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I've been running Skull & Shackles for my group since August 2016 (we only get to play a couple of hours a week, so it's taking us a long time). We're currently working through Tempest Rising, Part 2: At a Lady's Request. The party just arrived at the wreck of the Brine Banshee and swam down to check it out. After encountering and killing the sharks, Ormandar wild shaped into a great white shark and attacked. The party tried to keep away from his bite range, so I opted to have him continue casting spells rather than just chase the PCs around the wreck.

Spell 1: Hydrophobia. Everyone passed their save except the crew's captain (male human bard [sea singer]). So, he took off for the surface.

Spell 2: Baleful Polymorph on the party's divine caster (custom race undine/dhampir oracle of bones). He failed his fortitude save and turned into an electric eel, but passed his will save and maintained his "humanity."

The rest of the party was able to kill Ormandar in three more rounds, or about the time the captain got back to the surface. The oracle then ordered his bloody skeleton (actually the Matron from Mancatcher Cove) to use signal flags found on the Brine Banshee to signal the captain what had happened, and to please drop a bucket for Pearl (the Matron's skeleton's new name) to catch and carry the eel.

EDIT: I forgot to add that Qouli, the oracle, pointed out to the other players that if they manage to change him back to his normal form, he's going to be at least a little p*ssed to, and I quote, "be in a body with too many bones, again."

Allow me to preface this by saying a couple things:

1. All the players are having a good time, and no one seems to be bored or overshadowed (or at least no one is upset when overshadowed)
2. I'm not upset or uncomfortable with the situation as it stands, primarily due to the point above: As long as everyone's having fun, we're cool.

That being said, I want to make sure everyone continues having fun. As such, I'm curious about things I can change/modify to make sure the martials don't get left behind as the casters get better.

Our party is as follows (all 6th level, 20-pt buy with all purchased stats at 10 minimum [racial penalties are allowed to drop the stats below 10]):

CN Human Gunslinger (musketmaster)
CN Half-Orc Brawler
N Human Bard (seasinger)
LE Human Wizard (evoker)
NE Dhampir-Undine hybrid Oracle of Bones (Urgathoa)

I'm a little too nerdy about some realism aspects, so I've generated a year's worth of weather, researched actual tall-ship sailing mechanics and speeds, researched visibility distances at sea level (and from crow's nests), and require the party to tell me where they're heading and how they plan to get there so I can calculate the actual time it will take them to arrive. I also keep ship traffic at a realistic level. The ocean's a big place, and unless you're close to a port, you're just not going to see other ships every couple of hours. (Based on sailing speeds, it's also fairly difficult to catch a ship you spot 15 miles away...and it takes several days.)

So, the party composition and my need for verisimilitude have resulted in two interesting situations.

1. While pirating, there is almost no chance the party will encounter multiple ships in a single day, allowing the party casters to nova every encounter. I'm trying to find a way to make the NPCs more resistant to the casters without making every pirate and merchant ship have 2 clerics, 2 sorcerers and a bard as part of the crew.

2. Item crafting. The wizard literally has days of downtime because of the travel times and distances. So far he's only crafting potions and writing scrolls, but he's mentioned getting Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Magic Arms and Armor in the future. The bard has also mentioned taking a crafting feat or two. I know how the crafting feats can throw the entire WBL calculation out the window, so I'm looking at this with trepidation, waiting for it to start to get out of hand. (The players are actually really enjoying this aspect of the campaign, too, since we've never played a game with enough downtime to make it worthwhile to take crafting feats.)

So, any advice on what I can do in the future (if necessary) to keep combat encounters during acts of piracy more interesting for the players without heavy-handed tactics like spell-resistance for everyone, increased saves for everyone, anti-magic zones, etc.?

This just came up for the first time. We had two characters at Shark Island and the villain popped up at the only other open location. To temporarily close, if one character fails the check, can the other character try?

So, we're running through Crown of the Kobold King with some "special" characters. One PC is a CN Kobold Rogue who left his tribe for several reasons. In the first dungeon room with kids, one of the Baddy Kobolds stabbed Kimi Eavewalker for 2 points of damage then ran. At that point, the kobold PC SLIT HER THROAT. Evil act? (He seems to think, "Not so much...")

So, my group and I have been having trouble recently getting together in person to finish our Kingmaker campaign. Add to that the Kingmaker GM getting his wife pregnant for the first time and the associated crazies, and we had to come up with a new plan. Enter me with my shiny new d20Pro license and 3 guest slots and HeroLab with all the PF supplements available...

I decided it would be a good idea to just run my friends through some of the Gamemastery and Pathfinder Modules just to keep us interested. I put together a "campaign" outline of the following modules:

Hollow's Last Hope
Crown of the Kobold King
Feast of Ravenmoor
Revenge of the Kobold King
Carnival of Tears
Hungry are the Dead
Seven Swords of Sin
Seven Swords of Sin
Realm of the Fellknight Queen
Cult of the Ebon Destroyers
The Pact Stone Pyramid
The Harrowing
Beyond the Vault of Souls
Clash of the Kingslayers
Curse of the Riven Sky
The Demon Within
Guardians of Dragonfall
Acadamy of Secrets
Tomb of the Iron Medusa
Blood of Dragonscar
The Witchwar Legacy

I'm using abstract/soft XP, so they gain a level every module or so, regardless of encounters. Also, PCs were constructed with a 15 point buy, racial HP (from the Beta rules...we LOVE that rule in our group and nearly always house-rule it into our games. Of course we give them to monsters/NPCs, too...), starting at level 1 or CR 1/2 (allowing players to try less powerful races or more powerful races with their first level in Commoner...such as the player who started the level 1 module with a kobold rogue 2...which equals CR 1/2), 1 Flaw from Unearthed Arcana, and two traits.

