amethal's page

Magic Item Body Slots(MIBS & MIBS for PFS) for non-humanoids kinda set what does and does not meld in a polymorph.

The Ring of Eloquence [ring] $3500 is key to polymorphing and casting without Beastspeak:D2 or ability/feat.

There are so many magic items it'd be a long list of what different folks think is good...

It always amuses me that under the magic item slots rules a plesiosaurus doesn't get a neck slot ...

I was thinking you should have an overarching theme for this campaign. The first thing that came to mind is the duality of existence where many aspects of reality have two parts: light and dark, good and evil, chaos and order, life and death, male and female etc.

How this applies to Aroden is that when he ventured into the Dark Tapestry in the hope of uncovering the nature of reality he discovered things, terrible dangerous things, forbidden knowledge that was kept locked away for good reason. This knowledge was so powerful and profound it didn’t just drive Aroden to the edge of insanity it literally ripped him into two entirely different opposing beings. This is the real reason he can’t be contacted and is believed to be dead, he now exists as two new gods, one lawful good, the other lawful evil (and possibly one male and one female if you like).

Your Oracle PC unknowingly worships one half of the split god, but Aroden needs to be made whole again. That is the quest the Oracle embarked upon when he disappeared and that is the quest the new PCs will ultimately find themselves on. They must journey to the Dark Tapestry and fulfil the prophecy.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
And that which died shall forever be undone,
Unless the discordant two reconcile to one.”

I like the sound of that.

Maybe they can bump into a LG (or even a CG) version of Zon-Kuthon / Dou-Bral while they are at it.

Thanks, but no I've never used it before :P I've come up with similar builds before but they're always different each time, it just depends on what kind of concept character the OP is looking for :P You said you wanted a scary reaper who would show up, fear everyone, kill the frightened/cowering, and disappear, rinse lather repeat, so that's just where I went with your concept :P

That's a very interesting build, thank you for sharing it.

Is there a typo in the ability scores? You seem to have used a 27 point buy.

I always start at level 1. I enjoy trying to keep a character alive at low levels, and it is much easier to do in Pathfinder than it was when I started with BECMI many, many years ago.

If it was practicable, if my character died I'd replace him with a level 1 character. Unfortunately the nature of Pathfinder means you can't really do that after the party gets to about level 3 or 4.

One that comes to mind is the time my GM had a two stage boss fight were a big scary construct secretly housed an ooze of some kind. We encountered the construct out in the open. After hammering the construct down and triggering 'phase 2', we all looked at each other and just... stayed out of range of the ooze while pelting it with ranged attacks. Turns out big globs of acidic jello are not so scary when encounter anywhere other than a cramped hallway.

It wasn't really a boss fight, but in one adventure the PCs ran away from an ooze they encountered in a dungeon.

Fortunately for them, they remembered the location of an untriggered pit trap they had spotted earlier, and avoided falling into it as they retreated.

The ooze was not so lucky ...

It wasn't even a cunning plan to lure the ooze into the trap; it just happened that way. The players were far more delighted by this bit of good fortune than with anything else that happened in the rest of the adventure.

A Cloak of the Hedge Wizard (Transmutation version) allows Enlarge Person 1/day at CL 1 (among other things) and is 2,500 gp.

What would be really useful are Juggernaut's Pauldrons, which allow Enlarge Person at will, but they are 40,000 gp.

A Flask of Endless Sake would be hilarious for 4,000 gp; 1 in 6 chance of Enlarge Person, but also a 1 in 6 chance of Reduce Person ... I'm not sure whether you can attempt to identify the potion it produces before drinking it, but trying to do so would clearly be against the spirit (pun not intended!) of the item description.

The "fluff" of a trait matters a lot to me - but I'm perfectly happy for players to "re-fluff" their traits to better fit their backstory (and/or "forwardstory").

For example, if the character is going to be a multi-classed fighter/wizard who will become an eldritch knight, then it makes sense for their version of "magical knack" to represent early training by an Order of eldritch knights, rather than being found in the woods by a unicorn or something.

