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Hello! I'm starting up Seasons of Ghosts soon with a group, and I was hoping to get some insight and advice on how to manage my party through the game. While I'm fairly savvy on stuff like helping my players build characters, running combat encounters, exploration, I'm a bit more unsure on how to manage downtime over the course of the game, so I was hoping more downtime savvy GMs could clarify some of my pondering. I did google around and eyeball rules beforehand, but forgive me if misread or missed anything!

Firstly, from what I've read, Downtime is meant to be day long activities. But I feel like my players would be quick to point out that, even in a fantasy world, spending more than 8 or 10 hours of hardwork would be odd, leaving them with a third or less of a day to spend other stuff, like hanging out with NPCs, gathering rumors and intel, or stuff like minor adventuring (like 'Opportunities' that only day a few hours to accomplish)- Should I be particularly strict, and demand players who engage in stuff like earn income and crafting effectively be uninvolved from anything else going on in town? Or is it okay to be lighten up and be flexible and let them accomplish a bit more within reason?

In terms of Hexploration, the default rules suggest that each Hex is roughly a 12 miles zone- But Seasons of Ghosts region map emphasizes each Hex is about two miles. Later on, when mapping out a certain ghostly obstacle, the book suggests that players can spend four hours to map out a hex of the ghost wall, rather than 'travel actions' (which usually translates to days worth of efforts unless the party is consistently moving at high speeds.) So I'm going to assume SoG is using a smaller scape variant of the Hex Map system. If so, and if a party should normally be able to hit 12 miles worth of hex-based travel, I should let my party cover roughly 6 hexes worth of travel a day? (Not counting difficult terrain or events that may slow things down.)

Likewise, since there's a Stable in town, should I let the party get horses if they'd like? Is there any sort of terrain that I should suggest them to be ineffective, like horses navigating mountainous terrain? And if they use horses, should I follow with the guide direction, and effectively double the distance they can cover to 24 miles of distance, since horses would have a consistent speed of 40 ft? (2 travels action?) (i.e. 12 Hexes worth not count difficult terrain.)

In terms of Influencing Granny Hu and Old Matsuki, the book suggests that with Chapter 3 I should let the party attempt to begin influencing them. I've got a pretty good handle on the Influence Subsystem and I think it works well for this AP. But, I'm a little unsure of the logistics. I'm guessing it'd be better not to go "Hey, if you guys want to, you can start building influence with this too", but instead I should do something like, both of them inviting the party for some of private gathering at their abodes the first time, and organically let them explore it?

The book describes influence rounds with the two as taking an hour- Should I let the party spend multiple hours if they choose to with the Elders, or is intended that the interactions are only an hour before the party has to leave? If the former, how many hours should I reasonably let them take up of the Elders time? And how often should I let them engage in meetings with the two? Once a day? Once a week? Clearly, if the party is interested in building a relationship, they should be able to invest time in it, I'm just wondering how much I should put the brakes on in case they try speed running the influencing of them. One thought I had was whether Faction reputation should factor in, with one soft capping or influencing the other. I'm guessing they're meant to be untied, though it would be funny to say, be hated by Granny Hu's faction but super trusted by her xD

Finally, at a late point, in the book, Hu and Matsuki are supposed to butt heads and initiate a duel between their factions to decide who becomes leader. The book implies both are supposed to have champions fight for them, with inserting yourself as one an option. But it doesn't meant whom the NPC champions could be- Is the duel SUPPOSED to be a fight between Hu and Matsuki, hence their stat blocks and influence connecting to combat in some cases, or would it make more sense to dig around for high level character of the faction who isn't an Elder? Or is just meant to be open-ended so that two PCs could technically both be champions in the duel, in case the party themselves is split on which faction to favor? I'm GUESSING you're just supposed to fight the faction Elder by default in the duel if you can't diplomacy through it, but I figure second opinions are always helpful.

