Thebazilly's page

I'm running without Free Archetype, since my players are all fairly new to the system. I didn't want to overload them with more feats as they're already having difficulty with the number of choices. Maybe in the future, but I'm souring more and more on Free Archetype the longer I think about it.

If I used it in the future, I would probably restrict it to a handful of options that fit the theme of the campaign. Maybe replace unlocking the ability to take an archetype in an adventure path with just automatically gaining it as a free archetype. (Abomination Vaults has a couple unique archetypes, for example, one of which is very skill-focused and not all that useful, and one of which is unlocked at level 8 of a 10-level adventure.)

There are a lot of flavorful archetypes that will just never get used, even in a Free Archetype game. The fighting style, Marshal, or Medic archetypes are just much more mechanically useful than "you are a Pirate."

One of my PC's is a morally ambiguous doctor with the Eldritch Anatomist background. He's expressed interest in learning Fleshwarping and the party is coming up on the Labs level quickly, which seems to be the most opportune time to put it in as a mechanical reward (if it comes into play at all). I'd like to get some feedback on the idea I have so far.

I'm considering having fleshwarping function as a Create Undead ritual, except it produces creatures from the Fleshwarp monster family. To make it a little more unique/useful, since there are many fewer options for monsters, I'm thinking of adding the ability to use the ritual to also allow retraining Ancestry Feats or Heritages to or from Fleshwarp Feats/Heritages.

Fleshwarping an unwilling creature or creating a creature that's only purpose is suffering (such as an Irnakurse or Grothlut) is an Evil act.

I know that this will at least be balanced, but it feels a little bland still. Should I add the ability to induce mutagen bonuses/drawbacks? Cosmetic changes? Something else?

Summoner is a difficult place to start! One of my players right now is a Summoner, so here's another quick explanation of Act Together, even though it seems like you've got it already.

Act Together should give you a pool of 4 total actions between you and your Eidolon, which puts it on par with other pet classes. (For example: Ranger with Animal Companion - the Ranger spends 1 action to gain 2 actions, for a total of 4 on their turn between them and their Animal Companion).

The actions can be split between you and your Eidolon and used for any actions or abilities either of you has, with 2 exceptions. 1 - Both you and your Eidolon must take at least 1 action. 2 - Both of you cannot use 2-action activities in the same turn (like a spell and the Dragon Eidolon's breath attack).

The Summoner in my game falls back on this combo a lot: Boost Eidolon, Move(if needed), Eidolon Attack (1-2 times), Reinforce Eidolon

The Move Together Tandem Movement feat is so good it's almost mandatory, it allows both the Summoner and Eidolon to move for 1 action, instead of each spending an action to move.

Sorry, I need to be more specific, because I wasn't thinking about the bloodbird's curse. I've been thinking of a curse with stages, like the mummy rot of the mummy guardian).

The curse trait says

Quote:

A curse with stages follows the rules for afflictions.

Is such a curse removed when one makes a successful save while being on Stage 1? That's how afflictions work.

I'd say this sentence in the Mummy Rot description suggests "no."

This disease and any damage from it can’t be healed until this curse is removed.

The disease can't be healed until the curse is removed. That implies the curse and disease are not cured at the same time.

I'm set to start the AP next week as a gm and something just crossed my mind. Is there anything stopping players from climbing up onto the roof of the keep and just shooting down at enemies in areas where the ceiling has collapsed? Unless I misunderstood, the ceiling is 10 feet high but areas where there's rubble the ceiling is open to the sky. I know my players always try to climb up on things to get advantages

Nothing preventing it, and I'd probably let them get away with it for one or two combats.

If your players are abusing it for the whole dungeon level, start making sections uneven ground and force them to make Acrobatics checks to balance. Or even just have part of the floor collapse.

With the Dread Wisps it seems that despite being effected by searing light and spells with the positive trait, a number of additional effects don't work against them. Searing lights extra good damage doesn't hit them because they aren't demons/undead. And you can't target them with a two-action heal because they aren't undead.

As a GM I'd probably just allow it to count as undead for the purposes of heal and lay on hands but I wondered if this is intentional, an oversight or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the wording?

I don't think you'll break anything by adding the Undead trait to them. The only edge case I see is the extra damage from Searing Light, but I think it's thematic if that's allowed to go through. The Wisp's immunity to magic should prevent any other weirdness.

