William Hacket's page

Hmmm. If you are using D&D 3.5 experience rewards and D&D 3.5 experience advancement, I wonder if there is any strangeness that would occur while using Pathfinder system for the rest of it?

I actually wasn't aware until i read the tables that there was a cr adjustment for environment and conditions. I just kinda thought that if something or someone had a condition or disadvantage it was already added in when you get to them in the adventure.

So far in the adventuring path there have been a mix of favorable and normal, no unfavorable (adleast in my opinion ). As far as the difference between the adventures being 3.5 and the system being pathfinder. I'm doing the same thing as your dm.

Making the adjustments and applying them. The only thing i hate doing is calculating cmd and cmb for every creature and removing skills and moving skill points around for skills and sometimes feats that don't exist anymore. ( I was reallllly annoyed when i had to redo several wererats )

But overall it hasn't been so hard that I'd say i hate it. My players are progressing at a rate that i think they are able to handle the adventure thus far. I'm giving out a few advantages also. Background related items and maybe a exstra feat here or there if someones idea or story really seems to award such an action.

They also have a 28 point buy, pathfinders epic is 25. 3 points isn't a lot but it could be plus 1 to a save.

Per table 12-3 on page 398 of the Core Rulebook (CRB), four creatures are equal to the base CR+4. (Note, this formula might not scale well, especially for low CR creatures, less than one). Encounter level (ECL) and challenge rating (CR) (with respect to multiple opponents) is not always an exact science. It is just a guide to help you determine the appropriate challenge to use against your players, using their APL (average party level) as a base. If you want to strictly follow the CRB, you can just use table 12-2 and 12-3 to determine the total ECL. The biggest headache occurs when you have a mix of multiple creatures of various CR's. The best thing is to match them up, replacing pairs (or more) with an equivalent single CR, and continue this process until you wind up with a single ECL number. Then you can determine XP's.

Thank you. I guess i've been giving them somewhat off experience thus far but they seem to be keeping up with the adventure thus far.

I'm running a group through curse of the crimson throne Adventure path and I've never DM'd before. I'm using all pathfinder material, no outside sources. I have the cr to exp award chart in the monster manual so I know I'm giving out correct exp awards for the crs i assign the encounters.

My question is that if the heroes are fighting 4 cr 1 creatures, what is the CR or EL for the encounter? And how do you calculate this?

I calculated this by making it a Cr 2 encounter because the Mob's in that encounter did almost no dmg to the players and were taken down within 3-4 turns of combat.

Some rooms and areas in the adventure have EL ratings I'm guessing this stands for Encounter Level, for the entire area? Does EL have anything to do with the pcs exp awards?

A example would be the encounter with some vampire spawn during the second adventure. There are two possible encounters for their location.

The first one is listed as just one vampire spawn. He is the guard outside the lair while 3 others inside sleep.

Vampire Spawn Cr 4
hp 29 MM 253

The next is listed with similar stats.

Vampire Spawn(4) Cr 4
hp 29 MM 253

In this encounter it specifies that there are 4 vampire spawn possible for this encounter. Since the fight with the guard outside wakes the other 3 inside i can only imagine that if you are fighting the guard you basically start combat with all 4 vampires thus making the second encounter the one to calculate exp award.

now again my question is how do i do this? We have moved past this and for this encounter i awarded them a cr 7 encounter because the base cr for one vampire spawn is 4 so i just added 1 more cr for each additional creature.

They have progressed from the first adventure to almost finished with the 3rd so i can only guess I'm doing my calculation correctly or close enough seeing as their levels seem on par with the challenges thus far aside from some very challenging ones designed to be very dangerous. They are also currently level 8-9 and just started on the last dungeon. the adventure says that 10 is the last level playable in this adventure.

I feel they will be fine with the way I've been doing it so far but I'd really like to know if I'm doing it right!

I thought your post was a very detailed breakdown of issues you see with the class. I agree with you on all points that the class has some major reworking to be done at the very least before its really ready to go.

