gustavo iglesias's page

Hi!

I am running this campaign as a GM, with 2 players, using the dual class option and making them 1 level higher than the normal milestones and we are having a blast, we are in the middle of book 2.

But I feel my players will not like the idea of fully ignoring the egg, while they go around doing unrelated archeology and diplomacy. I think books 2 to 5 are great episodes, but they are episodes, with self contained stories and little connective tissue.

Here is my idea. Suggestions are welcome.

Salithiss thinks the egg is a serpent one because a halfling named Thiarvo tried to sell it to him, claiming that. He finally sold it to Koride, who paid more. That's how the Serpent Folks know the egg is in Magaambya. Thiarvo got that egg in Bloodsalt, and he doesn't really know what it is.

Once the players get to Bloodsalt, they discover Kiutu was destroyed by some insects, including giant beetles and swarms of locusts (I want the insect theme running for at least a bit longer). It needs more repairs. They go to clear Bloodsalt, meet with Thiarvo, who is obviously a lier, cheater, and scoundrel, but not a murderer. They talk about Bloodsalt, and if/when the players defeat him in a social encounter, he finally leaves, telling them he is trying to find the mythical Golden City, which is a much better target anyways. He hints that he might know a place in Mzali with a clue, boasting about that.

The players enter in Bloodsalt, they discover Ixame and the Petrified Eggs. Ixame half-dead status is caused by something else: he is half devoured by a Hellwasp Swarm (when he exhales his final breath, instead of doing breath weapon damage, he frees the wasps). The AP says that King of biting Ants created the Vesicant Egg through his will, that he hid in a small ant, and then he gathered more ants. It doesn't say how exactly the egg was created. Here is my take: the Flying people of Bloodsalt weren't dragon men. The billowing wings they developed were butterfly wings, they believed in Desna (which gives a connection to one of my players, a cleric of Shimye-Magalla, and Ixume was their protectors. The will of King of Biting Ants came to Bloodsalt, infected one of the eggs, and attracted insects. The insects weren't normal, and a Swarm of Wasps took him while he was sleep (mechanically, Hellwasps). Then the Dead Man's Breath came and everyone who couldn't flee, died.

The Knights of Abendego are members of a defected Chelaxian warship going rogue after Vidrin got their defense, The Lord of Flies. This can lead to interesting tension with Ignaci Cantarells, who is Chelaxian, but innocent, and how the players deal with the negative reception Ignaci has in Jula. The Knights are followers of Baalzebub, and they summon, control and worship some Lovaloch devils, so they wear tridents because of that. Lovaloch and Hellwasps (and Accursed Devils,) also fit the theme of insects, and even if they aren't exactly under control of the Vesicant Eye, they "feel" it. They aren't there because if it, though, they are looking to sacrifice people to get information about something different: the location of Osibu, the Golden City, something that ambitious people like the followers of The Lord of Flies should be naturally attracted to, just because it is made of gold, or that says the myth.

The players defeat Abjal and the crew that landed on Jula, but the Lord of Flies leave the coast to not be seen again, for now.

After that, the PC have a clue leading to Mzali, but not a connection between Mzali (or Osibu). But that's ok. Here is where Koride, Janatimo and Oyembe decide that Koride will hide the egg within the Iobane temple. They might already know a bit about the egg, and the connection to Jatembe and King of Biting Ants, so it makes sense that the Iobane, a cult dedicated to keep the Red Door closed, can help to keep it safe, as the egg can't be destroyed anyways.

So the Magaambya rulers send a delegation, with the idea of securing a seal to be able to study the Temple, not an easy task. There are other delegations there, including one from the Áspid Consortium, who want to secure a better deal than the Anthusis Traveler Merchant Guild. In order to do so, they are giving one of the ambitious Council rulers money, information, and power: Worknesh. Themba Sufu suspects this, but he can't prove it. It is Worknesh who sent the Reborns. Thiarvo is also there. He helps the players when he can, but he is also a nuisance, breaking rules, and being always very close to make Walkena cross the line and kill everyone. Thiarvo help is invaluable, though: he has half of the Golden plate that works as a map to Osibu. He will memorize it when the players put both halves together, and then he sells the info to the best bettor: the Aspid Consortium.

Who will present themselves in Osibu, with a brigade of Knights of Abendego, a bunch of Steam Tanks (replacing the Sun Spires), Worknesh, and some Sun Warriors loyal to him. Worknesh, with the help of the Consortium, entered the Temple of Eclipse after the PC leave it, and touching a sun mote there, becomes an Avatar of the Sun, with the stats of the Avatar of Walkena.

Once the PC beat him, they learn about Jatembe, Akiton, etc.
Book 5 plays as is, with one minor change: Koride entered the Cathedral of Nothingness with the Egg, believing that only there it could be contained, and the Iobane are furious about that, as they have a vow to never enter that place.
The rest of book 5 and 6 goes unchanged.

I find problematic that so many weapons are underwhelming compare with others.

Un some situations, like Frailty line compared to Ice Carbines, for example, you could argue that the trap option (frailty, in this case) have some kind of redeeming value in a niche situation that somehow excuses it for being much worse 90% of the time while being more expensive. That's the typical defense for the crappy Ivory Tower Design philosophy.

But some examples discredit that idea. Take a look at Stacatto Rifle, Surge, compared to Sonic Rifle, HFD.

Both are sonic weapons. Both do 2d10, have same battery and spend same charges to shoot. Both have deafen as crit. The stacatto, however, is automatic, and have 10 more feet in range. It is also cheaper, and requires one level less.

The sonic rifle is there just to punish Timmy for bring Timmy, and reward Spike for being Spike. It is not even a trap option, trap options "look" good, and thus deceive people with less system mastery. It is just a worse option.

I love Starfinder. I love starship's combat. There are a few things that need to be tweeked (for example, giving a few more options to engineers, captains and science officers that include decisions to have), but that part is easy, and I tend to tweak every RPG I play anyway.

