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Vutava wrote:
Numeria hasn't taken over the world because the Technic League is run by a bunch of short-sighted, backstabbing psychopaths. They're all too busy with gaining and keeping personal power to ever really be a threat to their neighbors. If someone actually managed a breakthrough, they'd be immediately assassinated by the others to prevent them from taking power the others covet. Numeria also doesn't have anything even close to the infrastructure that would be required to actually replicate Androffan tech.

I hear you on the Technic League, that slipped my mind. However, other countries in Golarion are going to be extremely interested in the technology found in Numeria. Its going to slip out sooner rather than later as the tech is not exactly uncommon knowledge. In addition we have Brigh, a deity who encourages innovation and science who happens to be on good terms with most of the other gods. This is a huge advantage over our own history as our real world religions did no always play nice with science AND we did not get a major UFO crash until the 1940s when our tech was already humming along.

I have had a few days to ponder the dream, and I have started writing a little for a campaign. 200 to 500 years in Golarion's future Rovagug finally starts breaking free from his prison. Several spawn ravage the planet. Most spawn are highly resistant to magic. Nukes, or their equivalent seem to be able to kill these massive beasts. People's faith in technology surges as their faith in magic wanes. However, the world is nearly in ruins and Rovagug still claws at his prison.

I think I might actually use D20 Modern, Past, Future, and Urban Arcana for the adventure I run. Trying to go for a steampunk meets cyberpunk feel.


This post might run a little long. I had a nightmare a few nights ago that I wanted to share on the forum because it was heavily influenced by pathfinder. In fact it took place in Golarion's not too distant future. In my dream I was a low level illusionist, I would guess around 5th as later in the dream fireball would be the most impressive spell I would cast. I found myself in Cheliax trying to escape the country with my real life girlfriend. Golarion had basically experienced a near apocalypse. Several spawn of Rovagug had been released, including the Tarrasque. Numerian technology had been reverse engineered. From this, weapons of mass destruction were employed to kill these massive spawn of the beast. Surprisingly the weapons worked and I could see the massive corpses of some of these beasts slowly dying out in the landscape. We were even wearing steampunkish goggles as ash was still falling from the sky. The destruction caused by these weapons caused power vacuums in several countries. Cheliax was particularly bad. I was using illusion spells to bypass checkpoints run by devilish hellknights. In the dream I truly felt terror knowing that if we were caught our deaths would not be quick.

As we walked along people were drug out of their houses, beaten, and shot. We approached the final checkpoint and my illusion spells were running low. 3 guards were checking identities. For a moment they were clustered together, along with several bystanders. From invisibility I uttered the words FIRE BALL and killed everyone at the checkpoint. We ran through. Horrified at what I had done, I knew someone might come after us.

3 people followed behind us. I attempted to hide us in the sewers. We hid in the shadows and the 3 figures walked into the sewers looking for us. 2 male and 1 female, they all looked like agents from the matrix movies. I started attacking them from the shadows and quickly noticed my attacks passing through them. They were just illusions, another illusionist had been sent to kill us. He was invisible, but I managed to hear him. I reached and grappled him, causing him to drop his spell component pouch which I quickly kicked to scatter the contents. An unseen forced started gathering the lost components for him just as I began choking him. His illusions all came to aid him in the grapple, I knew they wern't real but they were still able to push, blind, and interfere. The unseen force put a candle in his hand and we began to struggle as he started to light it. The dream ended. It had been a while since I had been that scared. It was all so vivid.

I think this dream was my mind trying to do a bit of problem solving and creative worrying. I have planned several adventures as of late and I can't help to wonder why the hell the technology in Numeria isn't sweeping throughout the world. You would think every country in the world would be worrying about the technology in that place. If I were a demon cult I would be trying to open up another world wound in Numeria. Hell I read an article the other day that British spies were concerned that the Chinese had obtained a UFO and were reverse engineering it. Wouldn't it be way worse in a world were a UFO crash isn't uncommon knowledge?

Anyway, I thought I would share this. I figured the Homebrew forum was the best spot for this. I hope somebody enjoys this. When I first awoke from the dream it felt very important to share at the time :P


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Ya I think having the Stag Lord being slightly more active in figuring out whats going on adds a bit of realism. I have played several times through stolen lands, and most players kinda expect the bandits to be more proactive to the point of not wanting to wast time on mites and kobolds when bandits might be organizing an attack.

Might replace the mites and kobolds with more bandit towns, with leaders also calling themselves the Stag Lord, kinda How Negan in the Walking Dead has all of his men calling themselves "Negan" as well. The players might think they have killed the Stag Lord only to find that he now hunts them.

