.
I would rule that a character wearing AoMF can bypass DR based on the enhancement bonus. Here is the reasoning, most of which Brain in a Jar has already covered, but in abbreviated form:

• AoMF grants an enhancement bonus to attack and damage for unarmed and natural attacks.
  
• Weapons with an enhancement bonus can bypass certain types of DR.
  
• Unarmed strikes are weapons, at least for monks.
  
• I'd say this carries over even for non-monks, due to the amulet, but I have less support for this argument.
  

• Greater Magic Fang has no impact on how AoMF performs. It is merely a spell prerequisite. You don't usually need to know how a spell prerequisite works for a wondrous item before using the item. There are exceptions, e.g. Boots of Teleportation, but you can note that said item refers to the spell specifically in the text (not just prereqs), so you need to look up the range and failure chances. AoMF does not mention "as though the spell Greater Magic Fang were cast", not to mention that it does things that spell cannot do.
  
• It's true that the very fact that GMF and GMW mention that the enhancement bonus doesn't bypass DR doesn't necessarily mean that the default assumption is that unarmed strikes and natural attacks would normally bypass DR if they had enhancement bonuses. However, it is a very strong implication. The rules occasionally have redundant statements, but I believe this is not one of them.
  
• AoMF being a wondrous item is only beneficial (effect-wise, that is -- it is a disadvantage in that it takes up a slot, but I'm talking about effect). It doesn't have the enhancement bonus, it grants a property to the wearer - which means it can be worn rather than wielded. Advantage. Also, it being a wondrous item means it has its own rules, as I mentioned earlier. It is quite strong (though costly), considering. Advantage.
  

Yeah, keeping up the pace is what helps me, it seems. My party has a druid who is a great tracker, and he comes up with these plans that would skip right to the end, and I'd certainly let him proceed, but he ends up delaying just enough for the automatic plot hook (e.g. farmer yelling about walking scarecrows) to lead the party to some XP, and look, here's the clue you needed on a silver platter. This must be frustrating for the player of said druid, so I'm going to play along with one of these plans eventually. The conditions just haven't been quite right. It's a little ham-handed of me, but I'm getting better at this GMing thing, I swear!

One thing I need to do is to cut back on the clues/leads the adventure hands out like candy. I don't blame the adventure, as sometimes you need to go overboard on these things. But sometimes my players don't seem to need them. I'll need to read ahead again, and think about how to modify the clues. For example, I'm thinking the mayor of Magnimar won't need to lead them to Turtleback Ferry, as the note they'll find should do that already. Once there, that's when they'll find out about the rangers missing. Or maybe they won't know, they'll find the rangers and then go after the fort.

Back to Aldern:
I pretty much rolled randomly to determine who Aldern was obsessed with. Ended up with the wizard, so decided to go with envy, "brains of the operation" type thing. I figure Envy or Wrath are the ways to go for Aldern. Lust is just too easy to figure out, unless you add some noise in the way of swooning fans of the Heroes of Sandpoint, or something, like that Shayliss bit.

Under "Stable Characters and Recovery":
"An unconscious or dying character cannot use any special action that changes the initiative count on which his action occurs"

I would say that if the alchemist targets the monk, the monk can deflect it. What happens to it? Undefined in the case of Deflect Arrows (more on this in a bit), or if caught via Snatch Arrows, I like the "it becomes inert" interpretation, but perhaps it could be thrown as a rock, if the monk is so inclined, but more likely the monk drops it harmlessly. This would be slightly different for normal splash weapons, but we're talking bombs here. (Edit: I'll go ahead and clarify "slightly different" for normal splash weapons. If caught, not inert, but throwable, since there's no magic alchemist stuff involved. But if dropped, does it explode? Hmm.)

Now, if the alchemist targeted a grid intersection, I would say that neither Deflect Arrows nor Snatch Arrows would allow the monk to stop it.

As for what happens if the bomb is deflected, I'd say it counts as though the bomb missed, and roll for a random square, per usual misses. (Edit: I just realized this is what GeneticDrift meant with "scatter"; that's the term "Throw Splash Weapon" uses, and I didn't realize what it meant. Oops.)

This is just how I'd run it; I can imagine other possible valid interpretations.

Agreed on the "CR" usage -- from the line "CR 4/MR 2", and without the context of the base creature, looking at CR alone or adding CR to MR to determine the adjusted CR both look reasonable, so it's not obvious which one to use. I'd recommend something like "CR 6 (MR 2)", which shows the total CR, and the contribution from mythic, or perhaps "CR 6 (CR 4 + MR 2)", which spells it out explicitly. Since CR occupies its own line, this probably won't increase page counts with added words.
But, I could be misinterpreting the line altogether, and this suggestion may not make sense. In that case, that's another indicator a little built-in clarification (self-documentation?) would be useful.

