The Numerator's page

Also, as a follow up to the earlier questions about the logic flaws, here was how I envisioned the battle flowing (with some fixes based on my own or many other people's ideas from this thread... thanks a ton for those, btw!):

Setup:
In the days before the raid, Skreed was secretly smuggling in a number of orcs/half-orcs and hiding them in his new base of operations in the town (a vacant flop house). When the raid starts, they are already hiding in the inner quarter.

Most of the town was up top for the funeral at sunset, leaving only a skeleton crew on the walls. Shortly before the funeral, a very thick fog rolled in (hinting at storm giant intervention, perhaps a scroll was provided). This allowed the main orc force (of only a few hundred) to get close to the city w/ the siege weapons. Rocks fly, the alarm is sounded, and the main force approaches the front gate.

Most of the on-duty militia heads down to defend the main gate, leaving only a handful behind in the inner quarter gate. The Inner Quarter orcs come out from hiding and split up, some to kill the locals and start fires, and some to take the gate to the lower city (L2e/f). Being overwhelmed, those few militia retreated to L2g and barricaded themselves in that tower.

PCs Arrive at Inner Quarter:
Kurst (mounted, with Omast and a small force of militia) gives the PCs the order to secure the inner quarter, rides through the smoke of the burning trees and past the inner gate. Not seeing militia manning the wall there, he leaves Omast to investigate, and heads to the main gate. When he gets there, he finds out that an advanced party of orc ran ahead of the main group and got through the gate already (and are currently sneaking through the lower city). With not enough fighters to search for them, he sets a rear guard and focuses on keeping the main gate secure from the force outside. So there are 2 separate orc forces in the city already: the saboteurs in the Inner Quarter, and the advance group in the Lower Quarter.

Back at the inner gate, the orcs are up on the wall, trying to get to the militia hiding in the guard tower. Omast, seeing they are distracted, sabotages the door to that tower, trapping them in the northern half of the wall (L2f). He then sneaks into the far side (L2e) and lowers one of the two portcullises, jamming it shut. Omast realizes that these Orcs were keeping this open for a reason, so he heads to L11 to prepare for an assault. He pulls out pre-assembled barricades from where they are normally stashed amidst the houses, and sets them up as best he can.

The PCs secure the inner quarter, arrive at L11 and find Omast ready for the waves of Orcs (which was the advanced force that snuck in prior to Kurst securing the main gate). Once the assault starts, I had the Orcs in the tower (L2f) realize they are trapped and try to break out (adding another threat). Depending on how the battle went, that could be an additional wave at the end, or you can just have the last wave come from the door. Once the orcs are out of the tower, the militia that was hiding up top are able to lower the remaining portcullis, and the inner quarter is secure. Omast says he'll assume command of this gate, and asks the PCs to continue on to the final beacon.

After the Waves:
Kurst, having not heard from Omast, rides back and meets the PCs at the Hopespring after they lit the last beacon. I previously had the PCs do a Perception check to notice that the boulders were no longer being aimed at the inner city, but were flying toward the main gate (so they were already thinking about that danger). Kurst mentions that gate won't withstand many more hits from the Trebuchet at the Barterstones, and asks if they feel a little crazy. He dispatches a fighter to help lower them over the Western Wall (and await their return), and asks them to stop it. They do so, and after the battle I reminded the PCs of the mechanics of manning a siege weapon, the damage it can do, and point out the 300+ orcs swarming the front gate. They took the bait, and started firing at the army. I gave them a few shots and then had the orcs send a mob after them (letting them know they only had time for one more shot before getting away safely). I fudged the rolls a bit, but that final boulder was caught by a very large creature (Crusher), and he then threw it to the main gate (if they rolled a 1 at any point, I was going to have THEM hit the gate).

The last blow opens the main gate enough for Crusher and a small force to get in, and he plows through the defenders and runs to the Hopespring (per orders). The defenders are forced to first fix and barricade the damaged gate, so they cannot pursue him. When the PCs get back over the Western wall, they see at a distance the large creature (which they let in) run towards the Hopespring, giving them the hook to follow. He meets up w/ Skreed there (who had been invisible during the battle, waiting for Crusher), and opens the wall. All the PCs see is a brief disruption of the waterfall, and then are alone w/ Crusher.

After he's taken care of, I had Silvermane appear (fully healed, what?), and he teleported them to an extra dimensional space to rest (Vault of Thorns, per an idea someone posted... thanks again!). Another good idea was a 1/month relic of Iomedae that allows up to 20 people a full night's rest. Either way, they rest, get spells back, and head into the caverns with little time passing. Skreed already knows the raid is busted, so is frantically trying to find the stone and sneak out. The rest was as written.

Overall, it's a little railroad-ish, but there is a clear motivation or direction for each of the parts of the battle, and I think the flow seemed natural.

