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I guess that kinda makes sense :)
Thanks for the reply

I have a small question about the Midnight Joust: Who gets second place? The one who loses stage two or the one who loses stage three?
If it's the latter, Pitax is guaranteed at least 1 point from a second place, which seems kinda unfair, but if it's the former, Pitax is denied a chance for a second place point. While King Irovetti himself is pretty deceitful, the tournament itself seems otherwise quite fair. Any thoughts?

I guess that's a possible interpretation. Just not very exciting against an OP adventuring party :P

Fair points. There are A LOT of rules and creatures and spells, and probably a lot of different people creating the content, so I suppose there's bound to be some stuff that don't work quite as intended.

My players are about to run into some Army Ant Swarms in the next session, and wanted to get as good a grasp one those things as I could. The Cling ability is kinda cool though, so they're not a complete waste :)

Bit of an old thread, but if swarms can't overlap, what is the point of Army Ant Swarm's ability Consume? Except for Large or larger creatures, no swarm would be able to nauseate and then use the Consume ability on anyone, because the targets would lose nauseated before the ants could take another turn. I suppose they could become nauseated from some other source, but how often is that the case?
Since Consume requires nauseated (or helpless, to be fair) and distraction causes nauseated, it seems it was designed for having multiple swarms on one target? Or maybe it's just really poor design, and they forgot nauseated from distraction only lasts one turn?

Any ideas?

You're forgetting his Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus in Greatsword that gives him an extra +2. I do, however find it a bit odd, story wise, that he has that many feats invested in greatswords. It seems obvious from his weapon training and from his other weapon, the +2 keen battleaxe, that he's been using axes most of his life and only just started his training with greatswords because he found Ovinrbaane. Though I suppose he could have spent a bunch of his Downtime in the tomb retraining :P

You're probably right about the aid spell though. Not sure how I missed that.

I've noticed some weird HP calculations in Blood for Blood. A lot of the enemies seem to get more HPs than they should?

Take Armag f.ex. The book gives him 204 hp (5d12+9d10+117). With max for his first barbarian level, that's 12+(4*6.5)+(9*5.5) + 117 = 204.5. The dice seems to fit, so far so good. So let's break down the bonus hp of 117
Even though it doesn't say so anywhere, I assume his ability scores are including Rage and his belt, since that's how they usually do it, so while raging, he has 22 con (+6 mod). He also has toughness, and presumably FC bonus of 5 hp for his five barbarian levels. As a level 14 character, he should then have 14*(6+1)+5 = 103 hp. that's 14 hp short. Does that mean they have calculated his ability scores with rage, but not with his belt? That seems like a very odd decision, doesn't it, since the belt is a consistent bonus, while rage is very temporary?

I also can't get his attacks to fit. It kinda looks like along with Rage, Power attack is calculated in there. So as far as I can figure he should have:
Att: BAB(14)+(Gr)Weapon Focus/Weapon Training(3)+ Str(6)+ Ovinrbaane(3)+ Power Attack(-4) = 22 (or 26 without PA) (book says 24)
Dmg: Str(9)+Power Attack(12) + Weapon Spec/Weapon Training(3)+ Ovinrbaane(3) = 27 (or 15 without PA) (book says 21)

I usually get all the right numbers when I calculate myself, but I've noticed a lot of discrepancies in Blood for Blood. Am I just forgetting something, or have others also noticed this?

My players are getting interested in having diplomatic relations with neighboring kingdoms, so I'm reading up on Diplomatic Edicts, and I have a few questions:

1. The diplomatic edict check adds both target kingdom size and your kingdom size (divided by 5) to the DC. Doesn't it make more sense that you should subtract you own size modifier? The way it is, it just gets more and more difficult to do diplomacy the larger you get (especially since this is against a character's Diplomacy skill and not a kingdom stat). The only way to make the check passable is with an inordinate amount of bribes and gifts (which may be the intention, but I still think it sounds odd)
2. For a treaty you need 3 diplomatic edict checks and for an alliance you need 6. If you spend BP on bribes/gifts to reduce the DC, will those bribes last for all 3/6 checks, or do you have to spend BP on each of those checks?
3. On treaty and alliance checks, it says that you have to roll them in order, since particularly good or bad results may change the attitude. Am I to assume that it is meant that any of the checks that succeed with 5 or more increases the attitude by one step, and any of the checks that fail by 5 or more decrease the attitude by one step? And if this is the case, are the changes to attitude permanent for each of the rolls (so if you started at indifferent, rolled three checks for a treaty and got two 5+ and one -5, you would end up as Friendly going forward?)
4. What would you say the Size of Brevoy is? At a glance, I would estimate the entire country of Brevoy to be about twice the size of all the Stolen Lands, so somewhere around Size = 500. Do you agree?