I don't know why or how the rules for negative healing got so convoluted in 2e.

Encounter Building Rules

A Skeleton is a Level -1 creature, so 2 levels below the party. 3 Skeletons would be 60XP, for a Low difficulty encounter. 4 skeletons would be Moderate.

A Level 3 monster is 2 levels above a level 1 party, for 80XP, which is a Moderate encounter.

The game is built to make encounters with a single high level enemy viable boss battles, since it's a staple of the genre. You're correct that the level disparity is much more pronounced at low level. It smooths out a lot once your players are level 3-5 or so.

There are 24 hours in a day. It's 7:30 in the morning of your first day exploring the Gauntlight, and you are standing on the road with the gatehouse in front of you. What time will it be when you finish exploring the ground level of this place? Can you do it in one day? Two? More?

My players typically spend 2-3 hours in the dungeon before going back to town to rest. Not counting travel time.

I think it took two days for them to explore the whole ground level.

Themetricsystem wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Who is Khorne?

Khorn is the 40k Chaos God of ... well, basically killing, destruction, and anger. Very much like Gorum but from what I understand with a much heavier dose of edge and far less thoughtfulness that is ascribed to Gorum who is more of a seasoned deadly Fighter whereas Khorn is more like an unhinged Barbarian.

For me it was the Age of Sigmar version, but yes. It's the same god in both, I just prefer Fantasy to Sci-Fi and therefore Age of Sigmar to 40k, and believe it or not, Pathfinder to Starfinder :P

Edit: For a question actually on topic...

How is Matt Mercer and the Critical Role cast able to use Sarenrae as a divinity in their lore/world? The uh Druid girl apparently follows her.

Also is the Raven Queen from Pathfinder, or D&D, or both? Does D&D and Pathfinder share gods?

What happens to said gods from the OGL thing?

Critical Role started out playing Pathfinder 1e and borrowed Sarenrae from there for their own setting.

The Raven Queen is from 4th Edition D&D, but is also a decent crossover for Pharasma, another Pathfinder deity.

My players are about to remove the barrier on Floor 4. I replaced "ask people in town for the Roseguard Icons and they turn them over immediately" with some customized sidequests for each of the PCs.

The party asked Oseph for help earlier and he turned over the Cooperative Blade to them early! They've managed to mollify Carman by promising to return the sword to him when they're done with it, so I think they're just going to get away with the Fighter getting punched in the mouth once over it and Carman's not going to pull his stunt.

Very excited to see how this goes once they get to Urevian!

If you want an Elemental theme, my first thought would be Jalmeray, but fantasy India is probably not the flavor you pitched for a Zelda-like campaign. (It is really cool and my favorite part of the Impossible Lands, though.)

A typical Zelda or Final Fantasy "collect the elemental crystals" plot is fairly continent-spanning. If you wanted to truly replicate it, you'd probably have to send the party teleporting (or airship-ing) all over the Inner Sea.

What is the purpose of Mezmin's advice? How does keeping eyes closed help the heroes?

I suspect there was some other puzzle here that was a victim of editing. Jaul's advice doesn't make a difference in the puzzle as written.

I think Level 1 is a good starting place here. I'll take a stab at some of this to show you how I'd translate it.

When they first enter the dungeon there's a poison arrow trap mostly meant to fire at them and alert them: THIS DUNGEON HAS TRAPS!

Reflavor a Poisoned Lock trap as a dart. I'd only use one or two, since the way Simple Hazards are balanced mean they are pretty much guaranteed to hit and damage a PC.

Goblins Tunnels with some sword and shield goblins engaging the party, and goblin archers hitting and running through the tunnels ambushing the party.

The standard Goblin Warrior has both a melee and ranged attack. Let's also throw in a Goblin Commando as a leader!

The second is a trap I was inspired by from Goblin Slayer in which there's a hard to see hidden passage past a break in the wall on the way to the very obvious straight ahead spider warren for goblin reinforcements to ambush the party from behind...or get ambushed if the party has great perception! Along the way there are spider webs all over the walls and a giant acid pit between the party and the spider warren.

Sounds like you want a secret door, let's say that's a DC15 Perception to spot, with a trapped hallway and a safer hallway.

There will be a spiked pit trap down this corridor leading up to the first mixed orc and hobgoblin trap.

I'd recommend just using a regular old Pit Trap. My first time playing my character got stuck in one for ages and couldn't climb out!

