Zarine's page

That's a big pink d6...

I really want that giant pink d6!

Big Ass Burger = Aroden's Demise

But the rule actually states "if this augment would raise the cost of the echo above the tactician's manifester level, the echo attempt fails"

the cost of the echo, in my understanding, still involves the other PP cost of the original part of the echo. Yes the initial echo cost can be above manifester level, but any augmentation cannot go beyond this.

Opps, Here are the rules on it http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/tactician

Overchannel really wouldn't help. You'd really have to stock up on feats to be able to essentially increase your manifester level by 4 in order to get more than one person with the ability.

It just seems pointless to have an augmentation ability with the way the rules read now.

I'm tossing this in the Rules Questions even though it's a third party thing because this is more of a questioning on a ability. ( I noticed that the third party section seems less about rules and more about promotions) Here is my post on Dreamscarred Press forum.

So this is my first foray into the Psionics Expanded handbook and making a Psionic character under Pathfinder rules. I decided to make a Tactician because it fills a role within the King Maker campaign. Looking over one of the abilities, it seems a bit underpowered or rather part of it seems completely pointless.

The ability I'm talking about is, of course, the Echo Effect ability. On the whole it seems a pretty balanced ability, allowing a person to copy buff spells onto another person in the collective. Where I run into issues is with the augmentation part of it.

With the base ability it always costs in power points, the manifester or caster level of the buff you want to echo. This makes sense by itself. So for example if everyone in the party is 8th level and you want to echo Mage Armor from the Wizard to the Monk it costs 8 PP. Simple enough. However, under the augmentation rules in order to try and echo this ability to an additional target you must spend 4 PP for each target. The problem is with the limitation on this "if this augment would raise the cost of the echo above the tactician's manifester level, the echo attempt fails (although eh may still attempt to echo it onto a single target)". The way I read this is that the base cost of the Echo for moving Mage Armor from the Wizard to the Monk is 8 PP. If you are an 8th level manifester this is pretty much where things stop. Your PP cost is your manifester level and as long as all the other casters in the part are your level this is where it will ALWAYS stop. One person costs 8 PP while trying to augment will tack on 4 PP making it 12 PP. The only way this would be doable would be if the Wizard was a 4th level Wizard 4th level Cleric because then it would only cost 4 PP to echo mage armor.

Of course there is no limitation, that I can see, on how many times you can use this ability to spread Mage Armor throughout the party, it just takes a standard action each time. No issue there. What I see as the problem is that the augmentation part of this ability is completely pointless the way the PP cost is calculated. Now if the augmentation wording were a bit different in lets say "the augmentation cost cannot be more than your manifester level" then at 8th level you could echo to 2 additional people in one standard action.

Or if the PP cost were based on Spell/Power Level the augmentation would make more sense. In this example you would be moving Mage Armor from the Wizard to the Monk at 1 PP then another 4 PP to move it to one additional member of the party for a total of 5PP. You would not be able to echo it onto any more party members because 5 PP plus another 4 would equal 9 PP and be above manifester level. This is of course for just a 1st level spell. At level 8 you would essentially be able to echo up to a 2nd level spell onto 2 different party members. Beyond that you would have to go up in levels. I think this still balances things out.

Has anyone else seen this issue? How have you handled it?

I have to admit it does sound a bit like your group needs more structure and episodic adventuring than a homebrew. It might be a good idea to run them through a regular AP or just some modules to get them used to the game mechanics before they go off in the crazy realm that is everything you can do with roleplaying.

It might also work to lower the magic level and have them stick to a simpler roleplaying theme than the far out there stuff.

I also agree with Banizal. If you have a certain plot set up and they fail to stop the apocalypse in time, then have it come about and the end of the world happens. Yes a GM is supposed to be the host of the game and do what the player's want to a certain extent, but unless you're playing a no-rules kind of adventure there should be consequences to actions. Otherwise it's just a bunch of Mary-Sue's running around doing whatever.