Also might change the Stag Lord's father quite a bit. Torturing the Stag Lord as a boy made him a monster, and if I remember correctly there is a half-starved owlbear in the fort. These seem very much like things a druid in the cult of Rovagug might do. Turing a man into a monster in order to stop the spread of civilization sounds exactly like something a follower of Rovagug or Lamashtu might do. Starving a dangerous animal to make it more violent seems Rovagugish too.


So I am running an adventure for a group of people playing Pathfinder for the first time. I have both run and played in the Kingmaker AP, its one of my favorites. Since these are new players I am giving them generous 25 point buy stats and max hit dice -2 in hp, as well as auto bonus progression because honestly it gives a better feel to the game and new players often are not aware when their defenses or offence is not on par for their level.

I am wanting to spice things up a little, and maybe add some more details to the story. For starters, I would like to tweak the Stag Lord a bit and make him more like a cross between Negan from The Walking Dead and Robin Hood. Also the bandits need a little tweaking too. With evil Fey and trolls running around it seems like they might do well to have a bit more cold iron and alchemist fire available.

I have always wondered, who exactly are the bandits robbing besides Oleg? Do they go farther north? Why is there a bandit problem in the first place? Is the first world screwing with people's minds or are there more mundane pressures such as a bad economy, war, or terrible nobles.

Has anyone else replaced the mites and the kobolds? Even though the mites are fey they kinda feel out of place. That brings me to something that always bothered me, when people hear about fey they tend to think more about fairy dragons and nice things rather than monstrous horrific stuff. I maybe want the encounters in general to be a bit more tense.

Has anyone else made similar tweaks to the Stolen Lands?


ericthecleric wrote:
The answer is "it depends, but probably not". If adding the NPC stat array, class levels, and ABP bonuses gives stat values that match those for the chosen CR on the Monster Statistics By CR table (Bestiary 1 page 291), then it's fine. However, ignore the High/Low Attack column and treat Average Damage as target Expected Damage Value (which is something you'll need to calculate). If a particular aspect of ABP would make particular values too high, such as armor attunement, don't use those ABP aspect, or reduce that aspect.

Sounds right. I remade a core monk I am playing through the ABP rules and they seemed to be very generous to him especially in armor class, perhaps its just going to be like that for a few monsters as well. I feel like I am really getting into the nuts and bolts of Pathfinder now :P


Thank you so much, the numbers look a bit better like that! Still, if you make say a cloud giant fighter with ABP, would it be fair to say they have so much gear built in that the CR gets adjusted just like any NPC who receives extra wealth?


So I am about to run the Jade Regent adventure path, which I have ran and played in sever times in the past. This time I am adding several of the unchained rules in order to create what I think is a more balanced system that focuses heavily on skills. One of the variants that I have fallen in love with is the Automatic Bonus Progression rules where many bonuses normally gained from items are already built into character progression.

I have been playing around making characters in herolab trying to test the limits of these variant rules in order to see how powerful characters can become. I noticed when making an ogre mage hero lab applied the automatic bonus progression to the racial hit dice. I thought maybe this was ok since the creature is an intelligent being. I then loaded up a T-Rex to see if herolab applied the automatic bonus progression to its racial hit dice...and it did.

My question: Is automatic bonus progression meant to be applied to racial hit dice or just to character levels? I can understand the ogre mage getting it but it seems strange that the T-Rex develop a deflection bonus or mental prowess. I would think automatic bonus progression would only apply to beings with above animal intelligence...


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So the first session as a wereshark went well. To be honest we have a fighter in the group that is built extremely well and is devastating sailors left and right. My character really doesn't look OP anymore after that fighter tears through a ship. In fact, the group as a whole is so combat capable that I am now optimizing my character's profession sailor skill in order to dominate in ship combat. Rocking a +20 to sailor checks and we just hit level 5.

Also the gamemaster seems to have a quest in mind so that my character can further develop and control his wereshark abilities, allowing me to eventually pay a level in order to count as a natural lycanthrope. Very excited about this!


Kalindlara wrote:

What class are you? This will make a significant difference, especially if the class is heavier on armor usage. I have a werewolf cleric/holy vindicator in my Carrion Crown campaign, and it's definitely affected power level.

If your GM ends up finding it problematic, I'd recommend swapping the template for the lycanthrope corruption from Horror Adventures; this keeps the theme without necessarily breaking the game.

