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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?

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.

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!

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.

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.