davypi's page

Just running this as a private module for my non PFS group. Guide gets me on track though. Thanks to both of you.

I am getting ready to run the night march of kalkamedes and see that there are notes for changing the adventure if there are exactly four PCs. However, the module does not actually state how many adventurers the module was designed for in the first place. I may need to make some other scaling adjustments because of the way our party is setup, but I dont know how to adjust if of dont know what it was designed for in the first place. How many PCs is Klakmedes designed for? Is it the same for all PFS modules?

Ok. So I'm beginning to see another failure in my understanding. I also missed the fact that Magus has a limited spell list. For some reason I was assuming the Magus list was the same the Wizard/Sorcerer. Thanks to all for the help.

Rogues, sorcerers, and others, for various reasons, are assumed to have the aptitude.

Ok, but this is the crux of my question. What EXACTLY are the "various reasons"? I can start to see why the Magus needs it as they can only go up to level 6 spells. But the Sorcerer and the Wizard have the exact same spell list. Why one but not the other?

So I am running a group and a new character coming in is going to be a Magus. She has put a fair number of points until Use Magic Device which, honestly, does not seem to make much sense for me. Please bear in mind that I still have some 3.5 prejudices when I interpret rules, so definitely correct me if something I say below is wrong.

Whenever a wand/staff/etc is created, it comes with a trigger word. If you know the keyword, you can use the item even if you are not a magic user. The primary purpose of the UMD skill is to allow rogues to try to use items they have stolen. However, the disadvantage here is that UMD has to be used _every_time_ you want to use the device. In contrast, a sufficiently high Spellcraft/Identify check will give the keyword, so you only ever have to make the roll once. If you are good at Spellcraft, you don't really need UMD.

I do realize that UMD has a second purpose. If an item has a limited use based on alignment, race, class, etc, you can use UMD to overcome this limitation. Ok, thats fine. So maybe even if you're good with magic, you might want UMD so you can wear that really awesome alignment prohibited armor. But this now raises a question. If UMD is useful to Sorcerers and Magi, why isn't it also a class skill for Wizards? In particular, if an arcane magic user gets formal training via an apprenticeship or at a magic school, why would Magi learn UMD but not Wizards? They both have to learn magic the same way (i.e. INT based via studying books.) It just really feels like there is a thematic disconnect here and I am wondering what the metagame logic is behind giving the Magus/Sorcerer UMD but not the Wizard. I don't want to tell my players how they have to spend their skill points, but unless I've missed something, it seems like a Magus putting points into UMD is wasteful.

The group is five level 4 PCs plus an L4 NPC. I'm not factoring the NPC into the XP budget, so they actually have a little help on the first block of encounters until he turns on them. I think its fair to say that we really don't have a ranged character in the group. The Cleric does use a bow, but he also has to do the healing. A couple of players (druid / summoner) still haven't figured out how to play their classes very well. The team likes to lean on flanking strategies, but mobs can do that just as good as they can.

1) The 3000XP block is separated into five rooms. One monster is CR3, one room is a swarm of CR 1/2, all others are CR2 in singles or pairs. Based on the pre-fab module I've already played with them, I think its very well paced and I'm willing to fudge the last room in their favor if something goes south. There is no loot that will help them on the way, but according to the "wealth by character level" chart, they are about 20% over where they should be. (They also have an unlimited source of Cure Light potions provided they can carry them - long story there.)

2) Somewhere in between. The final treasure is guarded by three CR3s, so the PCs have a 2 on 1 advantage here. Once those are gone, the NPC is then going to summon a handful of CR 1/2 and then run off with the loot. So there is a clear separation between the two halves of the encounter, but no time to pause between them either.

I'm currently working on my first (non-module) encounter for my group. My understanding that the suggested XP budget given by the book should leave the party 1/4 exhausted. So conventional wisdom is you have three such encounters before a rest. So with this in mind, you could actually multiply this budget by three for an extended encounter. For example, the suggested XP budget for a level four party is 1200, so 3600XP in one adventure shouldn't kill them. Really, I have about 4000XP divided into the first five encounters, so I'm thinking this should be OK. After that, I'm going to subtly suggest they rest before moving on. Its the second part of the encounter that worries me.