Haven't really created her character as such yet, so a Mesmerist could be fun.

Thanks for the tips, I'll see what I can figure out :)

Yeah, I really like that idea, actually :)

The PCs have the Ruler, Councilor, Grand Diplomat and Lord Marshall roles. In addition one of the PCs have the Leadership feat and his cohort is Lord Constable.

Jhod Kavken is High Priest, Elga Verniex (The Old Beldame) is the Magister, Kesten is Royal Enforcer/Assassin, Lily Teskerten is Spymaster and Oleg is Treasurer. We also have a PC who played the first few session, but is no longer actively playing, she is the General.

Yes, they are aware of the penalties for their absence. Their Economy and Loyalty checks are pretty low when they're gone, but their Stability is OK (bit better than 50% chance to make the check), and that check really is the only one that they have to roll, barring any random events (I'm using Ultimate Campaign rules, so they will get income from the Economy check, regardless, even if it's a bit less than when they are present). Also, to make things simpler, I just ruled that there will be no expansion of borders or new buildings while they're gone.

The fiancee has presented herself as a minor noble from Brevoy, where she's the only child and have been taking care of her father's finances.

I like the idea of turning other members of the council to her side, but I also don't want her to do too much permanent damage, as the PCs might feel that is taking away their agency over their kingdom.
Also like the idea of staying home for the Games, and getting ready to take over.

The PC ruler of the kingdom in my game recently celebrated his birthday where several women courted him and he ended up with a fiancee. Unbeknownst to him though is that she is actually a spy from Pitax. What I'm wondering though, is what should she do?
So that's where you guys come in. Any suggestions? I don't want her to completely screw up the kingdom, that won't be fun for the players. But some subtle, small sabotages could be fun. I'm also thinking she might be playing a long con, and wait until the war with Pitax to inform on troop movements or something like that (they are currently investigating Varnhold, so that will likely be a couple of years).
Right now they are actually too busy out of the country to make it back in time for the kingdom phase, and they figured she would work as a temporary regent while the Duke is away :D

Any ideas?

Actually there is one small thing I just came across. There's an event in Ultimate Campaign called Food Shortage, where consumption is increased by 50% if you fail the check. Do you use (size+districts)*1.5-(2*farms), or (size+districts-(2*farms))*1.5?That's a pretty big difference.
For my players' current kingdom, it's a difference of 12 consumption next month or 2 :)

Ok, thanks.
I have actually made my own, pretty extensive openoffice spreadsheet, and I have a column for "Other" modifiers, I just don't have anywhere to note what all those "Other" modifiers are without making it ugly :P

I've been reading up on the rules replacing the ones in the Kingmaker Campaign, and there's one thing (so far) that I'm really unclear on. There are several instances, like when the Royal Enforcer can choose reduce Unrest by 1 during the Upkeep phase, where you risk reducing a Kingdom stat. Is this reduction permanent, or does it just last for the current turn?
The more examples I see of it, the more I'm convinced that it's permanent, but doesn't that make it a lot more complicated, cause now you have to keep track of extra penalties, that you can't see from just what buildings and leaders you have?

What about Standard and Landmark hexes? Would you make them roll a check there, even though there's nothing else to find but what they will automatically find during exploration of the hex? Or would you only have them roll on Hidden and Empty hexes?

Good idea. Thanks :)

I'm getting ready to run Kingmaker as a GM, and I was wondering about something. Hidden locations require a certain skill check to discover. How did you do that?
Let the players roll one skill check when exploration of a hex is complete? Let them roll one skill check each? Roll skill checks more than once during the exploration? Roll hidden skill checks for the players?

If I let the players roll the skill check they'll know that there is something there to be found even if they fail (unless I require a skill check on every hex), but if I roll the checks secretly, I feel I'm taking a bit of agency away from the players.

Why do people usually only compare benefits at max (or near max) level?

Ok, sure, Armor Master gets DR 12/- (+3 for adamantine heavy armor)...at 19th level. But from 5th level and for the whole rest of the game before he reaches 19th (if he ever does) he'll only have DR 3/- (+3 when he can afford an adamantine heavy armor).

