I don't like the ability adjustments based on age. This age discrimination has no place in today's gaming. I want to play a grizzled middle-aged warrior and not suffer a penalty to my physical stats.
I am not arguing that a decrease in physical stats and an increase in mental stats makes some real world sense. I just don't think we need it. So, I am arguing that it is unnecessary, although not absurd.
Plus, it eliminates being able to make your wizard really old for a cheesy buff. Your characters age becomes a role-playing decision only.
I liken it to 1e when female characters couldn't have as high a strength as male characters. Sure, in the real world the strongest men are stronger than the strongest women, but I'm not here for the real world. The powers that be at some point decided that this was unnecessarily restricting of female players/characters and I feel they should do the same for our elderly or even middle-aged players/characters.
We have an unwritten house rule that shopping doesn't happen during the session. We do pretty much all of our shopping in between sessions through Facebook Messenger and email. The players put together their lists and the GM gives them the OK, or tells them something isn't available.
We'll do this in advance to having the actual money at times. If I know that there is an opportunity to shop coming up in the next session, I will mention it to the players and whoever is tracking loot will give everyone an approximate amount of money they are going to spend. Then people will put together their wish lists in between sessions, with the gp amount next to each item. When the shopping trip comes, it is a simple as saying...You have your stuff now. Granted we aren't exactly role-playing the shopping, we tried that and it didn't work for our group. As the GM, I also do my best to put the shopping trips at the end of the session.
tl:dr - Shop or preshop through social media between sessions.
I personally would not describe the Fellowship of the Ring as "murder hobos." They were on a sacred quest and mostly tried to avoid combat until it was thrust upon them. They certainly didn't wander aimlessly around taking odd jobs here and there, they had specific objectives at all times, in fact you could say Frodo was under an actual geas.
My point was really that Murderhobo has a couple applications. It can be applied to indiscriminate or barely discriminate killing for the acquisition of wealth. But it also applies to the default adventurer's lifestyle, regardless of his/her intentions.
The Fellowship of the Ring was definitely on a sacred and critical quest to Destroy the Ring of Power. Along the way the they tackled these side quests.
* Clear the Balrog from the Mines of Moria
* Rescue Pippin and Peregrine from the clutches of orcs
* Free Theoden from the influences of Saruman and Wormtongue
* Remove Saruman from his tower and seat of power in Isenguard
* Lift the siege on Gondor
* Protect the people of Rohan in Helmsdeep
* Remove the haunting from the Pass of the Dead through the White Mountains.
My point was that even though characters in a well-crafted campaign don't wander around aimlessly, the nature of the business is still often that of transient violence. I think the term is funny because it often applies even when you have the best of intentions.
I don't think it is that many players intentionally play the game in a "murderhobo" style. I think the joke is that even well-intentioned law-abiding adventuring often comes to resemble murderhoboery.
Your young adventurer starts out wanting to save the village. The Lord sends him and his friends off to kill the ogre. As compensation, they take a share of the Ogre's loot. It's better than the town having to pay them. While killing the Ogre, they discover a greater threat. They head off to take care of it and end up with its loot. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I don't think that murderhobo implies that you are killing innocents to take their stuff, but that fullfilling quests and saving the world usually entails two things: moving around a lot taking odd jobs (by definition, being a hobo) and that the jobs involve killing things (murder).
Of course, there are campaigns that don't fit this mold, but this is sort of the standard trope. The Fellowship of the Rings didn't spend much time at home and they sure killed a lot of things.
I'm not familiar with the Whip Master Line. I am just planning on Combat Expertise and Improved Trip. That will likely be my total investment in whip.
I was planning on half-elven, but I totally agree with the race thing. I might switch to half-orc. I could have the same stats, I'm going to lose that Skill Focus (Perception) though.
So, I am picturing a middle-aged cheerful fellow full of sage advice who believes in doing things by the book (Pathfinder Society Field Guide in this case). Not the least bit interest in women. Probably Lawful Good.
Mr. Rogers with a whip.
I think I'll wear a cardigan and have inside and outside shoes.
Make him a drow. Then while you're at it, change his class to ranger, and give him two scimitars. There, now you have something that is definitively not an Indiana Jones Clone
What you are looking for would be Quicken Spell-Like Ability. This is a monster feat though and would require DM permission to take. I suggest baking your GM cookies first. It would also require that you be 10th level, unless your cookies are really, really good.
quicken spell-like ability:
Prerequisite: Spell-like ability at CL 10th or higher.
Benefit: Choose one of the creature's spell-like abilities, subject to the restrictions described in this feat. The creature can use the chosen spell-like ability as a quickened spell-like ability three times per day (or less, if the ability is normally usable only once or twice per day).
Using a quickened spell-like ability is a swift action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. The creature can perform another action—including the use of another spell-like ability (but not another swift action)—in the same round that it uses a quickened spell-like ability. The creature may use only one quickened spell-like ability per round.
It is a pretty powerful spell. The bard in my campaign uses it often. I hasn't been game breaking though.
My biggest complaint comes down to the "and are immune to any poison, sneak attacks, or critical hit effect from that attack."
There isn't a clause about this only applying to things that fail to overcome the DR or to not applying to magical weapons.
This spell can be used to cancel out any creature's poison attack, can't it? That's pretty nice for a first level spell. Did the ninja just move up and flank you? Canceled! High level fighter with a falcion? You better believe I am Windy Escaping all over that!
