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So my band of merry plot wreckers have been barreling through WOTR- We are currently in the final fight with Hepzamirah on book 4, and I'm looking ahead. We are on a bit of a time crunch due to things outside game where I want to be wrapped up by mid summer, we play once a week.

My party consists of this
Dwarf Paladin of Torag (husband in game and OOC to cleric)
Dwarf Cleric of Torag (wife in game and OOC to cleric)
Dwarf Warpriest of Groetus (cousin to Cleric in game)
Dwarf Speaker of the Past Shaman [Dwarven Pantheon]- (Cousin to Paladin in game)
Catfolk Hunter (follower of Desna)

As such, they have minimal connection to Iomedae- the Paladin is wielding Raidance (upgraded to a Sacred Avenger as opposed to the standard Holy Avenger) and they are tight with Galfrey. So the meeting with Iomedae would have minimal bearing with them.

So I was considering changing it up to make it a meeting with Torag instead of Iomedae; however, he doesn't have the connection to the Crusade in as large of an extent that she does. I imagine it would be a very different tone of meeting. I picture Torag in this instance almost as the proud grandfather addressing the party. Complimenting them on their victories in a jovial manner and the like.

However, part of the plot point is Iomedae getting the party on track to the Ivory Labryinth. I'm thinking leaving the encounter largely as is with Iomedae hitting the plot points, then Torag stepping in as a pleasant surprise.

Also, I don't particualrly want to run the ridiculousness of the Labryinth, so I was wanting another stand in for that. On a whim, I'd built an oracle (shadow mystery) vampire for another campaign I was writing set in Ustalav. So I took Hero Lab, ramped him up, and liked what I saw after making it mythic. As the party is going through the mines of Colyphyr, I've been dropping hints about the "the One Who Walks In Darkness" preparing an attack on "the mortal fortress" (Drezen) since the idea is that the Oracle is using their shadow teleportation-esque abilities to transport the Nahyndrian Elixir around in exchange for some of it.

Here's what I'm thinking- the party returns from Colyphyr to find Drezen in a panic; the Hellknight allies they have tentatively made are gathering around the Sword of Valor, and the Paralictor (inspired by Paralictor Derenge from the Owlcat Game) informs the party that something has been attacking the Citadel and caused several disappearances. Galfrey, Arushalae (who has a relationship with the catfolk going), Irabeth, Aravashnial, and the leaders of the company of Dwarves that came to support the Crusades (consisting of the Paladins ex-fiancé and the warpriests 'Uncle Iroh' like husband). Several Hellknights and Crusaders have poured into the dungeons of Drezen trying to mount a rescue to no avail. The party is going to wade through several troops of zombies/skeletons and lesser vampire spawn made from the Crusaders (I know, not particularly threatening to Team Divine).

When the party gets to the end, I'm thinking the ex-fiance will be a fully turned vampire (we've fluffed her as a soldier or battlerager, so something in melee), a dominated Warpriest Husband (established as a kineticist, so turning him would result in no more kinetic abilities), maybe a turned Arushalae or Aravashnial. Any other ideas?

I've been getting an interest in wanting to sharpen some of my GM skills for low level play, but unfortunately, the current campaigns I'm in are all high level. We're trying to power through at least one of them, as through work reasons we're going to lose at least one of our players.

I struggle with PbP, and working a weird shift in the evenings/nights + kids + wife obligations tends to pretty much leave me with the weekend (which is always booked), or maybe trying something during the time kids are at school? Also, one of the things I want to work on is my vocal narration and improvisation for descriptions for delivery. So PbP REALLY doesn't suit my purpose.

So here's what I'm thinking.

Roll20 maybe once a week sessions on like a Tuesday? Discord probably for voice, since my microphone got devoured by the dogs. My availability tends to be from about 9:30AM to about 2PM EST.

Low level to start (1st or 2nd level tops), with the campaign being in Ustalav.