Let's go for a Moderate encounter with the orcs and the pit trap here. An Orc Brute is a level 0 creature (party level-1), so worth 30XP. The trap is worth 6XP for being a party-1 simple hazard. The encounter budget for a 5 PC moderate encounter is 100XP. So we can get pretty close with 3 Orc Brutes and 1 Hidden Pit Trap.

The level 2 Orc Warchief would probably be a great boss encounter for the end! Make sure you follow the Encounter Building rules. They are accurate, unlike 5e's encounter guidelines!

What level players? Level 1? Nevermind, I see where you said that now.

I recommend reading through the Encounter Building rules and trying to build a couple encounters using the Goblin stat blocks.

I hope this one is fun, I'm looking forward to more high level adventures!

B2. Large Monster Holding. There's a Rusty Grate Pit (Hazard 6) with a Stealth DC 0.

Is that "Stealh DC 0" a typo?

I'm looking over the Building Hazards rules, and all of its stats seem to align with a Hazard 6 Low challenge, about the middle point of the range, so it would seem that a DC 20 would have been what would be expected.

I'm not saying I want a player to fall into the pit...but I really want a player to fall into the pit. :)

In my hardcover compilation version, it says this grate pit is "Stealth DC20 (expert), or 0 if the grate is open."

Isn't this why secret checks exist?

I've always wondered about the half-elf thing on Golarion. You'd think with Elves being from an entirely different planet, they'd be more difficult to interbreed with.

I describe diseases as having symptoms once acquired, even if there are no mechanical effects. The PC might not have the Sickened condition, but they can still have achy joints and feel tired and feverish after being bitten by something nasty in a dungeon.

According to Pathfinder Lost Omens Impossible lands page 251,

"Quantium is a city made to eclipse all others. Imagine a city of circular plot, 15 miles in diameter and encircled by a wide "c"-shaped road."

This makes Quantium bigger than Absalom?

This makes perfect sense to me, they're different measurements of big. Think of Dallas vs. NYC. Which city is "bigger"?

Congrats! That's a huge achievement!

I recall a Reddit thread where someone was "showcasing" how helpful ChatGPT could be for generating NPC statblocks. They prompted it to create a backstory for a Tiefling Wizard who is a coward. ChatGPT wrote 3 paragraphs about this idea, but it didn't come up with anything new, just restating the prompt in more words.

Or this example, where there is a human player prompting ChatGPT with some ideas, but it still fills in the blanks with the most generic answers imaginable.

The thing that's fun about tabletop RPGs is that there are limitless options and creativity. A computer on the other side of the screen necessarily curtails it.

Also, I'm on team forever GM and I'm either getting Stockholm Syndrome or finally growing into the role because I enjoy it more than playing now.

In the Impossible Lands books, it refers to the large stew pots that the dwarves of Dongun Hold cook. It mentions some have been stewing and cooking since before the time of Nex and Geb according to their cooks. Just a few paragraphs later, it mentions that during the winter months, all fires are extinguished, and even cookfires go dark as dwarves eat only preserved or otherwise dry goods.

As written, it seems to imply these forever-cooking stews are allowed to just... sit for a season, which is understandably vile. Can we assume that these stews DO continue cooking and simply are not eaten, or is the assumption that the stews are somehow preserved or frozen in the mountain heights to be re-thawed when the fires roar back to life?

This confused me, too.

The cooking fire tradition seems to be based on the Jewish practice of not lighting or extinguishing a fire on the sabbath. Maybe they are allowed to keep the fire burning as long as it was started before the winter?

we have run through what was an 8-month supply of our Pathfinder Core Rulebook in the last 2 weeks

The ORC Horde has arrived and pillaged the warehouse! This is awesome news!

I searched Archives of Nethys for the word "curse." I could not read through all 800 results, most of which were curses or cursed items rather than cures. The alternatives I found were Claim Curse, a 3rd-level divine or occult spell to temporarily move a curse; some feats in the Curse Maelstrom archetype, and the 13th-level Panacea potion.

This is exactly the problem I'm running into. I know that saying "effects that target curses" is for future-proofing, but maybe there should be a "Curse-lifting" tag or something so we can actually find the dang stuff?

Is Remove Curse the only way to permanently cure a curse affecting a PC? Is there some handy way to view all the spells/focus spells/alchemical items/whatever that could remove a curse?