The Invulnerable Rager on the other hand will scale his DR already from level 2. With a single level dip in Unbreakable Fighter he can easily get DR 13/- at lvl 11 (5 from barbarian level, 6 from Improved Stalwart and 2 from Increased Damage Reduction), and as much as DR 22/- at level 19 (9 for barbarian levels, 10 for Improved Stalwart and 3 for Increased Damage Reduction)

I am a little unclear about something with regards to ending a barbarian's rage. In the description of rage it says:

A barbarian can end her rage as a free action

But free actions can only be performed on your turn (with certain exceptions, like speaking). Does that mean that if you want to end your rage at the beginning of your turn, you still use up a round of rage for that turn, since you can only end it after your turn has already started?

It seems to me that that would be RAW, but it seems a little silly that you are not able to drop rage just before you start your turn?

I assume it's instantaneous, since I can't find anything about it, but can you confirm upgrading your magical items in PFS takes no time (i.e. it's just like purchasing new equipment, just a little cheaper), or do you have to spend downtime to do it?

Am I understanding correctly that using bullets as ammo you also need a dose of black powder? A bullet is 1gp and a dose of black powder is 10gp, for a total of 11gp. While an alchemical cartridge costs 12gp and reduces reload times by one step. If this is how it works, there's really no point in not using cartrdiges, is there (aside from the very small, less than 10%, saving)?

EDIT:
I just remembered that Gunsmith reduces cost to 10% with bullets (I assume that goes for the black powder as well), so that would be 1,1gp per shot. Better, but still pretty expensive

The new Unchained Barbarian have a rage power called lethal accuracy, which increases multiplier by, but you can't take it until lvl 16

Yes, there should be nothing to prevent you from casting Contingency on a familiar or animal companion with the share spells ability. But could you have a contingency spell on you AND your familiar/animal companion at the same time? It says you can only have one contingency spell active at a time, but does that mean max one contingency on each character or one contingency per spell caster?
If you can't cast contingency on you and your familiar, could you cast contingency on yourself, and have another spellcaster cast contingency on you too?

I have a slightly different question about racial FC bonuses:
Would you be able to choose a racial FC bonus that affects something you do not have access to yet? Say, the human barbarian +1/3 lvl superstition bonus. Could you take that FC bonus on 1st lvl, or would you have to wait until you have gotten the Superstition Rage Power (2nd lvl at the earliest)?

Creatures with the nauseated condition experience stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.

I would say nauseated certainly prevents you from doing standard and swift actions. Free actions may be a bit more of a debate, since the condition states that you can't do things requiring attention, but the bolded part clearly states a move action is the only action you can take

The giant poking in 2014 didn't seem to really wake it up, just stir it a little bit, so I'll take my chances ;)

My question is a little bit off topic from where this thread went, but still within the OP I think.

The rage cycling of the cabochon ioun stone and the rage power Internal Fortitude, seems to me to not work (at least not more than once).
When you drop your rage, you become fatigued, but the ioun stone turns that into sickened, but that's fine, that doesn't stop you from raging, so up it goes again and you are no longer sickened. Next round you drop rage again, but now, being already sickened, you instead become nauseated, which will only allow you to make a single move action, no standard, no free, no nothing else, so you are unable to get rage back up until the two rounds for the one round of rage have passed.

Would you say that is a correct assessment, and the sickened/nauseated condition are only suppressed when rage goes up, or would you say that becoming immune would remove the conditions completely, even after you exit rage again?

This thread has been dead a while, but I have a question about Invulnerable Rager and Bolstered Resilience. If for instance you have DR10/- from a combination of barbarian DR and stalwart, and then use Bolstered Resilience to double your DR to 20/-, would you then have DR40/lethal (since your DR against nonlethal is double of what your DR against lethal is), or would the DR against nonlethal be similarly capped to 20?
If this works, it could be extremely effective if you use Flesh Wound as well (BR is immediate and FW is not an action)

I'm a little confused about when the rakshasas are willing to reveal themselves as rakshasas. My impression is that the guards will pretty much attack the PCs in their true form, same with Vimanda if she's unable to trick them. But Bahor will do anything to prevent people from finding out the truth. But if the guards and Vimanda are reavealed, then it's pretty obvious that Bahor is a rakshasa as well.
So under what conditions would you say the guards, Vimanda and Bahor reverts to their true forms?

