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I need some advice on a player's whose expectations seem to have gotten a little blown out of proportion. I'm running RotRL right now and we are just at the start of book 5. One character came to the party in book 2 and to give him a tie-in later I suggested he be one of the Black Arrows sent to take care of some business in Sandpoint. My player decided he wanted to have come to the Arrows against his will and we decided he had been a very low-level player in the Scarzni as a teenager and they used him as a fall-guy for the the murder of his mentor. This was mostly used as a plot device to get him in with the Arrows despite being a bit roguish at the time. After this it didn't come up again for quite a while. In the meantime, he's had plenty of personal RP opportunity in books 3 and 4 (he's also the son of Ven Vinder and so even had a lot of his own stuff to deal with in book 2 with the murder of Katrine).

Now, despite it having no tangible connection to the adventure we are playing he wants to take time off to wipe the Scarzni off the map. I've explained to him that that's not in the scope of this adventure but that maybe once the sixth book is complete we can try something. I've also said to him though, that I think he misjudges the scope of the organization. I tried to get him to understand that I'd be more than happy to craft an adventure centered around him taking out those who wronged him specifically but that the Scarzni as a whole are a lot bigger than he realizes and that they are fairly important to the setting and I'm not really willing to have them killed off at a whim.

The plot here thickens when this player informs me he's already done his own research and that they aren't really that large and imposing and he should be able to do it based on that. Now, we've been playing for over a year and I've made it abundantly clear that spoilers are an absolute no-no and if you look up spoilers to the path you are effectively cheating. This isn't quite that severe as it's only really setting spoilers but I'm still rubbed entirely the wrong way by it. Honestly, I'm stumped as to how to move forward without stubbing any toes. I'm not sure if that's even possible. Any advice on what to do would be much appreciated.

TL/DR: My player wants to casually wipe out the Scarzni despite it being way out of the scope of the adventure we are running and has looked up spoilers in order to facilitate his argument as to why he should be able to. Halp.

My players went a little too gung ho on their trek into Jorgenfist and used many of their better resources early on. They let more than a few enemies run away as well and they came back to haunt them. They ended up dimension dooring the hell outta there and now I'm not sure how to run their 2nd attempt.

Should I replace downed enemies with stone giants? Should the enemies use some special tactics? They know that they came in through the small tunnels and that that is likely where the party is hiding out now.

Thoughts?

Hey all,

So I may have overlooked something (and please link to it if I have) but I can't seem to find stats for the different Stone Giant generals and clan leaders hanging out outside Jorgenfist. I know most parties of competent adventurers skip right past them. Even the AP assumes this. I felt like statting some of them up however and figured I'd post them here for other's use.

So far I've only finished Vlorian, leader of the Jormunsir. Have a looksee and tell me what you think.

Vlorian, Stone Giant Ranger 3 CR 11
XP 12,800
NE Large humanoid (giant)
Init +2 (+4 in mountains); Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +18 (+20 in mountains)

DEFENSE
AC 29, touch 12, flat-footed 26 (+2 Dex, +6 armor, +11 natural, +1 dodge, –1 size)
hp 129 (12d8+3d10+60)
Fort +15, Ref +9, Will +8
Defensive Abilities: Improved Rock Catching

OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft.
Melee glaive +19/+14+9 (2d8+12) (x3 crit) or 2 slams +19 (1d8+8)
Ranged rock +14/+9/+4 (1d8+12)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with Glaive, 20 ft. with Lunge)
Special Attacks: Rock Throwing (180 ft.)

STATISTICS
Str 27, Dex 15, Con 19, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 10
Base Atk +12; CMB +21; CMD 33
Feats Iron Will, Martial Weapon Proficiency, Medium Armor Proficiency, Point Blank Shot, Power Attack, Precise Shot, Quick Draw, Dodge, Lunge, Cleave, Endurance
Skills Climb +15, Intimidate +18, Perception +18 (20 mountains), Stealth +7 (+17 in rocky terrain/mountain) Survival + 7 (+9 mountains, extra +1 when tracking), Knowledge (geography) +6 (+8 mountains); Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in rocky terrain
Languages Common, Giant

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Improved Rock Catching (Ex)
A stone giant gains a +4 racial bonus on its Reflex save when attempting to catch a thrown rock with rock catching. This ability otherwise works like the rock catching ability.
Favored Enemy Human: +2/hit, +2/dmg.
Favored Terrain: Mountain/Rocky Terrain

TREASURE
Large Mwk glaive, large +1 horn lamellar armor

So, lately in my RotRL campaign there have been quite a lot of character deaths and it's created a strange schism among my players. This schism has to do with the availability of resurrection magic at their current level. They are at a point where reincarnate and raise dead are easily cast for them so death has practically reached a point where it's more an annoyance than well, death.