Once more, thanks for any input and apologies if mine blind eyes failed to find relative text guidance in the book or online! If this topic is in the wrong location or should be better titled, please let me know, I don't often post on the forums.

I wasn't sure if this was the appropriate place for this question, so if this need be moved, by my guest- I just figured general discussion seemed a good area for flavor questions.

Specifically, I've recently come at odds with a friend over the meaning of wisdom, and whether it can be applied to chaotic characters in specific ways. He's a very law minded individual, which he recognizes, and has a hard time accepting chaotic characters offering valid philosophies and forms of wisdom that don't necessarily lend themselves to building, order, and structure.

I wanted to see if the community could aid me in providing examples of wise chaotic minded characters, preferably including a mix of good, neutral, and evil, that I could offer to him as suitable examples of both a chaotic orientation and qualify in the conventional sense as wise, whether they're canon pathfinder characters, or from any other fiction. Anyone got some good solid examples for me~?

I'm having somewhat of a disagreement with my GM onto the nature of how Frost Fall works, and when the secondary damage occurs. At level 4, I'm under the impression that the area of cold damage that triggers should last two rounds- That is, I cast it, at the start of my next two turns, it does the secondary damage twice before vanishing. My GM believes it should only occur once. It says at the start of my turn- That's also normally when I was under the impression spells with a duration of rounds end. But does the spell's effect happens first, then vanishes, or does the spell end without the secondary damage occuring?

I moved to the Eagan area about a year ago after having played quite a bit of pathfinder in college, and I haven't had alot of success at finding like-minded players since I've moved here. Due to the fact that I lack a vehicle and Bus routes tend to be a little convoluted for my tastes, not to mention slow, I've been musing for a long time of starting a group that could meet in my local area, as I seem to be in somewhat of a nerd deadzone, as all hobby stores seem to be just a might bit too far for me to regularly attend. As such, after a year of lonelyness, I've decided to get over some of my shyness and see if I can find some like minded individuals who might be interested in a group.

As most of my other games I've just sort of stumbled upon, I'm not sure exactly how I should go about this, but I figured the pathfinder forums would be an excellent place to start.

To say a little about myself, I've had an interest in table top games for about ten years, starting with a passive interest to a full blown obsession, to the point that I theorycraft for hours for fun. Some of my personal interests include history, philosophy, RPG games, anime, Star Wars, and pretty much anything that could be remotely be considered nerdy. In terms of what interests me in Pathfinder, to me, its about the story, the telling of interesting personalities making their mark in a fantastic world.

In terms of how I act as a player, I'd consider myself a benign Rule Lawyer, whose goal is to inform people about the rules, as opposed to abuse or frustrate people with them. I make characters based on a concept, and then see about using mechanics to fulfill the concept the best I can. In terms of a GM, I've been told that I'm one of the most fair and reasonable DMs by a guy who has alot more experience than me. My goal is to challenge and immerse my players as a DM, and that generally works best when we don't hate each others guts~!

Now, for what I'm looking for? Well, while flexible, what I'm envisioning is basically a Saturday noon weekly game, one that I'd imagine I'd DM but not required. Generally my preferred group size counting the DM would be 6. I'd be more inclined both to play and DM adventure paths, as they tend to be more fascinating and fun. The kicker being that, since I have next to no transportation, ideally I'd host it at my place. Thankfully, my pads pretty big, and more than suitable for such purposes. I'm not completely sure when I'd want to get this going, but I suppose that hinges on me getting actually interest.

So yeah. I realize this is a bit wishy-washy and vague. I'm not accustomed to putting myself out there (I'm too paranoid to even want a facebook account for example!) The thought of inviting random people I've never met before to play Pathfinder at my house is one that makes me slightly apprehensive. But! I shan't let that stop me. Sooo. Yeah. If uhh, anyone has any interest, feel free to post or message me privately.