But I have a serious problem with starship building. It's a total mess. It's way too easy to build a ship right, and totally outclass similar tier NPC ships that are built bad on purpose. It's not even optimization, it's just that the *best things to have* are the *cheapest things* anyway, like shields, movement, and the best weapons are the cheapest weapons too (compare Chain Cannon and coilgun, for example. Coilgun is better *and* much cheaper) And a lot of not-really-that-usefull stuff is incredibly expensive, making it a non-starter for the players, and a waste of BP for NPC.

The most clear example, is shields. Let's see, for example, the NPC ship Tyrant, the Vesk battleship. It has 200 shields, which cost it 22 BP. It also has Mk 10 armor, which cost it 21x size category, or 144 BP. Reducing it to Mk9, will cut the cost to 18 x size category, saving 21 BP in the process. That will allow us to raise the shields to a whooping SIX HUNDRED POINTS, and still have 3 extra points to do whatever, like upgrading core to pay for the extra PCU. Because the AC is horribly expensive, specially for big ships, while shields are stupdily cheap.

Several costs are tied to ship size. While it's "realistic" that a bigger ship has a bigger monetary cost to put armor on, fact is BPs aren't really money, they are an abstract value to balance out ships. And because armor is much more expensive for big ships, it has the counter intuitive side effect that having armored big ships is WORSE than having the same armor on a smaller chasis. The 144 whooping points that the Tyrant had to pay for it's armor, it's a mere 42 points for a small ship. Given the fact that both have the same points to spend if both are tier 16, coupled with the fact that Colosal ships have lower AC because of size, (plus the small sized one gets a bonus), it's easier to have more armor in the smaller frame than in the big one. In addition, although the Tyrant has more hull points, as the NPC waste points in stuff, while the PC go for the good low hanging fruits like Shields, the extra shields a Tier 16 PC small or medium shuttle will have makes up for it.

There are a lot of other examples that make no sense cost wise. An antipersonal azimuth laser cannon to protect your door will cost you the same than a freaking heavy laser cannon, while the former will rarely be useful at all in most campaigns. A biometric lock in the door cost you 5 whopping BP. That's the diffeence between 200 shields, or 320 shields. I mean, it's cool to have a finger print in the door to open it. Most smartphones do it now. But if the oportunity cost is 120 freaking shields, no way I'll buy it.

The problem with "fixing" this, is that it's a whole mess. It's not something you can tinker, with a small change here or there. The whole thing makes little sense. It's counterintuitive, and many things are more expensive for bigger ships when it shouldn't. Yes, it makes sense that, for example, movement is more expensive for big ships. But ARMOR, should not. SHIELDS, sould not. COMPUTERS, should not. There are so many things that "need" change in my opinion, that the final system would not look at all as it is now, making it hard as hell to convert all the current ships.

Of all the game systems in starfinder, I feel starships is, by far, the more rushed one, and the one that would had benefited more from open playtest. It's sort of admited, actually, given the fact that they had to rebuild the whole DC for actions because it simply didn't work.

I don't know if there is any plan to fix this in the future by Paizo, or if there is any 3pp alternative that does it. But right now, it's just a broken toy.

Hi everybody. Although the FAQ addressed the problem of DC scaling too fast for starship combat, it did not address a verisimilitude issue I had with the system: better ships are worse to attempt maneuvers. If you have a Tier 4 ship, and upgrade it to tier 5, adding better scanners, drift engine, and a luxury expansion bay for the crew, suddenly the DC to do barrel rolls is harder. It is also easier to do barrel rolls with old, crappy, slow tier 1 freighters than with state of the art advanced interceptors of tier 6. I didn't like it, so I came up with this solution:

Ships have a maneuver rating, which is the addition of Size (tiny =1, small =2, etc) and twice the Turn value (how many hexes you have to move before turning). So a medium explorer ship with turn 1, has a Maneuver Rating of 5, a Tiny Interceptor with Turn 0 has a Maneuver Rating of 1, and a Gargantuan Battle Cruiser with a Turn of 3 has a Maneuver Rating of 12

Now, with the DC to do a maneuver, use this maneuver rate instead of Tier. Then multiply it by the regular DC multiplier, based on the maneuver (barrel roll, Slide, etc)

As a bonus track: I think Divert to shields is too good, and divert to weapons favor smaller die, while also being too weak compared to divert to shields. So I came up with these:

Divert weapons change the 1s with the max of that dice. So 1d4 has 25% chance to get 4 instead of 1, and 1d10 has a 10% chance to get 10 instead of 1. Average damage for 1d4 would be 3.25 (instead of 2.75) with average for 1d10 being 6.4 instead of 5.6.

To make Divert a more tactical option, you have to decide where do you get your energy from. Options are: shields (you lose 5% of PCU in shields, evenly), weapons (you trade any dice with max damage by a 1), and movement (-2 to movement and +1 to turn). Also, you cannot divert energy From the same spot twice in a row. So if you try to raise shields, you have to alternate between drawing ebergy from weapons, or from movement.

Hope this can be useful for someone, and critics and flaws spotted are welcome

Ok, one of my players took a feat, and maxed Medicine Skill, to be a doctor.

So far, I'm overall very dissapointed with medicine skill in the game.

First of all, the basic medkit has a Treat Wounds DC of 25, or 30 to add +INT. That makes the medkit of thousands of years into the future worse than Pathfinder healing kit were, because those allowed for DC 20 treat wound checks (25 to add Wisdom). Not exactly an improvement in healthcare.

