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Running a bit behind in the schedule of what's being played due to RL events hitting my group hard right now.

Just wondering what changes other made for 6 player groups?

A1. Made the Sewer Ooze Elite (costs 10 XP, had 10 XP to spend)
A2. Added 2x Goblins
A3. I could afford to add 2x more Giant Centipedes but this would make 8 of them in total in an already crowded area/fight. Other option is to make them all elite (XP spent is the same both ways)
A6. Added 1x Quasit
A7. I could either add 1x more of the harder two Goblins or 2x of the weaker ones.
A8. Same issues as with A3, I could add 2x more Skeleton Guards but it starts to feel crowded.
A10. I was originally going to add a couple more dire rats, but as it's now been revealed the original was not meant to be there the only option is to give Drakus the elite template?

Couple of other posts about this but they're more mixed into other discussions so wanted something more focused.

It seems during the shuffling around of spells that Finger of Death and Wail of Banshee got bumped out of the arcane lists. This means Necromancers now lose access to two of the most iconic necromancy spells.

I'm not against other classes getting access to these spells but I feel there should be a way for the Necromancer specialist at least to gain access to them.
This way not all wizards would have them (if that's Paizo's intent), but those truly focused on death would.

Running an adventure which has a Trench Mist and number of Juju Zombies in the same room.

If the Trench Mist moves over the Juju Zombies in order to engulf the PC's would it also have to engulf the Juju Zombies and thus deal damage to them on their turns?

If it does deal damage would be be both the damage of the acid and then healing from negative energy damage?

Trench Mist
Juju Zombie

I've hit Google, Reddit and the forums with this but I'll be honest and say even with the debates and FAQ I don't fully understand what's actually considered an ability based check.

Concerning planar travel and strongly aligned planes.

Rules:

Strongly Aligned: On planes that are strongly aligned, a –2 circumstance penalty applies on all Intelligence-, Wisdom-, and Charisma-based checks made by all creatures not of the plane's alignment. The penalties for the moral and ethical components of the alignment trait stack.

So what will this actually make a difference to?

I've seen the argument for "d20 + ability + other" is an ability based check but "d20 + other + ability" isn't an ability based check.
However under those conditions doesn't the penalty of being on another plane strongly opposing your alignment become a little weak? There are not a great number of "d20 + ability + other" checks in the game.

Only FAQ information I could find close to this. Which leads me to think all skills using an ability are an ability based check?

Alternate Ability Score-Based Checks: If I change the key ability score of a skill (or other check), for example, if I change Knowledge from Intelligence to Charisma, is it no-longer an Intelligence-based check? Is it now a Charisma-based check?

Generally yes—at the time of rolling a check, if you substitute the ability score, the check is now based on the new ability score. In the example, at the time of rolling, Knowledge would now be a Charisma-based skill and not an Intelligence-based skill for you, which would affect things like feats, spells, or items that grant bonuses on checks based on their key ability score (like circlet of persuasion). However, if you are adding a second ability modifier to a check, this is not the case. For instance, when adding both Wisdom and Dexterity on initiative checks, initiative is still a Dexterity check, not a Wisdom check. Also, this changes the check only at the time of rolling, so this does not change static class features or options made during character building such as your class’s class skills. Classes that receive “all Intelligence-based skills” as class skills, for instance, are the victim of sloppy writing, and furthermore sometimes effects might muddy the water by only changing the ability dependency sometimes and not others, which is why you check the new dependency only for a specific given roll.

Appreciate the help and clarification to come.

A few questions regarding knowledge and how others handle it.

I've read other threads and got bits of information here and there but figured starting a thread to get some feedback on my specifics would be beneficial.

Question 1
When two characters with the same knowledge roll on the same monster for known information, how much knowledge do you give the group?

Example.

Rakshasa DC10+CR(10) for a DC 20 Knowledge Planes check.
PC 1: rolls a 32 (three bits of information)
PC 2: rolls a 26 (two bits of information)

Does the group get five bits of separate knowledge or would PC1 and PC2 have some cross overs in what they know?

I've previously been giving out separate information (so five as per above example) but have noticed recently that now my group is basically walking into encounters and knowing everything about a given monster.

For the Rakshasa in the example above they would know:-
Name and type (I give these for hitting the DC)
DR Type, but not value (PC 1's 20)
Has SR, but not value (PC 1's 25)
Has SLA's (PC 1's 30)
Has Detect Thoughts at will (PC 2's 20)
Common SLA is Lightning Bolt (PC 2's 25)

So this is pretty much everything special about a Rakshasa, leaving little mystery about such a creature. Now it's not that I want my players to be clueless and get killed or not have fun, but it feels like nothing is new and exciting (even ToH stuff) because the group will just know everything.