I usually don't have mundane items that appear in the Core apply to the purchase limit, with the exception of exotic weapons. Where it gets trickier is if they're looking for something from Ultimate Equipment, particularly some of the more interesting alchemical or culture-specific items. Then I'd apply the 75% chance.

If they are going to want a large number of items, I'd likely run a one shot side quest: escort a Tien blacksmith from a city, or rescue the alchemist who is being held hostage by a goblin tribe for his firework crafting ability... something like that.

Also, if it's a well supplied city like Sandpoint (or even Trunau, since I believe the AP mentions regular trade from Lastwall), I usually follow up a failed 75% chance with an auto-succeed the following week. I think of it like a merchant going back to the larger city and finding it there to bring back for next time, or a local merchant messaging their contact and having it sent via courier. To do this, the PC must pay up front.

For anyone looking for a better handout than the player view in the PDF, I did some editing:

Redlake Fort Player Handout

I started with the player view from the PDF, but cropped it to remove the areas noted in the description (No K4, no K8). I also removed the makeshift bridges between the outbuilding and main building, and will have Calrienne tell them that there is a moat surrounding it and drawbridges that were raised/lowered. That way, when the PCs see the wooden bullwarks around the fort, they will have some confusion.

The only downside is the map still shows the crumbled sections of the northern wall, but I'm going to just instruct my players to ignore that, since obviously any damage to the structure would have happened after the map was made.

For the past few years, our group has been tracking initiative using a small (11"x14") magnetic dry-erase board I picked up at staples (around $25, I think?). I had picked up a flexible magnetic sheet, and cut rectangles on which to write our PC's names. However, the name tags were really hard to move/remove from the board, and there wasn't enough space on the board to have permanent initiative counts: we would just put the PCs in relative order, and three rounds later would forget what the actual initiative counts were. Every so often the board would get knocked off the nail it was on, and we'd spend 15 minutes digging through the couch trying to find the stupid name tags. Lastly, after playing the pirate campaign (and swimming a TON), I decided I wanted to build a depth/height board to easily visualize a third axis for flying/swimming, which is not easily seen on the battle mat.

I priced out a larger magnetic board, but to get one large enough to handle both initiative and the depth chart, it was going to be almost $100! That seemed a bit much, so I figured I'd make one myself. I've been mulling over new solutions, and finally came up with this!

Magnetic Initiative Board and Depth Tracker

Initially I was going to buy a piece of sheet metal and paint it with dry erase paint. However, I recently inherited a set of white 31"x23" magnet boards from Ikea (though I'm not going to leave any wet erase marker on it for long, just to be safe).

I picked up 2 rolls of 1/8" black pin striping (for cars, should find some at any auto store) to make the grid. I carefully measured out 1 & 1/16" from each prior line, and used that as the center for the new stripe; the resulting squares are each exactly 1" inside. When we have someone flying or swimming, we'll just draw a line in wet erase marker to indicate the surface of the water or ground, and put a marker for each person to indicate their vertical position relative to the others. This way, spell/range increments are easy to visualize and calculate.

Then for the initiative board, I made a quick template in Excel (found here, feel free to use) which created 3/4" tall initiative labels. I printed this onto a removable full-sheet label (Avery 6470 for reference), cut the three strips, and carefully layered them on the left side. Another option would be to stick these to the magnetic sheet, listed above, but this seemed easier.

Lastly, for character markers, I wanted something that would be strong enough to resist get knocked off the board, but be movable quickly mid-battle. The solution was a 50 pack of circular flexible magnets (.75"), and a set of 60 square wooden alphabet tiles (also .75"), both found at Michael's for cheap. Some super glue and a day later, and these things work well! I shook the board pretty hard, and they didn't budge, but the corners of the squares allow you to easily pop them off the board with your hand to position them. The only down side was that for some reason, the tile set didn't come with any Ks! 3 Q's, sure, but no Ks... too bad for Kynatheria (one of our PCs).

All in, the project only cost me $19, due to the inherited metal board and glue/labels, which were already here with our home art supplies. If you don't have any materials it would cost around $55, and to make a surface that is definitely wet/dry erase safe would be closer to $65-$70. If you wanted to skip the label sheet and instead print on paper and tape it down, that would bring it closer to $35 (or $50 with paint).

Ikea board ($13),
- or sheet metal ($9) and dry erase paint ($15-$20)
Removable label ($18)
Pinstripe ($3 each, probably could get away w/ 1 but I used 2)
Magnets ($8)
Tiles ($5)
Super Glue ($3)

Thread res on this, but in case people are researching answers for this (as I was today), I thought it best to add what I've found from other threads and reading.

In the GMG, it spells out the impact of the Detect Alignment spell on haunts:

Detect undead or detect alignment spells of the appropriate type allow an observer a chance to notice a haunt even before it manifests (allowing that character the appropriate check to notice the haunt, but at a –4 penalty).

