The rules say that if an enemy or object has total concealment, you can't attack it directly but you can attack into the square that you think it is in with a 50% miss chance.
My question is, what is the AC for this attack roll? Is it an attack roll against the enemy/object's AC with a 50% miss chance? This seems to make the most sense.
The answer I often hear is that an attack into the square should use AC 5 (per splash weapon rules), with a 50% chance to hit the target.
Even if we bump it up to AC 10 (the default AC for inanimate objects, IIRC), that's still only an AC 10 to hit and then a 50% miss chance.
If I'm a PC and those are the odds, I'm going to close my eyes and swing blindly at the square every time, because why try to beat the enemy's AC when you can swing blindly and hit 50% of the time?
Maybe what makes the most sense is to make your AC 5 (or is it 10?) attack into the square. If you hit the AC, make the 50% miss coin toss, and if you succeed there make a to-hit roll against the enemy's AC and proceed as normal.
The rules for the fly skill and the related checks have explicit instructions regarding what happens when a winged creature fails its fly check.
Fly skill wrote:
...
Attacked While Flying: You are not considered flat-footed while flying. If you are flying using wings and you take damage while flying, you must make a DC 10 Fly check to avoid losing 10 feet of altitude. This descent does not provoke an attack of opportunity and does not count against a creature's movement.
Collision While Flying: If you are using wings to fly and you collide with an object equal to your size or larger, you must immediately make a DC 25 Fly check to avoid plummeting to the ground, taking the appropriate falling damage.
Avoid Falling Damage: If you are falling and have the ability to fly, you can make a DC 10 Fly check to negate the damage. You cannot make this check if you are falling due to a failed Fly check or a collision.
High Wind Speeds: Flying in high winds adds penalties on your Fly checks as noted on Table: Wind Effects on Flight. “Checked” means that creatures of that size or smaller must succeed on a DC 20 Fly check to move at all so long as the wind persists. “Blown away” means that creatures of that size or smaller must make a DC 25 Fly check or be blown back 2d6 × 10 feet and take 2d6 points of nonlethal damage. This check must be made every round the creature remains airborne. A creature that is blown away must still make a DC 20 Fly check to move due to also being checked.
...
Try Again: Varies. You can attempt a Fly check to perform the same maneuver on subsequent rounds. If you are using wings and you fail a Fly check by 5 or more, you plummet to the ground, taking the appropriate falling damage (see Environment).
The paralyzed condition also explicitly states that creatures who are flying with wings automatically fall when paralyzed.
The question is, what happens to magically flying creatures when these things occur?
So, what happens to a magically flying creature when any of the above situations regarding winged creatures occurs? Nothing?
Attacked while flying -- simple enough, guess magically flying creatures (or otherwise flying without wings) don't need to make a check.
Collisions? Same thing, I suppose.
Failing a complex maneuver? Well, winged creatures who fail by 5 or more will fall. But the check is made as part of the move action, so you have to have actually moved to determine the DC and make the Fly check.
And if you're magically flying and attempt to make a complex maneuver and then fail your check, well, you've already moved -- do you reset back to your starting point? Reset to the point where you began your complex maneuver? Nothing at all? If you fail to make the maneuver, do you get to use the rest of your speed to complete the move action in some other way? If so, and you're now performing some other complex maneuver, then what? Another check?
If nothing happens, then why do magically flying creatures need to make a skill check to make complex maneuvers? Do they fail to move at all?
And what about the case of hovering? Does failing to hover while magically flying mean that the creature automatically moves at least half it's speed away from where it attempted to hover?
Example:
I want to fly straight up at full speed. This requires a check. I fail my check. I haven't moved, now I want to hover. I have to make a check to hover. I fail my check to hover. Now I have to move (because I've failed the check that allows me to not move while flying). I want to fly at less than half my speed straight ahead (5 ft step, perhaps). I fail my check. Now I want to fly at my full speed but turn greater than 45 degrees. I fail my check. Now I want to turn 180 degrees by spending 10 feet of movement. I fail my check yet again. Now that I've exhausted every complex maneuver, I'm forced to make a flying move action that isn't considered complex (outlined in the Check text for the skill). Is this how it's supposed to work?
The try again text says you may retry the same maneuvers on subsequent rounds, which implies that you can attempt other maneuvers on the same round after failing a given maneuver, so the above example seems correct. Magically flying creatures, it would seem, are forced to move in a way that does not require a check if they fail their complex maneuver checks, or else stop flying.
This skill has baffled me for weeks now. I am certain it needs errata to clarify how it works when a check is failed. What are the general thoughts on this?
If you're playing Rise of the Runelords as a PC, do not read any further.
Last weekend, my PCs faced the dreaded Freezemaw, and poor Thomar once again met a gruesome death. It's no big deal, once they scrape up some of Thomar from the rocks and use their scroll of True Resurrection on him he'll come back kicking. Poor guy, he's died four times since we started this adventure, yet somehow he keeps coming back. Overall, it was a fun encounter, with my PCs having had no idea how to hit him through the blizzard (50' radius is enormous) and only one party member capable of flight. They got him down to exactly 100HP and of course he took off to heal up and fight another day. He'll follow them into the Runeforge and ambush them somewhere there when it is most inconvenient for the party, naturally.
So my PCs are at the stone circle. I fully expect them to solve that puzzle in a few minutes and make their way into Runeforge.
My concern is that Runeforge is huge and there's no telling which section my PCs will explore first, which sections they'll visit, and if they'll even hit all of them. I'm pretty sure they haven't the faintest (they don't have great system mastery and aren't great at following plot points) idea of what to expect. Usually I get out the pawns and draw out maps for every encounter I expect to reach during a session, but in this case I have no idea which section(s) they will explore.
Does anyone have any tips on prepping for this massive dungeon, any gotchas that they wish they had known about before hand, or any other general advice for Runeforge? I fully expect the exploration of this dungeon to last several sessions, and I've read through the SotS general GM reference thread but wondering if there is anything that other GMs did or used for this dungeon to make it a little more convenient to run.
I'll also take any suggestions on how to make this a memorable dungeon for my party. Some of my players played 3.5 in the past but I don't think any have ever played past the standard E6 heroic levels of gameplay, and certainly not at high level 13/14/15 Pathfinder. This is their first high level dungeon, and I want to impress upon them the epic dangers of such a place.
A situation came up in the game I GM last week where the PCs believed they were sneaking up on a monster. One of my PCs made a stealth check to peer around the edge of a wall and see into the room beyond. In this room, there was one monster. I made a hidden perception check against his stealth roll and succeeded.
I told the player that he saw the monster (a stone golem). The stone golem did not react to perceiving the player, so at this point the player believes he is undetected. I secretly added the golem to the end of initiative order.
My players thought they were getting a surprise round because they thought their presence was still unknown. This means they only took move or standard actions, no full rounds. When I had the golem act at the end of the same round, the player who made the stealth check exploded on me because he thought it was a surprise round. That moment single-handedly ruined the entire evening for me.
What is the "correct" approach to this situation? On one hand, letting them think it's a surprise round and then having the monster act during the same round is disingenuous. Then again, if I tell them there is no surprise round then that might give away that they have been detected when maybe the monster doesn't want them to know it is aware of them.
EDIT: On the other hand, I told them they were acting in initiative, and the entire dungeon was in initiative. That being the case, should there be no surprise round anyway? The thinking behind that being, if they happen to get the drop on a monster that monster goes at the end of the round, otherwise the monster goes where he falls in the initiative order based on what I (the golem) rolled for his init.
I need a few clarifications on how large creatures move.
Do large creatures taking a 5-foot step effectively only move half of their area into new squares?
Example:
x = monster area
. = empty tile
Before:
. . . .
x x . .
x x . .
. . . .
After:
. . . .
. x x .
. x x .
. . . .
Do movements of creatures larger than medium (I'll use large as my example) count their "trailing" area as part of their move distance? That is to say, is the "leading edge" of their token during a movement action the edge that is used for determining distance traveled?
Example:
50 foot x 20 foot area, with giant starting where the x's are:
Before
. . . . . . . . . .
x x . . . . . . . .
x x . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
After
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . x x
. . . . . . . . x x
. . . . . . . . . .
In the diagram above, has the giant moved 40, 35, or 30 feet? 40 feet, right?
Another situation: PCs are in a narrow hallway (10ft wide) and a large monster is coming down the hallway:
x = large monster area
o = medium size PC
. = empty tile
x x . . o . . o
x x . . o . . o
The monster (we'll say he's a giant) wants to pass the first two NPCs. What are his options? Is he completely blocked? Can he attempt an overrun against one of the PCs to move past, while provoking AoOs from both? Can he attempt an acrobatics check against one as part of his move and overrun the other? Can he acrobatics tumble through both at the same time? Overrun both, using the higher CMD of the two (and let the other assist, maybe)?