Well the character is an inquisitor, so not heavy on the armor usage. Still he is dex based and with studded leather he is rocking a 24 AC at 4th level. I was going to make him an archer but since I really wanted to do the grappling thing with a werecreature I might look into making him a dex-based grappler with archery on the side. The 5 DR/silver in really nice too. Many swarms I assume will be encountered in jungle environments will no longer be an issue, and it leaves me able to run a different judgement for offense or defense. Was thinking of running shield other with the healing judgement to act as a hit point sponge for our ranger who has a terrible AC but does a ton of damage.

The weresharks also have of course a swim speed and waterbreathing. They also get blindsense which I am assuming is from a sharks ability to detect electromagnetic fields. Weresharks really got the love in pathfinder.


I had made another thread asking for advice on making a natural werecroc grappler to replace my current character in our skull and shackles game. To my surprise our group was attacked by a wereshark near the end of book one. My current character was bitten 3 times by the wereshark while saving our ranger from the 3 sharks the wereshark had recruited.

The character failed 1 of the 3 saving throws for the curse since he was bit 3 times. Having plenty of time to realize what was likely to happen the next full moon, the character jumped from the ship to avoid killing anyone the night of the full moon. Luckily the DC 20 saving throw was made that allows for remembering the actions taken during the previous night, and allows the character to attempt the CON check to shift forms.

At first I didn't like the idea of a wereshark until I found a freeking awesome miniature of a hammerhead wereshark pirate. I love miniatures and if I find one that fits my character it really enhances the game for me, so now I am really wanting to make this character work.

My character was already chaotic evil. He is a traumatized ex-slave who doesn't mind taking extreme sadistic actions against slavers or anyone he feels might have some Chelish ancestry. He specializes in infiltrating slave ships in order to take them over. Its less about freeing slaves and more about justifying hurting people badly at this point. Man, now that I think about it the wereshark goes perfectly as they tend to be domineering bullies. I am loving the character even more, can't wait till Friday!

So, a few questions for those with previous experience. How hard is it integrating a wereshark into the game? Are chaotic evil pirates a major disruption to skull and shackles? Also, did anyone have balance issues with the massive +6 bonus weresharks get to natural armor? Even if you take a level hit that armor bonus is amazing. This has started to worry my gamemaster a bit as he now seems to slightly regret increasing the level of that wereshark that attacked us, giving it time to infect the character. I have not really been able to let loose with the character in combat yet, but the GM has seen the numbers and they are a little scary, especially at the low levels.

Man if this character dies I will have an awesome villain to throw at my players in my Hellknight game!


Ok to fulfill the lawful aspect without necessarily being associated with Cheliax maybe he comes from a crime/privateer family. The fighting style is sort of a family skill which is taught to the natural werecrocs born to the family. His family are mobsters of the waterways.

The family takes contracts on destroying ships, be they merchant or military, even turning mooks into infected werecrocs to use as shock troops. Sinking ships doesn't bother them as in many cases they can dive to retrieve sunken treasures.

I like where this is going. Thanks for the input Avr : )


The Sir Francis Drake idea is good, I had already bought a rank of craft mapmaking as I want this character to document any islands or landmarks he discovers and Drake was an explorer as well.

However, my big fear is having been or being a privateer for Cheliax. What other countries would be interested in disrupting trade?


I don't mind delaying the firearms as we have someone playing some sort of gun mage, and a ranger. Ya could do without the body shield, but that is a freeking awesome ability as well, never seen it used at the table before. Actually I really don't see too much grappling unless it is a monster grabbing a player character, this character might be a nice change.

Also that crocadile has a once per minute sprint ability. That with monk movement would allow him to close in quickly on a foe at range.

Still struggling with some details of this character. Since he has to be lawful the only kind of lawful I could imagine being involved with a bunch of chaotic neutrals committing acts of piracy would be a lawful evil, and there would still be challenges from the lawful portion of the alignment.

Know of any good examples of lawfulevilish pirates?


I am doing a Natural Werecroc, so there will be a level hit. When the party hits level 2 I will still be level 1.

And I agree, with so much natural grappling I might see if I can afford to grab firearms to go with the pirate theme.

By the way I had no clue about the Kraken Style feats, just looked them up and they go brilliantly with my theme!


So we are starting a Skull and Shackles adventure. The gamemaster is fairly cool with allowing powerful races so I am thinking about rolling up a LE tetori grappler werecroc (human). The idea of combing the skills of a MMA fighter with the ability to do a death roll looks very cool in my mind.

Has anyone ever built something like this that could give some build advice?

Also where in Golarion would someone like this come from? I am thinking about having him worship Urgathoa due to his rather exotic eating habits.

Also my group loves using cool miniatures. I need a cool werecroc miniature!