And the campaign world gets an Order of eldritch knights out of it too.

And it's not as if Paizo hasn't developed mechanically-identical traits with different fluff (although that may have been by accident!)

In Rise of the Runelords there is one encounter that is notoriously tough.

Our party had acquired a Mask of the Medusa earlier in the campaign, the monster managed to fail the DC 15 Fortitude save, and it was turned to stone.

I missed that session, so I'm not sure what happened next. The duration is only 1 minute, but maybe they managed to push it out of a window or something - I'll have to ask next time I see them.

And yes, touch of combustion would be a valid spell for spellstrike.

Touch of Combustion is an Ifrit spell, so since the character is an Aphorite I'd suggest checking with the GM before using it.

If the GM thinks this magus is overpowered, I wonder what they'd make of the weapon finesse/dervish dancing scimitar-wielding intensified-shocking-grasp-as-a-first-level-spell version we have in our campaign? (Pretty much straight out of the "how to optimise your magus" guide.)

I can't help you there.

I'm only missing the last one, but acquiring that seems like it would cost me more than I paid for the first five.

I have an almost complete collection of Pathfinder 1st edition books, but I'm pretty much resigned to never getting the rest as the prices are crazy for the ones I'm missing.

PDFs are not the same, somehow.

I personally think the Gray Maiden is a better fighter than a base fighter. The two things a fighter gets that a Gray Maiden doesn’t are a bonus feat at 1st level and - most importantly- Weapon Training. (And Bravery, but… eh.) The Gray Maiden gets more skill points, social talents, and vigilante talents. Vigilante talents are generally better than a feat (some roll two feats into one), and you can always take a fighter bonus feat as a vigilante talent as many times as you want.

To me, the only mechanical reason to pick the fighter is if you particularly value Weapon Training.

A fighter also gets tower shield proficiency, whereas the Maiden doesn't (unless I am missing something?)

And a Fighter has more hit points (or do people assume that Avengers get d10 HD to go with their good BAB?)

Blackmail involves threatening to reveal sensitive or damaging information about someone unless they comply with certain demands, ranging from financial payments to performing certain actions.

In the UK, blackmail is making an unwarranted demand, with menaces.

(Or at least it was when I did my law degree, some time last century.)

The "unwarranted" bit is to cover "reasonable" demands from people in authority.

"Menaces" could be pretty much anything (not just revealing information) but very much does not include the threat of legal action (which is the only threat UK solicitors are allowed to make).

I've played & GM'd for years in PFS where I'd say the vast majority of the players & GMs were totally for 'pay your money and get the RAW item exactly as is, no changes'. It was interesting but not at all creative.

I've never played PFS, but in my home campaign I decided to implement a house rule Monte Cook once mentioned, where wands don't have charges but instead have a 2% chance of stopping working every time you used them.

(The maths seemed a bit off to me, but I don't have the skills to work out the extent, if any, to which this method penalised the players.)

Anyway, the players all objected on the basis that "we might buy a wand and only get 1 charge out of it, which would be unfair."

And one of the players started recording "virtual" charges to see how many charges each wand actually had. Thereby completely negating the reduced-bookkeeping benefit.

I can only imagine the uproar if I messed with anything more important than wands.

Apologies for necro'ing what seems to have been a slightly bad tempered thread, but I just came across the Phalanx Soldier archetype, which has a Phalanx Fighting ability.

At 3rd level, when a phalanx soldier wields a shield, he can use any polearm or spear of his size as a one-handed weapon.

Given this predates Shield Brace and specifically says "as a one-handed weapon" whilst Shield Brace doesn't, I'm going to go with the interpretation that when you use Shield Brace the polearm remains a 2-handed weapon.

I might allow a Cleric who had channeled on the previous turn, and then was paralyzed after the fact, to continue channeling while paralyzed; in that instance, the Cleric may be paralyzed in a position where he was 'presenting' his symbol.

