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The Exchange

I attended PaizoCon this last weekend. On Sunday, I had a seminar about adventure submissions for the Pathfinder Society with Joshua Frost, and I learned quite a lot. My submission was rejected of course and for good reason. So I've edited a little and will post the draft I should have submitted, that way I'm not wasting your time and not embarrassing myself with that work any further. I'm open to your feedback as long as it's constructive. SO please, let me have it.

Spoiler:

Introduction
Blakros Museum, once a famed museum in Absalom, now lies in ruin. After that fated day with the cursed idols of Mwangi, the place has been abandoned and forgotten to time.
The council of nobles have come to the decision that the museum should be restored to its former glory, despite the reputation the building has kept since the incident.
Now something lies deep within its recesses and has plans of its own. The curse has not disappeared completely. It has manifested itself into something more vile and cunning. It works its foul magics and calls in followers that share its same goals: to help gain control of the museum and eventually a foothold in the everyday workings of the city.
Workers from the site have begun to disappear and rumours have begun to spread. One of the more popular ones sounds almost like a dream: a shadowy creature calls out from the darkness to each of the workers.
The Pathfinder Society has been called in to investigate these strange happenings to keep the museums reopening on schedule.

Adventure
The PC's enter the museum and are greeted by the laborers foreman. He tells them about how the work is still going strong and they will still finish according to the schedule, despite the set backs. The foreman looks nervous as if he isn't telling the PC's something. A Sense Motive check (DC 15) will uncover that the foreman is under the effects of an enchantment. While the PC's are talking, the laborers will gather around and set up for an attack.
Encounter 1: The enchanted work crew
Monsters: 5 Dominated commoners and 3 Dominated nobles
Scaling the encounter: Tier 3-5, Add one Commoner and one adept. Tier 6-7, Add Two commoners, one aristocrat, and one adept.

After the encounter, the PC's may search through the workers belongings which will uncover a key and many daggers with strange symbols carved into the blades. The key will be used to unlock the first subterranean level of the museum. Moving down the stairs, they find narrow corridors and lots of debris. It looks like the workers still have a good amount of work to do, but the dust that covers the floor has been disturbed in a few places by something with clawed feet. The players pick up the faint smell of something foul. There are several door ahead on each side of the hallway. When the PC's move forward, the door will open and the Troglodytes will step out.
Encounter 2: Troglodytes!
Monsters: 2 Troglodytes
Scaling the Encounter: Tier 3-5, Add 2 Troglodytes. Tier 6-7, Add 4 more Troglodytes

These rooms are storage areas for displays that used to be featured in the Museum above. Nothing of worth can be recovered because of the stench of the troglodytes permeates them. At the end of the corridor, a set of wooden doors blocks access to the next room. The door is locked but untrapped. Once the Pc's have opened these doors(Strength Check DC 15 or Disable Device DC 20), they find a large room, that once served as a private showing area for the Museum, now is vacant of art and artifacts. The place isn't devoid of life though for several humanoids stand about guarding the hole in the back of the room. A single rope ladder seems to be the only way down it.
Encounter 3: Welcoming Party
Monsters: 2 Clerics, 4 Warriors.
Scaling the Encounter: Tier 3-5, Add 2 Warriors. Tier 6-7, As the previous tier, but bump the clerics up one level.

A voice calls out from below when all these humanoids are dispatched: "Come no further or your fate will be sealed."
Climbing down the ladder is easy enough but the passages down here are dark. Picking the right path will be important here because getting lost will result in fighting a native monster in the area. Tracking the paths will help guide the PC's to where they need to go next.
Encounter 4: Optional: Lost Party
Monster: Phantom Fungus

The party come across a burial chamber down in the depths. The voice speaks once more, much closer than before: "I see that you are a persistent but not very wise."
Many ancient works of art adorn the walls and tell the story of an evil being that once inspired terror into the hearts of men. The door leading in stands open. If the PC's enter the room and fail a perception check to spot the Choker, they will be ambushed.
Encounter 5: Lurkers
Monsters: 1 Choker
Scaling the Encounter: Tier 3-5, Add 1 Choker. Tier 6-7, Add 3 Chokers.