So I'm reading that to mean if they used detect evil as the spell and create the 3 round cone (and they can see the area where the haunt would manifest), the GM should do a blind Perc check against the Haunt's DC to notice it. If the check fails, you tell them the PC does not detect the presence of evil. If passes, then give then the event listed in the notice section of the haunt. But it is not automatic. If they use the SLA version (move action, one item), I'd give them the check if the item they are focusing on is in the area that the haunt manifests.

To the OP question about moving and turning their head, I would not allow that. If they are using the cone version, then the Standard action lets them detect evil in that 60' cone, and it takes three rounds to get all the info. If they turned their head, then that would require a new standard action to concentrate on the new area, and this would re-set the clock on the round counter. This is also how I play the effect of detect magic and invisibility.

And finally, if the haunt is still behind a closed door, then that would break line of effect for the spell or SLA usage. If they peeked out a side window, then I'd give them the check.

Update from an earlier topic... because the PCs did so well against Crusher (and I gave them a rest per the scenario that Steel_Wind outlined), I opted to keep in the Shadow Rat Swarm. I softened them up a bit, figuring that Skreed had hit them w/ one of his bombs on his way through (avg dmg). I then had the swarm surprise the PCs in Incorporeal form and move in from the wall. This did some STR damage to 2 PCs in the surprise round, and then in the first full round I had them switch to corporeal.

I gave the PCs a hint by having the ghost of Roderick speak to the PC holding Brinya's Love, and he quickly activated the dagger. Then, between the alchemist fire, unerring grenades, holy water, and bludgeoning weapons, they took out the Rat Swarm in 2 rounds. It was not as catastrophic as people seemed to indicate, and softened them up just a bit.

Oddly enough, my players had a REALLY hard time w/ the next room (spiders and birds). They were rolling terribly, and one fell down into the webs/water below. I had the flood troll come and investigate 1d3 rounds after the splash (which happened to be the same round they killed the last spider), and we paused the session just as she was charging in. More to come next week...

Lastly, I had a brief conversation w/ the group about their thoughts with the plot, story setup, and overall experience. To a one, they said it's been great, and haven't really picked up on many of the "problems" people have been mentioning here. The only issue one player had is that he expected security in the town to be much tighter (don't let in any half-orcs, merchants and visitors must stay out of the city, etc), but he also had misunderstood the relative danger of the town. The main holdings of the Orc Tribes are way to the north, and only small raids have come down this far.

The way I phrased it was in Game of Throne terms: this was less like The Wall and more like Winterfell. Sure, Wildlings are known to come down from time to time, and you don't spend much time outside the city unless you are in a patrol of 10-20 armed people, but the risk of raids is small, and usually it's more dangerous for the Farmers (who would high-tail it to the keep for protection in the event of a raid). The idea of a siege hasn't really happened (until now), and even this siege is limited in scope: one giant, one catapult, maybe a few hundred orcs in total. Not nearly enough to breech/sack the city.

You weren't there when the casting began. You were on your way there, but you weren't there. Just because it is a turn based system doesn't mean things don't happen simultaneously... the turn based nature just organizes how things resolve. Time does not stop while you resolve your action...the actions happen simultaneously, and the readied action resolves first. Thus, your movement resolves before the spell is resolved, so if you are now out of range of the spell, bravo! If you are now next to the caster and cause it to shift the cone to you instead of your friend, then the resolution of your move was important to happen first. It just does not hold up that you are in place to benefit from the event that triggered your movement in the first place!

All this hinges on reading of one line "the action occurs just before the event that triggers it". The rest of the text of that section infers this only has to do with placement in initiative and resolving the actions.

The Ready An Action section also mentions that if your READIED ACTION interrupts another character's action, that they are interrupted. If you wanted to be pedantic, you could say that the fighter's readied action is a move, and a move would not itself interrupt the casting of the spell, so the action is not interrupted.

Further, if you go down just a little more in that section, it spells out exactly how to distract a spell caster: "You can ready an attack against a spellcaster with the trigger “if she starts casting a spell.”" You ready an attack. Which means you need to be in place to deliver said attack. This strict interpretation of "occurs just before" is just a way to get around a rule that addresses just this very thing! It just doesn't pass the smell test, and seems a stretch.

I actually would disagree that RAW this is allowable. I would think it would hinge on the reading of beginning to cast and continuing the action.

From Ready: "Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action."

The trigger of the move is the wizard begins to cast. So the fighter then gets her move action, and that action (only the move, not an AoO) is resolved. So now she's next to the caster, and the caster then continues to cast the spell. The caster does not begin to cast the spell once more... the spell casting has already begun. Time does not stop, the rules simply say one action resolves before another. So the move action resolves, and then the spell resolves. Since beginning to cast the spell is the only thing that would provoke the AoO, no AoO is provoked from continuing and resolving that action.

I think this is exactly why the rules state that beginning to cast the spell is what provokes... if you don't threaten at the beginning, then no AoO.

