Early on, my group decided they'd try to bring back Rexus' parents. However, they knew it was a long shot due to needing resurrection magic. So it was going to take a while.

One thing found in the treasury for the old thieves' guild was an Elixir of Life brewed from a Philosopher Stone. It acts as a True Resurrection spell. In tonight's game, my group asked Rexus which parent they should bring back. Rexus chose Porcia, and her gasp of breath and asking where she was was the note on which I ended tonight's game.

I'm curious as to if anyone else has had them brought back and what they had the characters do.

According to online info, Porcia is a level 4 Investigator/level 4 Aristocrat. I've already crafted stats for her:

Given it's a couple months in and the hidden library was taken out first thing, she's not going to have *too* much she can add to things. I'm thinking initially she will remain "dead" to the world, excepting to the Silver Ravens and their allies (and that will be a most interesting surprise to spring on the others who are allying themselves to the Ravens). When open rebellion breaks out, she will likely come out into the open and align House Victocora with the Ravens. It should be most interesting to see where things go. And no doubt I'll figure out something to do with Porcia in the meanwhile! ;)

If you're fighting a monster underwater, would it get its Stench ability? For instance, do Troglodytes get their Stench ability underwater, or Globsters?

I could easily suggest it doesn't, as you don't really smell underwater, it's more a sense of taste and Stench is described as an "oily chemical" which wouldn't mix with water when compared to air. But Pathfinder never specifies so....

Attic Whisperers have the ability to steal breath (cause fatigue, exhaustion, or sleep) with their touch. The rules specify that if someone who is Exhausted is touched by the Attic Whisperer, they fall asleep for an hour and cannot be woken before then without killing the Attic Whisperer or doing one or several spells.

If someone were only Fatigued or Exhausted by an Attic Whisperer, would their attacks which caused fatigue/exhaustion (or the bite stealing the voice of the person) go away? Or would the victim still have to wait for an hour? Seeing that it specifies that sleeping people can only be woken with specific magic or by killing the Whisperer, it suggests that killing the undead would possibly undo other effects as well. But seeing it's not specified, it could be read the other way as well.

What are your thoughts on this?

The rules state that if you have Cover, you gain a +2 to your Reflex save vs. Dragon's breath.

But what if the breath weapon uses a Fortitude save instead - for instance, the Gold Dragon's Weakening breath, or a Silver Dragon's paralysis breath? The breath weapon is still a cone, but as it does not state the save is Reflex-based, will it ignore the Cover bonus?

I need to cancel the remaining Subscriptions I have, for Pathfinder Adventure Path and for Pathfinder Rulebook. Finances have gotten too tight to afford more rulebooks and APs, and to be honest I've not run any 2nd edition games (my groups both prefer the old rules unfortunately).

Thank you for your service and hard work.

So my group is moving toward their planned attempt to track and ambush the Grey Men, a small group of slavers operating in Old Kintargo (which I've included in Book 2, Order of the Torrent), and in their investigations they found that the Grey Men were using Ryk (the tiefling merchant squatting in the building) for a contact using the Sending spell. They suspect there was more going on and also were interested in the "haunting" of the building, so they decided to go in from the sewers.

I decided what they'd need is a DC 15 Knowledge: Dungeoneering check. All three who had the ability to make the check promptly failed. Temporary Hero Points were rolled and failed. I decided to include Knowledge: Engineering, and THOSE also failed. Finally I grabbed a real die (rather than Roll20's virtual dice) and rolled a modified 16 and ruled the group (after being lost for an hour) found the right way out and to the basement of Odde & Daughter.

Everything was done off-the-cuff. I quickly looked up rules for the haunts and given I'd already described it as "screaming and bleeding walls" I obviously went for the Bleeding Walls haunt - of a maiden trapped behind the wall. But then I also found "scratching walls" and that has a different tale - of a servant trapped behind the wall... and quickly crafted a tale of woe.

Odde's daughter fell in love with their servant, a young woman close to her age, and Odde caught the two of them in bed. He was furious as he had plans to wed his daughter to another merchant and make money from the deal... but his daughter refused him and his plans and stated she'd run away with her lover rather than marry anyone else.

So Odde chose vengeance. He told his daughter he was wrong and offered her and her lover a family meal to welcome her into the fold. But he spiced the food with a sleeping draught... and as the two girls slumbered he entombed them alive in the walls. They tried to claw their way out but could not make more than scratches in the wall... and finally died in each other's arms of thirst in the darkness. And after that they started to haunt the cellar.

There's a third haunt as well - a cold spot that would flash supernaturally cold, but I never decided what caused that. Maybe that was where the two girls slumbered as Odde broke through the wall in preparation to entomb them. Or maybe that was where some trespasser died of fright a couple years ago. I don't know, and it's not that important to be honest.

What happened to Odde? I haven't decided. When the haunting began, he fled. He may have become something undead himself, or cursed in some way... but his shop remained unoccupied until the tiefling Ryk decided to ignore rumors of hauntings, chose to ignore the screams and blood, and set up shop there. But one of the group, the skald Kyōfu, suspects Ryk was the one to kill the girls... and plans on telling a tale of woe in songs suggesting he was the one to murder them.

Given he's working (under duress, but even so!) for the Grey Men, the slavers, I doubt much sympathy will be had for him if he is wrongfully convicted. But it will be an interesting twist... especially given how he'd seek vengeance against the Skald who spoke lies of him and led to his death. Assuming she goes through with this, that is. ;)

And I hope you enjoyed this dreadful tale of woe, and feel free to add it to your own renditions of Hell's Rebels. :)

I've a question. I'm crafting an NPC, a Zealot (Vigilante archetype) of Norgorber. If their Social Identity was True Neutral, would their Aura (which corresponds to Norgorber) detect as Evil?

Would they remain immune to Smite Evil because their Social Identity is not Evil, despite the fact the god they worship IS Evil?

Alternatively, if their Social Identity was Lawful Evil, would they detect as Strongly Lawful, or only faintly Lawful seeing they're above 4th level?

Okay, I've got an interesting problem I've just run into. I'm starting up a new character for the Reign of Winter game my friend is running and decided to have the character be a member of the Pathfinder Society. The GM looked at this and decided to incorporate it into an encounter he crafted for RoW (he's modifying RoW to change up the story a bit and make it more interesting to him).

I'm running a CG human (Garundi) Rogue (Scout and Counterfeit Mage archetypes) who is basically an archaeologist. She's run into undead before (and calls them the "Guardian Dead" as the ones she encountered were mummies who didn't attack because she showed respect to the tombs and did not rob them but instead was taking notes and drawing what she'd found - preserving the integrity of the tomb and honoring the dead while preserving knowledge) and isn't freaked out by them.

When she was studying in Absalom to become a Pathfinder, she ran into Verdath Cain, a NE aasimar Necromancer who was lecturing there. She had several spirited discussions with him and after her Confirmation trial she ended up going on a couple expeditions with Cain to study Thassilonian artifacts and the like. That's how she ended up in Irrisen.

She respects Cain as a scholar and while she doesn't like that he animates the dead, he's argued about this at length and as he's significantly smarter than her (she has an Intelligence of 16 while his is 22 (thanks to age bonuses and magic) she accepts his arguments. Further, he's made sure that when he commits specifically evil acts to have a legitimate reason to send her away (he left notes behind, could she go and retrieve them? Good, she's away, now to force the issue and get what he wants) so she never actually witnesses any of his darker actions... while also slowly trying to convince her that the end can justify the means in the right situation.

Cain was recently hired to help secure a ship and its cargo. Cain quickly realized that the ship was in fact a Thassilonian artifact (a flying ship), and called in my PC to help translate the Thassilonian runes on the ship. My character had just arrived shortly before the PCs were recruited by another new PC to help get the ship back after the White Witches (and Cain) confiscated the ship and its cargo (cannon) for use in the Witches' war effort.

Enter the PCs. They try to get to the ship and Cain and my PC notice them. She goes out to confront the PCs with the help of a Skeletal Champion (Harum) under the control of Cain (and who actually seems to like my PC as she's from Osirion as he is, and is always polite and inquisitive rather than using magic to control him like Cain does). After things almost get violent, Cain arrives with more undead and welcomes the group onboard while keeping control of the situation (and having several buff spells up).

He identifies the group as the Butchers of Waldsby. There are wanted posters for the PCs as soldiers working for Radosek and Nazhena murdered those people who were fleeing Waldsby for the Winter Portal to Taldor (and potentially also everyone who remained behind so there'd be no one to say otherwise if anyone goes to Waldsby). He is impressed by the PCs and that the new PC had "recruited" the Butchers of Waldsby to help her. That said, when my PC questioned one of the PCs, she easily made her Sense Motive check to see the PC was telling the truth about not murdering the town, only those people who attacked them. Another PC was so obviously an innocent (catfolk monk who is... childlike in personality) that the wanted poster seemed out of place for her.