Anyway, my point is, I've been going through the 3.5 modules and updating them to PFRPG rules, converting NPCs to PF characters using HeroLab, and generally working to make the game fit with PFRPG rules. Incidentally, that's nearly as much work as designing a homebrew campaign...

Regardless, the whole point of this post, which I probably should have gotten to sooner, is, has anyone else converted Crown of the Kobold King to PFRPG rules and noticed how awful that whole thing is? We were playing for a couple hours this evening, and my crew ran into the bugbears random encounter. Three bugbear warriors, vanilla from the Bestiary, and my party nearly died. It's true they had some pretty awful attack rolls for a while, but regardless, 3 PF bugbears are pretty rough on 4 CR 1 characters. Then, after killing the kobold warriors in area 1 of Droskar's Crucible, they proceeded to the Stirge room. Am I the only one who thinks PF Stirges are nearly overpowered for CR 1/2 creatures?!?!?!? I had 4 of 5 stirges attached at multiple points with 2 draining 4 points of Con/ea, 2 draining 3 points/ea, and the last one draining 2 points... How are 2nd level PCs supposed to handle that?!?!?!?!? The party now has a cleric with a Con that dropped from 12 to 4 (2 stirges attached for the full 4 rounds/each), a fighter with Con that dropped from 12 to 9, wizard from 10 to 7, and rogue from 10 to 9. Holy crap.

My question is, I suppose, have I just not noticed how powerful PF beasties have become, or was this unusual? Also, anyone else have examples how PF monsters have done considerably more damage than their 3.5 counterparts?

My group is looking to start an evil campaign, and we're having a couple issues with some of the templates in the Bestiary. I realize the rules aren't *intended* to be used with PCs, but everyone knows that they're going to play a lycanthrope at some point, or whatever.

So, my question is, should I use the CR adjustment as a level adjustment if the PCs want to start with a template, or should I use CR-1 (minimum of 1) for the adjustment, as if the template added racial hit dice?

Again, just curious if anyone else had considered trying this yet, or if I should just do my own thing?

Quick question, for anyone who may know the answer, or who can direct me to the proper resource.

According to the updated Organized Play rules, GMs who "eat" a scenario will receive 1/2 max gold, 1 PA, and 1 XP to be added to a character of their choice, starting with Season 1.

Starting with Season 1 (and not retroactive to any previous scenarios that were run) any Game Master “eating” a scenario gets partial credit for that scenario applied to their own character one time. For example, if you run Scenario 40 three times, your character gets credit for it once. If you have multiple characters, you must choose which character gets the credit. You may only assign credit for a single scenario to a single character.

Partial credit means the GM gets the following:
• +1 XP for the scenario
• 50% of the max gold for the tier appropriate to the GM’s character; for example, a level 1 GM character gets 50% of the Tier 1–2 gold (yes,
this means a GM who runs a scenario at higher level that his current character receives no extra credit for his character)
• Half credit (meaning 1) Prestige Award

Does that only apply to Season 1+ scenarios, or does it mean anyone who GMs ANY scenario in season 1+ will receive that award?

I ask because I ran my first scenario (#1 Silent Tide) this past weekend, and I'm not sure if I need to fill out a Chronicle for my character or not. Any info will be greatly appreciated.

I just finished my first PFS scenario this weekend, played as a home game, and I have a question on filling in the chronicle sheets. We broke up before we had a chance to finalize anything, mostly because I had a couple questions, so results have not been reported, yet. As soon as I get some answers, I'll finish everything up...

Anyway, I ran Silent Tide (great scenario, by the way) and the PCs finished everything, collecting 553 gp. According to the chronicle, though, they can only collect a maximum of 453. Is this just a typo, or am I supposed to eliminate 100 gp?

Also, b/c I ran this at home, I don't need to fill in an event code, right?

Finally, the maximum PA is 1 for all characters b/c this is a Season 0 scenario, and there was only one faction goal per PC, right?

EDIT: I forgot to ask, Scenario Chronicle # is what?

Any clarification will be greatly appreciate. Thanks!

I have a question regarding traits in Season 1. All traits in the Character Traits PDF are allowed, right? Why, exactly, would anyone NOT take Rich Parents?

I'm just trying to figure out how that trait balances with gameplay. I'm converting my season 0 character, and I'm taking Rich Parents, so I have 1250gp (500 after 1 session+750 EXTRA starting gold), since I only played 1 scenario with my guy, right? I know I can't buy a piece of magic armor, but I can certainly have a couple masterwork items...

Someone, ANYONE, please let me know if this trait is disallowed...'cause I don't want to cheat.

My group of guys just recently decided to create characters and run them through the Season 0 PFS scenarios. We went ahead and made PFRPG characters instead of 3.5 characters, and updated the NPCs and Monsters in Silent Tide to conform to the new rules set.

However, now I'm wondering if this was a mistake? Should we continue to use 3.5 rules when running the Season 0 scenarios? The conversions were simple and they didn't change the difficulty of any of the encounters, as everything was balanced against the "higher" power levels for PFRPG PCs.

Anyway, I just wonder if this discussion has come up before, or if anyone had any idea how to handle it. I have not reported the results of the scenario yet, 'cause I still have a couple questions about that.

Any information here would be great. Thanks!

Do we have any information on how to build characters for GenCon Indy yet? I was informed we would have those rules sometime in early to mid-June...which is about now.

Just curious. And if I've missed a post along those lines, could someone please redirect me?

Thanks