You guys keep on adding stuff and I'll end up giving you my hard earned cash. I cannot say no to hard copies of cool stuff!

I make it a point not to do any actions that involve my knowledge of the AP which means that for a lot of things I do not suggest courses of actions or do searches for specific things unless the party suggests it.

I do agree with you all that I should just drop my character and the party will have to make do without a healer, which they can do. That should at least end the conflict between my player and the other PC. The issue then becomes if that person starts conflict with npcs and the like to stir up trouble. Of course if that happens I can roleplay the consequences.

The other game that is going on is A. Not run by me B. Not a problem with any sort of party conflict.
I actually specified that the GM is busy with real life stuff during the game and we just get nothing done. I previously ran a game with this group and it went just fine. The game is not a bad game, it's just not going anywhere very fast and I am not the only person that feels a little frustrated. My boyfriend and myself are going to suggest board games because that way we can get together and don't have to worry about people needing to stop mid game to do things.

The issue is that I just started this game about 2 months ago and this player was invited because he is a friend of one of the people I specifically wanted to invite. I figured someone who had played DnD before would be an excellent edition to the game. I think (and I am not the only one) that trying to kick this other player would be a dick move at this point. The game is young and as Darkwolf stated, it's partially a play style conflict issue. I also don't want to alienate the person that I specifically wanted to join the game. So the choice here is to just drop the game completely or follow the good advice of the people here.

Thanks Darkwolf. You've said what I think is going on: a serious conflict of play styles. I can always try a sit down conversation about this. But it all depends on getting my boyfriend on board since he's already stated that he is going to quit because of all the conflict.

First: is there an out-of-game dynamic between you and the player in question that may be affecting your attitude toward them? If so, the solution is 100% interpersonal, and not related to the game. I'm not sure it applies to your situation, but this crops up a lot, so you have to look for it.

He's not a person that I know very well so there isn't any out of game issues, but I have noticed he is a rather argumentative person and seems to want to get the last work/correct people about any number of topics.

Was there some consequence to punching a hole in the wall? Was a ceiling collapse imminent? Did the player know this?

The act in question could have caused the building to collapse. As a group we had a discussion on this as a group and everyone in the group agreed that this was not a LG action (to put the entire party in danger), but he still tried to argue that alignment is flexible enough to allow it.

The question you and your other players need to ask is, is this guy the kind of person you would want to spend an enjoyable evening with doing anything other than RPGs? Dinner? Movies? "Hangin' out"? If the answer is no, he needs to go. If the answer is "yes", you need to talk it out with him away from the gaming table; treat it as a personality clash between friends with no game context.

He is a person that I met when I started running this game. I'd probably hang out with him periodically, but not often as he seems to be the overly corrective/argumentative person who likes to do it just because and not to have a discussion on interesting topics.

I would like to have a conversation with him, but I don't think it would get anywhere as we are both the kind of people who like to be right. He would make the argument that he's roleplaying his character and if I try to get him to stop with the conflict with me that he will see it as me trying to lord over him and make him play a gm controlled zombie.

Call a time out. Have an actual conversation about what you're looking for in a game.

Serious or funny?
Sweeping saga, or episodes?
Careful attention to rules or focus on story?
Exploration or combat?
Social in character role playing or diplomacy checks and move on?

As GM, you're able to run anything you like. But the players have the right to say, "no thanks, sounds dull"

Try to meet in the middle.

It probably would have made sense to pose this question before I picked the adventure path. Though at that point I think most of them would have wanted to focus on the story, especially since the majority of them haven't played that much. After running the game for awhile I should have switched to running X Crawl, I think it would have fit the group much better.

I find you cannot be both a GM and a player and expect to run a successful game.

You may be appearing to give your character the lucky breaks or making insightful choices based on GM knowledge and not player knowledge. You may also be getting annoyed that the player isn't making the choices you want him to make and therefore playing the adventure out like you think it should happen, presuming you have already prepared the adventure material. It is highly likely from what you are saying is that the player is reacting to your dual role and deliberately making choices that disrupt your plan, probably because they want to be the one driving the direction of the game for a while.