Thread necromancy on a 9 year old thread, but that exact situation came up in our last session.

My character boldly presented his holy symbol and channelled energy against a room full of zombies. The zombies' mohrg master was next in the initiative order and promptly paralysed me. The GM accepted that the symbol was still being presented (for what it's worth I had fully intended to channel again the next round) and allowed me to carry on channelling energy as a purely mental action for the rest of the fight.

I'm still not sure what the "correct" answer is.

As to your other questions/complaints:

You are absolutely right. The kineticist makes most people's brains bleed when they are reading for the first (or second, or third) time. The designer was exceedingly clever in the way he set things up. Perhaps too clever for easy comprehension. Everything is written with the minimum amount of words required to make the abilities unambiguous. Writing twice as much could have made it much easier to understand.

That's a good point.

When I played a kineticist I ended up having to write out all my abilities, what the burn cost was, what I could do to reduce the burn cost for each type of ability etc. - basically an idiot's guide. I've been playing 3.x pretty much since it came out, and I've never had to do that before.

However, the character (a criminally-inclined but kind-hearted aether kineticist) was great fun to play. Even with a bomb-throwing alchemist in the party who generally out-damaged him and had spells on top.

I'd also find an encounter toolkit more useful than an encounter codex.

If there was to be an encounter codex, I'd like it to be as scaleable as possible e.g. "to increase to a CR 6 encounter replace the Goblin Dog mounts with Worgs, or add a Goblin sergeant (Warrior 3, see page x) on a Goblin Dog".

I'm not too interested in "encounters by terrain" unless the terrain itself is going to play a part e.g. a chase through a forest, with obstacles to jump etc.

Instead, I'd prefer encounters by "nature" e.g. an encounter with mounted archers, and encounter with creatures using pack tactics, an encounter with flying creatures etc.

Poorly. It would be a bad choice to brew such Sacramental Cognatogen if it doesn't really grant you anything. It takes a long ritual to replace/summon a replacement companion, far longer than the duration of your Sacramental Cognatogen.

Now, how would I handle such a thing at my table? Well, I'd let you have an animal companion (effective Druid level 1, with no special abilities) follow you around and when you imbibe your Sacramental Cognatogen, the domain powers activate and empower your 'companion' creature to full strength for the duration of the effect.

No muss, no fuss.

I believe your animal companion only empowers if you hold your sword aloft and shout out "By the Power of Grayskull".

This is a rules question, posted on the rules question forum.

The two options are (as far as I can see, anyway) are either:

Evil spells are not on a good cleric's spell list, or

Evil spells are on a good cleric's spell list, but a good cleric can't prepare them.

The RAW isn't clear (obviously!) but I think the wording tends more towards the latter. However, since I prefer the former, that is what I use in my games - not that it has ever come up in practice.

This is my stance - a multi-class cleric/wizard can't cast wizard spells that oppose their or their god's alignment. Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful spell is a class feature as strict as a Paladin's Code. A paladin/sorcerer doesn't get to betray their code (without consequence) when 'acting' as a sorcerer. A multi-class cleric doesn't get to cast opposed spells, period. And yes, it applies to items.

I don't understand what you are saying here, due to the wonderful ambiguity of the English language - as the paladin in your example actually CAN cast an evil spell (with consequences), are you saying the cleric also CAN (with consequences) or are you holding the cleric to a higher standard than the paladin (she is literally incapable of doing it)?

I entirely agree with the folks who don't care if a (good) cleric *can* use a wand of infernal healing - they shouldn't want to.

This is a Rules Question thread. If it was an "advice on how I should roleplay my cleric?" thread then I'd agree with you.

The last adventure path for 1st edition was Tyrant's Grasp.

The product line pages on this site have a "sort by newest first" option. Assuming that is accurate, the newest/last products were:

Module - Cradle of Night
Campaign Setting - Druma, Profit and Prophecy
Player Companion - Chronicle of Legends

However, if you get a feat from other sources, then you can retrain this feat. For example, a Half-Elf gets the Skill Focus bonus feat at 1st level as part of his racial traits (not from a class feature), and therefore he can retrain it into any other feat he wants to. Basically everyone can turn his racial feats into bonus feats via retraining.

