Steff's page

Greetings.

I just started running the Ironfang Invasion on FG and the druid announced that he would like to craft magic items but with a wilderness feel. Ex: Instead of a pearl of power he would like to enchant something nature oriented like an acorn and use it in the same manner.

Now personally, I like the idea. If a nature druid is making a wondrous item, I don't see him in a stuffy laboratory hunched over a forge trying to make whatever.

The problem is, what to do with the magic item creation rules... specifically the monetary requirements. If he is enchanting an acorn, there is no cost associated with that. a pearl of power requires a pearl...

just curious how others would approach this. he has several items that he wants to create with outside-the-box thinking...

Any suggestions would be welcome.

So.. I have a player who decided he wanted to get into mounted combat. We were in an encounter and he was getting his clock cleaned so on his turn he says, "My horse attacks with his hooves, then we move away, and then I take my action to drink a potion of healing."

This seems like too much to me but I am not that familiar with the 'ride' skill. It seems like he is double dipping.. using the horses standard action AND move action then getting his own move action (pull out the potion) and his own standard action (drink it) but his contention is that he pulls the potion as they are moving away (simultaneously) and then he gets his own standard action because his and the horse's are separate.

Seems like he is being kind of skeezy about this but I wanted to ask the community.

i'm sure this has been asked before but i don't see it so i will ask again.

one of my players is playing a witch. he puts up his hexes and then uses cackle to keep them up, which is fine.

but, then, he wants to use his move action to keep up the cackle and then his standard action to move. so, in effect, all of the hexes he has buffing the party stay up at all times. once they get into combat, he moves to a common point where everyone is covered and then stays there keeping up the buff.

i did not think you could substitute a move action for a standard action like that but i don't know for sure and the rules don't specifically prohibit it.

My first inclination is to not allow it but i wanted to find out if this is common before i rule.

anyone else ran across this or something similar?

here is a question.

if i am into fantasy grounds (i am) and i want to publish a module in the smiteworks store (i do) based on the pathfinder game how does the ogl apply to the artwork in the bestiaries?

part of the vtt experience is the tokens that you use to play. since some of us (me) are horrid artists (and i mean friggin HORRID) how do we use the pictures in the bestiary to create the tokens or are we simply not allowed to at all or ???

if it is a pay thing where we send money to paizo and they let us use this type of content, what is the mechanism for that? is there a set percentage? do i just tape a ten spot to a brick and heave it through their window? do they review the content then charge accordingly?

i'm not talking crazy here.. i'm talking about small one shot modules for a couple of bucks for people who are looking for something to do on a saturday.

just curious.

thanks.

What about a hardcover book about guilds? guild structure... a bunch of different types of guilds and how they fit into your game? a dozen different examples... merchant guilds.. thieves guilds.. assassins guilds.. mariner guilds.. adventurer guilds.. etc. adventure hooks... some info about guild resources ie if your character is a member of a guild what does that do for them? does it help or can it hinder? that sort of thing.

yet another book i would gladly purchase.

how hard would it be, in the adventure paths, to have a little annotation next to each creature indicating whether or not there was a pathfinder pawn associated with it and, if so, which set that pawn would be in?

I have quite a few pawns and, currently, when setting up for a game i have to dig through all of my pawns for each monster to see if it is available in pawn form or not.

it would be very handy if next to 'crocodile' in the AP, there was a little notation that said PPB1 for pathfinder pawn, beastiary 1, similar to the notations you have under skills, and feats, and equipment for the different books (UM, UE, UC, etc). it would make my life a little easier.. just sayin'

Has Paizo ever considered an "Ultimate Urban" book? There really isn't that much out there about how to properly design a city top to bottom and then run a campaign in it. you could include things like a comprehensive list of the different shops and how to run them.. some advice on how to roleplay the blacksmith or the local magic shop beyond just stopping in, coughing up your 50 gp, and slogging back out to the dungeon/tomb/fortress to kick butt. I'd like to see a guide on things like how to properly design a tavern beyond just a common room and some bedrooms. expanded lists of equipment for procurement. some new subclasses based on an urban environment... really dig deep into city design.. how to lay out a city... what about the terrain it is built on? where does it get its water? is there a waterfall in the middle of the city with a hidden cavern complex behind it? what about how to lay out the different buildings... you could have a section of premade NPC's that could be dropped into a players city campaign. what about all of the different guilds? how do the religions play out in the city? do the evil cults slink around in the dark alleys to avoid the city or are they right out in the open?

for follow up you could do a set of pathfinder pawns for city adventures. miniatures. 3D terrain?