One point of contention between my PC and Cain was my PC learning there were prisoners on the ship who had been crew. Needless to say, this was the first time my character learned of the prisoners. My PC brought the other new PC to confirm the prisoners were still alive, and after Harum refused to let them be freed without direct orders (the undead do not like Cain and thus make sure to obey to the direct letter of orders rather than the spirit of the orders) and my PC learned from the prisoners that Cain out-and-out murdered two of the sailors and then animated them as zombies. (She rolled really well with the Sense Motive so she knows the prisoners aren't lying.) And in an act of rebellion, she successfully used sleight of hand to slip the prisoners her lockpicks so they could escape.

My PC wasn't told of the prisoners. She knows the White Witches lie, so the PCs are probably not the horrible murderers the Witches claim they are. And she learned her mentor has been killing people and turning them into zombies.

So I'm trying to figure out... how does she legitimately turn against a mentor she's known for a couple years and worked closely with? What argument can she use to try and learn the truth? I've enjoyed this linking of her story with an antagonist for the group. But what I'm trying to figure out is how to have her character break away from a trusted mentor who is in fact not a good person.

I've a question concerning how the official Doghousing events happen.

The initial depiction of a sanctioned Doghousing had four dottari, two dogs, and four Hellknights being present with 1d4 prisoners. But it is also implied that there is only one doghouse that a prisoner is forced into.

First, what prevents a prisoner from just sitting down? Are they secured so that they can't sit or lie down? (Are they able to sag against their chains or ropes?) This part isn't really described too well.

Second, where are the dogs kept? Do the guards just stay there at all times with the dogs? (The dogs are described as being kept hungry and thirsty, what prevents the dogs from biting at their "masters"?) Or are they brought out for the actual events?

Third and most importantly... how many doghouses are there? The initial depiction has only one doghouse described. But there's 1d4 prisoners. Do the guards just start shoving people into it like it's some Kyton-inspired clown car? Or do they draw lots, shove one prisoner in, drag the others back to prison, and when in a couple days the person inevitably collapses as a level 1 commoner would have 3-4 hit points and fatigue, thirst, and hunger would knock them out quickly (or honestly one dog attack), drag them out and toss the next unfortunate in?

For that matter, given it takes a while for hunger to take effect (3 days minimum), while thirst kicks in after the first day. Are the prisoners being starved prior to being doghoused?

(How did other GMs handle this? I'm sure there are plenty of GMs with overly intelligent players who'd pull doghousing apart so I'm curious as to how other people handled this. But I especially would love to hear from Mr. Jacobs.)

Quick question. In our last game, the Druid cast Entangle. The area is already covered with snow, but there are sufficient trees and bushes nearby that the Entangle can take effect. Seeing Entangle turns the region being entangled into Difficult Terrain, would the effect stack with the snow? And would snowshoes help alleviate any of the difficulty from the snow, or would the entangle effect make snowshoes useless?

My thought is that the area becomes very difficult terrain. However, I'm not sure if snowshoes are still at all effective (the rules don't specify), which is the difference between being able to move two five-foot squares for a 30 ft. Move Action, or one five-foot square.

Can Grey Paladins take the Fearless Aura Feat? Their Aura of Courage is altered so they're no longer themselves fearless. (Seeing the Feat states it affects allies, I assume even if it can still be taken, the Grey Paladin still isn't fearless in this situation.)

Here's an odd question. Under the Afflications in "Horror Adventures," people can be cursed with Vampirism and gain the following skill:

Allure, giving a bonus to bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate checks.

However, it includes the Stain of not casting a reflection. As the GM, I feel this means there should also be a penalty to Disguise Checks as you can't check a mirror to make sure you're putting on the disguise properly. My player feels that the Afflicted could just put foundation on their face and thus they'd appear in the mirror.

The rules don't give an actual penalty to Disguise checks but to be honest? It makes sense to me. You cast no reflection so if you need to use a mirror for something? You're kind of screwed. (I do have to wonder how that impacts the use of mirrors in blind fighting - could the person look behind themselves by looking in a mirror and since they don't see themselves in the mirror (and others can't see them in the mirror) they can see what is behind them?)

Thoughts on this?

I'm just curious after a recent decision by my Hell's Rebels gaming group to save up money for Resurrection spells for Rexus's parents how many other rebel groups ended up bringing back his parents. I mean, it's a truly touching moment and I think it cemented in Rexus his trust and faith in the Silver Ravens (especially as it came out of the blue).

So, did anyone else's Ravens do this? And if so, what were the sociopolitical repercussions? I mean, you go from having a noble house wiped out to the heads of the house being back alive and all that....

Okay. I'm nearing the point for my own group of rebels to encounter an official Doghousing event and am a bit puzzled by this.

The depiction of the event has a 30 foot by 30 foot wooden scaffolding/platform with a "doghouse" built there in the center. A prisoner is put in the center of the doghouse and forced to squat and avoid the nails and spikes poking in. Essentially it's a cheap version of an Iron Maiden, or one of those metal cages like that found in the movie Willow where Madmartigan was found imprisoned (some of those have spikes poking inward so that the victims cut themselves when they fall asleep or lose consciousness).

So how is it 1d4 prisoners go in there? What, do they have up to four prisoners in a queue and the d4 is to see if they succumb to their wounds and thirst quickly or not? Do they have four doghouses but don't always fill all four?

How is it that the Ravens can start freeing Doghousing prisoners and yet it's always a DC 11 chance to spring at least one prisoner? Once the guards realize that prisoners are being sprung, shouldn't it become more of a game of cat-and-mouse with the guards trying to catch the prisoners and their liberators?

Further, these aren't generic guards. They shouldn't be easily bribed. This is their description: The excruciators themselves are dottari guards-men and women clad in black leather trousers, bloodstainedchainmail aprons, and face-obscuring hoods painted with mocking visages, the universal emblem of their terrible craft. In short, these are elite guards and torturers who get well paid for their craft and a bribe isn't going to dissuade them. A Sleep spell might get one, but definitely not all of them.

Finally, as other players have pointed out... a level 2 commoner is going to be going unconscious or die within two days. If they're unlucky then after the first day they're out because of dog bites alone.

This sounds interesting in theory as a means of spreading fear and terror but honestly it wasn't thought through very well.

Okay. I've come across a weird set of rolls.

First, I rolled for an Event and it occurred. The Event rolled was Roll Twice. The write-up for Roll Twice states: Roll Twice: Roll two times. Both events occur this phase, in the order they are rolled. Multiple rolls of Roll Twice stack.

The very next roll, I rolled for "All is Calm" which states: All Is Calm: No event occurs this week or next week; gain a +1 bonus on all Security checks made during the next week. If you roll All Is Calm as a second event, it does not cancel the effects of the first event but still prevents an event from happening next week. An eventless week caused by this event does not raise the chance of an event occurring in the week after.

The write-up fails to mention what happens if you roll All is Calm for the first of a Roll Twice event. Does it negate the Roll Twice and switch it over to All is Calm? Or would you have two events happen anyway and the benefits of All is Calm while something still happens?

I was wondering... what happens if you rescue someone who is set up for Doghousing? Do the Silver Ravens get the bonus in supporters for rescued people? Are they still part of Kintargo's population, or are they smuggled out of the city?

It states that each week, 1d4 petty criminals and the like suspected of supporting the Silver Ravens are doghoused. That number of people are removed from Kintargo's population (as Doghousing would be lethal to low-level victims - rules in the Core Rulebook state they start suffering the effects of thirst after around 34+ hours (assuming an average Constitution of 10). They would likewise suffer 1d6 hit points of damage from dog bites trying to get food and water.

You can last three days without food according to the rules before you start suffering adverse effects from starvation, so smarter people could very well just go for the water at first, knowing they need that more and the dogs would probably be interested in the food at first.

So the rules on Doghousing would be incorrect (unless the guards starved the prisoners for a couple days before doghousing them). That said, Doghousing is a slow way of killing people and it makes sense that the population is permanently declining. Even if you survive doghousing... you're going to try and leave Kintargo and not return while that madman is in control.

---------

Anyway, I was primarily wondering if the Silver Ravens still get a boost in the number of supporters when doghousing victims are rescued. And what is the reaction in that case? I mean, wouldn't it become more and more difficult to rescue doghousing prisoners seeing the prisoners keep getting freed and more guards are assigned to watch over them?

I've been looking at the Rebellion Teams, and something feels... off... about some of the Teams. I mean, I can understand the progression of the peddlers to eventually running black markets or with enough money being significant enough to be able to influence what products are available. Likewise, the sneaks eventually being able to scout out areas or set up traps is also logical.

But how do Freedom Fighters, who start out patrolling the streets to make Kintargo safer, end up as spellcasters capable of using scrolls and the like to Raise Dead or turn the ears of nobles and merchants? That just doesn't make sense. (ie, Freedom Fighters shouldn't upgrade eventually to Spellcasters or Cabalists.)