Here's what i think is the real problem behind the issues with the class.

The staff responsible for the making of the Gunslinger class/ Guns in the games world / the mechanics behind those guns has most likely played Arcanis. Maybe they are afraid that if they do what they really want to do with guns, they will be going too close to the system Arcanis used for its guns? ( unless paizo owns green ronin or whoever owns Arcanis ) Possible Copyright lawsuit or some such thing. I could be wrong on this obviously, but its currently my theory.

Maybe that seems rude or ignorant to say but I've never played a gaming system that was based around a largely medieval and magical world where firearms felt correct other than Arcanis. Knives and arrows are deadly too, but guns add a whole other level to the field.

And for Alkenstar. A no magic zone dedicated to the creation and production on mass of firearms to be sold to the outside world? They should be pumping out a new idea for a gun every other month. Keeping the best for themselves. Giving the world their 3 year/whatever old models to make sure their military can stay ahead of very large aggressive army's.

While the entire time, making money from rich conquers and noblemen seeking high powered protection for their low level guards. You never know when some do good'r is going to claim your wine cellar is a dungeon and try to loot your estate.

This thread has been a hoot to read! I'll share my oddest experience that I've had in 30+ years of playing.

When I was in high school, my gaming group was meeting at my girlfriends house to play one sunday afternoon. Before we started to play she recived a phone call from her sister inviting us to play at her sisters house. The idea of me getting to play and not DM is a rareity for me so after a quick vote we went.

My group consisted of my girlfriend, myself, 2 friends and a friend of my girlfriend visiting from California. We arrived at the sisters house and their game was already going. Their group consisted of the sister, her husband (the DM) and another player named "Micky".

They were playing a fairly high level game for 1e (around 8-10th)
so we pulled out characters and handed them to the DM for consent.
He OKs them and he puts us in with a hand wave.

We are in a castle-like mansion of an arch-duke of hell. As we were going through the place we find a library. My character being a wizard-rogue was interested in this as was the friend from California, playing a wizard also. My girlfriend playing a barbarian stayed and guarded the door to the library as the two squishies looked about. Everyone else went down a staircase in the hall outside the library to the next level down.
I found nothing of interest in my search and decided to go downstairs with the barbarian, thinking the other wizard was following. She found some sort of magical tome and decided to look at it more closely. "Micky" had decided that the library should be burned and came back up the stairs as we were going down. Before we realised what he was doing he threw oil and torches into the library and wizard locked the door with a magic item (ring I think). My girlfriend and myself came back up the stairs saying that her friend was still in there and "mickey" said she deserved to die saying something about evil and corrupted knowledge.
My girlfriend and I attacked this idiot and killed him and was able to get the door open to save...

WOAH....... I wish, Dear lord I wish I could live in the world this "Micky" lives in for just a few gaming sessions i bet his version of life would blow away all the times i played h!gh. Magic would be real, spoken visual effects would really appear on the gaming table and the miniatures would be replaced by big named actors.. Speaking of smoking, I'm off.

Edit:

Kamelguru wrote:

"Monsters and Mazes can be a far out game."

"It's all make-believe!"

"Is it?"

That should be in the first trailer we see for the upcoming Dnd movie.
http://rpglabyrinth.blogspot.com/2010/12/third-d-movie-book-of-vile-darknes s.html

William Hacket wrote:

Hmmm what else... The ever constant threat of being one of his sexu@l fantasy's he would somehow play out in the game in a ENTIRELY inappropriate way

I know I shouldn't, but I must ask, because I really have to know:

Let me stop you right there cowboy. This is one pony you don't wanna learn about riding.

But if you must.. just keep reading as i explain the one example somewhat.

Just sit in your imagination for a while. Imagine how your dm would take his time explaining what happens to a character you've played for years. There are no dice rolls no hope... no divine intervention. Just you, your sadness and the awkward energy which now fills the room. And then you just go on playing. :laughs: Cause you really cant see how things can get worse from here.