RAW, I think Shroud has it right. The magical knack specifically says it raises the caster level of that class, while the rogue talent says that the CL for the ability is equal to your rogue class level (not that it creates a rogue caster level). The Rogue class does not grant caster levels. Magical knack does not modify your class level. Therefore the level that acts as the CL for the SLA is not modified by the trait.

That said, I think as a GM I'd allow this. The spirit of the Magical Knack trait is that if a caster wants to multi-class, it helps mitigate the penalty. It's capped at 2 levels, so at most you are giving the caster an extra damage die, an extra +2 to damage, or maybe an extra two rounds or minutes for a spell duration. It's a great trait to have a low levels, but fairly weak at high levels. Overall, it's not that game breaking.

So if a rogue wants to devote two talents so that they can gain two spells to cast, and also wants to multi-class for 2 levels, I don't think I'd have an issue with giving him 2 extra rounds of vanish in exchange for a trait.

Being disabled with chronic pain and clinical depression, I'd probably be a sad, dirty beggar. Ideally, I'd be an archivist.

You used to be an adventurer like me, but then you took an arrow in the knee...

I'd say Divination Wizard 5 / Cleric of Abadar 3: currently employed by the Church of Sarenrae in Taldor.

(IRL I'm an Actuarial Analyst, building/maintaining predictive models for financial forecasts used in health insurance in the US).

Our party just got done w/ the looting houses, and the druid is already drained of spells. The Pearl of Power they got from the dwarf helps, so that is a decent option... Also, I'm planning on adding in a 40ish charge Wand of CLW at either the Tower with the Orc Drum, or the Ranger in the burning trees (whichever they do first).

But it sounds like this battle is doing exactly what you'd want... making it very hopeless for the PCs, and keeping them on the cusp of barely making it. I always think back to the Battle of Helm's Deep as inspiration, and try to impress that the town is teetering on the edge, and that every victory leads them to another challenge.

The other idea I'm toying with is, since they already have their backup characters established, if their main characters are drained and almost dead, allow for them to retreat to the back lines (play up a serious wound) and be replaced once by their backup. This could keep the momentum moving, and is more realistic to a large scale battle. Or option B, once it gets time to take out the trebuche, have them pause their main characters and switch completely to their backups waiting at the gate, with Kurst giving them the mission to take it out. Obviously this could be abused (re: pile of bards), but if it keeps the battle fun for the players, it's worth it.

Quick update on how this resolved:

So I opted for the "ghost puppy" approach, aided by the fact that the player of the Cleric had real life get in the way, and bowed out of the game (so he became an NPC for a few sessions). I role played that he was hearing voices, and then started asking the group to find items:

So regarding the binding, in the spell it mentions that often the caster can make some sort of trigger to release the binding. Having all this time, perhaps Mal had been able to figure out the basics of the trigger, and I leveraged that into a riddle for the party... the strength of the spell is drawn from 4 components, and each needs to be subverted in some way: the physical walls, the magical forces, the caster who created the binding, and the portal that locked it shut. That was all Mal gave them.

To break the binding, they had to search for items that subverted each of these powers: for the walls, a piece of the architects from the room w/ the Shadows; for the magical force, the Sihedron medallion; for the caster they needed a symbol of someone with authority over him (the image of Karz on the gold coins from the treasury, or just having the far door open to the projected image); for the portal, the key to the room.

This also forced them to clean out the rest of the level, which put them in a position of needing rest and healing before opening the door (the players suspected something afoul). They found all the pieces and went back to town, and their friend's sanity seemed to take a turn for the worst. While they were at Magnimar spending their Thistletop money, the Cleric escaped the temple he was being treated at, and was caught ransacking their rooms (they thought to keep the 4 pieces with them). Balor had the cleric sent to the mental hospital (introducing that for the next AP) and the PCs though the only way to help their friend was to free and/or defeat Mal.

It was a fun battle, with one PC dropping (but not dying), the other front-liner down to 6 HP before delivering a double shocking grasp via a spell storing amulet of mighty fists (and dropping Mal from half to less than 10 HP). At that point, Mal used dimension door to get to the far side of the hallway, and the PCs had a rough choice... try to get one last shot in (and risk opening themselves up to a killing blow), or let him go. They decided to pursue, and dropped him that round.

I took some liberties w/ the rules in regards to the binding and the mental affects on the cleric, but it resulted in a pretty fun side-quest!

Hey all!

I just created this Town Stat Tool on the fly tonight, and figured I'd share for any GMs that are interested. It's an excel tool in which you input a few key items, and it re-formats the info into a town stat block. I also included a small FAQ about what checks the town stats modify... I figure this can work as a decent handout to my players, for when they get to a new town.

Just a side note, google drive is doing odd things in the preview window with the print layout. The actual file prints onto a single page, once you download it.

This version requires you to put most values in manually, but eventually I'm going to try to work in some functions that adjust the Crime, Corruption, etc stats automatically once you choose the town features.

