Vatras's page

My campaign was written by myself and won't change, no matter what the canon is :)
I stole for the second part the title "Rise of the Drow", but the story is completely different. I had epic levels in mind for this, and wanted to touch on several points in Golarions history, like the Earthfall, the surrounding events and how they reach into the present.
If my players act as expected (...they rarely do...), the drow will be freed from Rovagug's dream, eventually redeeming the remnants of their race.

Anyway, I would not mind seeing something new instead of the nth rehash of old adventure modules. I have really no idea how often WotC created reincarnations of Ravenloft or the Temple of Elemental Evil. They produce practically nothing new, which is a pity, as they once had pretty good adventures.

City of Locusts (6th part of Wrath of the Righteous) is level 18 (plus mythic).
Dungeon of No Return in Adventures Quarterly #2, also level 18.
Dungeonlands: Palace of the Lich Queen.
Gorged on Ruins, 11th part of a path from Zeitgeist Games, is for level 19. Part 12 and 13 are for level 20.
The lower levels of Rappan Athuk, a mega dungeon from Necromancer Games, are high level. My copy of this is a 2" hardcover book, going from level 1 to 20+, so using just the lowest levels is kinda wasteful.

There is not much of this level around, though. Adapting other adventures is not much of a problem, and it allows dipping into 3.4 and d20 modules_
- Hellstone Deep, 19th
- Under the Eye of the Tempest, 18th
- Fane of the Fallen, 13-18
- Adventures in Dungeon #92, 116, 122, 133, 134, 135, 136, 141, 144, 148, 149, 150, 152 (and probably others)
- Well of broken souls, 18th

I don't tell my players the AC of NPCs, unless someone hit it when it becomes obvious.

Telling players beforehand can give away vital information they don't have yet. It allows them to guess who is who (or what role), or if something is not real.
Once players are familiar with your monsters, unexpected AC numbers will tell them different things, too. It is fun for many players to figure out the details.

Entangled = half speed, not immobile

All of them are mind-affecting. Something that defends against that would help. The easy solution used to be Mindblank, but it lost the "immune to mindaffecting" clause.

The power words have also another weakness: they are all single target. They won't take out your group, only one person at a time.
They also have the usual targeting requirements. If you can somehow remain unseen, you cannot be targeted (unless the enemy has special senses). Invisibility, illusions or polymorphing for an underfloor approach can help, as can darkness, fog or other forms of cover.
Then those spells are verbal, and silence will foil the caster. Maybe putting the silence on an object and standing with it next to the caster will shut him down.

Everything else was already said.

So if 1.000 hobgoblins are archers, we are looking at 50 natural 20s per round. A small band against an organized army of 5.000 is ridiculous. I heard roman-greek mentioned - that were the guys with the best tactics and organization around and not a howling mob of dumb barbarians (who got their asses handed to them by the legions).

Sun Tsu said it in his book: there are battles that should not be joined :)

I believe it was a more involved item that was cut from the content (maybe it was too complicated or convoluted?) and left in as solid magic weapon instead.

That comparison was made for the purpose of transparency and interaction with magical effects.

Metamorphosis (minor) and it's big brothers differ from polymorph spells and the rules for them don't apply. If you look at the general rules for polymorph and then at the psionic power, you can see a lot of differences:
- psionics allow you to imitate a specific person, polymorph doesn't
- the power allows you any form of your size, while the spells define what goes (beast shape, alter self, etc.)
- polymorph grants you various effects automatically, the power does not; as it says, all the changes are purely cosmetic, and you get only what you pick from the tables; polymorph would grant you physical stats, natural attacks and some other stuff, but the psionic power requires you to pick that from the table; if you don't pick the natural attacks from table A, you don't have them
- polymorph grants you the movement modes allowed by the spell chosen; the power requires you to pick those from the options and doesn't grant you one
- furthermore, the psionic power grants you named bonuses to the stats, which can be redundant due to buffs or items

So the power allows you more flexibility in shape, but less inbuilt effect. It is in most cases inferior to the spells. But you can get various effects without altering your shape from the power, which you can't with polymorph.
For example, you can change your shape into another human or an elf (or turn your eyes blue), and add the appropriate number of effects to you. Assuming you are a psion 5, you manifest minor metamorphosis and enhance it with 4 PP, bringing it to your limit of 5 PP. The power grants you one effect (=buff) from the two A tables and your enhancing it adds two more for a total of 3 effects. You could give yourself +2 STR, increase your size and the cleave feat, so you end up with +4 STR and reach. If you are are martially minded psionic, this is a nice buff. You could as well get +2 DEX, burrow speed and resist fire 5. This mix-and-match buff is what the power actually does, and compared to other buffs at those levels, they are good.