Finally the PC's encounter the source of the voice. Entering the next chamber, they discover a goblin with strange eyes. It grins at their prescience. "I shall not let you ruin my plans." It's shape contorts and it transforms into a hybrid of a wolf and it's original self.
Encounter 6: Final Encounter: Barghest (Maybe Mist Tainted)
Scaling the encounter: Tier 1-2, Halve the HD of the creature. Tier 6-7, Use Greater Barghest instead.

Conclusion
If the party is able to stop the evil creature, the museum will finally be clean of the evil taint brought upon it by those idols from mwangi and the museum can open on schedule.
If the PC's fail, the museum will not open and the prescience will remain dormant until the nobles attempt to open the museum again.

The Exchange

Here is the second installment of the conversion of heroes from DnD to Pathfinder. For a link to the old Mialee, here you go. Here is what I have made.

1st Level 3.0

Ability Score Modifier
Strength 10 0
Dexterity 16 +3
Constitution 11 0
Intelligence 15 +2
Wisdom 12 +1
Charisma 8 -1

Initiative Modifier: +3
Speed: 30 ft.
Armor Class: 13
Hit Points: 7

Saving Throws:
Fortitude: 0
Reflex: +3
Will: +3

Gear:
Quarterstaff
Shortbow

Feats:
Toughness
Scribe Scroll

Skills:
Spellcraft (+6)
Concentration (+4)
Search (+6)
Spot (+5)
Scry (+2)

Spells:
0-level:
Detect Magic
Lightbr> Ray of Frost
1st level:
Magic Missile
Sleep

Special Abilities:
Low-light vision
Immunity to sleep spells
+2 saving throw bonus against Enchantment spells or effects

1st Level Alpha 3

Ability Score Modifier
Strength 10 0
Dexterity 16 +3
Constitution 11 0
Intelligence 17 +3
Wisdom 12 +1
Charisma 8 -1

Initiative Modifier: +3
Speed: 30 ft.
Armor Class: 13
Hit Points: 10

Saving Throws:
Fortitude: 0
Reflex: +3
Will: +3

Gear:
Quarterstaff
Shortbow

Feats:
Toughness
Scribe Scroll

Skills:
Spellcraft (+7)
Perception (+2)(+4 w/ Sound and Sight)
Fly (+7)
Appraise (+7)
Knowledge(Arcana) (+7)

Spells:
0-level:
Detect Magic
Light
Ray of Frost
1st level:
Sleep
Magic Missle

Special Abilities:
Arcane Bond(Familiar)
Universal School Specialization
Hand of the Apprentice
Low-light vision
Immunity to sleep spells
+2 saving throw bonus against Enchantment spells or effects
Elven Magic

Some things I noticed between this conversion and the one with Jozan.

1. Mialee has 1 less HP than Jozan. That makes a large difference but that's because of the Toughness feat.

2. Mialee took me less time to convert because the wizard changes were easier than the clerics.

I will put her through the same playtest that I put Jozan through. And on another note, I will level them up to 4 and 7 after I get the majority of the characters completed. Tordek is next followed by Lidda. The playtest for Mialee will be coming soon.

The Exchange

Just posting this up because I will continue this over here. It's for comparisons, not testing balance. The link is what I've done so far.

Jozan, Human Cleric of Pelor

The Exchange

Sorry but here is the link for Jozan.

Here is the link for the quest.

The Exchange

So I finally had an almost full conversion over to Alpha 2. The Players have changed their HD to match their BAB and the skills have gone over too. The players at first kind of moaned but realized what they had gained and were well pleased, well all but the Binder Player.

The Party:

Human Duskblade 3
Human Binder 3
Half-Elf Warmage 3
Gnome Rogue 3

This game was a continuation of a campaign world I created several months ago. It has no name at this time but the players have begun exploring it and have developed into a strong party. This was the 3rd month of the group playing from 1st level.

So to begin, the players had taken a rest after several encounters the day before. They had stumbled upon a small passageway beneath a sawmill and desided this was a better place than any to rest. With a town of crazies above and quite a few undead faced already, the party was able to expect somewhat what they would face. Right after the rest, they set off. They have already had the Binder the day before run off and face a room full of undead, so they were not totally blinded except by the dark. Since the Warmage just gained ulimited light, he decided to go ahead a cast it for the whole party.