Half of my group has come out in favor of our game utilizing perma-death in order to allow for greater role-playing opportunities, character development, and sense of danger, darkness, or grit. The other half of my group is against this because they have become so attached to their characters for all the story and character building they've put in that they would hate being forced to play as a different character, especially this far into the AP.

This has been a tough thing to reconcile for me, as GM. I understand both sides' concerns and empathize with both. Thus far I have told them that they can make the decision for themselves: if you want your characters res'd they can be. If you'd like perma-death for your own characters that's fine too. This, however, aggravates some already present continuity issues. Why do they res character A but not character B? Why hasn't Tiny res'd his best friend Cal who died at 2nd level?

More recently I have been giving thought to the idea of banning resurrection as anything but a plot device or Act of God but allowing Hero Points or some other system to mitigate deaths. This could make it so character death is more avoidable without sapping all of the weight out of character death when it does occur.

Thoughts? Ideas? If this has already been covered in another thread please link to it and I apologize for wasting your time.

Vale Temros from HMM has both TWF and Double Slice despite not meeting the prereqs for either of them. One of them is covered by his bonus fighting style feat, the other is not.

I'm wondering how this is possible... I might not have even noticed it if not statting him up in HeroLab. There are other threads talking about whether rangers can take any feats from their fighting style without the prereqs or if they are only able to when picking the style feats specifically. RAW seems to support the "Style feats only" argument.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts, guys.

So, I'm a little confused on how Martial Flexibility works. It seems to me that you can use it to gain any feat you have the prereqs for and that it also how most people seem to read it. However, on HeroLab I have to choose specific feats to use with it ahead of time.

So, I guess I'm confused on whether the ability grants you the use of any feat or just certain ones you pick ahead of time.

Can Abundant Ammunition be cast on a dagger belt?

I am working on a warpriest of Pharasma who throws daggers and I'm curious.

I am looking for advice on how to handle Orik beyond simply his appearance in Burnt Offerings. In Burnt Offerings I played up his "clueless mercenary in over his head" bit quite a bit and he not only led the PCs to Nualia but aided them in the fight. Despite this my players refused to lie to the Sandpoint authorities and still turned him in to the Sheriff. Now, I plan to introduce Ironbriar during Orik and Lyrie's trial and I know Lyrie will likely receive jail-time. Orik, however, I am a little unsure of.

Option one would be to have him turned over to the Black Arrows and have him reappear later as a possible cohort when rescued from the farm in HMM(I only generally allow existing NPCs to become cohorts in my games). I've seen many people do this already.

I have my own idea as well though. Seeing as he flat out betrayed Nualia I figure Xanesha might not be too happy with him. I hatched an idea for her to kidnap him from prison and use him to her own benefit. I thought that perhaps she'd use him as spare parts for the Scarecrow. This would certainly up the horror factor in that part of the path. I mean, imagine the players' surprise at seeing this hulking beast with Orik's head on its shoulders?

Thoughts?

I have a player in my RotRL campaign who has slowly been giving me more and more trouble as a GM and I'm not quite sure of the appropriate way to handle it.

From day one he's been fuzzy on his backstory and we have a group that is very roleplay-centric. I had to handhold him through the meager background he did eventually stick to but all that eventually became for him was even less than window-dressing. It all took a backseat to his desire to play a "young Han Solo" - someone who "doesn't take any crap from anyone". That sounds fine and all but it was his execution that was lacking. In game this translated to him causing much more party strife than was necessary, threatening the lives of important townsfolk for no reason at the most inopportune moments and being generally disruptive to the smooth flow of things.

Now, you might say that as a GM it's my job to roll with the punches but its become apparent to me that he simply doesn't care about the game as much as myself or my other players. For us its a serious endeavor that we've put hours or days into preparing and for him its a fun distraction on a Saturday night. That's fine and all but I'm beginning to sense a distinct feeling of discord amongst my other players. I've even had a couple players approach me saying they were getting sick of his antics and tendency to cause party-drama as they felt it was starting to distract from the story of the AP - something I feel as well. At last week's session he went the next step though from troublemaker to "lolimrandumb" when, after discovering the goblin dog exercise yard at Thistletop he released dozens of rabbits into the courtyard with a live and very spookable Shadowmist. When I asked him why on earth his character would do that he replied grinning "I don't know, lol."

That is literally what he said.

...

This was the tipping point for me. This was the moment when I knew he didn't really care the same way we did.

Now, you might ask why I haven't just asked him to leave?

He's a close friend of myself and all my other players and is currently living at my house while he finds his own place. That is what makes this tricky.

Anyway... long story and all... Advice?