You can cast it more often using up higher domain slots, or by taking preferred spell for it (or is it perfected spell?).

Cherrypicking RA for additional content of the main AP should work OK. Just decide in advance which parts of the dungeon to cut and remove, so that your players don't throw you a curve ball. Can be tricky, as the dungeon is so cross-connected, with information about it's features strewn about.

I was always going with "if the players have all the parts, raise dead will work". Removing the head or heart was also standard procedure for assassins, pushing magical revival into the realm of the 7th level spells.

The other - and cheaper - option for reviving people with missing parts is to use Raise Dead followed by Regenerate. Won't work with the head missing, but missing limbs are no problem.

Let him put on Dust Form (6th level spell from Ultimate Combat), which grants the incorporeal state, and is probably the best defensive spell he can use by himself. Being 50% immune to everything and crits in general should prolong his life a little.

You mention an allowed books list, but didn't post the list, so I am going to assume that UC is OK here.

Spell Immunity is technically good, but useless as defense against a party, as it covers too little possibilities. But it's main use is to immunize yourself to the harmful spells you plan to stand in. If the priest has a sorcerer minion (maybe with leadership as his trusted sidekick), it's going to be fireball (or whatever) every round, with him and the minion unharmed.

If you consider poaching arcane magic, leave invisibility where it is and go for greater invisibility. Or maybe dust of disappearance...that was a favorite in 1E.

The spell Dastis mentioned is Greater Path of Glory, which grants fast healing 5 to those standing on it. It looks better on paper than in practice, I use it only to heal up the group after a fight now. During battles there is way too much movement for it to be of use.

His best defense is probably granting his minions a good offense. Blessing of fervor, prayer and maybe desecrate ground should work well. If he can work with his wizard using Guards & Wards, they can maybe separate or split the group. Just enough to have 1-2 rounds alone with whoever gets separated. Fog is a terrible barrier, as so few abilities can see through it. And what you cannot see you cannot target...requires some work, as the bad guys have the same problem, but can be very nasty.

The best defense for a cleric are personal guards, who he can buff, which is his best magic. No matter what kind of guard - undead, planar allies, summoned monsters, regular guards, constructs - anything buffable with fighter BAB will work.

(Clerics are a weak class in Pathfinder, so you can do only so much.)

One CR 5 mob is not challenging to a party of 5 level 3s. It's his one set of actions against the five of them, plus pets. A real challenge requires as many actions as the party can muster itself.

In the old days of 1E we reckoned the challenge in HD as a rule of thumb. The party has a total of 13 HD, so you need about that many for a standard encounter.
By the rule of thumb your goblins weigh in at 6 HD, +2 for the bard, +3 for the sergeant, and +3 for the zealot, totalling 14 HD, which sounds about right. They are slightly weaker than humans with that number of HD because they are small. But that is OK, when you feel your way around what is a good challenge...better err on the weak side.

Your goblin group should be pretty good, assuming the party has typical wealth/gear per level. It is up to 9 attack actions against the group, which is way more dangerous than you might think. Assuming they crit only on a 20, chances are that you get one crit every 3 rounds on average. If they do on a 19-20, you get two in three rounds (by switching from bow to melee). That may or may not make feel your players to be in danger - many players get a little bit panicky when critted, until they hear the damage.
If you add in the bardic goblin you can improve their attack rolls with Inspire Courage. +1 may not seem like much, but when you do the math you'll see that the small bonus does way more for the goblin band than one might think at first.

Keeping 2 goblins hidden within 30' of the first archer group allows for an old goblin tactic: throwing firepots on those charging their comrades. Sure, not that much damage, but it will get your players attention quickly, if they catch on fire (see rules for burning oil). Making them run first towards group A and then having a group B appear out of reach will also get them very nervous, especially if the first salvo did score a few hits, or when someone catches fire.

