greggem's page

The Waterfront adds (among other things) a slot for 1 major wondrous item.

Since the value of items in a settlement cannot exceed 16,000 gp, per

This item’s price cannot exceed the base value for the settlement (reroll if the item’s price exceeds the settlement’s base value).

and:

A settlement’s base value can never increase above the values listed in Table 4–5: Settlement Size and Base Value.

More than 25,000 Metropolis 16,000 gp

What exactly can go in that major wondrous item slot? I can't find a major wondrous item that costs less than 16,000 gp.

Of course, this brings up the problem of what is "ambient" light? All light is from a source, magical or not. And while I normally like to avoid ruleslawyering physics, I don't see an alternative in this case. In an indoor room, the "ambient" light is going to be from torches, so darkness by this interpretation would make everything pitch black, no exceptions, even in direct sunlight. My player makes a special pleading that "obviously sunlight penetrates" darkness, but the special pleading is unimpressive to me.

Ugh, I completely agree. Unless the sun is considered a magical source of light (not impossible in a fantasy game, I suppose), then there is no ambient light. I'm pretty sure that the spell is supposed to reduce light from whatever it was down 1 level. For this reason alone, I think that any source of light outside the darkness spell is resolved first (setting the "ambient" light level), then darkness drops everything one level, then any magical light effects inside the darkness spell can move it back up (spell level permitting).

EDIToh, I think that maybe Trikk had it right:

Correct. For future reference, the standard light levels are: bright, normal, dim, darkness.

Your confusion comes from the fact that a lighting condition has the same name as the spell. Read the vision and light rules and everything will be clear.

Some of the posts above cite the sentence:

Nonmagical sources of light, such as torches and lanterns, do not increase the light level in an area of darkness. Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher spell level than darkness.

In my printing of the core book the first quoted instance of the word darkness is not italicized. The second one is. Italics are used to show reference to the name of the spell. The non-italicized text must refer to the lighting condition.

So, nonmagical sources of light, such as torches and lanterns, do not increase the light level in an area of (the lighting condition) darkness. Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher level than (the spell named) darkness.

I guess that means that if the darkness spell brings the light down to "darkness" then non-magical light sources won't help. If the darkness spell only brings down the lighting condition to "dim" then non-magical sources of light might actually help!

OMG, my brain hurts! FAQ this people!

My GM essentially qualified his stance on feat queueing with "If you can survive in the meantime without your feats I'll let you spend them later." I certainly enjoy it as a house rule.

That's pretty much how I run my home game, with the caveat that you can only hold off on a feat for one level. Feats that require higher BAB/caster level/class benefits are more powerful than feats with lower requirements, so putting off gaining feats makes it possible to create more powerful characters overall.

I like to give my players a bit of flexibility, but some of them would be 5th level before they ever took a feat if I let them. :-)

To define "hostile spells" creates a whole new mechanic, and one that potentially creates problems.

Is Reduce Person a "hostile spell"? What if it's cast by the party wizard? When it cast by an enemy spellcaster? A dominated friendly wizard? A rogue using disguise or bluff skill and use magic device?

Bingo. I've tried this for a drow PC in a 3.5 game and it caused all sorts of headaches. Basically the PC will classify "hostile spells" as "spells that I want to have SR versus." Arguments start in 3, 2...

I like the immediate action lowering plus the optional auto-return posted by Axl above. It has the nice side effect of allowing SR to come back if you get knocked out (though that may be a pain in your cleric is coming to help).

Thanks so much! Especially for the printer-friendly version. Come payday, I think I'll have to pick up the construct codex. :-)

With my group, we are playing Kingmaker nearly once per month (usually from 14:00 pm to midnight). After a little more than one year, we are almost at the end of book 4.

This is pretty much the schedule my game is on as well. Out of a total of 4 players, 2 would probably play every weekend if we could. The other 2 are juggling family and work obligations. We are also running Kingmaker and after about 18 months we are about halfway through the third AP.

To keep everyone involved between games I set up a wiki and award XP for contributions. For example if a player sets up a page about an NPC they met with a details about what they looked like and how they interacted they might gain about 3-5% of the total amount needed for their next level. A summary of a game session would be worth a bit more. In the future we have a reference that we can check (and update) when we're trying to remember whether they told off that centaur priestess or decided to play nice.(Having a list of NPCs you know is especially helpful in the Kingmaker AP, since you have to recruit for various leadership positions.)

The art in Paizo products is just outstanding. Covers and interior, it is gorgeous.