I usually like to make my monster's attack rolls out on the open (I don't use a GM screen). I have to watch the player because if they see a 19 or 20 come up, that would be the best time to windy escape.
To avoid this, I've asked my player to phrase his action when attack as "I am going to Windy Escape the first attack that hits me."
Since he often has mirror image and/or displacement up, I didn't feel it would be fair to make his cast windy escape before knowing if the attack even hit, as most attacks early in the fight don't get through.
Upon further inspection of the rule (which should have happened BEFORE I posted), I don't see anything about the scroll being used up in the process of scribing a spell from it. In light of this new (to me) information, I would still use a higher DC on the Spellcraft check and possibly impose a 1 or 2 charge 'tax' from the wand, although the rules don't support this. They don't support learning a spell from a wand at all though, so whatever you say goes.
On a side note: Am I missing where it says a scroll is consumed when a wizard uses it to learn a spell? Was this ever the case (3.5/3.0/2e/1e/Expert/Basic/back of Gary Gygax's napkin somewhere in Wisconsin)? Am I crazy for thinking this? Am I right to have thought this and now crazy for doubting myself?
I would probably not kill the cavalier's bonded mount. Maybe I'm too nice though. I would have the PCs come across the other dead mounts, but the cavalier's bonded mount isn't there. The story basically being that since it is an exception horse, it managed to escape somehow. The players then need to track the mount down. They might show up just in time to save the bonded mount from some other peril.
This makes the cavalier appreciate that his horse is BA, while also finding a way out of the logical premise that the bad guy would kill all the mounts. The cavalier is inconvenienced for a couple encounters for not being careful enough with his mount, but not punished for 10-12 encounters or whatever while he waits to level.
That said, a cavalier is still pretty good on any horse. It isn't like you are neutralizing his whole character by taking away the bonded mount. He'll just have to get his hands on a regular warhorse for a while.
In short, we divide treasure and not have hard feelings because we are all friends and get along with each other. :)
That said, our parties always give the item to whomever we think gains the most benefit from it, or rather to whomever can use the item to the parties best advantage. If someone isn't there for a session their character still gets an equal share of the loot. We try not to penalize players for having a life away from the table. Life happens.
When a character no longer wants an items such as when the fighter with a +1 longsword finds a +2 longsword, the unwanted item is sold and the money is divided among all the players. If another character wants the item instead (maybe the elven rogue is still using a masterwork longsword), then the fighter in this case would give the item to the rogue. When the rogue found something better the item would be sold for party treasure.
This method maximizes treasure (by not selling useful loot for half-price), maximizes party effectiveness, and keeps someone from getting to wealth imbalanced.
An example of wealth imbalance would be a party with one arcane caster who gets all the scrolls, wands, staff, etc. for arcane caster, but then just sells them to buy whatever she wants. If this arcane caster has decided she isn't going to use that Wand of Arcane Lock that has been on her character sheet for several levels, it reverts to party treasure.
I think I have belabored the point enough and have probably succumbed to a murder of ninjas by now.
I tend to describe it based on the type of creature and DR.
For things like Golems (adamantine): "your weapon bounces off ineffectively as if you had swung at a stone wall."
For Lycanthropes and Fey (Silver and Cold Iron) I will usually describe the wound closing up right behind the weapon as it is withdrawn. Granted, this could be confused with regeneration, but I'm okay with that. I would describe regeneration as happening more slowly though.
For Alignment related DR, I've usually gone with something along the lines of "you feel something almost malignant pressing against your attack and slowing it at the last moment."
Admittedly, this does sometimes give clues as to the type of DR needed to overcome the attack, but I think it is "realistic" enough that fighting a creature like this might give clues as to what might be more effective. Plus, my parties almost always load up on knowledge skills for weakness identifying purposes so as soon as DR is established they are making rolls to know the type anyway.
As an ultra cheap alternative you can also just sleep in a chain shirt. There is no penalty for sleeping in light armor if I recall correctly and a chain shirt is not too far off AC wise from Breastplate armor.
The fighter in our party has a +1 chain shirt that he refers to as his jammies. He wears full plate most of the day and then changes at bedtime. Sure, it isn't nearly as good as the full plate but it beats having nothing by quite a bit.
Okay, I am thinking make the villain a castle. The current noble family that lives in the castle is into some pretty nasty evil magic. Some of the things inadvertently awakened the castle itself. The castle hears everything that goes on inside it, can create illusions anywhere on its grounds, and whispers into the ears of anyone inside. Over the last few generations it has driven the resident noble family quite mad, but they keep up appearances because the castle wants them to. Their prominence brings other important figures to the castle for parties and other functions. The castle hear all the whisperings that go on and knows almost every secret in the kingdom. It controls all the servants, many of whom it has found positions at other homes. By creating illusions of important figures it is familiar with, it creates more intrigue.
The noble family that has lived in the castle would seem like the villians at first and the PCs could take them out around level 13-14, but then the plotting continues and they eventually learn it is the castle itself.
Final BBEG battle could go two ways.
1) The PC's cast out whatever dark force has awakened the house and battle it. This might be too close to the evil outsider thing though (although you could go Fey)
2) The PC's battle the castle itself as a colossal animated object.
