Tomi Petric's page

hey guys,

my PCs recently defeated a dragon, and im pretty sure they are going to discover its lair (and hence its hoard) in the next session or two.

most of their magic items are found rather than purchased or crafted - so im looking for some cool items for the party rogue and wizard to find (the other two players have recently had some great upgrades)

we are traditionally CRB only, but i have been gradually integrating stuff from other books - plus its a cool way to give them stuff they dont know about.

i was thinking about a +2 agile short sword for the rogue (he is a melee damager).

for the wizard i would like to throw him some new spells in the form of scrolls. he is a utility type wizard, but could really use some more COMBAT utility. possibly some sort of damage - i know its not typically a utility wizards forte - but he currently has zero options in this respect.

a few ideas for sweet non-core spells would be great, or a better suggestion for the rogue as well :)

oh i should note they are both 9th level currently.

cheers

so after reading a tomb of horrors recruitment thread on PbP forums, i went looking, and found enough stuff to easily run it in PF.

right now in my tabletop game, the PCs have just entered an extremely spooky, mysterious cathedral thats been warped by some dark force. they are already expecting a full on dungeon, which i hadnt actually planned on but after the one player mentioned it i quite liked the idea.

seems like i could easily drop the tomb of horrors in their lap. they vitally need to find something in this dungeon, its campaign critical, so it would literally be do or die.

the question is, should i put them into the tomb of horrors without fair warning? from what i read its pretty deadly. i havent read all through it, or ever played it, so im looking for the opinion of some people more experienced than myself.

what do we think?

hey all,

one of the PCs in my game has a backstory nemesis who i have started working into the game a little bit. a showdown is on the horizon, so its time for me to get some mechanics on the board.

the nemesis in question has a military background, but the PC has since discovered that since they parted ways (his character threw boiling water over him, horribly disfiguring his face) his life took a darker twist. i've been dropping hints that the nemesis is now the brooding overlord of an ancient fortress, which happens to contain a macguffin the pcs need. on a broader front, they current story arc has them working to stave of an imminent invasion of demons, and they are starting to discover pockets of demonic corruption - im planning for the fortress to be one of these locations, with its dark heart having given the twisted and bitter nemesis a new set of powers.

i'd originally set him up as a summoner with a fighter dip, mainly because i think summmoners make great enemies - lots of useful combat oriented spells, 3/4 bab and the eidolon to top it all off. hes going to have a bunch of humanoid allies, and i'd pictured him using a bow, flying, and spamming summon spells on the battlements of his castle.

then a happened to read a magus/kensai guide as was quite taken with the idea of the whip using magus throwing around status effects and using the bodyguard / gloves of arcane striking / benevolent armor combo to help out a highly trained squad of elite bodyguards. his military background got me thinking about teamwork feats, and shield wall seems like an obvious one.

but what are some other ideas, or some extensions of what i already have? i expect the party to be 10th or 11th level by the time they encounter this guy, i only have four players but they have proven capable of dispatching APL +4 encounters. then again, i've been restraining myself on the will saves cos i have a party full of martials... with a utility wizard recently added.

i'd really like this fight to be memorable, given this guy had a large part in shaping the backstory of this character.

would love to hear your suggestions :)

discussions in other threads have led me to ponder this situation a bit lately. invisibility is often bought out as a reason why casters are so OP or whatever, because it replaces a lot of investment in a skill (stealth).

part of the reason for this, i think, relates to how skills changed in PF. when hide and move silently were separate skills, invisibility was useful, but it didnt make you quiet as well. remember when a ring of invisibility used to have a chance of being a ring of inaudibility as well?

spells giving you skill ranks is a neat mechanic in my opinion - but sometimes it causes problems too. not to mention invisibility making you quiet via a bonus to stealth kinda grates fluff wise (for me at least).

my players complain about perception too, and even acrobatics sometimes. in theory less skills was a buff for rogues, but it seems to have had some (perhaps unintended) consequences elsewhere too - particularly when it comes to the argument about casters invalidating rogues / skills in general.

not really wanting to get into a discussion about class balance as such, more interested in peoples thoughts on the way skills and spells interact with the world.

the campaign im currently running has a recurring villain in it, who has thus far been pretending to be somewhat friendly towards the PCs. she is the head of a major political party in the country their adventures have been taking place in.