So do demons and followers/spawn of Rovagug get along or are demons philosophically opposed to the beast? I guess I am just used to chaotic evil beings being associated with the abyss, but in Rovagug's case it seems the beast is probably interested in destroying the abyss as well as the rest of reality, while the abyss is simply interested in spreading into and corrupting the multiverse.

Anyone have any insight concerning how well a Rovagug worshiper and a demon lord worshiper would get along?


Oh wow, just saw the errata...thank GOD for this! This is a step in the right direction! Now just fix firearms, summoners, and give fighters 2 extra skill points and perception and this game will be balanced!


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Thank you so much for the info gamer! I ordered some wood molds from hirst arts so hopefully I will get this thing done before the showdown with the Jade Regent.


Well I suppose if the floors are wood we can reasonable assume darkwood at the least. I did a slight amount of research into Japanese castles and it does look like wooden floors, thought there were stone walls.


Well I am about to begin running book 6 of Jade Regent and I am wanting to make a 2.5-3d replica of the jade throne room in the Imperial Palace. The walls look like stone. Are the floors wood? I am about to buy some more molds from hirst arts and any insight into what the floors are made of would be useful : )


Just ordered a full color copy!!! Would also like to see herolab support for this : )


Well I have been reading this thread for a while and I am finally inspired. I was considering making an oracle to represent my blind swordsman, but is it like ravingdork said, if you are gonna be blind then be blind.

So, in the upcoming Wrath of the Righteous game I am making a blind ranger. She has the exposed to awfulness trait.

When Tabea was young she caught a glimpse of a bodak who had recently turned and was rampaging through the town creating more bodaks. A local paladin managed to kill the bodak, but it was too late for Tabea. The bodak's gaze should have killed her but she seemed to be fighting it. The paladin decided to remove the child's eys, as he figured the transformation into a bodak is linked to the eyes. The paladin's gamble paid off. The transformation immediately ended and Tabea felt much better only a week after the ordeal. Unfortunately, all attempts to restore Tabea's vision have failed. Such is the corrupting and destructive power of the abyss that some of the harm it causes can never be healed...

I will be stating Tabea as a ranger with the skirmisher archetype. She is a half-orc, so she will be eligible to pick up scent on top of getting the blind-fight feats. Eventually she will have a seeing eye dog....er..wolf that is : ) The first 4 levels will be tough but I think this will be a rewarding character to play.

Again great thread!


So let me start with a rant. I am one of this people who got really upset when the summoner came out. It seems that the summoner class can do the job of the martial classes and more. I have actually banned the class in my games. When I play in games where someone plays a summoner, I generally build my class to support the summoner's pet/pets because other classes just don't have as much to offer as that darn summoner. And I figure if you can't beat em, join em. No point in complaining to the summoner's player about how broken the class is, it just ruins his fun too.

With that said, it is not just the summoner that has issues. Many of the magic using classes can outclass the martial classes. I hate banning classes. I don't want to ban the summoner. It looks like a really fun class, despite the power.

I am wondering what kind of solutions other DMs have come up with to bring a little balance without harming fun, banning classes, or outright changing rules. In my games I use a high point buy for stats, higher than average hit points, and the high wealth option, as all these changes seem to play into the hands of the martial classes.

Has anyone else come up with or used similar tweaks?

Chris


The title says it. If you enchant the musket, axe does it affect both the axe and the gun part? If you take weapon focus musket, axe does it count for both uses of the weapon?

The answer to this question either makes the weapon almost broken or not really that good.


So I am putting together a gnomish oracle of battle for a Carrion Crown game. I really want to simulate a gnomish fighting style with my weapon and feat selection. Improved dirty trick comes to mind, as I can imagine small characters such as halflings and gnomes resorting to such tactics against bigger folk. Pulling pants down and punching people in the groin is what being a small person is all about, right? However, I want Gorum to be his source of diving power. By the fluff I am not sure if Gorum would agree with such tactics. Part of me says that it is ok as long as it is not poison, disease, or ambush. The other part of me says that pantsing somebody could be seen as dishonorable in the eyes of a war god.

Anyone have any insight on this one?


Oh thanks for the link, I can handle formatting em. Thanks so much!


I am looking for paper miniatures of the iconic characters in the core rulebook. Does any such product exist? Where can I get it?


I understand the OP's frustration with high strength at level one, but lots of things are wonky at level one, and level one can be dangerous. At level one if you catch a crit from a x3 or x4 weapon you are likely to die on the spot. So 4 or 5 level 1 orc warriors with greataxes are still a big deal.