I also really like Arazni after learning a bit more about her. Love that she reclaimed her agency, love that she's a goddess that doesn't want to be worshiped, but is still inspiring enough that people will do so anyway. Love that there's space for her to be angry and vengeful about what happened to her. Also, Arazni's Anathema including "insult Arazni" is hilarious.

Oh, is this an edition war thread now?

I'm of the opinion that there should be a Final Fantasy Tactics style feat that lets you administer potions/elixirs by hucking them at your friends' heads. Item action economy is just kinda janky.

There's definitely one in Abomination Vaults. I can only assume there's one in every Adventure path. My players refuse to sell it.

How much do Pathfinder and Starfinder books rely on SRD? If that gets yanked, does that mean no more owlbears in Pathfinder and magic missile gets renamed?

It's still an arguable point the extent which SRD content is even copyrightable. The original OGL is just Wizards saying "we won't attempt to sue you for using this stuff, and we will attempt to sue you for using that stuff." You can't copyright the words "magic" or "missile," or a game mechanic that does d4 force damage, or the concept of a wizard shooting out magical energy that unerringly hits an enemy. But if you combine all of them, is that copyrightable? Nobody knows.

So, depends on how ballsy Paizo is feeling. I'd guess they're going to err on the side of caution, given the card game renames the spell.

Thebazilly wrote:

This is why I added random encounter tables. I think I'm going to start rolling random encounters every time my party re-enters the dungeon, one check for every floor they "travel" through. That way we can still handwave traveling into the dungeon, but it gives an incentive to find the fast travel options and still preserves the flavor of delving deeper.

The GM's Guide has a decent list of Nhimbaloth cultist encounters you can seed on every floor. I roll a d6 for every floor they go through, and on a 1, they get an encounter (I don't duplicate them, so for example, the fourth floor encounter only happens once).

Oh, I didn't know this existed! Nice resource!

Copywright doesn't just protect words and the way in which words are written but the ideas in those words.

This is incorrect in many cases. Knitting patterns, recipes, and game mechanics (and I'm sure many other procedure-based forms of communication) are all un-copyrightable. The only thing in them protected by copyright is the specific choice and order of words.

What exactly do they use the OGL *for* though? I was under the impression that rules were not copy writable or protectable. Is it just the name "d20" or "d20 system" that they own?

I'm also confused about this. The article mentions that Mutants and Masterminds is built on the OGL. Is Wizards trying to exercise ownership over every d20 system?

This reminds me of when Blizzard released the Warcraft remake with the changes to the community creations, trying to pre-empt another DotA getting away without giving them any money.

This is cool!

This is why I added random encounter tables. I think I'm going to start rolling random encounters every time my party re-enters the dungeon, one check for every floor they "travel" through. That way we can still handwave traveling into the dungeon, but it gives an incentive to find the fast travel options and still preserves the flavor of delving deeper.

Is it intentional that you get XP for killing Chafkhem but not for using diplomacy on the encounter? A lot of encounters explicitly give the same XP for the non-violent solution. Feels a little bad. The 30 XP sidequest doesn't make up the difference.

There's a couple places like this in the adventure. I've been giving full XP for bypassing/befriending any enemies even when it's not specifically noted. I want to reward this sort of behavior!

Wow, cool! Dwarf AP with Crystal Fraiser on the byline? Very exciting!

willfromamerica wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I’m super curious how well Gatewalkers and Stolen Fate feel together as one campaign. The promise of swapping 1-10s and 11-20s has always been great, but none of the options have felt like great lead-ins to FotRP, so I have high hopes here.

Having written the last volume of Gatewalkers and developed all of Stolen Fate...

...apart from the levels matching up well, they won't really match up at all as one campaign.

That's fine, of course. But just to manage expectations, these two Adventure Paths are VERY different.

Stolen Fate does offer some advice on how to start up with a group of 11th level PCs from ANY 1st to 10th level Adventure Path though, since Stolen Fate starting with "You're all famous adventurers and that's why (INITIAL EVENT OF STOLEN FATE) happens to you and not someone else."

There's maybe a bit more organic links between some stuff that I'm working on now along these lines, but those announcements are several months away I suspect.

Just for fun, which of the 1-10 APs do you think segues most naturally into Stolen Fate?

Abomination Vaults.

As someone currently running Abomination Vaults and prematurely daydreaming about what to do for levels 11-20, this excites me greatly.