anyway things are, im pretty sure, about to head towards open conflict between the party and the villain. she started life as a throwaway bit character, and has grown into a major factor in this section of the campaign - has been quite cool really.

i had decided as a spur of the moment thing that she would be a powerful vampire / sorcerer, mainly because i liked the charisma synergies.

neither the PCs nor the players know she is a vampire, and its generally a secret. she wields significant political power, but has never shown any other abilities - though the players presume her to be a wizard or sorcerer as the ruling council she is part of is supposedly made up entirely of spell-casters.

one of the PCs has a fair bit of influence with the military, so she may not rely too heavily on that aspect of government for her personal protection.

in her situation, as a reasonably powerful vampire / spellcaster / anything really, what would you do to protect yourself from vengeful adventuring parties?

though shes ambitious and paranoid, and does scry on the party, she has only moderate intelligence so her defenses shouldnt be too fiendishly all encompassing. i guess ultimately im looking for a memorable showdown with a fairly important NPC.

i'd expect APL of about 11 by the time this occurs, and they have managed APL+4 encounters in the past.

your inspiration appreciated :)

not sure if this is actually even a match up.

bit of background, im running a face to face game with a regular group, and have a huge dungeon crawl on the horizon. i have been casting around for a way to get the maps up on a screen to make everyones life easier.

it seems like d20pro will do what i want, but i thought i would ask the opinions of others before i commit my cash. i own and love herolab so realm works gets a few bonus points there being from the same developer - but from reading what i can find on their website, it seems more of a campaign management tool - im not even sure if it will do what i need? does anyone have any experience with it?

i have had a bit of a play with maptools but i have very limited time for prep (newborn twins if you please... thanks wifey!) and it seems like maptools requires a skillset i have no time or interest in developing. d20pro on the other hand seems pretty easy to use.

mainly i want to be able to display a map as the party moves about. if it can track initiative and how many rounds of certain buffs etc have to run that'd be great too. all the other stuff realm works seems to do sounds cool but is mainly just bonus material for me.

i dont think i'll go as far as actually running combats through it though - my group love their minis and i cant imagine they will want to give them up too easily.

your thoughts appreciated!

so if you were the head of an extensive criminal organisation, what would be in your bag of holding that you scooped up as you bolted out the door to make your emergency get away?

so far i've got the obvious, a bunch of cash in coin and gem form, and a stash of various potions - possibly a wand or two since the crime lord in question is a bard. probably a few changes of clothing.

presume extensive wealth, so at least 50k invested in the bag (not counting bag itself)

your thoughts appreciated :)

alright so, my PCs at the end of the last session were at a meeting / ambush organised by a crime lord, who has been a bit of a thorn in their sides from afar. he has been trying to recruit them in this meeting, but i think they have other ideas (not to mention a couple of tricks up their sleeve he doesnt know about) and im fairly certain things are about to get violent.

anyway once fighting breaks out he is probably going to leg it fairly quickly, but in typical crime lord fashion the meeting was organised for midnight so its pitch dark outside.

they are in an abandoned warehouse, and he intends to make his move through the sewer system to the docks, where he will be able to escape by boat.

im quite keen to try out a bit of a chase scene, as discussed in the DMG.

apart from general thoughts, what do we think the effects of darkness will have on the situation?

if it has any bearing my party has just two players in it, a fighter and a barb/ranger. they are currently accompanied by an NPC cleric of sarenrae, and a lower level bard whom the barb has hired to write an epic poem about their deeds.

your thoughts appreciated!

so, how meta do you go with your encounter design?

im currently running a game with just two players - ones got a fighter, the other a ranger.

they are both new to the game, though the player of the fighter has played a fair bit of NWN. as a result hes learned a little about optimization, at least in a 3.5 / computer game sense. as a result his PC has high strength, and he has put all his resources into upping his AC - so he is currently rocking full plate and a tower shield.

this strategy has so far proven fairly effective for him, for obvious reasons - his CMD is decent too thanks to his strength, and low level mooks suck in general.

the ranger on the other hand, has built almost entirely for flavor, which is cool to see. he even demurred from a few tweaks i suggest at creation to help him get a bit more out of his build, though i have let him retcon a few things as he has realised the impact of his choices.

the upshot being the fighter is a bit of a combat beast, while the ranger, who is going archer, is taking a little while to get going. he also has some unfortunate luck with his attack rolls - though he is dominating the skill monkey role - which is awesome IMO, but i am not sure he sees the glory in that. i've tried to play it up a bit.

