Tenshi no Shi's page

So I have been working on a campaign, but I have found myself a bit stuck. I have the story outlined, and a clear picture of what I want to accomplish with the campaign. So after years of playing I am getting tired of the players encounter x amount of monsters and have to kill them to get to the next part pattern which a lot of adventures seem to have. I wish to make the campaign more of a survival against the environment, as well as avoiding encounters with superior opponents.

I really want to make the adventure feel more like an action-adventure game. Focusing more on skill challenges. The thing is, I do not have experience with designing such an adventure, and do not know of any good examples or resources that would help me either.

So I am asking if anyone knows of adventures, or resources which would help me.

I don't really know why I am posing this, but I was wondering is anyone other then me gets tired of GMing a party of chaotic characters, or even playing with a character in a party of chaotic characters.

I was playing in a game with a bit of a pirate/swashbuckling theme, and the party was primarily chaotic. It really burnt me out playing in that game. People all really wanted to do separate things, and really there seemed to be no real party cohesion. It did not help that the GM's story was a little weak, and really had too many subplots distracting from the main story.

The thing is as a GM too, I hate chaotic characters. People seem to use the alignment to justify screwing around. And it's not even things that are interesting, sometimes it is just a deliberate attempt to throw a monkey wrench into things. I don't know why people play like this. It's like they like poking the other players trying to get a rise out them, but I can tell that if they are, they are doing it subconsciously. I think that it might just be a bad habit that they developed.

Maybe it is just the people I played with.

My question is fairly straight forward. Simply is there a way for a tracker to track someone that possess Trackless Step. I am designing a campaign which will be largely survival based, and wish to have a point where the group is being tracked by a larger and more powerful foe. I just wanted to see if there are any ways in which a character can track another character that has trackless step.

This is more then likely going to be a non-issue for me, as at this point the party would be around level 2, so even if there is a druid, they would not possess trackless step. So really it is more for curiosity sake.

So I am working on a campaign idea I had. The basic premise is that the PCs are part of an Expeditionary force for a nation sent to a mysterious large island which largely is shrouded in mystery. The island is home of was home to an advanced civilization that underwent a collapse, so all that remains is sparse and scattered communities of survivors, as well as other things.

The Civilization as far as technology levels is past our own, fusion energy, holographic technology, artificial intelligences, gene manipulation, etc. The PC's would be only used to technology from the Renaissance. So black powder firearms would be uncommon.

The point of this thread is I am trying to gather ideas for the denizens of this shattered civilization. Largely it will be a jungle environment, that has overgrown the city centers. I plan on having tribes of mutants who will be largely hostile, but also wanted mutants who might be friendly to the party.

So I am trying to think of races that might have already been made that would fit these roles, that I might re-flavor. That or make new races that work. I kind of leading for things leaning on undead, lycanthropes(animorphic), plant, etc.

I also am going to have Android, and other robots, but want to have things like robotic animals, large flying drones, etc.

If people could point me to ideas, or sources. Even make their own suggestions. I myself am going to be adding my own ideas here for people to look over and comment on. Any help would be great.

So as there are quite a few playable native outsider races I wanted to make a playable Fey race. Looking through the advanced race guide, in the race building portion made this seem quite possible. The thing is I do not want to just make a race that feels like any existing race and slap the Fey type on. I want the race to feel uniquely fey, different from the other races.

So here is what I have so far.

Naiad

Ability Score Racial Traits: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Str Naiads are lithe and entrancing but their willowy frames leave them rather feeble.
Type: Naiads are Fey with the water subtype.
Size: Naiads are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Base Speed: Naiads have a base speed of 30 feet on land. They also have a swim speed of 30 feet, can move in water without making Swim checks, and always treat Swim as a class skill.
Languages: Naiads begin play speaking Common and Sylvan. Naiads with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aquan, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, and Halfling.
Deceptively Resilient: Naiads otherworldly physiology gives them a +2 racial bonus to fortitude saves verses poison.
Perceptive: Naiads get a +2 racial bonus to Perception and Sense Motive.

The last ability is the one I am having the most trouble with. You see I saw the first level spell Nereid's Grace in the Advance Race Guide. It gives the caster a better version of the Nereid's Unearthly Grace.

Anyways I was wondering if it would be broken to give a playable race the deflection bonus equal to their charisma modifier. With the stipulation that you cannot wear any armor in order to get this bonus. I was even thinking it could be worded

Unearthly Grace (Su) A naiad adds her Charisma bonus as a deflection bonus to her Armor Class and CMD so long as she received no armor bonus from any source.

this would make it so that while they can get a high deflection bonus first level, this ability would not stack with any spell or item that gives an armor bonus.

Either that or I can make it a dodge bonus instead of a deflection, since a dodge bonus is like a deflection bonus, but you lose it when you are flat-footed.

Anyways this is just an idea I had. Would love some suggestions and feedback.

So here is the thing, I am playing an urban druid, and well there are some things about thousand faces that have left me quite confused. Unfortunately after looking through the board I cannot find any clarification to my confusion.

So first off the Rules.

So here is the thing I am having a hard time wrapping my head around. Thousand Faces is an at-will supernatural ability, and as such is not the same as casting a spell, from my understanding. It says it that you change shape as if using the alter self spell. So does Thousand Faces have a duration. Does it last 1/minute per level, at which point the druid has to come out of it, and reuse it, since it says that they can only use this ability in their normal form. Or can you maintain this ability indefinitely and only change forms by dropping back to your normal form.

My thoughts is that you can just indefinitely maintain it, since it is a 13th level ability (Urban Druid has to give up wild shape, a 1/hour per level ability for 4 levels to get Thousand Faces early). Otherwise this is a really weak ability, and the Urban Druid would be a much weaker archetype then most people think it already is.

It is not even that strong of a spell, just granting you a +2 to one stat. You cannot even take the form of a specific individual. You can get close, but not exact.

So I was wondering if Flame Blade and Gozreh's Trident are considered light weapons for the purpose of weapon finesse. They are welded as a weapon, but you do not add your strength to damage, and are touch attacks. So I think that it would, but just wanted a second opinion.

So I have a question for everyone. According to the spell text of spells like charm, hold, dominate, etc person it only affects creatures of the humanoid type. The thing is playable races such as Aasimars, Tieflings, Undines, etc are of the Outsider (Native) Type. So does that mean that these spells would not affect these races. Would you have to use the much higher level "monster" spells to effect them.