Going to focus on the Gothic Horror aspects, so might have some darker themes, but a session 0 would be able to air out any concerns.

Right now I'm just putting feelers out to see if anyone here might be in a similar situation. I wanted to post here because I figured I'd get better luck with players who might be more lore-minded for Ustalav/Golarion than say an open post on Roll20.

I've been on a kick lately as a challenge to push my GM skills towards a genre I've never tried before. So after listening to Puffin Forests Curse of Strahd replay, seeing endless TikToks pertaining to Strahd/CoS, and investing in the Gothic Horror campaign Compendium (Legendary Games has such great stuff), I'm ready to start crafting my dark campaign.

There's a few beats I want to hit in writing this campaign out. I've got a ton of side quests/miniventures, but I was lacking a central theme or overarching bad guy, which was solved somewhat by the story of Strahd von Zarovich.

The beats I want to hit (irrelevant of Curse of Strahd)
-exploring Ustalav and its various counties.
-Bastardhall (I have a megadungeon map I intend to flesh out that I bought from DrivethruRPG, and I intend to use the summaries and notes from Rule of Fear and F. Wesley Schneider to fill in what has already been done)
-The dramatic difference between Caliphas' "sophistication" and the rurals superstitious nature.

Based on what I've gotten from reading about Curse of Strahd, there's several elements I'd love to bring in. Waiting on the actual book to come in so I can browse it myself.
-The near constant presence of Strahd (or our stand in Strahd) making the party completely and utterly hating the guy.
-The various "oh crap" moments of realizations (Strahd walking upon the sacred grounds of the church, realizing the scrying effect upon saying his name, etc).
-The "no win" decisions where the party is trying to mitigate harm as much as possible.

So far here's what I've got. I am trying to minimize the alterations to pre-established Golarion lore
-Strahd von Zarovich is going to be replaced by Cayderris Arudora and Bastardhall will serve as my Castle Ravenloft. While the original Arudora who was granted the Castle may have been a paladin, his family and descendants would not necessarily be. I'm thinking Cayderris is the original paladins son, and turned to dark powers (Zon-Kuthon seems fitting, as does Urgathoa), and he has been bound to Castle Arudora since.
-The brides are going to be more plentiful, with different backgrounds and themes to separate them in terms of powers, abilities, and feel. Some of them will be from the various Black Coaches that emerge from Bastardhall every 25 years (a change from the 100 in the book).
-Speaking of the Black Coaches, those are sent out to get the current incarnation of Tatiana, plus 6 other people of interest to Cayderris (for brides, servants, thralls, or whatever else strikes his fancy; at worst those will be the hooks to get the party to go to Bastardhall).
-To keep the idea of the reincarnated souls, I'm ruling that Samsarans are virtually indistinguishable from regular humans and Irena/Tatiana is one of them each time.
-The villages can port over easy enough.
-The Vistani port over really well with Varisian nomads, so little changes needed there.

However, there's four MAJOR hiccups I'm running into.
1. Strahd was very much into everyones business in Barovia; everyone knows him, and is rightly terrified of him. Cayderris does not have that benefit. At most, logically, he's only been on the loose for 100 years since the death of Aroden "weakened" the hold on what was binding him physically to Bastardhall. Now he's free to roam. But how to build up that same level of terrifying reputation where the various Counts and nobility haven't just tried to burn down Bastardhall again? How have the locals across Ustalav not heard of him?

2. Location. Bastardhall and Maiserene are on the furthest southeastern corner of Ustalav. I could move it, but again, I like keeping things as written as much as possible. Something about it being so close to Numeria and the River Kingdoms just...doesn't strike me as a good fit. However, one of the key components and motivations of Curse of Strahd is getting out of Barovia; it's just a quick jaunt and poof, they're out of Ustalav.