Any feedback is appreciated. Enjoy!

Chris

For anyone that ran the battle already, did anyone succeed at saving Sara?

I was just thinking through this... smoke inhalation (w/ a fairly high Fort DC for low level PCs) causes PCs to do nothing but choke for a round, but the rescue requires 2 PCs and Agrit to use full round actions for 2 consecutive rounds... if any fail that check, then wouldn't that require you to start again w/ the 2 consecutive rounds? The attacking Orcs make it likely that a party of 4 would have 2 hold off the Orcs, while 2 lift the wreckage... so you need 6 fairly lucky rolls, and one fail out of 4 would mean starting over.

Since the house collapses in 8 rounds, then basically they'd get 4 chances to hit 6 consecutive good rolls... seems a fairly unlikely situation, no?

I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer, I'm mostly just thinking through how I should handle the choking (like if they all pass one round, but then one passes and the others fail, can they "maintain" what they've done and only have to hit one more round?)

So a note on the assassins... we played that event last week, and here is how I modified it:

Since some of the PCs were established in town and some were new, they were planning on splitting up for the night. I had Kurst get a message to them that afternoon to tell them that, while he was helping his father at a family friend's house, they could have leave to stay in his and his father's private rooms off the side of the longhouse (which put all the PCs in the same building, with 4 small rooms). The party quickly decided that they did not need to set a guard (partly because they felt safe in town, and partly because the wolf encounter was that evening, so they thought they were "past" the fight for that day).

None of them passed a perception check (only one even could have, with a 20), so they were asleep when the battle started. I estimated a Coup-de-grace would be too much (3d6+4 would probably kill them all), so instead I figured the assassins each would delay an attack until one gave a signal. I also removed the sneak attack damage. Lastly, I decided to make the damage 1d3+2, rather than 1d6+2 (partly because I rolled a 5,6,4,6 on the attacks). This put each of the PCs at around half, with an AoO about to happen as they got up from their beds. Even nerfing the damage in the surprise round like that, the party barely made it out... really, they were saved because they had a witch with the sleep hex, and he put 2 of the assassins to sleep while the others coordinated to have them tied up before they awoke. Add to that one crit, and the last assassin fled.

The interrogation that followed was fun! I had the assassins tell the PCs that they were told to kill the people staying in those rooms... since the rooms were usually occupied by the Grath family, now the PCs aren't sure if they were the targets, or Kurst and Jagrim!

All in all, it was a tough battle, and the players had a very strong relief when they made it through. It also taught them that they are not safe in the city.

This moment had me giddy when I read it...

“...Who do we know who could help us out, Genthia, in terms of leading another team?"

The pirate captain cocked her head, musing. "Well, there's always Gad..."
Skiver shook his head. "Nah, he'd want to take over and run the whole thing his own way. Not to say he couldn't, I've never known a better man when it comes to conjuring up a plan, but I've already got ideas about how to do this thing, and adding Gad would be too many cooks in the kitchen. What about Rodrick and Hrym? Didn't I hear they were blundering around in the north recently?"
The name Rodrick rang a faint bell for Alaeron, though he wasn't sure why. Genthia shook her head anyway. "No, I heard they took passage down south to some island in the Obari Ocean, working on yet another scheme to get rich or die trying, I'm sure. They're too far away to do us any good...”

Excerpt From: Pratt, Tim. “Reign of Stars.” Paizo Inc., 2014-08. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Firstly, it's fun when an author references characters from another of their books, and I loved Liar's Blade. Even more, he references the web fiction that introduced the main characters from both books (and was very true to Alaeron's arrogance, not even remembering the guy he left for dead to escape an awakened Linnorm!). But then he gives us (I think) a FABULOUS teaser for the upcoming Rodrick and Hrym book!

Best of all, he references Gad, beloved rogue and schemer from Robin Laws' books, AP, and web fiction! This was a fabulous touch, and made this world seem that much more realistic.

Turning the "here's the plan" exposition into a who's who of Golarion's criminal masterminds... brilliant!

Makes sense...

That said, Mr Sutter, I would have a great interest in seeing if Paizo could work out a digital subscription for the line. Work and kids make it very hard to keep up with all the publications, and I use the subscription in lieu of research (i.e. I know a new book is out when it arrives in the mail). In addition, I love having all of my Pathfinder downloads in one place.

I wouldn't want to know about how all the monies work in the new deal, but I typically like buying my Pathfinder loot directly from Paizo. I could get many of the books cheaper on Amazon, but I don't mind paying a little extra knowing that I'm helping to support the company, and that Paizo is not having to share a part with a large retailer. I'd imagine that would be the same if you still sell the ePubs of the new Tales. Do you have any idea when you may know if an ePub subscription would be possible?