1st Encounter

4 Ghouls from the MM
CR 1
Challenge: Hard

I didn't do much in the way of change. I just used their Hide modifier for their stealth roll. Surprisingly, the Party still got jumped in a 5ft wide corridor. The monsters sickened two of the members of the party and did a bite to the Binder. Lucky the binder saved vs. the Paralysis. The Fighter lasted for about five rounds. The party was able to just wail on the Ghouls but the ghouls were not so easy to take down because they would squeeze next to one another and strike at the party. I still did not give the rogue the ability to sneak attack. The Warmage opted to continue using Disrupt undead instead of using higher level spells and I don't blame him. He liked that he could do 1d6+4 damage. I didn't find that this encounter to be hard but it did last longer than any 3.5 encounter I would run.

After mopping up the creatures, the party continued on. They eventually reached the point that the Binder had found previously. They had made Perception checks and heard some noise from the empty room. The Binder lept into the fray only to be attacked by another unknown foe. The tentacle hit the binder, grappled him, and did it's constrict.

2nd Encounter
Otyugh
CR 4
Challenge: Hard

This creature did amazingly well. It not only grappled the Binder but when the rogue came in to help, it had grabbed ahold of him as well. So it had both creatures grappled and was going in for the bite. Well the creature was only able to hold on for 3 rounds before the players got lucky. Enough damage was done though but it's bite never really had the chance to connect. The creature was eventually tripped by a True Striked Bigby's Tripping Hand done by the Duskblade and then it's life ended by the rogue and binder.

The party took a while to do some body stuffing into a previously opened trap, while that was going on, the Warmage set off another pit trap. The binder then had a the bright idea to swim. Well that ended up being his demise as he could not hold his breath long enough to return with the loot he had found.

So I had one character death on his own accord.

My players really enjoyed themselves this session and they really enjoyed the changes because everyone had gained something. The binder player and I are talking about his next character at the moment and he may be going Soulknife but I will know more in two weeks. Until next time.

The Exchange

I have posted one of my playtest under the combat section a while back about how grappling worked in one of my games. Well this time I'm posting about my game sessions here.

To start things off, I'm mainly using the 3.5 rules with a few of the Alpha rules. The party is set up like this.

Human Binder 3

Human Duskblade 3

Half-elf Warmage 3

Gnome Rogue 3

I didn't do any of the Racial changes or the class changes yet because I didn't want to introduce one thing for one character and not others. So I decided to move from there. The party was already at 3rd level by the time the Alpha document came out so I didn't really institute many changes.

Changes that were made.

I gave all the players a flat HP boost. I chose 10 because I wanted the players to feel a little stronger than the average person. This would normally happen at first level and equal out since I have my players roll their HP. I didn't do the Favored Class HP boost because I hadn't read that part at the time.

The next thing I changed was special combat abilities. I switched to CMB. I liked it's simplicity and how it made it sleightly more difficult to perfom these manuevers.

I started using the Patherfinder APL encounter system and XP rewards. I didn't change the games current Xp values because I wanted to see how fast they would go up.

April 4th Playtest
This game was very combat intensive.

The first encounter was a test of numbers. I drafted a Tainted Raver Human Commoner 1(Tainted Raver Template can be found in the Heroes of Horror Supplement by WotC). According to the Alpha document, this creature would be a CR 1/4. Since the APL of the party is 3, I could throw 12 of these creatures at the party and still challenge them. Now these commoners were really easy to kill but they could hit the party decently well. This combat lasted a total of 3 rounds. The players were hit a few times and expended little of their resources. The combat started in the parties favor. They had almost all the top Initiatives, but they decided to hold back until their enemies came closer. This proved to be a wise move. The warmage was the only one to actually act on his turn. He moved ahead some, cast on the defensive, and took out 5 of their foes. Something I would have liked to see was that casting on the defensive not be so easy because in a level or two, he will not need to roll anymore. Since these commoners were tainted, they were not able to use logic and run. So they advanced on the party. Those players(the binder and the Duskblade) that had held their actions took their turn and dropped another of these creatures. The Rogue was able to get two hits off as well but was uncessful at dropping the creature. The next round, the battle field had closed in, so the warmage had to make some adjustments. He chose to cast some of his O level spells and try to conserve his higher levels ones. He chose to Ray of Frost one of these creatures but missed. The Binder decided to swing with his Greatsword and dropped another, The creatures went and caused some damage to the rogue. The duskblade moved in and dropped another with his greatsword. The Rogue, finally killed one. The next round, the fight was pretty much over. Some more spellcasting by the Warmage and the blows dealt by the Binder and Duskblade finished that round. Score 1 for the PC's.