Player characters all split off to different rooms at the brothel and players proceed to play erotic Pictionary for the other players to guess what their character is up to.

GM has the right to roll on the random encounter table and amend final sketches appropriately.
At least, that's how I'd play it

Unfortunately it was rarely that fun or engaging. Once in a while we would seek out our own things to do.

For instance my wizard owned a bar amongst his many possessions ( a small army of Warforged and a spelljammer type ship to, the dm wasn't all bad. To his credit I had a lot of fun at the table. Take the good with the bad) and one time during his party's stay there he decided to go and "fade to black" with the woman who ran his bar while he was away. I had no interest in explaining anything beyond that explaination i gave. A perfectly exceptable thing to do considering my character was a adult.

However more often than not, when comparing such times it was more bad than good.

Well first keep in mind a sexual fantasy need not get to graphic levels of details. A example would be, a girl has always been the good girl. She decided to play a rogue. Her character is very much a bad girl, she uses her looks and body to get what she wants. Why climb walls and sneak into a house when you can be invited in?

Then there is also sexual and romantic fantasies can often have their lines blurred as well. What someone might call a sexual fantasy someone else might call a romantic fantasy or something else etc.

It also can help a story line by including such things. However the way my dm would deliver such things when they "were his fantasy" was just weird and strange and only enjoyed on his side of the table. He should have just kept that between himself and the internet sites.

We have different definitions of words, then: When I read "play out a fantasy" in the P&P RPG sense of playing out, I consider it to be in great detail. Otherwise it's "handwaving a fantasy".

To wit: "I accept the sensuous fey maiden's offer to follow her to her placid pool and make love to her, trying to be passionate, enthusiastic and creative." is handwaving it (though going into a bit of basic detail).

"I go with her to her boudoir and then I * her * and then tell her to * my * and then I * her *ily while I * her * and she * my * and then I * her and * her until she *" or something like that is playing it out

I was playing a Game of Living Arcanis, and we were playing a mod where the highest charisma Male character was approached by a dryad who mistakes him for her ex human lover who no loner comes by. ( My character was a low chasima dark-kin fighter type, i tryed to get her attention, she was obviously racist) There is a option to sleep in her den instead of the camp with the party. All that happens is that you wake up very rested and feel pretty damn good.

There's nothing wrong with the way that it was handled by the dm at the time and i didn't think anything was wrong with the mod for including it. I mean, shes a Dryad. She walks around naked and as we all know from watching Xena and Hercules..... well i don't have to explain it. Point is that such things can be fitted into game play and be exceptable and understandable.

A way it isnt appropriate will follow, but i suppose its understandable going along the line of things that are likely to happy to a elf imprisoned by drow... but still it doesn't really need to happen at the gaming table... KaeYoss, if you must learn then here it is.

Kryzbyn wrote:

I hear bedrooms are perfect for that kind of stuff :)

That's mostly low-level stuff, or even for regular citizens with just NPC levels. For heroes, especially higher-level ones with PC and maybe even PrC class levels, it's not always the best encounter area. Not that you can't have great high-level campaigns there, but a lot of high-level characters prefer planar adventures.

(Insert obligatory wink wink nudge nudge)

Did you know that in the world of dnd there is such thing as a experience high club? I'll send you the brochure. $25,000 gp in diamond dust requirement for the item however. Clerics get a discount if willing to contract themselves out for various disease removal spells.

KaeYoss wrote:

"I go with her to her boudoir and then I * her * and then tell her to * my * and then I * her *ily while I * her * and she * my * and then I * her and * her until she *" or something like that is playing it out.

Whoa. Slow down there, big fella.

You only get one standard action, one move action, and one swift action per round in this game. And you don't get to automatically declare all of your ability checks, skill checks, and saving throws successful. That's what dice are for...

Now roll for initiative, nice and slow...

lol.. Can i make a character for your game, seems like you have a rule break down for situations that a character concept i've been saving fits into.