Then, by spending a feat and spending skill points to max your skill, you can get the ability to use Medpatches to Treat Deadly Wounds as a full round action, with a cost of 50 per medpatch (assuming you hit your DC 25, which is NOT easy to do at lower levels). A healing serum on the other hand, can be used by anyone, is repeatable, and do not need a medicine check.
By lvl 5 you can buy SprayFleshes to allow for more treat deadly wounds, making those tough DC 30 Medicine checks would heal you your level + INT level. So by lvl 5, about 8 to 10 points. By level 5, and in the same price tag, you can buy Mk II healing serums, which heal 3d8 each (so, on average, more than Medicine), without paying a feat tax, and without maxing a skill, with no chance to miss.
In general, "be a doctor" seems to be a trap option, with a feat tax, skill investment, and credit cost in consumables, to not really been able to beat Joe Average with healing serums.

TL:DR, the DC for Medicine Skill, and the cost of the items needed to use it, is waaaay too high (high DCs seem to be over the place in the game, not just Medicine, tho. I'm looking at you, DC to move next to walls in zero-G- DC 20 to barely move at the lowest level is insane.-). Specially when compared with mundane items like healing serums (Mystic spells are way better too, but at least those cost resources like spell slots and whatnot).

One of my PC is going to make a cowboy gunslinger (an android obssessed with westerns films).

Thing is, the ballistic pistol in game is more a semiautomatic, with tons of bullets. Changing capacity to 6 is easy. But it is also a nerf. Any suggestion about any other change to keep them balanced? More damage? How much? An extra crit effect maybe? Some fancy rule about «fanning the hammer»?

I want to make this party interesting. It is cool that a high level situation can be solved with roleplaying. I want them yo get involved, but also want to make them nervous and creepy.

I think I'm going to put a «countdown». The party starts at 8pm, and they need to solve it before midnight. Need something to happen every hour, to make «the bell tolls» and remind them that the end is near.

Besides chatting with random vampires, and some sort of Danse Macabre... what ekse can happen? Anyone with good ideas of social, but creepy, encounters?

I'm thinking about swapping the mod needed for Solarians to Wisdom, and then swapping the mod needed for solarian based powers to Wisdom, and Mystics to charisma. Mystics seem closer to psychics and sorcerers and oracles to me (and honestly, I always thought Clerics should be charisma-based, with things like diplomacy and some powers like channelling based on CHA, as well as paladins being a "sub-class").

Solarians sound well as a contemplative, "nature" based class, and kasathas have +2 WIS. Lashunta, who sound as if they should be good mystics, have a +2 CHA, while some of them have -2 to WIS.

Besides Solarian having better Will saves and Mystics having worse, is there any side effect that I'm missing? like, races that "should" be good mystics but have a minus to CHA? Feats or skills that I should worry? Any unintended consequence that I'm unaware of?

Question to those with the books.
If what I'm reading is correct, low level characters have way more HP than in PF, because of Stamina, race hp, and adding resolve to "heal" stamina.

Yet it seems that low level tech weapons do very low damage, like 1d4 or so for laser pistols and such. As far as I understand, ranged weapons don't add an ability modifier, so while this might get solved later on when people are doing 10d12 with their nuclear powered lasers or whatever, it seems like at low levels, regular weapons are very dissapointing at killing things. A first level character would need to face a fussilade from a firing squad to die.

Is it that way? What am I missing?

Let's say you have a 5000gp diamond, and you need diamond dust. If you destroy the diamond, how much worth of diamond dust sjpuld you get?

Hi.

When multiple creatures try to grapple you, one of them is the grappler, the rest give him +2 with the Aid Another action

Multiple creatures can attempt to grapple one target. The creature that first initiates the grapple is the only one that makes a check, with a +2 bonus for each creature that assists in the grapple (using the Aid Another action). Multiple creatures can also assist another creature in breaking free from a grapple, with each creature that assists (using the Aid Another action) granting a +2 bonus on the grappled creature’s combat maneuver check.

If more than 1 stirge is attached to you (and hence, grappling you), do thhey follow this rule?

If so, would all of them drain blood?

Would the victim be able to free himself with a single escape artist or grappling check?

Could you become the grappler if you succeedand try to do so?

Preparing book2, I think there are a couple of elements there that won't work well with my group. Some parts of it, including the feeling, are great, but some others feel a bit disperse, or just fill up encounters to cover XP budgets.

I find the Missing Magistrate a loss oportunity for a bit of investigation. My group loved the small scene of doppleganger infiltration in the Chapel, and they are craving for more mysteries like that. As presented, the Mising Magistrate is not a detective/investigation story, it's a dungeon delve. You know that they killed him as soon as the first Zombie Juju attacks you. Same goes with the kidnappings, there's little to investigate. To change that, the Fortress defenders need to be more human, so it's possible to socially interact with some city guards and whatnot to learn about what happened. It also need some misdirection, an extra suspect or two, and an atmosphere of mystery. I might drop some hints about the Halfling Alchemist, or other NPCs, so they go and talk with them, interacting more with the townsfolks, and also making the solution less straightforward.

I also think that the Skum (or Deep One?) angle should be played more, including the fact that at least a few Thrushmoor citizens are hybrids or have skum (or deep one?) taint. Many players, including mine, have read Shadows over Innsmouth, or played Chaosium's adventure Escape from Innsmouth. Even for those that don't, this is an interesting thing to explore. Are all those who are tainted evil? Could you eradicate them just because what they are, not what they do? What if they are not evil yet but will end being transformed anyways? It's an interesting dilemma, in particular with a Paladin and a no-non-sense Inquisitor of harsh reputation in the group.

As a pet peeve, I want to include the book cover into the book (so, a Hag)

With all if that in mind,which caters more to my group, this is my own Thrushmoor Terror backstory:

Hi.
How do this 2 features interact?

Haunted makes retrieving a stored item a standard action. Once per day possessed hand leta you retrieve as a swift.

I found this interesting article about the nature of creepiness, and I thought it could be a good read for GMs in this AP.

I'm eager to read more about theory of horror, the nature of fear, and similar things, so if others have found other takes on the issue, feel free to post them

Ok, one of my players is going to play a paladin, and during the "inspiring phase" of the character build, he found a picture that he likes (to be exact this one and wants to play with a flail.

