Vinyard Vaughn's page

As somesone who constantly had to and still has to adjust the regular Paizo adventure paths to still be able to challenge the players once they've crossed the level 10 mark (we all know how crazy pathfinder characters explode in higher levels with regards to damage per round etc.) I wanted to inquire on the expected difficulty level of this AP.

If you ask me and all the people I play with: go crazy. No wait, go a&#+@+&, batcrap crazy. Crank up the difficulty to 11. Or at least make it challenging. :)

For a new GM, as a single module play, consider Crypt of the Everflame. It has some really nice sidebars explaining the mechanics of Pathfinder, and is designed, at least at the beginning, for new 1st level PCs.

You might want to consider following "Crypt of the Everflame" with "The Godsmouth Heresy" as another fairly contained (and easy to GM) dungeon crawl for level 1-2 characters.

Then bridge the gap to the next dungeon "Fangwood Keep", which is for 4th level chars with either the "Masks of the Living God" the direct follow up to "Crypt of the Everflame" (and 2nd part of the "Price of Immortality" trilogie) or with 3 easy/dungeon heavy PFS season 1 scenarios (#39 "Citadel of Flame", #49 "Among the Dead" and #55 "The Infernal Vault" come to mind), if the cult aspect of "Masks of the Living God" is to much for the younger family members.

And when you're there go directly in "City of Golden Death" at 5th level to finish of that trilogie. That should keep you busy and in dungeon-heaven for quite a while.

Also stay away from "Thornkeep" because its just a really bad designed dungeon. Awful, but thats just my two cents.

Backer #43 with $400 in (only reason I didn't go to $500 is I won't be able to afford the flight to the US next year).

I've been waiting for an AP like this for quite a while. Can't decide if I want to GM or play it. Hope it blasts through all possible stretch goals as this one needs to be as extensive and epic as possible. :)

Hi everyone,

I wanted to introduce Alexander Bielke as the new Venture-Lieutenant for Mainz and surroundings. Alexander has been a very enthusiastic participant at our gaming days here in Frankfurt and will now help in growing the society in this part of the Rhein/Main area.

Welcome aboard Alexander - and now off with you to the salt mines. The fun & games time as player is over! :-)

As I wasn’t able to attend last year I’m very, very much looking forward to this year’s PaizoCon UK. Also I’m fine with either food choice you guys make (as long as non-spicy food options are available), but if I have to put it to the vote I’ll say “3-course sit down” - if we’re going to do it, we do it right :-).

The Ghost Walk thing sounds like a neat idea, I’m in. And (as much as I’m a movie fan/nerd) I’d rather use the time Friday evening to chat, tattle, slag off and swap stories from the trenches with my colleagues from all over Europe, instead of going to the movies.

Also Dave, please let us know when the GM registration opens, as I’d really like to GM a couple of sessions.

As far as I can remember I killed 18 player characters (6 of which were a TPK) being currently at 180 tables of credit. Most of them were simply unlucky dice for the players but some…well.

#3-08 Among the Gods

#3-15 The Haunting of Hinojai

#4-13 Fortress of the Nail

Pathfinder Online Thornkeep

Jade Regent Adventure Path

Bonekeep Level 2 - Maze to the Mind Slave

I don’t enjoy killing players, even the arrogant or foolhardy ones as it always leaves me with an empty kind of feeling. And I find it rather disturbing (not to say silly) that some GMs seem to be proud of having killed a huge number of PCs. I always wonder how much they go out of their way to actually do kill players – are they going after downed ones with a vengeance? Yes there are monsters that will simply continue hitting on characters that are already in the minus as it’s their nature or an effectively placed area affect gets them but in general I leave downed players alone. The “don’t be a jerk” rule goes for GMs, too.

Alas, I must admit I’d really like to wipe the smile of my VL’s face by killing his level 11 dwarven fighter/stalwart defender. He simply can’t stop bragging about his AC 43, rubbing it in my face every time. He even bough a glamour for his full plate so it looks like simple clothing, to fool the opposition. I really have to get him to play “The Waking Rune” before he hits level 12…

We GMed this one for 2 crowded tables (with 6 and 7 players) ca. 2 weeks ago in a store event and had a fantastic evening. It's a bodaciously written adventure that drops tons of knowledge and good advice, especially for new players (and yes I know that's the intention). Even some of the old timers just nodded in appreciation.

I really liked that

There was just one thing that made me knit my brows:

Also for the minotaur (I love scaring the s*@+ out of low level players with such beasties :-) I was missing a nice, big Baphomet tattoo or branding, to draw the connection to the overall Worldwound incident.

P.S. No PC deaths occured. I'm very sorry Mr. Baird, I'll try to be meaner the next time.

It's my pleasure to announce the new Venture-Lieutenant for Hamburg, Germany - Andreas Forster. Andreas has already been involved in organizing and GM-ing PFS for over a year (well under the radar of the German VO team), but has now been caught and press-ganged into the crew to grow, organize and represent PFS in his part of northern Germany.

So, welcome aboard Andreas.

One of the things that you need to remind your characters is, what in their background allows them to know about rakshasha and their abilities or mannerisms?

Well, that's what "Knowledge (Arcana)" is for - to identify the critter, his usual MO, his weaknesses and strengths and where he's coming from. And although my players are experienced and mostly know all monsters they still act as if they don't, make their respective knowledge roll and act appropriately. [And as they're all reading the messageboard, too - Thank you guys for not being pricks! :-) and if I ever catch you reading the GM reference threads you can go ahead rolling D20 to see how painful you'll die!]

The player may know that Glorio is a Rakshasha, but his character would probably have no reason to suspect otherwise.

Thanks for the tip but I don't see this happening - if they know he's trafficking with powerful fiends such as Rakshasas even their chars will suspect that he might be one, too or maybe something even more powerful/superevil. And as they all are good aligned (LG, 2x CG...well and one CN Cleric of Gorum who's ALWAYS in for a fight) with the Rogue/Wizard suspecting the Arkonas to be (rightfully) behind many outrages anyway they'll grill Bahor/Glorio on that. Not even a +55 on Bluff checks (looking despiteously at a certain Succubus in another AP) will help him then convincing the players that these are only bodyguards.

Oh well, I still can try that angle since I don't have any other great ideas to avoid this Catch 22 (other then broad hinting that they REALLY don't want to mess with that guy). I'll keep checking here, maybe somthing comes up in the next 9 hours until the session starts.