So my Kitsune, who has the Fox Shape feat as a bonus feat at first level (via the Superior Shapeshifter alternate class feature) can retrain it into Furious Focus …

"I used to be able to change shape into a fox, but I've forgotten how to do that. Instead I've been training to improve my power attack." Hilarious.

I also have the Magical Tail feat due to 6 levels of favoured class bonus. Could I retrain that as well? (My second tail just dropped off …)

My halfling kineticist character used it sometimes at low level.

With a physical blast, until he could get Precise Shot it was a waste of time firing into melee against opponents with high AC and his melee damage was derisory. So sometimes he'd rush blindly into melee and use aid another to help out.

When that happened, intelligent opponents would normally not bother attacking him, although there was an unfortunate incident against a raging half-orc barbarian ….

Not many deaths in Ruins of Azlant? Unfortunately, I can now add my character to the list.

Name: Taliesin
Race: Kitsune
Classes/levels: Samurai (Warrior Poet) 11
Adventure: City in the Deep
Location: Undertow
Catalyst: Full attack with a Ranseur; GM rolled 16, 20 and 20, hitting 3 times, confirmed one of the (x3) crits and did 107 points of damage in a single round to a character who was already injured (from being hit in the previous round).

It's very scary as a single classed fighter-type PC to be facing off against multiple NPCs who have a higher "to hit" bonus than you and are attacking more times per round ...

Okay, seriously, I am planning to use the Princes of the Apocalypse sourcebook, which is set in the Realms.

I don't know if you are familiar with the DMs Guild (on Drivethru), but most (all?) or the hard back adventures have fan-made "DMs Guides" available for sale there as PDFs.

They are especially useful for those adventures which are the worst organised, such as Princes of the Apocalypse. I have Sean McGovern's A Guide to the Princes of the Apocalypse, which is a couple of dollars and is well worth having. Other people have probably done similar ones as well.

There is also a bewildering collection of tie-in adventures and the like, of varying quality and usefulness, in addition to the official Adventurers League adventures for the Elemental Evil storyline.

I mean sure you all think hes useless but the moment you have to play pinball to win the game everyone's coming running.

I was going to suggest a Wizard with the Pinball archetype, but you beat me to it.

In 1st edition, there wasn't a "search" skill. If you wanted to search the bed you'd say "I search the bed". Depending on the DM, that may or may not have been assumed to include looking under the bed. However, if you said "I look under the bed" then if there was anything under there to find then you'd find it.

In 3rd edition, you'd say "I search the room" and the DM would ask for a search check and let you know if you found anything. Depending on the DM, if you said "I search under the bed" then you might find what was there without rolling - or you might still have to roll anyway.

I'm happy to play it either way (although the former method does put a lot of onus on the DM to describe the room properly - you can't search the fireplace for loose bricks if you don't know there is brickwork or, even worse, that there is a fireplace at all).

However, what I hate is being forced to describe in exact detail what I am doing, and then having to make the skill roll afterwards. Pick one method or the other - don't make me suffer the worst of both worlds!

What followed was nearly 20 minutes of teeth pulling on my part to try and ask the local townsfolk what the "Shamsaran Empire" is.

I find that DMing style to be very strange.

If I'd created the Shamsaran Empire I'd be delighted that you'd given me a opportunity to get information about the Empire into the minds of the players. There must be somebody in town who knows about the Empire's background, and why wouldn't that person be happy to show off their knowledge?

It's the start of the campaign, so the Empire might not be fully formed in the DM's mind yet, but if he can't come up with some cool information (or even misinformation) about it then what is it doing on the map in the first place?

And if he had planned that you would later find yourselves in a Shamsaran town without realising at first, then this is a great chance to foreshadow it.

"The Empire?" The innkeeper looks around nervously, then turns back to you with a troubled expression on his face. "Nobody talks much about them; it is said they have eyes and ears everywhere.