Hello~ Recently with the release of the Heroes of the Street book, came what I think is my favorite cavalier archetype yet- An officer of the law type keeper of the peace that forsakes the mount to gain an plethora of cool abilities, with a focus on combat maneuvers. I quickly realized that Order of the Hammer would blend splendidly for this Cavalier's Order, with the abilities interacting well. Bonuses to combat maneuvers, easy access to grapples and sunders, the ability to neutralize enemies with nonlethal force.

However, when it comes to a specific build beyond level one, I'm really quite scratching my head. For one, while all of this is great for humanoid type enemies that are harmed by nonlethal or maneuvers, I know I need fall back methods in order to harm larger, more obtuse or non-living enemies. Even if I were guaranteed a high number of humanoid foes, there's ALOT of feat choices, with teamwork feats possibly mattering even more with the awesome Constable ability to plan before a fight, and I was wondering if anyone had any insight? I'm looking for more of a general build, as opposed to best "insert" ever.

Hello~ I was hoping to gleam some insight from the forums on what kind of fun can be had with the reaper of secrets archetype, a recent inquisitor archetype whose primary feature of note is the ability to utilize enemies as allies for the purpose of flanking and teamwork feats. Now, an almost automatic decision anyone should make with this archetype should be to take sanctified slayer as well, to replace judgement with sneak attack, a far more useful ability when you can use enemies for flanking. But, beyond that, I was curious if there were any particular interesting uses for the Mind Games Tactics abilities.

I've been playing around with some of the material I've read popping up on from Heroes of the Street, and the coin shot spell in particular is catching my eye. While its a bit pricey with early levels, its a spell that scales well in terms of damage, especially once you can reliably hold platinum coins, and lasts for a good duration. As far as I can tell, you can even stock up on the coins, casting the spell say three times before a fight so you've plenty of ammunition.

My question is this- Are the coins are a valid option for the Cartomancer or Eldrtich archer's spellstrikes? I ask because the thought of playing a gambler type character who uses coins and cards makes for awesome flavor. It seems really strong, being able to fire touch AC projectiles that can spellstrike, so I thought I'd ask to confirm it works.

My reasoning is that it explicitly refers to them as simple thrown weapons, with their own damage (Albeit varying) and weapon qualities, that they'd be a perfectly valid option for spellstriking and spellcombat when applicable. I realize that the Cartomancer has a still murky Spellcombat question that I don't THINK has been addressed specifically by any Developers, though I welcome links to prove me wrong.

I'm asking this specifically so I can back up my usage of it this way in a game before doing so in actuality.

Also, now that I think about it, I suppose their damage wouldn't necessary change if the caster was a small race? Maybe.

I've a concern towards the resonant power of the Occultist. Specifically,

"Casting Focus (Su)

The implement empowers the bearer's ties to the worlds beyond, allowing his spells to maintain their power for a longer period of time. The bearer can add the implement as an additional focus component to any conjuration spell he casts that has a duration measured in rounds per level. If he does so, he adds 1 to his caster level for every 2 points of mental focus stored in the implement (to a maximum bonus equal to your occultist level). This increase applies only when determining the duration of the spell. Apply this increase after other effects that adjust a spell's duration, such as Extend Spell.

Base Focus Power: All occultists who learn to use conjuration implements gain the following focus power."

Here's my beef. The Occultist doesn't get any round per level spells it seems like in the conjuration school worth noting, at least from the quick skimming of the early level spells. He doesn't even get summon nature or monster spells at any of the levels which seems peculiar, given they literately give him a minute summon at level one as a focus power. So, is this intentional, to make the conjuration resonant so specifically useless? If I'm missing something or if they're a particular spell that this is meant for, please, let me know~

Are you technically Undead now? Given that you're a spirit (Ghost, more or less, though phantasms are consider outsiders, so you might count as one instead), inhabiting your own recently murdered body?

First and foremost- Can a Skald select Rage Powers from the Unchained Barbarian?

Second,

"When starting an inspired rage, the skald chooses which rage powers (if any) to add to the song, and all affected allies gain the benefit of these rage powers, using the skald's level as their effective barbarian level."