I'm wondering if there is any way to use a flail in a way that it lives to its martial weapon status. Currently, it's pretty awful for a martial weapon, really. It does the same attack and damage than a simple heavy mace, because it spends his "weapon budget" getting disarm and trip, which are 2 things that are no longer useful at all. Back in the day, those traits allowed you tu use your weapon to disarm or trip, and even gave +2, but you can disarm and trip just fine with a longsword now. I don't think that "you can drop your weapon" is really that good at all, it just transform your action from "free enemy maneuver:trip" to "free enemy maneuver:disarm", which is not particularly interesting, and certainly not worth the loss in critical threat range.

So I was thinking that maybe there are some traits, or feats, or magical abilities for flails that might help him, as I'm not particularly fond of characters being worse just because they like a particular aestetic.

If I don't find anything, maybe I'll use my GM powers and transform Flails into a 20 x3 weapon, or 19+ /x2 (as heavy flails are), or maybe transform the heavy flail into a "bastard sword heavy flail". But I'd like to check first if there is anything, RAW, that can help a flail to become something useful.

I'm thinking about making Tatterman a Mesmerist (Dreamstalker). It can have the same spells (all of them are mesmerist spells as well), but the painful stare ability will give him a bit more punch (and non-lethal punch, for that matter, so not a lot of extra death risk), the Slumber Hex is pretty thematic, he'd gain a few extra hp and +1 to attack (which he needs, it seems, as I have read a few complaints about him being too easy because he's a lonely BBEG). As a mesmerist, he can have a bit of armor (padded, or maybe leather?), and either Nightmare or Restriction can help him to control the PC a bit and last longer, with the -2 from hypnotic stare also increasing the efficiency of his aura of fear.

Thoughts? Would that be enough to pump him?

Hello!
One of my characters is a gun Tank. He wants to be a space marine/SPARTAN soldier /N7 armor guy, which I think it's cool and fits with the game.

Two problems:
The real power suit armor is an artifact, and you use them when the campaign is going to end, and the rest of scifi armors suck. Spacesuit is unwieldly, with huge ACP, low AC and no DEX.HEV suit is the same. Smart armor is just a worse adamantine fullplate which chews charges for breakfast.

So I decided to build a custom magic item that works as "standard" power armor, but I'm looking for advice. I'm going to put it in the Aurora, in place of the 4 ruined HEV suits, trading enough treasure away to balance out the stuff.

I want it to feel like it's worth it, but not make it so powerful as the real artifact. My idea is to combine a few cheap magical/tech items into a single suit, integrated. The total cost should be lower than a HEV suit. I'm not sure what to add or not. I want it to have several utility powers, without being to good combat wise. Also, as he probably wont upgrade it in a while, it should last (quite) a few levels. It might work as "standard power armor" later for some TL dudes as well,in 5th book.

Here is what I think it could be nice:

+1 full plate of glaucite (about 6500gp, weights half as much)

Deflecting Shield (as Ring of Protection +1) 1000gp.

Servos: Muleback cords 1000gp (Gives the "powered" feel without using +enhance str which is worth too much)

Targeting array (equivalent to cracked ioun pale green, +1 competence to hit) 4000gp.
Inner Compass (equivalent to wayfinder) 500gp

Inner stimulant injector (equivalent to ioun stone resonant power) free

Filter mask (4000gp)

Flashlight (30gp)

Enhanced vision (eye of the owl, low light vision) 4000

Power Fist (equivalent to grippers) 100gp

Probably should drop a few of those. Dunno which. Also, maybe someone has a good idea for some other minor magic items to be placed, or a different approach.

Maybe giving just the +1 full plate if glaucite, then adding the rest as upgrades during different parts of the AP?

Edit: as a side note: buying and selling items in thus campaign is almost imposible, as I removed gold and most people just barter what they have, with little to none "magic shops" and no "on demand" construction for the most part, ulike my regular campaings where I let buy and sell normally. So I need to railor the items a bit more for the PC, as they cant sell junk magic items and transform them into the Big 6

Hello everybody.

After we sadly TPK in my long Shattered Star/ Runelords campaign, we chose Iron Gods as our next target.

However, one of our players was not fond of mixing vanilla and chocolate, and the rest of us thought it would be OK to change the pace a bit and step out of Golarion, so I made a few (drastic?) changes to my Iron Gods campaign. As there are sometimes requests in the forum for alternative magic, alternative divine, world, or tech for this campaign, I thought I might let my changes drop here, in case someone finds an idea or two that they can borrow and adapt. As a seccondary reason, some people might chip in and make suggestions that I can borrow too :P
I'm going to spoilertag the big chunks of text, so nobody dies by WallofText overdose, and they can go to the things they feel might be worth their time.

Any suggestion and criticism is welcome. And anything there is free to steal too.

In the process to design a world to adapt Iron Gods, I have found a problem.

I want to make this a postapocalyptic world, closer to Mad Max or Fallout than Thundarr the Barbarian or John Carter of Mars.

I'm going to make magic just high tech. The androids, and some humans, will be sbloe to control nanites in their bodies or in the enviroment, to get all kind of magic effects. The technic League is good at mágico because of this.

Then, the problem comes with divina mágico, I think. Parte of the core appeal of Iron Gods is how a machine can achieve godhood. I think part of what makes Unity a cool villain is that.

Then the problem is how to contrast that with regular divine magic. I feel using normal Gods, like Golarion has, somehow breaks the inmersion I want to produce.

How could I dodge this problem?
Maybe something like The Force? It is scifi enough (or close to, is magic in disguise), but it feels more space opera than postapocalypse. Warhammer 40k "tech priests" would work but it is a bit redundante, isnt it? If we already have machine God, the ascension od Unity is much less climatic.

What else could be? How to make divine magic feel different than arcane, something that Unity can give to his faithful, and contrast it with already pre-existing God/Gods that is flavourful and makes sense in a non-fantasy (maybe even Earth) world?

Hi!