I think properly done you could easily get a 400-500 page tome out of the deal and I, for one, would gladly purchase it because the cities that are available for purchase are, in my humble opinion, not that well done. Typically, you get a map, that is of such high level it is virtually useless, a list of some NPC's of note.. a few adventure hooks.. and then they wish you luck. Not exactly awe-inspiring.

What else would people like to see in an Urban design book for Pathfinder? I'm sure I am missing a ton of stuff.

'ello.

I have a new monster that I am trying to create and am a little lost.

The party has come across the scene of a large ancient battle.. the combatants are still tangled up like when they died - swords still stuck in their craw, still clutching arrows protruding from their ribs, etc. etc. I want the mass of dead combatants to animate as a creature I call undead spawn. Each round it attacks with a random number of claws, bites, and melee weapons. It's special ability is that every round there is a 40% chance that some of the bits and pieces will combine to spawn a random undead. skeletons or zomebies or.. you get the picture.

The problem I am having is trying to figure out some of the other "attributes".. should I just ignore them (I doubt the party will try to grapple it) or...

also.. how would i CR something like this? The party is fairly low level (5) so I may have to save this for another time but I like the concept enough that I either want to develop it in a smaller size they can handle or make it larger and save it for when they won't get wiped out *quite* so easily.

Have never actually tried to create a monster before. It is proving to be a bigger pain in the patukas than I had anticipated. Any advice is, as always, appreciated.

Thanks.

So I have kind of struggled with the mass combat on-board ship or in the town pillage section of skull and shackles last time and I was trying to figure out a better way to do it. I read online in these forums where someone thought a card game would work and I liked the idea but I have not found anything concrete so far. if this already exists, can someone enlighten me so i don't have to reinvent the wheel?

the party:

each character has a character card for the encounter deck as well as a personal deck of cards based on his class. fighters have weapon and armor cards. magic users have spell cards. clerics have spells, armor, and weapons. rogues have weapons, armor, and 'special' to reflect backstab. other classes have cards that make sense for them. etc etc etc.

then there are the crew cards. Each crew member of the party deck gets one card. Each card has a strength, a defense, and any special effects reflected.

lastly, shipboard weapon cards. Any weapon that can be used when grappled with another ship that can do damage to personnel ie balista.

the encounter:

there is a captain card and associated weapon/armor/spell cards depending on how he is set up.
there are various officer cards, each with his armor/weapon cards.
there are crew cards. Each crew card reflects from 1-10 crew members and does damage accordingly. This is to reflect that the ships you fight often have a larger number of crew members who are not as proficient with weapons.. ie they have no individual weapon or armor cards. (for example. it might say 6 crew members - roll d20. 1-2, ineffective this turn, move to discard pile. 3-10 - move d3 party cards to discard pile (wounded), 11-15 - move d2 party cards to void (killed), 16-18 - move d4 party cards to discard and d2 party cards to void, 19-20, move d4 party cards to void and draw another card... something along those lines)

they also have shipboard weapons cards.

There is the play pile, the discard pile and the void pile in front of each player.

you put the individual cards in front of each player. the character cards, crew cards, ships weapons cards, etc. are all shuffled into one pile. the GM shuffles all of the cards together on his side and you are ready to rock.

determine initiative and that person gets to go first. ships captain gets his initiative mod. party chooses their highest.. both roll.

you pull the first card. if it is a crew member it will have a d20 table on it. low roll (1-2) indicates something negative. for an individual crew member, they may have knocked themselves out. move that card to the discard pile. for a spell, it may have gone funky, like webbing your own people, move d3 of your cards to discard pile. or it might be something worse, like some of your people get caught in a fireball, move d4 to the void - dead. healing spells retrieve cards. so, if the cleric gets pulled, he can choose to either cast a spell or use a weapon. if he casts a spell, and it is cure light wounds, then he gets to retrieve d4 cards from the void and the spell goes to the void. If the fighter is pulled, he gets to use a weapon card which will allow him to roll to remove a random number of opponent cards to the void. etc. etc. etc.