In searching I've seen some people talk about lower rolls counting as assists (to represent shared knowledge) and speaking with my group about this limiting it to not one per success was seen as a nerf to their characters.

Question 2
When giving out information what's the best breakdown?

Should "defences" be lumped together or should each defence be a separate bit of useful information?

Example something has Immune: Fire; Resist: Cold 10, Acid 10.
Should that be one bit of information (all), two bits (immune and resists) or three bits (all separate)?

Question 3
How is best to give out information?

Currently my group does rolls, counts up number of pieces of useful information then says what areas they want to know "defences, attacks, special abilities" etc.
Now to me this still feels a little outside of immersive RP. I would rather give the players information totally the number they earned but am not sure how best to give that information.

If they've got three bits of information and a creature has DR, SR, Immunities & Special attacks which one gets left out.
If I don't give the DR information the martial classes are going to get annoyed, if I don't give the SR/Immunities the casters will get annoyed, if I don't give a special ability and then slap them with it they'll wonder WTF just happened.
This is why I have been in favour of them choosing the information as then it doesn't create that feeling the GM did it to mess with them.

Not really sure where's best to post this thread but as it's related to Crimson Throne this kind of works? If it's really not at home here hopefully it can be moved?

As I was lucky enough to get the collectors edition of the new hardback Crimson Throne AP I thought it would be neat to try and gather signatures from the authors and artists who worked on it.

I know Wes Schneinder is heading to UK Games Expo and I've already asked him on Twitter if it's fine to find him and get the signature (he said yes), but as I am attending GenCon this year I was wondering how's best to go about finding other signatures there.

Firstly this isn't something I normally do so I am a little awkward about it, is there a general etiquette to requesting a signature from someone in the RP industry, or is just approaching, not interrupting conversations and politely making a requests fine?

Secondly what's the best way to find out what members of Paizo or freelancers will be at GenCon and then tracking them down once I am there?

I'm from the UK so this is kind of my one shot to get as many signatures as I can.

I was wondering how others handle variants of monsters with knowledge checks.

Specifically I am looking at the following situation (spoilers in case one of my players walks into this thread)

Hopefully this forums section is acceptable, I wasn't sure if this counted as product discussion, 3rd party, etc. as it's pretty open.

I was wondering if people could help me out with looking for some good resource books on undead for use with Pathfinder.

I've already noted Undead Revised and Undead Unleashed and will look and picking them up (unless someone says they're not worth it).

Otherwise are there any good books/modules either official Paizo or 3rd Party to help augment undead sections of campaigns, or generally give some new life to undead creatures.

I already own Tome of Horrors 1 - 4 and all Paizo bestiaries.

I could be tempted with 3.5/OGL books but want resources without any conversion/rewriting needed if possible.

YES!

I am so happy to see this. Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen.

So I have read the guide to Korvosa and the campaign sections on The Shingles a few times and I am still very confused by this.

Are the Shingles a singular location within the city (i.e. one district or series of streets) or is is something which is spread across the city in various bits?

I wanted to post this up for any other GM's who are currently working on changes for the CotCT Hardcover.

My campaign will be for a group of five, currently the group is.

Paladin of Cayden Cailean
Wizard (Divination Focus)
Slayer
Cleric of Iomade
Bard

I'm adding the following Paizo material.

PFS - Portents Peril
PFS - The Green Market
PFS - Fortress of the Nail
PFS - The Veteran's Vault

3.5 Module - Conquest of Bloodswarn Vale
PFM - The House on Hook Street
PFM - The Harrowing
PFM - Academy of Secrets

The following spreadsheet is a breakdown of all my work (still in progress)

Campaign Google Sheet

The second tab contains a breakdown of the campaign overview, the sheets there after are (or will be) breakdowns of all encounters and loot with the modifications I make.

The campaign is currently using medium XP track (down from fast) and based around five players with XP divided by 5 rather than the XP table.

This currently isn't a huge rewrite so don't expect anything drastic outside of the basic written content, but I hope that by sharing this I can help some other GMs work out how to add content they want or change encounters to be more challenging.

How do you tell if an item is minor, medium or major past whether it has it listed in a book.

When it comes to players buying items or rolling them up for town/city stocks how do you determining what level an item is?

The ones in Ultimate Equipment are neatly listed in tables but some items in later books don't have a listing and there doesn't seem to be a consistent way to tell.

Items change from medium to major even with the same caster level, other items are more expensive than majors but fall into mediums.

Metamagic Quicken lesser in some charts is a medium and a major as another example.

These issues don't really come into effect until a player wishes to purchase an item under the "all items are generally available" with help of Black Market Connections.

I am just really struggling to find a consistent way to judge what an items should be in regards to this.