Here's his Concept. Master Rogue/Master Monster Bater, bad teeth, lots of charisma and he listens to rogues do it from behind while going through the dungeons. He does dungeons solo btw, because he doesn't need help from his party. Oh yeah can i have a few female cohorts? I'm not taking Leadership i just want you to give them to me. His name is Jauhstan Hackpowerers. I'm also max level. :) and I always make my fort save.

I've noticed a trend amongst these story's involving a 4 letter word that starts with R. Anyway here's a story that looking back on it isn't really funny as much as it is sad. Its sad because as i look back the DM in question has done this several other times to other players of both sex's ( characters and players sex's alike )

this didn't happen to me, but i was in a group of people playing at our local gaming store and in this session the dm decided that we were all going to drink shrinking potions and go for a adventure in a world under a tree, in a swamp...

I'm not even sure why we were in the swamp to be honest, anyway.. This was one of the dms MANY side adventures ( in fact i'm no sure there was a main quest really ever to be had ). We go down into the tree kingdom world.

The kingdom is ruled by these rat people who ride Beatles, anyway we are taken before the rat king after being found in his kingdom. He begins telling us this and that and eventually gets to what he wants, yet another side quest i'm sure, but at some point the conversation slips to him letting us go, now instead of doing his idiotic quest that we don't wanna do.

He comes down to terms with us and it involves the only female pc in the group, of course. After a brief ( 20 minutes ) of "discussion " the dm has her very angry with his intentions of using her for a bargaining chip for us to leave.

She and her boyfriend left if memory serves me correctly, with good reason.

Now this dm has done so many things that you'd think i would have left so many times before, but i didn't because he was my first dm and i didn't know any better. Plus i didn't know anyone else who ran as on time as he did every week, sometimes multiple times.

I remember when he used to turn my human wizard into his were bear form against my actual wishes when i got angry or agitated during game play, and reduced my int from 20 to ten every time.

Another reason i should have left was the fact that if he didn't like your character, or you, he would force you to change it by ( seemingly ) randomly apply templates to your character as punishment, or in his eyes perhaps it was a gift, i don't know.

For instance i was a latent were bear, it kinda just happened out of no where, I could handle it though, just had to watch my temper. Our semi reoccurring youth at the table ( he came and went because of school, he was a cool kid. He was just being dmed by the wrong dm ) whose character was killed more times in single session that i care to remember had SO MANY templates on him that i don't know what race he actually started as.

The Kids character, at one point gained blind sight from the warped touched template, then his eyes fell out. He got himself killed by shooting a magic missile at the inside wall of a extra-dementional cage, the missile bounced back and forth off the walls hitting him over a hundred times until he laid bleed out. He got himself disintegrated by a trap on a drawer at the bottom of a dresser.

We used a ring of wishes to revive him, told him over a ten minute discussion to not touch the drawer, just move the dresser so we could get to the hole it was covering. He assures us he understands, then he says after me saying " Cody just move the dresser don't touch the drawer" i open the drawer" and dies again. ( btw he was the reason i kept getting agitated while he played with us, although looking back it was kinda funny. )

god its all coming back to me...

Lets see there was the time where we fell down a trap and the only cleric in the group got his hands cut in half down the middle. and couldn't cast anything.

The Endless side quest, that sometimes i didn't want to do but was rail roaded into over and over. The constant and long rules arguments over rules he would change to suit his needs and then when the benefited us change them again.

Or the obvious favoritism towards the female players at the table, when there were female players ( they didn't usually stay around that long )

The fact that dice rolls ABSOLUTLY didn't matter, your going to get hit and its going to hurt. But not enough to kill you.. oh no pc death wasn't a option unless you died and didn't say anything for a few turns and then when he finally got back to you and you told him you'd been dead for a few minutes and there's no way he can change the dmg to revive you. To get captured and... just slightly less so your character gets to keep living and experience the torture once again.