The party has gone through several incarnations and now looks like this:
- Paladin (Iomedae)
- Cleric (Sarenrae)
- Inqusitor (replaced the barb, who replaced the witch)
- Blackblade Magus (replaced the rogue/wiz, who replaced the sorc)
And we've also added a new player:
- Bard
In addition, the paladin has taken the Leadership feat and had a cohort (monk) who died recently and who I need to replace.
The party right now is in Jorgenfist, having just defeated the Black Monk. The problem is that they defeated him in one and a half rounds. He barely had a chance to act before they just completely destroyed him, and this is how pretty much every encounter has gone since they reclaimed Fort Rannick (that adventure was actually a bit tough for them, and is where they lost both the rogue/wiz and the barb).
Even if I add an additional 40 - 80 hp to every enemy and use the advanced template, my PCs just aren't being challenged. Compounding the issue is just how damn effective these PCs are. For example, the inquisitor has crossbow mastery and uses a heavy crossbow with rapid shot and averages something like 65 damage on a full attack, and the magus is just as bad (or good, depending on which side of the screen you're on :) ) and uses all sorts of meta-tactics to his advantage. The paladin is a walking fortress, and the bard and cleric buff the party to the point of making them nigh unstoppable.
Like I said, they stomped all over the Black Monk and have had very little difficulty with any of the giants they have faced in this adventure, and the end of HMM wasn't difficult for them either. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to increase the difficulty further without making it impossible? I'm having trouble finding that sweet spot between impossibly hard and just a little too easy.
Hello everyone, I've got a party who like to do things which are not covered by the rules (isn't that every party?) and one player especially likes to stretch things to the limit. Generally, I apply rule of cool and allow most things that should be possible.
Sometimes, though, the rule of cool leads to cheese. Like when my ratfolk magus casts Reduce Person on himself, making him Tiny, then "mounts" the Paladin so he doesn't have to use his move action to get into combat range and gets his full round attack.
Since RAW this simply shouldn't be allowed, and I don't want to prevent my players from using a viable tactic, I need to come up with rules that allow this but don't allow the magus to cheese (he's already a super cheese character, he doesn't need more ways to cheese).
Any suggestions?
EDIT: Just realized that a Tiny creature has a reach of 0. He's been fighting from the Paladin's shoulder. Whoops! Anyway, I'll still take suggestions since I still need a way to determine whose move actions are used and what should be allowed.
Hey all, I looked around a bit but couldn't find any specifics on how to stack multiple metamagic feats. I've got a player who regularly casts an empowered, intensified shocking grasp and says it's 15d6, or 30d6 on a crit. I understand how he's arriving at this number, but it seems off to me. He's including his intensified 10d6 when calculating the amount to empower by. If you calculate it that way, his number is correct. However, it doesn't make sense to me that the effects would stack, because the result is different depending upon what order you calculate them in.
My way:
Intensified Shocking Grasp (caster level 10):
5d6 + 5d6 = 10d6
Empowered Shocking Grasp:
5d6 + (5*1/2)d6 = 7d6
Intensified, Empowered Shock Grasp:
5d6 + (5*1/2)d6 + 5d6 = 12d6
His way:
Intensified:
5d6 + 5d6 = 10d6
Empowered, Intensified:
5d6 + 5d6 + (5*1/2)d6 = ...12d6
...
Okay, after having written all that out, the result is actually the same. He's just getting his order of operations wrong! PMDAS comes to the rescue. I guess I'll give my player a math lesson next time we play, but I'll post this anyway as a reminder to all those munchkins out there to make sure your math is correct!
I'm GMing my weekly Rise of the Runelords game tonight for my friends. We've been running the campaign for a year now, we're a little less than halfway through (we did take the summer off, however).
This party can be draining sometimes. Give me a pep talk!
Topic. My player wants to play a magus, and is dipping a level in wizard for the evocation admixture focused school. He wants to apply Versatile Evocation to his magus spells. I don't see why this shouldn't be allowed as the ability doesn't restrict it to wizard class spells (though I would argue that he shouldn't be able to change divine evocations if it came up); however, now he is trying to convince me that his opposition school penalties only apply to his wizard spells. Again, I cite the lack of language pointing to these penalties only applying to spells from the wizard list as evidence that they apply to all spells of that school regardless of the spell list it came from or the class slot it was prepared in.
This player has a habit of making me second guess myself, so I'm sure I'm on the right track but I need someone else to chime in and provide a sanity check.
Normally, without Precise Shot, firing into melee through an ally at an enemy would result in a +4 AC for the enemy (Soft Cover bonus) and -4 to attack roll (firing into melee).
Precise shot negates the -4 modifier.
The Friendly Fire teamwork feat says:
Quote:
You initiate this feat as a standard action, making a ranged attack against a foe engaged in melee with at least one abettor. This shot deliberately forsakes normal precautions, putting your abettor at risk, but also is unexpected enough to surprise your mutual opponent.
You gain a +2 bonus on your attack roll if the attack passes through an abettor's space. If your shot misses the target, you must immediately make a second attack roll with all the same modifiers against the abettor, potentially hitting her with the attack instead of the opponent. When the attack resolves (regardless of whether either potential target was hit), the intended target's startled reaction provokes an attack of opportunity from the abettor.
So now we're looking at a +2 for the attack roll. Is the soft cover now negated by the sentence at the beginning of the second paragraph? How does this end up working out? My gut says the soft cover still applies a +4 to AC, but the attacker still gets a +2 to attack.
Does opening a door as a move action count as a "full" move action? Rules state that a character can make a 5 foot step and full attack in the same turn. This must mean that taking any other move actions, even ones that might be "equivalent" to a 5 foot step (such as drawing a weapon or opening a door) prevent a full attack from being made in the same round? Am I interpreting this correctly?
If so, did I unintentionally screw over my player when I had a monster open an adjacent door and full attack him in the same turn? He died as a result of the action during our session on Saturday and I only just realized this now.
In running the Fort Rannick excursion with my party, I noticed a few plot holes in the book.
The biggest flaw with the way the scenario is written in the book, in my opinion, is that the Black Arrows don't immediately tell the PCs the details of the fort, about the secret tunnels, the shocker lizards, or any other information the fort's engineer (Vale) or second in command (Jakardros) might know. If they're to help retake the fort, the PCs should damn well be as informed as possible by the people they're helping. Why should any of the secret doors in the fort remain secret when Vale and/or Jakadros are there to help the PCs?
Now, the book says that if the players learn about the shocker lizards, they can smoke them out and up into the fort to help weaken the ogres.
Question: how do shocker lizards open doors? Do they bash them down? Do they crowd around the door until they can't move anymore? They'not very intelligent creatures. In addition, these lizards are pretty weak. I can't imagine them putting up much of a fight against any ogres, especially since the first ogre they encounter has fighter levels (they have to wander right past the infirmary to get anywhere else in the fort). What ended up happening in my game was the PCs smoked out the tunnels, the lizards got trapped in the basement, and Lucrecia got advance warning of the PC excursion, giving her a chance to escape the fort before the assault began.
The lizards themselves ended up trapped in Lucrecia's lair, giving the party wizard an opportunity to kill all 12 of them with a single fireball.
Of course, now the fort has filled with smoke, and the ogres are aware of an attack on the fort. Ultimately, my PCs had to flee in order to live and fight another day (though only two of the four made it out).
Eh, I guess I don't know where I was going with this post. This information kind of dawned on me as we were running through the scenario and I had to scramble with appropriate responses. I suppose the lizards could have bashed through the door, which might have made a small difference with the ogres inside, but it also probably would have meant the party facing more ogres off the bat, which could have ended up even more disastrously than it did.
I've got a particular munchkin player who likes to mess with me as GM, doing things like creating horse walls (summon communal mount) and other ridiculous munchkin shenanigans. It bugs me but he gets mad since "the rules allow it."
Anyway, I made the mistake of letting him obtain a metamagic rod, maximize (lesser), and he's using it to great effect. Who knew how deadly a scorching ray, combined with maximize and sneak attack, could be?
Maximize wrote:
All variable, numeric effects of a spell modified by this feat are maximized.
My player insists the sneak attack is a variable, numeric effect of the spell. Because of that, he gets 4d6 scorching ray damage when maximized + 3d6 sneak attack damage and he does an automatic 42 damage at the beginning of each combat on the most powerful flat-footed foe. I've been allowing it because I don't want to argue.