I was wondering if anyone had any quests or ideas for quests regarding the Sable Company?

I'm planning on running CotCT as a very long campaign for my group once the hard cover is out. I've already added all of the adventures/modules listed in the "books to have" thread.

However I really want some quests to help bring Marcus Endrin to into the game and have my players know more about him and the Sable Company.

I've considered having him present during a few of the mission briefings from Kroft as a way of showing their friendship and having him around, however it would be nice to have some flavoured quests working for him directly.

These would fit in and around the quests in chapters 1 & 2.

If I write up any custom content of my own I'll be sure to come back and post it for others.

Just looking for a quick confirmation on what kind of action it is to activate the Gloves of the Shortened path.

Am I correct in that as per the below you couldn't active this item and attack in the same turn? You could however activate it and then attack next turn or swift to move it if your target moved?

Activating a magic item is a standard action unless the item description indicates otherwise. However, the casting time of a spell is the time required to activate the same power in an item, regardless of the type of magic item, unless the item description specifically states otherwise.

Looking for some advice and feedback on the Automatic Bonus Progression system covered in Pathfinder Unchained. Hopefully this is the right section to ask in.

I'm planning on running Curse of the Crimson Throne after the hardcover is out and like the look of this system for dealing with the big six.

I am thinking of running a custom variant of the variant rule and skipping the changes to weapons/armour as this has not been an issue for my players in the past. Mostly we've just always felt sad that cloaks, rings, belts, etc. which had interesting effects were just thrown away because of the need for stats.

I'm interested in hearing feedback and advice from others that have tried the system in live play, did it work well, did players enjoy it more than normal etc.?

I will be running the final chapter of Rise of the Runelords AE in a couple of weeks and was wondering if anyone had any pointers on things which would help me through it, problems they faced and such.

I've read a lot of the threads on here already and drawn some ideas or noted points people made.

I have a group of six players and have made some adjustments already to fights and given monsters max HP/level (as we have two heavy hitting damage dealers).

The group are experienced players but not with high level gameplay and I have little experience GM'ing at this level as well.

Any other information I can provide which would help here just ask.

Okay so this has bugged me for a long time now and I figured I would finally come here and get it sorted out.

Once players reach a Metropolis (or have good Black Market Connections)the text appears on the magic items purchase saying "nearly all minor magic items are available."

Does this mean the players ignore the 75% chance roll because all those items are available, or do they still need to make it?

I'm about to start running this campaign and my group is having a session 0 this weekend for character creation.

I was wondering if there are any races, classes which people feel stand out as meshing well with this campaign?

I don't plan to limit my players on their choices but wanted to go to them with a list of things which they might get the most out of during this campaign.

TL;DR With 30ft. movement can you move 10ft. take a standard action, then move the rest of your 20ft. of movement?

Having a short conversation with a player about the rules of movement and actions in combat.

I have always read the rules as you get two actions, move action and standard action you can move up to your base speed as the move action however after that action ends you can't use more of it after a standard action.
We have checked over the PRD but other than the information in Spring Attack there isn't actually any text we can's find which states you outright can't move, action, finish move off. Which has me questioning if my interpretation of the rules is indeed correct.

I'm currently running RotR AE for a group of six friends and we're just coming to the end of chapter two now. I have read most of the campaign and am a little worried about how to run some of the later encounters.

I have no experience in running encounters past about the level five mark for players, there are a lot of later game sections where I really just have no idea what I should do.

I know it's a very broad question and there are so many things which could be said but I was hoping there might be some general advice or evens specifics based on monsters, encounters, traps etc. which normally come in a later game.

Tried many Google searches but failed to find the information I was looking for.

Question came up on magic item creation on the 4h/day rule. If a player goes out at 8am, clears a dungeon and is back by 4pm. Can he then craft for 4 hours that day, repeat the same the next day and gain the full 4 hours bonus or does this count as travelling/adventuring and you gain only 2 hours worth.

I started running RotR Anniversary Edition for the first time yesterday and I have a few of my players asking about the race and ethnicities of the NPCs they encounter. While the book does give information on some of the NPCs it doesn't list all of them, I was wondering if anyone had compiled a list of the main NPCs and additional information about them.

I'm very interested in picking up the Pathfinder Pawns PDFs and I will be starting a new online campaign soon and would like to have some Pathfinder styled tokens (it doesn't feel right not having big headed goblins!).

My concern is that the PDFs might still contain the cut marks from the card versions making their use as tokens harder.
There doesn't seem to be a PDF preview on the store (something which might be worth considering) so I was wondering if anyone who has purchased the PDF or a Paizo staff member could let me know if the PDF files contain cut marks for pawns or are just plain white pages with images.