"The Empire is always expanding, but they don't send out armies - or at least, not at first. They are … what's the word I'm looking for? … insidious. They get themselves so tangled up in local politics, trade, religion, the economy, that you wake up one morning and find they've taken you over. The only thing that seems to have changed is the flag flying over the town hall, and yet nothing will ever be the same again …"

Also, whether or not following socothbenoth makes you evil, it is not the place of any government or other force to make you do otherwise.

Real world medieval governments in western Europe used to fine people for not going to church every Sunday. They used the law to enforce what they considered to be moral behaviour. They would be incredulous if you argued that it wasn't their place to do so.

Similarly, Rahadoum is the land without gods. If you don't like it, move somewhere else. If you move to Rahadoum with the intent of breaking the law and also intend to persuade other people to break it as well, expect drastic action from the state. Rahadoum doesn't care what you think of the law, it expects the law to be obeyed. It's not intended to be oppressive - it is for your own good and the good of your neighbours.

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Short version, Arthur is English and always has been,

Correction:

Arthur was British, fighting against the proto-English.

And now revered as a hero by the actual English, including the myth that he will return one day to save them.

(If he does return, he won't be pleased to find the darn Saxons are running the country.)

It ought to be a prime example of cultural appropriation - taking someone else's folk hero, and making him your folk hero, even though you were people he was fighting against - but it really isn't. No one culture can actually claim ownership of the Arthurian legend.

More annoying to me was the King Arthur in Legends and Lore (and presumably in Deities and Demigods before that), who had a gold dragon on his shield. I can see why they wouldn't want to have a red dragon (not something a Lawful Good character in D&D would want to be associated with) but they should have left the dragon out completely rather than changing it.

Had they changed it to a white dragon that would have been downright offensive, believe it or not.

What sort of game are you looking for? Those adventure paths are very different from each other.

The only one I've run is Reign of Winter, which we all enjoyed. It is very episodic, and one trip takes you to early 20th century Earth, which is not to everyone's taste.

My comment on the others are just based on reading them (in some cases, quite a while ago) except for Strange Aeons (so I can't comment on that one).

Carrion Crown is very horror-influenced, which was a plus for me, but came across as a bit too much "monster of the week". It's like the brief was "write an adventure about werewolves", "write an adventure about vampires" etc. The first adventure looks really good, however, and the last one looks intriguing as well. I just think it seems to drag in the middle.

I love the first half of Serpent's Skull, as lost cities, jungle exploration and survival are themes that I like. The first adventure seems to get a lot of love from people who have played it. The second half looked okay, but high level dungeon crawls don't interest me much. If I ran it I'd probably end it early.

Hell's Rebels has an interesting premise, but seemed too much of a railroad to me. I appreciate adventure paths have to follow a set path, and a published sandbox version would have to be massive, but there seemed to be no sense that the player characters were driving events. I think it needs players who get very invested in the plot, so wouldn't be a good fit for my group.

Shattered Star, in our hands, had markedly too little treasure--I don't know if that was because the PCs refused to loot allies or just because the treasure wasn't there.

I've only skimmed through Shattered Star, but in some cases the adventure assumes the PCs are literally scraping loot off the walls.

I don't like that idea, but any party that decides not to deface ancient ruins in this manner would presumably end up short on loot.

My wife used to teach Spanish, and taught them a swear word to use at home: "Sacapuntas!". Parents were shocked, until they learned that it means "Pencil Sharpener".

I sometimes use "Daeryddiaeth!" (with emphasis on the first syllable).

It's Welsh for "geography".

I've GMed numerous APs, often with either 20 or 25 Point Buy as well as Elephant in the Room feat tax rules.

For some reason, this has caused numerous players to start making either incredibly single-stat focused builds (Dex) or very broad builds (Switch hitters)

Without fail, those same players end up quitting because they don't feel like they're doing any damage or are ineffective overall.