As a subscriber, I'm fine with the switch. Getting both physical and digital copies has been FABULOUS in the past, but truthfully I'm surprised that deal has remained as long as it has (which to me shows Paizo's loyalty to their fans). Where else do you get both types for the price of one? Music, Bluray, B&N, Amazon... All of them make you buy both formats separately, or perhaps bundle both together for 30-60% more than the price of physical alone. But here, I have dozens of essentially free ePubs, for which I am thankful.

But people are correct: for the current subscriber, this isn't a better deal than what we've had. But this deal with Tor isn't about the current subscribers. It's about getting the Pathfinder brand to thousands of Fantasy fans worldwide, many of whom don't even know Golarion exists (err... sort of exists?). This can only strengthen Paizo's support base, which will ensure that we continue to get many more years' worth of awesome, high quality fiction in this world we've all come to love!

How many of us were introduced to TTRPGs through the old Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, or Ravenloft novels? That was my original inlet (here's to you Fizban!), and I see this deal as positioning Pathfinder Tales as potentially being bigger than the D&D brands of the 80s and 90s. That would be fabulous for our game and the future of our fiction line.

So in the short term, "what's in it for me" sense, the deal isn't great for us. But if having to choose only one format for my subscription means that I can have conversations with random strangers about Radovan & Jeggare, Salim, Rodrick & Hrym, and Torius Vin, simply because I'm wearing a Pathfinder tee shirt (which, oddly enough, happened to me today), then that is very good news for all of us!

I use a Viewsonic PJD5223 XGA DLP Projector, 2700 lumens 3000:1 DCR, 120Hz. At the time they were just coming out with the newer model, so this one was on sale at Amazon for 300 (retail was around 600). We've been using it for almost 2 years for a weekly game, with no lamp problems yet. I've been thinking about getting a backup lamp soon though, just in case.

Because it was an older model, the inputs are a little outdated (no HDMI), but I think the newer versions have HDMI ports.

The hardest thing was getting a cheap first surface mirror. Ideally I'd like to have one that is 2' wide, but there were no glass places around me that did first surface mirrors (only traditional). I found a seller on Amazon that had an 8x12 one for sale, and I got that for around $30. Other places would cut/ship custom mirrors, but they were over $200 for a 16"x24" sheet. Evidently hobbyists who make kaleidoscopes are one of the cheaper markets, but they usually come pre-cut into small squares. If you can find a hobby shop that caters to them, they may be able to get an uncut sheet from their distributors. I had also thought about trying out an aluminum reflective sheet at some point, but for right now the mirror has been working.

We meet in my friends basement (cliche, I know, but it's the farthest place from the sleeping kids!), and the lighting is mostly lamps (a little dim for atmosphere). We built a rig that goes over our gaming area, and have 2 Ikea coffee tables put together for our gaming table. The mirror is just about 7' off the table, and the projector is about 2' from it (I mounted them both with swivel mounts on boards that can slide to bring them closer/further as needed). The play area ends up being just about 3.5' wide, and since we can slide the map around in the program (or zoom out for larger views), it hasn't been problematic. I project onto a plain white surface. I'll try to take a few pics tonight when we're gaming and post a link tomorrow.

Aside from battles, the projector also really helped for larger scale maps, like when they were investigating around Sandpoint: I just projected the map of the city down and said "you are here right now, where do you want to go"... they asked for directions to the local tavern, and as they wandered down streets, I described the people/places they saw. It made it much more real for them, and they understood the context and layout of the city right away.

Tangent - re:Game Space, last I heard it wasn't dead, but it sounded like their developers were re-prioritized to other projects. Here was a thread where Vic mentions it's officially on the back burner for now... for now maptools has been stable, and works on all our computers. I may try out TTop or Roll20 soon.

So what's in a name?

(note, this is my first reading of the book, and I'm only on Chapter 2 presently, so this is complete conjecture and any spoilers are unintended, nay prophetic even!)

Salim Ghadafar. A quick search of "ghada" came up w two ideas:

Ghada, a female name meaning "graceful" - Far From Grace?

Ghada, the common name for a large desert tree, one often used in Arabic poetry. The notable qualities being that it is hearty, can grow in poor soil, and can tolerate long periods of drought. It lacks leaves, but is very useful for stabilizing soil, as a building material, and fuel for fire. More can be found here.

I like the idea of surviving long periods of drought. At the point we learn his full name (ch 2) we know he despises his goddess, is estranged from his home (hinted that it has something to do w/ that hatred), and misses the desert. The water he's missing coud be his homeland, a sense of belonging, or even a drought of love from his goddess; the root of his emotional and physical estrangement. And yet, the hearty plant can endure it, where others die. Love the imagery there!

In addition, this tree provides no shade for others: as we saw in the web fiction, Salim has little patience and sympathy for others' suffering, probably since he feels like he's suffered far worse. But his lack of compassion is not a detriment to society, as this tree is a source of life (fuel), structure (building wood), and stability (roots that keep the desert from shifting). Though two of those uses would require his/its death. Perhaps this is a metaphor for people realizing the true impact of his actions after he was gone and they had time to reflect on his works, or never at all (like the summoner)? Perhaps he himself has never understood the impact his work has on others' lives, as he can only see the barren wasteland in which he finds himself (a land he is particularly suited for)?