You don't need huge amounts of damage to keep players on their toes. An encounter where they lose 1/3 of the party hp will seem challenging enough. If they have to use healing during battle, it will seem to have been a close thing.
I always liked it best when my players were entertained. Even easy fights can do that, and the occasional un-scripted boss kill can go down as fun in memory.

PS: if you want to be nasty to your low level group, make use of critters with damage reduction that they cannot overcome yet and have to deal with the hard way. Using incorporeal critters (shadows for example), darkness or miss chances due to partial cover will also take a lot out of the most optimized character. Then there is poison and disease, especially if they cannot negate the debilitating effects at once. Other beloved challenges are swarm creatures, oozes, level-draining undead, stirges, disenchanters, rust monsters and last but not least a NPC sorcerer.
For a real challenge you can use a sorcerer, an oracle, and three melee types of your choice - let's say fighters or barbarians, all of the same level as your party ;)

My ruling in this situation will be that the petrified victim keeps the shape he was in when he got stoned. Carry companion has no effect on a statue, so thats it. After de-petrifying the victim takes back his own shape, since the duration has most likely run out meanwhile (or whenever it does, each spell his due).

New situation:
When the polymorph runs out, the cat turns back into a rock (standard result). While under the effect of Carry Companion it would not turn back, but stay a statuette. If you turn it back into a cat, the remaining time of the polymorph starts to run again, at the end of which it becomes a rock (or you turn it again into a statue).

Many DMs will also count the time spent petrified against the duration of the polymorph, which usually results in unstoning followed by returning to the own shape. The reason being that you get a semi-permanent polymorph effect, which (at least here) no DM wants.

(The interpretation is of course my own 2cp.)

In the days of old you had to be a 17th+ level NPC magic-user or cleric ;)

As the PrC says, it is up to the DM now.

If looking for inspiration for the ritual, check out the old AD&D books and 3.0 material. The central piece was always the manufacture and enchanting of a pendant which houses the soul of the lich from then on. While it exists, the lich would always reform, though it may take decades - but what does that matter to a quasi-immortal? There was also the level requirement, since only the highest level spellcasters could become liches. Nowadays I believe they let 11th level apprentices in...

What Daw said, Cthulhu by Gaslight is good.

Other possible sources of inspiration:
- Girl Genius (comic by Phil and Kaja Foglio) 1-3
- Lord Darcy (detective stories set into an alternate Earth)
- Arcanum (steampunk-magical setting computer game; I am sure there is a wikipedia with the relevant info, too)
- some of the AD&D 2nd edition adventures written for Ravenloft: The House on Gryphon Hill (I rather liked that one, it is about mad science and the undead) and Adam's Wrath (a Frankenstein story)
- Iron Kingdoms: a roleplaying game with that kind of setting
- Mechamancy: another d20 book
- OGL Steampunk: d20 rules for such a setting, so pretty compatible with Pathfinder
- Castle Falkenstein: GURPS setting, said to be pretty good

All of those above are just sources for ideas and can be cannibalized for stuff. There should be wikipedias around and probably PDF versions.

Evil means to players that they can do whatever they like, and often to each other. You will run into the huge problem that evil PCs cannot be motivated by anything but greed, which is tough over time.

You have to find something that unites them as a group, if such a campaign is to go anywhere. And prepare for it to be short, anyway. Having the PCs work for someone in power may work, but your players may throw you a curveball there, too.

One of the games where the group was evil ended with most of the party being really down after a long fight. The only one who was fit was an assassin. He used the oportunity to murder the group, take the loot and hike off into the sunset, and their quest be damned (...better a sparrow in hand...).
He was right saying that this behavior was in character with him, since it fit his background and playstyle so well. Unfortunately it tends to cut campaigns short, if evil PCs act in character.

There is also the problem with crime. Evil PCs will break the law in many ways, and if not low level, they can get away with a lot. Let alone some of the ugly things people do, if they can, it presents a big DM problem. Just consider what to do when mages and rogues combine their abilities for a crime spree to amass wealth. And assuming they succeed, which is not so hard with various spells, you lose the motivation by wealth.