In addition, even a Remove Disease spell requires a caster level check to successfully cure a disease.

Note: this is a very old thread, so the description of the Heal check may have been different back then.
Even if you take 10 on the Heal check and succeeds, that only means the victim gets a +4 competence bonus on their Fort save. When the PCs meet Brienna Soldado, she has an effective Fort save modifier of -3, so even with a successful Heal check against the disease, that only leaves her with a +1 modifier against a DC 16 save, so the odds pretty well stacked against her making the save.
In the AP, it says nothing of how you naturally can recover from the disease. It seems the default is usually two consecutive saves, would you say that goes for Blood Veil as well?

I find it a bit ambiguous whether you should perform a single reading for the party or whether each PC should receive their own reading. I would go in the direction of a single reading for the party, but I know others have done one for each PC. Anyone have any insight into which it's supposed to be?

Thanks for all the tips, but I actually wound up with Curse of the Crimson Throne. Seemed like a lot of people have rated it very highly, and I like what I've read of it so far.
I was thinking, is there a thread or something with discussion about common unexpected player decisions or something like that? It would be nice to be able to be somewhat prepared for players choosing to do something outside the scope of the AP, as I'm not the best at improvising :)

I'm currently running through Rise of the Runelords as a player (we just cleared the Graul farmhouse). But when were done with that, I'm thinking of taking over as DM with a new AP. But I'm not sure what AP I would like to choose. I used to run a Planescape campaign back in the 2nd ed AD&D era, so if there's something similar to that, that might be fun. But I like the more classic ones like RotR is as well. Also I like it when there's some intrigue, and devious characters who trick the players into doing their work for them :)
If I decide on an AP, I'd like to start preparing before we're done with RotR, but I want to avoid any potential spoilers. Anyone have any suggestions?

I have another question about crafting. The rules say that you can only work on one item at a time, and that you can only craft one item per day. But say you were working on an item from the previous day, and only need 2 hours to finish it. Could you then spend the remaining 6 hours left in the day to start a new item, as long as you don't finish it?

Caster level is not the same as a level requirement though. All magic items have a CL, but that is not a level requirement on the part of the creator, it only affects the DC to craft the item. For magic arms and armor, there is a special case, where the creator's level have to be at least three times the enhancement bonus, but when it comes to special abilities it is not apparent from the text if you are supposed to use the CL of the ability as a level requirement (which is not the case with all other kinds of magic items) or use the cost modifier as a level requirement as is the case of enhancement bonuses

Since the rules in the core book are rather vague about this, I figured I'd try asking here.
If you want to create a weapon with an enhancement bonus, your level needs to be minimum three times the enhancement bonus. So for a +3 longsword, you have to be at least level 9. My question is, for special abilities, do you use the enhancement equivalent cost bonus (as in +1 for flaming would require level 3 and +3 for speed would require level 9) or do you use the caster level for the special ability (CL 10 for flaming and CL 7 for speed)? The latter seems more balanced, but the rules say:

The creator’s caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the weapon. If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability, the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met

and Speed doesn't have an enhancement bonus, it only has the equivalent cost of a +3 weapon.

Also, regardless of which of the two level requirements are correct, I'm assuming you should be able to ignore this requirement with a +5 DC anyway.

That being said, the Extra Reservoir feat seems slightly overpowered, since it give 3 extra points in your reservoir (and max), while every other extra pool point feat gives two.
Are the points in an arcanist's pool worth less than a point in a magus's pool?

Hello,

What does the elven arcanist favored class bonus give a character? Does it give the arcanist +1 to maximum and strarting arcane reservoir? Or just to maximum?
If it is the former, then the halfing favored class bonus is utterly underwhelming by comparison.

I think the keyword here is "total". Elf FC bonus says:

Increase total number of points in the arcanist's arcane reservoir by 1.

The description of the Arcane Reservoir in ACG is:

The arcane reservoir can never hold more points than the maximum amount noted above; points gained in excess of this total are lost

Besides, being able to add a whole reservoir point each level would be insanely powerful compared to all other FC-bonuses I've seen.

Thanks! :)

We're a group that is thinking of starting up a Pathfinder campaign. I'm just wondering what are the most important books to read to get a feel for the Pathfinder world (we're all pretty familiar with 3.5, so the rules shouldn't be an issue to get familiar with)? I don't want to read any "spoilers", since we're likely going to be switching between DMs, but I would like to know a little of the history, theology and geography.