Or maybe it just sounded desert-ish?

Other people have suggested that she might, especially since she has the commune ability.

We just played out the battle last night. It too was an extremely long battle (the entirety of a 6 hr session). By the end, my players were so sick of not being able to hit her, that I could tell it had ceased being epic and was becoming boring (it was also after midnight). I had considered having her flee, but took that though out to its logical conclusion and realized she would either harass them during the rest of the Catacombs (yet to be explored), or battle them again at Thistletop.

I didn't want to have another session dedicated to the PCs trying desperately to hit her while she continued to do 1-2 pts of damage per round, so I switched it up a bit: I had her madness take over, and had her fly down to start full attacking the character with the cold iron sword. They took her down in 2-3 rounds after that.

On the suggestion of one of my players (thanks sidewaysmonkey!), I found a nice way to bring her back without reliving the battle... since she "died" she returned to the Abyss without the soul of her former Master to bargain with. As such, she is now powerless and sulking, with nothing better to do than spy on those pesky PCs who ruined her "kingdom". The party Wizard (CN, Thassilonian Scholar), after seeing the awesomeness that is a Quasit (and one who spoke Thassilonain at that), decided that he's going to call one once he gets Improved Familiar. So once that call goes out, Erylium will be ready and she's going to kill the Quasit being formed of his soul, taking its place at the summoning...

He'll legitimately get a Quasit Familiar who will (reluctantly) do his bidding, but I thought the idea of her return as an constant thorn in his side could lead to some memorable role play. I also though she could be a great source of information and/or misinformation regarding the history of the Runelords.

Sometimes it's fun to let the players lead a bit ;)

So the next night, our Sorceress sneaked away from the party, and said "we'll play this offline later this week." Away from the rest of the players, it turns out she sough out Shayless in town (I had her down at the Feedbag chumming it up w/ the local Sczarni). She bought Shayless a drink, and tried to smooth things over. Well Shayless was rocking an "unfriendly" attitude, but a couple drinks (netting a +5) and the PC rolling a natural 20 on her Diplomacy check quickly changed that unfriendly to friendly. Well, friendly can lead to... other things... and now anytime the sorceress wants a visit from Shayless she sends an order for "Traditional Shoanti Sweet Bread" to the general store, and Shayless sneaks away that night for a tryst.

Consequently, Shayless then agreed to talk to daddy, and Ven agreed to let the elven wizard (with a strength of 7) work off his debt with 2 days of manual labor: making deliveries around town and generally humiliating him. The elf took it like... well not a man, an elf I guess? In the end Ven even grew some respect for our PC, based on how well he took his medicine, and the party's reputation around town has been restored.

Now the Sorceress is trying to keep her developing relationship with Shayless a secret from the rest of the party... not because she's ashamed of it, but because the Gnome in the party (who's obsession is Rumor Spreading) has taken it as her personal mission to destroy Shayless's reputation. This is going to be fun... I'm imagining a Three's Company like moment is in the works...

Here is something you all might like! After the battle was over, I mentioned to the PCs that they have a brief moment to catch their breath and look around, and that the following was what they saw... this gave me a chance to set up a few of the NPCs in town, and to give the party a few red herrings to follow as they get to know the town in the days that followed. Here was what I described:

1. Ameiko - Mithril Rapier in hand, rushes over to fallen townsfolk and casts cure light wounds, pulls out a wand (hints of bard class).
2. Abstalar Zantus (high priest) - directs people to check wounded, bring them closer to him for healing
3. Ranger (human male) rides a strong horse around town, bow knocked, a look of hatred on his face
4. A man in armor (Know Relig to ID symbol of Abadar) w/ bloody blade in hand rush in from the center of town, looking around hurredly. He sees an unconsious form lying against a building and rushes over, a look of worry on his face. He pulls out ornate key, uses his Lay on Hands ability, and the figure begins to move. The PCs recognize him as Cyrdak Drokkus (bard from the speeches). They share a grateful smile, and the knight (paladin) helps him to his feet. They embrace in a strong hug, relief evident on their faces.
5. Belor Hemlock - commands various city guards to begin searching alleyways for stray goblins; he calls over Garridan Viskalai (recognize from White Deer tent) - Perc 10 to notice family resemblance, asks him to organizes water crews to put out the various fires. Garridan criticizes Belor for his lack of vigilance, says it's a sign of "his weakness"
6. Garridan ushers Lars Rovanky, Ven Vinder (show picture), Jargie Quinn (hagfish), and a few other robust fishermen to assist in the water crews.
7. An elven woman (Hannah Velerin) assists the clerics in healing the wounded. Once Belor has a moment, she goes over and discusses something rather heatedly, often gesturing toward the Northwest end of town. Belor calmly argues with her, often pointing to the NE and S end of town. (introduces her hatred of the junker's beach)

This helped introduce some of the relationships and NPCs without giving too much info. I think I also had the Mayor walking around, giving water to the wounded, and introduced her as a kind and strong presence in the town.