Anyway, we have given up playing evil groups, since the problems are not worth the hassle, even if not every PC is a psychopathic killer.

Usually the flavor is meant to hide the min/max combination someone has dreamed up. I may have been in the company of rollplayers for too long, of course ;)

Since the ability of the lunar mystery refers to beast shape, I'd say that the (D) for dismissable works too. The duration is the maximum, but you can cancel it earlier.

Anyway, shapechanging/polymorph has been reduced to a feeble shadow of what it once was. It required some houseruling, but it was a lot more fun than now.

If he has a way to locate the incorporeal I say yes. Which is going to be really tricky, as he has no physical body. Neither tremorsense nor blindsight will help in this case, maybe detect undead or evil will.

Usually you are your own ally, unless this would make no sense. I think this spell would work on yourself, too - assuming you pass that nasty concentration check.

When I hear "for the greater good" I know I am in the presence of evil.

Anyway, we had the should-we-kill-the-ogre-baby discussion a lot of times over the years. Best to stay out of it and be yourself.

It is always a good idea to look at what a player wants to make permanent and what the repercussions might be.

But mage armor is fine, as AC for mages is not very useful. They never get it high enough to matter in a serious fight, and bracers or certain robes grant it too (its not as if bracers of armor are a terrible item to wear; there aren't that many good items for that slot for a caster). I wouldn't worry much about it costing a level 1 slot either...with my oracle I can do with my eight 1st level slots as I please, since those spells become somewhat irrelevant with level.

As long as someone isn't planning on seriously abusing something, let them have some fun...it is a game after all ;)

Yes. Shifting hitpoints around at will is the shtick of the Vitalist class. Their power is to have the most efficient healing in all of Pathfinder, if not the highest healing powers.
If in the same round the cleric channels everyone for 6d6 (21 on average) while the pally lays on his hands (also for 21), the Vitalist can take all of those hitpoints and shift them to where they are really needed. In a group of five, he has now 36d6 (126 hp)to play with, assuming all stood within the area of the channeling. So he removes the 10 hp wound from the wizard, heals the ranger and cleric for 20 each and the remaining 76 go to the pally who just took a nasty crit.

If he has several partymembers with minor healing abilities, he is at his most efficient. But even by himself he is the second best healer in game, the first place going to the oracle of life (measured in healing power).

Undead - the skeletons in the closet, you know.

People who have been disintegrated.

Victims of wishes - "I wish you would leave and never return." and whatever else enraged spouses may shout at each other.

Ethereal and temporal filchers maybe...those monsters could be at home there.

The content of ruined bags of holding and portable holes. Or maybe the outside of those items and you could slice and filch from them?
The secret chest spell may also come in there somewhere.

Other fairly often lost things: biros, umbrellas, quarters and unpaid bills.

Its not easy to come up with stuff for a place like that, though :)

Yes, deathward prevents enervation and energydrain, and of course orb of the void.

Debuffing parties...the starting point is to know what kind of party it is. If they are heavily dependent on buffs themselves, dispelling will work fine without touching the saves.
If the problem is their high stats, remember to let some of the bad guys have them too. It tacks on +1 to +3 on their DCs.
If the mobs don't have stat buff items, let them have at least spell buffs...there are another +2 DC and it is but 2nd level.

High level spells have debuffing side effects. There is polar ray which also drains 1d6 DEX. Polar midnight is another nasty one, although the drain can be saved against. It still ruins the day for many martials with its icy prison effect.
A modified cloudkill can be nasty too, especially if the bad guys are protected by lifebubble (or are undead).
Ray of enfeeblement will have an effect, even if saved against. Due to its level, it can be easily modified too. Same goes for the ray of exhaustion...fatigued is better than no debuff at all.
Mindfog will penalize will saves by -10, if it is not saved against. A specialist using persistent spell might catch one or two of the group with it.
Irresistible dance lasts but one round if saved against, but that is enough to place a nasty spell or two with a reflex save.
Antimagic field is somewhat tough, especially as a surprise, but it will debuff everyone inside completely. Imagine a caster possessing a monster with nasty grappling or poison attacks and casting AMF to get his "pet" well protected. Many monsters are not hampered by an AMF (watch for those (ex) abilities and high natural armor bonus), but PCs usually are. If they cannot get out of an AMF at once, they are toast. The bad guys are the ones who design their lairs, so a defense based on AMF would most likely have a fitting architecture, too.
The curse domain (sub of luck) grants a -2 debuff without save. The other subdomain (fate) allows to mess with a d20 roll of the players (re-roll and take worse). Won't happen often, but once is enough to shake players up.