My advice, is that if you want to GM, you should not play a PC in the same adventure. You should think ahead about what the players may do and plan the encounters and reactions of the NPCs in advance (I keep a diary/log of my NPCs reactions to different events both PC and non-PC related). Once you have that in place, enjoy the session regardless of what the PCs decide to do and don't try to railroad them. They will go off script but you will at least have an idea of what is likely to happen and will have the pleasure of seeing the story being written as it is played.

I have thought about dropping my character because two weeks ago there was an issue, but due to a difficult conflict last weekend they decided to leave my character in.

That being said, in general my character doesn't run around forcing the group to do much because I don't want them to feeling like I'm ram rodding them into doing what I want them to do. The only time I step up and do anything special is if it becomes an character specific issue. For example killing any undead that shows up. She is a follower of Pharasma and that is a mandate of her religion.

This particular character is doing little things that don't really involve the direction of the game, it's more like he's trying to start deliberate conflict with my character for no reason. The roleplaying excuse I don't think cuts it since it's conflict from a LG character against a LG character as opposed to conflict with the CN party member.

I don't think that me dropping my character would honestly change anything because I believe this particular person would just shift his distrust/arguments to NPCs and then disrupt the actual game instead of just dealing in in-party conflict.

I think part of the problem is that this adventure is probably build more for Lawful character types or Good character types and all of my players are essentially playing Chaotic Neutral characters (no matter what they're alignment is) They are typical young men who just want to play games where they run around and kill things and start fights. I am, unfortunately, when running and playing a game like this to run things as the adventure path dictates. I've thought about this before, but I think this group would be a lot more suited to playing something like X Crawl where any kind of conflict fits and is perfectly fine and antagonism toward the Dungeon Judge is encouraged (and I've been fine roleplaying this before). But trying to run a serious campaign in a country like Ustalav doesn't work with people that all want to essentially play Chaotic Neutral characters and do whatever and not want to face the consequences of their actions.

So my Pathfinder games have been going down the toilet lately. One game I'm playing in is frustrating because our GM is always busy taking care of her kids and husband. I'm not trying to harp on her, we all have things we have to do; but we hardly get anything done in a session.

So I decided to start a new game on Sundays with my boyfriend and some of his friends. It started out great with a bit of metagaming but mostly getting things done. They finished with the first magazine for Carrion Crown in a month. However, things have since gone down hill. The problem is largely conflict between myself (the GM) and one other player. He is one of those people who have played a lot of DnD games (though he's younger than I am by a couple of years), but all the games he's played have been those *crazy* kind of games. You know, the ones where everyone plays by the game mechanics, but all kinds of crazy things go on such as characters from anime jumping in and the like. He's played by the rules by never played *by the rules*. I like to run a game that is logical, orderly, and run by the social/economical/judicial rules.

The conflict all started with alignment. He decided to make his ratfolk Lawful Good. The problem is that he does not play his character as a Lawful Good character. Now I understand that alignment is not set in stone, but he tries to justify all of his actions and thoughts within his alignment. For example, thinking that it's a good idea to punch through a wall in a derelict farmhouse with the entire party in it. No matter how hard he tried to argue the point, lets face it that was not thought or act of a LG character.

I also think that he is one of those people who like to incite party conflict for "fun" while trying to justify it as roleplaying. Example, this evening he tries to explain that he does not trust my character and thinks she is psychotic. I am also role-playing a LG Inquistor of Pharasma. The PC's reasoning behind this was when I started off the group running them through the Godsmouth Heresy my character rushed in to attack the alchemist who was *clearly* creating undead. He (and the other party members) also let one of the undead creations go without my character's knowledge. Now I kind of get that action and it could possibly be construed as a "good" and/or "lawful" action since we were in Kaer Maga at the time. However, claiming conflict with my character based on a general convention against undead and necromancers of any kind does not make sense to me. Most societies view undead as evil and the destruction of them as good. As a LG character, viewing another LG character as crazy evil is ridiculous.