What I'm asking is this: is the sneak attack damage actually a variable of the spell or is it counted separately? I contend that you wouldn't count the sneak attack damage because you don't double it in the case of a critical. On the other hand, the rules for magic-based sneak attacks state that magic sneak attacks do the same type of damage as the spell, so that makes me lean towards maximize also maximizing the sneak attack roll.
If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.
What is the touch AC of the narrow passage? This came up on Saturday night and my player insisted it would be a 10 (makes sense), and frankly it ended up not mattering, but it's not clear to me what the AC would actually be.
FWIW, I probably shouldn't have required the roll at all, but he was attempting to get the fireball through a double-door, a 10 foot wide hallway with 4 medium sized creatures blocking passage (2x2 in the middle of the hallway), and another double-door at the far end of the 20 foot hallway, from a position behind two other medium creatures. I thought there should be a chance he accidentally hits something in the hallway, albeit a very low one. He wasn't happy about it but he obliged.
If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.
What is the touch AC of the narrow passage? This came up on Saturday night and my player insisted it would be a 10 (makes sense), and frankly it ended up not mattering, but it's not clear to me what the AC would actually be.
FWIW, I probably shouldn't have required the roll at all, but he was attempting to get the fireball through a double-door, a 10 foot wide hallway with 4 medium sized creatures blocking passage (2x2 in the middle of the hallway), and another double-door at the far end of the 20 foot hallway, from a position behind two other medium creatures. I thought there should be a chance he accidentally hits something in the hallway, albeit a very low one. He wasn't happy about it but he obliged.
So I've been running a Rise of the Runelords AP since early September now, having begun as a new GM. I am familiar with 3.X, have been for a long time, and likewise with P&P/tabletop games in general. I've never had a dedicated GM before -- back in the day we used to take turns GMing our VTM chronicles.
Anyway, I'm not asking as much for myself as I am just to hear how other people go about their preparation. I've developed my own sort of organized chaos in prepping for sessions, but I thought I'd toss this out there for discussion: how do you prepare for your games? I don't mean how do you write your campaign, design encounters and so on -- I mean the stuff that comes after that. How do you track NPCs you've created (or that are included in the AP), once you've got a stat block? Do you make copies from the Bestiary entries, or do you work right out of the Bestiary for each encounter? What information do you always want immediately available? What do you do to track your PCs' progress? How do you remember plot hooks you set up previously? Notes are well and good but disorganized notes are as useful as not taking any notes. Do you print out everything? Use a laptop, maybe?
This type of information would be incredibly useful for a beginner GM, yet it is the one thing the GMG doesn't touch upon at all (as far as I can recall, anyway).
I print out sheets for every NPC and monster type (if I have 5 goblin warriors, I print one goblin warrior sheet, for example), and just track damage on scrap paper for each combat, though I am considering creating an 'Encounter Sheet' for every encounter that has tables to track certain combat information. Not necessarily for initiative order, because we have the Paizo Combat Pad for that but for things like buffs, debuffs, HP remaining, and the like. We used to use a laptop and VTT on a big screen but we found that it was more distracting to play that way so we ditched the computer entirely -- now I run everything from the AP book and my notes. The worst thing about the laptop was the temptation to research every rule and spell as they were invoked, which really bogged down the game.
So, what do you do, and how do you organize, to prepare for your game sessions?
So my players finished the Misgivings yesterday, just about. After exploring the majority of the first and second floors in the first session of the Misgivings (which we played two weeks ago), they made it to the attic and made a beeline for the sounds of crying. They released Iesha, temporarily distracted her with the portrait of Iesha they had been carrying around (she failed her save), then followed her down to the first floor and watched her dig.
Of course, they ended up not exploring any of the basement or the rest of the attic, went down the hole, down the stairs, and straight into the caverns.
None of this is problematic, really, but it all happened so quickly that in my haste to deliver a climactic battle, I totally forgot that Iesha is supposed to confront Aldern! The PCs got sidetracked by the packs of ghouls in the caverns (completely avoided the skaveling), and had a lot of fun when they ran into Ripnugget as a ghast (they hadn't actually killed him at Thistletop, only tied him up while they delved into the dungeon beneath Thistletop -- by the time they returned to the surface, he had mysteriously disappeared. I figured he would have wandered off to try to rule the Bird Crunchers or some other regional goblin tribe, having "bested" the Sandpoint heroes, when he was assaulted by ghouls while traveling across the hinterlands).
The slippery ramp itself wasn't too much of a hazard, beating a 12 on the acrobatics check isn't too difficult. However, when the full-plated paladin slipped and fell into the water and failed every swim check, things started to get scary. You don't see too much on the boards here about that particular hazard (the pool of water itself, not the ramp), which is why I find it so fascinating that it was the most challenging hazard in the entire Misgivings for my players (a 15 DC swim check when only one party member has any ranks invested in Swim turns out to be quite a hazard, indeed). I had a lot of fun describing how rough the waters were, the PCs being buffeted back and forth in the surging ocean current. The paladin sank to the bottom immediately, and the cleric went in shortly after him. The barbarian really came to show his true colors in this situation, diving in and deftly swimming to the bottom and saving the rest of the party. It really gave that player an opportunity to shine when all he's really been able to do thus far is smash things with his earthbreaker. Additionally, it gave my players a chance to realize how important the swim skill is, being one of the only skills that can determine who sinks and who swims (LITERALLY -- HA! :D).
All in all, it took nearly 20 rounds for my players to escape the surging waters, almost enough time for them to drown, and close to the end they were getting pretty nervous.
Of course, after all the excitement, I totally spaced out on the confrontation between Iesha and Aldern. I described the situation as they entered Aldern's locked room as if they had never freed Iesha from the mirror, and Aldern sat in the chair (facing away from the doorway) as the object of his obsession, the paladin, slowly came to the realization that all the stuff on the table was his. He even started going through the drawings and came across Xanesha's letter -- of course, before he could actually read the letter, Aldern swung around in the chair and party went "OH SH--."
He gave a bit of a monologue as Aldern before the Hurter took over, then turned back to Aldern to beg for his life and started to reveal some information about the Brotherhood, before the Skinsaw Man took over. I completely mucked on him putting on the stalker's mask and focusing on his obsession throughout the combat; it utterly escaped me as the combat commenced. I find this happens to me quite often -- through all the excitement leading up to these climactic battles, I tend to completely forget the BBEGs' combat tactics (I did the same with Nualia and Malfeshnekor!).
Of course, the party was still terrified once they realized he had some legit AC (higher than any party member, despite level 6!) and could dish out the damage, but they still took him out in 2 rounds -- each player got at least one whack at him, dealing an average of 30hp on each successful attack, and the cleric finished him off with a casting of searing light (CL 6, 6d6 damage against undead!) near the end of round two. In this case I'm glad he *wasn't* softened up by Iesha as suggested by so many others on these forums, or my players would have had an even LESS climactic battle with Foxglove.
Anyway, we had to end the session immediately after Aldern fell, because one of my players works third shift and we were right up against the deadline to finish our session. Next session I have the task of explaining what happened to Iesha -- I figure I'll note that the corpse of the revenant lies slain on the floor, and that it was obviously slain by Aldern's war razor, and they simply missed it due to the distractions in the room (obsessions' possessions on the table, the strange humanoid shaped fungus) and the combat with Aldern, but I can't help but feel like I missed a golden opportunity to flesh out the story of the house and help the PCs (who still, really, have no idea what the house is all about) learn what really went on there.
Often times, whether it is in discussion of a specific scenario, adventure path, or module, or simply when giving advice to new GMs, or when discussing the cardinal rules of GMing, one of the biggest things mentioned is "Don't split the party". We are also often told to never tell a player "No," unless of course it is actually something disallowed in the rules, but this generally doesn't apply to PC decision making unrelated to rules or crunch.
Splitting the party means splitting the role-play and can lead to bored players when those players aren't the party in focus. Splitting the party also means PCs can end up in situations where they don't have all the resources they need because the wizard and the rogue wandered off without their meatshield or maybe the meatshield wandered off without the cleric.
In any case, it is obvious to a GM that splitting the party, MOST times, can be considered, generally, a bad thing to do. However, I have always thought this a strange piece of advice to give to the GMs, since ultimately they cannot control what the party decides to do. While it is easy enough for a GM to avoid creating scenarios that would intentionally split the party, it is near impossible to actually stop the party from splitting of its own accord.
This has become a problem in my current adventure, where two of the party members constantly are trying to sneak away from the Good aligned members so they can get away with things that are not generally considered Good actions, or at the very least are not Lawful (which one of the Good characters doesn't honestly care about, so long as the acts are not evil). It's already making me mad because I specifically told them it was not an evil campaign and evil acts would not be tolerated, so they took chaotic neutral alignments (the bane of GMs everywhere, I'm sure) to try and "loophole" their way into evil acts. In any event, the local heroes would not be stealing from the local townsfolk so their characters, if they want to be the heroes, should not be doing these things anyway. But, I digress from the topic of discussion here. That's an issue for another discussion thread, so let me get back to splitting the party.