So I'm wondering... what other upgrades would you recommend to Freedom Fighters? They go from making the streets safer and freeing prisoners to doing what?

I'm just going to brainstorm some ideas and see what sticks:

Distraction - cause distractions so that the chance of an encounter is halved (especially good at dealing with the Curfew, probably have a DC 20 during the day and DC 25 at night to avoid capture. A natural 1 results in the team being arrested.

Flash Mob - rouse a portion of the population to demonstrate in protest of a law or edict while protecting the demonstrators and helping them disperse before a large body of the Dotteri arrive to arrest people. Difficulty would be DC 25, if it fails then 1d4 supporters are arrested and Notoriety increases by 1d6. On a natural 1, 2d4 supporters are captured and thrown in jail and Notoriety increases by 2d6. On Success, the Silver Ravens gain 2d6 Supporters.

Players get one Immediate Action a round. Do Immediate Actions reset at the very start of the round? Or do they reset their Immediate Actions at the start of their own initiative?

For instance, let's say someone can cast as an Immediate Action (say Stone Shield). He has an Initiative of 10.

It's Round 1.
If someone attacked him on Initiative 15 and he uses (as an Immediate Action) Stone Shield to block that attack, does he have an Immediate Action available on Initiative 5?

Now it's Round 3.
On Initiative 1, he uses Stone Shield as an immediate action to block an attack. Would he be able to cast Stone Shield to block an attack on Round 4, Initiative 15?

My view of Immediate Actions is that it resets at the start of the round. My GM feels it is at the start of the player's initiative.

Recently, my group recovered the two zombified bodies of Aneran and Porcia Victocora, Rexus' parents. They want to bring this up to the Nobles so to destroy faith among the nobles toward Thrune's rule. I'm curious if anyone else has had similar happen in their games, and how they chose to have the Noble Houses react to this news. And for that matter, what Barzillai Thrune himself said in this matter.

One of the "benefits" of Animate Dead is that it renders the body useless for the purpose of Speak With Dead (as well as Raise Dead/Reincarnate spells). Without a Resurrection or True Resurrection spell, Porcia and Aneran are essentially gone and cannot be talked to. Seeing the highest spell available in Kintargo for non-government folk is 4th level, Commune is even out of reach here.

So, how do the PCs "prove" their case? All they have is a couple of slain zombies that were in a horrible fire. While some of the nobles could potentially identify the zombies... they've also been dead for two months at this point.

So I'd like some thoughts on this. :)

Okay. I'm curious as to how other GMs would handle this situation. (I'm really curious what the Devs would do, but I very much doubt they ever come into the old forums so... alas!) My group has effectively Batmanned their way through the first book of Hell's Rebels. And by Batmanning, I mean they did not kill any of the human guards, redactors, or the like.

Of fatalities, the only deaths were of actual monsters (like the mites and dretches), Nox, and the ogrekin (the latter two were knocked out and then coup-de-graced, in Nox's case with a good-aligned attack). Part of this also lies with the fact that I keep track of hit points for baddies when they have gone into negatives rather than having them just be dead outright.

So, how should I award Notoriety? The Redactors know the Silver Ravens attacked them (though three of the Ravens were using masks to disguise who they are). Thus word will likely reach Barzillai Thrune about the attack and who was responsible. Should I handle this as-if Nox had escaped (ie, 2d6 increased Notoriety)? Or one point for each living Redactor?

(Notoriety is a combination of how likely antagonists are to identify the Ravens, but also the townsfolk. Thus I could see Thrune ordering everyone to remain quiet.)

Further, should I have arrest warrants served for the two Silver Ravens who went without masks? Yes, Barzillai Thrune is trying to avoid mentioning the Ravens in hopes that this will just die down, but there are two members of the Ravens, one of whom is quite colorful and known among the tiefling community for his... eccentricities. Thus seeking to arrest these two characters seems... like something that may have merit.

Anyway, I appreciate everyone's thoughts :)

Previously I'd written about my Reign of Winter campaign as the GM. I've surrendered the reins to one of my players and am now running my GMPC, Ciri, as a character (the first time I've not been a GM in well over a decade). I've since been writing a character journal from Ciri's perspective (and am also writing fanfiction of it) and thought I'd share it with you all. So... here we go! ^^

Would the Unscathed Trait stack with the resistance gained by the Resist Energy spell?

Here is the wording for Unscathed: You are amazingly resistant to energy attacks because of either your upbringing or magical experimentation. Each type of energy resistance you have (if any) increases by 2 points.

To me, that strongly suggests you must possess the resistance (be it via innate ability, class ability, or possibly a magic item like a Ring of Resist Energy).

What are your thoughts on this?

My Reign of Winter campaign has shifted to the fourth part of The Snows of Summer with a planned assault on the Pale Tower. However, one thing that was suggested by the group to the people held at the White Weasel tavern was that they could evacuate to Taldor and that they'd even include a letter to Lady Argentea so they could hopefully be relocated. The write-up for the aftermath of the encounter with the Pale Tower Guards in Waldsby states the following:

Following the Pale Tower guards’ visit to Waldsby, the villagers become agitated. Everyone realizes that the PCs’ presence (and actions, especially if they killed the soldiers) will surely bring retribution down on Waldsby as soon as Nazhena and Radosek learn what happened. If the PCs rescued Nadya, she offers to lead them to the Pale Tower, preferring an aggressive retaliation in hopes of catching Nazhena and her minions off guard rather than cowering in fear, which is the village’s typical response.

So, how many in Waldsby do you think would take up the adventurers on their offer? They showed up under the guise of being merchants. But they do suffer frequent forays by the Pale Tower, and it's likely most of the Pale Guard are not from Waldsby (as Nazhena wouldn't want anyone to have their sense of duty get into conflict with local sentiments) so it's not even like they have family on guard at the Pale Tower (and the "hired help" are all fae, amusingly enough).

As an aside, the people who were "arrested" were the blacksmith, the dwarven barber (one of the PCs had her hair worked on by the barber), the owner of the general store, the local priest, and the gnomish carpenter, along with Emil, owner of the White Weasel, seeing he'd been hit by a Charm Person by one of the players and thus was seen acting nicely toward the "strangers." Katrina was still quite hostile against the PCs and even assisted the guards against the PCs but survived the combat when she fled and hid behind her husband after being hit in the fight.)

I do think there are some people who would refuse to leave. For instance, Birgit Holorova is Nazhena Vasilliovna’s factor and is trusted by Nazhena. Likewise, Garthur Kalinin owns the sawmill and would likely refuse to move, and may very well offer Katrina sanctuary if Emil did decide to leave (and the PCs showed him mercy, saved him from guards who were insisting on blaming him for the "strangers," so I could see him choosing to leave rather than face further blame by the White Witches). And no doubt there are people who live in the outskirts of town who just keep their heads down and hope for the best.

But would there be some who were willing to leave, rather than stay?

And if a majority of townsfolk did head to the Winter Portal, would Nadya send her children with them? Or would she want to keep them close as is suggested in the second book of the AP?

Anyway, I was hoping to get some thoughts from you guys. :) Thank you :)

One of my players has been trying to weasel his way into finding new ways of using Web in situations where it's not allowed, seeing the group has been outdoors a lot. Part of this does lie with the fact the group is now 3rd level and one of the two spells he learned was Web... and he's been frustrated that he cannot cast Web when to him it's obvious the spell should still be effective.

His latest thought? Have the Druid cast Entangle and then use the roots of Entangle as the foundation on which to cast Web.

So. Rather than rule outright "no" I said I'd find a ruling on the forums. Not seeing this specific question asked, I figure I might as well ask myself and hope someone responds by tomorrow evening. And thanks for taking time to consider the question. :)

While I know some people don't bother with the Rebellion rules for Hell's Rebels as they find it just one more bit of paperwork to keep track of that only one or two players gets into, I do consider it an effective framework from which to build NPCs that the party will regularly talk to. This provides plot hooks and a way of getting the group more invested in Kintargo... especially as if a team were to go missing, it's not just a group of nameless ciphers tallied on a sheet but instead a group of living and breathing people they're friends with.

One of the handy things about this is that you can also craft teams that make sense. For instance, the Revolutionaries can go from Freedom Fighters who patrol the streets to becoming either Cabalists, working within the secret societies of Kintargo, or Spellcasters who can cast 3rd level spells. Given that Forvian Crow and his crew can be recruited as Freedom Fighters but are described as a 1st level rogue and five level 1 warriors... it seems odd to think of this crew potentially casting spells (or becoming involved in secret societies and having ties to the aristocracy).

As an aside, both Cabalists and Spellcasters seem to be better suited to be Bonus Teams rather than an evolution of the Freedom Fighters. I don't quite know what would be a good fit for upper-level Revolutionaries. I'll have to think about it. Perhaps have the Poison Pen have a "mission" for the players to create a Bonus team of Cabalists, while the priest in charge of the Rose of Kintargo could help the players recruit a bonus team of Spellcasters?

