Ulak's page

My PCs never succeeded in noticing Vencarlo's missing fingers. I am having a hard time not laughing. As soon as they saw Vimanda in the ratty Leather Armor they insisted she wear Blackjack's suit of armor to protect "himself" better. I had Vimanda resist that, but they insisted! They totally accepted her as Vencarlo, but they absolutely didn't care what Vencarlo said about Glorio, they had zero interest in attacking him. The PCs all touched the green orb in the transport room, and I am just going to have Vimanda hang back until they encounter Sivit and then rain down bloody murder upon their heads.

Name of PC: "Deuce"
Class/Level: Rogue 7th
Adventure: Escape from Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Garden Guardian's Spores
Story: A high-AC rogue learns that that does not protect him from spore clouds and awful Fort Saves round after round.

DMFTodd wrote:

The first threatened square they move into - 10' away from the elephant - does NOT cause the AoO. Leaving that threatened square - moving the next 5' to get next to the elephant - DOES cause the AoO.

Thanks, so that's the same with a foe armed with a Glaive. If you move INTO the 10' reach doesn't cause an AoO, just if you move away! That's right?

As long as you realize "move into" doesn't mean "move forward".

If you enter a threatened square that does not provoke an AoO.

If you leave a threatened square without using the full retreat option you provoke an AoO.

It doesn't matter which direction you are going when you leave a threatened square.

Full retreat lets you leave the 1st threatened square you wish to leave without provoking an AoO.

So in the example above with a Normal Sized PC with a Glaive:
Enter the 1st threatened square 10' away, no provoking of AoO.

Exiting that threatened square and you do provoke an AoO.

In the case of the Elephant if it is being controlled and the controller did not want to provoke from reach weapons there is no reason to keep moving. The Elephant itself has 10' reach and can deliver its slams, stamps, and gores from 10' away.

However if you wanted to trample the Glaive-wielder, you'd provoke as soon as you moved the next square towards them.

Was an "official" set of gear ever provided for these NPCs?

I used the lure of being a part of the Korvosan Guard to keep them interested in remaining in the city, and Zellara as someone who links all of them together after Lamm's death.

I did have the advantages of telling the players prior to starting the campaign that they had to understand that their characters loved the city they grew up in.

It also helps that three of my players decided to play as Clanbrother dwarves.

I have a couple of characters that don't really care about the city, but are willing to metagame, and one that I think is chomping at the bit to throw off the "shackles" of caring about Korvosa, but it's got them to House Arkona, and that's just about all it needed to do :)

I like to use colorful balloons, that way when they die you can pop them.

I worked the plague in, but the citizens of old Korvosa have self-segregated into have-plagues and have-not-plagues. So like about half the estalbishments are for plague bearers only and half for non-infected.

Name of PC: Echenn
Class/Level: Wizard 6
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave
Catalyst: Battle with Lady Andaisin
Story: Having been blinded by Lady Andaisin the party set Echenn up with an Endless Decanter of Wine to spoil the various pools of yuck in the temple while she was healing herself out of reach above their heads in a pocket of Obscuring Mist. She prepares a Slay Living, airwalks her way down to deliver it, see Echenn spilling wine into the pools and *ZORP*, one failed Fort save later, my first fatality.

Thanks, I think I am going to go with the a "besieged" priest mentality as my PCs want to talk to them about Lady Andaisin. "Oh, sure, blame everything on us, just cause there's a disease in the city!"

During Seven Days to the Grave are there any Priests still tending their flock at the Pantheon of the Many?

I would have the Quah agree, but insist they can only commit a small, elite force capable of working within the confines of a command structure run by urban outsiders while they gather the main forces of the Quah to provide whatever support the PCs deem required on a grander scale (this need never arrive as this should be enough to get the PCs on the way back to the city). Have the elite warriors (40 or so) lead by 1000 Bones or someone from 1000 Bones family, and have him agree to coordinate with Cressida Kroft.

I really like the idea of the racial-based council since that seems to be such an ingrained element of the world. I'm not so sure you'd have many people agreeing to Democracy in Korvosa, but that's a detail that could be hashed out at a later date (after the Queen is deposed?)

I almost look at this less as a request for military intervention than the PCs trying to resolve the historic wrongs bewteen the Korvosans and the Shoanti, and I think that's incredibly noble. I would definitely play that part up, marginalize the "military support" aspect of the Shoanti, but in the final analysis have Kroft point out that the rebellion would have been doomed without the valiant activities of the elite Shoanti supporting the already overtaxed rebels.

You can do all kinds of fun stuff with this too, I can see a lot of joint Hippogriff/Shoanti outrider task forces becoming the elite "rider-based" military presence on the continent as the Sable Company refills its ranks with willing Shoanti warriors looking for adventure.

I would suggest it really depends upon the disease. I would also suggest that disease is handled in the abrupt-seeming fashion you outline to abstract it as most people probably don't want to spend a lot of time roleplaying the development of some unpleasant disease.

Seriously, thank you so much for taking your time to do this! I truly appreciate it!!