So I end up with situations where the rogue tells me he wants to go somewhere without the party, and I have to do one of two things: tell him no, you can't leave without your party (not good, removes player agency, makes the player resentful -- though there is precedence: "You must gather your party before venturing forth.") or let him leave and go against the general guideline of not splitting the party and potentially end up with bored or distracted players.
Maybe I'm not being creative enough, but I really just can't think of a scenario where you could stop this from happening without ruining someone's day. You can "punish" the player for splitting the party by putting them in a position where they can't get out on their own (this has already happened naturally with the rogue a few times), but I've found that players often DON'T learn from their experiences. Maybe this is my fault for being a fairly lenient GM -- I tend not to kill my players if I can avoid it, so maybe they don't perceive the threat of death as a real threat?
I have also had a small amount of success by telling the rogue he couldn't go out without the party. Most recently, the rogue decided he wanted to go to the scummiest tavern in town and pick a fight with the biggest guy in the room. Yes, the 5'3" elf (I realize this is below the base height for elves, but he's a special case) rogue/wizard wanted to pick a fist fight with the biggest guy in the room. If the party hadn't been there, it would have been a boring situation, but since I had the chaotic Barb, paladin of Iomedae and cleric of Sarenrae tag along, it turned into an awesome role-playing scenario with both the paladin and cleric trying to diffuse the situation before it could get any worse, while the barb just wanted to fight everyone. Pointing out that the scenario wouldn't have been as fun without them along seems pointless, being based on hypothetical and all, and in my experience when you point out learning experiences to people, they tend to take them as you forcing them to see it your way and they end up ignoring you and learning nothing in the end.
Of course, the good aligned characters are on to the rogue and try to tag along whenever they think he has something nefarious planned. And, of course, there's always the "You're not there" arguments -- arguments that could be avoided if the party didn't split in the first place.
Getting back to the original point though, how do you avoid splitting the party when a PC is trying to desperately to get away? How do you avoid splitting the party without affecting player agency? How do you prevent the party from splitting without saying no?
The timeline of the campaign begins on Rova (Sept) 22 with the Swallowtail Festival. In my campaign, it's only been about two weeks since the raid on Sandpoint and my players have just finished visiting a certain medical facility and are headed back to Sandpoint. I imagine they'll get sidetracked to the farmstead on their way home, and head out to a certain mansion afterwards, most likely the next day.
Sorry if I'm being vague -- I didn't feel like using spoiler tags. :P
I feel that, given the timeline of events throughout the adventure, not enough time has passed so far. My players seem to hate downtime and have no interest in roleplaying with NPCs unless it involves getting gold or loot, so I tried to stretch the time between Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw as much as possible but I ended up only getting two or three days out of it, and even most of those days was me hand-waving and only very briefly describing the happenings.
The problem is that when I leave it open ended or when I present roleplay opportunities, my players just stare at me. The Shoanti Barbarian in my party, for the two days of downtime, decided he was going to sit and watch the wizard craft magical items rather than involve himself in anything going on around town. I had the citizens of Sandpoint throw a parade for the heroes after having ended the threat and even that didn't get them excited. They don't even take the time to eat! Should I step in and say, "You are incredibly hungry and thirsty?"
Does anyone have suggestions for extending downtime when I need to? For getting the players more proactively involved in the setting during said downtime? I've used Shayliss to some degree and it has worked to varying degrees, since she has a thing for one of the party members still (and he for her), but short of derailing the plot to introduce new characters (any time I introduce a character, my players assume it MUST be plot related and will hound the NPC to no end), I'm not sure what else I can do to get them involved. I know the wizard would appreciate the time to craft some items, but even he JUST wants the downtime for that purpose -- when asked, he said he stayed in his inn room all day, even when his crafting for the day was complete.
Is the adventure being rushed? Is two weeks in game too short a time to have already gotten into Skinsaw Murders? I was imagining the early events in the Skinaw Murders to occur much nearer to Halloween, given the flavor and mood, but Lamashan has only just begun in my campaign.
I've been GMing a RotRL campaign for the past 4 months now (doubtless you've read at least one of my posts at this point), and my PCs just hit level 5. One of my PCs is working towards Arcane Trickster, currently sitting at Rogue 2/Wiz 3. Well, when he took his most recent level, level 5, he took Craft Magic Arms and Armor as his feat.
Being that I'm a fairly new GM and not entirely familiar with all of the prerequisites for every feat (there are a lot of them, if you haven't noticed :D) and trusting that my player would have done his research before taking the feat, did not realize this feat requires CL 5 (not character level 5). So my player has taken this feat two full CL's before he qualifies for it.
This level up occurred two sessions ago, at the end of the session, and my players began the most recent session (Saturday) by upgrading their gear. It ended up with only one player getting a new magic item (+1 Earth Breaker), but I'm not sure how to proceed now. I need to tell the player he doesn't qualify for the feat and he needs to take a different one, deferring that feat until he hits CL 5, but I also don't want to take away the barbarian's new toy (the player and his character were both quite excited about his giant magical glowing hammer).
Anyone have any advice or suggestions about how to approach the situation? Am I heading in the right direction?
I was poking around the other day, prepping for Skinsaw Murders, and I found a thread where someone had done write-ups of all the haunts, both for the "noticing" of the haunt and the effect of the haunt once activated.
I thought I had dotted it or favorited it but now it seems I can't find it anymore. Is it in the Community Created stuff thread? Can anyone point me in the right direction?
During my group's session yesterday, my players were up against a particularly difficult encounter.
It wasn't an unfair encounter, or unbeatable, as it was from the Rise of the Runelords AP, but it can be quite difficult. The specific encounter is below in the spoiler.
Burnt Offerings - RotRL Spoiler:
They were fighting Malfeshnekor.
They know the game well enough at this point but for whatever reason, instead of fighting it, they tried every tactic EXCEPT fighting it. The amount of turns wasted not doing anything useful, I could have killed all of them with this one encounter. I didn't, because I'm not a jerk and I don't find it satisfying or fun to kill people for making stupid mistakes (though I probably should start doing that so they learn what effective tactics are).
Anyway, if you're familiar with the encounter I mentioned above, you know that guy can be pretty brutal, what with the DR, the massive static bonuses to-hit, his buffs, and so on.
Anyway, my "problem player" -- I'll call him Mal -- decided he was going to take control of the situation. Mind you, the party had the tools and the abilities needed to defeat the encounter, he just decided he didn't want to face it. So Mal decides he's going to bullrush another member of his party to push him out of the room so they can shut the door and run away.
He didn't just do it first, though, he asked me if he could. He asked me if he could. Now I, as the GM, have a decision to make. Do I lift my ban on PvP temporarily for what is a borderline "rule of cool" move, or do I consider that Mal's actions have now affected the agency of another player who, at the end of his turn, ended in the square he was in presumably because he wanted to do something in that square the next turn?
If I allow Mal to bullrush the player, I'm allowing PvP and allowing one player to directly affect another player's character without giving that other player much of a choice. If I don't allow it, then I'm removing some player agency on Mal's part, though his specific problem can be resolved in other ways, such as simply asking that player to move out of the room, and it really wouldn't change anything since there was only one enemy in the intitiative and he had already taken his turn that round.
What did I do? I said no. I told him he can't bullrush his party member to push him out of the way, because it's not by his choice. And then Mal's player raised his voice at me. He shouted at my, cussed in my face, told me that I keep telling them I won't punish them for trying cool stuff but that I keep doing so anyway (this hasn't actually come up before so I don't know what he's talking about). And I mentioned GM Fiat. And he argued some more. Nevermind that he asked me if he could do so, then argued when he didn't hear the answer he wanted.
Anyway, since he raised his voice and made a scene, and since I'm a good-natured person who doesn't like to raise his voice or make a scene, I got really uncomfortable, fumbled for words for a few minutes, and sheepishly gave in to him, with the caveat that I guess I would allow it if the player he was bullrushing consented.
Now, aside from all the obvious problems with the player, the arguing, the shouting, the cussing, etc (I'm ready to ask this player not to come back to my games, even though he's a good friend and has been for a long time), how would you handle the decision to allow or not allow that player to bullrush the other? I saw it as an effort to exert his own control over the game and the other players' actions (he's always telling them what to do in combat anyway), and I just don't see a situation where that is a reasonable action to take when there are other, less confrontational, solutions to the same problem.