Anyway, here's the first team I've fleshed out.

Peddler team
Name: Rag and Bone
1. Old Varisian Female Human Expert (Herbalist) Adria Cinczllescu

Adria is a recent resident of Kintargo, having fled Korsova during the Blood Veil plague that killed many seven years earlier. Having lost her husband to the Blood Veil, she studied herbal medicines for years under the guidance of a traveling alchemist, but when he was murdered she was stuck in Kintargo with nowhere to go. She's since started her own small business selling herbal remedies to the poor and needy, collecting herbs herself and then later with the help of Civian, a young teen she found alone on the streets.

2. Catfolk Expert (Merchant) Hobbs

Hobbs has wares and goods for sale. Hobbs is actually quite intelligent and cunning in business but likes to fake being a simpler person both to catch off-guard gullible specieists and because his ragular patrons like his "simple merchant" act and play along. Hobbs has lived in Kintargo for much of his life, his parents having been merchants as well but settling down when Hobbs started to get old enough to be a handful. When Hobbs was old enough to travel and settled enough not to cause fights they started traveling again, but he missed "home" and his friends, and chose to return to Kintargo.

3. Teenage Chelaxian male Human Expert (Artist) Civian Laeva

Civian was found on the streets by Adria, bruised and bloodied after a fight with local robbers which left him without any money, clothes, or memory of who he is. After Adria nursed him back to health she started to raise him as her own child and he showed considerable skill with a sketchpad. This talent proved helpful when he sketched a man who had robbed Hobbs and he provided proof of the richer merchant which resulted in the man's imprisonment. Since then he's taken to sketching all of the patrons so to make collecting debts easier and identifying people who aren't allowed to buy from Adria or Hobbs again lest they try to rob them.

4. Female Goblin Rogue (keeps an eye on stuff) Calvin

Calvin was one of three survivors of a goblin tribe that was wiped out by adventurers. The youngest of the three goblins, she didn't flee when the adventurers removed her from the cage where she was being kept and gave her good food to eat and taught her words and letters. Unfortunately, two years ago her adoptive parents died while adventuring and Calvin barely escaped with her life by using the lessons her oldest adoptive mother taught her. Several days later a starving Calvin came across a pair of traveling Catfolk merchants who brought her back to their son Hobbs back at Kintargo, and she's "kept an eye" on Hobbs and his friends ever since to make sure they aren't taken advantage of.

5. Female Chelaxian Human Fighter Cleo Sisennus

Cleo has considerable experience as a guard, having worked both for Chuko at the War Cage and more lately as a bouncer at the bar the Thrashing Badger. Fortunately for Cleo, she was back home tending to her ill daughter, when the bar mysteriously caught fire with everyone inside dying. She was considering returning to her old job of sparring with customers at the War Cage when she happened across the Silver Ravens and was offered a chance to fight back against Thrune and his associates by helping watch folk in the Rag and Bones. It helps that her young daughter has taken a liking to the goblin Calvin and she's starting to consider this crew to be a new family even as she struggles to make ends meet.

6. Male Tiefling Expert Craftsman Civilious Vestalis

Civilious is the bastard son of a Sarini nobleman who had a dalliance with a serving maid. When she ended up pregnant, her job was terminated, but she was paid off if she promised to keep quiet about who she had slept with. All she would admit was that it was a gentleman of the Sarini noble house. She used the money to apprentice her son with a local craftsman but partway through his apprenticeship she died under mysterious circumstances. Fortunately, the craftsman was impressed with Civilious's hard work and kept him on as an apprentice until his education was complete and he could make a living for himself.

Yeah. This was... decidedly unhelpful. I'm sorry but at the very least you could have included some basic rules for converting foes to the 2nd edition monster rules. You could have shown an example - for instance, Nualia from Rise of the Runelords could have been shown from her 1st edition to 2nd edition, and why these choices were made. Or you could have shown one of the monsters from the rules which aren't in PF2 and how you could do an approximation for the monster.

For all the aspects of 2nd edition I like, I'm running two 1st edition campaigns that are not going to wrap up for a couple of years at least. Admittedly, this gives the PF2 rules time to settle with any addendums or rules fixes you implement, but given the huge number of PF1 content I have available and players happy with the current rules? There's little incentive to switch over. This didn't help matters any, I'm truly sorry to say.

Heyla all! I've been thinking of doing write-ups on my second campaign for a while now but kept on being lazy so... it's been half a year or so.

Hell's Rebels is an AP I've been wanting to run for quite some time. Unfortunately, my initial choice for the campaign backed out because "it's too political" - as if fighting evil overlords is political or that there is no politics in FRPGs in general. Whatevs. My second choice was my remote access group, but at the time they were two thirds of their way through Rise of the Runelords. Knowing how they work, I decided to... speed things up. I cut the unnecessary encounters and managed to cut probably a year off of the adventure (seeing we were meeting probably 18 times a year).

That's when the 2nd edition playtest came along. I actually held off on starting the remote HR game because I was truly interested in it. And I must say there are some aspects of 2nd edition I truly like... but the execution of the playtest was problematic (jumping from character to character without doing gradual leveling up was not a good idea, at least in my eyes). So that ended up delaying the game by close to a year. Still, we had crafted characters (and had a couple evolve from their initial creation).

Our group consists of the following:

Nox Rosalia - a pale-skinned masked lady who wields a whip and a rapier but who has remained closed-mouthed about her past, family, abilities, where she lives... you know, the perfect revolutionary.

Jimmy, aka King Under the Mountain - a rather bombastic halfling who has a sock puppet dressed up as a queen who he calls "Queen Mum" and lives in the Devil's Nursery, and a talented warrior with his longsword.

Kyofu Aulamaxa - a bored noble and great granddaughter of the head of the household, her dad had a hard night on the town one night and a year later had an unexpected bundle delivered. She's musically apt and good in a fight.

Vogal Shemat - Kyofu's best friend, appeared at the same time as Kyofu to said noble's best friend who was a rich merchant, and is a bit of a magically-inclined rabble-rouser who enjoys mint tremendously. Seriously.

Ironwood Jack - a latecomer to these parts, claims to be from Absalom and carries around a pistol (and seems to know how to use it) but also knows a bit about how to do a good rebellion and has joined this crew due to his friendship with Laria.

-----------

What came before: During the Aria Park Incident, the King Under the Mountain tried to increase the number of people willing to serve him and helped chase off a pickpocket and overheard some interesting rumors before the fight with Thrune's lackeys broke out. The protest also lured in Kyofu and her best bud Vogal who were looking for a good fight, which they got. Also, a young firebrand named Nox Rosalia hid in the crowd and then when things went south she arrived on scene to help our heroes overcome their foes and then flee.

They came across a young man being accosted by over a dozen thugs dressed up as the Spanish Inquisition - er, I mean the Cheliax Citizen's Group and saved the young nobleman - Rexus Victocora, the lone surviving member of House Victocora who was quite sure Barzillai Thrune, new Lord-Mayor of Kintargo, had been responsible for the fire that destroyed his family estate and apparently killed everyone else in the Victocora family. In fact, three odd fires had cropped up the same night, also burning down the Siver Star music shop belonging to opera singer Shensen (an outspoken critic of the Thrune noble family), and the Thrashing Badger bar which was a known hangout of rabblerousers and people associated with the rebellious cult of Milani.

After following up on some clues Rexus had, the group found a stash of coded documents from an old rebel group called the Silver Ravens. After an impassioned plea by Rexus the group decided to become the new Silver Ravens and went to the Longroad Coffee Shop to talk to Rexus's mother's friend, Laria, and helped her deal with a problem under her coffee shop, and in doing so found a home for their new rebellion. They also recruited a group of four tengu to work for them and in turn allowed them to continue to live under the coffee shop.

After a week of lying low, the group recruited a group of six entertainers that Nox Rosalia was keeping an eye on, the Bright Falcons, and started to figure out just what they should do to help out around Kintargo. Even as Rexus started to decode the notes, the new Silver Ravens started doing good deeds by freeing folk who had been forced to work at the Salt Works (and did so without killing a single guard!), and also learned that someone had it out for Laria as three guards arrived on scene... fortunately, Vogal spilled her drink on one of the guards and they got so flustered (even as Vogal kept trying to clean things up) that they left in disgust.

Soon after they met with Laria's friend Jack, who had helped her with her Bellflower Network (smuggling halfling slaves out of Kintargo) even as others in the group learned about the killing of Tieflings at the Devil's Nursery. (Seeing that one of the PCs lived there, it made sense for them to learn about it early on.) and Jack helped them lure out the culprits, a group of 10 tooth faeries that tried to take one of Jimmy's teeth. Fortunately for the group, Vogal suffered a... mishap when trying to use a simple cantrip and what SHOULD have targeted just one fae ended up hitting everyone in the area with frost, killing several of the fae and wounding the rest (and her fellow party members). Jimmy's tooth recovered and put back in place, the fae were wiped out and evidence of dark dealings were found.