It makes sense for there to a boss monster at the end of the dungeon, so the final encounter is over the norm (1800XP) Ok, not too bad if you're at full health, but there is also a plot twist at the end where one the NPCs is going to summon some minions and turn on the group. So there is going to be another encounter at about 1200XP with no rest in between. So you might as well call it a 3000XP encounter. So in theory, there isn't enough XP in here to kill them, but pouring it over them all in one shot seems a bit hazardous. (For clarity, in this 3000XP budget, no monsters is over CR3, so its not like I'm burning my XP budget on a single overpowered monster.) Still, is this too much to throw at them at once? The book really isn't clear about budgeting XP in an ecounter vs budgeting a whole adventure. How much difference is there between three 1200XP enounters and one single 3600XP encounter?

1) Fifty is not too many. The quest involves what you might consider an opinion polling process. They have determine what needs the town has and then make a recommendation to a third party as to how to improve the city. The PCs could choose to ask one question and then move on to the next person, or they could probe for further explanations. They have one day of game time to gather the information they need, so its reasonable to assume that they could plow through 100 people in the course of day. (I used to do market research, so I know over 100 is doable in eight hours.) I can certainly recycle NPCs - just because two people have the same job and other similar stats doesn't mean there aren't other circumstances that could cause them to give different answers. My main concern is that I'm not very inventive when it comes to making up NPCs on the fly and I want to make sure I have an encounter table that is robust enough to handle the scenario I've created. Otherwise, I'll just keep using the same dozen or so professions which becomes unrealistic They could meet anybody from a street beggar, a baker, a farmer, a prostitute, a merchant, a record keeper, the head guard, a magistrate, and so on.

2) The city is about 700-800 people and growing fast enough that its on the verge of becoming a major city. It is on a river that is used for trade (so sailors just got added to the list, and warehouse workers) but there is plenty of farmland in the surrounding area. A major forest is about an hour away, so lumberjacks and game hunters are also possibilities. (So, that also means hunters, weavers, tanners, seamstresses, blacksmiths.) So pretty much any job that would be in a medium but not quite metropolis sized city I would like to have handy on a list.

Have you seen the Doctor Who episode, the Silence in the Library? The villains are shadows that normally live in trees but end up living in library because... where do books come from?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vashta_Nerada#Vashta_Nerada

Even if you don't want to use that specific villain, its still a viable idea. Any kind of evil fey would do. The creature gets trapped inside a book from the tree it lived in and somehow gets loose.

For crazy traps, you could have something like the prison books from the Myst series, although you'd probably have the book open and on display on a dias for the PCs to take interest in it.

If you want something less combat oriented, you could have the ghost of a wizard who died in the library while researching something. His soul can't be put to rest until you find a certain fact that confirms or denies his thesis.

Mimics are a bit cliche, but nonetheless appropriate here.

A magical tome is powerful enough that it is enlarging ordinary insects. This would give you an object that will continue to spawn monsters until it is destroyed or otherwise placed in a "safe" location.

I have an encounter planned for my group that will require them to interview many many people in a growing town (just shy of 1K people). By necessity of the quest, many of the encounters are going to be "random person on the street" so I need some simple information prepared in advance. What I would typically like to have is age, gender, are they married, how many kids, maybe a Wis/Int score, and what their job is. This is the information that is likely to frame the responses that I (as the GM/NPC) give to the PCs.

Occupation is probably the most important thing as I feel a bit challenged to come up with more than a dozen or so medieval-era jobs that people might have, but there certainly must be more. The best thing I can find so far is the Backgrounds & Occupations generator in the d20pfsrd. Still, I can't help but wonder if somebody hasn't already created what I need. Is there a good list of fantasy world jobs or a "street encounter" generator that might help me out on this?

As always, TIA.