This is going to be a little ranty (okay, a lot ranty), so take everything I say with a grain of salt and the understanding that at this very moment, I'm a bit salty due to the circumstances. I know what type of responses I'm expecting... guess I'm just looking for some sympathy from fellow GMs who have dealt with similar situations.
So I have this friend who plays in my group. Well, they're all my friends, really. Anyway, we've been playing regularly on Saturdays for the past four months. The first session, he showed up an hour and a half late, with his brother (who was not actually invited, mind you). I had to scramble to get his brother a character to play with and fit him into the campaign.
He is regularly complaining while we play that his dice rolls are bad or that his character can't do anything or some other complaint that generally just kills the mood. He is on his second character because he didn't like his first character (mostly due to poor optimization and a lack of options, which I tried to explain to him would happen if he didn't heed GM advice).
The second time we played, he was half an hour late, with his brother.
Another time, he never showed up and then half an hour after we were supposed to start, I finally called him to find out he wasn't coming because he was "ugughughuhghg soooooo sick" (exaggeration his) ... after I spent the evening before with him, where he was perfectly fine.
I've had to cancel at the last minute four or five times now because he can't make it, and when he can't make it his brother can't make it, meaning I have to either run two characters myself or run a seat-of-my-pants campaign without any preparation for the other two members of my group.
He just canceled again, last minute, and I now have to tell my other players we won't be playing again. When we started our campaign (running the RotRl AE AP), I told them all we would try to play as often as we can. I understand that sometimes, things come up, and we have to cancel. That's one thing. But when it's seemingly every other session, that's not acceptable to me. I put a lot of time, effort and money into preparing for my game sessions -- heck, two weeks ago I built a freaking felt-covered gaming table (it came out awesome, btw) because I decided our playing surface was too small and not conducive to dice rolling!
Anyway, his repeated failure to show up come game day has really upset me. I want to ask him not to show up any more, but he's also a friend of mine. I don't want him to take it personally but I've already taken his failure to show up on a regular basis personally, and I just want him to understand that him failing to show really hurts me and affects the rest of the group as well.
Not only that, but his brother, despite my initial complaint on the inclusion of, is actually vested in the game, is doing well, has a pretty great character, and wants to play. He can't come without his brother because, well, he's only 16 and doesn't have a car. The rest of us are in our late 20's, and, frankly, I don't feel comfortable with the minor being in my home without his brother also being present. His mother feels the same way (though she knows the rest of us and has for many years), and I understand that.
Anyway, I did talk to him about this problem since this last time he canceled (today, and we were set to play tomorrow) was really the final straw. I expressed how it lets not only me but the rest of the group down and that it's not fair to anyone else. He responded by telling me that if he were in my situation, he would understand because things happen and get in the way; the game will still be there later.
I am soliciting advice: do I drop my expectations, compromise my values and spend less time preparing so I don't get so let down when he inevitably won't show up? Do I ask him not to show up anymore? I mean, with logic like, "I'm busy, the game will still be there later" should I make a point that, no, the game won't be there, because you weren't there for the game? I don't want to exclude his younger brother because of his decisions, either, but again, not comfortable with being 100% responsible for his young brother. Ugh. I'm so frustrated at this point. My other players have no problem showing up on time, every time.
I was reading through the notes for Nualia after my PCs discovered her journals and notes in Thistletop's lowest level. I wanted to let them in on the details but then I came across the part where it is mentioned she met up with a Norgorber-worshiping cult in Magnimar and was given the strange star-shaped medallion (Sihedron medallion). Then the next paragraph actually calls them by name, the Skinsaw cult, and it is suggested that the PCs learn all of this information from Nualia's notes. It was just a minor detail that I had overlooked until it came time to let the cat out of the bag about all of Nualia's plans and I almost choked when I saw mention of it in her journals.
I was hesitant to name the cult so I left it out for now (just detailed that they're a bunch of weirdo Norgorber worshippers), worried that I might give too much away. Then again, Norgorber IS known as "Father Skinsaw" to some of his followers, and I suppose I could allow a knowledge(religion) check for a PC to know this. Of course, there's still no direct connection or mention of Xanesha and her plans, so maybe foreshadowing a bit is in order?
Then again, as soon as I mentioned the cult, one of my PCs (the most clever of them) said, "Looks like we're going to hunt down this cult." Had I given the name they would have pretty much considered that carte blanche to go start looking for the so-called "Skinsaw Cult."
Anyone have any experience with this? Do you think it would be harmful to reveal the cult this early? The players haven't even learned about the first murders yet.
So I've been running the RotRL AP for a few months now and my players are finally done Burnt Offerings. Personally, I'm new to GMing (though I have a lot of experience in role playing and tabletop) and several of my players are new to the system/format, so I've been introducing rules and concepts slowly so as not to overwhelm. My next system to implement is going to be the appraisal/treasure stuff. So far, I've just been telling players as they get treasure, "X item is worth Y" and they sell it and go on their merry ways, except for adventuring gear which sells at 50% (per rules).
The AP basically outlines treasure in two ways -- either it's adventuring gear the PCs can take and sell for half value (or use), or it's treasure with a given gold value as outlined in the AP (usually a "Treasure:" section for the encounter). And then, of course, there's just piles of gold.
How does appraise tie into this? How have you run this or might you suggest I run this? Do they need to appraise the value of the treasure in order to determine if it's valuable or not? Even if they appraise poorly, the shops are only going to give them what the item is worth in gp, so it's not like accurate appraisal is really going to change anything, especially when my PCs have a tendency to loot anything that could be remotely valuable as long as it isn't nailed down.
The answer to this question might be obvious but I need clarification for myself:
The PRD says that Rage Prophets get Savage Seer at 1st level. That ability has this description:
Quote:
A rage prophet’s class level stacks with barbarian levels for determining the effect of his rage powers, oracle revelations, and his oracle’s curse. This does not grant additional abilities.
Am I correct in assuming this means the Rage Prophet level stacks with barb/oracle levels for determining only the effect of existing rage powers, revelations, and oracle's curse already held by the barbarian/oracle? The "does not grant additional abilities" seems to indicate you would not retain your standard rage ability / revelations progression, and I suspect that is how it is intended to be interpreted, but I just need to be sure.
RAW say that under ideal conditions (off-hand is light weapon and you have TWF feat), your attacks are at -2, -2, main hand, off-hand. In order to attack with both weapons, you must use a full attack (full round action). Once you gain multiple attacks from multiple BABs, the rules also state that you can make each of these attacks at your full bonus (for that attack) with any weapon wielded -- that is to say, TWF not required and no penalty.
I understand that TWF does two things:
1. Reduces the penalty for using two weapons.
2. Grants ONE additional attack with the off-hand weapon.
My question is this - the rules for a full attack state that you can decide to use your iterative attacks granted from a full attack AFTER making the first attack. If you are wielding two weapons and do not have more than one BAB and have TWF feat, does your first attack still suffer from the -2 penalty (TWF, light weapon in off-hand) if you choose not to take the extra off-hand attack? And if you choose not to use it, does the -2 penalty for your primary attack retroactively unapply? At this point if it's a 2 point margin to hit or miss, the player could choose to not use his second (extra) attack and hit. This seems like the most logical conclusion as I interpret the rules.
And my second question, if you have multiple BABs (more than one iterative attack granted by attack bonuses), to which attack does the -2 penalty apply? The first one? All of them?
This is kind of an advice thread, but I encourage general discussion on the topic as much as I am soliciting advice from other GMs. If you've read any of my other posts from the past few months, you have an idea of where I'm coming from.
I've found that in my group of players, they often become annoyed when I begin to question their motives, actions, or even their dice rolls. Especially during combat, when there's a lot going on, I'll ask my players sometimes to verify how they got to a certain number, for example, then I get an eyeroll and a belabored sigh and a response detailing the buffs, feats, d20 roll, and stats involved in the result. It's not that I don't trust them, but they'll spit out a number that sounds awfully high or bizarre given the circumstances and ask them to explain. I suppose this could be partially fixed if I had more awareness of each of my players' sheets and spells prepped?
Then again, I had one player (level 4, mind you!) tell me he did 34 damage the other night. I blinked at him a few times, and said, "What?"
"34 damage."
"But - how?"
"Oh, well I used two weapon fighting and do X damage on this roll and Y damage on this roll."
"Okay, thanks, but can you please roll them separately and tell me each sepa-"
"THAT'S THE WAY ADDITION WORKS, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF I ADD THEM UP OR DO THEM SEPARATELY."
This would have devolved into an argument between this player and I which would have ended as a stalemate had I not just dropped the subject and moved on, despite the fact that it is important these damage rolls are calculated separately for purposes of DR and the like. Next turn, he gave them to me separately anyway, after putting up a fight against it in the first place.