3. Which brings us to the next issue I have; the Mists of Ravenloft. I do not want to use the Dark Powers/Mists of Ravenloft. Ancient curses/pissed off gods are fine; Aroden "locking" the evil Cayderris in Bastardhall is fine with me, but the Dark Powers don't fit (as far as I can tell). And the Mists of Ravenloft only work really as either a railroad or on a demi-plane (which I'm running this on the prime material, so that's out). Without escape as a motivation, it needs to be personal for the party.

4. Curse of Strahd is built around the repeated cycle of Strahd pursuing Tatianas soul to wed her and SOMETHING always sabotaging that (presumably at the behest of the Dark Powers). I don't quite know how to get around this particular issue. When its time to sabotage Strahd, the Dark Powers bring in adventurers and let them run their course, rinse and repeat. I'm drawing a blank on how Cayderris can keep getting thwarted at least 12 times from wedding Tatianas new soul. Also- Strahds curse is that he can never marry Tatiana; doing so breaks the curse and turns him loose (IIRC, outside of Barovia). If Cayderris manages to wed his "Tatiana", what will happen?

I'm looking for ideas, critiques, and solutions.

So my party just started the Midnight Isles, and due to time constraints with our group, I'm kind of accelerating things a bit for the group. Still hitting the highlights, but things like reducing the size of the dungeons, skipping stuff I know they would hate, etc.

So in reading through the books, I'm worried they are going to try to (and eventually find a way) to get a Nahyndrian elixir back to Drezen; and these plotwreckers are the type that will both A) Try to drink it themselves or B) toss it in the purity forge once they realize its evil.

As far as I can tell, it doesn't say what happens if a non chaotic evil creature drinks the elixir normally.

Anyone have any experience with either scenario?

Welcome everyone! Sorry for the delay; things have been hectic the last few days. My littlest one woke up throwing up, so been monitoring and caring for her today.

A few questions that I never got around to asking given the haphazard nature of our "recruitment" is peoples comfort levels with various subject material and topics. As anyone familiar with S&S knows, characters like Plugg and Scourge are incredibly despicable people and there's a bit of gruesome and brutal incidents aboard the Wormwood. Any topics or types of events I should be wary of? Off the top of my head I can see female PC's being the target of at least lewd comments (we're not going RP out the extreme end of that, no worries there), and a squick factor for descriptions when the whip comes out. I just want to know what everyones comfortable with before we get there.

Other than that, this is my first campaign on these forums, so I'm going to be tinkering around when I can to get a combat plan (slides on Google Slides or Roll20 seems feasible) put together in addition to learning the intricacies of the forums. Hoping for one post a day; currently I'll be trying to post in the mornings, but we'll see how it goes pending schedule changes.

Here's hoping we have a blast sailing the high seas.

The massive headache pierces your skull as your eyes open; the gentle rocking of the ocean recognizable as your location is no longer on dry land. The smell of seawater and the of the bilges strike your noses. As you begin stirring, the sole door to the small wooden room in the swings open violently with a black leather boot propelling it.

The wearer of the boot is a Chelish man of average height with an expression that looks like a wasp was perpetually flying in his face, a long dark beard tied into short braids storms into the room, a coiled whip at in his hands. A light black jacket and trousers complete the look as "menacing pirate."

Several sailors of various ancestries follow him, each brandishing a short club menancingly as they eye the small group from the previous nights press-ganging. The whip-bearing sailor speaks up loudly, his voice an annoyed rasp.

"Still a-bed with the sun over the yardarm? On your feet, ye filthy swabs! Get up on
deck and report for duty before Cap’n Harrigan flays your flesh into sausage skins
and has Fishguts fry ye up for breakfast!”

The accompanying sailors chuckle at the line as they form a tunnel of sorts, indicating that the captives are expected to follow.

So my group wanted to start Wrath of the Righteous. No big deal, we've done mythic before and had a blast with the over the top nature of it. And we decided to really run with it, so 25 point buy, Elephant in the Room feat taxes, background skills, etc. We're probably not going to slow the mythic progression, so might as well have a blast.