Quick note on the encounter tables...

I played with them for the first time on last Friday's session. The PCs were simply going across town to catch a show at the theater, and on the way there and back I used the encounter table to describe the streets as they went. The players instantly became suspicious of the Laborers walking home or the cart of ale being transported to a local tavern, so they followed them a ways and eventually stopped to interrogate them. They worked really well as Red Herrings, especially as they are trying to investigate the goblin attack and find out who was involved.

This is going to have a great effect, because as they get used to hearing these descriptions (and begin to discount them as flavor), I can mix in some actual clues into the scenes and foreshadow events. It slowed down play a little, but not so much that it began to drag (and they still think those carpenters are up to something!).

My initial reaction to this news was that of "ugh oh"... I tend to not like Sci-Fi, at least not mixed w/ Fantasy.

But, I thought back to the Numeria depicted in City of the Fallen Sky, and I became more intrigued. This isn't a normal Sci-fi setting, but a land where Tech is present but VERY MUCH not under people's control. Think of it like kids finding a car, and thinking "That would work really well to tie our balloons to, so we don't need to hold them all the time!" Then one day someone finds the parking break, and half of them get run over.

Oh yeah, and it's run by gangsters. I'm now looking forward to seeing this in more detail...

That, and JJ has built up enough credibility to me that I think I'd trust him to make something very unique and awesome.

This came up in a game last night, and I wanted to get some outside thoughts on this.

We have an Oracle of Stone who has Magic Stone as a bonus spell, and Mighty Pebble as a chosen Revelation. The question came up as this... can he cast Magic Stone on three pebbles and then use Mighty Pebble with one of those pebbles, and in doing so would the damages stack.

Here is the text for the two spells/abilities:

Magic Stone: You transmute as many as three pebbles, which can be no larger than sling bullets, so that they strike with great force when thrown or slung. If hurled, they have a range increment of 20 feet. If slung, treat them as sling bullets (range increment 50 feet). The spell gives them a +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls. The user of the stones makes a normal ranged attack. Each stone that hits deals 1d6+1 points of damage (including the spell's enhancement bonus), or 2d6+2 points against undead.

Mighty Pebble (Su): As a standard action, you can charge and throw a pebble (or other stone of similar size) that detonates when it strikes a target as a ranged attack. The pebble has a range increment of 20 feet and has a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage for every four oracle levels you possess. Any creature struck by the pebble takes 1d6 points of bludgeoning damage per two oracle levels you possess (minimum 1d6). Creatures in squares adjacent to the target take half damage, or no damage if they make a Reflex saving throw. If the attack roll misses, treat the pebble as a thrown splash weapon to determine where it lands. You can use this ability once per day, plus one additional time per day at 5th level and every five levels thereafter.

On the one hand, the damage listed in one is bludgeoning, and the other is untyped, so you would think that the damages could stack. On the other hand, one is a spell and the other a Supernatural ability, so I wasn't sure if there were any rules regarding how those can overlap.

My ruling at the table was that they did not, and here was my logic: in the Magic Stone spell, it says "The user of the stones makes a normal ranged attack", while in the description of Mighty Pebble it starts with "As a standard action". The fact that Mighty Pebble is its own standard action, and not a "normal ranged attack", would means that something which enhances a normal attack would not be applicable to the Mighty Pebble ability (much like trying to use shot on the run and rapid shot, where both are their own separate full round actions).

However, I wasn't sure if I was taking RAW too literally here, and thought I could use some input as to how others would rule this. Any help would be appreciated!

When we started SCAP, four of the five players in my group decided to take the traits in the back of the book, and we decided to use them as written. We are, however, playing with PF rules, and now that we're almost done with 2 chapters, I'm contemplating changing the Traits such that they do not get the downside, similar to how PF traits work.

My question for you all is this: do you think the Traits are balanced enough as is if I were to remove the penalties, or should I reduce the bonus to the trait as well?

Here are the traits they've taken:
Scarred Soul - +2 Init, house ruled 10% chance to reroll critical 1; -1 Will save
Dream Haunted - No penalty when Fatigued; -2 save vs. madness or insanity, sleep.
Long Shadowed - auto stabilize, Negative Energy resist 5; Magic Healing reduced -1 per level
Touched in the Head - +1 on saves vs. mind effecting, confusion, insanity; -1 on Wisdom Skills

My first thought was remove the house rule on Scarred soul (which that player was ok with), and leave the others as is but without the negative side. In particular, the Long Shadowed one has been bad for our Rogue, who has been close to death a few times.

Thoughts?