Are these builds actually viable or do I need to make encounters easier to accommodate these off the wall builds?

"Viable" can mean different things to different people.

I don't think there's any need to ban things for being underpowered. Just discuss the character with the player, point out any potential drawbacks and leave the ultimate decision up to the player.

Players in my games are always free to "retire" characters if they are not enjoying playing them (for any reason, or no reason) and bring in a new character of the same level.

I will always try to tweak my adventures to make them more appropriate for the characters people are playing, but I won't engage in massive rewrites to accommodate them. The exception would be if most of the party were unsuitable for the adventure I planned to run - I don't expect a party of mesmerists to venture into the Tomb of the Mindless Undead even if the players were willing to go along with it for the sake of the game.

I'm a big fan of Jack Vance, this book looked like something I'd enjoy reading. For the most part that was true, but the scenes with the ogre and the children were a lot more than I'd bargained for and ensured I'll never re-read it.

The link for the Star Wars Burning Plague doesn't seem to work.

Links are definitely not my strongpoint.

I'll try again.

Star Wars Burning Plague

There's a conversion on ENWorld of the (once) free WotC 3.5 adventure Burning Plague to Star Wars.

Star Wars Burning Plague

Burning Plague isn't (quite) free these days, if you don't already have it.

3.5 Burning Plague

Does anyone have any recommendations of Pathfinder or D&D 3.5 modules that would work well converted to either of the Star Wars d20 systems? I have already considered Iron Gods, but I am currently running that as-is, so other suggestions would be more helpful. Also, I am leaning more toward self-contained modules rather than Adventure Paths so I can do more episodic adventures. Thanks in advance!

I'm wondering whether River into Darkness and Crucible of Chaos might work as Star Wars adventures.

The PCs could be seeking a crashed spaceship, on a planet whose atmosphere interferes with the operation of repulsorlift technology. Change the riverboat into a zeppelin, which the PCs use to travel into the interior, include the oppressed natives as a sub-plot, then off into the wilds to find and explore (and loot) the spaceship.

Years ago I wrote up a post for how I'd run Second Darkness as a Star Wars adventure, which I'll reproduce below. It contains lots of spoilers for Second Darkness, obviously.

Introduction
The Sith are gone, but not entirely forgotten.

A group of Jedi masters who call themselves the Winter Council dedicate themselves to seeking out users of the dark side of the force and remain vigilant for signs that the Sith may be returning. They seek out Sith lore and Sith technology, to better understand their enemy.

The Winter Council are not popular with the actual Jedi Council, who feel their obsession with the past hinders them in dealing with the present, and that their exploration of Sith lore is dangerous. In fact, one of the Council, researching a legendary Sith doomsday weapon known as the Graviton Device, fell to the Dark Side some decades before, and has not been heard from since. The Winter Council have done their best to keep this quiet, but have vowed to deal with the renegade themselves; their network of agents are on the alert for any signs of the renegade or (even worse) the construction of a Graviton Device.

Shadow in the Sky
The Heroes are hired by an agent of the Winter Council, who suspects retired crimelord Saul Vancaskerkin may have ties to the Dark Side. They are asked to sign on as employees at Saul’s new casino, and keep alert for unspecified “suspicious activities”.

Saul’s home town, a hive of scum and villainy known as Riddleport, is also experiencing strange gravitic anomalies. As a result a strange distortion has appeared in the sky. A group of Republic scientists are looking into it, but so far have not been able to explain the phenomenon.

Saul has his problems with the local criminal element, so working for him is not without risk. At some point, Saul becomes suspicious of the Heroes, and arranges for them to be “neutralised”. The Heroes (hopefully) survive the attempted murder, and confront Saul. After the dust settles, they learn details of the location Saul’s mysterious “backer”. They confront the backer, who pulls out a lightsaber and starts throwing around force powers – the backer is a Dark Jedi – and there are signs that there may be more of them on a nearby asteroid known as Devil’s Elbow.