Call me basic, but I really like a lot of the core deities.

Sarenrae is a classic archetype (how many good sun gods must there be out there?) but she comes across as kindly when she needs to be and firm when she needs to be, which is a difficult line to walk for a Good deity. It's also hard to not like a god that gives you Fireball.

Shelyn is just wonderful and I love the interplay of her church with Zon-Kuthon.

Cayden Cailean is just a fun concept and lends himself very well to adventurer worshipers.

I admire the writing of many of the Evil deities as well. There are reasons that a character could turn to Urgathoa, Lamashtu, Zon-Kuthon, or Asmodeus without being capital E Evil. (At least at first. That's how they get you.)

So, now that my players are foraying into Floor 3 of the Vaults, I've had a little feedback on the encounter design from them. My players have pointed out a frustrating amount of encounters with single high-level monsters, and I cannot disagree that there's a lot of them. (My players did take an unfortunate path through the dungeon while the Barbarian missed a session, so they had a rough time with a 3 caster party.) I've seen the sentiment echoed on /r/Pathfinder2e as well, so I decided to take a look at my list of encounters and do some fiddling.

I have left boss encounters untouched, as they should be difficult foes. There are some boss level enemies with names that I have adjusted, but I deemed them unimportant to the overall story or otherwise not foreshadowed enough. I replaced enemies with an eye towards keeping thematic similarity, as many of the enemies foreshadow things on other floors or provide a benchmark to show the players how much stronger they've gotten. I have also aimed for similar encounter difficulty and same XP totals.

Rooms are numbered based on the Special Edition.

Floor 1: No adjustments. The mitflits provide plenty of cannon fodder, in my opinion.

Floor 2:
B15 Shadow (apply Weak template, add 1 Mummified Cat)
B26 Zebub (apply Weak template and add 1 Imp)
B31 Skeletal Giant (replace with 2 Skeletal Soldiers)

Floor 3:
C13 Jarelle Kaldrian - could be adjusted, but the PC's aren't really meant to fight her
C19 Aller Rosk (apply Weak template and add 1 Ghoul)
C27 Lurker in Light (replace with 2 Gnagrifs)
C40 Gibbering Mouther (replace with 2 Squirming Swill)

Floor 4: There are a lot of bosses on this floor. The Voidglutton is certainly a TPK for a party lower than Level 5, but is optional. Warn your players before they encounter it.
D7 Poltergeist (Replace with 2 Charghars)
D11 Evangelist Velstrac (replace with Weak Ostarius Velstrac and 2 Augurs)

Floor 5:
E22 Viscous Black Pudding (replace with 2 Luminous Oozes)
E25 Bone Gladiator (replace with Harpy Skeleton and 2 Skeletal Giants)

Floor 6:
F9 Destrachan (replace with 2 Skrik Nettles) - I realize that Skrik Nettles are scarier without a ceiling, but the players will probably have fun walking on the roof. This encounter is really meant to show the players that scary things can be let out of the observation rooms (such as the Shangriol Behemoth below). The Shangriol Behemoth is enough of a big setpiece that I think it should be left as-is.
F10 Frightened Irnakurse (replace with 2 Driders)
F25 Jafaki & Drider - since there's a lot of Driders now, I replaced Jafaki's Drider guard with a Mulventok

Floor 7:
G8 Gug (replace with 3 Sceaduinar)
G17 Witchfire (apply Weak template and add 1 Weak Will-o-Wisp)

I did not adjust Floors 8-10, mostly out of laziness, and partially because I think they're very well-designed. I will probably look at them again when my players get a bit higher level.

I love this idea! It's really the sweet spot of d20 power levels.

Also more 11-20 Adventure Paths, please!

I've written some random encounter tables for the entire dungeon, so I figured I would share!

If you're playing at the table, I recommend using the Angry GM's Tension Pool mechanic for random encounters. Since I'm playing on VTT, I just roll a 60% of encounter check roughly once per hour in the dungeon (max 2 rolls per long rest inside the dungeon), or when my players do something particularly noisy or stupid.

I've kept the encounters fairly tame, as I find the threat of a random encounter is usually enough to get my players to behave. The encounters could certainly be beefed up some more if your players stop being afraid of them.