What's worse is, I have three other players watching this, and instead of supporting me as the GM, they roll their eyes because "there they go again" when clearly I'm the GM and what I'm asking isn't unreasonable. It's kind of a regular occurrence between me and this one player, and I know I'll get snorts of derision if I attempt to GM fiat these types of situations. I feel like my hands are tied half (or more) of the time. Problem is, he's a good friend of mine and has been for a long time but he's got more system mastery (3 and 3.5e, anyway) than perhaps any of us AND he won't take NO for an answer, nor will he ever be convinced that he could ever be wrong on something.
Buuuuut I digress. Further to the point, there are other times where my players are going off to do some thing in the story, and they'll just want to gloss over the events in between, or when I ask a question pertinent to the situation at hand, say, "Is your weapon drawn?" they'll respond with, "Yeah, I drew it when I did X" except they never said they drew the weapon, or they'll say, "I cast mage armor on the way there" well after combat has started.
Other issues that I run into are that my players seem convinced they can only do what is on their sheet or in the books -- they never seem to get very creative with their surroundings or act like the world around them is anything more than a painting. I always end up pointing out simple solutions to them when I notice they have turned "how do we get Bob out of that pit?" into a twenty minute discussion on their character abilities, skills, and strengths.
"Guys, there's plenty of rubble lying around... why not drop some in to give him a height advantage?"
What's worse than this is when they walk right through every room in a dungeon without searching once, then complain to me later that I haven't given them enough loot. I almost always give them a wink and a nudge and say, "You should go back there and look around."
The problem is, when I help them out with solutions like this I feel like a dirty GM that has failed at his job and made it too easy for the players. Why don't my players get even this most basic P&P concept? SEARCH EVERYTHING. Urrrg... I keep telling them to look through the book, take a look at the equipment lists, the magic item lists, to spend the gold they're earning, to become familiar with every feat, every SP, SU, and EX ability they have, because they're going to need them, and to pay attention to the spells they're prepping because damnit you're going to need restoration and you didn't prep it and now you're dying because you got strength drained by a shadow.
This type of thing comes up far too often. Are my players narrow-minded? Are my expectations too high? I mean, c'mon -- everyone should take along a tanglefoot bag or two on their first adventure, right? Everyone knows to search every room, right? So why don't my PCs?
I try to encourage my players to get into their characters, to not treat their sheet as a set of numbers for them to increase, and to become involved with the story. I had one NPC throw herself at the PC who is played by someone who considers himself a ladies man, and now he's constantly asking me, "What's with the ladies throwing themselves at me?" Why can't they find your character attractive? Why can't you see these ladies as characters in a story and not mechanics in a game? Why must every thing that happens be related directly to your character or the plot?
I want to promote verisimilitude in my game, and push the story over the mechanics, not the other way around, but it seems like no matter how hard I try I just get resistance. Even one player, who is a self-proclaimed actor and who has starred in a feature-length film (albeit what amounts to basically a locally made, hyper-low-production-value snuff film), tells me he has a hard time not being himself and making decisions for himself, because, "my character is me." Well, no Jeremy, your character isn't Jeremy, it's ****ing Thomar Loyalind, Cleric of Sarenrae!!! NOW GO OUT THERE AND KILL IN THE NAME OF GOODNESS, NOT FOR EXPERIENCE POINTS AND MOAR STATZ AND SPELLZ!!!!
Is my group of friends doomed to the cheap dice rolling combat thrills of a hollow adventure path? Is it too late to bring them over to the side of light and show them what a tabletop RPG can really be? What are your tricks and secrets to really draw your players in?
Feeling like I have to constantly toe the line between a good GM and a friend. I want to be more forceful, enforce rules and roleplay more stricly, but I feel like my players will just be put off and want to abandon me because it won't be fun anymore... and maybe that's just it... maybe my idea of fun and their ideas of fun are different...but I'm stubborn to a fault and if I have to fight this fight all the way to Runelord Karzoug, then damnit, I'm going to fight. I want my players to enjoy this game the way it was meant to be, not as a board game with lots of numbers and options, but as an interactive storytelling medium that gives more freedom than any damn video game ever made. UGH.
Sorry -- I'm pretty passionate. This past weekend was especially trying, being the third five hour straight combat session we've had (we're at the end of Burnt Offerings). I want my players to take a more active interest in the game and in the story, but I'm just not feeling like they care at this point. I'm sure I know what you're going to tell me for responses, and I appreciate the advice in advance, I just needed a place to vent to someone (or many someones) who understand the game and my frustrations and who aren't also the people I play with every week (since I obviously can't vent like this to them). I've written a lot here and if you've read through this entire post, I thank you.
I have a player who was playing a witch get rather bored with his witch so I let him create another character and killed the witch in an encounter. He wanted to build up to a rage prophet PrC, so he started with barbarian which he'll take to 6 (they're at 4 right now), then take a level in Oracle before taking Rage Prophet. His Oracle curse will be Speak in Tongues, with his mystery being Battle.
This is where I run into trouble -- he's playing a CN barb. Chaotic is fine, and is a class requirement. Neutral is fine, I have no problem with it. But... he wants to play the aimless sociopath style of CN we're all familiar with. Not only that, but apparently, even though he's got an intelligence of 10, he speaks in your super cliche barbarian stunted brain idiot voice. He just wants to play an insane, smash everything type of character with no real effort (his previous character, the witch, wasn't much better) involved in roleplaying, and his answer to everything is "SMASH." He says that the character thinks the spirits/gods that talk to him are the voices in his head that guide him, so he's essentially playing a schizophrenic sociopath rage prophet -- the worst nightmare for a group who is mostly serious about roleplaying.
If you've had players like this, you know exactly what I'm talking about, so how have you dealt with this?
As a GM, do you let your players stop the action to tactically plan out the entire battle once they've seen where the enemies are?
I ask because this came up in my last session. I revealed the enemies on the VTT (I use Roll20 on a big screen TV because it's much easier than battlemats, but we all play in the same room with me moving the tokens on the screen wherever the players dictate), and suddenly instead of continuing with the battle, my party of 4 stopped to discuss their tactics. After a minute or two I interrupted and explained that they just burst into a room full of goblins -- no way do they have time to plan their attack now.
I explained to them that this is the reason why you are allowed to speak as a free action during combat (and that this is why free actions are somewhat limited), and since I've got an oracle player with the speak in tongues curse, it kind of negates the curse part if they can plan their tactics OOC after rolling initiative.
I felt kind of bad at first because I felt kind of like the controlling GM who wants his players to play HIS game and I don't want it to be that way, but I feel justified in the end given the context of the situation.
I've been trying to get them to talk and act in a less OOC manner overall but am still having trouble getting them into the mindset of their characters rather than that of a player controlling a puppet with stats.
Really quite simple. Why do both Shield and Mage Armor exist as spells? They're nearly identical in properties, except Mage Armor has a duration 60 times longer than Shield, and Mage Armor is Conjuration while Shield is Abjuration. Additionally, Shield is personal while Mage Armor is touch.
Just there to give those who took Abjuration as a wizard school and also chose Conjuration as a forbidden school something to protect themselves? Is there something more to this that I'm missing?
Hello everyone, I'm considering running a RotRL campaign on Roll20. Just sending out a feeler to gauge interest in this. I'm a fairly new GM but have pretty good understanding of the system. I'm an RPer first, systems/mechanics second type of GM/player so I would really be looking for other like-minded role-players.
I'm not sure when I'd like to begin or when we would play as I am also running this AP with some friends in real life; it all depends on the reaction I get here.
I'd be looking for 4-6 experienced Pathfinder players (or GM-players), especially ones interested in helping along a fledgling GM -- if you're experienced with Roll20 or other VTT's, that's a double plus. Additionally, you MUST be patient. As I said before, I'm a fairly new GM and I'm completely new to Roll20. I'm a fast learner but everyone has their limits. We don't have to voice chat, text is an option as well (some are more comfortable talking to strangers than others). That being said, here are the remaining requirements:
15 Pt buy, up to 250gp worth of starting equipment
Paizo published materials only
Core races only (willing to consider other races from Bestiary 1 that can be used as PC races with good character background)
Non-evil alignment (will reconsider with good RP/character background)
All core and APG classes except Summoner
All class archetypes are fair game
2 Traits, at least 1 must be from the RotRL Anniversary Edition Player's Guide
Must have a reason to be in Sandpoint (RotRL Anniversary Edition Player's Guide traits help with this)
This question might have an obvious answer, but I need clarification: does a spell casting PrC which carries on one of the base class spell progressions, such as Arcane Trickster or Rage Prophet, gain the bonus spells that would be learned at the respective class levels, or does it only allow for the core spell progression of the spell casting class?