The second Encounter was to test Numbers and Strength. I chose to throw some more Tainted Ravers at the party but this time they were Warriors level 2. This made them a CR 1/2. This Fighter Lasted much longer than the weak commoners. This went out to about 10 rounds. I won't go into much detail on this one but I did have a Sunder attack, a bull rush, and several trip attempts. The Binder was the one that decided an AoO was well worth the ability to take a Sunder or Bull Rush and his gamble proved correct. He broke a Warriors sword so I had the chance to test the Broken Condition(and it's quite a hinderence). The bull rush was also successful for a 5 foot push into a wall. The Halberd wielding warriors could not trip the Duskblade for the life of them. With a CMB of +5, they could not beat his 20 defense. I was sleightly disappointed by this but realized it was more benefical to the players this way. If I had succeed on those trip attempts, the duskblade would have become useless and taken multiple attacks to get back up. Ultimately the PC's one but were severly beaten. They had expended about half for their remaining resources from the previous fight. The Binder quickly switch over to a healer vestige and healed up the party. So they were healthy but still did not have full magic.

There was an encounter with a dire rat of CR 2 but that ended quickly and they quickly moved on to the final fight of the night. I decided to make this one harder. I created a Tainted Minion Human Fighter 5(Another Template from the Heroes of Horror supplement). According to Alpha document, this was a CR 4 encounter. And it truly felt like that. The Warmage was the only one to truly get full damage on this creature. The encounter went 5 rounds. The Binder and Rogue were not truly able to do much in this combat since the creature could shrug off their damage. The Warmage and the Duskblade were the main combatants. I did design this monster to attempt bull rushes but the PC's quickly surrounded him so he didn't have much room to play with. So he quickly resorted to power attack and was hitting the PC's for about 12 damage a hit. He was a BSword and Board guy. The Warmage was the ultimate winner in this combat. His Edge proved to be the difference between damage being low to it actually being a moderate amount of damage.

If you have any questions, just go ahead and ask. I'll post up some more in two weeks since that's how often this group meets. Until then, I hope you enjoy.

The Exchange

I have been preparing for my next game session on Friday and I decided to try out "Running the Pathfinder RPG" section, pg.60+ in the Alpha document. I love the changes they have done. The new CRs for my NPCs and new encounter system is great. I had an idea of what I wanted to throw at the group, Tainted Raver Human Commoner 1. Using the new npc CRs, it would have a CR of 1/4 instead of a 1/2 according to the old DMG. I then figured out my parties AveragePartyLevel which is 3, subtracted the monster's CR vs the APL which equaled -6. Using their chart, I could throw 8-10 for an average encounter or challenge the party with 11-14. I chose 12 for the party to fight. Do I think this is too many baddies for a 3rd level party to fight, no since one hit will kill any of these monsters and they can't do enough damage to kill anyone in a round. So I then moved down to figure out the XP, since I try to do this before the game so I don't have to slow down game play. I like how it scales now. No more trying to figure out the math and each CR gives a different XP amount instead of the first 3 levels giving the same XP. I was stoked.

I just want to know what others have thought of this system and if anyone thought it would need fixed. I think it's solid and should stay as is.

The Exchange

I know that this is the first Alpha release, but I was looking to get an idea of what people think before another release happens. Do you think that the current stabilization and death and dying rules works? Is going through 0 to -10 and only having a 10% chance to stop losing hit points a fair or worth while system to keep?

The reason I ask these questions is because I made a switch in my games to the Death and Dying variant in the UA. My players never go below 0 HP and they must make Fort saves to determine if they die or not. I only made one modification to this and it works out nicely. (DC for the fort save is 10 +1 per 5 points of damage dealt instead of the +2 per 10 points of damage dealt. Can be found in the UA on pg. 121 or on the SRD.)