Floor 1 - Gauntlight Keep
1-10 Snapping Turtle
11-30 1d4 Mitflits
31-50 1d2 Giant Maggots
61-70 Ball Python
71-80 Giant Frog
81-90 Freznelkesh (no encounter if she is killed)
90-100 Roll on Floor 2 table

Floor 2 - Servant's Quarters
1-10 Roll on Floor 1 Table
21-30 Corpselight
31-40 1d4 Rat Swarms
41-50 Choker
51-60 1d4 Morlocks
61-70 1d2 Morlock Engineers
71-80 Morlock Engineer & 1d4 Morlock Scavengers
81-90 1d2 Hunting Spiders
91-100 Roll on Floor 3 Table

Floor 3 - Library
1-10 Roll on Floor 2 Table
11-20 Gibbering Mouther (from Area C40, remove if killed)
21-30 1d4+1 Ghouls
31-40 1d2 Canker Cultists
41-50 Canker Cultist & 1d4 Ghouls
51-60 1d2 Cave Fishers
61-70 1d2 Corpselights
71-80 Ghast
81-90 Ghoul Crocodile
91-100 Roll on Floor 4 Table

Floor 4 - Belcorra's Retreat
1-10 Roll on Floor 3 Table
11-20 1d4 Corpselights
21-40 1d4 Flickerwisps
41-50 Namorrodor
51-60 1d2 Squirming Swill
61-70 Volluk Azrinae (no encounter if killed)
71-80 Vampiric Mist
81-90 1d4 Blindheims
91-100 Roll on Floor 5 Table

Floor 5 - Arena
1-10 Roll on Floor 4 Table
11-20 Gibbering Mouther
21-30 2 Basilisks (from area E10, remove if killed)
31-40 1d4 Skeletal Champions
41-50 Skeletal Mage
51-60 1d2 Grothluts
61-70 Will-o-Wisp
71-80 Otyugh
81-90 1d4 Flickerwisps
91-100 Roll on Floor 6 Table

Floor 6 - Fleshwarping Labs
1-10 Roll on Floor 5 table
11-20 Jafaki & Drider (remove if killed)
21-40 Seugathi Servant
41-50 1d2 Dreshkans
51-60 Drider
61-70 Will-o-Wisp
71-80 Mulventok
81-90 1d4 Shangriol Heaps
91-100 Roll on Floor 7 Table

Floor 7 - Prison
1-10 Roll on Floor 6 Table
11-20 Sacuishu (remove if killed)
21-30 1d3 Barbazus
31-40 Erinyes
41-50 Levaloch
51-60 1d3 Dreshkans
61-70 1d4+1 Grothluts
71-80 Will-o-Wisp
81-90 Gibbering Mouther
91-100 Roll on Floor 8 Table

Floor 8 - Farm
1-10 Roll on Floor 7 Table
11-20 Belcorra (no encounter if she is regenerating)
21-30 1d2 Chuul
31-40 1d4 Caligni Stalkers
41-50 1d4 Children of Belcorra
51-60 Elder Child of Belcorra
61-70 1d4 Drow Hunters
71-80 Drow Shootist
81-90 Dread Wisp
91-100 Roll on Floor 9 Table

Floor 9 - Hunting Grounds
1-7 Roll on Floor 8 Table
8-14 Belcorra (no encounter if she is regenerating)
15-22 Riding Lizard (reduce Yldaris population if killed)
23-37 Salaisa Malthulas & 1d4 Drow Wardens (from I12 & I14)
38-45 2 Drow Shootists (reduce Yldaris population if killed)
46-53 2 Caligni Defenders (reduce Caligni population if killed)
54-61 2 Urdefhan Death Scouts & 2 Urdefhan lashers (reduce Urdefhan population if killed)
62-76 4 Urdefhan Warriors & 2 Ceustodaemons (reduce Urdefhan population if killed)
77-83 Urdefhan Blood Mage & 3 Tormentors (from area I35)
84-91 Cauthooj (from area I41)
92-100 Ravirex (from area I51)

2 sessions in and the players are most of the way to Level 2. They've missed a lot of secret doors and investigation spots. They glommed onto Boss Skrawng's map pretty hard and haven't even noticed the outbuildings and extra doors that he didn't draw. I'm afraid none of them are even going to roll high enough to find the secret door down to Level 2.

The Corpselights are a pretty nasty fight for first level characters! My party decided to half-ass running away when they realized that the things did a huge amount of damage, and it ended with a Corpselight using its cone attack while they were clumped up for a TPK. (I was also a little mean to them and started them at night, so it may have been a little more difficult than intended.) The party had broken through the stained glass window and were outside, so I had Wrin drag them back to town instead of making everyone roll new characters.