I played Silent Tide the weekend before last and during play, another player purchased some splash weapons which were given to my PC who specializes in thrown weapons. At the end of the scenario, I asked him if he wanted them back and he said to keep them. I noted them in my chronicle, but he had no PFS number yet, and if he has since registered he has not informed me of his number for record keeping, as outlined in the Guide. If I don't hear from him, do I just have to take these off my Chronicle?

Just from a logic standpoint I'd have to say that you would need to remove them. Otherwise people could very easily subsidize their characters with friend's characters in the event that they decide to quit playing, or what have you.

I would suggest that a Living Game only thrives through meticulous documentation. Obviously I am not an authority on the matter, but it seems that the authorities are overwhelmed.

We were given ours prior to anything starting so we had full time to digest them prior to anyone needing to process additional data in an otherwise loud room.

Hello I have a three quick questions concerning character construction for the Pathfinder organized play. I am not sure where to post these questions so I am trying here.

1) On page 15 of the pathfinder players guide, it says a character can choose a faction feat in addition to any feats they normally get from race and class. If I am reading this correctly a 1st level human cleric would get three feats at first level provided one of them is a faction feat. Am I correct?

2) Concerning Languages. Elves get Common and Elvish for free, and Dwarves get Common and Dwarvish for free at first level. Then they get a number of bonus languages according to their Int. modifier.
What about the Human races, or Nationalities? Would a Chelaxian get Chelax and common (Taldoran) for free? Or a Kelish from Quadria? Would they get Kelish and Common for free before choosing their bonus languages from their intelligence modifier?

3) If I am making a cleric character who is from Quadira and is part of that faction, Could I take the scimitar master feat? Would it grant the cleric proficiency with the scimitar?

Any help and thoughts would be appreciated thanks.

1) You are correct.

I GMed, and I will freely admit that you could name a ton of domains that I wouldn't be able to tell you if they were or were not in the PH. Something like that probably wouldn't cause any problems unless there was actually some kind of contention about what the domain does, at which point, it becomes a problem because the GM can't look it up to see what is or isn't the problem.

I'm also not saying they shouldn't be included or whatever, just that, in order to make sure everything is fair the the GM can do their job, they have to have the material available, and if a problem never comes up, it probably wouldn't get noticed at all.

But, as it stands now, page 14 of Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, under Race and Class, says:

"All of the options in the PH are available to you with one minor adjustment. Magic Item creation is not used in Pathfinder Society Organized Play . . "

Edit: I obviously don't have any kind of official standing, I'm just relating how I interpreted the rules as a GM, and I will admit I didn't look that closely at clerical domains when we started the sessions, so that's entirely on me.

My understanding was that the Campaign Hardcover was fair game as well, and these domains are contained within it.

No one blinked twice at a cleric with the Glory domain at GenCon Indy.

To them I says Scrolls of Cure Light Wounds only cost 25 GPs Each!

Ulak wrote:

That still does not explain why ** spoiler omitted ** because players can buy that item as well, but it is still listed.

OK here behind the spoiler:

** spoiler omitted **

This is why the level 3 tier gets to choose, up or down on the Tier chart... Risk vs. Reward.

Characters can already buy both of those, and the Masterwork armor isn't listed for Tier 1&2. Access to Masterwork or +1 armor is not restricted except by whether or not you can afford it.

I do not understand why +1 half-plate was listed in the "treasure" section for Tier 4 and 5 on that adventure when similar treasures are not listed elsewhere.

I'm pretty confident it was just an error, but I would like to be sure.

We helped people complete their faction quests, even when they belonged to different factions. The idea is for everyone at the table to have fun, not to see if you can make other people miserable. Trying to thwart someone from accomplishing their faction goal was to my understanding in direct violation of the Pathfinder Society charter.

I'm keen to know if they allow "rebuking/inflict" Neutral Clerics or not as well.

I would suggest that you not read into the feat, and simply accept that the only purpose the "hellfire" has is to give the extra damage during combat. Otherwise I would suggest it is colorless, odorless, invisible, incapable of starting fires, etc...

This is a case of taking the fluff of the description of a Feat effect and trying to make it crunchy in my opinion.

The extra point of damage is fire-based in order to identify which resistance protects from it, as well as which susceptibility it would take advantage of. Otherwise I recommend thinking of it as "heat" damage not as an open flame.

So no Hellfire candle-lit dinners for anyone with this feat. Just the ability to do another point of fire-based heat damage with a warm message from the bowels of hell attached.

At least that's how I'd go with it until the Paizo folks rule differently.

That still does not explain why

Ulak wrote:

Joshua J. Frost wrote:

The next update to the guide will state that while you can make your character of any age, characters in Pathfinder Society Organized Play never receive a stat boost from doing so. IE, middle age characters use the same point buy and racial advantages as characters that are in their 20s. Yes, this is a change from a previous post.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

What does this do to characters that already are built with the age adjustments per the original post?

Are they grand-fathered in, or do they have to make adjustments to fit with the new interpretation of stat buys?

To me this is merely a "Wait, no, it's not acceptable. Take that back, don't do middle-aged people, please." If it will be denied eventually, there's no point to try and get a short-lived joy out of being an old guy with minor stat boosts. It would be unnecessary reconstructing anyway.