I get that he is *trying* to roleplay his character, but the problem I'm having is "is he roleplaying his character realistically, or is he just trying to stir up conflict". He has already stated that he likes party conflict, but in this game he seems to have singled out me as his target. I don't think dropping my character from the game would actually solve any problems because I think he would just turn the conflict on npcs and cause problems with the campaign and throw a fit when I have npcs act accordingly to his attitude.

I played with a group when I first moved up here where I had the same problem. Only with this group of people, a few of them went out of their way to do things in game to piss me off. I ended up quitting that game because it ended up feeling like a chore.

I don't want to act like a douchbag dm dictating how people play their characters, but no one HAS to start crap with other players and be purposely distrustful or annoying to roleplay.

At this point my boyfriend is pretty much going to quit the game because he doesn't want to deal with the arguing. I would kind of like to have a sit down conversation about this, but also feel like that particular player is just going to claim that he's not trying to start fights and feel like I'm trying to control him by telling him to knock off the party conflict.

At this point I think it might be a good idea to take a break from roleplaying for a couple of months.

I've noticed the same thing. It takes FOREVER for a page to load. Makes shopping a pain.

I think the older maps were far more useful. I rather wish the map folios were now their own separate subscription. I don't use huge maps except a large map of Golarion and for the Carrion Crown I may sometimes use the map of Ustalav, but I have no place to hang it and it's likely to get damaged if I bring it out all the time. It's expensive to laminate posters like that. I find having separate good color maps of dungeons and buildings to be far more helpful party aids and useful when I need to draw out things for the players. Maybe I'll just sell my map packs or something.

So I subscribed to the map folio earlier on when it came with maps from the campaign rather than just city maps. I assumed that this was what the folios would always be, but to my surprise when I pulled down the Carrion Crown Map Folio it was only city maps.

I can honestly say I'm very disappointed. I laminate the regular maps and use them so I wouldn't have to constantly sift through adventure path to find the map that I need. Huge city maps are not useful in a usual campaign run. They are just to big to be practical unless you have permanent wall space you can hog.

I really would like to see map folios with dungeon maps again and maybe even handouts. Yeah, the paper isn't great quality, but that is why I laminate mine. It's cheap to do and they will last forever.

For the Carrion Crown, odds are I will only end up using the map of Ustalav, and that I will pull out sparingly because of the size.

I'm looking to join a new gaming group in the Billings area. My current group doesn't really get very far in our sessions due to lack of knowledge about the game and just general goof-ing off and starting late. I'm looking for an experienced group with preferably older gamers. I have pretty much everything Pathfinder, but would rather not run the game.

Hopefully there's somebody out there!

Zarine wrote:

I suffer a -2 pentalty to my caster level because Spell Perfection doubles modifiers from feats (Irrisen Ice-Mage adds 1 to your caster level of all spells with the cold descriptor, -1 to any spell with another energy type).

doubles bonuses, not penalties :D

Going back and reading I see now. So I don't need to worry about doubling the penalty, but the penalty applies anyway.

Nope. One of its big balancing factors.

I've used it to great effect on both fireball and flesh to stone (two different characters).

It doesn't say anything in the feat about not being able to take the feat more than once. It just says that you pick a spell and etc. etc. etc. We've taken this to mean that you can take it multiple times but each time you have to choose a different spell.

I took this feat with Chain Lightning and I use the Maximize Spell feat with it. I do an insane amount of damage because of my Irrisen Ice Mage Feat and Spell Focus Evocation. At my current level (sorcerer caster level 15) it does 102 points of damage and I can cast it 5 times a day just using up 6th level spell slots.

The best way to get around the whole modified level part is to use rods. I have a rod of Quicken that I can use in conjunction with this spell and it's excellent.