Having a blast so far!

vagrant-poet wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Nice! Makes me wish there'd been room for the version of this map that I created when building the 10 levels, but alas, there wasn't.

One thing to keep in mind is that level 1 is on a hill, and level 2 is closer to "ground level," though. Remember that the water surface level of the swamp is a few feet below the level of most of the floor on level 2, after all. (That bit got a bit muddled in the published maps, since the presence of steep slopes on the hills surrounding the uppermost level didn't translate well on the top-down view.)

I don't suppose you'd ever share that version somewhere? Now that the product is published, etc.

I can't parse this, because there's a boat and a dock in the level 1 map that connects to the boathouse. So if the water level is that low, the dock must be like, 15 feet above the water and the boat is floating? Is my brain just not working here?

The boat and dock are at water level. The island is a steep hill, so Level 1 is well above water level and Level 2's floor is at water level (inside the hill). So, the tunnel under the docks extends horizontally and not down. The island must have some pretty steep shores... which doesn't translate to a top-down map very well.

I rage-quit Kingmaker permanently sometime in Act 4 of that game, but I'm really enjoying Wrath of the Righteous.

I agree that the difficulty settings are kind of misleading (enemies have to be set to "weaker" to even come close to their Pathfinder stats). There are enough settings that I have tweaked the game to where it's fun for me, at least.

The companion writing is decidedly improved, which probably makes the biggest impact of anything in the game. That and turn based mode. I cannot stand RTwP.

Only complaints so far is that Crusade mode sucks and can't be turned off without losing access to stuff (but at least there's difficulty settings and auto-resolve to take care of that...), and the game has too many trash fights.

Also, the crystal enemies have been patched so that you're immune to their aura after a successful save now.

I'm generally more interested in the Adventure Paths that have a weird theme, in contrast to Cydeth. (Although one of my favorites is still Curse of the Crimson Throne, and that doesn't have a unifying theme.) To me, so far, there's nothing in 2e that hits quite the same as Ruins of Azlant, Skull & Shackles, or Strange Aeons. The themes of the 2e adventures have felt somewhat... generic?

Maybe I should read through Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. I'm not terribly interested in a martial arts tournament campaign, but maybe it's better in practice than what I'm imagining.

I think my players at this point would riot if we started another campaign below level 5, so I'll ask for more high-level adventures, please.

Kobolds most commonly share the coloration and some physical resemblance to chromatic and metallic dragons, but others closely match different sets of true dragons—notably esoteric, imperial, planar, and primal dragons. In Tian Xia, kobolds with an imperial dragon appearance are nearly as common as those with chromatic and metallic features, and often take roles as advisors and spellcasters. Planar and primal kobolds sometimes hatch when a settlement is in great danger or exposed to planar energies, and are often considered to be destined for greatness. Esoteric kobolds are rare anywhere, though they appear more regularly in places with strange energies (such as the Impossible Lands), and are often feared and mistrusted by their clutchmates.

Yes, Kobolds can be modeled after different dragons. There aren't stats for the different types of dragons in the Ancestry Guide, though. You'd probably have to homebrew it based on the dragon stats, or reflavor the given stats for breath weapons.

Of the ones I've actually played (which is sadly not many!), Curse of the Crimson Throne #2 "Seven Days to the Grave." It has a strong theme, there's a little almost-sandbox with a few missions for the party to choose from in the middle, and the finale dungeon is interesting and the right amount of challenging.

And don't be afraid to simply tell the players what items are worth. It might sacrifice a bit of verisimilitude, but the time you save yourself in having to keep track of the value of every single bit of treasure on your own and the complexity to players having to split up treasure when they don't know or can't trust their character's appraisals of the loot they earned is more than worth it in my opinion.

I'd suggest doing that and saving the Craft check to appraise things ONLY for items that aren't obviously of value.

This is how my table has always handled Appraise checks.

I'm curious on a closely related issue. How do people generally handle magical loot? My group usually just gives out the name of an item when its looted: "you find a +1 longsword," or "you find 3 potions of minor healing." But that does skip the item identification rules and makes Detect Magic a little less useful.

I'm interested in knowing if other groups religiously use item identification rolls or make characters use detect magic to find magical items.