A tried and true method of messing with powerful parties is to use a large number of NPCs and therefore a large number of saves. At first people may think its useless to pit eight 8th level NPCs against a party of 15th level - but if they happen to be eight sorcerers that is a threat, even if people save all the time. The 1/2 effects will eat most of them up, except those with evasion, which probably wont be that many.

As someone said, witches are also good, as are effects that target CMD, which is weak on everyone except martials.

As Goddity says, there are suggestions for those levels in the handbook.
But giving the module an upper range of 30 was an inside joke. It is mostly 5-20, but the final encounter is CR35+ and not intended to be beaten except by the strongest of parties. I think that a paladin, a fighter, a life oracle, an arcane caster plus someone 5th could beat it, if they have the right feats & spells and still enough resources left.

You want Quicken Spell when you can cast 7th level spells. Before that it is not of much use, even though you can quicken 1st and 2nd level spells.

Much about Quicken is situational and therefore spontaneous casters get more bang out of it. The thing is that it can turn the rudder around when the party is losing. You want to have it when that happens, but don't need it when not.
The ability to get off quickened dispels or removal spells while using Heal is sometimes crucial for a healer. The same goes for an arcane caster, who can ramp up his DPR or control that way.
So I agree with all the others, that Quicken is one of the best metamagic feats out there.

Nonetheless, you have to ask yourself, with what spells you have at your disposal, if there is a situation where using a higher slot for a fast low level spell is better than using the slot for a spell of that level. If you can't see such a situation, you can put off getting the feat for later.
Some classes can make better use of it than others, too. The magus will certainly like it to be able to cast unhindered while being in melee.

I took the feat myself at level 15, when I could cast 7th level spells. For divine casters, the 7th level holds little attraction, but modified spells which need a 7th level slot are a different story. I wouldn't have gotten much out of 1st level spells when I got my 5th slots, and no spell is worth losing a Heal when you have 6th. I would have taken it in 13th to be ready for the 7th at level 14, but as the healer/buffer/debuffer I can take a relaxed attitude with my actions.
The other casters in the group (both arcane) have not taken the feat. And you can play without it - but it would have come in handy a couple of times for them.

Bonus HP from CON are tied to the HD, not levels. Therefore he loses another 18 hp.

Besides, don't fall into the trap to call him a 1st level character, as would have happened in 1E and 2E. He is still 9th level, but with a heavy penalty attacjed to him.
Eight negative levels are pretty much a death sentence, if he cannot find a cure ASAP, from the save penalty alone.

The level dependent variables Ashram mentions are for example the number of dice on sneak attack or channeling. This effect pretty much kills the characters power as it is meant to simulate the effects of the original energy drain. Back then you simply lost the levels and all you got from them forever (or restored). The new rules try to emulate that, but without being quite so harsh.

Anyone remember the hecatoncheires from the ELH with it's 100 arms? :)

Polymorph and Greater Polymorph work too, since the target is "a living creature".

There is also Reduce Animal, if that is the case.

A more esoteric trick would be to re-purpose Magic Jar/Possession for this. It can be made to work, but the procedure is complicated and probably not what you are looking for.

There are also the allrounders Lesser Wish, Wish and Miracle.

There is precious little to shrink creatures in the system, since that would get rid of all the huge critters ;)

(Outside Paizo there would be the psionic power Compression in the Dreamscarred books, which is self only, but can be used on others by the Vitalist via his network ability. Since this is a pretty specialized build it won't be too practical either.)

I cannot think of an item that would allow you to shrink either, not even a cursed one.

A lot depends on what you want to achieve. If you need to be smaller to adventure in tiny places, you have the above options. If it is just to get into a place, you could hide him in a portable hole and let him out inside.