It was soon after then that Jimmy heard rumors of a dragon seen flying way in the sky outside of Crackjaw's, a local dive that had started getting more rowdy following the destruction of the Thrashing Badger. It was at that time that Vogal decided to stop risking her identity getting her dad into trouble, and using a magical toy of hers (Sleeves of Many Garments - an item that Nox Rosalia also possesses and uses as part of her disguise-crafting kit) to create her new rebellion persona, Menthe - a mint-themed heroine. And yes, F##k U is embroidered into the hem of her outfit.

Menthe was so amusing to the culprit behind the bar fights that the faerie dragon Vendalfek failed to properly hide, and Menthe succeeded in spying the wee dragon. They tried to ply him with drinks but he had mischief in mind at first and tried to start a bar brawl... at which point Ironwood Jack (in one of his several disguises) walked into the bar, saw the fight, drew his gun, fired a round into the ceiling, and demanded to know what was going on.

An embarrassed Jimmy got off the back of one patron, the patrons apologized to each other, Clenchjaw thanked Jack for stopping the fight, and the group proceeded to try and get a faerie dragon drunk and in doing so convinced him to go back with them and join the Silver Ravens. And while there they also met several people that they recruited to be the second team for the Ravens, a peddler band they're calling Rag and Bone.

As of the previous game (where this summary will end) this is the state of the Silver Ravens:
Ending the fourth week since the Aria Park Protests
Rank 4, 39 Supporters, Notoriety: 2
Allies: Laria Longroad, Rexus Victocora, Vendalfek
Teams: Bright Falcons (Rumormongers), Rag and Bone (Peddlers), Fushi Sisters (Bonus Team)

I'm trying to figure out when the Golarion Summer Solstice would be on the Golarion calendar. The books don't actually tell, and given that the Golarion leap year is every eight years instead of four as on Earth, I've no clue if it is the equivalence for Earth, the very first day of the Season (on the 1st of Sarenith), or something else.

I recently got into a spirited discussion with a player concerning the Whirlwind ability. He feels that my interpretation of Whirlwind makes it OP and would result in the wipe of a party.

Here is the scenario. You have a Small Air Elemental. Its actual size in the Bestiary is "Small" but when it turns into a Whirlwind it can grow to be 20 feet tall. To me, that makes it a Large-size creature and thus if PCs fighting it fail a DC 12 Reflex save they can be swept off their feet. When I pointed out the rules allow them to attack it even in Whirlwind form he dismissed it as "everyone would be prone and unable to fight effectively."

His view is that for a CR 1 encounter, this makes it too powerful. The Air Elemental can turn into a whirlwind, pass through a dozen squares, get attacks on everyone in those squares (if they fail the first Reflex save), and then can get pulled into the vortex. This counts as multiple attacks. It does not need attack rolls to get these attacks on foes, it does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and could grab someone and drop them in trees or other terrain that makes it almost impossible to fight the Elemental.

I was chatting with a friend tonight and he was puzzled as to Elvanna's motivations in RoW - not in trying to freeze Golarion, but as to what she had to gain by doing so. And we honestly couldn't figure out what she had to gain... but did realize there is one other character who in fact had the perfect motivation and may in fact be the mastermind behind the entire plot.

That being our old Mad Monk, Rasputin himself.

Think for a moment... when we come across Rasputin, what is he doing? He is trying to drain his mother's Mythic power and imbue it on himself. In fact, he's built a strange technomagical device that utilizes souls and the like in order to try and steal his mother's power.

Well, what if Rasputin had talked Elvanna into rebelling? Elvanna was already suspicious about her sisters. She couldn't find any evidence of them. Meanwhile we have Rasputin who, for some bizarre reason, keeps coming back from the dead. What if he had his own life essence drained by dear old mother? But he came back from the dead and then when he comes across Elvanna he fills in the missing pieces and Elvanna is suddenly wanting to kill their mother.

Rasputin doesn't want Baba Yaga dead. He wants to become God. So he needs to harvest a lot of energy... souls... to devour his mother's Mythic power. But Earth alone isn't enough. So he talks Elvanna into spreading Irrisen's winter across all of Golarion (as Rasputin was always said to be quite charismatic) and plans on using the souls of Golarion along with those of Earth to finally pull Baba Yaga's power from her and claim it for himself.

I'm contemplating an "after-the-end" with Elvanna fleeing the end of RoW (as there's another module set for level 17 characters involving Elvanna and her plots) but at the end the group finds Elvanna herself has been snared in another plot of Rasputin's - a posthumous effort to ensure he is brought back using a certain Demon Lord's torq and his sister's life in sacrifice. Because let's face it. Rasputin was a far far more interesting and enjoyable villain than Elvanna ever was... and having him be the puppetmaster behind everything makes more sense than Ms. "I want the world to freeze"

The rules state that "At the beginning of the next turn, you can move in a different direction than you did the previous turn without making a check." If at the start of the turn the flier chooses to turn 180 degrees, would that still cost the 10 movement? And is that 10 feet of movement just turning 180 degrees, or does that include the 5 feet of movement back in the direction it started from? (I'm assuming turning a full 180 degrees uses the full 10 move before actual movement, but want to make sure.)

If you are in Very Difficult Terrain (such as snow over three feet deep or snow with brush (snow and brush being terrains that "stack")), does the spell Feather Step negate the entire difficult terrain, or just lessen its impact?

Or does the spell Feather Step negate all types of hampered terrain?

How should cost-of-living be calculated for players who took the Child of Kintargo Trait and/or the Noble Scion feat? I'm wondering as three of my players have fairly wealthy backgrounds (one has the Rich Parents Trait, which I've taken to her being a daughter of one of the non-noble merchant families), a second of a minor noble family, and the third is from House Aulamaxa.

I've been considering after their Notoriety increases high enough (probably close to 20) having their parents confront them and say "you have to stop" but up until then they're living at home and then heading out to adventure and run their rebellion. It's only been two weeks so far for the game but does anyone have suggestions on how to handle what their living expenses are? Or should I have their parents pull the whole "you're adults now so you have to pull your own weight" even as they're living at home?

(Again, I figure once Notoriety increases to 20 they'll be told "you have to stop or move out" but until that point...) (fortunately the third player is destitute and living in a basement under a burned out tenement in the Devil's Nursery. So at least he's not an issue.)

If someone has a classic zombie (staggered movement and the like), would its effective speed for travel for periods of time be half of its movement?

For instance, a group of bandits are zombified by a necromancer or evil cleric. He then starts them marching toward a town four miles away. Would it take the zombies two hours and forty minutes to reach the town (as if they had a Movement rate of 15), or one hour and twenty minutes (as if they had a movement rate of 30)? Their Speed may be 30, but they do only get one movement per round which effectively reduces their speed by half/

Given that the spell Irriseni Mirror Sight works through mirrors rather than directly scrying on an individual (and there is no saving throw against it), can people detect the spell when it is in use? The Effect is a magical sensor, but the spell itself allows no save and no spell resistance (and requires an actual proper mirror).

What would the difficulty for detecting the scrying be?

After my tabletop group decided the Playtest wasn't for them, we crafted characters for the Reign of Winter campaign. I'd previously run it for another group, but due to scheduling conflicts that group died (seriously, going over half a year between games is not a good thing - to the point that the two players who had that scheduling conflict are not being invited into my new group). The group is almost entirely local with one player over Skype and based in Florida.

I am using some Pathfinder Unchained rules for the game. This includes the following:

Unchained Classes (for the Barbarian, Rogue, Monk, and Summoner)
Background Skills (two bonus skill points for specific skills)
Automatic Bonus Progression - this is a biggie seeing that the group will frequently be away from larger communities. By cutting the amount of vendor trash the group gets but letting the party have bonuses for "traditional" core magic items, this allows more versatility for the treasure.

Two of my players so fell in love with ABP when they saw the rules that they both said they plan on using it for their own campaigns in the future.

The group used a 20-point build. They had average starting gold rather than rolling randomly for gold.

Also, I start everyone at double starting hit points for 1st level as I find 1st level characters a tad too squishy.

The group consists of the following:
Alak: A variant Aasimar Witch (with bonuses to Intelligence and Charisma) with the Elemental Patron. He has silver-white hair and yellow slitted eyes, and very pale skin. Yeah, I know what he looks like but players will do what they want. ;) He's got a Fox familiar. His Trait is Warded against Witchery as does his sister.

Ciri: Alak's somewhat naive adoptive sister, a Varisian Bard (with the Versatile Human upgrade and boosts to Charisma and Dexterity) - she's the GMPC but built in a Support role and will mostly not do much in combat. (I just liked the name. Otherwise she's black-haired and her own person.) Her Trait is Warded Against Witchery and both she and Alak had an encounter with the White Witches as children.