If I took the Superstitious and Witch Hunter Rage Powers, could I apply the Witch Hunter rage power to my song without applying superstitious? For obvious reasons.

Hello! I wasn't sure where I should even post this question. I was debating between here and general dicussion area. So, basically, I recently moved from living on a couch to living in my own place with tons of room and an excellent area for table top gaming. Problem is, I don't really know anyone in the area, and every game store is six or more miles away. As I lack a vehicle and none of the buses go remotely close to any of them, I can't go to my usual location for finding similarly minded nerds. That said, I'm SURE there are Pathfinder players about in my area, so I figured an online ad might be a good way to go.

That said, I'm not sure where I'd wanna put that kinda topic. So I was wondering if anyone here had any experience seeking players for RL games, and if the paizo forums had a good area for that, or if there was another site excellent for it.

I swear to god, I had this idea before seeing that there was a guy asking for Undead Puns. Perhaps some of the same crowd of geniuses wouldn't mind sharing some of their mirth to me!

I'm intending to play a Winter Witch character for a campaign soon who I'm thinking I'd like to play as a little quirky. He's a tiefling from Irrisen who became a Barrister with his witchcraft skills. I intend to play him with an eastern euro accent (Of questionable quality), and I thought that having him give ice puns whenever he casts spells or uses his magic would be a great way of showing some personality and contrasting some of his more sober and gray personality.

Anyone care to offer me some ammunition to agonize my party and enemies with? :D Ice, Snow, Cold, frost, etc...

Okay. Bear with me. The Winter Witch archetype of Witch provides the following Hex as an option.

"Frozen Caress (Su) Whenever the winter witch casts a touch spell, she can infuse the magic with cold as a swift action. This grants the spell the cold descriptor, and adds 1d4 points of cold damage to the spell’s effect. If the touch spell allows a saving throw, a successful save negates this additional cold damage."

Witch Familiars have a special version of the Deliver Touch Spells feature, where they can both deliver touch spells by assuming the charge, as well as Deliver Hex's (And the Hex's, unlike the spells, don't require them to be near the witch to provide the effect.)

"If a witch is 3rd level or higher, her familiar can deliver touch spells or hexes for her. If the witch and the familiar are in contact at the time the witch casts a touch spell, she can designate her familiar as the “toucher.” The familiar can then deliver the touch spell just as the witch would. As usual, if the witch casts another spell before the touch is delivered, the touch spell dissipates. If the witch activates a hex, her familiar can be used to make the touch. She does not have to be in contact with the familiar to use this ability."

Here is my question. With a Touch Spell with multiple charges or touches (Whatever phrasing applies) such as Chill Touch, how would it interact if it were being delivered by a familiar after the witch uses frozen caress when casting it? I can imagine three avenues.

Firstly, if a Witch casts Chill Touch and uses a swift action to enhance the spell via Frozen Caress, whenever the familiar delivers the touch, the spell gains the benefits of Frozen Caress

Secondary, the Witch must utilize a swift action each time the familiar delivers the touch to gain the benefits (Which, I don't think DMs would have an issue with, due to hexes being useable at range via familiars.)

Or third, it only applies to the first touch.

As its worded, it seems like the first, as frozen caress doesn't say that the ability stops working after the first round. If the Witch maintained the Touch spell charge after being enhanced with a swift action after one round, it shouldn't be any less potent or require a second swift action, so it doesn't seem like the ability would stop working for multiple touches either. Each touch should be a part of the same spells effect, so each touch should technically gain the +1d4 and be cold, no?

The second example actually doesn't seem like it should work to me according to the phrasing of Deliver Touch or the actual Hex, but could seem some DMs ruling for non PFS games so as to balance it in some way.

The third one doesn't seem likely to me, but would be the worst case scenario.