Illusiona create sound, sight and smell, but they don't make you invisible, unless they specifically say so. You have invisibility for that.

Regarding Veil: that would be a totally useless spell, if all the targets would look the same, wouldn't it? It used to be one of the top illusion spells in 1E, and was only available to the illusionist class.

But it is only an illusion, so making large creatures appear small can be a problem and may warn people. Just think of the effect of an ogre looking like a hobbit trying to get into a halfling hose.
It works best as a tool for infiltration, especially if the user has the necessary skills to carry off a deception (language, dialect, manner of speech, the right gestures and body language). Since this can lead to less dramatic and abrupt showdowns, some DMs won't be happy with it, though :)

Touch of Sarenrae, Blessing of Fervor, Heal.

Going with what I cast a lot :)
I might add (any) Restoration, (greater) Dispel Magic, Shield Other and Spell resistance, but they are not so glamorous as the arcane stuff.

Coming from 1E, I have no qualms about save-or-die, domination, petrification or item destruction. With 3E and later editions almost all those effects are gone and the game has become much tamer.
(Don't ask me how 1E worked, it just did :) )

The only things I am careful about are coming from two 3E books (EHL and Draconomicon) and Mythic Adventures.

The reason for the higher price is the huge flexibility of the spontaneous caster.

Wizard with pearl of power (3rd): can recast any 3rd level spell he already cast that day.
Sorcerer with runestone of power (3rd): gets to use another 3rd level spell slot, meaning he could use it for all of his lower level spells (plus metamagic) as well as a true 3rd level spell.

I am not sure if it is worth double the price, but it is more useful than the pearl. An item for 1st level spells has no difference at all in usefulness.

Looks like a pretty solid blaster wizard. Preferred and Selective spell will allow to fire away at all times while still having the other stuff available.

Magical heritage = Magical lineage I suppose?

I am missing how you want to use the rod of toppling on fireball. It works only with force damage and you have no way to let your fireball deal force (admixture does not grant that one). If you want it just to upgrade magic missile, my question is answered.

In a dungeon with regular denizens I do it this way:
- determine the daily life in the place, who will be doing what; that gives me an idea who will be in what area (together with whom) to keep in mind
- then I do two encounter tables, one for day, one for night, and fill them with whoever is out at that time, and assign a percentage to each entry depending on who it is
- then I check every hour during day, and twice per night, if they meet someone; chance of an encounter depends on the density of population; in the underground HQ of a sect with 40+ members is a lot more happening than in the Lost Tomb of the lich Arkenbrow

Read "day" as active period and "night" as rest period, if there even is one. If the PCs happen to encounter something, I subtract it from the denizens. Having an idea who will be where at what time (even if it is only a dim one) lets me determine who can hear combat or who will miss the PCs victim and come looking at some point.

You can also list all monsters in the dungeon, determine which of them might be found wandering around and make a table of them (or related ones). How often you make the check and use the table as extra stuff is up to you. I believe, without checking,it used to be 3 checks on a day and one per night.

@DrDeth
It is the more involved traps, that will get the party. Exploding chests are fine for undead or summoned minions...you must get them personally involved.

Take this security setup for a high level caster:
You find a small room with a door like Fort Knox that opens easily. Opposite you see another such door and a set of runes next to it and the room is empty. If anyone is looking, he can see no magic, the runes are merely symbols. Once seen closely, they are buttons. The opposite door can only be opened if the first one has been closed. After closing it, an antimagic field activates and covers the room. Now you have 1 minute to enter the correct combination with the rune buttons. If you fail to do so, the trap activates to eliminate the intruder.
What the trap actually does can differ...poison gas, moving walls or ceiling or a 100' drop into acid or a piranha tank are all possibilities. If the AM field expires to allow a magical attack or not is also a factor.

(You can also insert "teleport gate" for the opposite door. In another variant the gate will lead to an unpleasant place if the wrong code was pressed, like the Negative Plane.)

There are many ways to get around that setup, but summoned critters won't.

Btw, I can use some ideas what to do with a rogue...I cannot think of much more than a rogue/fighter, split according to purpose, Conan to Grey Mouser so to speak.