Thelin: A Stonesinger variant Dwarven Druid who took the Earth Domain rather than an animal companion. He left his clan as he preferred living outdoors instead of in the mountain, and met up with the oracle Freya and the barbarian Araval while on the road before they headed to Heldren. His Campaign Trait is Restless Wayfarer.

Freya: A Kitsune Oracle of the Stone Mystery and who is Haunted. She was raised in Tien but after touching an enchanted bauble was teleported into Northern Taldor where she met up with Araval and then Thelin. She continued traveling with them while learning more of this new region. She also has the Restless Wayfarer campaign trait.

Araval: A half-orc Barbarian from an orcish settlement in the River Kingdoms (I figure the region is unsettled enough that an orcish hold could exist there without being mentioned in the books). He possesses the Northern Ancestry Campaign Trait and started traveling south while seeking people to wrestle and learn from - part of the reason he went to Heldren is he heard the smith was a good wrestler and wanted to try his luck (he lost).

While Alak and Ciri were traveling separate from Freya, Thelin, and Araval, they met up during Heldren's midsummer's festivities. I had a half dozen games the players could partake of including an archery stand, a three-card monte stand, and a pie eating stand. Araval also sought out the smith and learned that years of experience and working the forge meant more than being a barbarian when it comes to wrestling (Araval held his own at first but then lost). But he also was given tips on how to wrestle as the smith is a good winner. ;)

At midnight, the Winter Portal opened in the Border Wood. Thelin noticed a thunderstorm starting to form over the Border Wood but didn't realize anything else about it (though given it was nighttime, that's not surprising).

That night while the five new friends slept on the tavern floor, the oracle had an odd dream...

My online group only meets once every three-to-four weeks so we've not gotten nearly as far along with the Playtest as many folk have... but I will have to admit the ending of the "The Mirrored Moon" scenario fell kind of flat for me. And part of this has to do with a disconnect between the people making the module and the game mechanics themselves.

For instance, you have Research Decay. While I can understand part of this (in that you don't want the PCs to just study the enemy several times to max out research), the end-result doesn't work very well. If the group did what mine did, they stumbled across the dead cultists and got one Research Point which FADED before they even found the Mirrored Moon. They then studied the Cultists and gained two more Research Points before heading back to camp. By the time they go to Camp, get the mercenaries, and head back, all of their Research was gone. And even if they HAD traveled immediately to the Cultists' lair after getting the slain Cultists' data, it takes 13 days by river to reach the Cultists unless you have a Party that optimized for speed. So as a result the enemy has all of their Buffs, including buffs that last one minute, while the PCs have maybe one or two Buffs that can last 24 hours.

Next, I didn't find anything valuable on overland travel. All it states is "difficult terrain is half speed, very difficult is one third" while river hexes are simultaneously not difficult but difficult at the same time because they have rapids which mean no boats. (I just ignored the rapids and allowed them to be normal terrain.) The GM has to decide if hills are difficult or not, while mountains are very difficult... meaning a group with an average speed of 20 will take one day to move into a Plains or River hex, and then another 2-3 days to investigate. You need a Natural 20 in order to get an idea of what's out there. Needless to say, my group ended up getting back to the base camp on the late side, but as I wasn't sure if I did something wrong I handwaved it and gave them just enough time to launch their raid.

Seriously. Even on the scenario where each side loses one minute off of the duration of buff spells... that is basically 90% of the buff spells. My group ended up going into the scenario using an Invisibility Bubble, spent their Surprise Round casting Buff spells (mostly Haste), and then the next round attacked. Even if they'd gone into the game with no buffs at all, they likely would have spent their first round buffing on the battlefield.

But hey, those are things the GM can decide for themselves... and then I started with the combat. That's when things fell apart. You see, spells now either suck or are awesome... and spells you might think are actually decent now are useless. Take for instance, Enlarge.

Enlarge gives you +2 damage and reach... but a -1 to hit, a -1 to armor class, -1 to reflex saves, and a -1 to Dex-based checks. My decision to USE Enlarge was based off of my old memories of the spell... and after I spent 5 minutes looking up what Sluggish means because Paizo has to try and save a couple of pages rather than, oh, HAVE THE DAMN BONUSES AND PENALTIES IN THE SPELL DESCRIPTION, I said heck with it (but not in such user-friendly language) and stayed with the spell.

Let me tell you, spell language also influenced my choices. If I have to look up some term, I'm going to skip using that spell. If my players use a spell I have them tell me what the spell does, because a PDF Search for the term comes up with dozens of uses rather than go right to where I need to. If I'm running a game I need the information on hand rather than look everywhere for it. Hell, half the time I forgot to have players be penalized for Frightened because? I had "Frightened" written down rather than -1 to everything.

Having to look up monsters also takes time. All I end up doing with the online group is have a half-dozen copy-pasted Wordpad documents for the monsters... and even then I have to edit in asterisks for Action symbols.

The group prevailed. I suspect half of this reason was fireball is a bit more effective now and Mummies don't do well against Fire. (Also, I might have rolled a 1 for the Brain Collector's save.) While the Rogue was down to below half her hit points and the fighter had taken a tenth of his hit points, the group still did better than expected (and to be honest, if the monsters hadn't rolled 15+ on a d20 for each group of monsters and gone second and fourth (after the Rogue and Sorcerer), the enemy would have been even less effective) even with the Cleric Nerf.

My group joked that they were going to scold Paizo for "making the GM cry" because I will be honest here. I got quite upset at Paizo. Seriously, I was ready to chew bullets on several occasions because it strongly feels like this scenario (and the rules) was rushed out the door.

Paizo? You have some decent basics here. Pathfinder 2 could be the next best thing out there. But you honestly need to take more than half a year to think things over. Maybe take a couple dozen of the Playtest groups here and ask them to continue to do playtests for you, and continue revamping the game. Modify the magic so it doesn't suck nearly as badly, and make it so each spell is worth taking rather than have one or two spells of each level that will be all anyone takes because the rest frankly sucks. Hell, you could probably create a 1st level spell that grants Reach and have it be more effective than Enlarge even without the extra damage. Similarly for other spells that penalize people for using them.

And when it comes to scenarios... the module-builders have to have a better idea of the rules and various things on the spells. Otherwise you end up with frustrated GMs and players who end up playing computer games or YouTube videos in the background because the GM is busy looking up stuff that should have just been printed either in the spells or in the encounter write-up in the first place.

As for me? I'm done with the Playtest. There is no way my Skype group could finish the level 17 encounter in one game session so we're going back to Pathfinder 1 and playing Hell's Rebels. And when the game is published? I'm probably going to wait a year or two before buying it. That way I can get a better idea of what's happening... and if the game is worth buying or if it continues to end up lacking despite a promising start.

After my tabletop group decided the Playtest wasn't for them, we crafted characters for the Reign of Winter campaign. I'd previously run it for another group, but due to scheduling conflicts that group died (seriously, going over half a year between games is not a good thing - to the point that the two players who had that scheduling conflict are not being invited into my new group). The group is almost entirely local with one player over Skype and based in Florida.

I am using some Pathfinder Unchained rules for the game. This includes the following:

Unchained Classes (for the Barbarian, Rogue, Monk, and Summoner)
Background Skills (two bonus skill points for specific skills)
Automatic Bonus Progression - this is a biggie seeing that the group will frequently be away from larger communities. By cutting the amount of vendor trash the group gets but letting the party have bonuses for "traditional" core magic items, this allows more versatility for the treasure.

Two of my players so fell in love with ABP when they saw the rules that they both said they plan on using it for their own campaigns in the future.

The group used a 20-point build. They had average starting gold rather than rolling randomly for gold.
Also, I start everyone at double starting hit points for 1st level as I find 1st level characters a tad too squishy.

The group consists of the following:
Alak: A variant Aasimar Witch (with bonuses to Intelligence and Charisma) with the Elemental Patron. He has silver-white hair and yellow slitted eyes, and very pale skin. Yeah, I know what he looks like but players will do what they want. ;) He's got a Fox familiar. His Trait is Warded against Witchery as does his sister.

Ciri: Alak's somewhat naive adoptive sister, a Varisian Bard (with the Versatile Human upgrade and boosts to Charisma and Dexterity) - she's the GMPC but built in a Support role and will mostly not do much in combat. (I just liked the name. Otherwise she's black-haired and her own person.) Her Trait is Warded Against Witchery and both she and Alak had an encounter with the White Witches as children.

Thelin: A Stonesinger variant Dwarven Druid who took the Earth Domain rather than an animal companion. He left his clan as he preferred living outdoors instead of in the mountain, and met up with the oracle Freya and the barbarian Araval while on the road before they headed to Heldren. His Campaign Trait is Restless Wayfarer.