I'm already at half of my Rise of Runelords-Shattered Star campaign, and I'm starting to take a look to the next possibility.

We are thinking about a change of pace, with Iron Gods, playing in a distant planet instead of Golarion, with an apocalyptic future style, like Mad Max or Fallout, but adding technomancy (and techno priests, as faith and machines is the core of the AP).

As such, I'm planing to change the default technology to "modern firearms" so the PC get firearms as simple weapons and such. I plan to add vehicles too (motorbikes instead of horses, and so).

The problem I have found is.... modern firearms are better than futuristic energy weapons. By far. A M1895 Nagant revolver does 1d8 x4, while a laser weapon does 1d8 x2, and is fire damage (a lot of fire resist dudes in the game). Machine guns are even better.

So, how can I improve this, beyond the obvious "increase laser damage" option, which is not that great as it creates an inflation of damage?

Possibilities I have thought:

Swap generic crit multiplier of fire weapons to x3, and energy weapons (or most of them) to x4. This create the "feeling" of stronger damage potential, even if there is not a big difference. Lasers are timeworn too, while bullets work fine.

Alternatively, make Lasers to crit with 18+. That makes them useful vs robots, as robots have crit vulnerability

Bullets no longer shoot vs touch attack, but rays do. This is a generic nerf to firearms, but might be worth it, as they are going to be much more common. Piercing (expensive) bullets might ignore part or all of the armor bonus

Laser and other energy weapons ignore part of the hardness, like the laser torch does

Ignore the charges for laser and other energy weapons, making them amunittion-less. But this goes against part of the AP feeling, which is about finding charges to use the nice timeworn stuff.

Make force-fields much more frequent, and/or more powerful, to the point that ignoring them with energy weapons is important. Maybe even most people (or at least most bosses) have one, Halo style.

Please note that "don't make fireweapons more common" is not going to help, as the goal is to play a campaign with lots of gunfights, for a change of pace from the magic heavy Shattered Runelords mashup

So, what does the forum communal wisdom has to offer? Any brilliant (or obvious) idea I'm missing?

Ok. So we arrived to the frost giant camp. After a fly over it, in best form, we got a every good panoramic view of it, to make out plans. We found the red lady too. We know there is a tannery, a blacksmith, some mammoths in a stable, an ice statue, a "viking hall", a cript, some drakes, some winterwolves, a mine, etc.

We are a part of 3, with a goliath druid, a pretty dumb and naive aasimar paladin, and a bestmaster ranger. We also have a batallion (literal, 100+) dwarves that came here because the paladin is dumb, and are mostly raising the alarm and making noise, without providing any help
Stealth is not really an option, even without the dumb dwarves, because the aasimar is a Tin Man, with the standard -7 score to Stealth.

So I need clever ideas to overcome this.
My ideas so far:
Fog cloud and sleet storm could pass as natural, obstructing vision in a Tower, so we came go and destroy it, without the guard spotting the paladin.

Warp Wood can render useless some Tower, or the mammoth pallisade, or some crane in the mine, etc.

Summon nature Ally, earth elemental, might use glide and maybe sunder some parte of the Tower, I don't know.

Summon nature Ally, Cyclop, might start a brawl in the taberna, rolling 20 to bluff.

Insect plague might make a Tower useless, if caster several times there, and gisnts believe they are natural swarms.

Transmute rock to mud might provoke some sliding to destroy a Tower (some were bear a cliff), or maybe collapse a cave.

Summon nature ally, 1d4+1 satyrs, and make mass suggestions with the pipes to flee the towers.

Comunal air Walk, to go to the towers from above, maybe out of LoS from the guards.

Using stealth (in tiny form, with elixir, I can get +28) to infiltrate, then using Spark to start a fire somewhere, without leaving clues.

Using giant Form to impersonate a giant or troll, infiltrate the base, and sabotage sonehow.

My game uses unchained rules of automatic bonus progression. So the sihedron amulet is just a free action false life, and the sihedron ring does nothing at all.

I still have a lot of months until we go there, but I'm already trying to figure what could the sihedron rings do instead. It should be something universally useful, like the original, not something caster or martisl oriented.
I was thinking about something like a luck stone maybe. Other options include a +2 insight to AC, or saves, or both, or some sort of energy resustance ring (maybe something like resistsnce 15 to the las element that damaged you.

Another option could be to add a free action spell, similar to false life.

Any thoughts?

As I plan to introduce several Runelords in my campaign (Karzoug and Krune, for sure, the rest I don't know yet how to do them), I was thinking in ways to foreshadow the rising of the other ones. I've already hinted that Sorshen might be influencing Queen Illeosa in Korvosa, which makes for a possible plot hook in the future, and at the very least, a reason to rise the Runelord of Lust from her slumber in the celler of her pyramid.

So, I thought about Zutha. At the end of Shattered Star, in "continuing the campaign", we have info about a Taiga giant necromancer lich, with access to most parts of Zutha's artifact book and philactery. I thought about linking him to Barl Breakbones, or, at least, using Barl as a way to foreshadow the other guy (needs to be a foreshadowing, and not a clear thread that the PC follow, as Thrulle, the taiga lich, is CR 24 or something like that...). But then a problem arised.

How do I make Barl Breakbones a "minion" of Thulle, while keeping the ties between Barl and Mokmurians, which are, Imho, needed for a seamless transition between books 2 and 3?
Maybe Thrulle and Mokmurians are working together? Would a minion of Karzaug and a minion of Zutha work together? Zutha was probably the most diplomatic runelord. Never fought other realms, and sold food to everybody, so it's not enterely impossible for him or his minions to work with Karzaug. But I'm not sure Karzaug is willing to do the same, greedy as he is.

Also, I would need to foreshadow, without leaving too much trails (or the PC might end diverting themselves from the main plot, to go to somewhere they have no business going yet, as the CR is way too high)

Anyone has a good idea about this?