For example, does a sorcerer/rogue who takes Arcane Trickster still learn their bloodline bonus spells when leveling as Arcane Trickster? I would think no, but my players might argue with me on this one.
I have two PCs who keep asking NPCs, especially Brodert, questions about Thassilon, because they took the Scholar of the Ancients trait. What I'm wondering is, the trait says they have managed to put together a partial history of Thassilon... how much of this history would they know?
Of course I know (or have available to me) all of the history Paizo has published but I'm just not sure how much they should know from the get go, how much more they can learn from the locals such as Brodert, and what I should keep secret until they discover it through the natural course of the plot. They're very suspicious of any details I give them so I want to avoid detailing anything insignificant that they might latch onto, simply so as not to disappoint them with a dead end. Of course, they ran all over Sandpoint last session trying to connect the events of the Late Unpleasantness (to no avail, at least not yet :D), searching high and low for more clues about Chopper. I led them to his island and, since no one from town has visited the island since the house burnt down, ran a little encounter with a few giant spiders who had made Chopper's Island their home. It was a fun diversion, but a bit easier to deal with that red herring than lore about an ancient civilization that not much is known about that the PCs already know something about. Anyone have any ideas to help me out with this?
How does this work? I assume since it's not explicitly denied in the description of sneak attack that it should be possible; however, the 10th level arcane trickster ability 'Surprise Spells' seems to indicate that without that ability, you cannot add sneak attack damage to spells.
I had done some research on sneak attack with spells previous to this discovery and the consensus seemed to be that, even going back to 3.5, spells do add sneak attack damage if they can be targeted (can miss), deal 'precision' damage, and damage the HP of the target.
Does the 'Surprise Spells' ability add all _other_ spells that do damage (that is, spells that are not targeted/can't miss) to the sneaky magician's repertoire, and it's just poor wording that has me thinking otherwise?
I guess it's true -- sometimes, friends don't make good players. Long post here, please refrain from responding until you've read the full post.
Well, if some of you have been following along and reading my posts, you'll know that I started running RotRL a week ago -- my first game as GM. I was excited to begin; I love RPGs, I love fantasy, I've fallen in love with PF's systems and adjusted from D&D with no problem. The chance to finally GM a game for my friends and show them how awesome a P&P game can be was too good to pass up.
So we ran our first session. We played for about three and a half hours, got some stuff done, and made it up to the beginning of part 2 of Burnt Offerings. Things were difficult at first, keeping my players in check and making sure no one was talking over everyone. I was concerned no one really cared about the game as much as me. You can check my other posts for details on that.
This past Saturday, we played our second session. It was a marathon session (much to my chagrin), playing for nearly 8 hours in my home. I would say the first hour and a half or two hours went very well. My players were engaged, actively participating in the roleplay, talking to NPCs, gathering information, making awesome assumptions about RotRL that took them into unexpected territories -- I had some opportunities for improvising some encounters -- and all was well.
Until the power gamer/rules lawyer/rules-maker-upper (that's a thing, right?) in my group finally showed his true colors. He started by obtaining a permit to run a business in Sandpoint from the Mercantile League -- that was great, perfectly acceptable. He managed to bluff the pants off (not literally) the clerk at the counter for the permit. Nothing inherently wrong with this and I was glad he was getting into character. I'll get back to this guy here in a minute.
The next hour and a half, after the first two hours had gone so well, were a slog. My players kept cracking jokes OOC in the middle of scenes. They kept talking over each other and cutting each other off. One of my players basically railroaded the entire crew into what he wanted to do (investigate a red herring). He didn't give the other players chance to speak, much of time time (granted, I could have done more to mitigate this -- it's a learning process). Then he stopped the game so he could order pizza (interrupting the flow of the game and stopping mid-RP). Then while he was on the phone, two of my players got up to smoke. We got back to playing, and the player who ordered pizza realized he forgot to order a bottle of soda, for which there was no need, because I had bought two 12 packs, and he had brought a 2 liter (at this point I'm irritated). Everyone had been drinking beer... the night was slowly deteriorating into... a bunch of dudes sitting around drinking beer and soda and eating pizza. We had about 45 minutes of greasy napkins and paper plates occupying the playing space. This is okay, I said, I can deal with this, I said.
I got them mostly back on track, though the game at this point had been going for a few hours and the initial enthusiasm for the session was gone. That being said, they were still interested in playing. Finally, when it came time for loot, the power gamer made himself known. Now, I know this player and his modus operandi. He's sneaky and charismatic and could sell ice to an Eskimo. He managed to convince the rest of the party to give him 20% each of their shares of the loot so that he could use it to eventually set up a shop in town. I tried explaining that this would unbalance the wealth and could create bigger problems when they start needing magic items; that everything has a set price based on it's properties and that every encounter has a set loot amount based on the challenge; they wouldn't listen. I realize it's my game to do what I want with. I want to follow the WBL and encounter CR guidelines and this is going to create issues if the players don't have the WBL they need.
Then, this player told me, the GM, that he could sell all these items (that he is essentially stealing from his party members) at 100% of their value, since now he's a merchant and is selling the items at retail. I stared at him for a couple minutes and didn't say anything. Then I told him it was 50% of value for player sold items (plus any adjustments for feats, traits, boons, and skills, of which he has a few), and he threw a fit. I tried to find rules for this but the best I could come up with was the downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign, which don't translate into what he's looking to do. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with this since if I don't let him get his way, it's got potential to ruin the game and possibly our friendship. At this point, sometimes it feels like playing the game isn't worth it since my players insist on making up things as they go along and demand that they get their way.
Anyway, I've written enough. There was more I was going to say but having recalled all that has only furthered my disappointment in my game and my group. I understand that some of the things I'm having trouble with are a result of me being an inexperienced GM, and that I've got to do a better job of GMing without railroading them or telling them what to do, not that I have been. I really want to be a great GM for them and I think my intentions are good -- I don't want to be the evil controlling GM who traps the players at every turn because he left out some important detail and then says, "Hah! You didn't perception check, now suffer the consequences!"
There were certain points when my players were making decisions and talking amongst themselves that I was absolutely beaming as GM, knowing that I had done a good job of providing them with information and good RP options so they could make an informed decision on what to do next in the plot. These moments were rare, but awesome.
I've realized that, despite talking with all of them before the game and getting their agreement on the type of game we're going to play, my players aren't actually looking to play the same type of game that I'm looking to run. It's unfortunate, but I guess that's the way the dice fall sometimes. I'm going to keep running the game for my friends but maybe drastically lower my expectations and stop putting in so much effort. In the meantime, I'm going to start looking for a regular group that I can play with who take the game a bit more seriously. Then again, maybe those few beaming, awesome moments I mentioned just a minute ago are all worth the effort.
The wording for temporary bonuses and permanent bonuses seems to indicate they applied differently.
Last night in a game I was GMing, one of my players cast Reduce Person on an enemy.
Reduce Person wrote:
The target gains a +2 size bonus to Dexterity, a -2 size penalty to Strength (to a minimum of 1), and a +1 bonus on attack rolls and AC due to its reduced size.
The temporary bonus rule for dexterity wrote:
Temporary Bonuses: Temporary increases to your Dexterity score give you a bonus on Dexterity-based skill checks, Ranged attack rolls, initiative checks, and Reflex saving throws. The bonus also applies to your Armor Class, your Combat Maneuver Bonus (if you are Tiny or smaller), and your Combat Maneuver Defense.
Does this mean that Reduce Person results in a net gain of +3 AC to the target, since you are adding the +2 bonus dex to AC, plus the +1 reduced size AC bonus?
Or does the +2 to dex mean an increase of only +1 to the dex modifier, resulting in a net gain of +2 AC (+1 for dex mod, +1 to AC for reduced size)?
I said it increased by +3, while my player insisted the latter +2 was the correct ruling. Can anyone help clarify this for us?
Over the past two weeks or so I've been posting in various sections here asking for help as a new GM. Mostly it's been related to dealing with certain scenarios like players acting out of alignment or other rather GM-y questions. While I'm new to GMing, I am genre savvy and I want to make sure my inexperienced players pick up on queues that a non-genre savvy person might not pick up on.
We're going to begin part 2 of Burnt Offerings tomorrow (and might possibly make it through to the end of part 3) and I just want to make sure they know what their options are.
One player is a D&D vet (though I don't know that he's ever played a well organized game where players aren't given free reign to **** all over their GM), one is somewhat familiar with the rules, and two are brand new to tabletop gaming.
How do I let players know that they need to take certain precautions? For example, I'm 99% sure they will
Burnt Offerings minor spoiler:
fail at the rope bridge at Thistletop
if I don't warn them to inspect it. Am I failing them as GM by not even having the faith in them that they would know what to do? I know part of this is my job as GM, making sure I describe the scene well and the players understand it.