Freya: A Kitsune Oracle of the Stone Mystery and who is Haunted. She was raised in Tien but after touching an enchanted bauble was teleported into Northern Taldor where she met up with Araval and then Thelin. She continued traveling with them while learning more of this new region. She also has the Restless Wayfarer campaign trait.

Araval: A half-orc Barbarian from an orcish settlement in the River Kingdoms (I figure the region is unsettled enough that an orcish hold could exist there without being mentioned in the books). He possesses the Northern Ancestry Campaign Trait and started traveling south while seeking people to wrestle and learn from - part of the reason he went to Heldren is he heard the smith was a good wrestler and wanted to try his luck (he lost).

While Alak and Ciri were traveling separate from Freya, Thelin, and Araval, they met up during Heldren's midsummer's festivities. I had a half dozen games the players could partake of including an archery stand, a three-card monte stand, and a pie eating stand. Araval also sought out the smith and learned that years of experience and working the forge meant more than being a barbarian when it comes to wrestling (Araval held his own at first but then lost). But he also was given tips on how to wrestle as the smith is a good winner. ;)

At midnight, the Winter Portal opened in the Border Wood. Thelin noticed a thunderstorm starting to form over the Border Wood but didn't realize anything else about it (though given it was nighttime, that's not surprising).

That night while the five new friends slept on the tavern floor, the oracle had an odd dream...

One little hiccup I ran into when doing the Playtest is having players choose Backgrounds from the main rulebook (and even basing their characters around that background) only for the "main story characters" being required to take Campaign Backgrounds instead.

Would it be possible in the future for Campaign Backgrounds to be supplemental to the rulebook backgrounds instead of outright replacing them? Perhaps have Campaign Background no longer provide Stat increases and instead provide additional training for a skill or even some minor magical ability or the like... but let it exist concurrently with the rulebook Backgrounds?

It might also be nice to have additional backgrounds added to the Core Rules. Some of them may even be Ancestry-based backgrounds - like an Elf might choose the Forlorn Background or a Demon Hunter background due to an attack by the demons invading the elvish homeland. Dwarves could choose something like a Craftsman Background or an Orc Hunter background. Halflings could include the Vagabond Background or Escaped Slave background. And so forth. You could even have Regional Backgrounds for folk who grew up in the Ulfen lands or the like... and if an Adventure Path is going to start in a specific region, maybe include a couple Regional Backgrounds that folk could take instead of the Core Rules if they so choose in addition to the one Campaign Trait.

Heck, there are a lot of talented people here who probably could come up with better ideas for racial and regional backgrounds that could catalyze the final results. :)

I've been running the Playtest for two groups, one a monthly Skype-based gaming group that had finished Runelords a couple months before the Playtest came out, and the second a new Tabletop group that just started the game yesterday. Fortunately, I've learned some mistakes from the initial Playtest and went into the Tabletop playtest assuming that rules are likely changed from the first to second editions. While this slowed things down, I found I was justified in this and learned a few things that Paizo likely intended to be learned.

Due to character generation, the game actually got started a bit late, which is why we only finished the initial encounter. Fortunately, I did have the Hero Labs Online Demo which is quite helpful for character generation. This allowed us to develop classes and characters that were fully legal. One player is in both the Skype and tabletop group, and did some decision-making for the Cleric but wasn't there for all of the Skype game so I did some choices as well.

One interesting way that the two groups differed was the first encounter. My suspicion is that this first monster was placed there to showcase the Critical Rules seeing it had a low armor class. I'm not sure if I actually forgot about the Critical Hits (I suspect I did) or if it was just the Cantrip selection of the Skype group... but with one Fighter and three Casters, pretty much most of the fight was using save-based spells like Electric Arc rather than things that actually gave critical hits. Also, the monster managed to take out the Sorcerer first-thing because of poor character placement and only a Hero Point kept the Sorcerer from dying (something that actually happened to the Sorcerer on either two or three occasions, pretty much once each game session).

The Tabletop group differed in a couple of ways. First, there is only one Caster, the Druid, and she is designed as more of a support character - also, she chose Ray of Frost for an offensive spell which meant she needs to roll to hit... and did crit the critter). Second, the Rogue was specifically designed to be a support character and thus I not only kept the 8 in Strength but also went for Feints rather than Finesse, meaning on her critical hit with a rapier, she did one point of damage. Still, the combat lasted only one round this time as when the Barbarian closed to attack, he critted twice and took a critter that was at half hit points and the first attack actually killed it... I suspect if the rolls had been different, the Barbarian (who wasn't even raging at the time) would have killed that encounter.

I took time to look up rules rather than assume things. Thus we learned little tidbits that a 1st edition Pathfinder group might have assumed - you don't have a -4 to hit for firing into combat but instead take a penalty if someone is directly between you and your target. Likewise, you don't add half again of your Strength modifier for using two-handed weapons. This was actually significant as if I'd just assumed, it would have left the game unbalanced.

Looking back at the encounter I have to wonder how the Playtest would work for a group that had never played Pathfinder or DND 3.5 before. If you go into the game with no preconceptions, the game may very well play differently.

The next part of the Tabletop Playtest will take place in a week and a half, at which point we'll likely get close to the end of the first adventure. At that point, the tabletop and Skype groups are going to diverge - with the Skype group I'm focusing on just the adventures using the same PCs (for 1st, 9th, and 17th level) as we meet Monthly and thus have a shot at maybe finishing the Playtest (though to be honest, they MIGHT finish the 9th level part but I doubt we'll finish the final part). The Tabletop group though will move to the 4th level adventure with different characters and we'll see how things play through. And as we learn the rules more, the game should hopefully play faster.

First, I'm hoping someone at Paizo reads through this, because the Playtest Rules are confusing in places. I'm not sure if it assumes knowledge or what, or if there is one line hidden away somewhere, but I've been almost pulling my hair out trying to figure this out.

I've been reading and rereading the rules on armor and saving throws and am only proving to confuse myself increasingly as I cannot verify how these two systems work.

From what I understand with Skills, your proficiency modifier includes your level, along with the level of mastery (Trained, Expert, Mastery, and Legendary) giving between +0 to +3 in addition. Thus a 20th level character with a Legendary skill gets a +13 to their roll before adding in ability modifiers and other modifiers. Mind you, I do not find the "add your character level to the skill check" in the list of things you add in calculating your roll, but it is mentioned elsewhere.

Is this how Saving throws also work? Or are you limited to only your ability modifier and level of mastery? Because this is what is implied under the list of modifiers added to saving throws. And it does mean that people won't be able to make saving throws against high-level monsters.

Likewise with armor class - is the maximum armor class for a Dex-10 character 28 for +5 plate mail and a +5 heavy shield? Because this is what the write-up implies. There is nothing that states you add in your level to the roll - and I kind of recall something about your level of mastery not even benefiting armor so even if you're Legendary in Plate Mail according to what is stated, their armor class remains the same low level that is going to be critted by high-level monsters rolling 2 to hit.

Things would have gone a lot smoother if there were actual examples for characters and leveling up, rather than just for the initial stats. Because what might be obvious to the game designers may be hidden with one line in one page that is assumed to be known... and players may have no idea, much like myself.

Given the popularity of the Rise of the Runelords AP, will Paizo be adapting RotRL or another old AP to 2nd Edition Pathfinder?

I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions on low- and mid-level content that could be added to the Hell's Rebels adventure to help pad things out a little. This could be encounters in the Pathfinder Comic (are they still doing those mini-adventures along with the comics? Are any of those useful for an urban adventure?) or various modules... or possibly even bits and pieces from other APs that you believe could (with a little work) be grafted into a Hell's Rebels adventure.

And for that matter, not everything need be urban adventures. The players can always head outside of town periodically to help people outside the city walls and the like... and later in the game there's several out-of-Kintargo adventures that could include sidetreks.

One example that could work is the module "No Response from Deepmar" though it needs to be converted from 3.5, as that's off the coast from Vyre.

Any other ideas?

Here's an odd question: How do you handle dual damage resistance, such as the Wendigo's DR/Cold Iron and Magic, or other creatures that have a similar two-tiered DR.

The question comes in because once you have a magic item that is at least +3, it is able to overcome cold iron damage resistance.

1. Does that mean then any item that is +3 would overcome a Wendigo's DR?

2. Or does DR/Cold Iron and Magic mean you need to be +1 AND also Cold Iron?

3. Would in that case a +4 or higher weapon be considered both Cold Iron and Magic?

I'm curious as to what aspects of Ultimate Intrigue people have incorporated into their Hell's Rebels game. I will admit that on the surface UI would appear well suited for HR - to the point I wish HR had been delayed until now (or that UI had come out prior to the occult book which just fell flat for me).

In particular, the Vigilante seems well-suited for a HR campaign (and I'm left wondering how our least favorite Thrune would identify the vigilante's civilian persona, especially given some of the vigilante's abilities appear custom-built to thwart his efforts to detect the Silver Ravens.