Absolutely the biggest mistake I have seen my PCs make over and over again is failure to control a choke point. For example, a PC standing in a single square doorway is subject to attack from three adjacent spaces yet can only attack one in return and also blocks his allies from coming in. With a simple five step, they could reverse these roles, making the enemy stand in the doorway while he and his party members can take the 3:1 advantage. Similarly, I have seen parties that have control of a choke point surrender it because they think they have an advantage by letting all the bad guys come out at once.

Important question: Is this about the faiths of the PCs (do they have the same faith?)

It is about the faith of the PCs. Two believe in gods, one is a non-denominational druid. The fourth PC believes that gods have power but chooses not to worship. This is part of the reason why demonstrations of faith will be more important that demonstrations of divine power. The plot I have in mind is not so much about empirical proof of the gods' powers, but about the value of believing in them.

If it makes things easier, a given encounter can still revolve around a particular god (or an NPC of that god). Exposure to different beliefs can impart different lessons or points of view about faith. I just don't want any one particular god taking over the storyline.

Up front, I'm sorry if parts of my request are a little obtuse, but I know that some people in my gaming group read the forums. (And if I am your DM, please hit the back button on your browser..... now.)

I am working on building a story arc for players in my group. Part of the story is going to revolve around ideas about the role of faith in a person's life. I have a little bit of the story arc setup and I know what the big finish will be, but I need some buildup of some of the concepts in between.

There are lots of threads on the forums that talk about quest ideas for how druids can serve or connect to nature, but I couldn't find a thread that talks about quest ideas for clerics/paladins that really focus in the idea of what it means to serve your god. There are threads that talk about atonement quests that are appropriate to specific god, but nothing that deals directly with the issue of faith. There is also the rather mundane idea where a god commands a follower to do something, but this more of a quest driver than it is the actual focus of the quest. I'm more interested in an encounter that will challenge, strengthen, or define what faith is, why it is important, or how it connect you to your patron diety. I also don't want the encounter to be specific to a particular god because the story arc affects more than one PC and they have different dieties. Its safe to say you could gear the quest towards non-evil gods (even all good gods I could probably work with). Its probably pretty obvious that such quests will be more role-playing than combat, but combat is not out of the question provided it is appropriate.

TIA - Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

A friend of mine has a PDF copy of a Paizo product called Player Character Folio. Page 12 of the PDF is a character sheet specifically for Animal Companions. About 2/3rds down the page on the left is a CMB calculation:

10 + BAB + STR + Size + Misc

I cannot find anything in the core rulebook that supports animal companions getting a ten point bonus to their CMB mod. A google search does not support this either and in fact other threads seem to confirm that companions compute CMB the same as a regular PC. However, the error is not mentioned in the errata for the product either nor can I find a thread pointing out this discrepancy.

Which is the correct calculation? If there is a +10 to this, can you please provide a source?

Soooooooo the wizard actually gets to do something before the combat even begins.

Yeah, that really shows us that the wizard needs an advantage to pull it off.

Yes. Just like the warrior got to put on his armor and equip a weapon.

Is it just me, or has this whole thing gone off topic for the past two or three pages?

For some bizarre reason, I'm reminded of a story I read on the old WotC forums during the 3.0 days where a wizard was challenged to a duel in an arena like situation. Prior to combat, the wizard casts stone to mud on the back wall of the arena. First round of combat, wizard casts repel, slamming the warrior into the mud. Second round, the wizard casts mud to stone. So a 13th level wizard can end combat in two rounds and only has to worry about a failed will save. Melee classes could also kill the average wizard in two rounds, but they have to make several attack rolls, not one.

Now, this hardly constitutes proof that spellcasters are the better. As others have pointed out, if your spells are mismatched for the current situation, you might have problems. What it does demonstrate though is that spellcasters have a resource that other classes don't - imagination. The previous example of the druid who tunneled underneath 20 encounters to jump to the scenario end point is a perfect example of this. Spells allow you to be clever in ways that your fighter/barbarian/paladin classes simply cannot do. Spells aren't the problem, its the inventiveness of the PCs that that are the problem.