Next level I'm going to take it with the Fireball spell and the next feat after I believe I will take Quicken Spell so I can cast a Quickened Fireball then a Maximized Chain Lightning.

I took this feat on my Mystic Theurge with the spell Chain Lightning. It works great as a Cold Elemental Sorceress with the Irrisen Icemage feat. I apply it with the Maximize Spell feat which brings the total spell level up to 9 but with the feat it just uses its normal 6th level spell slot. It works really really nice cause I can then cast that spell 5 times a day (with my super high Cha). Because of my multitude of feats at my current level (16) it does a total of 102 damage every hit with the main target needing a saving throw of 27 and all other targets needing a save of 25. it makes me hideously overpowered as long as I'm not fighting anything immune to cold or lightning. The one downside of the feat is that if I am forced to cast Chain Lightning as an actual lightning spell instead of changing it to cold, I suffer a -2 pentalty to my caster level because Spell Perfection doubles modifiers from feats (Irrisen Ice-Mage adds 1 to your caster level of all spells with the cold descriptor, -1 to any spell with another energy type).

Next level I think I'm going to take the feat again but apply it to the Fireball spell. I'd still still with maximize since I don't have Quicken. It would allow me to cast 8 maximized fireballs a day or more if I sacrifice higher level spell slots. I think at level 19 (if I get there), I may take Quicken Spell so I can cast a quickened fireball and then do a maximized chain lightning all without sacrificing higher level spell slots.

This feat is particularly useful as a Mystic Theurge just because of the sheer number of spells I get and the fact that I can prepare 1-5th level spells in either class as long as I want to waste a higher level spell slot, which works well with a dps cleric rather than a buffing/healing cleric.

If nothing else, taking Maximize spell and Spell Perfection for any 6th level spell is completely worth it. I'm tempted to take it for Disintegrate just cause it would make it insanely powerful, but my character is focused on Ice and I would rather have Chain Lightning (Ice) as pretty much my exclusive 6th spell spell.

Plus, you can supplement this ability with Metamagic Rods. I like having a Quickened Rod on hand in a Spell Storing Glove just so I can dish out tons of extra damage in a short period of time if it's needed.

Zarine wrote:

tonton wrote:

Karzoug is immune to mind affecting spells! Feeblemind is a mind affecting spell!

DOH!!!

the Mind Blank spell is what makes Karzoug immune to mind effects, the cleric dispelled that spell thus making him subject to mind effecting spells again. He's not naturally immune like mindless undead or other types of creatures.

I guess Karzoug didn't get his Spell Turning up during the Time Stop? Too bad for him!

....Crap! I'd forgotten that I threw that spell up. It in fact should have turned the spell away.

Oh well. In all honesty everyone, including me was ready for not only the game to end,but the adventure path to end anyway. I'm not sure if anyone would want to go back and refight that battle taking that spell into account. Figures that I wasn't paying enough attention to the buffs he had on.

EDIT: I don't think it would have mattered much in the long run, even if the arcane archer's spell had been turned against him and he failed his safe, the gnome did almost half Karzoug's hit points in damage on his turn doing force bombs. The monk was very close to being able to charge Karzoug and probably do another 90-100 points of damage. Karzoug would have taken his turn and probably tried to kill or trap the gnome, even if he succeeded at that, the monk would have finished him off in the next round.

Karzoug is immune to mind affecting spells! Feeblemind is a mind affecting spell!

DOH!!!

the Mind Blank spell is what makes Karzoug immune to mind effects, the cleric dispelled that spell thus making him subject to mind effecting spells again. He's not naturally immune like mindless undead or other types of creatures.

Call me a cheater, but after 6 issues of AP and 16-17 character levels, I would have A) had Karzoug put that Mind Blank back up during the Time Stop and B) read that "2" as a "12" and kept on.

I can't imagine a more anti-climactic nor empty feeling ending to an AP.