EDIT: as it probably would help: I'm already going to use the last part of Shattered Star "The Assylum Stone", with the Dark Rider being summoned by lucretia,Sleepy hollow style, and then the PC going to his dark fortress, either before or after fighting Lamatar and freeing the Shimmerglens

Both under normal and unchained rules, grappling puts the attacker in a bad spot. Let's have two bears. The one who starts the grapple can do a standard action abd a grapple check (at +5) to hit once with a natural attack. Meanwhile, the grappled bear can do a full attack with 2 claws and a bite.

Doesn't it feel strange?

I know there are other adventages (such as vs casters), but it sounds strange that the creature with the upper hand in the grapple is actually at disadventage

Ok, we have right now covered half (or almost half) of my campaign, Shattered Chains of the Runelords, a mashup of all things thassilonian in Paizo, using Unchained rules, and I think I would share my experience so far, to contribute to the great community this forum has. I stole a LOT of ideas from this threads, and maybe others could steal from mine.

A few things I would like to add: I absolutely love the Unchained rules, even if they need some ironing (some backward compatibility with actions and stuff already in the game that wasn't made with the new action economy in mind, and some feats or spells becoming less or more powerful than intended, such as Cleave or Vital strike, vs secondary Natural weapons, for example). But overall, it's a much better combat, more fluid, more mobility, and faster, and it makes a lot of sense in a lot of things (like "tyrannosaurus like" foes and companions no longer being pussy because they only have 1 attack compared to pouncing beasts)

Now, let's go with the modifications I made to my campaign.

I have 3 PCs. They are a varisian Witch, a tieffling oni-spawn samurai, and a ulfen bloodrager-cleric. I think it's very very very important that you insist the characters having a great deal of union with Sandpoint. Help them to build their backgrounds, use a bit of foreshadowing, and don't be affraid to "spoil" things if needed. Being related to the story is more important.

In my case, the Oni-spawn was born in the Kaijutsu family, by-product of a zealous samurai bodyguard corrupted by the temptation of an oni, disguised to spy them. The Samurai has Lonjiku as a nominal Daimyo, and Ameiko as his friend (and somehow secret love)
The varisian Witch is a disciple of Madam Mvashti, works in the Glassworks as an accountant of some kind, and is "best friend forever" with Ameiko. She felt in love as teenager with Tsuto, who never looked at her (and choosed Nualia instead)
The Ulfen isn't related to Sandpoint, he's a visitor. His background is related to Linnorms, and an ancient order of demon-slaying berserkers (has the celestial bloodrager bloodline)

They also know about Ironbriar, and Sheyla Heidmarch, who went to Sandpoint to bring back Natalya Vancarskerkin, who had stole a Puzzle Box from the pathfinders.

I made also an escene between Lonjiku and Ameiko here, instead of after the assault. Lonjiku insisted Ameiko to leave the city, but she didn't.

I've recently bought Race for the Rune Carved Key, to addapt it for my Rise of Runelords/Shattered Star non-PFS campaign. It's nice.

However, unless I'm missing once and again something, I still don't know what is the Rune Carved key for. Is it used in some other different PFS scenario? What can you use it for? Or is it just a McGuffin, without real value, other than the historical one?

I know the canon material for a few Runelords, how they survived and where they are trapped.

So, what about the other 3? Is there any canon, or hint, about how they survived, or where they are hidding? It's easy to suppose that Azlanist might be hidding below the Hollow Mountain, but that's not sure as far as I know. Also, I have no clue about how did she attain inmortality or survived the 10.000 years since the Earthfall.

The other 2, I have no clue

In a thread about fan added content to graul's farmstead, I read once a interesting encounter/creature to add. But I can't find that thread again, don't remember the monster name, and can't find them again.

It was some sort of undeads, dead babies un jars, that could break and be released. But it's like finding a needle in a haystack.

Does anyone remember that thread ir know the monster's name?

Hi!
In my RoRL and ShStar mixed AP, I want to flex out the brotherhood of 7.
My idea is that, although they are all of them pawns of Karzaug, they might be related to the 7 sins somehow. My players jumped into that as soon as they heard it, and as I'm also using the shards (and plan to involve more runelords,some of them as background, some appearing like Krune with the PFS escenarios), it's fitting I think.

I think I have 6 of them. Ironbriar, Aldern Foxglove, Xanesha, Lucretia, Nualia, and Avalexi (the Succubi from Dawn of Scarlet Sin, which I'm going to play too). Those could be an "avatar" of Pride, Gluttony, Sloth, Greed, Wrath and Lust,although Aldern or Xanesha could represent Envy if the new candidate fits better with s different one But I need a 7th one.
I would like it to be relevant before the giants start to become omnipresent.

Sheyla Heidmarch would be huge shock value. Lonjiku might work too. Maybe a leader of Lissala Cult? Trying to raise Krune? Some addition from any extra PFS scenario or some stand alone adventure?

Hi.
I'm currently in the process to GM Rise of Runelords (players are lvl 2). I've thought recently about reporting it as campaign mode for PFS. It's homebrew, uses Unchained extensively, and a couple of home rules (not very relevant, such as some devils being demons and the other way around)

But I'm doing a mash up with Shattered Star. I'm including parts of SS in RoRL. So, my questions are:

1) Can I still report RoRL if I make some changes to it (both "cosmetic" changes such as Nualia being Antipaladin instead of fighter/cleric, and "substantial" changes such as adding an enterely new Oni enemy to Thisteltop to cater one of my player's background)?
2) Can I report "parts" of Shattered Star? For example, if we play book II of Shattered Star (which I plan to), can I report it?
3) If I can't... can I still report RoRL if I played a book of another AP in the middle of it?

Hi everybody. I'm running a mashup shattered shards/raise of runelords (based mostly on runelords, but with some elements of shattered shards, like the shards themselves, part of The Crow Dungeon under the glasswork, Lady of light, etc).