i've been reasonably strict on the fighter with his armor - constantly questioning how he is achieving things with his armor and shield on, having enemies flee which he cant prevent due to his reduced movement, laughing at the idea of him ordering drinks with his full face helm still in place and so forth. he even weathered a raging storm on a boat by tying himself to the mast. overall he has taken it in stride, and played it pretty well.

there has been a bit of grumbling from the ranger however, who with a still respectable AC of 18 has taken some hefty damage in recent sessions. he is still coming to grips with the idea of keeping out of range of opponents, and though i've helped him turn his PC into a bit of a switch hitter he is still taking the brunt of the encounters.

as a result i threw together their next major opponent as a pirate captains first mate - a burly figher 4 / barb 1, (the PCs are third level) with a greataxe and improved sunder. his AC is kinda crap so the ranger should be able to deal some damage even with his crappy rolls, but his BAB will enable him to put some hurt on the fighter. their damage output is a bit crap thanks to mr tower shield, and the guy has a bunch of HPs - especially while raging.

my thinking was to sunder the fighters shield to make him a bit more vulnerable, and show him the potential of a hard hitting 2h. he could potentially one shot someone with a lucky crit, which might be a bit too hard hitting i guess. might switch to a great sword.

anyway, am i going too far with the improved sunder business? i couldnt really think of a great in-game justification for the guy to have improved sunder, and i built him specifically to take on mr iron plated. the barb level feels slightly cheesy also, since it was taken for movement speed and enough rage for a single encounter. what do we think?

so brief background, my players have found themselves working for a morally ambigious chap who asked them to acquire a particular item from a rival of his. he described it to them as a small, ornate box with gold filgree and fine carvings etc. with some remarkably clever ideas and a bunch of excellent rolls they managed to steal the box out from under the rivals nose, and make good their escpae.

of course, being somewhat morally ambigious themselves, they are now debating what to do with said box - i had presumed they would hand it over to their employer to claim their reward. but one player has convinced himself that its a liches phylactery, and im pretty sure they are at least going to try and find out whats inside it before they hand it over.

so, what could it be? im sorta thinking the guy they are working for is going to turn out to be a vampire, or at least works for one himself.

the phylactery idea is out, since i dont think any self respecting lich would be leaving it in a spot 2nd level characters could get to - no matter how clever.

other than that im open to anything. it could even be a magical item of some sort, but it should definitely have some sort of nefarious purpose or application.

it could be a part of something quite powerful, or a component for a ritual.

your ideas welcome!

ok, so i love the theory of the way pathfinder lets you modify monsters with relative ease - it lets me choose a beast that i like thematically, and then gives me the ability to keep it a challenge for my PCs.

in this case i wanted a giant spider, so i started out with a giant black widow. trouble is, this thing is only CR 3 (my APL is 4) and with 37 hp is only a couple of swings from my scythe wielding barbs trophy list.

so i added the advanced template - great, CR 4. its good, but i want this to be a really epic fight. so i decided to add some HD. bearing in mind this is the first time i've done this, i decided i wanted to create a CR 6 encounter. looking at table 2-1 in the bestiary, it seems i need to add 30hp to achieve this. (found by adding the increased HP amounts between CR 4 and CR 6 together) trouble is with only d8 hp, it means i need to add 6 HD to my spider. which makes it an 11 HD creature.

in most ways im happy with it actually, its a real beast - 120hp, reasonable AC and a scary 1d8+18 bite - enough to polish off a PC in 2 or 3 bites - but with it only having one attack they can probably take it out with action economy, while still feeling in mortal danger. great! its also got a big enough BAB that it will be able to hit my shield fighter, who has proven mostly immune to melee damage thus far.

where im running into trouble is the DCs of its skills. its web attack is DC 24 to break (10 + 5 from HD + 5 from con - which is 20 due to advanced template - +4 from racial 'strong webs'. even with 24 str its a hell of a break DC. its poison is DC 22, and needs two saves to cure - my rogue is almost certain to die from the con damage if he takes a hit, since hes unlikely to make the saves. i've considered having my own pc, a cleric, make them a collection of potions which includes one or two of delay poison. but it seems a bit too meta-gamey. (she wont be coming to fight this creature) i offered them her brewing services already, and they are clamoring for healing pots. so simple minded! :P

should i just tone down the DCs? i dont really want to make the beast any weaker physically. the fighter and barb combined will probably be able to break webs, but it will cost them alot of actions and possibly end up in the whole party dying from con damage, haha.