The flip side to all of this though is that PCs are not always that creative. Some of them are, but IMHO, this is the minority and not the rule. I played a scenario at a convention a few weeks back and it was amazing to see that players were wandering off on their own (ignoring the "don't split the party" rule) and then wondering why they were near death trying to fight solo against four monsters. I've also run into a lot of people who simply don't understand battle tactics. Players get easily focused on things like flank and cover because there is a numerical bonus associated with them in the rulebook. However, they don't realize that ideas like creating a chokepoint or holding a line have greater long term benefits. Perhaps I am a bit cynical, but I don't expect people who fail to grasp ideas like this to be creative enough to engineer spell combinations like the one mentioned above. So spellcasters can be a problem, but most people just don't know how to think that way. If you want to put this idea in game terms, only one in 216 people have an INT of 18 or higher. While I'm willing to believe that RPG players are above the norm, I would still bet that less than 3% of us are actually capable of role playing the wizards we create. Something perhaps even more relevant than the "gentlemans agreement" argument is one of "human capacity." I'm certainly smart enough to role play a wizard, but in brutal honesty I'm not sure that I the creativity or the wit to pull off a game breaking kind of character.

In a similar vein, I am interested in understanding how real world "magic" works (which, de facto, includes understanding con artistry). I've seen nearly everything created by Penn & Teller, Derren Brown, Hustle, and several "grifter" movies. A friend of mine was trying to make an argument that an in-game object could be guarded without the use of magic by in-game equivalent of Fort Knox. But she doesn't have the same knowledge base that I do. It really is beyond her to imagine what Houdini or Moriarty or Danny Ocean would be capable of if they had access to fantasy world magic. She doesn't know how to use simulacrums, transportation spells, transmutations, and other illusions to their full potential. Again, spellcasters can be huge problems but the people who play them are often the tempering agent.

So, one of my PC got a little clever last night with the ready action. I think what he has done is legal, but I'm curious to verify this with you rules experts out there.

Character is ranger. He has used his animal companion's tricks (a wolf) so that it will follow basic commands in comment, including taking the "flank" trick. I've also allowed him to let his animal companion act on his initiative rather than making them roll separately. However, I'm not sure this is entirely relevant as any two PCs with the same initiative could co-ordinate to pull off the maneuver I'm about to describe.

What the player wants to do is create a situation where both he and his companion can get their flanking bonus when they are not near an opponent. Thus, he takes a move action on one side of the target. His standard action is to ready an attack against the target with the trigger being his wolf attacks. His wolf then moves into a flanking position and attacks. The wolf attack triggers the PC attack, which now gets the +2 bonus because the target is flanked. After the PC attack is done, turn order reverts back to the wolf who can finish his attack (again with flanking).

I can't find any rules violations here, nor does it appear that this would affect/change their initiative order. The only reason this seems strange is that I am accustomed to PCs acting one at a time. So if two PCs want to flank, the first one has to move into position and attack without the flanking bonus. The second person then moves in a then gets the flanking bonus. As noted above, any PC who willing to lower their initiative could do the same trick, its just not a combat tactic I've ever seen before. (Of course anything the PCs can do, so can the NPCs....)

Any thoughts?

I am sure Razmirian preists are good at demagoguery

I'm sure they are, but this misses the point of my question. Those priests are not present in the eastern parts of the River Kingdoms or Galt. I'm not asking how foreigners are denounced while they are visiting Razmiran, I'm asking what foreigners say about Razmir's religion when they finally get home.

you wanna know when a clergy member of the faithful shows up in Razamir, being that Razamir condemns all other deities as false gods, he would likely put him to the stake and burn them alive

Given that high level clerics typically have a high wisdom, they are probably able to figure out it isn't wise to speak out against Razmir or point out their false magic while they are there. (Some clerics also do have access to teleport, so even in a pinch they have an escape route.) If you don't like this way of thinking, then come at it from the other direction. A high level wizard could walk in and out of their country with ease so long had he pretends to acknowledge the faith. He probably understand whats going on better than some of the priests do. ISWG also states that there are temples in Molthune, Nirmatahs, and Ustalav. How does Razmir enforce his communist-dictatorship in those areas? The fact that they are faking the use of divine magic can't possibly be an airtight secret. So again, the issue isn't what happens to outsiders while they are in Razmiran, but how they interpret the strange magic and what happens when they talk about it when they get home. Would they say he is not a god or would they say he is a god with a different kind of power?