However, what I was not prepared for was the characters presented to me at the conclusion of our session 0.

They are all dwarves. All of them divine classes (Paladin of Torag, Cleric of Torag, Speaker of the Past shaman of Torag, and Warpriest of Groetus). And they decided they are all related; paladin married to the cleric, shaman is cousin to the paladin, warpriest is paladin to the cleric.

After discussing how they all were going to be involved in the Crusade, the paladin announced that in addition to his goal of helping the Crusade stem the tide of the Abyss, he wanted to establish his own dwarf clan and outpost.

And it just so happens that the beginning of book 2 begins with Queen Galfrey giving the party titles and land in thanks for their service in the Worldwound Incursion. And it just so happens that the sky citadel Jormungun is in the lands of the Worldwound. Which just so happens to be filled with Duergar and demons right now.

I don't want to waste this opportunity- I think there's a fantastic opportunity here, but I don't know how to capitalize on it.

I don't know what to do in terms of layout, complications, etc. in reclaiming the sky citadel. But I see the potential for an epic adventure along the lines off the reclaiming of Mithral Hall (from Forgotten Realms fame).

I've got ideas, and given the loose nature of this, I think anytime between books 2 and 4/5 would be appropriate to do the reclaiming. But how do I make it epic? I have no idea how to make taking and holding the city nearly as epic as it could be. Nor do I have any idea what to do for the Sky Citadel as I can find jack and squat for these as far as examples or layouts.

I have ideas, but I'm open to any that people can suggest. I'll list some of mine here.

-Duergar "king" currently sits on the throne, wielding a corrupted Axe of the Dwarvish lordds (corrupted to be against all dwarves maybee?)
-Use mass combat rules to do a Minas Tirith style siege in the Wolfcrag with the crusaders against marching demonspawn that can't teleport. Further use of the primary tower of Jormungun in the canyons of the Wolfcrags where the dwarves are carved into the stone of the cliffs to overlook a massive siege/defense.
-Big scary demon and demon tainted creatures (following mithral halls example and using a half fiend or fiendish shadow dragon comes to mind) are the big monster at the end.
-Follow the story of redemption in the AP and see if there's a way to redeem the duerger?

I'm open for ideas, and would love to help bring this opportunity to life.

So I'm wanting to flesh out the Aldori Swordlords with different variations of fighting with the Aldori Dueling Sword to represent different philosophies akin to traditional Oriental martial arts and factions within the Swordlords. So to represent this in terms of Pathfinder, different feats and class abilities to represent the differences in these factions.

My group typically uses the Elephant in the Room Feat tax to give martials a much needed boost, so Power Attack, Combat Expertise, etc. is already accounted for, but if other GMs and groups want to use it, it might add some extra levels necessary.

Combat tends to come in a few different manners; one on one, small group, and mass combat. Thankfully, in terms of Pathfinder rules mass combat and small group are essentially synonymous with each other unless we get the Army rules out from Ultimate Campaign.

So compiling every class and archetype that could feasibly make strong use of the Aldori Dueling Sword (ADS from here on out), we'll start sorting them based on capabilities.

Classes include--

Barbarian (representing a high energy burst version of dueling/fighting)
Cavalier (Daring Champion especially, but there's potential for a mounted variant
Fighter (Aldori Defender, Mobile Fighter, Two-Handed Fighter, Free-Hand Fighter, Ustalavic Duelist, Two-Weapon Fighter, and probably a few others)
Investigator
Magus (kensai)
Monk (weapon master and potentially Master of Many Styles)
Rogue (and Ninja)

And there's too many feats to try to list and categorize.

What feats/classes/traits would you pair to create a distinct subschool of the ADS to represent different styles?

So my party didn't take long to get themselves into trouble.