I don't think it really felt empty nor did my group. They just planned well and luck was on their side. It's kind of the way my whole campaign worked. Boss fights that were supposed to be really hard ended up very easy because they got the jump on the boss. It was the minion fights that ended up difficult because of the sheer number of them.

Let me start off my saying that usually I roll ridiculously good saves for the enemies. I'm forever rolling 18+. However, last night it seemed my luck had run out!

Party Makeup:
Gnome Alchemist
Half-elf Wizard/Fighter/Arcane Archer
Half-elf Bard/Loremaster
Human Monk/Psion/Psychic Fist
Human Cleric of Pharasma

My group heavily prepares to fight a 20th level spell caster. I actually help the cleric prepare her spell list simply because this is her first DnD game in a long time and her first time playing a cleric.

Karzoug actually has Viorian on his side because the group pretty much wiped out everything else in the tower and Viorian ran away to the Eye.

Round 1
Wizard attempts to cast a spell on Karzoug but it fails
Gnome drinks a potion of fly and moves
Bard readies a counterspell
Monk enlarges
Cleric of Pharasma successfully Greater Dispells the Mind Blank on Karzoug
Karzoug casts time stop and buffs a bunch

Round 2
Wizard, using spells to help beat spell resistance, casts Feeble Mind....Karzoug rolls a 2 on his will save.

Congratulations you just turned the world's most powerful wizard into a blittering idiot. Game over!

Honestly it surprised me, but I find it so hilarious. We didn't even bother dealing with Viorian cause she's chump change with the monk that cannot be hit. I certainly wouldn't call a redo cause it was just the luck of the rolls as well as good planning. I have to admit that it was a bit anti-climactic. They took Karzoug back to Magnimar to stand trial for all of his crimes where the cleric of Pharasma presided to make sure that his body could never be recovered and he could never be raised.

Oh, don't feel bad. My part killed Karzoug at the top of round 2! They are a bit of an overpowered group but I was expecting at least one person to die in the combat. Problem was that my cleric managed to successfully dispel his Mind Blank and then I rolled a 2 Will Save against Feeble Mind that the wizard cast at the top of round 2. I found it all very hilarious actually. Sometimes parties just get the jump on a boss and if they do the fight is over. They tend to struggle with other combats though, generally with a large number of monsters.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I ended up glossing over the actual manufacture a bit, simply saying that it would require magic to craft it into armor. I gave the armor a base +7 armor with no dex penalty, DR 10/slashing or adamantite, 10 Cold and electricity resist, and 5 fire resist. Working with one of my players who is also a gm, we worked out that the party got armor made from him (and one player got a robe that just gives him the resistances) and the leftovers goes to the crafter as payment for making the armor. Of course that leaves the maker with a lot of extra cloth, but it takes care of the mechanics and sale of it pretty easy without making this too over powering. I was otherwise going to have to find a kingdom to buy the tent cause that's the only thing that could conceivably afford it.

It's pretty over powered armor that way, but my players are actually somewhat behind in levels from changing systems part way through, I haven't awarded extra xp much because they are in fact over powered enough as it is. This armor should hopefully help them survive the Age of Worms campaign as well since it's a player killer and we've already had a total party wipe on it.

Okay, I did a bit of searching but cannot find anyone posting on this save for adventure information. Did no one's party thing that this item would be worth a ton? Of course the GM could just say that it is destroyed after leaving the Lust Dungeon, but it's extra planer cloth. Personally I think it would stick around.

But this begs the question, how much is it worth? This kind of item reminds me of the Adamantite Doors in an Ebberon adventure I played. Cloth that is immune to electricty and cold, fire only deals half as well immune to bludgeoning and piercing attacks. I've always thought of giant spider silk armor as something someone should have thought of since spider silk is stronger than steel, but extra planer spider silk is just insane. I think magically making armor out of it is a way to go, but I'm not sure the stats to give it. The hardness is around the same as steal, but the hit points are more than Adamantite. I was thinking high AC, no max dex, DR against bludgeoning and piercing, electricity, cold, and fire resistance.