Also, after lots of playing and gming for several different types of characters, I have come to the conclusion that a high stat array helps balance the game slightly. You see at the mid and later levels casters really attain alot of power, and they really only need one good stat. Martial characters need more good stats to round their character out. Especially when it comes to monks. Monks are terrible in a low point buy game, and benefit most from a high point buy.

And from a realism perspective (I know I know its fantasy!), people wearing armor all day and swinging heavy weapons are gonna be some tough folk. I am reading a book called "Convict Conditoning." It gives some history on how bodyweight exercises were used throughout history to create exceptionally strong individuals. Its really not hard to get strong, and I am sure it is much easier when your life depends on it.

So I say don't worry about it, let em be strong. At around 8th level when they start dealing with casters they will need every ounce of that strength to survive!


FireclawDrake wrote:
paranoiasavedthecat wrote:

Problem was the player was automatically succeeding the checks by taking 10. :p

Luck and probability had nothing to do with it. :3

I think +15 to knowledge at first level is your main problem. Best I can see.. 20 int, 1 rank, 3 trained, skill focus, +1 trait. That's the absolute best I can imagine, still comes out to only +13.

So a diviner with the guidance spell preped could barely pull it off, and if I remember right an oracle of lore has some powerful knowledge based abilites. Also, arn't there some pathfinder books you can buy to get a +2 bonus?

Anyways, if you were just stuck with a +13 you only need to roll a 12 if you decided not to take 20. I am making a monk for an upcomming Carrion Crown game. He only has a +6 to his knowledge history check. So ya, I do have to roll a 19 or 20 to get that DC 25, but for getting 1800 exp and solving the game in 5mins its not that bad. Surely someone in my group will have a character with an even better chance, and only one of us has to make that roll. That is an aweful lot of experience and knowledge just from a die roll.

What is really surprising is that flaws like these are not obvious to game designers, even without playtesting. PLNRwLdspe DURDUR!


Gonna have to agree with the OP. I have been running Kingmaker for over a month. It has a good story and some really great ideas but I get the idea it was never playtested. I am having to rewrite many things to make the module playable and make some sort of sense.

I havn't read through Carrion Crown yet but I can tell you that 1st levels PCs can and will make DC25 knowledge checks. But that isn't the real problem from what I can tell. The real problem is that the designers decided that anyone with a rank in history can make a roll to learn details they couldn't possibly know without research. This really screams to me that no playtesting was done, or that a rank in knowledge skills gives characters psychic powers in Carrion Crown.


I too would invest money into token minis (or actual plastic minis!) from the Bestiary 1 and 2. Right now I am sculpting vegepygmies out of polymer clay for an upcoming game I am running :(


So I am about to drop money on something to view PDFs at the gaming table. Debating between the NookColor and the ipad. Which one will serve me better?


Balance is something to strive for (though it will never be perfectly balanced) because heroic classes are not just for player characters. Many villains will be represented by levels in various classes. If I am designing an adventure, I am somewhat limited in choosing villains that will challange a balanced party. A monk villain who is a few levels higher than my balanced party of PCs won't be much of a challange, but a cleric or wizard villain of the same level might just cause more than one character death.

This problem becomes worse in "unbalanced" parties. A party consisting of a ranger, fighter, barbarian, and rogue might not do so well against a lich, where party consisting of a druid, cleric, wizard, and paladin will give the lich a very hard time.

Balance is not just important so that the players feel good about their characters, it is also important so that the gm can craft stories and villains and not have to worry too much about what classes the PC's party is composed of, as long as the challange ratings are appropriate.

Pathfinder has come a long way in balancig the classes without making them the same, but their are still problems (looking at rogues and monks).


scritch wrote:
Aftershock567 wrote:
Besides the D&D, Reaper Legends, and Mage Knight minis, are there any other pre-painted plastic minis on the market? I have been looking for mounted units...
Rackham's Confrontation line is prepainted plastics, with some really nice miniatures. A little more expensive, but they do have mounted units available.

I took a look at the Rackham minis, they look really cool! How is the scale of the Rackham minis? Do they run big like the mageknight stuff or are they fairly close to the D&D minis?


Besides the D&D, Reaper Legends, and Mage Knight minis, are there any other pre-painted plastic minis on the market? I have been looking for mounted units...


Do druid animal companions not receive racial bonuses to skills that normal animals of its type normally receive. For example, a deinonychus gets a +12 bonus on jump checks (in addition to its normal acrobatics check of +10 for a total of +22), but under the animal companion listing this bonus is not listed. Did I miss a rule somewhere that grants animal companions the normal skill bonuses of animals of its type, or were these left out for game balance reasons?