Upon being pressganged, they took some time "endearing" themselves to Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge. It didn't take them long to start trying to get their gear back. Well; they snuck past Owlbear in the night, used some hidden gunpowder to blow the lock after muffling it. They dropped darkness over Owlbear beforehand and managed to break open the locker with their gear.

Then things went sideways. The darkness spell ended, the group in the quartermasters store were holed up next to Owlbears post; no way out. And their reaction? Suit up and prepare for war. Led by their sorceress, they had decided that they were going to take the Wormwood.

They tried to talk to Owlbear, but his automatic reaction was to yell and scream for the rest of the crew. The alarm is raised, and here it comes...

They form a fatal funnel around the stairs, hell bent on trying to hold their own against the crew. 6 of the generic pirates barreled in, and over the course of the next minute, 6 crewmembers fell to their blades. They have been heavily wounded, they are banged up, low on spells. At the top of the stairs is the rest of the crew with the exception of the 6 fallen and Owlbear, who is terrified that Master Scourge will punish him severely.

I'm trying to decide how to advance from here. I'm thinking Harrigan will dispatch Plugg and Peppery to subdue the party (shouldn't be too hard, they are level 1). Then from there, I'm not sure. Harrigan will not take their actions lightly, nor will he kill them as he is now DIRELY short of crew.

So I could definitely use some ideas to keep them going in the campaign. Marooning them or Ambrose/Quinn freeing them and escaping to a nearby island to start anew (complete with a survival and escape arc) seems to be the best option.

(In a sing song voice)
The Chelishmans blade was made of black steel;
And it's kiss was a terrible thing!
The Chelishmans wife would sing as she bathed;
with a voice as sweet as a peach.

Brothers, oh brothers, my days they are done.
The Chelishman has taken my life.
But what does it matter, for all men must die.
But I've seen the Chelishmans wife.
I have
I've seen the Chelishmans wife.

(End song singing shenanigans)

Changing out seeing for something a bit more lewd and graphic, you can get the idea (and probably origins of this little diddy). It made me start wondering if my fellow players have come up with any others that are similar with a Golarion twist.

So I'm in a bit of a pickle; I'm GM'ing a campaign while deployed and we are having a hard time with combat. Where we game we have spotty connection, so Roll20 and the like is out. Paper and such is a hot commodity, so I can't just print stuff off at work. Graph paper is nowhere to be found, and even if I were to get it, it's generally too small to reflect what I need in combat. I own one of the vinyl mats in the rear, but even rolled up, I won't have space for it with my gear when I stash it.

Any ideas for trying to keep it low-cost so I can actually do some more complex combats than 1 or two creatures? Thanks!

Do these two feats feed off of each other? Can I trip a foe and tag him twice as he hits the ground?

For the sake of argument, a Paladin uses his Smite Evil ability, but instead goes to strike the Sword/Shield of the evil foe in front of him.

Yes, yes, I know, it's terribly inefficient to Sunder things. But this isn't about efficiency. It's about this being legit and legal RAW.

Does the extra damage and effects of Smite Evil apply?

And if yes, would effects like the defending weapon/shield being Unholy/evil-aligned, etc. etc. double the damage received?

Simple enough question; do these stack with each other? Can I turn on Vital Strike and Cleave into my first target, then keep Vital Strike going into the second guy? Or does it stop at the first guy? Or as an even different interpretation; are they entirely separate actions?

I'm looking at building a Saurian Shaman druid soon, but I'm trying to get some fluff for him. I'm thinking of making him one of the Mwangi tribes, but I can't seem to find much information on them beyond what is in the Core Campaign setting.

From what I can tell, this looks like a valid concept in setting, but I can't find much information beyond where they live and things like that. I can't find any actual culture on them. Granted, I don't have ready access to all of the setting books, but I'd like to find out if there is anything as far as their specific religion, weapons they might use, things like that. I don't mind picturing them like the Zulu tribes or something, but I'd like to know if there is anything unique in-setting.