Firstly, I have scoured the forums already for a proper answer to this question, and I haven't found it yet, so I wanted to place it here. The usual questions tend towards "Do it get a bonus to give to its master" and "Does a Witch lose its spells", and "Does a Celestial fox give its bonus to its master!"

And. I'm satisfied on that front.

But, I'm having trouble discerning on whether or not an Improved Familiar would be granted the bonuses of a traditional familiar, such as Shared Spells, Deliver Touch spells, improved natural armor, raised intelligence, and using its masters base scores when better than the familiars. (i.e. Base attack bonus, saves, skill ranks, etc...), half their hit points.

Or whether they just use the base monsters abilities. Period.

I've been reading over some of the online topics, and I noticed that some people aren't in love with chapters 4 and 5. I've heard two could use some logic fixes, and three might need to be more cohesive (Both challenges I'll happily mend as I go), but I heard that book 4 is just a rail-roaded quest chain for the shoanti, and that 5 is just eldritch horror after horror?

I've only just completed book 1 with my group, albeit quickly, and getting started on two, but I'm wondering ahead of time if there are any adaptions I can make to better manage those books. I'm open to smaller changes to more drastic ones, such as perhaps combining the important parts of book 4 and 5, and then perhaps having the 'new' 5 be focused on a more drawn out rebellion. Buuut, as I've yet to read them in detail yet, I'm just fishing for some preliminary advice.

I've been thinking of how I run my games of late, and I've been wanting to encourage builds beyond people playing single focused characters, or at least changing up the usual builds beyond Two-handers and Archers in terms of martial combat. And one of the builds that has a lot of fun and flair is throwing builds, be it hulking boulders or tons of daggers. But generally, its just considered weaker than a typical archer. Heck, even Crossbows might be superior for all I know. So, I've been trying to think of a House Rule to make Throwing weapons more viable as a combat option, without completely altering the game.

How can I implement a few decent changes not only to enable people wanting to build around Throwing, while also making it a more viable combat option as a back up to more melee characters? I'm aware there are archetypes, but I'm trying to focus on either combat rule edits or new feats/feat changes.

For those of you unaware of what the Fate/Stay Night Universe is, you probably won't care or will be unhelpful towards aiding me in this thread, but you're welcome to discover it and/or read the topic all the same! Random comments are alright too, though preferably helpful ones!

But, to get to the substance. Hello friends. I've been mulling this one over for a long time now, more than a year, and have been wanting to create a custom campaign inspired by the Visual Novel/Anime/Video Games that the Fate Universe, which is a part of the larger Nasuverse, and use the mechanics, ideas, and maybe characters of this mythologically inspired fiction and insert them into Pathfinder, which similarily is inspired by real world countries, myths, folklore, and legends. Seem to me the two would make a great marriage, eh?

Now, before anyone suggests to me that another system, such as the FATE game system or another might work better, I love pathfinder, and I'm using Pathfinder rules. In fact, after paying great attention to the Mythic rules, I believe that having Servant be Mythic characters is perhaps the best way to produce the awesome epic level prestige that is a Servant, without tearing asunder the space-time-continuum. Generally, I prefer to work within the rules or adapt existing concepts to my ends then build something COMPLETELY from scratch. I feel both cleverer and more organized when doing so. The fact that the Mythic system has six different paths that work for a variety of classes, many awesome, cheatish abilities that make sense for servants, and even have rules for Legendary Weapons (Hello Noble Phantasms~) makes me quite in love with them, even if I'm personally reluctant to ever dive into the madness that is Wrath of the Righteous.

Anyway, what I'm wanting to do specific is incorporate the Holy Grail War system of the Fate Universe and fit it into Golarion in a flavor satisfying way. Rather than changing Golarion to fit Fate necessarily, I wanna do vice versa. And this for me has proven surprisingly easy. Ancient artifacts capable of doing things on the level as the Fuyuki Holy Grail is fairly feasible, and I was actually thinking of convering the Holy Grail to a chalice made of part of the Starstone, and infused with the legacy left behind by the Fallen God Aroden. Any meteor capable of turning people into literal Gods must be capable of bringing back heroic badasses that are less than gods back from the grave in a pseudo spirit form, right? This parts open to change, as the object need not even be a cup or small, but I figured it'd be a way both to pay homage to the actual Holy Grail and pay respect to pathfinder's Fallen God of humanity.