My one small quibble is with putting the BBEG on the covers. We're playing Kingmaker right now and I try to keep my book face down, but I occasionally forget and set down the AP with a certain undead cyclops in view. They haven't encountered him or anything about cyclops (cyclopses? cyclopsi?) quite yet, so it can spoil a bit of the surprise.

He is stealing.

This happened in a couple of my groups. I was originally of the "resolve in-game conflicts in-game" school of thought, but having seen it play out a few times changed my mind.

As a DM, I saw the other PCs start to get ticked off. Their characters would start to do things that didn't make sense: following the rouge around, asking what *exactly* was found to force a Bluff check, etc. It became pretty obvious that the rouge's PC was causing everyone to have a crummy time. Eventually he died and all that loot he was squirreling away was lost with his corpse. He was rather irate that no-one wanted to attempt to raise his character.

As a PC, I would have been okay with this if the DM had actually given the other PCs all the checks they would have been entitled to. Instead, it was treated as "You failed your Perception check? You have no idea what happened." Really? My wizard with permanent Arcane Sight doesn't notice the new magic ring on the rogue's finger with that powerful aura? What about the next day? The day after that? What does he say when I ask him about it? As a PC I'm not bound to follow my Sense Motive checks, so why do I have to believe him?

My basic assumption is that the party will work together as... well, as a party. They don't have to agree on everything, but when they actively undermine each other the game becomes petty and tedious.

This is going to be a good thread, I can feel it.

I give you Parry, from the duelist

** spoiler omitted **

You can now use parry to deflect an AoO from moving away by declaring a full attack and giving up the attack then moving, then riposte them. Or tumble away and parry their (supposedly) one attack, then riposte them.

(I can't believe this thread has lead to situations that help monks and duelists)

I don't think I would allow this. It seems like you have to actually make the attack in order to elect to move afterwards rather than continuing the sequence.

"After your first attack, you can decide..." It seems to me that if you don't attack because you elect to parry then you don't qualify for the option because you haven't actually attacked.

Don't forget he's probably not sleeping in that armor. Kingmaker involves a good amount of exploring and camping out in the wilderness. Unless he happens to be on watch when a nighttime encounter takes place, his AC should be much more reasonable.

<p>I played this incorrectly for years in 3.0 and 3.5. The lightbulb finally went off a couple of years ago when I read the rules you quoted in bold. </p>

<p>It makes it much easier if you remember that a "full round action" is not a an action that takes a full round (like Remco Sommeling pointed out). It takes the same amount of time as a full attack. Once I made the connection I immediately started rolling up a sorcerer. :) </P>

Well, I've finally completed it.

<p>Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This is going to make some VERY happy PCs. They've just gotten up to 4 minor and 1 medium items and it was driving us all nuts. I was considering writing something similar but realized that there would probably some genius pathfinder out there who had already done it. Thank you so much!</p>

greggem wrote:

Well, I've been playing with two of them for more than 10 years. I'm married to the other one. I think I have a pretty good feel for their opinions on the matter. I guess you can never know for sure, though.

Good show -- given that background, I'd number you among the "good guys" as well, depending on the answer to this:

Q: A new player joins. Do you:

(a) Make sure he/she is OK with it, too? or
(b) Fudge the rolls on their behalf without telling them, but only if you think you're getting away with it.

Because that's what I've been talking about here.

That actually just happened! I explained that was how we played and he was extremely relieved. I guess I have a reputation. Maybe it's the silhouettes of PCs on my screen. If he had said, "nah, let me die if that's how the dice roll," I'd be fine with that too.

Bob_Loblaw wrote:

His opinion is gospel for his group.

What is he, Jim Jones? Why not ask the group, rather than telling them?

Well, I've been playing with two of them for more than 10 years. I'm married to the other one. I think I have a pretty good feel for their opinions on the matter. I guess you can never know for sure, though.

But do keep ignoring those people as if they don't exist and have no rights.

That seems extreme. We're having fun! I basically have to kick them out at 1:00 a.m. I guess it does depend on the group, though. Some people really like making new characters. :-) I happen to know my players wouldn't be too happy with that.

EDIT: sorry wrong person quoted

I have explicitly told my PCs that I'm just making dice rolling noises behind the screen for my own entertainment. I remind them periodically. Everybody knows the DM will fudge the dice now and then. I don't see the point in pretending otherwise.

They know that I won't kill them capriciously or maliciously. It's also not fun to have a monster kill your character with one lucky hit (where the situation is not your fault). There's still plenty of randomness. I just take out the worst possible results because they make crummy games.