Then a meteor strikes Devil’s elbow. It appears to have changed course in complete defiance of the laws of physics. The shadow in the sky above Riddleport disappears – but the town suffers as debris rains down upon it.

Children of the Void
Scientific analysis of the fragments of the meteor which struck Riddleport reveal it contains certain rare and valuable mineral deposits. A number of mining expeditions set off for the asteroid – and the Heroes are asked by their mysterious patron to follow suit; acting under the guise of prospectors they are to see if there are any signed of Dark Jedi activity on Devil’s Elbow.

They have to deal with rival prospectors, but most deadly of all a strange race of aliens came down with the meteor and has promptly started killing everybody. There is also a hidden group of Dark Jedi observing the results of their experiment, and the ruins of some sort of technological device.

The Armageddon Echo
The Winter Council ties in the activity in Riddleport with the activity of a group of space pirates known as the Azrinaes. These have gathered around the forest world of Mierani – a world that was once devastated by the original Graviton Device.

The Council mobilises the various armed forces at its disposal – whilst still keeping its own involvement secret – and launches an attack on Mierani. The attacking force includes the Heroes, who have proved to be extremely competent agents.

The Heroes find a massive virtual reality simulation of the last days of Mierani – created by the Sith using technology no longer available – and enter it in search for clues. They learn that the Azrinaes hail from a secret planetary base called Zirnakaynin, where they are just one of a number of rival pirate clans.

Endless Night
The Heroes are asked to disguise themselves as Azrinae pirates, and infiltrate Zirnakaynin. They find out that the clan is now led by a powerful Dark Side user called Allevrah – but that she and her key lieutenants have recently left for Coruscant. The Heroes escape from Zirnakaynin, and are asked to present themselves in person to the Winter Council on Coruscant.

A Memory of Darkness
The Heroes are intercepted in Coruscant by agents of the Jedi Council, and thrown in prison together with the Winter Council agent they were supposed to meet. The Jedi Council is seeking to move against the Winter Council, but doesn’t know who they are or where they are based. As a result, they have decide to use the Heroes in an attempt to flush out the Winter Council, and arrange for them to “escape” with their contact.
The Winter Council meet in secret at a hideout in the dark and dangerous lower levels of Coruscant. Their base is constantly besieged by the monstrous creatures of the lower levels, but the Council are confident their defences will hold and the besiegers ensure they never have any unwanted visitors.

The Heroes manage to enter the Winter Council compound, and confront the members. A violent argument ensures, one of the members turns to the Dark Side, and a fight breaks out.

Descent into Midnight
The Heroes chase around looking for the various components of the Graviton Device. It is powered by five linked Sith artefacts – none of which are on Coruscant! Allevrah is able to use the power of the Dark Side to draw energy from these 5 artefacts from their locations on other worlds. When she has enough energy, she will use the Device to destroy Coruscant.

amethal wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

Too many things in one stat while Charisma sits there uselessly.

Well, I did once play a Paladin 2 / Oracle (Lore) 1 / Ninja 2 that got quite a lot of mileage out of his Charisma score.

Of course you did, because you made a specific build that ran off Charisma.

Back in the good old days, none of the stats did anything much, and you had to play with the stats you rolled. The game has changed a lot since then, but the ability scores haven't.

Nobody seems to be suggesting bringing back henchman limits tied to charisma, or having a minimum charisma requirement before you can play a paladin or (I seem to remember) a druid.

Let's just get rid of Charisma altogether.

Too many things in one stat while Charisma sits there uselessly.

Well, I did once play a Paladin 2 / Oracle (Lore) 1 / Ninja 2 that got quite a lot of mileage out of his Charisma score.

The challenge is that the AP needs an epic ending but if your characters rush to Death Mountain then they will be killed by the CR16 gatekeeper.

RotRL has ‘protect Sandpoint’ for two adventures because ‘defeat a runelord’ is a dumb mission for level 2 PCs.

When we played Rise of the Runelords my character was very happy to take on any and all Runelords at 2nd level. Everybody knows they all died centuries ago, right?