And how can i forget that moments when the dm would hold a grudge against you for avoiding or killing something without it really being difficult and completely go around something he had planned, just to kill your character for trying to be a stronger than the mobs we fight. The best example is when we are fighting a giant awakened druid tree with a scythe and tramples us, over and over and over making full attacks constantly and then a quick ling just appears and steals my spell components. Rendering me useless in a possible tpk. Cause i of course keep all of my Spell components in belt pouches.

In fact i just where belts, nothing else. All over my body each of them is filled to the brim with pouches that hold me spell components.

Its not like i have a bag of holding or something!

The Random encounters with walls that attacked us!

Hmmm what else... The ever constant threat of being one of his sexu@l fantasy's he would somehow play out in the game in a ENTIRELY inappropriate way. Grimlock slave who enjoys his job a little to much, drow dungeon, elf male prisoner ( pc ) you do the math.

I'm going to stop myself there and go get a beer.

I generally DM but recall a few bad sessions...

4. This isn't mine, but a female gamer friend won't touch sci-fi after a prior DM announced females of the sci-fi universe wore skimpy outfits and were more-or-less slaves to men.

I thought that's how it was in all the game I've ever played.

quote: Lordluney, 1 hour, 8 minutes ago
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Just to assist the above DM. I'm wearing Bracers of Armor +2, not studded leather. My build is Rogue 4/Fighter 1/Sorcerer 1/Dragon Dis 3 - Monk 7/Duelist 2. We started playing Gestalt with just 2 players for the last 2 adventures.

Me: Well i don't really want my players reading my post about such things but apparently i cannot stop them. But yes his statement is correct. I regret making them gestalt. It provides to much power for them to utilize as being a normal class progression is powerful enough as it is.

My mistake aside. For those of you that replied he is wearing bracers of armor +2 and Thus he has no max dexterity, and when he casts mage armor he only gets plus 2 because it doesn't stack with other armor, just overlaps.

Big Nose Wolf Said:

+2 mage armor and the +2 armor don't stack.

The armor bonuses don't stack with the +wis and +int, but a mage armor spell and a shield spell do.

mage armor should be +4, unless they're bracers?

Me: So are you saying that his plus 2 bracers of armor do no stack with his wisdom and Int modifiers ? and if that is so where can i read a ruling on that so that my players don't think I'm just being cheap.

Starting at 4th level, a rogue can
react to danger before her senses would normally allow
her to do so. She cannot be caught f lat-footed, even if the
attacker is invisible. She still loses her Dexterity bonus to
AC if immobilized. A rogue with this ability can still lose
her Dexterity bonus to AC if an opponent successfully uses
the feint action (see Chapter 8) against her.

1. The pinned condition says a person who is pinned cannot move, but may make a escape artist check or a roll against the attackers cmd to try and break out of being pinned. It does not say that a person pinned is immobilized, and i guess since they can try and get out they arnt. Is this correct?

2. Does shield provide bonuses to you if you are grappled? This is the shield spell I'm referring to specifically.

3. The high ac player in my group has a high ac for everything except Flat footed and i cannot attack his flat footed Ac without resulting to poisoning or other ( if constantly encountered) annoying to the players things.

For instance he was separated from the rest of the party in the dungeon. The "creature" in the encounter with him had a plus 13 to hit and i could not hit him without rolling a 20 because of the critical rules stating that i have to still hit his ac with anything but a roll of a 20, and then to confirm i have to roll a twenty again because his ac is so high. I had to pinn him in a grapple and force him to try and break free every turn while she raked him over and over.

He is gestalt and has levels in duelist now, so his ac just went up, has levels in dragon disciple for more stat bumps and ac bumps.

His ac while walking around is 28, and if he can get it off 34 with shield and mage armor. 10 + 5 dex + 2 armor + 3 wis + 2 int + 3 natural armor + 2 monk ac + 1 deflection +1 dodge, +4 shield, +2 mage armor

My question is do all of these mods to his Ac stack and under what conditions do they not function.

4. One mod i know about is that i thought amulets and other magical sources or natural armor don't stack with natural armor that a creature has as part of its base statistics. I could be wrong about this though.