In the terms of the Servants themselves, I haven't quite figured out how exactly I want their relationship to the ritual or artifact to be established, whether I want them all to have a Saber-esque relationship, willing lending their soul to their artifact when at Pharasma's gate so as to obtain a chance to accomplish some regret in their previous life, or to make them all forced into it, shoved into the role of a servant reluctantly like a still living tuna into a small tin can. I definitely don't wanna make the artifact itself evil like the Fuyuki Holy Grail becomes, but more of a neutral force. I'm not even sure if I want it to grant wishes, or for the Grail war to be a multiple contestant test of the star-stone. I'll probably put alot of early mystery into it, as I plan for the party members to stumble into it accidentally or without much planning or idea of what they're getting into.

But, I do know that I wanna go with 'Real' world heroes rather than using Golarion's own rich ones or making them up on the spot. Why? Well, partially its because I don't know seven heroes of different lands of Pathfinder that I would happen to like and all fit into the seven different classes. But also, because I like the mythological references of Fate, taking the original legends and spicing them up or twisting their flavor. As such, much like Golarion itself is heavily based on real world cultures, what I want to do is use unused (Or lightly used) Heroic figures of our world and place them within Golarion. I feel that using actual earth heroes will also make them more 'Real' and fearsome to my party of players, who often don't read as much as me into the Golarion universe. But Hercules? Even high school drop outs know about hercules for example. Creativity Liberty is the name of the game!

An example? Well, for example, if I wanted Siegfried as my Saber Class servant for my war, I'd want to place him most likely in the Land of the Linnorm Kings, a very much norse inspired region, and also fitting perfectly thematically with Siegfried who he himself was a dragon slayer who gained a form of immortality upon killing the great dragon Fafnir. But, I'd take it a step forward from their by altering his legend so as to make him have an impact on Golarion. Specifically? Easy. Siegfried was the FIRST Linnorm King in Golarion, the first of the Ulfen to slay a Linnorm, thus establishing the tradition, which, makes sense, given he's probably the real world inspiration for the idea in the first place! But, as you can see, its not hard to fit Earth world heroes into Golarion, which is why I aim to do that, while avoiding some of the more obvious or overused ones. (i.e. Arturia Saber)

So, clearly I've alot of ideas here right? I've very much got an idea of how I wanna go about it. But there's alot of rough edges and stuff I'm still mulling over or wanting to muse. And since I'm not a Golarion expert quite yet, there might be lands of cultures or figures within Golarion I know little about but much do much to add to my campaign. Oh, and for context, I will be starting it out in Taldor (Because, coooome oooon England is where the Holy Grail SHOULD start), but open to it spanning across the whole world. While I feel mythic rules goes leagues towards making Servants feel authentic to Golarion, I'm not sure on how else I should mechanically work them out. For example, Mana. I don't want to force every master to be a Mage for example, and even if I did, how would I represent mana? Pathfinder Magic is less point based and more spell slot based, and given that servants are mythic as is, I'm not sure I wanna have to force the master to give up their own abilities in combat. I do want to limit Servant functionality to some degree, at the very least to keep them from going all out all the time. Mythic Points are good for this, but I'm not sure if I should expand upon it or not.