One of our players already created a middle-aged character due to the stat bonuses gained, and played the first four scenarios. So it's not as crystal clear as that.

The next update to the guide will state that while you can make your character of any age, characters in Pathfinder Society Organized Play never receive a stat boost from doing so. IE, middle age characters use the same point buy and racial advantages as characters that are in their 20s. Yes, this is a change from a previous post.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

What does this do to characters that already are built with the age adjustments per the original post?

Are they grand-fathered in, or do they have to make adjustments to fit with the new interpretation of stat buys?

Having Pregen characters there would defiantly speed up play and would have been nice. You could allow the player to use the pregen for one adventure and then make his own character and use the results from that first scenario to be applied to the new character.

My experience in previous living world campaings at GenCon was to be handed a pre-gen character, and informed that I could make all the changes I wanted to the character until I hit 3rd level. Once I went to 3rd level I was locked into whatever I had.

I liked this because I could just play, and worry about optimizing/customizing later.

Ulak say best Diplomacy done with Great Sword.

Ulak wrote:

John Bellando wrote:

Well when you have 3 HP left and a magic missile does 13 damage, you die :) It was a 5th level caster at least.

There wasn't a 5th level caster in any of the scenarios that I am aware of that would be brutal for a 1st level party to try to tackle. We fought a caster, but her Magic Missile was a single Missile.

And why not just cast Fireball then and take everyone out?

Well without spoilers...there was a caster who was able to cast 2nd level spells (about 5 of them) and 3 Magic Missiles with each spell. That makes them level 5 minimum. Not sure what to tell you. It was a sorcerer though so no 3rd level spells.

Maybe our GM gave us the high level version, I'm not sure.

That's my concern. I think you had to have been facing the Tier 4-5 guy by mistake. This happened to at least one other group with the Sea Cat. The Tier 4-5 Sea Cat was used, and it was decidedly too difficult for a 1st level party.

One of our clerics took the Magic Missile if it is from the same event you are talking about, and it did 2 points of damage. There's no way that's the same spell. We didn't face anyone else with a Magic Missile in any of the other scenarios.

Well when you have 3 HP left and a magic missile does 13 damage, you die :) It was a 5th level caster at least.

There wasn't a 5th level caster in any of the scenarios that I am aware of that would be brutal for a 1st level party to try to tackle. We fought a caster, but her Magic Missile was a single Missile.

And why not just cast Fireball then and take everyone out?

MisterSlanky wrote:

Enough role-playing went on that we nearly didn't finish it in time (which is a testament to one character in particular which deserves special kudos, the bell-wearing-barbarian).

Yeah, I always try to add something a bit strange to the character when I am playing a beat-stick. otherwise they tend to come out a bit generic. I definately had a lot of fun bouncing his particular brand of insanity off of differant personality types :)

Andy
aka Guntermin the Bell Maker

Ulak impressed by stumpy, lil' Bell-man. He gots no fear of death, and Ulak like dat! Me make him honorary Half-Orc since he appear to be short one half! Har har har!

And here's why:

In a year, we're going to switch Pathfinder Society OP to the Pathfinder RPG. Jason hasn't finalized yet how PrCs are going to work in PRPG, so we don't want the added level of complexity when it comes time for everyone to remake their characters for PRPG.

I should also note that when it comes time for everyone to remake their characters for PRPG, you'll get a 30-day amnesty period where you can basically remake your character right back up to the current level you're at (race, class, everything). So you don't really have to plan ahead very much.

Is the Variant Fighter that has Sneak Attack available in the PRPG? It is frustrating to face NPCs that have more interesting builds than the PCs do. :)

I wonder what we'll get for wearing factional boxers.

There was no allotted time for character creation in my experience. We were asked by our GM if it was okay for the additional person joining our party to make his character, and we had no problem with that. We were still done with the round well in advance of the final buzzer, but having 3 Barbarians and two Clerics in the party can speed up any melee-heavy situation. The addition of this new player as a Rogue was a boon as well.

I suspect that the people that would most benefit from a pre-gen availability are those that are not familiar with the 3.5 game. People familiar with 3.5 aren't going to take terribly long to make a character with 150 GPs when they are restricted to the PHB, and there's no information about what will happen to their character yet when we roll over to PFRPG.

My view will always be skewed as my group has from 4-7 Osirions at each round.

Name of PC: Baydenostasich

Class/Level: Gnome Bard Level 2
Adventure: Frozen Fingers
Catalyst: Treacherous NPC that was almost willing to help us
Story: Well it was a game of invisible chess with flaming spheres that I almost survived. Unfortunately, the "show yourself and your companion can live" came up and being the good guy, I did. Well 3 hit points wasn't enough to survive the magic missile.

The worst part is afterwards, I realized I should have had 4 hit points left and might have survived a stabilization roll *laugh*.

Faction: Osirion.

I think my biggest problem is there is no provision within the PFS for raise dead. With the inability to play previous modules with a new character, dying after playing all 4 modules means it'll be a while before I can come back :(

How could a Magic Missile kill you? Did you bleed out from -2 HPs?

Well, I can name that song in one note.