I am almost completely incapable of playing this game without one. My character spreadsheet tells me what my attack bonuses are, what my AC is, where I spent my skill points, sources of everything (why my scores are such), there are tooltips that list the various uses of each skill, how many rays Scorching Ray has this level (that is, the effects of all spells based on caster level), how much weight I'm carrying, my net worth, notes on who we talked to and what we did...

The bard's singing? Enter the bonuses. Mage Armor dispelled? Uncheck a box. Haste? Check a box: reflex save, AC, and attack line updated. Polymorph? Drop down list for size, check a box, and ability scores, AC, Fly, and Stealth get updated.

Granted, it's probably my fault, as I made myself dependent on machines, but, there you have it.

Edit: Not saying it's wrong to have rules of conduct or anything, but rather my love for laptops. I used to hate 'em. I guess if you have people goofing off, you gotta do what you gotta do, but I have grown dependent on mine!

Interesting: "I apologize if I inadvertently come off as harsh or rude during this process--it's not intended." Followed by, "Jump off a cliff." Hmm... Though you did say, "inadvertently," so I guess you're off the hook for this one ;)

Anyway, to the actual thing I want to say: I disagree with lawfulness corresponding to predictability and consistency. I believe "chaotic" is really supposed to be "anarchic", and I recognize this is arbitrary, but there you have it. Can predictability and personal codes be part of lawfulness? Sure, and the rules say as much IIRC. But it's not "useful" to do that, in my opinion. And here's why:

Laws are basically agreements of conduct for a group of people. Citizens in lawful societies rely on laws to make assumptions about people. Laws (ideally) help them feel safe and secure. Consider two common penalties for breaking the law: imprisonment, execution. That tells you a lot about society: "follow our rules, or we'll remove you".

Some examples (as close to neutral in the good/evil axis as I can conveniently get them):

Suppose you have a pyromaniac. He may not want to hurt people, so he decides only to burn down abandoned structures, and does it using a strict procedure he's codified, for safety. To the townspeople, various buildings are burning down around town, and this scares the them, since that is not supposed to happen. Their line of defense (law, law enforcement) is failing, and they are vulnerable. I imagine learning that the arsonist follows a procedure of safety would offer little comfort. After all, what does this maniac know of safety? I consider this arsonist chaotic.

Conversely, consider a person who spends a lot of time complaining to law enforcement about various laws being broken. He's not obeying laws because he feels he needs to, he believes in the system wholeheartedly. He's a model citizen, save for the fact he's a major annoyance, overwhelming the police with reports of suspicious activity. His duty, after all, as a good citizen. But maybe he doesn't have a checklist. Maybe he's insane, and one day he's hanging out in stores, pretending to browse, but really watching out for shoplifters (which is not illegal in this case, just rude). Or another day, he's passing out pamphlets encouraging better vigilance (for which he got a stamped permit to do). "What's Smitty up to now," the townsfolk ask. He's so unpredictable! And yet, absolutely lawful.

This sort of breaks down in "lawless" areas, such as the oceans or badlands. But in those cases, there could still be unwritten laws (e.g. "no raids on enemy camps during a full moon"). As for true hermits, completely isolated from society? "Neutral".

Simplified: Good/evil is a classification for universal conduct, law/chaos is a classification for societal conduct. Be good, and you get into a pleasant afterlife. Be lawful, and you won't get fined or go to jail.

As stated, it's "usually" a move action. I interpret "usually" as "all unexceptional circumstances".

An example of an exception directly stated by the rules (which is rare) would be to retrieve a stored dagger from a spring-loaded wrist sheath. The item is considered stored (or at least I consider it that way), but the governing property of the spring-loaded sheath makes it a swift action to retrieve.

I have no rules example of an item that would take longer as an exception, but here are some possible examples that would warrant taking longer: specifically uncoiled rope (though I have no idea why one would do this), a complete, assembled skeleton (adventurers do weird things sometimes), and, let's say, the evil artifact key to the campaign that must be handled from a specific spot in order not to become cursed. Pretty contrived examples, but I think that's the point: "usually", unless there's some bizarre situation where the move action abstraction falls apart.

And we are reminded that many things in the game are abstractions. It takes a PC 3 seconds to get item X. How is that possible? Well, it turns out the PC had the foresight to put that item somewhere readily accessible, even if the owning player (EDIT: corrected "character" to "owning player") didn't.

If you ask this question, you also have to ask: how can a spellcaster listen to half of a spell being cast, and then start casting his or her own spell in order to counter the first, keeping in mind there's no way to finish before the other caster finishes? And let's not get started on how the turn-based combat is actually representative of a real-time progression of events... somehow...

Now, if the axe in the OP was cursed to make it powerful, but hard to retrieve, then that's another story. I'm assuming that's not the case, as it wasn't mentioned; just covering my bases here.