Other stuff I'm mulling? Servants to a degree, although I've a good idea of the ones I'm leaning towards at the moment. I wanted to avoid ones already used in an adaption of Fate, but found Siegfried and Vlad the Impaler from the apocrypha novel too awesome not to use, especially since they won't be recognized by my party. And trust me, god KNOWS it was hard not to use original Fate Archer, though its becoming difficult. I swear, Archer and Assassin are the hardest to imagine heroes for, the former due to most archers not having much in ideas beyond shooting an arrow, the latter because assassins inherently tend to be subtle. (And yes, I am disregarding the "Only original assassins qualify" rule.) Input or ideas on how to incorporate nasuverse style play or themes also welcomed. I don't know when if ever I'm going to do this, but when I do, it SHALL be epic~

P.S. I thought Homebrew would make more sense for this than conversation, due to the fact that I'm not so much converting a single thing or even many things, as much as I'm taking a whole system, shoving it into Pathfinder, and then looking to make my OWN original story with it. (Which I'm not going into detail this moment, mwahahaahhaa.)

I've played and DMed a decent amount, I've noticed that characters pump strength and grab a two-hand weapon seem to have minimum issues in games, or at least few in comparison to other characters. They start out with massive dps and great hit chance, they can generally one hit most things before they have a chance to fight back, and generally they make everyone else pale in comparison. And this is before you add in class features or power attack.

And while I realize that late game other classes have more options and can do many things a two-hand fighter can never hope to achieve, it does seem to me that strength-based melee characters never seem to struggle much, short of explicitly designed encounters meant to disable or put range between their opponents. A single melee attack will tend to exceed or equal spells until mid game- And by then, they've plenty of ways to gain additional attacks or tricks.

Barbarians in particular scare me, when they go 20 strength without raging and crush everything in literately one go.

Now, I haven't had as much experience with late game, but I was wondering if anyone else felt that Pathfinder enabled early game strength builds a tad too much, and that bumping strength above all else should have more apparent early game drawbacks, beyond just outside of combat.

And no, I don't feel that the Swashbuckler class really fixes this, as a Strength Swashbuckler is completely viable, and maybe even better than dex swashbucklers. Thoughts? Am I overestimating the strength stat? Underestimating other classes late game potential?

Hello Paizo community, who I can only hope can bat away enough of them annoying regenerating trolls long enough to aid me in producing an epic adventure!

I'm a decently experienced DM whos run a few adventure paths and has a good overall sense of the game's mechanics and generally regularly throws in his own elements into adventure paths, his own NPCs, and acknowledges that as much as he loves paizo products, sometimes you just find inspiration to do something different or better. That said, I do like to retain as much of the core identity and spirit of the AP as possible!

My question is for those who've played or DMed Jade Regent at least a decent bit, how would you go about changing or improving things, particularly early on? This, I know to be a broad question, as there's a myriad of different items on the subject, and opinions can vary. As such, I'll try to give you context on my group and what I'm already pondering.

Firstly, my group consists of at the moment 6 players, generally my maximum. Pushing on the too many without being impossible, it nonetheless divides attention a decent amount, however, I've found myself able to juggle different players well. This, generally, means I have to upscale the enemies somewhat. Any suggestions, be they broad (Such as the 'Add more mooks') to the specific encounters?

I myself am a DM who puts alot of emphasis on RP, and believe that having a character that I enjoy roleplaying is generally more important than combat savvyness, and that's reflected through my DMing. As such, I wanna make the 4 starting npcs, and the caravan as a whole, a major emphasis. To me, it seems it should be their mobile home base, their sanctuary, a source of aid, comfort, and social interactions that the more dungeony sections lack. I've some idea on the characterization of the 4, having DMed Rise of the Runelords, but I was hoping to acquire input on how useful they should be, and how I can tactfully aid/deny PCs their help, especially with 6 players. I was also curious if I should consider buffing them slightly, as it seems extremely easy for PCs to overtake them, which seems like it might diminish their later value and importance.

Additionally, I was hoping to get some input on the Caravan system, which half my players are rather intrigued by and hoping to indulge it, but I've heard translates to be somewhat janky in practice. I was curious if there were any ways to fix or round it out, as I'd like to keep it if possible, to make the journey from Sandport to the Castle eventful, and of course to keep the Caravan a significant element of the adventure path.