the party will consist of just the three PCs, barb rogue and fighter. i actually wouldnt be surprised if they are quick to try and burn the webs, which while not covered in the beastiary i will probably just rule using the web spell as a guide.

thoughts? should i just let it roll and see what happens?

looking for a little advice!

my PC's have been dealing with some other planar enemies recently (the precursor to a large invasion) and they've learned that cold iron weapons can bypass their DR. as a result im going to try and send them on a diplomatic mission to a dwarven stronghold to negotiate for a cold iron trade route, rather than just letting them pick up whatever they like down at bobs bargain weapons.

i was thinking it might be fun to have the dwarves want them to go through some kind of initiation rite (the PCs patron has dealt with the dwarves before, and they are not his greatest fans, so want some kind of reassurance as to the PCs good character) before they will talk turkey.

i had a few ideas rolling around in my head, and was hoping people might be able to suggest a few more for me. so far there is the typical 'go and kill this monster', or the standard drinking contest. maybe getting them to try and tame a hippogryph or similar, or some kind of olympic games type event with hammer throwing and so forth.

your thoughts welcome!

or any good ideas along the lines of mundane 'traps'

im not thinking so much of your classical hole in the floor, jet of acid, axe springing out of the wall type stuff. so much as things that might be relatively easily rigged up without major modifications to a building.

my PCs have recently (and somewhat inadvertently) rescued the kidnapped daughter of a noble from some bandits they were actually working with for a time. the noble is going to ask them to rain fiery revenge on the culprits, so essentially i want them to try and trash what amounts to a thieves guild.

catch being, the thieves have only recently arrived in town, so while they've done their best to fortify their building, they havent had time for anything too intricate.

so far i've got a big cage over the front door, ala 'lock, stock, and two smoking barrels'. the front door will be able to be barred from the outside by a hidden rogue, or maybe just a hired street urchin. in the room with the cage is a raised walkway around the outer edges of it, where the rogues can rain ranged attacks on people inside the cage. might even chuck in a couple of fighters with polearms for poking the caged lions.

once they've gotten through that, theres only one obvious way ahead - up a set of stairs, to the aforementioned walkway - which i figured would be perfect for throwing bags of marbles down, kinda like home alone or something.

im looking for the thieves to perform a bit of a fighting retreat, eventually leading to them making their way to the rooftops and trying to escape by jumping to nearby buildings or climbing down. the party is melee heavy, so they'll paste pretty much anything they can threaten.

remember this place doubles as an abode for a number of the guys, so they wont have anything too permanent or that makes the place a big pain to live in (for gods sake, who keeps letting the snakes out of the bathroom?!) but stuff that can be quickly set up would be cool. minor magic could be ok too. i have a third level fighter and a third level barbarian as my main players, with my level two cleric occasionally tagging along. sometimes we get a third guy on his level three rogue.

hi all.

still new to GMing PF, and i've decided i quite like the idea of an NPC who specializes in tripping to challenge my wily PCs with... just wanted to know if i am ruling it correctly.

we are using the core rulebook only at this stage, though i can house rule things if i really need to. he would be a 6th level fighter, (to qualify for greater trip) and his feats would be -

combat expertise
combat reflexes
improved trip
greater trip
lunge

weapon focus
weapon specialization
improved initiatve

assuming he won initiative, am i right in saying he would be able to advance to 15' away from his target, (armed with a guisarme) activate lunge, trip his target, get an attack of opportunity from greater trip, then take a 5' step so he still threatens the PC on the ground once his turn ends (thus removing the benefits of lunge, yes?)

so when the PC stands up, hes able to get an AOO. if the PC decides to advance on him, he gets another AOO. (moving out of a threatened square) if the PC backs away without making a withdraw (which i think is a full round action?) he can also make an AOO.

can i make a trip as an AOO?

is lunge worthwhile? it seems limited in its use because it only extends reach during your turn - so you can trip people that you'll no longer threaten once lunge ends, not that helpful. was thinking i could switch it to agile manuvers and go with a dex build, to give him better initiative and AC. without having to make him too MAD.

it seems kinda... cheesy :)