For characters with armor cards, if their card is pulled to go to the void or discard pile, they can play an armor card to get shuffled back into the active deck instead. out of armor cards? out of luck.

on the other side, same thing. captain is pulled, pull a weapons card, remove random number of cards from players hand to either the void or the discard pile. if a player is one of those pulled for the void, they are placed there temporarily. they can be pulled out by healing as a direct action when the cleric is pulled ie, the cleric could burn a spell and immediately place that players card back into play. if, however, at the end of the combat, the player is still in the void and the cleric is out of spells, then surviving players could check for items (potions, scrolls, etc) that they could spend to "buy" back that character. no items? no spells? start rolling a new character.

At the end of the combat, the party can randomly pick like 2d4 items from the ships discard pile. that includes any special items or crew members to recruit to be pirates. keep the ones they like. ransom those that they don't. the rest are assumed lost.

that is what i have so far. What do you think? I think it would be a pretty simple way to do mass combat. You could definitely scale it up to any large scale combat, including land combat, simply by how you structure the leaders (general versus a captain) and the troops.

I was thinking the ships crew would be a number of cards equal to the number of players cards but with randomly more people on them so that the turns would be even. The larger ship would hit more often (it has more people) but would not do as much damage (not as well trained) and any discrepancies would be compensated for by the party's ability to influence the combat (spells and armor).

Any suggestions? What sounds stupid? What sounds cool? What am I missing?

Spell Combat (Ex): At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting, but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty). ...

Spellstrike (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell.

Spell Combat allows me to do a melee attack AND cast a spell as a full round action. Spellstrike lets me deliver my touch spells using my weapon INSTEAD OF my hand (the FREE MELEE ATTACK referenced above). So, it seems to say, that as a 2nd level Magus I can deliver a normal melee attack using my weapon AND a touch spell attack using my weapon as one full round action. CORRECT? (I do take a -2 penalty on each attack however as part of spell combat and would still have to take a defensive concentration check on the spellstrike or be subject to attack of opportunity... but that is how I read these abilities.) OR I can just do the one melee attack at normal attack bonus with the added bonus that I can cast a touch attack spell through the weapon..

Am I reading this wrong? Is it now that I have a choice on how to apply the penalty depending on how I choose to cast the spell?

Hey.. I'm thinking about starting a city campaign.. lots of crawling around in sewers and fighting the forces of evil that have gripped the denizens in claws of fear.. that sort of thing.

My question is.. In Golarion.. what would be a good city to detail out for my campaign? Any suggestions? I have plenty of adventure ideas.. just have to put together the city.. maps, npcs, details, etc. etc. I guess I could just pick one at random but any of these cities stick out in your guys's mind as unique enough to build a whole campaign around it?

I am running the Reign of Winter in roll20 and I had thought that as I created the tokens, it might be nice to share them with others that are running the game in a virtual environment (no reason to reinvent the wheel). Also the jpegs of the maps if someone wants those.. but I don't see an area to post attachments. Is it not allowed or is it in a separate area or what.. or am I just being extra dumb..

I have all of the maps in jpeg for snows of summer as well as all of the tokens for SoS and TSH. Working on TSH maps now.

OK.. I have to vent.. this is very frustrating... I buy these pawn boxes for the adventure paths and there are missing pawns! I can see them not including pawns that are included in other sets.. for instance, if the creature in the adventure path is available in the bestiary pawn set.. smart marketing there. But, when I buy the pawn set for Reign of Winter, some creatures are not represented and they are not available in other sets... ??? That doesn't make sense. Can anyone tell me why they don't give a complete set of pawns when you buy these things?