That said, after looking over the first book, I really don't see anywhere but the initial encounter to utilize the Verbal Duel. The Library rules could potentially be used with the Silver Raven papers, but given the restrictions as to who can help (unless the party splurges on Comprehend Language goggles) it seems a course of action primarily for those GMs who figure to get the players better involved in the initial paperwork. (I think that later parts utilize a mechanism similar to the library rules but I'd have to pull out both books to double-check.)

So. How many of you've incorporated UI into HR, how've you gone about doing so, and how's it worked out?

I've been adding some side adventures using various modules and the like for my tabletop Runelords game, but I've a small level-gap - I need around 4,000 XP or so of adventure to help get the group to level 3, and I'm trying to hold off on starting the group on the Glassworks and the Catacombs of Wrath until after the group finishes the other adventures.

Right now I've got the following planned:

* Various encounters as per the main anniversary guide, which will bring the adventurers almost to level 2.
* The Fallen Tower, a level 1 adventure that I'm modifying to take place at Wisher's Well. This will bring the party a good ways into level 2.

Level 3 adventures include the Chopper's Island mini-adventure, and Feast of Ravenmoor, which I've relocated to be on the river between Wartle and Magnimar/Sandpoint (basically a little over a day's travel on foot from Sandpoint and mostly forgotten by people).

I figure once Ravenmoor is finished, I can have the Sheriff head out of town to Magnimar, and start the Glassworks at that point.

That said... I suspect Chopper's Island might be too tough for level 2 characters, otherwise I'd use that as the filler leading into Ravenmoor. Thus my asking for suggestions for some side-adventure or the like to help the players level up.

In many ways, the Ultimate Intrigue Rules were made for the Hell's Rebels AP - to the point that I kind of wish Hell's Rebels had come out after Hell's Vengeance (and for that matter, UI before the psychic book). So I was wondering, what elements from UI do you plan on integrating into your own Hell's Rebels campaign? Some elements such as the Vigilante seem more obvious than others, but there are areas where social intrigues are more important than violence within HR.

For instance, the very first encounter of the book includes three in-game hours of social aspects during the demonstration which turns sour. Shouting down various factions in the demonstrations could be done using the verbal combat skills instead of a set Diplomacy or Intimidate roll. Similarly, intra-organizational conflicts within the Silver Ravens themselves could be resolved using these rules as well, and help make the organization come to life rather than just be a game mechanic.

So where in Hell's Rebels do you intend on incorporating the UI rules? And how would you do so?

What happens to Viorian while under the effects of an Anti-Magic Shell?

Is Chellan still able to function while within the AMS, seeing it's a major artifact? Or is it suppressed (along with Karzoug's telepathic bond)? Would she try to escape the effects of the AMS or continue attacking without any benefits from her magic items? (No doubt this is why 24 hours are needed before Chellan's influence wanes - that said, I'm not sure how it's expected for PCs to actually save her and have her help in an attack.)

Hasten Spell can only be used on spells with a casting time of one round. It hastens the spell's casting time to be a standard action instead of a full round. It adds +2 levels to the spell.

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There is already a Feat out there that allows classes with the Aura class feature to cast Summons as a Standard Action. This would benefit wizards (without using Mythic) and let them also cast spells as a Standard Action.

That said, there is a limitation on the divine version (the Aura class feature), which is why I decided on +2 to the spell level.

Thoughts?

Quick note: Please avoid spoilers (or at the very least put them behind a Spoiler tag) in case my players view this forum post. :)

I thought I'd start a campaign write-up and journal along the lines of journals from Useplanb's rather fantastic thread on his campaign. Much like Useplanb, I'm giving players who provide a journal with a "Free Undo" card (ie, rerolling one d20 - either their own or one of mine) with one additional caveat: they can use it to prevent character death, much like spending 2 Hero Points. They can also save up to three "Free Undo" cards rather than having to spend it in the next game (I'm hoping to encourage more journals ^^). I'll also be providing GM Notes and write-ups on the game, what I change and how I adjust it for a party of three without a GMPC.

This is actually the second time I'm running Runelords (my first campaign is a Skype-based game currently with four players and one GMPC), though the group consists of three players. I'm foregoing the GMPC this time to focus more on NPC interactions - that said, I have suggested to the veteran player (who's running a Universalist Wizard) that he might want to take the Torchbearer Feat at level 5 (seeing they'd be clearing out Thistletop at that point).

My group consists of one veteran player who's been gaming with me for 20 years now and who easily comes up with plans so cunning you could put a tail on them and call them weasels, his wife who was a part of my ill-fated Reign of Winter campaign, and his 14-year-old son who is pretty much a novice in gaming. I provided them with a 25-point build and doubled their starting hit points to improve survivability. Hero Points will also be used (and after they clear out the Catacombs (around level 3) I'll be doing a "hybrid Mythic" where their Hero Points will regenerate one point per game session). Otherwise I'll not change the numbers of enemies or the like. (With goblins it won't matter much.)

Interestingly enough, right now my initial machinations will involve the latter two players - the wife is running an aasimar bard who grew up in town (but was able to better hide her heritage as it manifested with emerald-colored eyes rather than anything so blatant as shining silvery hair (like a certain other aasimar (Nualia) who met an unfortunate end in a fire five years ago), while the son's character is a teenage Varisian rogue who will undoubtedly run afoul of the Scarnzi (in fact, I'm already starting to plan this out, though I've not gotten much in a way of a character history from him).

One change I've already incorporated is expanding the Swallowtail Festival and writing up actual rules for some of the festival games - I'm including things like a tug-of-war to showcase how the Aid Another ability works, a pie-eating contest for Fortitude checks (and possibly sleight-of-hand or bluff to get bonuses in the Fortitude check), ring toss, and other such games. There will be around a dozen different games they can play if they feel like, and I'll also develop several events that the various characters can view to help flesh out the town a bit - basically to bring Sandpoint to life. While my other group enjoys Sandpoint and has fleshed it out, I realize I could have done a lot better with a little bit of preparation.

As I mentioned above, I'll also be expanding more on the Scarzi and having them be an early presence. In my Skype game, the rogue of the group was a GMPC and she was more the "expert treasure hunter" than the "burglar" type... and thus I missed out on some potentially fun roleplaying and machinations. (Then again, I also went more into the Scarnettis with the Skype group - they did learn of the Scarzi but never did much with them. I like to think that Tongs' reputation as hating and gleefully killing any bandit he found probably discouraged them from directly attacking the group... though they had worked with the Scarnettis in trying to increase costs for the Sandpoint Bank that the Skype group are having built.)

I also plan on running the group through the Chopper's Hill mini-adventure that was done up in Wayfarer. All three players had their characters grow up in Sandpoint (though the wizard moved to Sandpoint in his early teens rather than being born there - he apprenticed with the head of the Academy).

So here's a brief write-up of my cast, based on what they've told me so far (I've not gotten written character backgrounds yet):
Alyssa is the oldest of two daughters raised by two Varissian artisans - her father works with wood and in his spare time builds musical instruments. She fell in love with a lute he'd build and he let her keep it and taught her the basics of how to play; after she'd outpaced his own limited knowledge, he paid for others to tutor her and her love of the bardic skills only grew from there. One thing she's kept to herself though is a private shame: she never did step up to the older kids who were bullying this other aasimar girl, Nualia. She'd managed to hide her own heritage for years, as her aasimar heritage emerged with emerald eyes rather than something obvious like silver hair, and she always regrets not having stood with Nualia and supported her before she died in the fire that destroyed the cathedral... but she was also afraid of what would happen to her own family and her younger sister if her own heritage was revealed.

Archibald Thyme is the black sheep of his family. While he was born in Sandpoint with his siblings, his parents decided to move back to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings to be closer to family. But while his siblings went into the church (one becoming a paladin and the other a cleric), Archibald chose not to worship the gods and instead grew fascinated with magic. As few wizards could be found in the northlands and worried at the impact a stranger might have on their son's upbringing, they instead chose to send him back to Sandpoint to be apprenticed by Ilsoari Gandethus, headmaster of Turandarok Academy and a friend of the family. It was hoped that Ilsoari's own philosophical bent and his respect for the law would keep their son on the straight and narrow. While Ilsoari proved to be an apt teacher, Archibald retained his own sense of independence and his rebellious streak, though he did develop a fascination in Thassilonian lore as an attractive young lady with emerald eyes was constantly perusing old tomes on Thassilon and he thought it would provide him a way to meet her....

As of this time, I only have a bare bones knowledge of the third member of the group, Wilhelm, a male Varisian teen who was attending the Turandarok Academy while getting into trouble climbing the town walls and trying to lie his way out of trouble (ie, he's a rogue). (He's keeping the character close to his vest - apparently he's not even told his dad anything about his background yet.)