I want to play up the sin thing, most of my players played book 1 of RotR under some other GM and they know the sins matter, but they don't know how. I'm thinking about making the sins (or virtues) have weight when playing with the shards.

I've made them put points in a virtue/sin axis, like the old Pendragon RPG, so they have 20 points split in Wrath/kindness, Envy/charity, Greed/generosity, etc. "Neutral" players go 10/10, sinful or virtous players go up to 5/15 or 15/5, and extreme cases might go 20/0 or 0/20 (like, say, a pacifist cleric with no weapons and only healing spells could have 0/20 in wrath/kindness).

I'm trying to think ways to play up the effect of sins and virtues. Besides the obvious (sins of saviors dungeon), where could I use them? Somebody has some idea about how to play sins and the shards? Like, your sin empower the shard a bit, or your virtue make you more resistant to the sin, something like that?

I'm looking for inspiration. I think I'm "almost there", in the sense I think I know what I want to acomplish, but still lack the final idea about the mechanic itself

Hi.
I'm going to start a RoR campaign to test some of the new unchained rules (specially the new action economy)

Problem is: we have 3 PC.
Tiefling Oni Spawn Samurai
Varisian Witch
A viking of some kind, class undecided but probably bloodrager, maybe magus skirnir.

RoR is already TPK-happy, even with more players. Also, the new action economy makes it a bit more dangerous.

I let them build 25pt chars. I'm thinking about using hero points too. What else could I do? (i preffer not using GMPC if that's possible)

I really love most of the options in Unchained. I'm interested in simplified magic, but I feel there's something "wrong" with it. When a character goes to lvl 7, he suddenly can cast *less* level 1 spells. Anyone else is concerned by this? It feels unorganic.
I understand that the idea of the system is giving less low level spells, and trade versatility for sheer spellcasting power. But the drop is HUGE. Instead of 5 lvl 1 spells, you cast ONE (plus INT bonuses). It's specially concerning for some classes that use a lot of lower level spells (like Magus with shocking grasp), but it affect everyone (suddenly, your daily cast of mage armor forbids you to use protection from evil or charm person).

What solutions would you use, if you find this not desirable? I'm thinking about using the table, plus INT bonus (instead of INT bonus/4).

Hi everybody!
After a long hiatus, I'm going to play in the brand new "Giantslayer" adventure path.

Reading the Player Guide, it gives me a good amount of hype. It suggests a lot of builds made to play *as* a giant, sort of. Titan Mauler, Titan Fighter, and this kind of stuff.

I read about Goliath Druid, and I really like the concept, and I feel it REAAAAALLY fits the player guide spirit. So that's what's going to be my character.

My first few concepts reduced the starting point to either half-orc or dwarf. Dwarf sounds extremely powerful in this AP, with so many racial traits against giants, and +CON and +WIS is as good as +STR from the half orc, probably. Half-orc has a great vibe for the goliath, though (easy to re-skin as a half troll, which probably will be you go-to form later on), and the favored class bonus is quite cute (+1/3 NA). Also, the Dwarf trained trait *sort* of help to reduce the gap with dwarves in the anti-giant department.

A few things I need to know for Goliath Druids.
They can only wildshape into dinosaurs, megafauna and giants. But Ptenarodons descrpition says they are not considered dinosaurs (they are pterosaurs). Are they considered dinosaurs for wildshape? If not, is there *any* option for a flying form for Goliath druids? If not, how do you overcome this?

Weapons or claws? I like characters that aren't glass cannons. I like survivality, and thus, I like AC. Druids in wildshape often are a bit of weak in the AC side. Goliath have some extra toughness over regular pouncing-dire-tiger-druids, at the cost of a lot of damage, though. Shillelagh + Shield seems to be a decent combo for a while, and gives you a nice bump in AC, which might help to keep the character in the "only hit with 15+" zone of confort. But later, you'll lose a ton of damage that way. Troll form gives you bite + 2 claws + Rend, which isn't bad, and more damaging than shillelagh + secondary bite, but still can't compete with pouncing by any means. Could Vital strike help to solve that? I'm trying to stay within theme, so I'm not going to be a conqueror ooze, but maybe Shillelagh + Large/huge sized club could be decent enough? I'm not trying to be the highest damage in the table, just not being a dead weight.

As a snapshot, at lvl 12, as Half Orc you could have:
+9 AC (+3 breastplate, made of ironwood or dragonscale) + 2 luck (jingasa + fate favored trait) +1 Insight (ioun stone) + 4 shield (+2 regular shield) + 4 natural armor (giant form) + 4 natural armor (favored bonus) +5 enhanced natural amor (barkskin) +2 deflection (ring) + 1 Dex -1 size, for something around 41 AC, which might be up to 43 with feats (shield focus, dodge if you want) and 45 vs giants (dwarven training trait from the campaign), which is enough to be hit only with 20s by CR11 Cloud Giants, which sounds about Ok. Specially because you'll have also Regeneration 5, damage resist, several resistances (planar wildshape into a fiendish ice troll, for example). Saving throws also are OK, except for reflex. You'll raise wisdom decently, and troll form gives you +4 CON, and both Will and Fortitude are good saves for you, plus you have +2 luck from orc tattoos and fate favored.

But the damage department might be more troublesome, though. By this level, a wand of Shillelagh probably won't be enough anymore (although I think it's quite viable until here). As a Large Troll, with Shillelagh, your damage would be +3d6 only, even with vital strike and devastating strike it won't be impressive.

The above lvl 12 dude would have something like:
15 starting stregth +2 racial +3 level ups + 4 enhancement + 6 size bonus, or str 30. With Shillelagh, it would have something like:
+9 BAB + 10 str + 1 enhancement + 1 competence (ioun stone), +21 to hit, for 6d6 + 10 (str) +1 (enhanchement) + 6 (devastating strike), or 6d6+17 for a vital strike, same round you move. Could use Power Attack for extra -4 to hit and +8 to damage, but it's not that good for 1h weapons.