I guess the bigger issue is I don't think they see the world as "interactive." If I describe something is there, I think their default mindset is that it's part of the backdrop, not something they can use or interact with.
I'm not sure this is going to be a problem as we've only played one session so far, but that session seemed to indicate they weren't entirely interested in what was available to them (it took some coercing to get them to participate in the Swallowtail Festival games, for example). I'd like to nip this problem in the bud.
I guess, to summarize, my question is: how do you get your players, especially new, non-genre savvy players, to start thinking outside of the box and really thinking about what is going on in the world? Is this just part of engaging players as GM? Should I give them a pep talk at the beginning of the session, letting them know they should really think about the actions they're making?
I know, I know, this is generally frowned upon and the AP is written to be balanced for a party of 4 with a 15pt buy. Well, I had them use the 24d6 dice pool method, and as such, their stats average to be about the same, maybe a little higher. I had them make their characters before I really knew what I was doing, and now I obviously can't take their ability scores back. We've run one session so far, making it up to
Early RotRL Spoiler:
the fight against the two skeletons in the tomb.
I don't have the sheets in front of me but I'm guessing their average level 1 ability score is closer to 12 or 13 than 10. At least one player has 2 18's, but other than that none of the scores seem too high.
Just curious what I can do to offset this error in judgment seeing as I can't just revoke or reduce their ability scores at this point.
I've got a witch in my group with a viper familiar. Because he doesn't want to lose his familiar, and thus his ability to cast spells, he insists on wearing the viper around his wrist at all times.
Since the viper is a 'tiny' creature, thus able to share the same space as a Medium creature, I've been allowing it but I feel like I should be treating that hand as occupied for purposes of somatic components and other activities requiring a free hand.
Anyone have experience with this type of situation who is willing to share how they handled it?
Similarly, I have a gnome who insists on climbing all over the other party members so he can see what's going on during combat. Should I require strength checks, dex penalties, concentration checks, etc, when this happens? Would this count as a move action? Seems to make sense to me. Anyone have experience with this?
At the risk of starting an alignment thread flame war, what is a good way to handle players who you as GM think are acting out of alignment?
I have a chaotic good gnome merchant PC whose player thinks that constantly lying (chaotic) to and swindling innocent NPCs out of their money (seems evil to me...) falls within his alignment because, in his words, "the alignment system is a broad spectrum," and the other good he does outweighs this.
With that said, he's a level 1 character who hasn't really performed any good deeds yet. I'm running Rise of the Runelords, so when
Early RotRL Spoiler:
the goblins attacked early on, in the aftermath, he kept demanding that he be rewarded for helping the town (no one else in the party seemed to mind protecting themselves and the town from the goblins).
Keep in mind, the PCs are now renowned in town and DO receive benefits from helping to save the town... if they were to actually treat the town and NPCs as living things, not as a backdrop for their story. That's a separate problem that I'm dealing with and trying to work out.
Anyway, later on, when the sheriff asked the party to accompany him to the tomb to investigate the disturbance, he demanded that he be paid upfront without even knowing what the encounter would involve. Those of you who have run this know that this is hardly a dungeon crawl or cryptwalk, but merely a short little investigation encounter.
While I agree that there is a broad spectrum of acts that one might take that can be considered good or evil, and some falling further into the gray area than others, it certainly seems to me like he's really not willing to play the 'good' part of chaotic good thus far.
Can anyone offer some hints or clarification? Am I justified in changing him to chaotic neutral? When I tried to bring it up outside of the game, as I mentioned earlier, he just argued with me.
And, thanks in advance for any tips or opinions offered. I know I've been posting a lot on these boards lately asking for advice and pointers when it comes to GM and the help I've received so far has been invaluable to me as I take on the role of GM for my group of players.
...and boy was it frustrating. I was expecting three players, they were supposed to show up at 1PM. One showed up on time (my golden boy PC, who as far as I can tell, is actually really interested in playing), with the other two calling me fifteen minutes late to tell me they were up late drinking and overslept, then told me they were leaving in 10 minutes and would arrive in 20...
An hour and a half later, THREE people walk in my door. Yes, one of my players invited a person, brought them to my house, without asking me. Well, I said, okay, I guess... it was his brother and I understand he wants to get him involved in things... but understand I had already gone over character creation with my three expected players.
Now my game is starting late because my players arrived late, and starting even later because I have to now help this newcomer (who is entirely unfamiliar with the rules) create a character. Well, he wanted to play a knight type character, so I set him up with a paladin, and his rolls sucked, so I fudged his numbers a bit... Overall, I feel like I shorthanded him because we rushed through his character creation since we were already running late. So there's that.
Now, I have been doing my research. I've been lurking on these boards, posting here and there, I've read the CRB cover to cover, read through most of the GMG, and have read through much of the APG, as well.
I have spent many dollars and many hours preparing for this. I even dished out for the Pathfinder printable minis and spent several hours cramping up my hands cutting those little guys out of cardstock and taping them together.
I just don't feel like my players appreciate my efforts (except the one PC who arrived on time, he and I are great friends and he's seen the troubles I've gone through). I'm not really asking for any specific advice... I'm sure many GMs have dealt with what I'm dealing with. I just needed a place to vent since yesterday's experience was so frustrating.
We play again this Saturday. I've written some notes and I've prepared a pre-game talk that I intend on having with my players so I understand where they stand and what my goals as GM are. I'm also going to ask of them what they expect, and see if we can reconcile our differences.
Problem is, we've been playing P&P games for years... we used to have regular games of VTM, and one of my players would run the campaign. His opinion is, he used to have to deal with trouble players so now it's my turn to deal with them. That's not how I see it, nor was I ever a trouble player. I actually enjoy plotlines and roleplaying -- I am the antithesis of a power gamer or a troublemaker PC.
I guess I'm just frustrated... if you took the time to read this... you're a better person than I.
Maybe this doesn't belong in RotRL and a mod can move it to the appropriate location, but as I'm starting RotRL this weekend, I thought it might be appropriate.
The GMG doesn't go too much into this, so I'm just curious on how much of a map can/should be revealed to my players. Obviously, the town map of Sandpoint can be shown to them and referenced whenever, but for maps of things like the Glassworks or Thistletop, is it revealing too much information about the layout of the dungeon to have a small-scale map printed out for them? Should they go in completely blind, with no knowledge of the layout?
Also, what's the best way to use battlemats in these cases? Do you draw out the entire dungeon at once, cover it up with paper or something, and reveal bits as the PC's explore? Draw the whole dungeon out on a battlemap and reveal it all, as above? Something else?
So I've thumbed through a few of the free modules, and a few books in my local gaming store, and it seems like newer adventures offered by Paizo for PFRPG include descriptions for what type of loot a given encounter entails.
I purchased the PDF of PF #1 - RotRL, which turned out to actually be for 3.5e (I've already posted about that, no worries there). This adventure doesn't seem to have any loot details or descriptions in the book. I have two questions about this:
1) I am a new GM and was hoping this adventure might assist with loot distribution and magic item rewards in order to make my job a little easier. If I follow the standard loot tables in CRB and GMG, will my party be right on track?
2) I plan on buying the anniversary edition of RotRL because I don't want to have to convert everything over from 3.5e going forward (I've already done the homework for PF #1 - RotRL). Does the anniversary edition have loot descriptions like the other more recent Paizo adventures and modules do, or would I still be mostly left to my own devices in that regard?
So I'll be starting a RotRL campaign this weekend and I've seen a lot of talk about sin points in my search for hints, tips, tricks, and advice on how to run the adventure. Where do these come into play? I haven't read entirely through PF #1 yet but I haven't seen any mention of them thus far. I'd think if it's a system meant to be part of the adventure it would be mentioned early on in the text.
So I bought the Runelords PDF from Paizo, and it looks like the PDF is actually for 3.5e -- EL instead of CR being the most obvious. Are there any major changes or errata that I should be aware of if I'm using this 3.5e version with Pathfinder's rules?
So I'm trying to determine something here. Typically, casting a spell non-defensively triggers an AoO against the caster. When the spell in question is a ranged touch attack, according to the rules FAQ, the ranged touch attack triggers two Attacks of Opportunity, one for the casting and one for the ranged attack, as they are two separate events. The rulebook also says defensive casting cannot be used to prevent an AoO for any ranged touch attack.
However, considering these three facts, it seems that you should be able to defensively cast the ranged touch attack to prevent the first AoO (for the casting), but when you make the ranged attack, you will still draw the AoO for the ranged attack. Does this make sense?
Breks Cawthen has not participated in any online campaigns.