Any advice or thoughts would be lovely and appreciated! Except you trolls. Back I say! Back, or fire and acid for you!

Hello all. I'm Mekura, and I was hoping to gauge how much interest I might be able to get for a campaign based on roll20. The reason for my wanting to play a roll20 is that, in my experience, pbps are just too slow! xD

So, I figured, why not try a more live approach. Given summers around the corner, I figure it won't be too hard to gather some people with an open schedule. Now, I still haven't tried out much of roll20, or similar style program/site/chat system, so if anyone has ideas on how to best smooth it over or better sites/programs than Roll20, I'd be open to looking at them.

Anyway! More likely than not, I'll be DMing it, which is fine. I'm a fairly experienced DM and have played with a few different groups now, although certain nuances of Pathfinder might occasionally escape me, and I may do some odd house ruling. However, generally I

-Put emphasis on story and RP
-Like to challenge but not overwhelm players
-Like to go off the rules when possible, but make exceptions for flavor or expediency
-Think Alchemists are disgusting
-Will prefer paizo base material over 3rd party
-Try to be patience and cooperative, but occasionally fail!

Beyond that, feel free to ask. I haven't decided what Adventure Path I wanna go with yet, though I know the ones I probably don't wanna touch (Cough, Wotr, cough) and, assuming this gets going, would love to see how far the party can get before the end of summer! If anyone wants to see a particular AP, feel free to voice. Similarly, I haven't decided a particular "When", but at least for the moment I'm fairly open.

Otherwise? I prefer 4-5 party, smaller tends to be better and easier, I don't care how experienced you are, I don't care if you've played the AP before as long as you don't abuse ooc knowledge, I don't care what alignment you play and don't mind inter-party conflict, as long as you don't go overboard with it. SOO. Yeah. Who's interested?

I know how that can be, oh, somewhat repetitive? And I try and at least put them in the right area. No need for my first post to get site moderators mad at me, right? Heh. So, I'd like to say that I have read, like, two dozens other threads of this variety in order to try and get a sense of things and answer my questions without having to resort to this. However, I nonetheless feel like making a topic is a good way of getting what ya need. Nonetheless, I will continue reading other topics and the general site, so, please, don't slay me for the topic xD

Hello folks. I'm relatively new to Pathfinder as a whole, but really, really, really into it, and have loved every minute of the system. I've really been impressed with what it's done with 3.5 and cleaned up a lot of the excess rules and what-not. I try to play as much as I can, but I've still found my currently weekly amount unsatisfactorily.

So, I came to the conclusion- I could look for more gaming online. And I figured going to the official site would be a good place to start :D I've already noticed a distinct difference in how the Society does things, and it has left me mildly intimidated, hence my cautious approach with this thread. So, I figured I'd start by spelling it what I'm looking for, and see if you guys think the Pathfinder society is a good place to look for it at ^.^

I'm a lazy college student with more time than he should have. I'm a nerd. Heavy nerd, in fact. I'm even the president of my college's table top gaming club (But hey, I'm sure half the people reading this have more prestigious nerd ranking than that!), but I'm still green in the area of RPing somewhat, if enthusiastic. And I was thinking, I'd really enjoy looking for an online campaign. It'd be nice to, say, on the weekends, stay in home away from the Wisconsin icy weather and play Pathfinder. I'm experienced with a variety of forum RPs, but I've never done skype style sessions, although I'm open to them. Given my lack of a car, I'm not looking for an offline group, although in the future I might. I've never done any sort of organized play before, and am used to house rules, although I'm very much adaptable.

I ramble. At any rate, I'd like to find an online group to join, and I'd like to know any essential things I should read or rules I should know...Or, really, in general, what I should do now that I've registered with a number and all that. Thanks for the time of anybody reading this, I hope I haven't posted in the wrong place or elicit too many signs of frustration.

Oh. And I'm reading the faq of course.