Compared to pouncing allosaurs, that's sad. A full round would have 3 attacks, including the secondary bite, but that's not really impressive anyways. 2 claws + bite + Rend would do a bit more (depending on how much Greater Magic Fangs you spend, quite a lot more, especially with amulets of natural weapons with Holy, or Giant Bane or something like that), but then you lose like 4-5 AC, and you are no longer in the "hit with 20s" cattegory. I guess if you want to do damage, you should be using a dinosaur form instead of a giant form anyways. Maybe with a level of barbarian, so you can use furious Finish? It seems that pouncing allosaurs, and vital-striking tyrannosaurs are going to do a lot more damage.

Any suggestions?

PS: companion would be a Ankylosaur or Stegosaur, I think

Just checked the ACG playtest. Haven't done before.

I have to say the classes are very good. I *love* Maneuver mastery from the brawler.

I'm actually thinking about banning all the CRB classes from my games :/

Great classes, Paizo. I love what you can do when you aren't bound by heritage from 3.5

Is it even possible? We are going to play RoR once I finish DMing Way of the Wicked (which is awesome btw). This time I'll play instead of DM. Our DM is concerned about the balance between full casters and non-casters, and I had this crazy idea.

What about a group of 5-6 wizards (we are unsure about keeping our 6th player)? Is it possible to defeat this AP with a group based enterely on wizards?

The idea is to build different school wizards. Some could/should be unconventional (such as a Transmuter with more Str than Int and melee-focused, or something like that). With a good summoner's minions, maybe necromancer's too, you could have a good bunch of tanking bodies.

The real problem: antimagic shell, and magic inmune monsters.

So, what do you think? Crazy idea?

I'm planning to play a druid Bear Shaman soon. And I'm looking at the bear companion stats.

Why on hell they suck soooooo much?
They start as Small creatures, while big cats are medium. They only advance to medium, while cats are large. The big cats have more str and constitution too! They should call tge spell "tiger's endurance" instead of bear's endurance.

I don't mind losing pounce, and rake, for flavor reasons. But WHY ON HELL is the lion companion bigger than the grizzly bear companion? And stronger and with more con too? Why is the bear a cub?

Edit: just noticed that the bear DOES NOT have grab. But the big cat has grab, pounce and rake. Dude, seriusly, the one who developed the animal companions is too much fan of big felines. Or too little fan of balance. There's no reason at all to take a bear over a lion, except fluff (another "you have to suck if you want flavor" game tax, I guess

Here is the rule:

"Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can’t effectively
deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning
weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most
melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors,
unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a
pick or hammer."

(core book, page 174)

What does "little effect" means? I've been discussing this lengthy in another thread (this ). What does "little effect" means?

There are two positions.

One of those positions means that innefective weapons (such as a longsword, or quarter staff, or bladed scarf vs a wall) rolls damage normally, and then substract hardness normally, while those weapons that are effective (such as a warhammer, maul or pick) destroy it with more ease (using a second rule, called vulnerability, that says
Vulnerability to Certain Attacks:
Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object’s hardness)

My position is that those weapons that are inneffective and do "little effect" (such as wooden clubs, spiked chains or kerambits) can't damage the wall normally. They do, at most, scratchs (that may allow you to draw the Z of Zorro, but can't tear down the wall), while the weapons that are effective against it, use regular damage vs hardness (and I reserve vulnerable rule for things like a demolition charge, or using fire vs a keg of lantern oil)

In any case, the ruling is (and should be) quite vague about which weapons are effective or not. For example, a Ram, which is not explicitly mentioned, could be treated as an effective weapon, if the GM thinks it's so. And some materials will have differen't effective weapons against it (for example, axes might be effectives against trees, while warhammers aren't). The question is, those weapons that aren't effective, are "inneffective weapons" and thus do "little effect". What does this mean?

I'd like to hear a FAQ about this.

Hi. This is my doubt:

Animate Dead allows you to control 4x CL in HD. I assume that any permanent raise in Caster Level is also a permanent raise in the number of controled undeads (so, a Varisian Tattoed necromancer, with +1 CL in necromancy, could raise 2x HD extra and control up to 4x HD extra. A character with a trait that gives him +1 CL to Animate Dead would work similarly).

However, my question is more about non-permanent raises.

If a character has a Ioun Stone with +1 CL... get 4 extra HD? What happen when he takes the ioun stone out to sleep?

What happen with temporal buffs, like Death Knell or Death Twine?

Assuming he loses control of those undeads created and controlled through temporal buffs, when he loses the buff... is the reverse also true? If I hit a necromancer with Enervation, and he loses 1 CL, does he lose control of 4HD of undeads??

O_O

Anybody can help?

Hi. This is my doubt:

Animate Dead allows you to control 4x CL in HD. I assume that any permanent raise in Caster Level is also a permanent raise in the number of controled undeads (so, a Varisian Tattoed necromancer, with +1 CL in necromancy, could raise 2x HD extra and control up to 4x HD extra. A character with a trait that gives him +1 CL to Animate Dead would work similarly).

However, my question is more about non-permanent raises.

If a character has a Ioun Stone with +1 CL... get 4 extra HD? What happen when he takes the ioun stone out to sleep?

What happen with temporal buffs, like Death Knell or Death Twine?

Assuming he loses control of those undeads created and controlled through temporal buffs, when he loses the buff... is the reverse also true? If I hit a necromancer with Enervation, and he loses 1 CL, does he lose control of 4HD of undeads??

O_O

Anybody can help?

I've just read the Bracers of the Falcon. Where Bracers of Archery gives you a +1 competence bonus to hit, for 5000 gold, Bracers of the falcon gives you Aspect of the Falcon continously. That's +3 competence bonus to perception, +1 competence bonus to hit, and your crit becomes 19+/x3. For 4000.

So that just mean Bracers of Archery are obsolet, and nobody else buy any one, in any magic shop, ever. They've become the VHS of magic bracers after DVD is out.