Anyone think this could be a game breaker? Or would this kind of armor be par for going up against Karzoug? This is also an adventure that will eventually meld into the Age of Worms Campaign with high level characters.

For a fun npc or even a player character down the road the baby could look remarkably human with wings though possibly with a tougher build than usual. You certainly would have a child that is shunned from society if his/her true nature is ever discovered, but it could make for some great roleplaying.

As much as those in Hollywood can be real jerks sometimes, we have freedom of speech in this country and I will stand by it no matter what. Iran and some odd 40 Islamic nations have passed a resolution in the UN to curb free speech, making it a crime to say anything against "religion" namely Islam. This resolution encourages countries to make laws which will make it illegal to say anything against Islam, truth or not.

Honestly, I think Hollywood should collectively pull down its pants and send a giant picture of thousands of full moons to Iran.

While I'd ensure they had the fight of their lives, I wouldn't hit them with a fully coordinated attack. There are several reasons for this:

In the first place, coordinating goblin attacks has to be a planner's worst nightmare. Can you imagine the heartburn the original surprise assault on Sandpoint must have required?

Additionally, they're still building their alliances. Some of the goblin force is likely to wander off in search of additional aid.

Finally, the villains have multiple objectives. If they send their full force after a party of adventurers, they leave themselves open to attacks from other angles. The goblins wouldn't want to lose their cool lair to another tribe because they didn't leave it well-guarded while chasing the adventurers. (Not all the local humanoid tribes are on the same sheet of music, as an example, the bugbears haven't signed on with Nualia yet.)

My guess is that they are going to wait on the other side of the bridge for awhile, not necessarily go back to town. Goblins may be stupid, but they're not stupid enough to attack over the bridge, especially if you have Nualia standing over them with a whip telling them what to do. I actually managed to plan it all out. If they wait 5 minutes that is not enough time for a goblin to go down and alert Nualia and her other human companions. However it's enough to get most of the goblins in the throne room with Ripnugget. They will still have to deal with Nualia and her gang together in the lower levels, but it's not as bad as if the 4 goblins+goblin dogs outside, as well as ALL the goblins inside end up in the same place. However, if they wait long enough then all of the goblins will be in the throne room. I"ll have the Quasit flying around figuring out where they plan on going with a few doors open so that way she can fly around and alert Ripnugget. If they go straight down the stairs then the goblins can come up behind them. All of Nualia's gang will be in room D15.

Now if they wait over night, then I'm going to have the Quasit fly out and cast "Command" on whoever happens to be on guard and make them walk off a cliff if they're close to one. Of course that also depends on where they camp.

If they wait even longer then I plan on having Nualia figure out the door that leads to Malfeshnekor and send someone to Magnimar to buy a scroll of "Anti Magic Field" so she can free it. Then the fun will really ensue.

As for player tactics: I'd say let them try different approaches like smoking the NPCs out of Thistletop. This is the best reason to play RPGs: you can do things that aren't necessarily planned for. Of course, it is more work for the GM, but in most cases it is worth it.

As for fantasy/medieval Europe, I would take your player's cues for more realism, if that's what he wants. Fantasy can be a tool in your arsenal of explanations, but it isn't always the root cause.

I'm fine with them doing different approaches, however, I'm not going to play my npcs as stupid. If they plan on waiting out the npcs, they're going to end up facing them all at once. That means 20 some odd globlins, a fighter, wizard, monk/rogue, and 2 clerics. If this isn't a recipe for TPK I don't know what is. My group, specifically one member likes to stop and plan everything out. This works fine most of the time, but there are instances where you need to go in and fight, thinking comes later. I dropped a lot of hints that they needed to deal with this threat immediately.

As for realism, I know my one particular player likes things to be realistic, but he's far too stuck in his historical mind set. We play DnD because it's not realistic. Plus, more realism can be a recipe for lots of player kills. When this player ran Age of Worms he ran it realistically. Because of this our characters constantly felt like we had aboslutely no time to stop and think, plan, or even loot. As a result we have a group of players that are about as geared as level 5 players should be.

