ThunderMage's page

I haven't been GMing for that long, and I'm currently running though Curse of the Crimson Throne. The problem I have is that it feels that a couple of the PCs always seem to have a way to instantly break any encounter.

One is a fighter who is, for most of the combats, almost impossible to hit, deals a lot of damage, and the other PCs can't see the need for them to be involved. We had one four hour session where as GM I didn't make a single damage roll, and the majority of the time was spent in combat.

The other is a druid with a tiger. The tiger suffers from the same problem as the fighter and, especially early one, just ripped all opponents to shreds without taking any damage. The druid also always seems to have just the right spell to break other encounter e.g.

The other two PCs are a cleric and a bard. The bard has basically given up contributing to combat as he's just wasting his crossbow bolts and I can tell the player is getting a bit frustrated at being so sidelined. Combat may take up only a small percentage of in game time, but it can take up a lot of actual play time.

I'm not trying to kill PCs, nor do I mind too much how they solve the problems posed to them, but quite often encounters just appear to be minor inconveniences with these two PCs around. It's also getting a little frustrating as a GM having all encounters that I've spent time preparing ending with little or no challenge to the players.

I've been trying to figure out how to add challenge back into encounters in a sensible way. What advice would anyone give in this situation? How can I go about adding challenge back into encounters?

I'm hoping for a clarification about crane style and weapons. Here is what the prd says about crane style:

Crane Style (Combat, Style)
Your unarmed fighting techniques blend poise with graceful defense.
Prerequisites: Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +2 or monk level 1st.
Benefit: You take only a –2 penalty on attack rolls for fighting defensively. While using this style and fighting defensively or using the total defense action, you gain an additional +1 dodge bonus to your Armor Class.

My question is: can you use crane style without a free hand. Specifically, I'm thinking about a monk with a two handed weapon such as a quarterstaff.

The blurb about it suggests that this applies to unarmed only. The benefit section for Crane Wing and Crane Riposte both explicitly state that a character has to have a free hand to use that ability but that is not stated here. I'm wondering whether this is intended to be used with weapons too, or more clarification is needed.

I'm fairly new to PF, but I have noticed the panic about the loss of Aasimars and Tieflings that is coming up. Everyone seems to be on a mission to stockpile them as they would if it was announced that oxygen and water will be switched off soon.

I have read through their entries in the advanced race guide and, to be honest, I'm struggling to see a reason for this. I see that the resistances are pretty good, but what else is there? Have I missed something?

Hi,

Is it possible for a saveable version of the character sheet and inventory tracking sheet be added to the organised play guide? There is a fillable version of the inventory tracking sheet in there but changes cannot be saved to it. Being able to save things into the ITS in particular would be helpful.

Thanks!