I think Zousha is probably right in that outsiders who are able to figure out something is "wrong" in Razmiran probably do have better things to do with their time than lead a skeptics crusade. So such a "secret" probably isn't worth mentioning outside idle conversation. But the issue of outside perception has become relevant and the ISWG does a poor job of addressing it.

So, Razmir is starting to become a bit of a thorn in my side and I kind of need some questions answered that are not in the source book. Apologizes if this is covered elsewhere, but I did try using the search function. So first, here is the situation: I am DM in a group where a character (2nd level summoner, if it matters) is adopting an agnostic philsophy, questioning the difference between arcane and divine magic. I can handle most of the issues that her character is bringing up as the whole divine vs arcane issue is one I've dealt with before. However Razmir kind of factors into some of her arguments. My problem is NOT with knowing how the Razmir's con-job works. I've sorted most of that out. The problem is, some of her character's arguments run up against metagaming issues. In some ways, she is acting as if she knows he isn't a God. But this may not really be cheating: while its clear that Ramirians believe him to be a god, the books say nothing about what everybody else thinks.

How exactly does the rest of the world react to Razmir? Do they believe he is a god or not? The entry for Lastwall in the Inner Sea Guide refers to his followers as "priests of the so-called 'Living God'" (page 99). The usage of "so-called" implies that the people of Lastwall do not believe in Razmir's godhood, but it does not outright state this. So is the usage of the phrase "so called" the actual opinion of the people of Lastwall or is it strictly metagame commentary? The River Kingdoms guide does no better - their hatred of Razmir clearly comes from military conflict but it doesn't outright state that they disbelieve his godhood.

Later on page 235, it mentions that he relies on "obscure arcane spells" and folk medicine to deal with healing. Surely any low level wizard or cleric who visits from a foreign land would see what was going on here. Worse, what happens when a level 10+ cleric from a real religion shows up? Even a rogue with sufficient levels in Spellcraft is going to at least know the difference between a divine spell and an arcane spell. What do these people say when they return home from visiting there? Is there a "skeptics of Razmir" network that exists outside of Razmiran? If not, how does he manage to fool the people who ought to be able to figure this out?

Lots of great ideas and explanations. Thanks to all.

The disease definitely has stages, but many other things happen that I didn't go into because the CON/CHA issue was the real hurdle. The idea of the creatures gaining mass really gives them bulk, not HP, so I think a STR boost is more appropriate. Having the disease damage their CON makes more sense as CON=0 can be the death/undead trigger. (Now we have some logic to this!!) I like the idea of penalties to CHA skills instead of damage. The disease has different effects on different people, allowing some of them to control others. Thus I can drop the penalties for the "chosen" undead, allowing them to command the "common" undead without actually hurting their needed CHA score.

I am getting ready to DM a campaign and need some help with a monster template I am goingto build.

The main plot is going to revolve around a disease which eventually turns the target person into an undead creature. As the disease progresses, certain stats will increase or decrease. These changes should typically be giving the host body more hit points but make them less likeable as they will gain some mass altering their appearance and difficulty interacting with others. In other words, I want to increase their constitution, but lower their charisma. This is obviously a problem because undead eschew their Con score for their Cha. But I'm trying to understand how this makes sense. I realize that Cha doesn't necessarily make you more "likeable", but it still doesn't explain how your "presence" allows you to take more damage. I also wouldn't make sense for a hearty person who gets the disease to suddenly become weaker simply because they have a lower cha. I suspect that, as a workaround, I will have to increase hit dice instead of Con, but it would still help if I understood the underlying mechanics so I can make sure the templates I am building have the desired function. So, is there a good explanation for change in mechanics? Suggestions are also welcome.