I want to steer him away from this obsessesion that the game world HAS to be like medieval Europe because he believes it should be. I do have other players to think about, not to mention my own sanity when I try to make things more realistic and they're not realistic enough to suit his tastes.

For me, part of the fun in this is guiding the PCs through a brand new world with it's own history. I don't want to change everything to fit a carbon copy of history, because that would make things utterly boring for everyone.

It is known that Lonjiku Kaijutsu has had a long-standing agreement with smugglers and the Sczarni to use his tunnels and going as far as disposing bodies. It is possible that he has an arrangement with one of these criminal entities, including possibly pirates, that keeps the town of Sandpoint safe from other attacks.

In other words: why would pirates attack Sandpoint when it is one of their only channels for selling their stolen goods back to Magnimar?

This is a very good suggestion. And I think about a lot of things like this in my own head. However, a lot of information why people do things is knowledge that the PC's are not privy to. One of the points that I had to make to them is that they are playing their characters, not themselves. As such, they need to think about what their characters know and stop metagaming.

If you think of it in a medieval context, slavery isn't necessarily "evil", especially if you are enslaving things thought to be less than human or animals.

Aldern still would have risen as undead since he was nearly in the final stages of it when he went to Sandpoint. Getting killed earlier doesn't necessarily stop that.

One of my players had been more of a royal pain to me. He's playing his Cleric of Iomedae as more of a "I know more than you and I'm better than you" sort of jackass who is constantly arguing with the NPCs over their security in the town. He also thought of the brilliant plan of going off and attack and/or enslaving the other goblin tribes in the area to try and turn them against the Thistletop Goblins. While the plan is admirable, I'm having to remind them over and over that the threat in Thistletop won't wait for that kind of sceeming. Plus, who in their right mind would honestly believe that the goblins of Golarion could actually be enslaved? It'd be like trying to get ferrets to actually do something useful besides move your garbage around.

My players went through the Erylium like it was a cake walk. Part of that was my own problem, I let the npc get too close to the ground and the monk the party grappled her. As much as I tried to free her I didn't do so well of a job (mostly cause I hate 3.5 grapple rules). I had her escape later and free Tsuto (whom they also grappled and tied up). I plan on having these two npcs show back up at Thistletop.

The problem I'm having is that my players are waaaaaay too smart. Particularly one of them. At this point I think it's going to bite them in the a$$. After defeating the initial goblins on the mainland side of the bridge, they are planning on waiting. There are lot of things I can do with that, and none of them bode well for the pcs. It is far less dangerous for them to assault the place head on, that way they deal with the encounters spread out, instead of waiting too long and ending up with all of the npcs in one location trying to kill them. I don't want to kill the pcs, but by the same token I think I need to teach them a lesson about playing their charactes and not playing themselves.

I don't want to make the npcs totally stupid. The goblins generally are, but with Nualia and the others running the show, they at least have someone who can plan for them.

What I'm having more of a problem with is my players arguing with me over "inconsistencies" in the game world. These consistencies are more of an issue because one of my players keeps wanting to fit everything into the little box that is medieval Europe. Specifically he was complaining that Sandpoint didn't have more guards and defenses because it's on the coast south of Riddleport, like some pirate ship is going to attack a town a day's travel from Magnimar. Any tips on how to nip that in the butt other than constantly saying "it's a fantasy game"?

Don't just boycot Wizards, we all need to write them letters and send emails. Don't just send angry emails, write them a letter, that way they can't just send you the typical "we respect your opinion but we've made our decision blah blah blah" crap!

They're "planning" on creating online content like this sort of thing, but it's nothing like having a magazine in your hands. Besides, Dungeon and Dragon magazines create jobs for people who love DnD but also want to make a living in writing or art.

Don't just complain! Lets take up arms against wizards!