Eliandra Giltessan wrote:

Ah, the thing about MM is that it’s the FIRST book that doesn’t fit, imho.

I disagree with that. The first book flows so well into the second and it hints toward what's to come, has call-backs in later books, and makes sense with the rest of the narrative.

But that being said, books not quite fitting in as well as the rest either doesn't seem to bother me much or I subconsciously find ways to fit them in easier or can easily justify why they're there.

I wonder if people are more forgiving if it is the first book that doesn't fit - I've played in lots of campaigns where the first few adventures were just a "warm up" for the main event. In fact, I quite often add an introductory adventure of my own to the start of an adventure path, especially if not everybody can make the first session.

However, one of the (numerous) complaints against Second Darkness was the perceived "bait and switch" where you think the campaign is going to be an exploration of Riddleport's seedy underworld but after book 1 you are expected to abandon everything you've built in the city, never to return.

Conversely, what puts me off Mummy's Mask is that it seems like all of the adventures are pretty much the same. That may be a false impression, but since Mummy's Mask is competing for my attention with the other 19 1st edition adventure paths that I haven't played in or run, it means I'm unlikely to give it a chance to prove me wrong.

For something like this I'd suggest using the background skills option from Pathfinder Unchained. Basically you get an extra set of skill points to spend on "non-adventuring" skills.

And when he discovered that the big monster at the bottom of the temple was, in fact, not evil but good--a divine guardian that had been tortured to madness by Dagon's followers, in fact--even though it was trying to kill him and had just done him some pretty serious damage, all he wanted to do was pray to his deity to try to heal it. And even though I know there are specific methods/procedures outlined in the Cleric books for this type of thing and he technically did not have them, he does not know that. So I made a GM call that I probably would not have made with a party of all grown-ups. I will steadfastly maintain that, for a six-year-old, it was the right thing to do. But the occasionally-lawful part of my mostly NG nature still whispers in my brain that it's Wrong to deviate from the Handbook.

For what it's worth, I think that was a great way to resolve the situation and if the book stops you from doing something awesome then the book is wrong!

My gaming group are a bunch of cynical adults who would never approach the situation like that - but if they did, I'd allow it. (Albeit probably with some sort of spurious dice roll to make them think they'd "earned" it.)

As long as you can set it up so that the PCs get the Queen is maintaining plausible deniability the whole plot is very cool intrigue.

When I ran it, I had the queen wink at the party after she delivered her speech. Worked fine for my group.

Razimir is a bog standard 19th level Wizard. Everything else is just a tissue of lies. He has never granted divine powers of any sort.

If he lived in the Forgotten Realms he'd be running a tavern.

Does the "read everything" include third party products? The Book of Terniel is an excellent Pathfinder adventure for 1st level characters. It doesn't appear to be available from Paizo but it's on Drivethru.

For Dungeon adventures, "Shut In" from Dungeon 128 is for 2nd level characters and gets good reviews (an escaped murderer is on the loose and the PCs are tasked with guarding a little old lady and her family).

That party looks like a great chance to try out a LN Dwarven "barrister" (Asmodean Advocate Cleric) - will have excellent bluff and diplomacy, so can act as the face of the party (in a coldly logical and uncharismatic fashion) and the shortcomings as a healer won't be a problem since you already have a shaman.

(I'd love to try it as a duergar rather than a dwarf, but that might be a bit too complicated for your situation.)

The archetype is actually less complicated than a standard cleric, since you only get one domain (Trickery) and the GM doesn't need to concern themselves with the nuts and bolts of your skill checks (i.e. that you are using Profession (Barrister) to make bluff and diplomacy checks).

He has the time and money to go online and back 511 projects, but not to back his own creation. Unreal.

511 projects!

I've backed 103, which is a crazy amount, but nothing compared to Gary.

I should have bought that when it was new. Now it's far out of my price range on eBay.

The two Gazetteers are available in PDF on Drivethru.

They aren't available as print on demand, but additional products do get added to POD from time to time.